Epilogue
Six months later…
The roar of the crowd was deafening.
And at the center of it all, leading the charge like he'd been born for this exact moment, was Tarmek.
My Tarmek.
The thought still sent a little thrill through her, even now. Even after months of sharing his condo, his bed, and his meticulously organized life. Her Tarmek, who was currently bodychecking an opposing player into the boards with enough force to rattle the glass.
"That's my man!" she screamed, not caring that the players' wives and girlfriends around her were giving her amused looks. "Crush him, babe!"
Jensen's wife, Clara, laughed and elbowed her gently. "You know he can't hear you, right?"
"Doesn't matter. The universe can hear me. The universe knows."
"The universe is terrified of you."
"Good."
On the ice, Tarmek intercepted a pass and fired the puck up to Makron with surgical precision. The play unfolded like choreography, like art—because that's what it was, she had realized. Hockey wasn't just athletics. It was movement and timing and creativity executed at impossible speeds.
She understood now why he loved it so much.
The buzzer sounded for a line change, and he skated towards the bench.
As he passed her section of the glass, his eyes found hers with the unerring accuracy that still startled her sometimes.
He didn't smile or wave or break character.
But his gloved hand came up to touch the glass, just for a second, right where her palm was pressed.
Then he was gone, replaced by fresh legs and sharp blades.
He does that every time now, she thought, her throat unexpectedly tight. Every single time.
I disrupted him, she thought, watching him take the ice again. I crashed into his perfect little world and left glitter everywhere and drove him absolutely insane.
And he loves me for it.
The final minutes of the game passed in a blur of adrenaline.
The Enforcers held their lead. The crowd counted down the final seconds.
The buzzer sounded, and the arena erupted into the kind of chaos that came from joy.
Green and silver confetti rained from the ceiling.
Music blasted from the speakers. Players mobbed each other on the ice, tossing gloves and helmets and generally losing their collective minds.
Tarmek was at the center of it, hoisting the championship trophy above his head while his teammates screamed around him.
But even as the cameras flashed and the crowd chanted his name, his eyes found her in the stands.
Come here, his expression said.
She didn't need to be asked twice. She pushed through the crowd towards the ice-level access door, where a bemused security guard checked her credentials and let her through.
The tunnel was chaos—staff members running in every direction, reporters jostling for position, equipment being hauled away in rolling carts.
She emerged at the edge of the ice just as Tarmek skated towards her.
"You won," she breathed.
"We won." He dropped his stick and pulled her onto the ice, not caring that she was wearing sneakers on the slick surface, not caring that cameras were probably capturing every second. "We did it."
"I didn't do anything."
"You were here." His arms wrapped around her, steadying her on the unfamiliar terrain. "That's everything."
She wanted to argue, but the words died in her throat as he kissed her. Right there on championship ice, with thousands of people watching and confetti still falling and his teammates whooping in the background.
My ridiculous, wonderful, control-freak orc, she thought as she kissed him back. Look what you've done to me.
The celebration lasted hours.
Champagne in the locker room. Speeches from the owner.
A post-game press conference where Tarmek gave characteristically monosyllabic answers while somehow making reporters laugh.
A team dinner at the nicest restaurant in Greenwood Hollow, where Edie discovered that professional hockey players could consume truly impressive quantities of steak.
Through all of it, Tarmek kept her close. His hand on her lower back. His arm around her shoulders. His attention drifting towards her during every lull in conversation, like he needed to verify she was still there.
The orc who used to flinch when she moved things in his kitchen, who counted his routines like a religious ritual, and who kept his world in such rigid order that a single displaced coffee mug could ruin his entire day.
That same orc now tangled his fingers with hers under the table like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I didn't break him, she thought, squeezing his hand. I just... made space. For both of us.
It was nearly 2 AM when they finally escaped.
The restaurant had emptied, the team had dispersed, and Greenwood Hollow had gone quiet in the way small towns did after midnight. Tarmek drove them home through empty streets, one hand on the wheel and one hand resting on her thigh like it belonged there.
Home.
The word still made her heart flutter, even after all these months.
She'd spent years avoiding that word. Years treating every stop as temporary, every connection as brief, every relationship as something to leave before it could leave her. Home meant staying. Home meant roots. Home meant depending on someone else for your happiness. Home meant risk.
But driving through the quiet streets of Greenwood Hollow, with Tarmek's warmth beside her and the championship trophy secured in the back seat, the word didn't feel scary anymore. It felt like the only thing that made sense.
They pulled into the parking garage beneath their condo and parked next to her camper. A camper that hadn't moved in six months.
She stopped to look at it and felt Tarmek tense, despite his silence.
“I think it’s time to sell it,” she said quietly, and his hand tightened around hers to the point where it was almost painful.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. She deserves a better life than being copped up in a garage.” She turned and looked up at him. “And I don’t need an escape route anymore.”
“Are you sure?” he asked again. His expression was carefully neutral, but she knew him now. She could see the vulnerability beneath the control.
He's still afraid, she realized. Still waiting for me to leave.
"I spent years running," she said quietly. "Telling myself I didn't need roots. I didn't need anyone to depend on." She pressed a kiss to his collarbone. "I was wrong."
"Edie—"
"I'm not going anywhere, Tarmek." She met his eyes. "This is it for me. You're it. This ridiculous condo with its color-coded closets and alphabetized spices and exactly twelve throw pillows that I keep rearranging just to watch you twitch."
A smile tugged at his mouth. "You do that on purpose."
"Obviously."
"I've noticed."
"I know."
He smiled and took her hand and led her to the elevator. The ride up was quiet, both of them exhausted in the best possible way. When the doors opened, she practically stumbled into the hallway.
"I'm so tired I could sleep for a week," she announced, toeing off her boots right there in the entryway. They landed in a jumbled heap, one upright and one tipped over, blocking the path to the living room.
She didn't think about it. She just kept walking towards the kitchen, already thinking about water and bed and curling up against Tarmek's wonderful body heat.
"Edie."
His voice stopped her. She turned to find him standing by the door, staring at her discarded boots with an expression she couldn't quite read.
Oh no.
"Sorry," she said automatically, moving back towards them. "I'll move them, I wasn't thinking—"
"Don't."
The word froze her in place.
He walked towards her slowly, stepping over the boots like they weren't there. His eyes never left her face. There was something in his expression now—something warm and fierce and impossibly tender.
"Don't move them," he repeated.
"But they're—" She gestured helplessly. "They're in the wrong place. They're blocking the—"
"I know."
He reached her. His hands came up to cup her face, tilting it towards him.
"I love you," he said quietly. "All of you. Including the parts that leave boots in the middle of our floor."
Her breath caught. "Tarmek..."
"When you first moved in—the first time, during the storm—you left your boots by the door. Do you remember what I did?"
She remembered. The look on his face. The barely suppressed horror. The way he'd physically twitched before moving them to their designated spot.
"You had a small aneurysm," she said. "I thought your eye was going to start bleeding."
"I couldn't handle it." His thumbs stroked her cheekbones. "I couldn't handle the disruption. I couldn’t handle a whirlwind of chaos who painted murals and sang off-key and left coffee cups everywhere like breadcrumbs."
"Hey, I have a perfectly acceptable singing voice—"
"You're a disaster," he said fondly. "My disaster. And somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to fix you. I stopped wanting to contain you. I started wanting to..." He paused, searching for words. "Make space for you. In my life. In my home. In my head."
"That's very poetic for an orc who communicates primarily in grunts."
"I'm serious."
"I know," she said softly. "I know you are."
"Those boots are going to stay exactly where they are."
"They're blocking the walkway."
"I'll step over them." His arms wrapped around her waist. "Every day. For the rest of my life, if you'll let me."
She stared up at him—this massive, terrifying, meticulously organized orc who had somehow become her home—as tears pricked her eyes.
"That's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me," she whispered. "And you once told me my chaos was the best thing that ever happened to your mug collection."
"I meant that too."
"I know."
She kissed him. It started gentle—soft and sweet and full of everything they'd built together. But it didn't stay gentle. It never did, with them. The gentleness caught fire somewhere in the middle, transforming into heat and hunger and the urgent need to be closer.
He growled against her mouth and lifted her without warning. She yelped, wrapping her legs around his waist. "A little notice would be—"
"No."
He was already moving, carrying her through the apartment with the same determined efficiency he brought to everything.
Past the living room with its colorful blankets and overgrown plants.
Past the kitchen with its mismatched mugs hidden behind closed doors.
Past her chaotic art studio that had once been a pristine guest bedroom.
Towards their bedroom. Their bed. Their life.
He set her down on the mattress and followed her down, covering her body with his. The weight of him was familiar now.
"I love you," he said again, like he couldn't stop saying it.
"I love you too." She pulled him closer. "Now stop talking and—"
He kissed her before she could finish the sentence.
And then there was no more talking at all.
Later—much later—Edie lay sprawled across Tarmek's chest, listening to the steady thunder of his heartbeat.
The championship trophy sat on the dresser across the room. Moonlight streamed through the windows, illuminating the plants she'd crammed onto every available surface. Somewhere in the apartment, her boots were still blocking the entryway.
And she was home.
Not temporarily. Not conditionally. Not with one eye on the exit.
Home.
"You're thinking loudly," he murmured, his voice rough with exhaustion.
"I'm thinking about how I came to Greenwood Hollow expecting to stay for three weeks."
"You've been here more than eight months."
"I know." She traced patterns on his chest. "It’s the longest I've stayed anywhere since I left home at eighteen."
"Are you..." He hesitated. "Do you regret it?"
She lifted her head to look at him.
He pulled her up, repositioning her until they were face to face. His hand came up to brush hair from her eyes with impossible gentleness.
"Stay," he said. Not a question. Not a demand. Just a word, offered like a gift.
Edie smiled, thinking of boots in wrong places and mugs behind closed doors and a mural that held their story in its hidden details.
"I already am."