Epilogue
FOUR MONTHS LATER…
By the time Naomi steps into the elevator for her eleventh-floor apartment, her phone is clinging to five percent battery, her inbox chimes with a frenzy of unread messages, and her brain is still buzzing from the pitch meeting she wrapped three hours ago with the athletic-wear brand Hollis has been chasing for months.
She ran the meeting herself—presented the proposed digital strategy, walked them through the campaign calendar, and fielded questions without breaking stride.
They loved it. Every slide, every idea, every number.
The clients had nodded along, engaged and impressed, already throwing around phrases like long-term partnership and cross-channel amplification by the time she hit her final talking point.
Richard had been there, technically. Sitting at the far end of the table like a well-tailored, preppy statue, chiming in for high-level account questions.
He’d let her take the lead without hovering, without second-guessing her wording or jumping in to rephrase.
It was the first time she felt like he saw her as more than the girl who writes good copy.
To his credit, during their prep meeting he had made the uncharacteristic concession that she was, in fact, the best person to be in front of the client. Then he ruined it with, “Yoga pants and hair scrunchies are more your thing.”
Naomi can’t help the glow spreading through her chest as the elevator dings open.
She exhales as she makes her way down the corridor, already reaching up to tug her curls out of their twist. It’s still disgustingly hot outside—one of those syrupy Toronto summer evenings where the streetcars move like they’re underwater—but the second the lock clicks open, the heat is forgotten.
The smell hits her first. Garlic, sesame, and a savory, caramelized richness. Definitely not whatever frozen atrocity she left in the back of her freezer.
She blinks. “Oh my god.”
Inside, Garrett is barefoot and shirtless in her kitchen, looking profoundly out of place in the tiny space—like someone photoshopped a Viking into a Pinterest apartment.
He glances over, expression unreadable, then nods toward the stovetop. “Dinner in five.”
Her heart does that annoying swoop thing it’s been doing for the past…oh, forever.
It’s been two weeks since he arrived in Toronto for his off-season goalie training stint. Two weeks of morning coffees and shared grocery lists and post-work sex that borders on religious.
And somehow, she still gets a thrill every time she walks through the door and sees him here.
“You cooked,” she says, dropping her bag by the door. “Are you trying to seduce me?”
Garrett tosses her a look over his shoulder, dry as ever. “All you ever order is takeout. Someone had to intervene.”
“What did you make?” she asks, stepping in behind him and wrapping her arms around his middle. She buries her face between his shoulder blades and inhales—soap and sweat and something undeniably him. “Smells amazing.”
“Stir fry,” he says, before turning and stooping low enough to capture her mouth in a kiss that melts her entire day away.
Naomi’s hands circle his neck as he effortlessly lifts her into his arms, and she laughs into the kiss—right before it turns toe-curling.
His mouth is hot and slow on hers, tongue sweeping past her lips.
One broad palm slips under her thighs to anchor her, the other cupping the back of her head like she’s fragile, even though they both know she’s anything but.
When he finally pulls back, her heart is thudding, her breath is gone.
“Hi,” she breathes, slightly dazed.
“Hi,” he murmurs, his mouth quirking. Then he sets her down, gives her backside a firm smack, and says, “Go change. Dinner’s ready.”
She stumbles back a step, grinning. “You know, I could get very used to this.”
“You mean being fed real food by someone with basic motor skills? Yeah, wild concept.”
She sticks her tongue out at him and heads down the hall, peeling off her blazer as she goes.
In the bedroom, she kicks off her heels and swaps her work clothes for a cropped tank and a pair of soft drawstring shorts so short her cheeks peek out.
Because yes, she’s dying to be comfortable after a long day, but also: there’s a man in her apartment.
A very hot, slightly growly man who knows how to cook and ruin her in bed.
So. Priorities.
By the time she pads barefoot back into the kitchen, Garrett’s already dished up two bowls of stir-fry and has lit the ridiculous fake candle centerpiece she keeps on the table as a joke. It flickers like an actual flame. It’s extremely unnecessary. She loves it.
“Garrett. This is enough to feed a small village.”
He shrugs, entirely unbothered. “You’re small. It just looks big.”
She narrows her eyes. “This is a mountain.”
He digs into his own portion without missing a beat. “So start climbing.”
Naomi huffs and reaches over to scoop some of her stir-fry and rice into his already overloaded bowl. “Fine. But if I slip into a food coma, I’m blaming you.”
He doesn’t look up. “I’ll carry you to bed.”
She rolls her eyes, but her smile lingers.
As they eat, the clink of chopsticks and hum of summer air fill the space. Naomi finds herself watching him between bites—the way his jaw flexes when he chews, how his lashes fan across his cheek when he focuses on his bowl. His thigh brushes hers under the table, warm and steady.
Everything about him still stuns her a little.
That he’s here. In her space. In her life.
She clears her throat. “How was training today?”
“Plyos this morning,” he says between bites. “Visual drills this afternoon. Little bit of film.”
“Visual drills?”
“Reaction timing. Peripheral pattern recognition. I had to wear these blackout goggles and catch tennis balls with my non-dominant hand.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “God, you’re such a freak.”
He shrugs as if it’s a compliment. “Gotta stay sharp.”
“Well, you look sharp,” she says, bumping her knee into his under the table.
Garrett makes a low noise that might be agreement—or amusement—without looking up from his bowl.
Naomi twirls her chopsticks, trying to sound casual. “So…Friday. Theo’s in town to see Mila. They asked if we want to grab dinner with them.”
Garrett finally lifts his eyes, looking at her like she suggested he lick a subway pole. “Dinner out? On purpose?”
“Yes, on purpose,” she says, nudging his foot. “You like Theo.”
Garrett snorts. “I tolerate Tilly because he doesn’t talk much and he’s terrible at Mario Kart.”
“He lets you win.”
Garrett pauses. “I will neither confirm nor deny that.”
“Come on. It’ll be fun.”
He leans back in his chair, groaning. “I’d rather stay in and eat you for dinner.”
She promptly chokes.
“And they say romance is dead,” she coughs, wiping her mouth with a napkin.
He smirks, completely unrepentant.
She tries for breezy. It comes out breathless. “Be good for two hours, and I’ll let you be very bad after.”
He spears another bite of stir-fry, but there’s a smirk tugging at his mouth now. “Fine. We’ll go.”
She beams.
They finish dinner in the easy rhythm they’ve fallen into over the past two weeks, chopsticks clinking gently, laughter slipping in between mouthfuls. Garrett takes her empty bowl with a brush of fingers against hers, and Naomi rises automatically to clear the rest.
She moves to the sink and fills it with warm water. The quiet domesticity of it all should feel mundane, but instead it feels...intimate. Soft. A little terrifying.
Halfway through scrubbing the dishes, she feels him come up behind her—one hand sliding low to curve possessively around her hip, the other skimming down to cup her ass with shameless familiarity.
“You wore these on purpose,” Garrett mutters, voice like gravel against her ear. “Just to mess with me.”
Naomi grins, her pulse fluttering wild and fast in her throat. “I’m almost done,” she breathes, the words hitching as he leans into her, all heat and hard muscle, solid as a wall at her back. “Go set up the TV. New Love Island episodes dropped.”
He groans into her neck, breath hot against her skin as he trails open-mouthed kisses there. “Do we have to? I need a lobotomy to watch that show. If I wanted to watch over-tanned narcissists cheat on each other, I’d go to the gym.”
She laughs, the sound shaky, barely held together by the last thread of focus she has.
Her hands are still wrist-deep in soap suds, but the rest of her is fully occupied by the press of his chest against her back, the slow drag of his lips along the slope of her neck, the scratch of his stubble that makes her thighs tense.
“You love my taste in TV,” she says, tilting her head to bare more of her throat, shameless now.
Garrett scoffs against her skin. “I’ve lost measurable IQ points watching that show. Every time someone yells ‘I’ve got a text,’ a part of my brain quietly dies. I suffer for you.”
“And I love you for it.”
The words are out before she even realizes she’s said them.
She goes still, her stomach plummeting like she’s missed a step in the dark.
Oh no.
Her fingers are wet and pruney, her heart is pounding in her throat, and her brain is screaming, “Abort, abort, abort.”
Garrett hasn’t moved either. He’s still curved over her, his mouth frozen just below her jaw.
She swears the silence rings.
Naomi turns slowly, circling her soapy hands around his neck, aiming for flippant. “That came out fast,” she says, her accompanying laugh a little too high, a little too shaky. “Too soon, right? Just—pretend I said ‘I tolerate you.’ Or, like, ‘I medium-like you with a strong upward trajectory.’”
She leans up to kiss him, to distract him, to fix it.
But Garrett pulls back just enough to meet her eyes. His own are stormy, unreadable.
It feels like someone has reached into her chest and squeezed her heart, wringing it like the wet rag she’s holding. “Garrett?”
His name comes out strangled. The silence expands, crushing the air from her lungs, turning each second into an eternity of free fall.
And then he speaks—soft, but firm. “Don’t do that.”
Her voice is barely a whisper. “Do what?”
“Don’t make jokes. Say what you really mean.”
Her pulse thunders in her ears. Every instinct she has screams at her to backpedal, to cover it up with a joke, to patch it with banter and glittery distraction.
But he’s still watching her. Still waiting. Like he wants the real thing.
Naomi swallows, heart pounding.
She lifts her chin, forcing herself to meet his eyes even as her knees threaten to give out.
“I love you.”
The words hang between them, naked and terrifying.
For a beat, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.
He stands there, stone-faced, silent, and she feels herself shatter from the inside out.
And then, his features crack open. Vulnerability floods his eyes, raw and unguarded, and his mouth curves into a smile that's soft and stunned.
“I love you too,” he says, voice rough.
And then he kisses her like he’s drowning and she’s air.
Naomi laughs against his mouth—giddy, breathless, too full of emotion to contain. Joy swells inside her so fast it’s dizzying, light and golden and impossible to hold still. She feels like champagne just popped, like fireworks right behind her ribs.
His hands find her waist, then slide lower to palm her ass, and her joy melts into heat so fast it leaves her gasping.
“Oh,” she breathes, when his lips trail along her jaw, down her neck, to that one spot beneath her ear that turns her to liquid. “You’re trying to distract me from the TV.”
“You bet,” Garrett mutters against her skin.
Before she can respond, he lifts her and sets her on the kitchen counter. The marble is cool beneath her bare thighs, a stark contrast to the heat rolling off him in waves. When he leans in and does that thing with his mouth on her neck—teeth and tongue and just enough pressure—the world tilts.
Naomi swears softly, eyes fluttering shut. Her thighs fall open wider, his hips press in, and her hands move on instinct, fumbling for the buckle of his belt.
“Garrett,” she whispers, flushed and aching and more than ready.
He doesn’t answer in words. Just kisses her harder, deeper—and her entire world narrows to the hot slide of his mouth. When he grinds against her, hits that perfect angle, she whimpers. The sound escapes before she can stop it, wholly involuntary.
The dishes are forgotten. There’s only the heat of his body, the strength of his hands, the dizzy rush of being wanted this much.
Her shorts and thong are pushed aside, and when he enters her slowly, it’s like coming home. His thrusts are long and hard, and Naomi clings to him, along for the ride.
‘Garrett..” she whimpers, “I’m going to…”
He claims her mouth with a brutal, devastating kiss, and that does it. He brings her over the edge right there—right in the kitchen, her back arched against the cabinets. She throws her head back, moaning and shivering as she comes.
And then, when her limbs are boneless and her breath is ragged, he kisses her one last time, gentle now.
“Not done with you yet,” he says gruffly, lifting her again, this time bridal-style.
She wraps her arms around his neck, grinning through the haze.
“Good,” she whispers. “I love you.”
He presses a kiss to her temple, eyes soft but smoldering. “I know.”
Then he carries her to bed.
And they don’t leave it for a very, very long time.