Chapter Twenty-Five
Camden
One year later…
“I don’t get why Bowen gets to be the best man,” Viktor whines.
It’s barely noon, and my nerves are buzzing—not from anxiety, but from the surreal weight of the day.
I’m getting married. Every sound in the room feels amplified: the rustle of tuxes, the faint laughter from downstairs, Viktor’s endless chatter filling the silence that might otherwise swallow me whole.
I straighten my tie. “You have voiced your displeasure on multiple occasions.”
“It doesn’t even have to be me. But Bowen’s new!”
“It would have been Geo, but he was willing to get ordained. And Bowen’s a good friend. He’s part of the team. I don’t see the problem.”
“But—”
Knight lays a hand on Viktor’s elbow. “Vik, buddy, you know I love you like a brother-in-law…”
“By definition, yes,” Viktor sniffs.
“But have you considered that the day of the wedding is the wrong time to take issue with these plans? Bowen was pretty much locked in by the end of the rehearsal.”
Viktor crosses his arms, looks around my childhood bedroom, and sighs. “I guess.”
Unlike my friends’ childhood rooms, mine was cleaned out a long time ago.
My friends’ old bedrooms are shrines—trophies, medals, framed jerseys.
Mine’s the opposite. Mom boxed up my childhood years ago, like she knew I wouldn’t come back often.
It’s sterile, impersonal—exactly what I needed to stay calm.
No ghosts, no clutter, just me and the people who got me here.
Mom and Dad travel so often that I rarely come home to visit, and instead tend to meet them abroad or wherever Mom’s projects take her.
Even without the nostalgic clutter of childhood, my room doesn’t leave a lot of space for six guys to get ready.
Bowen is already downstairs coordinating with Violet to keep things running smoothly, which has at least bought us a little breathing room.
Tristan and Owen make up the rest of my groomsmen.
Viktor sighs. “I suppose this isn’t a hill I want to die on all that badly. Alright, boys, are we ready? Let’s get out of here.”
The door opens a crack, and my dad peeks into the room. “Hey, fellas. Mind if I borrow the groom for a minute?”
His voice carries that easy authority that can clear a locker room or make me feel twelve again. Everyone perks up like we’re about to get a pep talk from a hall of famer. Which he is.
The other four leave, making room for Dad to join me in my old bedroom. He makes sure the door is latched, then crosses the room to sit down on the old twin bed.
“So, the time has come.”
“You mean the wedding?” I can’t help the grin. “Pretty sure that’s been on the calendar for a while now.”
He rolls his eyes, but I can see how proud he is. His whole face softens in a way I’ve never seen on the ice—or anywhere that isn’t home.
“Don’t get smart,” Dad grumbles, then leans in like he’s about to share state secrets. “You and Dot. Finally. Which means it’s time for The Talk. I skipped the PowerPoint this time, but the message stands—don’t make me a grandpa before the honeymoon’s over.”
“I don’t think I’ve left her disappointed so far,” I say.
Dad holds out his hands. “What the fuck? You waited this long, and then you caved?”
“Dad, come on.” I reach for my blazer. “You’re making this weird. I wasn’t waiting for marriage. I was waiting for her.”
“Got it.” Dad slaps a hand to his chest and exhales.
“Tell you the truth, you let me off the hook here. Telling you about the birds and the bees when you were a teenager was awkward enough. I can’t believe people put off this conversation until the wedding night back in medieval times or what have you. ”
“I think people got married as teenagers back then, didn’t they?”
“Ah, good point.” Dad gets to his feet. “I actually got a tattoo representing your mother before we were married. Well, enough of that. Come on, Cam, let’s get you hitched.”
I was more than willing to arrange any kind of wedding Dot wanted, but I wasn’t surprised when she chose something small and simple.
Violet’s mom, Layla, arranged the decorations and catering.
Kingsley’s in charge of the music, Geo’s waiting under the simple trellis arch, and our friends and family are gathered in a small group as witnesses.
The air outside hums with that golden pre-evening heat. The scent of lilacs, laughter floating from the garden, the soft thump of music testing over speakers—it all presses against me, grounding me. For once, I don’t feel scattered. Just… ready.
“Nervous?” Bowen whispers as I take my place.
“Nope.” And it’s true. When I think about the future, my brain goes a hundred different ways, but I’m not scared or anxious. I’m thrilled. All those noisy buzzing thoughts go quiet.
He places a hand on my shoulder. “Good. This marriage gig is the best damn thing that ever happened to me.”
The stone path beneath my shoes radiates leftover heat from the day, rooting me even more than the vows we’re about to say.
Everyone takes their seats, and Kingsley starts playing the song Delilah wrote to celebrate this day.
The back door opens—and the moment I see her, the whole world tilts.
Dot steps into the sunlight, each step slow and luminous. The lace of her dress catches every ripple of gold, the pearls in her hair glowing like they borrowed their light from the stars. My throat tightens. My chest aches.
She’s it. She’s everything.
I blink once. Twice. But the tears still blur the edges of her. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, trying to hold it together—but it’s no use. She’s walking toward me, and I’m already done for.
The world narrows to her and the slow rhythm of her dad’s footsteps on the stone path. I can’t take my eyes off of her as Coach walks her down the aisle. He has to go slower than normal, but he’s made huge strides in physical therapy in preparation for this.
With Delilah’s lyrics spilling through the air, complete now because I’m the groom, all three Shaws are present for this brief, beautiful moment.
I feel her mother everywhere—in the melody, in the tears streaking Coach’s face, in the fierce grace that lives in Dot’s eyes.
I swear I can hear Delilah singing us forward.
All my life, I’ve had to practice camouflaging and masking to blend in.
I’ve had to hold myself back to avoid being too strange, too quirky, too much.
Coach shakes my hand, his eyes misty. As Dot steps forward to become my wife, I don’t have to pretend anything at all.
We’re perfect together, made for each other, simply as we are.
“Ready?” Dot whispers.
I smile down at her. “Ready,” I agree.
I have never been less anxious about what the future holds. My whole life has been about managing noise—on the ice, in my head, in the world. But standing here with her, there’s only quiet. Not the empty kind. The good kind. The kind that feels like home.
* * *
“It’s weird to spend your wedding night at your father-in-law’s house, right?” Dot asks.
I glance around the familiar space—her childhood room, the one that’s seen her through every version of herself.
The bed’s new, but the old dresser and those framed posters haven’t moved in twenty years.
“Possibly,” I admit. “But it feels right. You wanted to be close to him tonight. After everything that’s happened, I get it. ”
Truth is, I like it here. This house holds all the echoes of who she’s been, and I want to meet every single one of them before we move forward. Honeymoon suites can wait. Tonight’s about something smaller, quieter. Real.
I lie back on her bed with one arm behind my head. “I don’t expect you to move out yet. You’re helping your dad, and the honeymoon isn’t scheduled until the off-season. We’ve got time.”
“You’re so laid back.” Dot shoos Bo off of her side of the bed. “I’m surprised. I thought you’d want to move full steam ahead.”
I stretch out on my back, watching her kick off her shoes. In every version of my life that I pictured, she’s always been here—sitting cross-legged on this bed, hair messy, laughing at me. It feels like closing a loop I started when I was twelve and didn’t even know what marriage meant yet.
“I’m in no rush. The season is starting soon. I’ll be on the road a lot, and so will your dad. I like the idea of you not being alone. Speaking of which…” I reach over the side of the bed to retrieve the box I brought over in my bag. “I wanted to give these to you.”
Skinbad grumbles at all the shifting and the disturbances to his beauty sleep, but he settles back in as I hand the box off to Dot. She sits on the bed with her legs crossed, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, wearing a pair of well-worn pajama pants and an oversized tee. “What’s this?”
“A wedding present.”
Dot opens the box. It’s an old cigar box from one of Mom’s many trips, and it’s filled to the brim with letters and postcards, some of which are discolored from age. Dot sifts through them, glancing at them here and there.
Her fingers tremble as she lifts each piece—a snapshot from everywhere in the world I was without her. Years of unsent words and unsaid things spill between us, tiny proof that even when I didn’t know how to show it, she was always there, and so was I.
“Did you write these… to me?”
My throat burns. I can’t look at her without feeling twelve and thirty all at once—hopeful and helpless and hers.
“And never sent them.”
“But you did send some.” She shifts the box aside and scoots to the edge of the bed. To my surprise, she kneels on the floor and pulls out a dusty shoebox of her own. On the outside, in loopy childish letters, she’s written the words Stop! and Private! Alongside a couple of Mr. Yuck stickers.
The sight of that shoebox hits me harder than the ceremony did.
Those stickers, the childish handwriting—it’s like opening a time capsule from a girl who never stopped waiting for me.
And it undoes me. All this time, I thought I was the one holding on.
But she was there too—quiet, loyal, saving pieces of me I didn’t know I’d lost.
I sit up, causing Skinbad to grumble again. “You saved my postcards?”
“I saved everything.” She turns the box to face me. Every gift, every interesting coin, every trinket and photo I gave her over the years is in there.
“Dot…” My voice breaks. “You’ve been carrying me around all this time. Even when I thought you’d forgotten me.” I pick up a whale shark-shaped keychain I brought her from the Philippines. “I can’t believe you held onto this.”
“You gave it to me,” she says, so sincerely that it makes my chest ache. “It was important.”
I lean in to kiss her, but she hops back onto the bed, scattering our memories across the comforter. The dogs retreat, unimpressed.
Pulling her into my lap, I cradle her face in my hands. Her thumb strokes my jaw, her eyes glinting with a thousand tiny memories. “I love you,” she whispers, fierce and unshaken. “You have no idea.”
“Oh, Dot.” My thumb traces her lip. “I’ve had every idea since we were kids.”
When I kiss her this time, it isn’t a shy brush of mouths—it’s the culmination of every postcard, every look, every day spent waiting.
My wife.
My partner.
The only home I’ve ever wanted. She tastes like champagne and tears, and the sound she makes against my lips tells me she feels it too.
From the nightstand, Mira’s soft voice stirs the quiet. “I will now power down for the evening unless further interaction is required.”
Dot giggles. “We’ve got it from here, Mira.”
A pause. Then, “Acknowledged. I will power down… on my own this time.”
We both burst out laughing, heads pressed together, the past behind us, the future wide open. Tomorrow can wait. Tonight, we’re just two kids who never gave up—finally home, finally safe, finally seen.