Epilogue
Cole
Kids are loud as hell.
That’s my first thought when I step out onto the back deck with a coffee in my hand and immediately have to sidestep Cameron Reed charging past me with a plastic sword raised over his head.
“Slow down,” Isabella calls out to her son from somewhere behind me.
But he doesn’t.
Neither do Austin and Maisie’s twin girls, who come running after him in matching swimsuits.
I take a sip of coffee and look out over the beach as Austin grabs Ava around the waist and hauls her off her feet, spinning her while she kicks and yells at him to put her down.
He carries her straight into the water, then goes back for Leah, but Cameron launches himself at him before he can get there, so Austin just grabs them both and flops into the water with the two of them hanging off him.
Beside me, Isabella sighs. “I’ve told him multiple times Cameron gets sick if he swallows too much salt water.”
I scoff. “Tell your kid to stop drinking half the ocean, then.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m grabbing him before he throws up on somebody.”
She heads toward the beach and attempts to grab her son, but he just runs back into the ocean.
Kid loves the water. I huff out a laugh and glance back at the house behind us, still feeling that split second of disbelief, because ten years ago, I wouldn’t have known what to do with a place like this.
Hell, ten years ago, I wouldn’t have even let myself imagine owning something like this.
Now all of us do.
The place is ridiculous. Four bedrooms upstairs. Three downstairs. A huge open kitchen and a deck wrapped around the back that leads straight onto a private stretch of beach.
A couple of years ago, one drunk summer weekend turned into Ryan saying we should all buy a place together, and the rest of us were dumb enough to take him seriously.
Best dumb decision we ever made.
The door slides open behind me, and Aurora steps out with her sunglasses pushed up on her head, wearing a black bikini that makes my mouth water.
She stops beside me and sighs. “There are too many children in this house.”
None of which are ours.
We’ve talked about kids before. More than once, especially once everyone else started having them, but Aurora doesn’t want to be a mother. Not right now. Maybe not ever. And I’m good with that.
I spent practically my entire life taking care of my sister, and while I don’t regret it at all in the slightest, it’s nice not having the pressure of being responsible over someone.
Besides, Aurora’s the one who’d have to carry a baby, so if one day she changes her mind, then we’ll have kids. And if she doesn’t, then I’ll be happy with spending my life with just her.
I didn’t even let myself think about a future before her. So all I want is her.
She stops in front of me and reaches for my coffee without asking. She takes a sip, grimaces, and hands it back. “Still disgusting.”
“Then stop drinking my coffee.”
“I like checking whether your taste has improved.”
I breathe out a laugh and pull her closer, scraping my teeth over her shoulder. “Morning to you too, wife.”
“That is your only redeeming quality, by the way.”
I tip my head back so I can look up at her. “What? Being your husband?”
“Yeah.” She glances out toward the beach and sighs. “And being hot, I guess.”
I huff a laugh, sliding my hand higher on her hip. Ten years later, and she still says shit to annoy the hell out of me.
“Was complimenting me painful for you?”
“Very.”
I chuckle and brush my mouth over her shoulder, kissing my way up to her neck and jaw and capturing her lips with mine.
When I pull back, her mouth curves into this dazed, gorgeous smile that almost makes me drag her right back inside. Instead she turns, resting her hands on the railing as she looks out over the water where the kids are running around with Austin and Isabella.
I stand behind her for a second, my hand settling at her hip while I look out at the same view, and it hits me again how insane all of this still feels sometimes.
How we all watched each other grow up, fall in love, get married, have kids, build lives that used to feel impossible when we were all just trying to survive college.
The back door opens and Ryan walks out holding his daughter’s hand, the kid glistening from being lathered in sunscreen.
Maisie’s right behind him, her hair twisted up in a bun, a swimsuit cover-up fluttering around her legs, carrying two fruity drinks. She hands one to Aurora on her way past, taking a sip out of hers.
“I want to play!” Blair says, pointing toward the beach where her brother and the twins are.
Ryan lets out a long sigh and drops her hand. “Alright. Go.”
She takes off right away, her little legs running across the deck and then the sand, making a beeline for the others. Being three years younger than her brother, she’s in that phase where she follows him everywhere.
I glance at Ryan, who’s standing there watching her go with a huge grin stretched across his face.
I chuckle and turn back toward the beach just in time to see Austin heading up from the water with Ava tucked under one arm.
“Alright,” he says, setting her down on the deck. “You’re in time-out for biting your sister.”
She frowns immediately, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re mean.”
Austin’s face softens like it physically pains him to discipline one of his daughters. He drops to one knee in front of her. “Sweetheart,” he says, sounding apologetic, because the guy is a complete sap when it comes to his girls. “You know I don’t like being mean, but what you did was not okay.”
“Leah stole my shell,” she says, instantly defensive.
Austin sighs and looks at his wife. “Freckles, help me out here.”
Maisie walks over and crouches beside her daughter. “We’ve talked about this, Ava. We do not bite people.”
Ava blinks up at her, then points straight at me. “Uncle Cole bites Auntie Aurora all the time.”
Aurora laughs and folds into my side, and Austin shoots me a glare before looking back at his daughter. “That’s different,” he tells her. “Your uncle Cole is a feral animal.” My lips twitch. “And you’re not an animal, are you?”
She shakes her head. “No, but I’m a hockey player. And hockey players fight.”
Austin chuckles, ruffling his daughter’s hair. “Like father, like daughter,” he says with a wink.
Austin may not be a fighter, but he does live for hockey, and so does his daughter.
Ryan and Austin had their kids on skates pretty much the second they could walk, and Ava took to hockey immediately.
Her twin sister, on the other hand, went the other way completely and took after her mom.
I catch her spinning across the deck sometimes, doing little pirouettes. It’s cute as hell.
But honestly… no one can disagree with the kid.
Hockey players love to fight, and I used to, too, once upon a time.
Used to need it, honestly. It got shit off my chest in a way not much else did.
But these days I don’t have a reason to.
I like playing a clean game and I like coming home to my wife even more.
I got a contract handed to me my senior year, and even though I love tattooing, I knew I wanted to give Aurora a good life. Wanted her to have everything she could ever want, so I signed with them.
I still tattoo, though—don’t get me wrong—but now I just tattoo my wife and my friends instead of strangers.
The only one of us guys who isn’t in the NHL is Nathan, who’s about to publish his sixth comic and still acts shy every time someone brings it up, even though his books are cool as hell and selling like crazy.
Isabella’s still killing it as a sports analyst, but now she works for her husband’s team, which means she doesn’t have to travel all the time or be away from her family.
Maisie still owns the bookstore café she always wanted and has even expanded to a bigger place.
And Aurora sold five paintings for a ridiculous amount of money and now owns a gallery, which still makes me endlessly proud whenever I think about it. She used to dream about getting one painting on a wall. Now she owns all the damn walls.
“I’m hungry,” Ava says, dropping onto the chair with a pout.
“God, me too,” Isabella says when she reaches the deck.
“Same. Where the hell are Nathan and Logan?” Austin asks, swiping his forearm across his sweaty forehead as he looks around. “Don’t tell me they’re still asleep.”
Ryan lets out a quiet laugh beside him and shakes his head. “No. They’re in the kitchen. Nathan’s making pancakes, and Logan keeps stealing pieces to feed Alex.”
“Actually, I helped.”
I glance toward the door.
Speak of the devil.
Logan pushes out onto the deck with their one-year-old in his arms.
Nathan follows behind him carrying a plate stacked with pancakes and scoffs when he places the pancakes onto the table. “You cracked two eggs.”
Logan shoots him a wink. “It turned you on, Hayes. Don’t lie.”
Isabella grimaces. “Gross. I really don’t want to hear that when it comes to my brother, thanks.”
“Alright, I need food before I actually die,” Austin says, dropping into one of the chairs and dragging a plate closer. “Kids, come eat!”
Cameron tears back across the deck and Leah follows right behind him, but her foot catches on the step and she falls, scraping her knee on the wood.
She lets out a cry and Austin is out of his chair the second she hits the ground, but before he can get there, Cameron stops, turns around, and runs back to her.
He drops to his knees in front of her, reaching for her arm to help her up.
Leah’s face crumples, but when Cameron puts his plastic sword into her hand, the tears stop.
She blinks down at it, then up at him, and a smile spreads across her face. He wraps his arms around her in a hug and helps her up onto the deck, Maisie lifting her into her lap to wrap a Band-Aid on her knee.
Aurora laughs under her breath and turns toward me, her brows lifting. “Uh oh. I sense a romance.”
I snort and pull her in a little closer, because if Austin hears that, he’ll lose his shit.
Kids are cute. I’ll give them that. Being the cool aunt and uncle is still better, though.
We get the best parts. We get to hang out with them when our friends need a break, spoil them for a couple of days, and then hand them back and go right back to sleeping in late and being able to bend my wife over the kitchen table whenever I feel like it.
It’s the perfect system.
I take a seat at the table, dragging Aurora onto my lap as everyone around us grabs pancakes, syrup already getting everywhere when the kids pour way too much.
“Wish Soph could be here,” Aurora says.
I let out a sigh and drop my head onto her shoulder. Yeah, me too. “So does she. Trust me. She won’t stop bitching about her professor.”
Sophie’s twenty-six and in grad school now, studying to become a lawyer, which still fucks with my head if I think about it for too long. I used to be focused on getting her through one day at a time. Now she’s got a whole future in front of her.
Aurora’s mouth twists. “Well, he can’t be worse than mine.”
Aurora met up with her dad a few weeks after he reached out. She even met her little brother, but it didn’t take long for her to figure out he wasn’t doing any of it because he wanted to know her. It felt more like obligation than anything else. Like it was out of guilt.
She still talks to her brother, still meets up with him sometimes, but she doesn’t talk to her dad.
Just like I don’t talk to mine.
I have no clue if he drank himself to death or pissed away every cent he ever had, and I don’t give a fuck either way. I spent too many years thinking about him, hating him, figuring out how to get away from him.
The second Sophie was safe and out of that house, I stopped looking back.
I didn’t need to anymore.
I’ve got the best family in the world.
I look around the table, unable to stop the smile pulling at my mouth. This house is loud as hell and chaotic half the time, but it’s full of joy, full of love, full of something I never thought I’d have in my life.
There was a time when I couldn’t picture a future that went any further than getting Sophie out and keeping my head above water. I thought that was all life was ever going to be for me—surviving one day, then the next, then the next.
I didn’t know the people around me would become my family. I didn’t know Aurora Prescott, the girl I spent years telling myself I hated, would become the woman I can’t imagine a single part of my life without.
One day we’ll all grow old, these kids will have lives of their own, and we’ll all sit here, looking out at the beach, wondering how the hell time went by so fast.
For so long, I thought happiness was unrealistic—something huge and life-changing that most people never really got to have.
Turns out it feels a lot like this. Sitting here with our friends, my wife in my arms, looking around at the life we built, and knowing there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.
The End