Epilogue — One Year （Dual）
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I woke with one foot out from under the blanket and the rest of me trapped warm against Beck, and my first thought was that the floor would be freezing.
A year later, I was a senior, the blanket was ours, the bed was ours, and the sunny apartment was ours. Some mornings I still woke grinning like I'd stolen something good.
“Morning, thief,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep. “You stole the blanket again.”
“I stole nothing,” I said, laughing, and pressed my freezing feet straight to his shins. “Sharing is a house rule. I wrote it down.”
“You wrote no rules down,” he said, hissing at my feet, eyes still closed. “There is no list.”
“There is a list,” I said. “It's in my head. Rule one: cold feet go here.”
He cracked one eye. “Terrible list,” he said, and pulled me closer anyway.
Gold September light poured through the kitchen windows. Beck stood at the counter in a worn gray shirt, dark blond hair going every direction, while his pens sat squared beside our shared key bowl.
My Visual Learning Coordinator badge hung from the hook by the door.
Beside it, the acceptance letter for Briarwood's graduate education fellowship waited under a magnet shaped like a football.
Room 214 had become the busiest workshop in Whitmore, and three athletes had already stopped apologizing for needing pictures instead of paragraphs.
“You're up early, so don't pretend you slept,” I said, shuffling in with the blanket around my shoulders. “The bed went cold and tragic.”
“Four hours is sleep.” He held out the chipped mug. “Oat, extra shot, cinnamon.”
Two mugs lived by the playbook shelf now, one chipped and one whole. Cool floor under my feet. Warm cup in my hands. His black grid notebook beside my burgundy one, both spines out, neither hidden.
“Kiss me slow, I've got all morning.” I set the mug on the counter and slid my hands up his arms. “That's rule three, by the way.”
“Noted,” he said, and did, slow and sweet, coffee-warm, one hand cradling my jaw. His forehead rested against mine after, and we just breathed there while the band thumped far away.
I snorted when he kissed my nose, that awful laugh-snort I've hated since middle school, and tried to turn away. “Don't,” he murmured, smiling like it was his favorite sound in the world. “Hell, Nora. Don't hide that.”
“You can't say hell before coffee,” I said, pointing at him with great dignity, blanket slipping off one shoulder. “House rule. I just made it up.”
“New rule noted,” he said, deadpan, and zipped the blanket back up round my neck like I was a kid in a snowsuit. “Cold floor. Warm girl. Fixed.”
“Warm girl,” I repeated, laughing. “That's the best you've got this early?”
“It's early,” he said, and stole a sip from the whole mug, which is his, and made a face. “Yours tastes like dessert.”
“Yours tastes like punishment,” I said, stealing it back for one sip and shuddering. “Black and bitter. Damn.”
“Toast next,” he said, sliding bread into the toaster. “Jittery fades after toast.”
“That's science,” I agreed solemnly, eating at the counter with crumbs on my sweater. “Toast science. I'm a psych major. I know things.”
“Education minor,” he said. “You always forget the minor.”
“The minor holds the toast,” I said, waving the crust, and he laughed for real, quiet and bright.
“Keys, wallet, blanket,” I chanted, patting my pockets, and Beck dropped his keys in the bowl and fished them out again. “Ha,” I said. “Bowl's for home. Pockets are for going.”
“Bowl's for home,” he agreed, and pressed his spare into my palm and closed my fingers round it. “Yours to keep. Already was.”
My throat went tight, stupid and sudden, because a year ago a spare key was a question and now it was routine. “Smooth,” I said, blinking fast. “Damn, Hale. Toast and romance.”
“Toast science,” he said, nodding solemn, and zipped my jacket to my chin before I could argue. “Ready, Nora Quinn?”
“Ready,” I said. “Game day. Senior year. Our seats.”
Outside the air was crisp enough to sting my nose, leaves just starting to turn along the brick walk, cut grass sharp from the quad where they'd mowed for the weekend. I laced my fingers through his, and his keys clinked once in his pocket as we started down the steps.
“Three squirrels on the library lawn,” he said, swinging our joined hands. “Four crows on the chapel roof. Band's still flat on the high note.”
“You count everything,” I said, bumping his shoulder with mine.
“Only the good stuff,” he said. “You. Keys. Toast.”
“I rank over toast,” I said. “Glad we cleared that up.”
“Top of the list,” he said. “Never moved.”
Priya caught us near the library steps, backpack half open, papers staging an escape, and her whole face lit up. “There are my domestics,” she called, grinning, and grabbed my sleeve. “Nora, you left your scarf on my couch again.”
“It's yours now,” I said, hugging her quick. “I've got his jacket on standby, so I'm set for winter.”
“Stealing jackets now,” Priya said, shaking her head at Beck. “You let her get away with that?”
“House rule,” Beck said solemnly, and Priya burst out laughing.
“Everything's a house rule with you two,” she said, and waved and ran for her lab, ponytail flying.
I watched her go with my throat gone a little tight. A whole year, senior classes and shared kitchens, and people still lit up seeing us, and I loved it more than I said out loud. “She looks happy,” I said quietly.
“She's got her people,” Beck said, squeezing my hand. “Like us.”
Without thinking I'd taken the door-side of the path, where I could see everything coming, and Beck had drifted wide to the street side without a word. He always does that. No speech, no fuss. He just ends up where I need him.
“You do that every time,” I said softly.
“Do what?” he asked, though the corner of his mouth twitched.
“That,” I said, bumping him. “Don't play innocent, Hale.”
“Never innocent,” he said. “Just positioned.”
The stadium noise built as we climbed, band and chatter and shoes on concrete, and a couple of freshmen stared open-mouthed at him, and one whispered loud behind a program, and the old flutter kicked in my ribs.
Then Beck tucked me into his side like we'd done it a hundred times, because we had, and the flutter settled.
“Eyes on us,” I murmured.
“Let them look,” he said. “Steady's the whole point.”
At the rail I bounced on my toes, heart thumping. “I'm nervous, but I'm not hiding it.” I grinned up at him. “Same seats. Big crowd. Senior year. My hands are already ice.”
I held up my freezing fingers as proof. “I'm cold already, so don't laugh at me.”
He laughed anyway, soft, and unzipped his jacket. “Come here, cold girl,” he said, and I slid my hands inside against his warm shirt and sighed so loud the woman next to us smiled.
The rail felt cool under my elbows, the field spread green below, and our seats waited, the same ones, kept like a promise all year. His hand covered mine, steady and warm, and the noise shrank down to something small with him around me.
“Go on, quarterback,” I said, shooing him toward the tunnel stairs, keeping his jacket. “I've got the seats. I've got the jacket. I've got everything.”
He backed away slow, eyes on mine, and pointed at me like a promise. “Mine,” he mouthed, and jogged down, and I laughed and snorted and didn't even cover my face.
? ? ?
I drew two long breaths at the rail and felt each one move through my ribs, in, out, and the roar broke into lines I could follow. Pressure sat high in my chest, bright as stadium light, then dropped a notch with every breath.
A year later, I wore #14 as Briarwood's starting quarterback, and the girl in our rail seats wearing my jacket was still the first thing I found in every crowd. Nora Quinn. Mine.
The field spread below in shapes I knew by heart, routes hanging like constellations over the green, yard lines straight as ruled ink, and the band hit a note that buzzed in my teeth. I tapped two fingers on my left wrist once and let the noise run off through my fingertips.
“It's loud, yet I've got you to tune it.” I leaned on the rail beside her, low enough that only she heard. “Say something. Anything.”
“Anything,” she said, sliding her hand into mine on the rail. “Your jacket works wonders. My hands are warm now.”
“House rule,” I said. “Jacket stays with the cold girl.”
“Best rule we've got,” she said, laughing, and the snort slipped out, and she covered her mouth, and I pulled her hand down and laced our fingers.
“Keep that,” I said. “I like that sound best with the band under it.”
“You're biased,” she said, pink-cheeked, bumping my shoulder. “Keep talking, though.”
“Biased,” I agreed. “Staying biased.”
Deon found us before warmups ended wearing a Briarwood sideline pullover instead of #7. He had graduated in May and come back as a student assistant, whistle tucked under his jacket, grin still big enough to calm a huddle.
“Starting quarterback and his terrifying coordinator,” he said, clasping my hand. “A whole year. Look at you two.”
“Look at us,” I said. “Still here. Still ours.”
Cole came up fast behind him, #88, hair damp, grin wide, cleared and eligible and running like himself again. He shaded his eyes and looked up at the rail where Nora waved both arms.
I pointed up at her, easy, nothing hidden. “Up there,” I said to Cole, and waved her down with two fingers. “Rail seats. Same ones. She waved at you first.”
Cole laughed and waved back huge. “We're good now, and I won't forget it.” He caught my wrist brief, the way we do, and let go, and his eyes shone a little. “You changed everything for me, man.”
“I know,” I said, and held his look a beat. “We're good. Go run your routes.”
Nora cupped her hands round her mouth and yelled down, “Show off for me, Cole,” and the people round her laughed, and Cole bowed deep, and Deon doubled over.
I looked up at her, copper ponytail bright in the gold light, and didn't lower my voice at all. “She's with me, and I'm not quiet about it.” Deon whooped, and Cole whistled through his teeth, and Nora turned pink and hid her face in my jacket while the crowd pushed loud round us.
“Win first,” she called down, laughing, pointing at me. “Then come warm me up. Priorities.”
“Win first,” I agreed, pointing back, and jogged for the tunnel with their laughing in my ears.
The game ran in pictures after that. I took every snap. Routes opened like constellations over the field, and when the pocket collapsed, I heard Nora from the rail above the whole crowd.
“Find the quiet, Beck!”
I did. Third and goal, six seconds left, the safety cheated toward the corner. I kept the ball and cut through the seam of light he'd abandoned.
The goal line broke under my feet. The stadium came apart.
Deon hit me first at the sideline, laughing into my helmet. Cole crashed in from the other side. Pruitt grabbed my facemask and shouted something I couldn't hear over the band.
I looked past all of them and found Nora in our rail seats, my jacket around her shoulders, both hands over her mouth. Then the laugh-snort broke free and she dropped her hands because she had stopped hiding it from the world.
I ran straight to the wall beneath her section.
“That's Nora Quinn,” I told the nearest camera, pointing up at her. “She built the way I see this game. Remember her name right this time.”
The crowd picked it up in pieces. Quinn. Quinn. Quinn. She turned red, cried, and kept waving at me anyway.
We walked home after, slow through cooling streets, her hand warm in mine. Leaves skittered past our shoes. My thumb traced the green thread on my wristband the whole way.
“Our seats. Our people. Our win,” she said, leaning into my arm.
“Your workshop. Your fellowship. Your future.”
“Our future,” she corrected.
“Exactly.”
At the apartment door, our keys landed together in the bowl. The lamps were already warm. The playbook shelf held our two notebooks and the chipped mug waiting on her side.
“Tea first?” she asked.
“One thing first.”
My pulse started running faster than it had on third and goal. I took the real black notebook from the shelf and set it square on the coffee table.
“Ninety-six pages,” she said softly. “Your whole head.”
“Not the whole thing anymore.”
From my pocket, I took the small ring box I had carried through warmups, the game, and the walk home. A new green thread was tied around it beside the frayed end of the original knot on my wrist.
Nora stopped breathing.
I went down on one knee between the couch and the playbook shelf. The room was quiet enough to hear the radiator tick.
“Every route I can see ends with you,” I said. “Every loud room gets quiet when I find you in it. You gave me a language, a home, and the one future I don't want to keep only in my head.”
Her cold hands covered her mouth. Tears spilled between her fingers.
“Marry me, Nora Quinn. Keep the door seat. Keep my jacket. Keep every version of me.”
The laugh-snort broke through her sob. She dropped to her knees in front of me and grabbed my face.
“Yes. God, yes. Obviously yes, you enormous dork.”
I slid the ring onto her finger. Her hand was cold, so I folded it between both of mine and warmed it the way I always had.
“Mine?” I asked.
She kissed me hard, smiling against my mouth. “Yours because I choose you. And you're mine right back.”
We ended up on the couch beneath the shared blanket, cinnamon tea forgotten on the table, her new ring catching the lamplight whenever her hand moved over my chest.
The real playbook stayed on the shelf. I didn't need to open it. Every play I trusted lived in my head, and every future worth running began with the woman curled warm against me.
Nora touched the green thread on my wrist, then held up the ring.
“Lucky for you,” she whispered, “I live in the playbook now—and I'm not moving.”