Epilogue
Dean
I have stood in this arena thousands of times. Behind the bench. In the tunnel. At center ice after wins. In the empty quiet after losses when everyone else had long gone home and I was still trying to figure out what I could have done differently.
This building gave me some of the best years of my life. It gave me purpose. It gave me a team. Hell—it gave me my wife.
But today, standing in the middle of it with the lights still only half on and the fresh cut of ice untouched beneath my skates, it feels different.
Like I’m not here to hold onto the past. I’m here to start something new. Maddie asked if I wanted her to just meet me later when the kids arrived.
I looked at her like she was insane. There was no version of this morning that started without her.
So I made her come early. Like always. We started this not long after Vegas. Early mornings before the players got in.
Just us. An empty rink. Quiet. Skating side by side before the chaos of life started.
At first it was because we needed time that was only ours after finally going public and the world losing its collective mind over Coach Dean Kincade marrying the Mustangs media girl in secret.
Then it just became…us. Our reset. Our breath. Our place.
Now I’m kneeling in front of the bench lacing her skates while she sits above me sipping coffee like she hasn’t watched me do this a hundred times.
“You know,” she says, “normal husbands buy flowers.”
I tug the lace tighter and look up at her. “Normal wives don’t make their husbands freeze at six in the morning.”
She grins. “Yet here we are.”
Yeah. Here we are. I stand, take her coffee, set it on the ledge, and offer her both hands.
She slips hers into mine and lets me pull her to her feet. Even after all these years, that wedding band flashing under the arena lights still catches me in the chest every damn time.
Mine. I lead her onto the ice. Her laugh echoes softly when the blades catch. And for a little while we just skate. Easy. Unhurried. A lap around the boards. Another across center. Sometimes brushing shoulders. Sometimes holding hands like two teenagers with the entire rink to themselves.
She glides backward in front of me and smiles. “You nervous?”
I huff. “No.”
She raises a brow. “This is kind of a big step.”
It is. A massive one. Stepping away from coaching the pros. Taking over the Mustang youth development program. Building something from the ground up for the next generation. Some people thought I was crazy walking away from the main bench. Some days maybe I thought so too.
But then I looked at my life. At my wife. At the little boy currently at home vibrating with excitement because his dad is coaching his team for the first time.
And suddenly it didn’t feel like stepping down. It felt like stepping exactly where I’m supposed to be. I reach out and catch Maddie by the waist, pulling her to me on the ice.
She laughs, skates bumping mine.
“Still not nervous,” I tell her.
Her hands slide up my chest. “Why not?”
Because every good thing that has ever happened to me started with her. Because the second she walked into my life with that camera and that stubborn mouth, every version of my future rewrote itself.
Because I spent years thinking success looked like packed arenas and playoff runs, and then she put on a wedding band and gave me a home and a son and showed me I had been measuring wrong.
I lean down and kiss her. Slow. Cold arena air and warm wife mouth.
When I pull back, I rest my forehead to hers.
“I’m not nervous,” I murmur, “because no matter what bench I’m standing behind, I still get to go home with the prettiest girl in the building.”
She snorts. “You are so cheesy now.”
“Married me anyway.”
“Best impulsive decision I ever made.”
I grin. Mine too.
Our quiet gets cut short by the slam of the rink doors opening. Then noise. So much damn noise.
A herd of preteen boys pours into the arena carrying sticks, gear bags, too much energy, and absolutely zero indoor voices.
The first day of the season. Every one of them hyped out of their minds because apparently Coach Kincade is some kind of youth hockey celebrity now.
I whistle sharply. “All right! Warm-ups! Let’s move!”
They scatter onto the ice in organized chaos. Maddie skates with me back toward the bench and sits while I kneel to untie her skates.
She smiles down at me. “This is cute.”
“It’s loud.”
“You love it.”
I do. I really do.
I’m tugging the second skate off when I hear it. Music. Loudly sung, completely off-key. I glance up. And there, in front of the net, already in full goalie gear, is my son.
Our son.
Doing some ridiculous dance-stretch combination that looks like a fish flopping on land while belting lyrics to whatever song is playing through the arena speakers.
His arms swing. His hips move. He points dramatically to invisible fans. The other kids howl with laughter.
I close my eyes. Of course. Of fucking course.
I shake my head and mutter low enough only Maddie can hear me—“Why did our son have to be a fucking goalie?”
Maddie laughs, leaning down to kiss the top of my head. “Because he loves to have fun, Husband.”
I look back out at the tiny menace in the crease, still singing like he’s headlining a concert.
Then at my wife smiling beside me. Then at this arena. This life. This wild, loud, beautiful future.
I feel Maddie’s hand slide into mine.
And standing in the same arena where I once thought hockey was the biggest thing I would ever love, I squeeze her fingers and smile.
I was wrong.