Bonus Epilogue
SEAN
M om hugs Dad from behind while we watch Patty and Lou on stage from the VIP section. I don’t know music like my big brother does, but there’s never been a time in my life when watching him play didn’t mesmerize me.
Watching him play with Lou is on another level.
I’m not too manly to admit their final duet is killing me.
Especially because I keep catching glimpses of long, wavy auburn hair at the other end of our section, near Lou’s friends.
I know that hair.
It belongs to the woman I met weeks ago at Sugar Maple Farms when I was bartending a wedding as a favor to Lou’s friends. The woman—Kayla—was funny and gorgeous and had a smile that could stop a man’s heart.
But her eyes weren’t smiling.
And she was engaged.
That meant off-limits… even if she was looking for a way out.
"I almost wish I’d catch him cheating," she told me that night, her fingers absentmindedly twisting the massive diamond on her ring—too gaudy for a woman so classy.
I could’ve told her from experience—that’s a terrible way to end things.
"Sounds like you’re looking for a reason to leave him," I said.
She shrugged, but the haunted look in her eyes said so much more.
An intense gaze behind her caught my eye, and I noticed a polished, too-handsome man—the kind of handsome that comes with a Swiss bank account and a whole lot of zeroes—sitting at a table twenty feet away, watching her like a man who had never been told no.
So even though I shouldn’t have said anything, even though she wasn’t mine to save, I opened my mouth.
"The way I see it, wishing you had a reason to leave him is all the reason you need."
"But we make so much sense on paper," she said.
And that, I understood.
Serena and I made sense once, too.
We were from the same town, the same social class (the bottom). I’d been practically helping her raise her daughter from the time she was a baby. By the time we were standing at the altar, Dakota was three, calling me Daddy.
I should’ve seen the cracks—the way she flirted with other guys, tested my limits.
I did see them.
I just didn’t believe I could stand up for myself, for a change.
"Making sense on paper is a relief for future readers, I guess," I told Kayla. "Not sure it’s workin’ too well for you, though."
And she laughed.
It was so unselfconscious, that laugh, and so generous. It could make a guy feel like a million bucks.
Did her fiancé know what he had? Was he as addicted to that laugh as he should be?
Or was he even capable of earning it?
One look at him told me no.
But I couldn’t dwell on that.
As much as I was drawn to Kayla, I wasn’t going to flirt. I would never pursue someone who was with someone else, engaged or not.
Not after what happened to me.
Not after I found out my fiancée was cheating on our wedding day.
Her ex storming into the church, announcing that the last few months weren’t just a fling—that he wanted her back, begging her to leave with him.
And she did.
Took him on the honeymoon I paid for.
I was such a fool. I should’ve walked the first time she betrayed my trust, but I loved Dakota too much to do anything but take the punishment and clean up the pieces.
That’s what I do.
I wait. I endure. I pick up the messes people leave behind.
I thought that would make it all better.
So when Serena showed up at my bar months later, pleading for another chance, telling me our daughter needed me, I let her kiss me.
And for one stupid second, I almost believed I could live her lie, that I could live with the broken pieces.
But the next morning, when my dad and brother cussed me out for even considering it, I told her to meet me at the bar.
And I ended it.
"The next woman I kiss will be my wife."
Her laugh cut me to shreds.
"Right, like you of all people could wait to kiss someone till you’re married? That’s a joke. You need love like most people need oxygen."
And maybe she was right.
Maybe she still is.
It’s been over a year, but the scar hasn’t faded yet.
On stage, Patty and Lou’s final note rings through the venue, shaking something loose in my chest.
The crowd erupts, and a flash of movement catches my eye.
"What do you want to happen?" I asked Kayla that night.
"That wasn’t clear from my wish?" she asked, swirling ice around in her glass. "You’d make a terrible genie."
I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my face.
I wouldn’t pursue her.
But not responding to her wit, her spark, the way she made the world seem more vibrant?
Impossible.
"Let me rephrase: what are you going to make happen?"
That took her off guard. I could see it in her body language—the moment she realized she wasn’t trapped.
She had choices.
When her fiancé came over to the bar to whisk her away, I watched.
Watched her go. Watched her leave with him, even when every part of her screamed that she didn’t want to.
I watched her like I watched Serena walk out of that church.
But Kayla isn’t Serena.
She’s not wearing a ring while looking around to see who’s noticing her.
In fact, she ain’t wearing a ring at all.
She’s dancing with Lou’s friends, her head tipped back in laughter, that big, beautiful smile lighting up her whole face.
Her laugh cuts through the noise and the music and the crowd like a shot to the chest.
I remember it from that night. The way it wrapped around me, how it made me want to say something just to hear it again.
But she isn’t twisting that big, ugly ring anymore. She wanted a reason to leave.
And now?
She left.
I lean forward before I can stop myself, but she doesn’t turn. Does she even remember me? I shift my weight back, hesitating.
The logical thing would be to stay put. To do what I’ve always done.
Wait. Watch. Pick up the pieces. Play defense. Because that’s what goalies do.
We don’t chase the puck. We don’t take the shot.
We hold the line. We protect what’s in front of us.
But then I hear her laugh, and my pulse kicks up like I’m already moving.
I feel like I’m in the crease during the last playoff game of the season, staring down an opponent with only seconds left on the clock.
But this time, the puck isn’t coming at me.
It’s out there.
And for the first time in a long time—maybe ever—I don’t want to guard the net.
I don’t want to brace for impact.
I want to chase the puck down.
I want to take the shot.
I’m not content with waiting.
Not anymore.