Page 62 of A Summer Thing

Epilogue

Declan

Three years later…

Cannons of confetti explode, raining down rectangle shapes of paper in green, black, and white.

My throat is scratched raw from screaming, but I don’t let up, a stream of tears running consistently down my cheeks.

The buzz of excitement—of awe, happiness, and utter glee—lights me from the inside out.

The stadium is in an uproar, and the cheering and screaming of fans is so loud I can hardly hear Elijah’s words when he’s standing right beside me. He drapes his arm over my shoulders and points his other hand out in a vague direction, out toward the sprawling field.

“There’s Jude! Right there!” he shouts again, and this time I can hear him through a momentary dip in the thunderous noise.

I search through the mess of fans and confetti and players, trying to find Jude’s face out on the field.

When I finally spot him, his helmet off and his inked hand raking through his sweaty, confetti-sprinkled hair, I squeal.

“I see him! I see him!” I bounce on the balls of my feet and jump out of Elijah’s hold, racing down the short set of stadium steps until I crash into the barrier, bracing my impact with my two open palms. “Jude! Over here!” I scream and wave my arms high above me so he can see.

He jogs through the chaos, dodging people left and right, still searching for me in the crowd. When he finally sees me, too, waiting for him just past the sideline, his grin widens so much I have to clutch at my heart for fear of it splitting wide open.

My heartbeat is timed to each of his steps as he fights his way through the crowd to get to me.

Seconds that feel like an eternity.

And then he’s standing in front of me, a few feet beneath me on the grass below.

Reaching up, he pulls me down into his arms and lifts me clear over the barrier. I wrap my entire body around him, squeezing the absolute shit out of him as more tears spill down my face.

“You did it! You did it! You did it!” I repeat, again and again, but I’m not sure he can hear me.

He just won the Super Bowl—the fucking Super Bowl —with his team, and I can hardly believe it. Except that I can believe it, because it’s Jude, and he’s always been capable of amazing things.

My bundled-up body slides down his uniformed one as he lowers me to the ground.

And we just stand here in bewilderment, staring at each other with a matching sheen in our eyes while dozens of other stories unfold around us.

Parents, grandparents, husbands, wives, partners, children, friends, families, all celebrating, and crying, and laughing, and losing their minds.

“Holy… actual… fuck,” I say, and I’m pretty sure a similar set of words shapes his mouth, too.

Taking his hand in mine, my smile as wide as his, we run out onto the field like we’ve planned to do. It never mattered whether he won or lost, we wanted to soak this moment in regardless. It makes it so much sweeter that his team did win, though.

Confetti continues to rain down around us, the open stadium still pouring down bits of paper in black, green, and white.

It completely litters the floor now, blanketing the ground in color, and we lay down in an open space with our arms spread wide, making angels in the mess of it.

Our laughter is drowned out by the sounds of the screaming crowd and celebrating families, but it still feels so loud, so prevalent, when I can feel his laugher vibrating in his chest where my hand lies against it, wrapped firmly in his.

I tilt my head sideways, mirroring the movement of his, and our gazes collide.

The gray hue of his eyes somehow looks both lighter and darker at the same time under the stadium lights—a lightened, more sporadic sprinkle of confetti floating down around us like feathers softly making their way to the floor.

Breaths heave in our chests, clouding the air directly in front of our faces, and Jude’s eyes glisten with a sheen of tears, crinkled at the corners with his smile, his lips parted in a moment of pure, unfiltered happiness.

I imagine my face looks exactly the same, my expression reflecting his.

All the same feelings bubbling to the surface, and a disbelieving laugh falling from my mouth.

“Congratulations, Jude. You did it,” I say the words with extra force, and I know he hears them this time when I watch his mouth form around the words, “We did it, baby. We did it.”

I shake my head at him, my smile permanently glued to my lips.

This was all him, but I’ll accept his acknowledgment all the same.

A piece of confetti lands on his nose, and I laugh, reaching over to pluck it off when his hand catches mine.

He brings my fingers to his lips and kisses each one.

It’s an achingly slow process. His mouth meeting each pad with a careful tenderness that has my heart clenching, a smile adorning the curve of his lips.

My ring glints against the stadium lights, and his gaze catches on the shine, his smile tugging higher.

He proposed to me last week. A quiet, intimate moment in the privacy of our home. Me, in scrubs, and him, down on one knee, surrounded in a sea of candlelight, the storm of his gaze leaking tears down his face as he asked me to marry him.

“Delcan—my love, my world, my entire existence. My five summers and every day since. Will you make me the happiest fucking man on this earth, and marry me?”

The whisper of his soft, gruff, tear-filled words weaves through my mind, lifting me in their embrace as Jude pulls me into his.

I smile, my blue eyes caught in an ocean of gray. Still turbulent, still raging with emotion, and all mine.

Tucking a wave of hair behind my shoulder, he shifts slightly above me and dips his head down, his lips brushing softly against my ear. “My team just won the Super Bowl, but this week will always be the best of my life solely because you said yes.”

I glide my hands over his cheeks and press my mouth to his. Kissing him deeply, thoroughly, and with every piece of my heart that belongs to him. With every minute, every breath, I’ve spent loving him.

He lifts himself, pulling away, my face framed by his palms. And as his lips slowly curl into another deep smile, my words get caught in my throat.

The moment is surreal, unreal.

“Declan, baby?” His gray gaze swims into the depths of mine. Confetti still floats sporadically in the air and completely litters the floor around us.

“Yes?”

“Thank you for being the best thing to ever happen to me.” He says it reverently, with awe, like his happiness has nothing to do with the craziness happening around us, and only everything to do with me.

“Thank you for the same,” I tell him, because it’s true. I met him, and life bloomed into full color. When before, everything existed in shades of gray.

Seven years ago, I left home in search of a fresh start.

In Jude, I found forever, instead.