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EPILOGUE

Luke

T en Years Later

“Great game, Coach.” Coach Raves shakes my hand. My former and still current coach of the New York Flash. “See you still don’t have any qualms about having your guys toss mine into the boards.”

I chuckle and shake my head. “All is fair in love and hockey.”

He claps me on the back and steps back toward his team’s vacant bench. “See you in a few months when we have home advantage.”

“You’ll need it.”

He flips me off over his shoulder, and I grab my jacket, tablet, and take off toward the locker room. A few of my players are still filing off the bench with excited chatter between them. Another win in our belt for the season.

As I walk down the tunnel of our home rink, I hear a high-pitched, excited cheer up ahead and spot a bouncing five-year-old decked out in Colorado Mountaineer gear, high-fiving each of the players as they file into the locker room.

“Sick hit!” he chirps at Kantor, one of our top defensemen. “I was hoping that guy would wanna fight you.”

Kantor taps his gloves against my son’s extended fist and shakes his head. “Wasn’t feeling a fight tonight, kiddo. Maybe next time.”

“Promise?”

“Killian,” I call out when I see him giving Kantor puppy-dog eyes. “You can’t make my players promise they’ll take penalties for your entertainment.”

“Daddy!” he squeals and bounds over to me, his favorite light-up sneakers streaking against the black carpet. I crouch down as he throws himself into my arms, and I pick him up. “You won!”

“We did.” I smile and carry him back down the hall. “Did you have fun watching the game with Grandma?”

He nods emphatically, knocking some of his dark brown hair into his eyes. “But she didn’t want anyone to fight.”

I chuckle at his obsession with hockey fights. It’s grown more in recent months and something my wife isn’t all too pleased about. He’s been itching to drop gloves in his own pee-wee league, and we’ve had to have many talks with him that just because he sees the big boys fight, doesn’t mean that he needs to.

And plus, goalies don’t drop their gloves.

“Grandma’s right,” my favorite voice calls out, and I turn to see my wife striding toward us with her mom at her side. “Not every game needs to end in a fight, right?”

Killian sags in my arms. “Right.” I ruffle his hair and set him down. He immediately takes off into the locker room, where I’m sure he’s going to go find Kantor once again.

With my arms now free, I can properly greet my wife. I snake my hand around her back, beneath her navy-blue blazer, and pull her in for a quick kiss.

We’ve seen each other all day, but I can’t exactly kiss my assistant coach while we’re out behind the bench during games. As the first couple to coach on the same NHL team, we try to make sure we keep it professional. And for Lennon’s sake being one of the only female coaches in the league, I would never want it to undermine what she’s worked so hard to achieve.

And to think she once thought she’d spend her life behind a desk, running numbers and doing taxes.

“Good call on switching up the special teams tonight when they pulled Rodroski,” I tell her when we break apart.

“Louie’s head wasn’t in it tonight,” she says. “Could’ve cost us.”

“Agreed.” I smooth a hand over her bulging belly. “And how is baby girl feeling after that win?”

Lennons sighs and holds her lower back. “She’s quiet now, but I’m sure when I’m trying to sleep later is when she’ll decide she needs to celebrate.”

“Two more months,” my mother-in-law assures her. “You’ll forget all this pain and want to do it all over again once you hold her in your arms.”

Lennon rolls her eyes and levels me with a serious look. “Not happening. Two and done, right, babe?”

“Right,” I say then wink at Rose, who hides her smile from her daughter.

Lennon scoffs at the both of us. “I miss the times when you didn’t even like him.”

Rose looks affronted. “I never disliked him!”

She totally did.

It took almost a year for her parents to come around to the idea of us being together. While her dad, Cameron, was a fan of mine back when I was playing, that did nothing to win him over when it came to his one and only daughter.

They didn’t like how our relationship started, the fact that I was divorced, and twelve years older. But as time went on and we proved to them that what we had was real, they slowly came around.

And when we got married six years ago, Rose even danced with me during the mother-son dance I couldn’t have with my own mother.

Now, her and Cameron have moved out to Denver to be closer to us to help out with Killian, and soon, Evelynn as well, while Lennon and I work with the Mountaineers. It’s been nice having family close by since mine still lives back in Michigan.

Lennon checks her watch. “We should get going. I’m sure your dad and brother already have the barbeque going, and they better not eat all the ribs before we get there.”

We each stop by our respective offices to grab our things, collect Killian from where he’s play-fighting with a few of the players in the locker room, and get the car loaded up.

My dad, Seb, Sierra, and their three kids are all visiting this weekend to celebrate my dad’s birthday. Since it’s the middle of the season, and with Lennon being in her third trimester, we couldn’t make it back to Michigan to celebrate there. So since we had a matinee game today, we’re having a cookout and small party tonight back at our house for him.

The drive home is quick, and the moment the car is parked in the garage, Killian is unbuckling himself out of his carseat and tugging on the handle.

“I wanna go play, hurry up!”

“You need to say please?—”

Lennon clicks the locks, and the next thing I know, Killian is running in front of the car and into the house. I look over at my wife. “I was trying to teach him manners.”

“And I’m trying to have a moment of peace,” she counters with an exhausted sigh. “Just a small one before we go face the chaos.”

Rose clicks her seatbelt and opens her door. “I’ll go see what I can help the boys with.” The door shuts, and we’re enveloped in perfect silence.

Lennon leans her head back against the headrest, her chocolate-brown hair still styled in perfect curls down her shoulders.

“You know, we have a moment to ourselves now…” I trail off and squeeze her thigh.

She immediately holds up a single finger. “Nope. Not again. You already got what you wanted in the shower this morning.”

“I think you wanted it, too.”

She rolls her head to look at me. “Damn straight. But my feet are swollen, and my back feels like it’s on fire.”

I lean across the console and press a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll massage them tonight once we get Killian down.”

She smiles contentedly. “I love you.”

“Love you too, baby. Now, we have a party to get to.”

Our house is full of chatter the moment we step inside, even though it’s just a family party. Killian races around with his cousins upstairs, the sounds of their footsteps pounding against the ceiling.

My dad, Lennon’s parents, and Seb and Sierra are all gathered in the open kitchen that feeds straight into our living room. Hockey plays on the TV mounted on the wall, and the door to our patio is open, letting in the springtime breeze and also the smell from the smoker.

“I need food, stat,” Lennon calls out as we walk inside, and Sierra hands her a loaded plate.

“Figured you’d be ready to eat.” She smiles.

“You’re a godsend,” Lennon says, pulling her in for a quick hug before accepting the plate and heading over to the table.

“Didn’t have anything ready for me?” I ask, faking sorrow.

Sierra rolls her eyes and playfully shoos me away. “You’re a big boy, you can get your own plate.”

Seb hands me one as our dad uncovers the tin trays full of food they’ve been keeping warm. “Eat up, everyone! Get your food before the kids realize it’s time to eat.”

Everyone fills their plates, and I stop by my dad at the end of the line. “Happy birthday.” I wrap my arm around his shoulders and squeeze him into my side. He pats my stomach with a weathered hand, giving me a look filled with pride when we pull apart.

“That was a good game today. You and Len have done good work with those boys.”

“Thanks, Dad.” He never misses a game, and each night when I step off the bench, I know my phone is going to be blowing up with his notes on it.

Seb steps up beside us. “Gotta work on your power play, though. No shots on goal in both attempts? Sad, sad work.”

“At least we still won,” I jab back. “What’s your team’s record this year?”

“Shut up,” he mumbles and reaches for something on the back counter. “Alice sent this for you.” He holds out a white-and-pink knitted dragon. “For Evelynn.”

Looks like her sister still has her knitting business going. “Thanks.” I take the plush from Seb. “We’ll send her a card.”

Killian has a matching red-and-blue dragon that Alice sent as a baby gift when he was born. Like everyone else in our lives, she wasn’t happy with the idea of us for a long time, and when we got married, Lennon fully expected our invitation would be ignored.

But she showed up to support us on our special day, and ever since then, we catch up once a year or so. Our relationship will never be the same as it once was, but it’s nice to still have her be a part of our lives.

I set the dragon off to the side so it doesn’t get dirty from the food and join the rest of the family at the table. Everyone chatters away, and eventually, the kids realize they’re missing out and come bounding down the steps. Seb gets up to help them all fill their plates before they squeeze in at the table with the rest of us.

I’m exhausted from the full day I’ve had already, but sitting here surrounded by our family, I feel utterly alive.

There were a few years where I thought my life was over. Thought I’d never find purpose again. Never find joy. And while part of me still wishes that my career didn’t end the way it did, the outcome of it was worth it. The things I thought were the most important goals I’d ever achieve all pale in comparison to what I feel when I look at Lennon, belly full of our daughter-to-be and our son perched on her lap. She glows, the brightest beacon, the strongest flame that stoked my own back to life.

I never knew what true happiness could feel like. I thought it was on the ice. In the heightened adrenaline of a game.

But that was never the ultimate goal. This, right here, with my beautiful wife at my side and creating a family with her, this is it. What I was searching for when I couldn’t even see a light at the end of the tunnel.

My wife was right. Maybe everything does happen for a reason.