Epilogue

Epilogue

Zach

Four years later

It’s halftime of the football game.

We’re in the locker room, listening to a pep talk from the coach, though it’s hardly necessary, since we’re up by thirty points. No way I was letting anyone past me tonight. When I told my coach the plan for halftime of tonight’s game, his only condition was that we be ahead by a significant amount—and I’ve made it happen.

Now, I turn the ring box over and over in my helmet, mentally reciting the words I’m going to say when I ask Jill to marry me. I’ve been wanting to ask her my whole life, so I should know the damn speech by now, but she deserves perfection. I’m going to give it to her.

God knows she’s given it to me.

The rest of our senior year of high school was…risky.

Living in our parents’ homes while being completely obsessed with each other posed a lot of issues. And frequently led to me fucking Jill against the side of her house in the middle of the night, desperately trying not to wake the neighbors or her parents. Or in the locker rooms during school hours. Or in the bed of my truck under the open sky.

When we moved into an off campus apartment freshman year of college, the obsession never ebbed, it only grew, but at least we didn’t have to sneak around anymore. They gave me a full football scholarship, so my college fund went toward renting our one-bedroom and thank God. I couldn’t have dealt with another second of sleeping apart from Jill.

My coach gives me the nod to leave the locker room and my teammates bash my pads as I walk by them, others high fiving me. They all know what’s about to happen, because they’re my friends—and friends are a lot easier to make now. My heart is the same as it was four years ago, but my self-confidence has grown exponentially. I don’t look at my large body as a negative now. How could I when the most perfect girl on the planet begs for me to pleasure her with it on a daily basis? No, it’s all positive now. This body is why I’m getting a free education, which in turn allows me to live with Jill. It’s part of me.

And it’s not the only thing about me, it’s just how I look.

I’m also studying to be a teacher.

I discovered my knack for teaching kind of by accident. Our first year in college, Jill was nervous about how she’d perform academically. It turned out that all she needed, all this time, was the right tutor. Of course, it took us hours to get through a minimal amount of work because she liked to get rewarded for right answers with kisses. Which always led to more, since I liked to give those kisses between her legs.

She loves learning now.

Plus, we realized I had good ways of simplifying concepts. Now my major is education and Jill’s is, too, although her goal is to be a cheer coach. And she’ll do it, because she’s my amazing, talented, beautiful, enthusiastic girlfriend and she can do anything.

Even make a guy like me see himself as a king, instead of a monster.

Now I’ll make her my queen.

The crowd cheers when I walk out onto the field, although there are some confused murmurings when my team doesn’t walk out behind me. The cheerleading squad is on the far sideline, drinking water after finishing their halftime performance. And I don’t have to search hard to find Jill across the field. Even if she wasn’t wearing her signature big, red bow, I would know her location blind. Her heart…it reaches out and pulls me in. She’s my other half, the keeper of my soul, the love of my life.

When I stop behind her on the sideline, Jill’s friends start to elbow her, alerting her to my unexpected arrival, so I don’t waste any time getting down on one knee.

The stadium roars, whistles piercing the night, phones flashing.

Jill turns, brow quirked, and sees me. Sees the ring box in my hand. She stumbles back a little, pompoms flying to her cheeks. She mouths my name and then she’s already nodding yes, moisture pooling in her eyes.

Yes.

She’s already saying yes?

That means…I can’t lose. God, she’s going to be my wife. I can’t believe it.

As planned, one of the sound technicians hands me a microphone and I speak directly into it, clear and steady. “Jillian Harding, I’ve loved you my whole life.” I have to speak louder over the excited noise the crowd is making. “It’s not only a privilege to love you, but you made me love myself, too, when I didn’t know how. I’d be honored if you’d be my wife and spend your life with me. Laughing, having kids, growing old. Let’s do it all together.”

I open the ring box and she holds out her shaking hand, allowing me to slide the teardrop diamond, surrounded by emeralds, onto her finger.

She takes the microphone and says an emphatic, “Yes!” into the top, that single word winging its way around the stadium and sending people into a frenzy. With my heart about to burst out of my chest, I stand and lift her into my arms, twirling her in a circle, her mouth latched onto mine. And I know the next seventy years are going to be heaven. Because I’ve got my angel and I’m never letting her go.

“I love you, Zach,” she sobs.

“I love you, too, Jilly Beans.”

THE END

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