Epilogue

Three Years Later

I leaned against the doorframe,arms crossed over my bare chest. In these moments of total silence, when the summer heat surrendered a little, and my life settled, my gaze would search for Asher.

He reclined in the backyard, a glass of white wine in one hand, big, dark sunglasses decorating his face, his other arm hanging over the armrest. His elegant fingers floated through the air as if he was listening to music. There was none. The only sounds for miles around us were the crickets and the rustling leaves on a warm gust of wind.

Asher was facing away from me and a dozen paces between us concealed the fact that I was observing him. Watching him was my favorite thing, especially when he was lost in his thoughts and clueless about my gaze kissing him.

He lifted the wine glass and pressed it against his lips. After taking a small sip, he placed it in the grass in the back of Dad's lake house. We had gone for far too long since the last time we had spent more than a few days here. The home I had built with my father and the place where Asher and I allowed ourselves to finally feel all that we had been holding down, this house was charmed with memories.

Dad had lived here for nearly a year after finalizing the divorce, but the remoteness was more of an inconvenience than it was what he had needed at the time. He'd moved back to the city and undertook a massive expansion project in his firm. After that, the house was empty most days.

Asher lifted his floating hand and moved the locks of hair from his brow. He'd let his hair grow since the winter holidays. The long, wavy locks often fell over his eyes, and Asher developed a habit of running his fingers through the thick, light brown curls. It was a minute gesture that warmed my heart whenever I noticed it. It was the same as when he fixed his sunglasses by touching the lower left corner and pushing them higher on his nose.

If he knew I watched him do these things, he would ogle at me all confused.

Even this thought made my heart flutter a little.

I picked up my glass of red, a solid quality dry wine with dominant rich and earthy notes, and carried it across the backyard to join my love. He dragged the sunglasses from his eyes to the top of his head, trapping his beautiful hair in place. Shooting me a curious smile, he lifted his left arm, and I took his hand in mine. Then, I lowered myself to the second recliner. Our hands held together, we enjoyed the sounds of nature and solitude. After so much hustle and bustle, this felt like Heaven. I could sit here all night, never saying a word, and be happier than I had ever been before. So long as I was with my favorite person, I was content. "Dinner's in the oven," I said.

"Mm." Asher's contented hum was music to my ears. He loved my cooking and I loved making him happy.

We lifted our wine glasses and let their edges touch, then took a sip each. This year, the small wine collection in the basement was growing faster than we could deplete it. Playing for the NHL after a gap year of hoping for a better contract following my graduation meant I could afford these little treats that enriched our evenings. It also meant that our evenings together were more precious than any time before.

In the first year of dating, Asher and I had found ourselves in a brand new reality, but we had both known how fleeting it was. We'd had a year to drink all the pleasures we could from our proximity. After I graduated, Asher still had two more years of college. His junior year had been easy compared to what would follow since I hadn't landed a favorable offer that whole season, and I could stay in the city with him. But this past year had been tough on us. I had been traveling with my new team whenever I wasn't on the verge of exhaustion with drills and conditioning. It was the crescendo of everything I had wanted to achieve, but it pulled me away from Asher, who had stayed at Northwood, captaining the Titans. The title he'd gotten in his final year had made me beam with pride for months. Even now, it hasn't completely worn off.

The swimming shorts Asher wore appeared dark red in the waning sunlight. They were all he wore after rolling in the grass with me an hour ago. Right there, to my left, was the spot where life-changing truths had come out in a moment of drunken carelessness. Three years later, I dared him to wrestle me again, but Asher refused. "Wrestle? Why would I ever want to do that when I can pin you to the ground in a much more satisfying way?" And that was precisely what he had done.

"Can you believe it?" I mused. "You graduated with excellent marks. We share an agent. And we get to be up here all alone like real life is just something we do when we feel like it."

Asher chuckled. "Is that how you feel? About life?"

I rolled my big, round shoulders. "When I'm here with you."

He narrowed his eyes in thought. "You're right. It's almost like we get a break from it."

We were silent again, enjoying that break from real life. After a while, I let my gaze drag all over his sexy body. The summer tan was beautiful on him this year. "Do you ever get nervous?"

He bobbed his head left and right. "I would if I didn't have you." A small frown creased his forehead. "If I had to start over on my own, new place, new team, I think I would be terrified."

I listened and nodded.

Asher sucked in a shallow breath of air and shot me a curious look. "Do you realize that the only time I had to go into it on my own was when I was thirteen?"

"Really?" I hadn't thought about it.

He snort-chuckled. "I fell in love with you in that diner after the first cold look you shot me, so I just had to start playing hockey, too. But after that, when I joined the Titans, you were already there." His smile widened. "Northwood, the team house, all of it was familiar because of you. Your stories made me want it."

"Back then, I didn't know I had that power," I said.

"No, you had no clue," Asher agreed. Thinking about that unavoidably reminded me of Eileen, my former stepmother and the person who very nearly put an end to this relationship in its infancy.

I had forgiven her for the things she had flung at me in anger easily enough. None of it had mattered once I'd found Asher behind the team house and promised him my heart. Asher, on the other hand, took his time with the process. To this day, things weren't as they had once been. In some ways, it was better for Asher that Eileen wasn't the highest authority on all things right and wrong. In others, I worried that he missed his mother, but he couldn't completely get over the injustices of that one terrible day.

The thing Asher hadn't yet realized, but I knew, was that whenever Eileen treated me well, Asher's opinion of her grew more positive. If I pressed him on it, he would probably reject the idea, but I knew it without asking. His distant, faded anger wasn't for anything she had said to him. He grudged her words against me.

We let the evening pass as if we had nothing else to do. It was like meditation in that it left me feeling whole afterward. We ate, cleaned up, had more wine on the porch in front of the house, and talked about the future rather than the past.

Often, I remembered some moments from Northwood and certain people who had never truly left my life, even after we had drifted across the map. Beckett and his family, starting with Caden and extending far out with all the relations that came along the way, were often the first people to hear all the news from my and Asher's lives. His old roommate, Phoenix, and his blind-date-turned-fiancé were in that group, too. We stayed in touch with all the Titans from our time at Northwood. We watched their career paths change, their lives take shape, and their futures grow brighter.

We were lucky. All of us. Even when some dreams died, others burst to life. We all had a place to call home and people to call friends. And what mattered most of all to me, I had a man to call mine.

When Asher and I locked up the house and went upstairs to the bedroom we had remodeled to fit our needs, I watched him undress for bed. He was flirtatious and joyful as he stripped down to his underwear, knelt on the bed, and crawled toward me with a determined look in his eyes. "That dinner was delicious," he purred.

"Was it?" My voice was as deep as ever.

"It's only fair if I bring the dessert." The wolfish grin on his face was enough to take my breath away. When the long, wavy locks fell over his brow and the sides of his face, I was his. I swept him around until his back landed on the bed, and my body was on top of his.

Asher laughed out loud in surprise, never getting used to my speed, and my heart stumbled at the sound he made. That happy laughter that had hardly changed throughout the decade of knowing him was everything I had ever wanted to hear. It was the sound that gave me life. It was worth every fight and struggle. It was the laughter I would go to battle to protect.

When I kissed him, feeling like I had never kissed him before in my life and like we were doing everything anew, I understood once again what it meant to have a family and a home. It wasn't this place and it had nothing to do with blood or paperwork. He was my whole world. It was as simple as that.

"I love you, baby boy," I whispered over his sexy lips.

"I love you more," he teased.

For saying that, I tickled him until he screamed. He wouldn't get to compete with me there.

We rolled in the bed, playing with and pleasuring one another until our bodies were spent. Even then, I couldn't stop holding onto him. We had gone through the tough days of separation and obligations. No more. I wanted him with me. And if it didn't happen in the year to come, he would just travel with me anyway until we could make it work for us both.

I knew, deep in my bones, that we were set for life. It was as natural to me as expecting the sun to rise again tomorrow. Asher and I. What else could there ever be? Without him, it all became meaningless. But when Asher batted his long eyelashes at me and shared a smile that punched dimples in his face, my heart was full of so many warm, incredible feelings that I had to wonder how they all fit in there.

I held him as we dozed off. In the slumber during the night, with the scent of his shampoo entering my nostrils, I dreamed the sweetest dreams. And like always, those dreams were pale and faded compared to seeing him in my arms when I woke up. No dream of a happy future could match reality.

Asher and I had carved for ourselves exactly the future that we wanted. All that was left for us to do was to enjoy every moment of getting there.

The End.