Epilogue

Ant Decker

It’s been a long, lazy summer. The garden is more overgrown than it was, and now and again, we talk about doing something about it, but so far, we haven’t been moved to take action. Truth is, I’ve started to like how it looks. I’ve grown used to the soft tap of tree branches on our bedroom window when the wind blows from the north. There’s something protected and cozy about being surrounded by so much greenery. I’m not saying we won’t get to it at some point, but for now, we’re happy to drag the picnic blanket out into the back garden on warm afternoons and lie in the sun until we’re so sleepy neither of us can move.

We spent the first few days after we came out cloistered at my place. Bodie and Luddy came around that night and confiscated every device we had that connected to the internet. We spent two days in a complete bubble. Stacey flew out, the McGuires brought homemade meals over, and my mom and dad called every day for over a week to ask how the weather in Seattle was. Bodie printed out a long list of supportive comments people posted and made Robbie and I read through those twice before he gave us back our phones.

We both loved the gesture, and a media detox was definitely the right thing to do at the time, but you know what, now that it’s done and I’m out, it’s astonishing how few fucks I have to give about what anyone thinks.

I’ve got Robbie. What do I care about anything else?

Initially, we tried splitting our time between his place and mine, but we kept gravitating back to his house.

What can I tell you, my place is designer-y as fuck.

I’ve spent so much time at Robbie’s that I realized a while back that I live here. You’d think that realization would stress the hell out of me, you really would, but nah. Far from it. When Robbie said, “I’ve booked movers to move the rest of your stuff over here,” one random Saturday morning, I didn’t panic. I didn’t even break out in a sweat.

I just said, “Good idea, baby.”

Good idea, baby? Can you fucking believe it?

That was a month ago. Since then, we’ve had tradesmen here patching the roof and fixing the porch.

We’ve hung out with some of the guys on the team and their families, we see the McGuires regularly, and Stacey’s been out to stay with us again. Beth and Bodie are such a regular feature they’ve claimed one of the guest rooms as their own. They’ve taken to bringing groceries when they come and whipping up meals together. Robbie and I function as taste testers. They’ve made it clear they don’t consider our cooking acceptable.

I guess they don’t believe hot chocolate is a meal, even if it is the best hot chocolate this planet has ever seen.

I’m sure some other things must have happened because it’s been months since the season ended. I just can’t think what they are off the top of my head.

What I do know is that Robbie and I have been home a lot. He’s been naked a lot. A lot, a lot. And when he isn’t, he’s wearing slutty socks with slutty shorts and boxy T-shirts that show a hint of his cum gutters when he raises his arms.

My blood pressure has been through the roof.

I’m amazed I’m still standing.

I’ve been a hot mess with one thing on my mind: Robbie McGuire. I’m almost as exhausted as I am in-season, and I’m definitely more dehydrated. At this point, I doubt I could tell up from down if you questioned me under torture, but ask me to draw a map of every freckle on Robbie’s body, and I swear, it’d be the easiest A I ever got .

That’s not to say we’re completely oblivious to the outside world. We’re aware life is going on around us. Just the other day, for example, we got a new neighbor, and we both noticed. Admittedly, it took a few days, but still.

It caused a bit of excitement because there was something familiar about him, something about the way he moves, or his frame. It took a minute for me to place him, and I couldn’t believe it when I did.

“Robbie!” I yelled. “Get your ass down here. You’ll never believe who just moved in across the road.”

Robbie took the stairs two at a time and made it down in record time, squashing himself next to me as we peered through the blinds like a pair of nosy neighbors.

He was as rapt as I was.

“Ben Stirling!?” he cried. “Ben fucking Stirling has moved in across the road? Oh my God. I can’t believe it’s him. We have to bake a pie and take it over.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure people only do that in the movies, Princess.”

“You could not be more wrong, Ant. My dad bakes a pie whenever a new person moves onto our street. He always has. It has to be done. It’d be rude not to. The only question is what kind of pie a legend like Ben Stirling would like. Apple or cherry. I don’t know…apple se ems like a neutral, hedge-your-bets kind of pie, don’t you think?”

“But, Robbie, we don’t know how to make pie.”

He looked at me as if I was bat-shit crazy. “How hard can it be?”

It turns out it’s very hard. We can’t bake pie. Baking is a science. We can barely make mac and cheese from a box, so when you think about it, us not being able to bake makes perfect sense.

We’ve asked Robbie’s dad to come over next week and help us with the pie, and in the meantime, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the comings and goings across the road.

“We probably shouldn’t spy on him,” says Robbie when he catches me at it for the second time today.

“Yeah,” I agree. “We shouldn’t.”

“We hate it when people are overly interested in our lives.”

“Yeah, we hate it.” I’m quiet for a while, but I can’t bring myself to tear my eyes off the scene playing out across the street. Ben is sitting on his front porch, as he’s done every day since he moved in. He’s lost weight since he played for the Blackeyes. His pale eyes are hollowed, haunted, with dark shadows beneath them. His son plays at his feet. Now and again, the boy says something, and Ben’s eyes soften.

Even though it’s nice to see a flicker of happiness on Ben’s face, that’s not why I’m watching. I’m not even really watching, per se. I’m waiting. Waiting to see if the same thing happens today as happened yesterday. “Robbie!” I yell when the scene begins to unfold.

Robbie’s head pokes around the doorway. “What’d I miss?”

“Nothing yet.”

He squishes next to me as we both kneel at the window and peer through the blinds, pressing our faces as close as we can.

Are we proud of ourselves? No. Does that mean we’re going to stop? Regrettably, also no.

The neighbor directly to the left of Ben’s house approaches from the guest cottage. He has a mop of dark curls that bounce when he moves, brilliant blue eyes, and a happy-go-lucky gait that makes it look like he’s listening to music as he walks. He pauses when he gets to the gate, looking down at his phone.

But he’s not looking at his phone. He did the same thing yesterday. And the day before.

He’s stalling .

He waits until the boy on the porch says something to Ben that makes him laugh loudly, and then he unhooks the gate and lets himself through it. He does an entirely mediocre job of acting surprised to see Ben sitting on the porch.

“See,” I say to Robbie, victorious. “What did I tell you? The boy next door has a thing for Ben Stirling.”

It’s a big day here. A huge day, according to Robbie, but I think that’s a little strong. He’s been limping around the house for the past two days with a huge bandage and a ream of plastic wrap on his side.

“You can take it off now,” I tell him again. “It’s been on long enough.”

Truthfully, he could’ve taken it off yesterday, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

“I’m recovering from surgery!” He breaks the word into three distinct syllables. “You can’t rush recovery, Ant. You know that. It takes time for the body to heal.”

“But you haven’t had surgery,” I remind him gently .

“Of course I’ve had surgery. I got punched by a needle ten thousand times, didn’t I? That definitely meets the definition of surgery.”

“You got a tattoo, Princess.” I laugh. “Now take that fucking thing off and show me what’s underneath it.”

The not-knowing has been killing me. I can’t wait to see the design he settled on.

He takes off his T-shirt and strolls over to the blue sofa. My brain briefly cuts out at the sight of him moving, half-naked, before me. He’s arranged the throw pillows just so and is lying back on them by the time it comes back online.

He stretches out, tucking a hand behind his head, and watches as I pick at the edges of the bandage and carefully peel it back. I expect him to look down as I unveil it, but he doesn’t. His eyes don’t leave my face.

I admit I’m a little nervous. Not nervous exactly, more like highly invested. There’s not an inch of his body I don’t love, and while I’m as much a fan of ink as the next guy, I’ve struggled to imagine a design that could possibly improve upon the perfection that is Robbie McGuire.

It takes a second to register what I’m looking at, then I bark out a laugh of surprise and my eyes fill with tears .

It turns out the bandage is at least three times bigger than it needed to be to cover the size of the design, and something tells me Robbie had a hand in that. The skin around the design is a little pink and inflamed, but it’s healing well. The placement is perfect, above his groin and to the left. Right where the muscle dips to form the V that leads to his cock.

I have things to say about what I’m looking at. Lots of things. I do. It’s just taking me a second to form the words because there, just above the waistband of his jeans, on one of my favorite parts of his body, is an image I know. An image I’ve seen before.

I recognize it immediately.

I should because I’m the original artist. It’s the image I drew in the steam on his vanity mirror months ago.

A tiny, wonky heart and a badly drawn ant.

A perfect addition to something that was already more perfect than perfect.

I wrap my arms around his waist and let myself melt into him, kissing and murmuring soft words into his skin. There’s something right about seeing the design on him. Eerily correct. Strangely familiar and good. I trace the outline of the heart and the ant with my finger and then lean down and kiss it .

His hand finds its way into my hair, blunt nails gently raking my scalp, sending a slow tremor of arousal through me.

“I did it, Ant,” he says. “I found something I’ll love forever.”