Epilogue

I still dreamed of skating.

Frigid air whipping my face, blades cutting into ice, stick soft under sweat-soaked gloves. The roar of the crowd—a mottled cacophony of cheers and boos and swears and taunts. The smell like winter cold and locker room perspiration, anticipation and fear, all rolled into one.

I even felt the tranquility embedded deep in my soul despite the high of adrenaline, the crash of my heart against my ribs, the heave of lungs. All so familiar, so real. So present. That pulsing rhythm of the game. Hockey. Life. Hockey. Life. Play. Win. Play. Win. Play. Win, win, win.

Peace, calm, rightness. This was where I belonged.

And then, I woke up.

To a pseudo-drunk fifty-seven-year-old man leaning half out over the boards to yell at the paunch-bellied ref about the audacity of his last call—and protest the number of alcohol containers allowed on the bench. Which, as it happened, was none. Try telling that to a drunk old dude halfway through a beer league game.

I bit down on a grin as I reached out to yank the guy back in by his jersey. "You want to get your beer taken away, Jones?"

"He's saying I'm drunk!"

"You are drunk."

Jones grumbled something incoherent, and I rolled my eyes. Beer league was a far cry from the world of pro sports. A far, far cry. A different universe. A different lifetime, for sure.

But when our wing and center hurtled forward into the offensive zone with the puck, and one of our defenseman took advantage of the break in play to hop onto the bench for a line change, I vaulted over the boards with a huge smile cracked over my face.

Cold air whipped against my cheeks as my blades cut into the ice. My stick rested easy in my sweat-moist gloves, ready for a pass, a poke check, anything that came my way. In the stands behind me, the tight knot of spectators—wives and friends and kids—whooped and stomped the bleachers with sudden ferocity as the play reversed direction.

Towards my net.

I spun backwards to face the other team's oncoming rush. Breathed in the cold of ice and the musk of locker room sweat, and I skated like it was game seven of the Stanley Cup finals. Because, why the hell not? I loved this fucking sport. Hockey was life. Always.

We won.

I was still smiling as we lined up for the handshake. A bunch of my teammates thumped me on the back. Couple of the guys on the other team gave me good-natured shit as we tapped gloves, cause none of it mattered. They'd all be out in the parking lot, shot-gunning beers with the refs within the hour anyway.

And that was what mattered. That we all shared the love for this silly, amazing game.

I was always the last one off.

In part because I always volunteered to pull the nets for the zam—I was the fastest by a lot and the least drunk. And in part because I never wanted to fucking leave, to trade the ice for solid ground. I could have stayed out there forever, like when I was a kid.

But I hopped off. Only to barrel into a lithe blond figure with his shoulder tipped against the boards. Waiting for me. A massive, cocky grin stretched over his distractingly beautiful face. "You smell."

"Will you still kiss me?" I crowded him into the glass, and he made no move to push me away as I leaned my head down towards him.

"Well, okay. Yeah." He pecked at my mouth, both of us smiling too much to make it a full kiss, then nudged me away to straighten up off the boards. "I like the half-shield."

"It fogs." I tapped the butt of my stick against the new plastic shield across the upper part of my helmet. "But this guy I love is worried about protecting my pretty face, so …"

"Oo, tell me about this guy." Bowie fell into stride next to me as I headed for the locker room. "Is he cute?"

"Don't you have somewhere you're supposed to be?"

He laughed. "I was thinking of sitting naked on the exam table of this hot doctor I know. Like, maybe he'll walk in and be all outraged and shocked and then rail me anyway cause he's sexy and likes my body."

"Wouldn't count on it." I tipped a shoulder against the wall outside the locker room. I wasn't ready to go in—to leave him—yet. Or ever. Good thing I didn't have to. "Doctors can be so uptight."

"One day, Sullivan," he sighed. "One day."

"Don't you have a hot new boyfriend or something?" I tilted a brow towards him. "Maybe your hot boyfriend wants to take you to his condo and rail you there. Maybe in the shower?"

"Ooh, or on top of the washing machine!" He clapped his hands. "For the extra vibration."

"Or in bed?" I bit back my smile. "Like normal people?"

"Boring."

"I'm old-fashioned," I huffed.

"You're old."

"You'll still do me."

He sighed, donned an expression of faux disappointment for a moment, then grinned again. Dragged his eyes from my skates to my helmet. "Accurate. Very accurate. But, I have dinner plans first. And aren't you supposed to call your mum?"

I groaned. "Yeah. Right."

He was the one crowding into me now, melding his hard, honed body against mine. "Don't forget, you said you were going to introduce us."

I layered a kiss onto his nose. "Yup. You regret it yet?"

"No way." He vibrated with excitement against me. "I love meeting parents. I'm good with mums."

"Sure. Right."

He pecked me on the mouth and stepped back. "Go shower. I have a hot boyfriend to cook dinner for and I don't want you to make me late."

As per, I couldn't decide between a groan and a smile.

Bowie hummed as he took control of the kitchen. I'd gotten used to watching him bustle around, in that silly pink apron and his oven mitts, some ridiculous tune on his lips and Brady bopping at his heels, waiting for him to accidentally-on-purpose drop a bite of chicken or a hunk of bread.

It was the most heartwarming, adorable thing I'd ever seen. It made my big, cold, rich-bachelor condo feel like a home. And I loved it. I could barely tear my eyes away long enough to head for the couch in the living room.

I paused beside the far wall to peer through the window to the bright fall evening stretched across the city below. Clear blue skies, dimming as the sun tucked into the horizon. Light traffic dotted streets lined in silver and steel. Intermingling with trees highlighted by orange and red leaves, a reminder that nature lurked right around the corner.

More pieces defining the place that had well and truly become my home.

The place I was meant to be.

I smiled and leaned over the coffee table to grab my laptop, take it back to the kitchen island. My business class popped up to meet me as I opened the computer. Brady trotted over to bring a chewed-up, partially beheaded stuffed clown to keep me company.

"What are you doing?" Bowie left the stove to come stand beside me. His head tilted as he studied the screen. "Business class? Still? I thought you finished it."

"Sorta." I wrapped my arm around his waist and hauled him to my side. "I'm making sure they'll send me a certificate saying I passed the damn thing."

"So you can start your own practice." His blond brows furrowed, so I leaned in to press a kiss to the closer one. Smoothing away the worry lines. He was too young for worry lines.

"No. Just to say that I did it." I kissed his temple, his cheek. "I'm not leaving the Bobcats."

He turned towards me, green eyes round and wide as fat coins. "Really?"

"Really." I bowed my head and pressed my mouth against his. Spoke the next words against his lips. "This is where I belong. With the team. With hockey. With you."

He groaned.

Melted like chocolate against me as my tongue slid between his lips. God, I would never get used to him—the way he could be so hard and so soft at the same time. Muscle and tenderness, smooth skin and sharp lines. The taste of him, like mint. The smell of soap and aftershave.

All of it perfect and inviting and mine. Mine.

I broke off the kiss as it started to tip the scales from tender to lusty. Slid my nose along the line of his cheek to his jaw. "Have I told you that I love you today?"

"Well, I mean, yes." He chuckled against my throat. "But tell me again. In case I forgot."

"I'll settle on, my God you're sexy and I might forget about dinner and blow you instead."

Something poked me in the kidney. I looked down. Bowie was jabbing at me with a goddamn spatula. "Bad, Kitty."

"You don't want me to blow you?"

"No, you're still going to blow me. Twice, for being a bad Kitty and cause I haven't seen you wank in two days. But after we have a nice dinner that I have spent hours cooking."

I laughed, and opted not to mention that he'd been in the kitchen for ten minutes. "Deal."

"I need you to fall in love with this new recipe." He grinned as he swept around the counter and to the stove. "My ego is feeling neglected."

"It's not," I sighed, but I knew I'd indulge him anyway. He was an excellent cook, but I loved him enough that I might have believed he was, even if he wasn't.

I needed to close the chapter on this stupid business class, though. Print the certificate saying that I could open my own practice. If I wanted to. Would make staying with the Bobcats that much more meaningful—because I was choosing to stay. Because I could walk away anytime. And didn't.

Why would I?

I loved hockey. I loved the team. I loved Bowie. And I knew, as sure as I'd ever known anything, that I was where I belonged. In life, career, love.

For the first time, my house felt like a home—looked like one. I hadn't thought about it much since Bowie had moved in, but now that I was, the difference was both subtle and shocking.

Maybe it was the collection of sticks in the corner—three of them clearly taller than Bowie's rather haphazard arrayment of brands he was trying out. Or the slippers popping out from under the TV. The forest watercolor Bowie had dug up at a garage sale and hung on the wall opposite that weird stock-printed Pier 1 tree. Or the framed Bobcats team photo on the bookshelf next to the TV stand.

Beside it, another framed photo showed me and Bowie, arm in arm. Bowie grinning and me trying not to smile like an idiot right back. I was failing.

It was really fucking hard not to smile when he was around.

"You ready for tomorrow?" I toweled off the last dish in the rack. A few feet away, Bowie parceled leftovers into Tupperware containers, humming something a little too off-key to be identifiable. I didn't care. I just wanted to touch him. Hold him. Remind him I loved him.

Remind him he was going to kill it in his first season game as a Bobcat.

"So fucking ready." He turned to set the stack of Tupperwares into the fridge, and I slid in behind him. Wrapped my arms around his waist, pulled his back into my chest, laid my cheek on his hair. "You're gonna do great, baby."

I felt his smile in the way he relaxed into me. "Of course I will. I'm amazing."

"Your ego never ceases, does it?"

"Nope. Are you going to thank me for dinner?" A devious note slid into his voice. "There was talk of blowing?"

I laughed, ruffling his tousled blond locks. "Aren't we supposed to be meeting the team for some kind of non-alcohol-based outing? Bowling or something?"

"Yeah, but I'm needy." He arched back into me so his ass ground against my cock, and what do you know—I was also unexpectedly needy. "I feel that, Kitty."

I groaned into his hair. "I can't help it if you're sexy and I always want you."

"Well, why not have me?"

"Because." I curled a hand around his waist, letting my fingers flit under his shirt to trail the bare skin along the top of his jeans. He sucked in a breath, and that little gasp went right south. My plan was backfiring in the best way. "You are the one who has to go be a team player."

I let my fingers traipse down the front of his pants, brush the hardening ridge of his cock. His breath turned to a groan. "What team?"

"You tell me." I dropped my lips to nibble his ear and trail soft kisses down the line of his neck. Flattened my palm against him and pressed down. He was definitely hard now, and his hips rocked into my hand to steal friction from my fingers.

"Team can wait." He turned in my arms, so he was facing me. Which meant his chest pressed against me, and his very hard cock rubbed my leg. "My super hot, super serious doctor boyfriend promised me a blow job, and I have come to collect."

My cock ground into his hip, pulling a groan of need from my chest.

"Come is right." I dipped my head to press my mouth against his. Flutter kisses down his pulse, along his collarbone and onto his chest. Flick the bud of his nipple with my tongue through the soft cloth of his shirt, drawing out another hiss from between his clenched teeth.

Heat swept through me in a torrent of desire and need. I wanted him—always. Wanted to unravel him piece by piece while he unraveled me whole.

My fingers were already tugging at the button of his jeans as I folded to my knees in front of him. To worship him the way he deserved to be worshiped. I was still incredulous that he was mine to touch and taste and please at will. Just the thought of it had my dick aching, begging for attention.

I slid his underwear down, trailing kisses down the sharp v-cut of his abs in the wake of the lowering cloth. Listening to his breathing turn ragged as I inhaled the soft scent of him. Fuck, everything about this moment was perfect—him and us, sex and desire and love.

I dragged my tongue down his shaft. Sucked him into my mouth, and the little oh fuck that followed had my palm pressing into the front of my jeans, fumbling with buttons in a sudden need to wrap my fingers around my swollen, aching dick. To get off because he was so fucking beautiful, and mine.

"Fuck, Jamie, I love it when you wank for me," Bowie murmured, digging his hands into my hair. His hips rocked forward, driving his cock further into my mouth. "It's so fucking hot."

It really fucking was. Neither of us would last long. Not like this, me on my knees for him, him rocking into me as I jerked myself in frantic strokes, but I'd drag it out as long as possible. Tease him, tantalize him. Bring us both to the edge, drive us wild with want and need and heady heat. Once, maybe twice—before I'd let us plunge.

I was going to come on the kitchen floor again.

Oh, well. We couldn't all be perfect.

We were over an hour late to the bowling alley.

Which, naturally, meant that when we walked through the door to find a handful of teammates gathered at the two lanes in the back corner of the otherwise empty building, everyone looked up.

Knew exactly what we'd been doing.

And cheered.

Bowie grinned like he'd just won the Tour de France or summited Everest—which I guess wasn't that far from the truth. I blushed so hard I thought my skin might catch fire, even though I was also kind of grinning.

We'd gone public with our relationship, told all the necessary people, signed the right forms, et cetera; I was an uptight doctor with a stick up my ass and a need to be professional, after all. I wasn't gonna do anything to jeopardize what we had. Not again.

Still, it was disconcerting as fuck to walk into a dim, sticky bowling alley—which probably hadn't been redecorated or fully cleaned since the eighties—to half a pro hockey team smirking ear to ear like they'd personally seen your O-face.

I felt as bashful as the high school goth kids that frequented this joint.

"That's great you can last that long at your age." Aaron slapped me on the back as we made our way over to their corner of entertainment.

I rolled my eyes. Hard. "Wait a couple of years, Tyler. See if you're still laughing."

"He's like a lion." Bowie curled his fingers over my hip. "Or a panther? A cougar! Great stamina. And a massive—"

"I could leave you here," I mused, slinging an arm across his shoulders to crush him against my side. "See what kind of stamina you have walking home alone."

At the top of the lane behind Aaron, Rowan ooed. His sharp grin was all predator, but the pink, sparkly ball poised in his hand dimmed the vibe a bit.

"You wouldn't leave me!" Bowie gasped, turning in my arms to cast wide green eyes up at me. "I'm so young and cute and vulnerable! There could be sexual predators! Or … coyotes!"

"I thought you were into that."

"No, I'm into cougars." His innocence faded behind a cocky grin, aimed for a killshot. "When they're tall, dark, handsome, and tattooed—how's your stamina feeling, by the way? Cause mine's—"

"Please stop talking," I groaned as Rowan hurled his pink sparkle ball at the pins hard enough to send two of them flying into the neighboring lane. "We're not doing anything here. Pretty sure people pay for sex in these nasty bathrooms."

"You want me to pay you for sex?" Bowie's brows pulled low. "That seems weird, cause you have more money than me—oh, you want to pay me for sex?"

I clapped a hand over his mouth. Aaron laughed so hard, Zac seized on his distraction to swoop in and steal his bowling ball—though I wasn't sure if he was laughing at Bowie's sexual quips or Rowan swearing up a storm about the lost pins.

Aaron raced after Zac. "Hey, I picked that ball out specifically to fit my large hands!"

Bowie licked my palm, and I let go with a yelp. He laughed, then plopped down into one of the seats dividing the lanes. Grabbed onto the pocket of my jeans and tugged. "Sit, Kitty."

God, he was adorable, and I loved him, and that should've been more concerning. Maybe he'd broken something critical in my brain?

I sat.

"How many sticks you think MacKenzie's gonna demolish this season?" JJ slung himself into the chair opposite me. "More or less than last year?"

"More," I said. "I'd put money on it."

Next to me, Bowie nodded his agreement. Rowan seemed nowhere close to an anger management breakthrough.

"How many hearts, that's the real question?" Rowan perched beside JJ, smirking in a way that transformed his normal scowl into a masterpiece of soft lines and eye-catching angles that definitely brought both men and women running.

JJ was unimpressed. "None."

Rowan kicked him in the shin, and while I stifled a laugh, Bowie sounded more like he'd choked on his tongue.

"Classy," I leaned in to murmur against his hair.

"I bet," JJ still focused on Rowan, "you get thrown off the ice for trying to start a fight with L?vgren … middle of the second period?"

Rowan's face closed up tight in a scowl like a clenched fist. "Fuck that little Norwegian asshat."

"He's Swedish," Bowie corrected, settling into his chair so his shoulder brushed mine. I bit back a smile at the subtle but deliberate contact.

"His Swedish-or-whatever-ness is not responsible for his asshattery." Rowan rolled his eyes. In his lap, his hands had clenched into fists, those scabbed red knuckles looking fresh.

Did he ever get tired of fighting?

"Well, your love of his asshattery is gonna get you suspended," said JJ, and he was kind of joking and kind of serious. "You gotta stop letting him get under your skin."

"Hey, question." Bowie tilted his head towards Rowan. "You ever gonna tell us what the Five-Donuts nickname is all about?"

Rowan looked mad enough to spit fire. "Fuck that little shit. One of these days …"

A whoop burst out from the lanes behind them. Aaron and Zac had settled their differences and were doing trick shots—which was nowhere near as impressive as it sounded, given that they were professional athletes rolling sparkle balls between their knees like kindergarteners.

Bowie might've been taking notes. This night was going places. There wasn't even any booze involved, and yet, I was worried that we might end up paying damages or cops before the outing was over.

Uptight doctor indeed.

"Well, whatever you gotta do to get your shit under control," said JJ, listing more towards serious than joking now. "Figure it out."

"Cavs tomorrow." Bowie sat up a little straighter, and his shoulder pressed into mine so a storm of butterflies took flight in my stomach. "We need to beat them or I'll never live it down."

He was joking, but I heard the conviction in his voice, too. The slight tremor lurking under his cheerful facade and that glorious accent. He was excited, nervous, still worried that even after all this proof, he'd still be an outcast. Still wouldn't fit in.

I wound my fingers through his and squeezed. Archie's grin crawled over his face, slow and sweet this time, and he squeezed back.

"Fuck yeah we do," Rowan growled. "L?vgren and his stupid Cavaliers are going down."

"Gotta show them what they're missing," I agreed, leaning into Bowie's shoulder to plant a kiss on his temple.

And what an amazing person we've gained,I didn't say aloud.