It was unreal.
She moved through the first song effortlessly, all energy and presence, as if nothing could touch her up there. When it ended, she pulled her mic closer and took a step back, letting the guitar hang at her side as the music faded.
“Hello, LA!” she called out, voice bright and breathless.
The crowd went ballistic.
She grinned, tucking her hair behind her ear. “As you probably know, this is the final stop of my tour.”
A wave of groans andnooosrolled through the audience.
“I know, I know,” she said, laughing. “I’ve had the most marvelous few months sharing these nights with you. I’ll never stop being grateful that you show up, that you care, that you listen.”
The fans screamed louder, and she let it ride out before strumming a soft chord on her guitar.
“But tonight’s a little different.”
A hush fell over the crowd as people recognized the tone shift.
“I’ve spent my whole life living through lyrics,” she said, quiet but clear. “Pouring myself into songs and chasing the next thing. For the first time…I want to figure out who I am outside all that. Not because I’m walking away from it forever, but because I think I’ve earned the right to slow down. To be still.”
Silence stretched across the room. Not the awkward kind—the reverent kind.
“I’ll always write music,” she said. “That’s never going away. But I don’t think I’ll be performing like this again. Not for a long time. So tonight, this show…it’s kind of a goodbye, at least to this version of me.”
Another strum. Another beat of silence. Then, the crowd erupted. Screaming. Crying. Chanting her name.
I blinked hard. Damn it, I was about to fucking cry. I was supposed to be the tough football guy, but watching her say goodbye to this life with that kind of grace—on her own terms, in her own words—hit me in a way I wasn’t ready for.
She wasn’t walking away from something. She was walkingtowardsomething. And I got to be part of whatever that was.
She closed her eyes, soaking it all in, then shifted into her next song—her and the guitar, no lights, no backup vocals, nothing flashy. Just Ellie, stripped down and honest.
I leaned against the railing and let the music fill me, let her voice settle in my chest the way it always did—warm, steady, and a little cracked in the places that made it real.
She wasn’t pretending anymore. She wasn’t performing a version of herself to keep everyone happy.
She was her. And she was enough.
FIFTY-THREE
Ellie
Life was settlingdown in Woodstone, the kind of slow, quiet rhythm I didn’t know I needed until I had it. For so long, I’d measured my days by red carpets and call times. Now, it was the chirp of birds in the morning and the hum of the coffeemaker in his—our—kitchen.
Sawyer had finished the last round of renovations on the house, and every now and then, I caught him standing in the middle of a room, arms crossed, like he couldn’t believe it was real. Sometimes, I couldn’t either. He brought that place back to its original glory and added a few new elements to enhance it. The exposed beams. The creaky floorboards he refused to replace because they had character. The living room couch we definitely broke in the night it arrived. Everything was coming together perfectly.
I’d called it his house once, and he’d gone full offense about it, acting like I’d insulted him.
“It’s our home,” he had said, dead serious, holding my face in both hands.
I hadn’t called it his since.
For the Super Bowl champion party I’d promised him, I even made sure the invitations read ‘Ellie and Sawyer’s house’—just to keep him happy.
Leaving San Francisco was bittersweet, but not a single part of me regretted it. Rachel landed a job faster than I expected, probably thanks to the glowing letter I wrote about how she could organize international chaos in heels. She swore she’d visit soon, and we still texted daily.
My parents were off on their long-overdue retirement trip somewhere in Greece, sending me blurry selfies and photos of every meal they ate. Sawyer had asked me what kind of decorations they liked and then went out of his way to put together a guest room with framed photos of me as a kid, a lavender candle my mom used to burn, and the fluffiest pillows on Earth.
