She laughs before pressing a soft kiss to my chest. “Fine, I’ll pay you.”
“Keep the money,” I whisper, lips brushing the top of her head. “I’ve already got what I want.”
Outside, the world is still headlines and meetings, but right now, in this quiet space with her tucked against me, there’s only one truth left: Whatever comes next, we’re walking into it together.
Epilogue
Alycia
One Year Later
The snow outside the Timberwolves facility glitters like it hasn’t learned how cruel the world can be. It blankets the sidewalk in soft white drifts, collecting along the edges of streetlights strung with Christmas garlands. The air is chilly, settling deep in your lungs and waking every nerve it touches. I pull my scarf higher as I make my way toward the entrance, watching the flakes land on my coat like tiny, perfect confessions.
It’s almost a year since the headline storm, the garage photos, and the world’s sudden conviction that they could decide the shape of us. Since I thought stepping into this building would swallow me whole. This building felt like a battlefield. Every corridor was a land mine, every meeting room a trap, but I’m not the same woman walking up the steps. I’m the woman who survived it all. Not because I was strong every moment or somehow found a hidden reserve of resilience when the world tilted sideways, but because, for the first time in my life, I didn’t have to do it alone. Now I’m thedirector of community partnerships. I’m leading a city-wide outreach initiative the franchise has never attempted before that was built brick by brick, sleepless night by sleepless night.
And somewhere during all that, the narrative changed. Not when the first photos leaked, but when Kyle released the video that flipped the story on its head. Before that, the media noise was irritating but manageable. After his video, it was a wildfire. Reporters lurked outside the facility. Sports networks looped his words like gospel. Commentators were suddenly very invested in whether the Timberwolves protected their staff.
Janine and the rest of the PR team moved fast, issuing a controlled statement clarifying the timeline and shutting down every cheap narrative. And the GM called me into his office to say,“We back our people. We don’t let headlines rewrite the truth.”That was the moment everything steadied. The world stopped trying to define us because the organization had defined its priorities first.
Inside, the warmth hits me immediately, a faint smell of pine from the enormous Christmas tree in the lobby. The facility feels familiar now in the way a heartbeat does. My badge dings at the turnstile, and a security guard I’ve known for years nods and gives me a small smile.
“Alycia, you’re early.”
“Big day,” I answer, though that’s the understatement of the century.
This morning is the presentation for the new program I want to start after the first of the year. It’s kept me awake more nights than I can count. Kyle brought me herbal tea, tucked a blanket around my shoulders, and massaged the tension from the back of my neck. He sat with me through the breakdown I tried so hard not to have. He reminded me that perfection isn’t survival and that I don’t have to prove my worth by breaking myself in half. And that’s why I wanted to see him one more time before I walked into that boardroom. I’d hoped to catch him at the rink this morning, but when I stopped by, practice was in full swing, and interrupting the team felt wrong.
The project I’m pitching today—the Community Ice Access Initiative—is the culmination of everything I’ve been pushing for since the day I became more than an intern PR tried to protect. Discounted youth ice time. Equipment grants. Therapy access for players and families. A real investment in the city. It’s the kind of work I dreamed of doing long before I had the power to pitch it.
I exhale, stepping deeper into the lobby. My boots echo against the polished floor as I stroll past the walls lined with framed photographs from the last few seasons. Kyle had a rough start to this season, but somewhere around game fifteen, everything clicked. The team has been carving its way through the standings ever since.
I pause in front of one photo: Kyle with his brothers on the blue line, the four of them shoulder-to-shoulder,stitched together by blood and something even deeper, and I touch the frame lightly. Loving him a year and a half later feels even more dangerous than it did that night in his doorway, but also like something I can lean into without falling apart.
I pull my hand back, inhale once, and hit the elevator button before I can overthink it. The doors slide open with a soft chime, and I step inside, carrying all the nerves and hope humming beneath my skin.
“Alycia… hold—damn it, hold the door!” Kyle’s voice crashes into me like a heartbeat that’s been missing too long.
My hand shoots out on instinct, stopping the doors just before they seal. Kyle is standing there, breathless and slightly flushed from running, the ends of his hair damp from morning skate. He steps into the elevator, and everything inside me pulls toward him with the force of gravity.
“Morning,” he says, and his voice drops straight through me, laced with something he’s not hiding at all.
“Shouldn’t you be at practice?” I tease, because it’s safer than leaning forward and pressing my mouth to his.
“Yes.” He grins, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly. “Cooper saw you swing by the rink earlier. He called me in the middle of drills and said—his exact words—‘Get moving, dumbass. She didn’t come down here before sunrise for fun.’”
The elevator doors close, sealing us in a quiet thatfeels too intimate for this tiny, metal space. The air feels threaded with a tension I haven’t felt in months.
“Are you okay?” He exhales, but the tension doesn’t fully leave his shoulders.
“Better now,” I whisper.
He steps close enough that the air shifts, and my lungs feel full of him. He smells like clean laundry and whatever cologne he wore the night we said I love you in a room that felt too small to hold the world we were choosing.
“I know you’ve been stressed. I’ve been trying to give you space… but I’m terrible at pretending I don’t want to be near you every second.”
He exhales as if he’s been holding that breath all morning. His hand lifts, knuckles brushing along my jaw, slow and reverent.
“You don’t have to pretend anything.” I step into him fully, the elevator shrinking around us. “Not with me.”
