I walk down the hall twisting the ring on my finger and when I walk into the small sterile room and he gives me a loopy smile I fight tears. “Thanks for not dying.”
He laughs but it’s a heavy sleepy sound. “You kidding? I got Tenley Garrison to admit she’s in love with me. I’m not going anywhere.”
He holds up an arm and I climb onto the bed, careful not to jostle his leg, which is elevated on a pillow and wrapped up with gauze midway up his calf. I kiss his cheek. “I love you.”
“So did you mean it?” he whispers into the top of my head. “Do I really not have to divorce you?”
“You weren’t supposed to remember that.” I sigh and with every beat of his strong heart against my ear on his chest I feel myself calming down. “It would be crazy to stay married.”
"Well, no one ever said we were sane."
I smile. “Let’s just concentrate on recovery. For now.”
The truth is, I don’t care if we have paperwork or not, I know Nash is the only man who will ever have my heart. I don’t know if I said till death do us part, but I feel it. In my soul.
Epilogue
June - Nash
“You’re killing me, Westie,” Tate mutters while chuckling. That gets me to stop pacing for the first time since he told me his dad was on his way over twenty minutes ago. “Sit down before you screw up that healing leg of yours. Give those crutches a break.”
I frown but sit on one of the chairs on the porch next to Tate. He offers me a beer for the second time and I shake my head with the same answer as last time. “I have to be sober when I talk to him.”
“One beer, dude,” Tate replies, then pauses as a thought comes to him. He smiles, his eyes crinkling in the corners. “On second thought, I should probably save the beer for Dad. He’s gonna need a drink when you’re done with him.”
I try not to let the panic already flowing through my veins surge. Tate’s just being a jackass because that’s what friends do. I flip him the bird and he laughs. “Please don’t say you’re going to stick around to chirp me?”
“Hell no.” Tate shakes his head and sips his beer. “I don’t want to be a witness to whatever act of violence my father is going to inflict on you.”
What the actual fuck? My eyes widen and my mouth drops open. Tate laughs harder. “Seriously, dude. I love you but fuck right off, okay?”
“Okay. Sorry.” Tate sips his beer again. “You’re looking for a lifetime with my sister, so I thought you loved getting teased relentlessly. My bad.”
He grins again and I flip him the bird. Again. Down the sloping front field of the old restored farmhouse where Tenley lives, and I have been to while visiting, Jordan Garrison’s Rivian truck turns onto the drive and my heart tries to escape my chest again. “When is Ten coming back?”
“Not till later. She went dress shopping in Portland with Mac, your other female cousins, and Mac’s sister and her mom,” I explain as I start to get out of the chair again. It takes me a minute, because the doctor doesn’t want me to put my full weight on my leg yet and I always fumble with the crutches when getting up off furniture. “They were going to stay for dinner too.”
"Okay well…" Tate gets up out of his chair as his dad parks near the barn, which the Garrison family converted into a gym and guest apartment. "I'm gonna go upstairs, but I'll listen for gunshots."
“Seriously, Tater Tot, fuck off,” I hiss as my blood pressure spikes again.
Tate waves at his dad, ignoring me. Jordan nods at his son. “Don’t run off Tate. I have something I want you to hear from me.”
Tate turns away from the screen door and looks at his dad skeptically. “Please say it’s good news.”
“I think so…” Jordan climbs the stairs to the porch. “Achilles has been fired.”
“Whoa,” I say, followed immediately by a sigh of relief. I had no idea how to handle that situation, but I knew it had to be handled. Problem was that Tenley refused to talk about it to anyone, especially not the police, which is what I wanted her to do. Her family too.
“Because of Tenley?” Tate shakes his head as soon as the words leave his mouth. “I mean because of what he did. To Tenley.”
His Dad nods. “Yep. As it should be.”
“He told them?” I ask, stunned.
“Nope.” Jordan rubs the back of his neck and looks around the porch. He spots the cooler by Tate’s vacated chair and walks over. “I told them. And your dad made a call to their owner. And Devin and Luc talked to his team’s general manager.”
He pauses, pulls a beer out of the cooler, and offers it to me. When I shake my head he twists off the cap for himself. “And I also heard a couple of players called the union hotline and tipped them off to issues with Coach Achilles.”
