The Rest of the Story

by Tal Bauer

“I—” I could barely fucking speak. “I need them to be okay. I need them all to be okay.” “They will be. Love your way through this. Prosecute that fuck until he’s rotting in prison. Then hold on tight to each other. You all will heal, day by day. Moment by moment. It gets better. You get better. I promise you that, baby. Life gets better.”

“Then be here. Be here when he opens his eyes, and when he texts, and when he calls you on the phone. Be here, because you didn’t fail him, Lawson.

I repeated what my mom told me. “Hold on to each other, and you both will heal. Day by day. Moment by moment. It will get better, if you’re here for him.”

Brody threw himself off the couch and into his parents’ arms, wrapping them both in one huge hug. A second later, he was crying, his back bowing as he sank into them, our nineteen-year-old NHL star going right back to his inner five-year-old who needed his mom and dad to make everything better. They held him fiercely, rocked him back and forth, and Owen said, “We’re here, son. We’re here.”

Looking at the three of them, I couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. They huddled together, holding on, refusing to separate, like they could share the love they had for each other in a loop, never ceasing, never ending.

It’s a big thing to recognize inside yourself that there are lines you will not cross, and that even if someone can push you hard up to the edge, you won’t go over.

Shea was posted up at the island, sitting on his barstool, and he helped slice vegetables as he flirted and shot me bedroom eyes and blew me kisses when he thought no one was looking. Of course, half the team was, and they wolf whistled him and called him a minx as he pursed his lips around a cherry tomato.

If I hadn’t stretched myself and found a new horizon I could traverse within my soul, I wouldn’t be basking in this perfect day, inside all the unbridled joy of these men, men who I was damn proud to call my teammates, my friends, and, more than that, my family. I wouldn’t be in this chair, holding my husband’s legs across my lap and watching the sunlight slide across his freckled face as my heart skipped and skidded.

You are everything to me, Shea. You are my mornings and my midnights, my days of sunshine and my nights of candlelight. You are my everything, and my love for you has no end.