Rewind It Back (Windy City, #5)(134)

“I remember everything about us.”

“When I learned you still had the mixtapes and I saw the tattoo, I thought maybe it could be.”

“The house has always been yours, Hallie. Ours. It was just waiting for you to come make it a home.”

She laughs this small disbelieving sound, but still she’s emotional. It’s sweet and beautiful and vulnerable. So much more vulnerable than she was when we first ran into each other again a handful of months ago. It’s my soft girl I grew up falling in love with.

Watching her allow herself to feel what she needs to feel seems so much bigger than her simply shedding a few tears.

Hallie leans in and kisses me, whispering against my lips, “How lucky am I to have been loved by you for fifteen years now?”

“What do you say we get to work on making that number so high we start losing track?”

She smiles against my mouth. “I think we can do that.”

“Happy birthday, baby.”

“Thank you for making it my favorite one yet.”





Epilogue


Rio


Two Months Later

“Hey, guys. Come on in.” Opening the front door, I let a group of my teammates into my house to join the party. “Food is in the kitchen and drinks are in the coolers out back. Help yourselves.”

As I greet each of them, they look around the place. Other than Zanders, none of my teammates have been here since renovations began and this new home has become unrecognizable from the hockey frat house they’re used to.

Every time someone new walks in the door, I get to enjoy watching their reactions to my girl’s work. Hallie turned blank white walls into the most beautiful home I’ve ever seen. It’s warm, inviting, and comfortable. It’s a family home now, as it was always meant to be.

Before I leave the entryway, I grab a planter from the front porch to use as a doorstop because I’ve answered the door too many times today. And this housewarming party is more of an open-door, everyone-is-welcome kind of thing anyway.

The house is packed, and the backyard is full of our friends, my teammates, and a few neighbors. The renovation got wrapped up about two weeks ago, but between our playoff schedule, Ryan’s playoff schedule, and the Rhodes brothers being in the middle of baseball season, whether they’re playing or coaching, it took some time to land on a date that worked for everyone.

But the house . . . fuck, the house is stunning.

The renovations were supposed to be done a few weeks earlier, but once we got home from Boston, Hallie and I had some honest conversations about the future we saw in this house. There were no more attempts at roundabout ways to make sure Hallie was designing her dream home. It was straightforward conversations about the kids we hope to have one day, what would work best for us when our families wanted to visit, and what we as a couple wanted our home to be.

The house was already headed into the family-friendly territory with the renovations anyway, but we took a few more weeks to make sure it was right for our future family.

On my way to the backyard, I find Hallie in the kitchen with a few of the other players’ wives and girlfriends, showing them all the features she packed into it.

Leaning my shoulder against the wall, I watch her.

She’s wearing this stunning smile as she gives them a tour of the cabinetry she chose, the new appliances, fixtures, and hardware. When they ask, she tells them all about the countertops and backsplash. About the lighting and the floors. She even shows them the coffee corner but gives me full credit for that.

She’s fucking beaming and I love that. I love that she’s proud of herself, and I love that this house is everything she wanted it to be.

I also love that it’s hers.

She catches me watching out of her periphery and those freckled cheeks turn a sweet shade of rose. Slipping away from the group, she finds her way to me.

“I’m showing off your kitchen.”

I wrap an arm around her waist, pulling her into me. “Our kitchen, you mean.”

Hallie finally moved in with me after construction wrapped up, and it’s been like a dream waking up with her each day.

It is a dream, I suppose. The one we dreamed of years ago that’s finally come to fruition.

“Our kitchen.” She tilts her head back, chin on my chest. “Have you talked to your mom yet?”

There’s nothing weary in Hallie’s gaze when she mentions my mom, only pure excitement and love. They’ve been so good since that visit to Boston. My mom treats her as her own, just as she used to, and with Hallie’s own mother no longer in the picture, I can see how much it means to her to have that type of relationship back in her life.

I think the two of them talk on the phone more often than my mom and I do, and when she came to visit last month, my mom spent most of that time with my girlfriend instead of me.

It’s been a massive relief to see the two most important women in my life heal their relationship with each other and get to the place they’re at now. The same place they were six years ago.

“I haven’t talked to her yet,” I tell Hallie, running my hand down her spine. “I’m going to go do that now.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“Do you want to come with me?”

She shakes her head no. “I think that conversation should be between you two, but I want to make sure she knows I’m on board for it.”