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She makes a sound that’s half laugh, half sob, and throws her arms around my neck, and my mom’s crying again, and I stand in a hallway with the two most important women in my life holding onto me at once, a national championship medal still around my neck, a draft conversation still ringing in my ears, and I think about the sound from this morning one more time — two heartbeats, steady and separate, still somewhere behind my ribs where I carried them the whole game.

This is what all of it was for.

Not the trophy. Not even the draft, not really.

This. Exactly this.

My mom pulls back first, wiping her face, laughing at herself. “Look at me. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.”

“You’re allowed to do this, Mom.”

“I know. I’m still going to be embarrassed about it tomorrow.” She squeezes my arm once, the same brief, grounding gesture she’s given me my whole life. “I am so proud of you, baby. I hope you know that. Not just for tonight. For all of it.”

Margo’s still holding onto me, quiet now, her head against my chest, and somewhere in the noise of the hallway — teammates celebrating, parents crying, reporters angling for postgame quotes — I hold both of them and let myself feel the whole scope of the night settle in. Championship. Draft. Two heartbeats that changed the shape of everything before the puck even dropped. Cash’s fight still unresolved somewhere down the hall, a whole story I didn’t know existed until tonight. Wren, quietly finding him first. Beau, coaching from a bench he wasn’t allowed to play from.

Everything I built. Everyone I built it with.

I don’t know yet what tomorrow looks like for Cash, or what Wren’s going to do with whatever she’s carrying now, or what the summer’s going to hold once the draft actually happens. I don’t need to know all of it tonight. Tonight I just get to stand in this hallway with a medal around my neck and the two women I love most in the world holding onto me, two more heartbeats somewhere behind my ribs where I’ll carry them for the rest of my life, and let that be enough.

It’s more than enough. It’s everything.

Chapter 37

Theo

Sloane mentions it like it’s nothing.

“Your future father-in-law’s in town,” she says, catching me in the Raven House kitchen on a Tuesday afternoon, grabbing a water bottle out of the fridge like she hasn’t just casually detonated a piece of information I clearly wasn’t supposed to hear yet.

I stare at her for a second. “You know about Richard being — you know we’re —”

“I’ve known since New Year’s Day, Theo.” She says it lightly, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I walked in on you two in the kitchen at the party. I never said anything because it wasn’t mine to say, but I’ve known this whole time. So yes, I know exactly who Richard is to you, and ‘future father-in-law’ felt accurate. Beau mentioned Richard flew in yesterday.”

“Margo didn’t say anything.”

“Maybe she doesn’t know.” Sloane shrugs, unbothered, already halfway out the door. “Or maybe he wanted to talk to you first. I don’t know, I’m just the messenger.”

I stand there for a second, turning that over. Richard doesn’t do anything without a reason. If he’s in Haven and hasn’t told Margo, there’s a specific shape to that silence, and I think I already know what it means before my phone buzzes with a text confirming it.

Richard

Got a minute this afternoon? Just us.

We meet at the same coffee shop where he and Margo had their conversation weeks ago, the one with the mismatched chairs. He’s already there when I arrive, two coffees on the table, mine black, which either means he asked someone or he remembered from Charleston. Knowing Richard, it’s probably both.

“Theo.” He stands, shakes my hand, the same firm litigator’s grip I remember from the back porch in Charleston. “Thanks for making the time.”

“Course.” I sit. “Margo doesn’t know you’re here.”

“Not yet.” He settles back into his chair, folds his hands on the table. “I wanted to talk to you first. Man to man, before I bring her into it.”

I brace slightly, not sure what’s coming. Richard reads that on my face, apparently, because something in his expression softens.

“It’s not bad news,” he says. “Quite the opposite. I found a place.”

He pulls out his phone, opens a set of photos he’s clearly gone through carefully, and turns the screen toward me.

“New development, about twenty minutes from campus. Access-controlled — key fob entry, security on-site, cameras in the common areas. Modern build, finished about eighteen months ago, everything up to code and then some.” He swipes through a few more photos. “I looked at six different buildings before I settled on this one. This was the best combination of safety, space, and location.”