Page 167 of Power Play
He didn’t try to fix me. He just kept showing up. With pastries. With jokes. With patience. And I see that now. Ifeelit now.
The fridge hums. A car honks outside. Somewhere down the hall, Murphy groans in his sleep and rolls over.
I sip my coffee and smile.
We’re not perfect. God knows, we’ll probably fight about laundry and his weird hockey superstitions and whether or not his team group chat is a cult. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Loving someone despite the mess. Maybe evenbecauseof it.
I glance at the suitcases again. Maybe today I unpack. Maybe not. We’ve got time.
He gave me the space to come back when I was ready. And I am.
So ready.
I walk down the hall and crawl back into bed, sliding under the covers. He stirs but doesn’t wake. I curl into his side, press a kiss to his shoulder, and let myself rest.
For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I’m falling.
I feel like I’ve landed.
Murphy shifts beside me, his arm coming around my waist like muscle memory.
“You always this sappy in the morning?” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep.
“Only after Cup wins and life-altering sex,” I whisper, kissing the underside of his jaw.
He chuckles, low and warm. “Guess I’ll have to keep winning Cups, then.”
I nuzzle closer. “Guess I’ll have to keep letting you.”
He goes quiet for a beat. Then, “You know, I used to think love had to be loud. Big gestures, dramatic declarations, shouting into the void kind of shit.”
“Yeah, well,” I say, threading our fingers together, “the void doesn’t make coffee.”
He laughs again, but it fades into something gentler. “I like this better. Waking up next to you. Fighting the coffee machine. You stealing my hoodie and half my bed.”
I lift my head to meet his eyes. “I like it too.”
Murphy brushes his thumb across my cheek. “We’re okay, right?”
“We’re more than okay,” I say, and I mean it. “We’re us.”
He pulls me in and presses a kiss to my temple. “Then I’ve already won.”
EPILOGUE
MURPHY
Three Months Later
There’s a specific kind of peace that comes with off-season mornings. No early morning alarms, no screaming coaches, no bruises to ice before breakfast. Just sun pouring through the windows, a stupidly expensive mattress I will defend to the death, and Sophie half-asleep on my chest, drooling.
I mean that in the most loving way possible.
We’ve settled into something that feels suspiciously like a real life. We bicker over laundry. She steals my hoodies. I pretend not to notice she rearranges the spice rack weekly as if it’s a personal vendetta. She says I snore; I claim slander. Normal. Domestic.
Blissfully boring.
So naturally, that means something is about to blow up.
