Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Peter Ralmadue walks in and pauses, eyes lifting to the “Happy Divorce Day” banner and then darkening. “What is–”
“Shut it, Quasimoto,” Grams snaps. “This was just about to get to the good part.”
Peter’s mouth hangs open, but he stays silent as Jake returns his eyes to mine.
Jake licks his lips and lowers down on one knee. “Caroline Prince… er, Summers… Will you divorce me?”
My eyebrows squeeze together, and confusion blooms in me. “Um…”
He smirks. “Because I wasn’t done dating you….”
“Oh,” I whisper.
I see Mia doing little happy tippy-taps and silently opening her mouth like she’s about to scream.
“Yes?”
There’s a roar of clapping as Jake slips the wedding and engagement rings from my finger. I feel sad as I watch him take the rings away. Fake or not, I’d gotten used to wearing those. He slips his wedding band off and hands it to me as he tucks my rings in his pocket. “I think it would be smart if you held onto that…”
Hope blooms in my chest. I bite my lip, nodding as Jake stands and pulls me in tight.
35
EPILOGUE - JAKE
Waiting has been hard as hell. Without hockey, time has slowed down in the best kind of way. I miss being on the ice as much as the other guys, but we still get together and scrimmage all the time. But now that I don’t have meetings, travel, practices, and all the recovery and treatments that went along with the NHL season, it feels like I have all the time in the world.
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying that time, too. I officially moved into the B&B with Caroline. We kept my apartment in Manhattan for vacations, and she has been steadily adding a “feminine touch” to the place, one piece of furniture at a time. She seems to really love decorating it, so I don’t complain.
Mostly, though, I just spend my time here at the bed and breakfast. I’ve been surprised by how much help Caroline can actually use on an average day. I still don’t know how she did all this alone for so long. Some mornings, I help with guest check-ins, which can happen at any point, even when she’s elbow-deep in wet dough and making breakfast. Despite her protests, I also hired a couple of teenagers from town to help her with all the cleaning. Between all the guest rooms, the cleaning alone was a full-time job Caroline tackled alone. Of course, she also seems to have some town event planned about every two weeks, which is a another separate plate of work to manage.
As if that wasn’t enough, we have Walker, who is two years old now. He’s firmly in the “trying to off himself” at any moment stage. He requires constant supervision and has an endless appetite for play, which isn’t so hard to manage. Andi loves bringing Amelia and Jude over for play dates. The B&B has become like a second home for them.
All the guys except Liam have also bought houses here in Frosty Harbor to enjoy their retirement.
Maddox started a blog about supernatural mysteries. He spends a lot of time researching, which I think is actually code for watching YouTube videos. I’m pretty sure he has about six or seven regular readers, but he seems happy and content with what he’s doing, so none of us give him shit for it.
Carter signed up to coach for the Frosty Harbor High hockey team. I wasn’t sure if he’d be serious enough to take on a real job like that, but by all accounts, he’s doing amazing. The kids love him, and the team is doing better than they have in decades. It also gives us something fun to do as a group when the kids are playing.
To everybody’s surprise, Liam started an advertising business, of all things. I never even knew he was into that, but it seems to be doing well. He apparently runs marketing campaigns for young filmmakers. As he puts it, it’s part online marketing and part word-of-mouth tactics. A big part of what he does is try to help them secure funding to get the movies made in the first place. After that, he does his best to excite people for the release. The work always has him traveling, but he seems happy doing it.
Cade is already getting contacted by all the major junior leagues across the globe. I connected him with my charity, which I’ve finally had more time to be involved with. He will almost certainly wind up in the NHL himself in a few years. That’ll make him our second NHL graduate from the program.
Needless to say, getting everybody gathered in one place was even more of a challenge this year than it was for the divorce party last year. But it’s Caroline’s thirty-sixth birthday today, and I’ve planned something extra special.