The Original Epilogue

He loved coming home.

Over the past ten or so years, leaving them had become harder and harder. What kept him going though was the knowledge he would be coming home.

He’d only been gone a week this time for an out of town pre-season camp.

The calendar on his fridge at home, the one that always managed to get synced into his phone, would tell him he was heading out of town again tomorrow. The calendar would also tell him the countdown until Ryleigh’s surgery in October.

After talking with her doctor, and then discussing it with him late one night, she decided to go through with a bilateral subcutaneous mastectomy. There wasn’t any way in hell he wasn’t going to be home for her during that time.

This was how he and Ryleigh lived the past eleven years. He’d spent more time on the road than he would have liked but whenever the opportunity came to come home, even if it were just for a few hours, Noah would take it.

He and Ryleigh still had their arguments of course, but if anything they were stronger now than ever before.

Noah grinned as he climbed out of his good-for-the-miles car, leaving his game bag in the back for the time being. He hit the garage door button to close as he entered the dark foyer.

He had news for Ryleigh. Sure, he probably should have talked it over with her before making a definite decision, but he knew Ryleigh well and didn’t think there’d be any problems.

The first thing he heard upon closing the door was giggling.

He glanced to the large Roman numeral clock Ryleigh leaned on the fireplace mantel. The only light in the room was from the moon so while he wasn’t one hundred percent sure, he was pretty positive the time read two.

In the morning.

He followed the giggling to the basement door and cracked it open.

The light was on.

He took the steps down to their finished basement, but called her name. “Myke.”

The giggling ceased and just as he finished descending the stairs, he was greeted by his ten-year-old.

“Daddy!” His oldest rushed to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Hi, Mr. Prescott,” came from the other girls. He looked around, noting the faces of the three others. Apparently Myke was having a sleepover.

He greeted each girl by name before looking down at his daughter. After running his hand down her long blonde hair, he took a good look at her face. Was that…?
“I know, I know,” Myke said, the eyes that matched his own rolling. “Mom said no, but then said I had to ask you, but I told her, duh, you’d let me wear it because I’m a girl.” She was referring to the stuff caked on her face. Her blush was heavy and her lipstick was definitely the wrong color. And who put on Mimi-blue eyeshadow these days? If this was going to happen, and damn, it looked like it was starting to, Ryleigh was going to have to teach her the art of subtlety. “Just ‘cause I play hockey doesn’t mean I’m not a girl.”

“I know, sweetheart, but you need to wash that off.” She was only ten, for goodness sake. She was also a damn good hockey player, he thought proudly.

“But da-ad.”

“Mykaela Grace.”

That was enough to make Myke over-exaggerate her sigh. “Fine.”

He chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “You guys should start to wrap it up. I could hear you upstairs and it’s late.”

Myke and her friends said ok and after his daughter kissed him on the cheek, Noah started to head back upstairs.

One child down.

He headed up to the second level of the house, hitting the dimmer switch to the main staircase when he made it to the landing. Next stop, the boys’ room.

Opening the first door on the left, he thought for sure both boys would be up. Their TV was on, the sound off, and the latest gaming system was lit up. However, neither boy was playing.

Noah stepped into the room and nearly tripped on the younger of the two.

Jonny was six and had a troublemaker streak a mile wide, but he was also his sweet boy. Although he had Noah’s personality, he was Ryleigh everywhere else. He had her blond hair, her blue eyes, her chin…

Scooping him up to bring him back to the bunk beds, Noah nearly tripped over Caleb.

Their second child was nine and named for him. Noah Caleb Prescott, Jr.

He was Noah’s carbon copy, and because of that, he could be quite the handful. He excelled in hockey and had a ton of friends.

More female than male, which was something that would have to be talked about soon, Noah was sure.

He stepped over Caleb to put Jonny in the bottom bunk, running a hand through his boy’s curly hair, before lifting his nine year old off the floor. He put Caleb in the top bunk then turned to shut off the TV and game console. Just when he thought he’d go unnoticed, Jonny whispered into the now dark room. “G’night, dad.” His boy’s voice was heavy with sleep, making Noah smile.

“Goodnight, Jon Jon,” he whispered back, closing their door behind him.

Children two and three.

The room across from the boys’ belonged to the princess of his clan, little miss McKenna.

When he opened the door to his two-and-a-half-year old’s room, he fully expected to see her in one of her princess gowns, tiara and all, sleeping on the floor. While his three oldest played hockey, he wasn’t so sure it was going to be McKenna’s thing.

She was his little priss; his little girl who refused to get dirt on herself and preferred to be on the ice only if she were in his or Ryleigh’s arms.

And he thought seeing Myke in makeup was a scary thought.

McKenna was going to own that shit. He could feel it.

Watching his Kenna grow up was going to do disasters to his heart. Her two year old self had him wrapped around her finger since the day she was born.

After a quick look around her room, Noah realized she wasn’t there.

Frowning, he stepped next door to the nursery. The baby was missing, too.

That only meant one thing.

He finished walking the hall, going to the room at the far end. Pushing the door open, he entered the room he and Ryleigh shared. The only light came from the lamp on Ryleigh’s side of the bed.

His beautiful wife looked up from her book and smiled slowly at him. “Hello, stranger.”

She closed her book and set it aside, nodding to the end of the bed where his brown haired princess was curled up, princess dress on and tiara crooked in her curls. “She wanted to stay up for you. I told her you wouldn’t be home until late, but she wasn’t having it.”

Noah chuckled. “Seemed like everyone was waiting up for me tonight. I found Jonny and Caleb sleeping with their video game on.”

Ryleigh shook her head. “Those boys. I told them to set a timer.”

“Where’s the baby?”

Rather than answer him with words, she turned her head toward his side of the bed. With Noah’s pillow propped to her back, four week old Avery Nicole lay bundled in a flowered receiving blanket on her side. As with the four kids before her, Noah had been home for her birth. The only birth he almost missed was McKenna, who was born just after the Winter Olympics.

That had been an intense flight home, praying he’d make it back in time and if he didn’t, that both Ryleigh and the baby would be fine.

Leaving home was always hard, especially after one of the kids were born. Then was probably the hardest part to Noah.

He walked to the bed and sat beside Ryleigh’s crossed ankles, grinning at her. “I did good,” he said with a wink, referring to baby Avery.

“You always take the credit,” she said around a laugh.

“I’ll give you credit for the first four, ok? I take Avery.”

“How about you just take it for what it is, fifty-fifty for all five?” she offered. “Because that’s really how this happened.”

Noah chuckled before standing again. He went to the head of the bed to kiss Ryleigh softly. Then, reaching over her, he gently picked up his youngest, cradling her to his chest. “I have news for you,” he told Ryleigh while looking at the sleeping face cuddled to his chest.

“Oh you do, do you?” Ryleigh looked amused.

“Mmhm. Yeah.” Still, he kept his eyes on Avery. “I decided to not play this season.” Finally, he looked to his wife.

Staring at him wide-eyed, Ryleigh whispered loudly, “Noah! You can’t just go to camp and then decide, yeah, not going to do this this year.”

“They’ve known since the end of last season this was a possibility.”

Noah had only been playing professionally for thirteen years, and could probably play another five if he wanted, but in his heart, he knew he was done. Not with the game, but done playing it.

“Are you sure it’s what you want to do?” Trust Ryleigh to make sure he thought of all angles where his career was concerned.

“I have more news,” he told her grinning. He sat back at the end of the bed, Avery still in his arms, and reached out to gently pull the tangled tiara from McKenna’s hair. “They offered me the head coach position in Beloit.”

She stared at Noah for what felt like a full minute before she answered. “As in Wisconsin?”

Noah pressed on though. “And the house I wanted to put an offer on sits on an acre or two. It’s brick,” he started before continuing to describe the dream house Ryleigh had on the north side of town.

“My house?” Ryleigh stuttered. “Are you being serious right now?” she nearly whispered.

Noah looked at her, a splitting grin on his face. “I’m being serious.”

“Are you positive, Noah? Are you sure it’s what you want?”

“I can always come out of retirement if I’m itching to play. But I want to spend time with you and the kids. Myke and Caleb are growing up too fast; I don’t want to lose those years, let alone the years this little one still has to show us. Both of our families are out there. They haven’t had much time in the kids’ lives.”

“You’ve really thought this out, haven’t you?”

“Didn’t want to give you room to say ‘no’,” Noah told her sheepishly.

Grinning, Ryleigh gave her answer. “Ok.” She nodded a few times before her grin turned serious. “But we need to make sure the kids will be ok with it. Myke—“

“Needs new friends,” Noah interrupted. “Crissy, Anna, and Em talked her into putting makeup on. You let her put makeup on. Damn near gave me a heart attack.”

“I,” she said, pointing to herself, “did not allow her to put it on. I told her she needed to talk it over with you, daddy’s girl that she is. She thought you would say yes and therefore did it anyway.”

“Maybe you should teach her how to put it on. The shit was caked on,” he said, waving his hand over his face after making sure his slip didn’t wake either girl. It sometimes took him a few hours to remove the locker room vocabulary from his mouth when he got home.

“She’s ten, Noah. She can wait a few more years.”

“I agree, but if her friends are wearing it, then she’s probably wearing it. God, we can’t let her go to that middle school dance next weekend. She’s going to—“

Ryleigh started to laugh at him. “Listen to yourself, Noah.” Ryleigh loved how he wasn’t quite as laid back as he was in his late twenties, now that he was a father with growing kids. “Anyway, before you so rudely interrupted me,” she teased. “Myke has really deep friendships, and Caleb is at the top of his hockey league. Those aren’t little things to forget about with this potential move.”

“We can discuss it with them in the morning.”

“Ok.”

“Did you feed Avery?” Noah’s eyes dipped to her chest. Part of the reason why Ryleigh kept putting off her surgery was she enjoyed the closeness breast feeding gave her with the kids. She was giving up months of that closeness with Avery in order to have the procedure done, but she was a pumping machine, she often said so herself, and had plenty of milk in the deep freezer.

Ryleigh had thought Noah found her fascinating when she got dressed up and put on makeup. To a point, yes, he did, but true to what Joe had told him all those years ago, nothing would top making babies, holding their babies, watching their babies grow.

Ok, the only thing that topped that feeling was the intense fear and panic upon seeing Ryleigh on a stepladder, nine months pregnant, and painting the nursery. That had been a heart attack.

Watching Ryleigh with Myke and Caleb was probably how they ended up with three more babies after them and, if Noah had his way, at least one more after Ryleigh was healed up.

“I did,” Ryleigh answered. It took Noah a moment to remember the question. “She finished up right before you came in.”

Noah nodded. “I’ll put these two to bed, then. You think up any arguments you have for this move, but you know you want it as badly as I do.”

She smiled as she watched him wake McKenna up. Noah helped her off the bed and held her hand as they left the room, Avery still cradled to his chest.

Noah and his baby girls first stopped in Avery’s room, where he placed a kiss to her bald head before putting her down in her crib. He made sure her teddies were on the far end where she wouldn’t be able to roll into them, before turning on the gentle sound maker.

He then picked up McKenna, who wrapped her legs around his waist, and moved with her to her pink princess room. Noah gently pulled the tiara from her hair then helped her out of her dress and into a Tangled nightgown. When she curled up in bed, he covered her with her pink and white lace comforter and kissed her forehead.

“Night, baby girl.”

She was out before he even left the room.

When he re-entered his and Ryleigh’s room, she was sitting against the headboard, her knees drawn up to her chest and her glasses perched on top of her head. “So I took your advice and thought about it.”

Noah shut their bedroom door, hitting the lock just in case, leaning into the door until he heard the soft click of it latching shut. He spoke as he moved and undressed. “Could be a dangerous thing, you thinking. It was more rhetorical.”

“Well,” she said, watching as he changed out of his gym clothes and into lounge pants, commando. “I just don’t think I could live with you twenty-four seven, three sixty four, Noah. I’ve gotten used to you leaving and all, you know?”

He gathered his clothes and walked to their en-suite to deposit them in the hamper. After trekking to the bed, he climbed in beside her and flipped off the lamp on his side. “Is that so?” Leaning over, he pulled her glasses from atop her head and reached to put them on her nightstand, flipping off her lamp.

“Oh, absolutely,” she answered, a grin in her voice. “I’ve been told I’m difficult to live with.”

Noah chuckled. “I’ve heard that before, I think. But Ryles?” Dropping his arm from his reach so his hand rested beside her hip, him leaning into her, he moved closer still to nibble along her ear.

“Noah,” she replied in a lustful whisper.

He nipped her ear before whispering directly in it. “I think you’ll do just fine.”

When he moved to kiss her lips, he knew she would kiss him back.

Just as he knew she would smile against his lips.

God, he loved this woman.

When she pulled back slightly, her grin widened, “Well if you think so…”