Epilogue
Nearly two years later, my life wasn’t perfect but if you put it and perfect side by side, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. Any doubt or fear that had once upon a time troubled me had been laid to rest. There wasn’t a thing in the world that we couldn’t conquer side by side. It was as if we fed on each other’s strengths and grew stronger basking in our love. There are times, frightening times, when I wonder how things would have turned out if we hadn’t found each other. One moment in time, one tiny interruption that might have caused me not to be in the cafeteria that day, could have led to me missing out on the love of my life. The thoughts of how easily that could have happened frighten me worse than anything I had faced in my life so far.
Someone bumped my knee and what had to be the shrillest voice I had ever heard pierced my ear, successfully reminding me of where I was and what was happening. One would think that over the past months I would have gotten used to all the screaming, yelling, and borderline stalking his fans have employed to try and get close to him, but it still took my breath away on occasions. Knowing he was the center of attention and the current darling of his sport, from both fans and the media, made me prouder than any of my accomplishments. I supposed I might as well get used to being portrayed as the ‘naughty’ one while he’s their ‘angel’. It was okay, he was my angel, too. I was just the only one that knew how easily he tossed those angel wings aside when we were together and that neither of us would have it any other way.
“USA! USA! USA!” The chants were hitting an even higher-pitched level as the fans in the aquatic center worked themselves into a frenzy while waiting for our swimmer to make his appearance. No, my swimmer. I didn’t mind them borrowing Dakota for a while but at the end of the day, after he took his fourth gold medal in his first Olympics, he belonged to me again. They could enjoy watching his body cut through the water like a fucking machine, cheer as loudly as they wanted, but at the end of each swim, he went home with me. It would be physically impossible for me to be any prouder of him than I was right now. My heart swelled with love to the point of embarrassment and I glanced around the crowd, wondering if my feelings were that obvious. There were a few friendly glances in my direction because they knew I was with Dakota but nobody seemed to realize that I was right next to having a sloppy cry. Yes, I had one of those when he had won his first medal and he stood on the platform while they played the National Anthem. His eyes were locked with mine the entire time and my heart literally wept.
Our part of the stands, the part belonging to team USA jumped to their feet and I knew he’d just made his way toward the pool. Hell, who was I fooling? I’d known seconds before they did because my heart’s beat did an irregular pitter patter. Like everyone else, I jumped to my feet and started cheering like a lunatic. It reminded me of the first time I’d attended his swim practice…when I hadn’t been stalking him, of course. I had embarrassed him then and his cheeks had turned a cute rosy red. They were doing the exact same thing now and that was because the USA chant had turned into something else. As he started removing his warm-ups, they started it and while I might have tried to hide my smile, I was sure I failed miserably.
“Guppy! Guppy! Guppy!” Yes, they did it, right there on national television and in front of his hard-ass competitors. In what may go down in history as the biggest unanswered question we have—the ‘who in the world told them about my pet name for him’. He accused me of it but I told him that unless he had hard evidence that could be proven in a court of law, he needed to back his sexy shit down. Of course, it was me, but I would take that one to my grave and beyond. It might very well be the maddest I’d ever seen him at me and the fuck knows, I did enough to make him mad on a regular basis.
Yep, cheeks were a bright pink but he just shook his head and gave the crowd a shy wave. They went wild. His eyes drilled me with a - ‘I’m going to fucking kill you’ - look but I simply blew him a kiss. They went wild again.
Yeah, just about as close to perfect this side of Heaven. Dakota continued therapy and still had bad days but the good definitely outweighed the bad. He’d fought me for all of about ten minutes on the swim lessons but then when Coach Bauer walked in, he’d gone all goo-goo eyes and caved. The man worked him relentlessly but in my opinion, it wasn’t necessary. The natural skill and talent was evident for anyone to see. I signed with the Cowboys and everything was great there, well, except for the fact that I was getting all sorts of fines and penalties for taking two weeks off to accompany Dakota, his mother, and my parents to the Olympics. Sure, they were fining me because it is the official procedure, but they supported my decision. Cowboy and Binx rule the house we bought in Dallas. I called it a house but Dakota called it a four-story castle that was ridiculously obnoxious. We both call it home.
Dakota had thought we couldn’t make this work and he’d been so wrong. He’d been wrong about so many things—doubting my love for him, thinking he wasn’t worth loving, thinking there wasn’t an escape from Evan…the list went on and on and I reminded him of it daily, just for my own enjoyment. Oh, and he’d been fucking wrong about the most important thing on my mind at the moment—the swim pants didn’t make his ass look flat.
Hell, no matter what he had on his beautiful body, when I looked at him, I was gasping for air.
The End