“What?” she asked with a flushed smile.
The corner of my mouth ticked up, but I didn’t answer her — not with words, anyway. Instead, I reached for her hips, turning her to face me as her face went ashen white. Then, I trailed my hands up over her arms, her neck, sliding them back to cradle her head. Her soft eyes were wide, searching mine, and in the next breath, I lowered my mouth to hers.
For what felt like a lifetime, everything slipped away. The crowd was gone, the parade in another universe, and it was just me and Sydney. I felt her like the piece of me that had always been missing had finally come home, or like she was my home, and now that I’d found her, I could finally find peace and meaning.
She was hesitant in my arms at first, but then she melted into me, kissing me back with purpose and pressing up onto her toes to deepen her affection. I could have stayed in that moment with her forever, but the roar of the crowd around us, and a few players knocking me on the back in congratulations, zapped me back to the moment.
When we broke the kiss, the cheers that met our ears were deafening. Sydney looked around with the fiercest blush I’d ever seen before she hid her face in my chest, and I chuckled, looking around at the town below us and my team on the float with a shit-eating grin.
Then, I lifted one fist into the air, as if I’d just won the girl and the battle of my life, too.
And in more ways than anyone there realized — I had.
Sydney leaned into my side, still blushing but taking up her post and throwing candy once again. And as the band played on in front of our float, I let my eyes wander the faces looking up at us from below.
I saw my brothers, with their loved ones tucked into their sides, their smiles knowing as our eyes met. We weren’t just brothers in life, now, but brothers in war, too — and we had come out on the other side victorious, but not without the striking sadness of casualties. We were bonded together closer than ever, and I knew that though we’d lived such a long life together already, our new lives were only beginning.
And they would be even better than the last.
I saw my mother, too — her eyes shining with pride as she waved me past. I waved back, blowing her a kiss that she caught in the air and tucked into her heart for safe keeping. I hoped what she’d said to me on the porch was true, that she could finally rest, that she could finally find peace.
Mary Scooter didn’t show at the parade — and I knew she was hurting in her own ways right now, too. I hoped one day to build a bridge of understanding between us, though I knew it would take time.
But I did see Eli on the sidewalk, who tipped his hat at me with his wide, crooked grin. I nodded back, and in my chest I felt a tug of both sadness and joy. I was sad for having missed the first three decades of my life with the man who gave it to me, but thankful for the chance to get to know him now, and to have him in whatever years we had left to come.
I saw Gabby and Paige — who was holding up a giant sign that read Go Wild Cats! — and I realized with a pinch of my heart that they were my family now, too. I would protect them just like I’d protected my mom and my brothers.
And still wrapped under my right arm was Sydney — the woman who barreled into my life like a shooting star, bright and breathtaking and completely unexpected.
She turned to look at me and smiled, making my heart pinch again, and her eyes reflected the emotion surging through me in that moment. When I’d given up hope, when I’d been nothing but a numb, shell of a man walking through life and trying to find meaning in it, she’d swung in and knocked me on my ass, away from everything I’d ever known before and into an era I never saw coming.
In the darkest hour of my life, I’d somehow managed to find love.
I marveled at how ironic this life could be.
As the confetti cannons blasted, shooting a river of color into the blue sky above us, I followed those little ribbons up, casting my face to the sun.
And I felt the warmth of it as an embrace from my father — his life finally avenged, his legacy finally bestowed.
I smiled up at him, my heart light for the first time since he’d left us, and he seemed to reach out for me as sun rays on my shoulders to let me know it was time to grab this life and live it fully.