The Cure: Proposal
Garrett Graham x f!reader
Summary: You and Garrett Graham have built a life beyond anything you ever imagined. But when an ordinary date night turns into something neither of you will ever forget, one unforgettable evening proves that the best love stories are built on second chances, healing, and choosing each other every single day.
Word count: 9k+
Author's note: Thank you to @accio-lo-ki for inspiring me to write this part because, honestly, I never expected writing about their life after college to make me this happy and emotional. I can’t believe I’m finally done with this series.
I can’t believe this is the end. I can’t believe how attached I became to these characters, especially the reader. Writing their journey has been such a beautiful experience, and yes… I may have cried while writing this ending 😭.
Thank you to everyone who has followed along, supported this story, and loved these characters as much as I do. It means more than I can explain. 🤍
************************************************
Four years had passed since the night Garrett had stood inside your apartment with his heart in his hands, asking if you would let him choose you again. Four years since the two of you had decided to stop letting fear dictate the future and start building one together instead.
Back then, neither of you had known what that future would look like. You had only known one thing with absolute certainty.
You wanted it to be with him.
Now, looking back, it was almost impossible to recognize the two people you had once been.
Boston had become home in every way that mattered.
It had happened so gradually that neither of you had noticed at first. One day the city had simply stopped feeling temporary. The streets you drove every morning had become familiar, your favorite coffee shop knew both of your orders before you reached the counter, and the little Italian restaurant tucked into the North End had become your place for anniversaries, promotions, and the rare evenings when neither of you had the energy to cook.
It wasn't just where you lived anymore. It was where your life had unfolded.
Not long before graduation, Garrett had been drafted by the Bruins.
You still remembered the phone call as vividly as if it had happened yesterday.
He had been pacing around your apartment with so much nervous energy that you thought he might wear a path through the hardwood floors. You had tried to distract him with terrible reality television and takeout, but every few minutes his eyes drifted back to his phone.
When it finally rang, neither of you had breathed.
The second he answered, you watched his expression change. From hope to disbelief. Then overwhelming joy. You had barely heard what was being said before Garrett looked at you with tears already gathering in his eyes and mouthed, "I got it."
You had never crossed a room so quickly in your life.
He had laughed and cried at the same time as you threw yourself into his arms, the two of you collapsing onto the living room floor in a tangled mess of limbs because neither of you cared enough to stay standing.
Years later, watching him pull on a Bruins jersey still hadn't become ordinary.
You didn't think it ever would.
There was something surreal about sitting in the stands before every home game, watching him skate effortlessly around the ice while the arena slowly filled with thousands of people. He looked so completely at home out there, moving with the same confidence and determination that had first caught your attention years ago at Briar.
Sometimes you still had to remind yourself that the man the crowd was cheering for was the same one who left wet towels on the bathroom floor and insisted cereal counted as dinner if he added a banana.
His rookie season had ended with him standing beneath the bright arena lights accepting the Rookie of the Year award. You had been seated near the front, surrounded by reporters, teammates, coaches, and family members from every corner of the league, but somehow, in a room full of people, Garrett had still managed to find you almost immediately.
He hadn't looked toward the cameras. He had looked for you.
The moment your eyes met, his face softened into that smile.
The one that had always belonged to you.
It said everything words couldn't.
We did it.
Your vision had blurred before he even reached the microphone.
Later, when the ceremony was over and he'd found you backstage, the first thing he'd done was laugh as he wiped your cheeks with both hands.
"I swear," he'd teased gently, "you cry over everything."
You had sniffled, trying and failing to glare at him.
"Only when it's you."
His answering smile had been so full of love that it had nearly started the whole process over again.
While Garrett's career had been taking off, yours had quietly become everything you had dreamed it would.
The architectural firm that hired you after graduation had challenged you from the very beginning. The hours were long, deadlines came faster than you thought humanly possible, and there were weeks when your apartment had looked more like an extension of the office than somewhere people actually lived. Blueprints covered the dining table. Sketchbooks found permanent homes on the coffee table. More than once, Garrett had discovered you asleep on the couch with a pencil still tucked behind your ear after another late night of revisions.
He never complained.
Instead, he would gently wake you, convince you to come to bed, and somehow have coffee waiting for you the next morning before leaving for practice himself.
The work wasn't always glamorous.
Some projects stalled for months.
Others changed so many times they barely resembled your original designs by the time construction began. But every now and then, you would drive through the city and spot a building that had once existed only in your imagination.
A storefront.
An office building.
A community center.
Places that thousands of strangers would use without ever knowing your name.
You never needed them to.
Knowing you had helped create something that would outlive you was enough.
Life had become busy in a beautiful way.
Just over a year ago, you and Garrett had bought a brownstone together on a quiet street outside the center of the city.
Neither of you had wanted anything extravagant.
You wanted somewhere that felt lived in.Somewhere people could gather without worrying about muddy shoes on expensive floors , where your family could stay over during holidays and your friends could show up without feeling like they needed an invitation.
The first thing Garrett had done after getting the keys was carry you over the threshold despite your very dramatic insistence that the tradition was outdated.
"I thought you didn't believe in this stuff," you'd laughed, wrapping your arms around his neck.
"I don't."
"Then why are you carrying me?"
He'd looked down at you with that impossibly boyish grin.
"Because if I let you walk in by yourself, you'll immediately start talking about where the furniture should go."
"...I was literally about to."
"I know."
He had kissed your forehead before setting you down in the middle of the empty living room.
"Five minutes."
"What?"
"Give me five minutes before you become an architect again."
You had only lasted three.
Now the house looked exactly how the two of you had imagined it.
Warm, Comfortable and Lived in.
There were framed photographs lining the hallway from trips you'd taken together over the years, hockey pucks scattered across Garrett's office despite your repeated attempts to organize them, and enough blankets draped over the couches that Logan regularly complained he was going to suffocate every time he visited.
But home wasn't really the brownstone.
It never had been.
Home was the man standing in front of you, smiling as though loving you had always been the easiest thing he'd ever done. There were still moments, even now, when you found yourself pausing just to look at him.
Garrett could be halfway through making breakfast, a bruise blooming along his jaw from practice, hair still damp from the shower, and you would catch yourself staring as if your heart had never quite gotten used to the fact that he was real. Some nights, he would fall asleep beside you on the couch with one arm slung lazily around your waist and his glasses still perched on his nose, and you would watch his chest rise and fall in the dim light while the whole city hummed quietly outside your windows.
It was in those moments that it hit you the hardest.
Not that you loved him.
That part had always been true.
It was that you loved him with a steadiness that used to feel impossible. The kind of love that had once frightened you because it was so big, so all-consuming, so much sharper than anything you had let yourself keep for long. And yet here it was, still here, unchanged in all the ways that mattered and deeper in all the ways that had come with time.
Therapy had taught you how to trust that.
Not overnight. Not even close.
There had been no dramatic turning point, no single conversation that made everything easy. Healing, you had learned, was rarely that graceful. It happened in small, stubborn steps. In the decision to stay in the room when your first instinct was to leave. In the courage it took to say out loud that some days still felt heavier than others. In the quiet relief of hearing someone answer, That makes sense, instead of You should be over this by now.
There were still bad days. Days when your brain tried to convince you that happiness was borrowed, temporary, something you were allowed to touch but not keep. Days when old fears surfaced for no reason you could name, and for a few awful minutes you felt sixteen or nineteen or twenty-one again, standing on the edge of some emotional cliff and waiting for the ground to disappear beneath you.
But those moments no longer owned you the way they once had.
Now, when they came, you recognized them for what they were.
Echoes, not truth.
And you talked about them. Sometimes in your therapist’s office with the steady rhythm of a tissue box being pulled closer and a cup of water going untouched on the side table. Sometimes at home, curled into Garrett’s side while he listened like every word mattered, because to him it did. He never made your fear feel like an inconvenience. He never sighed or looked frustrated or made you feel small for needing reassurance.
He just held you.
Every single time.
There was one night, not long after you had started therapy, when you had finally admitted that the hardest part was not being afraid of losing him, but of someday becoming too much for him to carry. You had said it so quietly you almost wished you could take it back, but Garrett had gone very still beside you, his hand tightening around yours.
Then he had turned to you, his expression so open it nearly undid you, and said, “You could never be too much for me.”
That sentence had stayed with you.
So had the way he had said it.
Like it was the easiest truth in the world.
Eventually, your therapist had suggested Garrett come to a few sessions with you, not because something was wrong, but because relationships were allowed to be cared for before they were broken. Garrett had agreed without hesitation. He had sat in that room and asked questions you hadn’t expected him to ask, listened to answers you had sometimes struggled to say out loud, and left each time with a better understanding of how your mind moved through the world.
He wanted to know what fear looked like before it became silence.
He wanted to know how to love you in a way that made room for all of you.
He always had.
Your relationship with your father had changed too, though that had been its own slower kind of healing. There had been no one conversation that fixed anything. No sudden apology that erased the years of hurt. No miraculous moment when everything clicked neatly into place.
Instead, he had kept showing up.
At first, it had made you wary. You had spent so long expecting disappointment that consistency felt almost suspicious. But he had been steady in a way that eventually started to feel undeniable. He called on your birthday and remembered to ask about your work. He sent pictures of the kids on holidays. He FaceTimed during soccer games so you could watch Raegan run down the field in her too-big cleats and Rowan complain loudly from the sideline that he was being ignored.
He came to Boston when he could.
You went home when your schedule allowed.
There were birthday dinners and awkward laughs and long silences that no longer felt threatening. There were moments when Rowan would start rambling about school and your father would listen with a kind of patience you had once thought he wasn’t capable of. There were times he would help Raegan with homework while pretending not to be frustrated, and times he would stand in the kitchen trying to make himself useful while Rachel shooed him away from the stove.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the hurt loosened.
Not because the past had changed.
Because he had.
Or maybe because you had.
Maybe both.
Watching him be there for your siblings did something unexpected to your heart. It did not erase what had been missing, not even close, but it stopped feeling like a wound that only reopened. Instead, it became proof that people could change if they were willing to work for it. That love could be messy and late and still matter. That grief and gratitude could live in the same place at the same time.
You still missed your mum every single day.
That part had never softened.
There were still mornings when the memory of her would hit you so suddenly it made your chest ache. Still holidays when you reached for your phone before remembering there was no one left to call. Still small, ordinary moments when you found yourself wanting to tell her something ridiculous just because she would have laughed.
That grief had not gone anywhere.
It had simply learned how to sit beside joy instead of pushing it out.
And joy had found you in so many other places.
Rachel, for one, had become one of the most constant people in your life in a way that still made your heart ache sometimes, though in a gentler way now. She never tried to be your mother. She never asked for that role, and you never wanted her to. She was just Rachel—warm and practical and endlessly patient, the woman who answered the phone when you were convinced you had ruined dinner, the woman who sent you links to recipes at two in the morning, the woman who always seemed to know when you needed advice and when you only needed someone to sit quietly beside you.
She had slipped into your life so naturally that loving her no longer felt like something you had to explain.
Rowan and Raegan had grown so much it sometimes frightened you. Rowan had started high school last year and treated the entire experience like a major life crisis, which meant he had called Garrett with a new emergency every other day in the weeks leading up to it.
“How do I act normal?”
“Stop trying so hard.”
“That is terrible advice.”
“It’s excellent advice.”
“What if I get lost?”
“You’re not going to get lost.”
“What if I’m late?”
“Then be on time.”
“What if I forget my schedule?”
Garrett had stared at the phone in disbelief. “Why are you making this so complicated?”
“Because it is complicated!”
You had walked into the living room once to find Garrett leaning back on the couch with the phone on speaker, giving Rowan a very serious lecture about posture, first impressions, and not trying too hard to look cool because “trying is exactly what makes you look uncool.” You had stood in the doorway smiling to yourself, watching your boyfriend talk your brother through freshman year with all the authority of someone who had absolutely no business being that good at it.
He had become such a natural part of your family that sometimes you still caught yourself feeling stunned by it.
He fit.
Not perfectly, but in the messy, loving, ordinary way that made your chest tighten. The way he remembered Rowan’s favorite snacks and Raegan’s favorite songs. The way he insisted on FaceTiming them after games just to hear about their day. The way he listened when they talked, really listened, like what they had to say mattered.
And Raegan… Raegan was still your little shadow.
She was at an age where she still wanted to tell you everything, where she ran to you first when she scraped her knee or got excited over something at school or decided she had to share a thought before it vanished. Every time someone asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she never hesitated.
“My sister.”
It hit you every single time like a punch to the heart.
You would laugh and kiss the top of her head and tell her she needed a better dream, and she would wrinkle her nose and insist she already had one. You were already dreading the day she would start high school and think you were embarrassing, though she swore that would never happen.
In the meantime, you made the distance work as best you could. Your father, Rachel, Rowan, and Raegan came to Boston whenever they had the chance, and you went home for holidays, long weekends, and whatever moments your work and Garrett’s schedule could make room for. It was more planning than you used to need, more coordinating than you ever imagined, but somehow it worked. Somehow, no matter how many miles separated you, it never felt like you had truly drifted apart.
And your friends—your beautiful, chaotic, impossible friends had built lives that still managed to keep crossing back into yours.
Logan had stayed in Boston, which meant he had long since stopped knocking before entering your house, and somehow that no longer felt rude so much as inevitable. Grace had become such a natural part of the group that it was impossible to imagine life before her. The two of them were disgustingly happy in the way only truly meant-to-be people could be, and seeing Logan grin at her across a room still made you smile every time.
Dean and Allie had officially become New Yorkers, which suited them far better than you would have expected. Dean had found that coaching was a perfect kind of challenge, one that let him still be around the game he loved without the pressure of being the one on the ice. Allie, meanwhile, had found the stage and made it hers in the sort of way that made people stop talking the second she walked into a room. Broadway had fallen for her almost immediately.
Hannah had become one of the most sought-after songwriters in the industry, which was exactly the kind of success she deserved and still somehow not enough to make her love anything about attention. She kept writing songs the whole world knew while insisting she would rather spend a Friday night in oversized pajamas with tea and a good movie than attend another red-carpet event.
And Tucker.
No one, not even Tucker himself, had predicted he would become the first parent in the group. He had left corporate life behind, moved back to Texas with Sabrina, and somehow stepped into fatherhood with the same determined intensity he once brought to hockey. Little Jamie had wrapped him around her tiny finger the second she arrived, and the man who used to claim babies terrified him now interrupted entire conversations just to show off photos of his daughter.
None of you ever complained. She had all of you wrapped around her tiny finger before she had even learned to walk.
By the time you finally shut your laptop that evening, the office had mostly emptied around you. The building had gone quiet in the way it always did after hours, with only the low hum of the lights and the soft clatter of someone’s heels in the hallway outside. You rolled your shoulders to ease the stiffness in your neck, stretching carefully before gathering your things.
Date night.
The thought made a small, private smile tug at your mouth.
You and Garrett had not managed one in almost three weeks. Between your late nights at the firm and his brutal travel schedule, the two of you had been passing like ships in the dark—shared texts, missed calls, quick forehead kisses in doorways, half-finished conversations squeezed between obligations. Tonight was supposed to be for the two of you, and the thought alone made the entire day feel lighter.
By the time you made it home, the sky outside had already deepened into early evening blue. You practically floated through the front door, dropping your bag near the entryway before heading upstairs to get ready. The house was quiet, which you took as a good sign, and you smiled faintly as you moved through the familiar space that had somehow become the center of your world.
Music drifted softly from somewhere downstairs, probably Garrett’s phone or the little speaker he always forgot to turn off and you hummed along while you got dressed, the sounds of your life wrapping around you like a warm blanket. You stood in front of the bathroom mirror fastening your earrings, taking a moment to smooth down the front of your outfit and check your reflection.
Seven o’clock.
Garrett should have been home by now.
Your phone buzzed just as you reached for your clutch, and the second you saw his name flash across the screen, your smile came instantly.
Garrett: Baby, don’t kill me.
You blinked at the message, amused despite the immediate suspicion that bloomed in your chest.
You: Should I be worried?
His reply came almost at once.
Garrett: Car broke down outside the arena.
Garrett: Can you come rescue your favorite hockey player?
You rolled your eyes affectionately, even though no one was there to see it, and shook your head as you read the message again.
You: You’re lucky you’re cute.
Garrett: I’ve been told.
A laugh slipped out of you as you grabbed your keys and headed for the door without another thought. He was probably stranded with one of his teammates, or waiting for a tow, or standing in a parking lot looking dramatic for no good reason at all. Knowing Garrett, it could have been any of those things. The only thing you knew for certain was that he sounded way too pleased with himself for someone supposedly stuck on the side of the road.
Still smiling, you stepped outside and made your way toward the car, already preparing to tease him the second you saw his face.
You had no idea how much the night was about to change.
*************************************************
The drive to the arena took less than ten minutes, but your pulse had already decided to act like you were heading into something far more serious than rescuing Garrett from a broken-down car. He kept sending you the occasional text with directions that made no sense and complaints that were so dramatic they were almost certainly exaggerated, and by the time you pulled into the arena parking lot, you were smiling despite yourself.
The lot was nearly empty when you arrived.
That, more than anything, made you slow for a second.
It was strange.
TD Garden was never truly quiet, not even on off nights. There was always someone coming and going, some faint hum of activity, a security guard near the entrance, a cluster of staff cars, something. Tonight, though, the place sat under the dark winter sky with an unusual stillness, the huge building looking more imposing than usual in the half-light.
You frowned as you stepped out of your car and pulled your coat tighter around you.
The wind tugged at your hair as you crossed the pavement, heels clicking softly against the concrete. You pulled your phone out again and checked for another text, but there was nothing. The silence started to feel a little suspicious, though you were still far more amused than worried as you reached the doors and found them unlocked.
That should have been your first clue.
The second was the darkness.
Inside the entrance hall, the arena felt strangely hollow, the lights dimmer than they should have been and the air colder than you expected. Your footsteps echoed faintly as you walked down the hallway, your voice sounding small when you called his name again.
“Garrett?”. You paused, frowning now for real, and checked your phone one more time. No new texts. No missed calls. No explanation. Just the exact kind of silence that could only mean one of two things.
Either Garrett was in trouble.
Or Garrett was up to something.
And knowing Garrett, it was probably the second one.
“If this is some kind of prank, I swear—”. You pushed the door open.
The rink sat in darkness.
For one bewildered second, you stood there blinking into the blackness, trying to make sense of it. Then the arena lights burst on.
The ones above center ice came alive first, pouring warm gold and bright white down across the rink and leaving the rest of the arena in soft shadow. The sudden light made you gasp, your hand flying up instinctively as you squinted.
And then you saw him.
Garrett stood alone at the center of the ice.
He wasn’t in hockey gear. He wasn’t in a Bruins hoodie or a practice jacket or anything remotely casual. He was wearing a charcoal suit that fit him so well it almost made your brain stumble over itself. His hands were folded loosely in front of him, his posture straight but tense in that familiar way he got whenever he was trying to look calm and failing just enough for you to notice. His hair was still slightly damp from the cold, his jaw clean-shaven, his expression unreadable for only a second before his mouth tilted into that smile.
That smile.
Even after all these years, it still had the ability to completely undo you.
Your breath caught in your throat.
“What are you doing?” you called, the question coming out softer than you meant it to because the sight of him there, standing in the center of the rink like he had stepped out of one of your private memories, had already thrown your heart entirely off balance.
He only smiled wider.
“Come here.”
You looked around, still half-convinced you were missing something.
“Garrett.”
“Come here,” he repeated, gentler this time, and there was something in his voice that made your feet move before your brain fully caught up.
You started toward him slowly, your heels suddenly feeling too loud against the ice rink floor as you crossed from the doorway toward the tunnel entrance. The farther you walked, the more unreal it all felt. Like the air itself had shifted. Like you had stepped into the middle of a moment that had been waiting for you long before you knew it existed.
Then he spoke again, and there was a trace of nervousness in his voice that made your stomach flip.
“Tell me you’re not going to make me do all of this while you stand over there.”
You let out a nervous laugh, because even now he could still make you laugh when your heart was trying to climb out of your chest.
“I’m wearing heels, Garrett.”
“Then walk carefully.”
Your gaze dropped to the ice.
“Garrett,” you said again, this time with more warning in your voice. “What is going on?”
He didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he reached down and pulled a small chair closer, positioned neatly beside the boards as though he had planned the entire thing far in advance. Then, with that same maddening calm, he nodded toward it.
“Sit.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m asking nicely and because I know your balance on skates is still borderline offensive.”
Despite your suspicion, a laugh escaped you. “You are the one who taught me to skate.”
“And I still have the scars to prove it.”
You tried to hold on to your disbelief, but it was already cracking under the weight of how serious his eyes were becoming. Slowly, you crossed the threshold and sat where he had indicated, one hand braced against the boards as you looked up at him.
He crouched in front of you almost immediately, one knee hitting the floor with the kind of practiced care that made your chest feel tight all at once. The sight of him there, looking up at you with that soft, intent expression, made you go still.
He took one of your feet gently in his hands, his touch warm and familiar even through the leather of your shoe.
You watched him with mounting confusion as he untied and retied your shoe, his fingers careful and deliberate. It was such an ordinary gesture, so intimate in the simplest possible way, that for a second it stole the breath from your lungs. Garrett had always done things like this. Small things. Thoughtful things. The kind of things that never looked spectacular from the outside but felt like proof of devotion when they were happening to you.
When he finished one shoe, he moved to the other.
“Garrett,” you said more quietly.
He looked up immediately.
You swallowed. “What is happening?”
For a moment, he didn’t answer. He just stood there, still holding your hand lightly in his own, his thumb brushing once over your knuckles in a motion so soft it nearly shattered you.
Then he said, “Trust me?.”
You searched his face, trying to read him the way you had learned to over the years. Trying to understand the strange mixture of nerves and warmth and excitement that had taken over his expression. He looked almost young in that moment, not in age but in feeling, as though he had been carrying something delicate and important inside himself for a long time and was finally about to set it down in front of you.
“I do trust you. Is that even a question?,” you said, your voice softer now.His eyes flickered over your face, and something in them changed.
“Good.”
He took your hand in both of his and stood. Then, slowly, he stepped backward onto the ice and held his arms out to you.
You stared at him.
“I’m serious,” you said, laughing under your breath because your nerves were starting to stretch unbearably thin. “We’re going to lose our dinner reservation.”
His smile widened just enough to make your heart skip.
“There isn’t one.”
You blinked. “What?”
“There never was.”
You stared at him in disbelief. “You lied to me?”
He looked shamelessly pleased with himself. “I prefer creatively persuaded.”
A disbelieving laugh burst out of you. “You are unbelievable.”
“I know.”
Then he tilted his head a little, the teasing expression softening into something much more vulnerable, and your laughter faded almost at once.
“Come on,” he said quietly. “I’ve got you.”
You hesitated only a second longer before stepping down onto the ice with a cautious breath. Even after all this time, the first touch of skates against ice still made your stomach dip, your balance shifting instinctively under you. Garrett’s hand tightened around yours before you could wobble too much.
“I’ve got you,” he repeated, and this time it sounded less like reassurance and more like a promise.
You looked down at your skates, then back up at him. “You better.”
His laugh was low and fond. “Always.”
He guided you forward slowly, one hand at your waist and the other still holding yours steady as he walked backward with that effortless balance he seemed to have been born with. The quiet in the arena made every tiny sound feel bigger than it should have been—the scrape of blades, the distant hum of the lights, the faint echo of your breathing. It was so still you could almost feel the space around you, the immense oval of the rink holding the two of you in the center like the world had shrunk down to this one impossible moment.
And then, almost without realizing it, you were laughing.
Not because anything was funny exactly, but because the tension in your chest had nowhere else to go. Because Garrett was still watching you like you were the only person in the building. Because the memory of the first time he had taught you how to skate suddenly came rushing back so vividly you could practically feel it in your bones.
He must have noticed, because he smiled.
“You remember the first time I taught you?” he asked.
You let out a breathy laugh. “I remember falling.”
“You were terrible.”
You gasped in mock offense, though the smile tugging at your mouth ruined the effect. “I was not terrible.”
Garrett gave you a look. “You nearly took both of us out at least three times.”
“That was one time.”
“Three times.”
“Once.”
He laughed softly, and the sound settled over you with such familiarity it almost hurt.
“But every time,” he said, his hand at your waist warming through the fabric of your coat, “you got back up.”
Your smile faded a little. Not because you were upset, but because something in his voice had changed again, grown quieter, more careful, more serious. He looked at you now with the kind of attention that made the rest of the world seem like it was moving somewhere far away without you.
You swallowed. He kept leading you toward the center of the rink until you were standing almost exactly where he had been waiting when you first saw him. Only then did he stop, his hand still resting lightly at your waist, his other hand still linked with yours.
For a second, neither of you spoke.
The silence stretched between you, soft and expectant and full of something you were suddenly too scared to name.
Then Garrett exhaled, slow and shaky, and you realized with a jolt that he was nervous.
Actually nervous. The kind of nervous that made his fingers tighten ever so slightly around yours. That, more than anything else, made your heart start pounding hard enough to hurt.
He looked at you for a long moment, really looked at you, as though he was trying to memorize the exact shape of your face under the arena lights. His thumb brushed once over the back of your hand.
“When I first met you,” he said quietly, “I had no idea what I was doing.”
Your breath caught. “I thought I did. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted, exactly who I was supposed to be, exactly how everything was going to go.” He shook his head once, a faint laugh leaving him. “And then you happened.”
A lump formed in your throat so fast it nearly startled you.
His gaze never left yours.
“You’ve spent years telling me I make you feel safe,” he said, voice low and steady even as his eyes began to shine. “But the truth is, you’ve done that for me too. Probably more than you know. You’ve made every place we’ve lived feel like home,” he said. “You’ve celebrated every goal like it was your own. You’ve sat through every interview, every road trip, every injury, every loss.”
You stared at him, suddenly afraid to interrupt, afraid that one wrong movement might break whatever fragile thing was building between you. He squeezed your hand once and his voice softened further.
“I watched you learn how to live with grief instead of letting it swallow you whole. I watched you miss your mum and still make room for joy. I watched you let people back in, even when that was the hardest thing you could have done.”
Your eyes stung painfully.
He swallowed hard, his throat moving around whatever emotion he was trying to keep steady.
“I watched you build a life that is so much bigger and softer and braver than the one you were ever given while still being you,” he said. “Still kind. Still stubborn. Still the person who pretends not to cry and then cries anyway when I do something stupid.”
A laugh escaped you through the tears, shaky and helpless.
He smiled at the sound, then lifted your joined hands and pressed his mouth briefly to your knuckles.
“I keep trying to think of the perfect thing to say,” he admitted, and a faint, almost embarrassed smile touched his mouth. “Something that would sound big enough for what I feel. But the truth is, I don’t think there are words big enough for it.”
Your throat burned.
He laughed softly, though his own voice had started to crack.
“So I’m going to say it the only way I know how.”
He let go of your hand just long enough to reach into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Your whole body went still.
He had to have seen the exact moment you realized, because his expression changed in the same instant, turning even softer, even more vulnerable, even more openly devoted than before. The tiny velvet box in his hand made the entire arena seem to stop breathing around the two of you.
No.
Your brain seemed to stumble over itself all at once.
No, no, no—
Garrett dropped to one knee.
The sight of it stole the rest of the air from your lungs.
You stared at him, completely unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything except look down at the man kneeling in the center of an empty ice rink with tears in his eyes and your life in his hands.
He looked up at you, his own smile trembling at the edges.
“Baby,” he said softly, “you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Your hand flew to your mouth.
“I love who you were when I first met you,” he said, his voice shaking now despite his best efforts. “I love who you are now. I love the person you’re still becoming. I love your heart, even when you don’t make it easy to carry. I love the way you care too much and the way you try so hard and the way you look at me like I’m something worth loving when I still don’t always understand how I got this lucky.”
He took a breath that seemed to shake all the way through him.
“I want every ordinary morning with you. Every late night. Every bad day. Every stupid joke. Every quiet Sunday. Every season. Every version of us that comes after this.”
Tears blurred your vision so badly you could barely make out the shape of him.
“I choose you,” he said, and this time the words sounded like a vow rather than a memory. “I choose you every day. I choose you in every version of my life. I choose you when things are easy and when they’re not. I choose you when I’m tired and when I’m happy and when I don’t deserve to be. I choose you because loving you has never felt like a decision I had to force. It has always felt like the only thing in my life that was ever completely right.”
He opened the velvet box.
The ring inside caught the light and flashed brilliantly against the dark ice around you.
Your breath broke.
Garrett’s eyes shone as he looked at you, every ounce of his attention fixed on your face.
“I know this isn’t perfect,” he said, his voice rough now. “I know I probably should have done this somewhere that didn’t involve you in heels and me lying about a dead car battery.”
You let out a broken laugh through your tears.
He smiled, relief flickering across his face at the sound.
“But if I have learned anything in the years we’ve been together,” he went on, “it’s that perfect isn’t the point. You are.”
A tear slipped down his cheek.
“You're my home. My best friend. My favorite hello and my hardest goodbye. You're the person I want to celebrate with when life is good, and the only person I want beside me when it isn't.”
His voice trembled.
“I've spent years thanking whatever force brought you into my life, because I genuinely don't know who I'd be without you.”
He took one slow, shaky breath.
“So... if you'll keep choosing me the way you've chosen me every day since we found our way back to each other...”
He looked at you with so much hope it made your chest ache.
“Will you marry me?”
For one terrible second, you couldn’t breathe at all.
Then the answer came out of you like it had been waiting there forever.
“Yes.”
Your voice cracked hard enough to embarrass you if you had been capable of being embarrassed at all.
“Yes,” you repeated, nodding so fast it almost made you dizzy. “Yes, Garrett.”
The smile that broke across his face was so bright, so relieved, so completely and unabashedly full of love that it nearly shattered your heart all over again.
He let out something halfway between a laugh and a sob and stood up fast enough that you had to catch your balance.
The next second, he was sliding the ring onto your finger with hands that shook just slightly.
It fit perfectly, of course it did.
The sight of it made you cry harder.
Garrett’s hands came to your face immediately, his thumbs brushing away tears in a motion so familiar and so gentle that it only made you fall apart more. Then he kissed you, and the world collapsed inward around that kiss until there was nothing left except him, the ice, the arena, and the overwhelming, impossible reality of it.
It was not a careful kiss.
It was a kiss full of laughter and tears and every quiet choice you had ever made to stay. A kiss that carried years of love and healing and learning how to trust the kind of happiness that once would have terrified you. Garrett kissed you like he had finally reached the place he had been trying to get to for years, like he had spent his whole life walking toward this one moment and had finally arrived.
When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours and smiled through his tears.
“I love you,” he whispered.
You laughed breathlessly, still crying, still unable to believe any of this was real.
“I love you more.”
He huffed out a shaky laugh. “I don’t think that’s possible.” His smile deepened, soft and wrecked and beautiful all at once. And that was the moment all the arena lights changed.
Every section of the arena burst to life at once, flooding the rink, the stands, the tunnels, the shadows with brilliant light.
You startled so violently that you actually grabbed Garrett’s shoulders.
“What—”
Then you turned.
And froze.
Your hand flew to your mouth.
“Oh my God,” you whispered, the words barely even forming.
And there, in the stands, under all those lights and surrounded by all that impossible love, were the people who mattered most.
Allie was already crying so hard she had both hands pressed against her face, mascara forgotten entirely. Dean stood beside her with one arm around her shoulders, looking suspiciously emotional himself despite the amused smile tugging at his mouth.
Hannah was openly wiping tears from her cheeks while Logan stood next to Grace wearing the biggest grin you'd ever seen on him. Tucker bounced Jamie gently on his hip as Sabrina laughed beside him, and Jamie, completely unaware of the significance of the moment, clapped her tiny hands because everyone else was.
Your mind refused to process what you were seeing.
“No way,” you breathed, still staring.
Allie screamed first.
“She said yes!”
The sound of it finally broke the rest of the spell, and the entire arena erupted in cheers. Your knees nearly gave out. Garrett, still holding you by the waist, laughed softly against your temple and kissed your hair.
“I didn’t think I could keep it a secret much longer,” he murmured.
You turned toward him in complete disbelief, tears and laughter crashing over each other in your chest.
“You planned all this?”
He looked almost sheepish, which was ridiculous considering he had just proposed to you in the middle of an arena.
“I had help.”
"You are so lucky I love you."
"I was actually counting on that."
You laughed through the tears, hitting his shoulder lightly even though you were already reaching for him again at the same time. He caught your hand and kissed your knuckles, still smiling like he had just won the whole world and somehow that world was you.
God.
You were going to marry this man.
Before you could say anything else, a voice rang out through the empty arena.
“Are you two done being disgustingly cute down there?”
You turned just in time to see Allie standing halfway down the stairs, both hands cupped around her mouth.
“There are people waiting to celebrate!” she shouted. “Some of us have been crying for ten minutes because of you!”
Dean leaned comfortably against the railing beside her, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “You’ve been crying since he stepped onto the ice.”
“I’m having a moment, Dean.”
You missed them so much it almost hurt—missed the easy rhythm of the group. Seeing them now, all of them smiling, crying, and somehow making this already unreal night feel even more impossible, made your chest ache in the best possible way.
Garrett squeezed your hand.
“Come on,” he said softly, already guiding you toward the boards.
He never let go, not even once, as he helped you carefully off the ice and toward the rubber flooring near the edge. You had barely taken two steps before Allie came sprinting down the stairs, her face wet with tears and her smile so wide it looked like it might split her in half. She practically threw herself at you.
The force of the hug made you stumble backward right into Garrett’s chest, his arms coming around you instinctively to steady you.
“Oh my God,” Allie cried, bouncing once on her toes as if she could not physically contain herself. “I can’t believe you’re engaged.”
You laughed, breathless and still crying, and clung to her just as tightly. “I can’t believe it either.”
“We’ve been waiting for this for years.” Hannah said as she reached you too, her own eyes shining.
You let out a watery laugh as she joined the hug, the three of you twisting awkwardly together in a tangle of arms and tears and happy chaos. “I’m still trying to process it.” you said, pressing your face into her shoulder for a second.
“You think you’re trying to process it?” Dean called from above. “Try being the one who had to help plan the whole thing without giving it away.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him, horrified and amused all at once. “You knew?”
Dean put a hand over his chest like he had been wounded. “Of course I knew. I’m hurt that you’re shocked.”
“I’m shocked that he was able to keep anything from me,” you said, looking back at Garrett in disbelief.
He gave you a completely unapologetic smile. “I’m very persuasive.”
“That is unfortunately true.”
You hugged Tucker and Sabrina next, and little Jamie immediately reached for you.
“Oh, hi, beautiful.”
You kissed her tiny cheek, and the second your lips touched her skin, something inside you softened so completely it almost hurt.
“I missed you,” you whispered.
Garrett, standing beside you with your hand still locked in his, watched the moment with that same quiet smile he had worn all evening—the kind that looked calm on the outside but made you feel like he was just as overwhelmed as you were underneath it all.
“She missed Auntie too,” Tucker said, beaming so hard it looked like his face could split in half.
Logan stepped forward with Grace beside him, both of them wearing matching expressions of smug satisfaction, like they had been waiting all day for this exact reaction.
“I cannot believe you and Grace kept this from me,” you said, pulling back just enough to glare at Logan. He lifted both hands in mock surrender. “We were under strict instructions.”
You turned your glare on Grace, then back to him. “I hate the both of you.”
“You’re only saying that because we were all in on it,” Logan said, way too pleased with himself. You crossed your arms, but the gesture lost all meaning when your face was splitting open with a smile you had no control over anymore.
“You’re engaged,” Dean called from behind him. “You’re not mad.”
“I can be both.”
“That checks out,” Hannah said, dabbing at her eyes. “She really can.”
You should have been able to take in the moment, to stand still long enough to process it, but everything felt too big, too bright, too impossible. Your heart was pounding so hard it seemed to shake your ribs from the inside out and through all of it, Garrett’s hand stayed in yours.
He never let go.
You kept looking down at the ring and then back up at him, still caught somewhere between laughter and tears. You could not decide what was stronger: the joy in your chest or the fear that if you felt any more of it, your heart might actually give out.
Then Garrett glanced toward the tunnel.
The change in him was subtle, but you noticed it immediately. His smile stayed in place, but something shifted behind his eyes, something alert. Anticipation.
That tiny change made your stomach tighten.
You frowned. “What now?”
He gave you a look that was almost innocent.
Almost.
Your eyes narrowed. “Garrett.”
“The surprise isn’t over,” he murmured, leaning in close enough that only you could hear.
You laughed helplessly through the tears still clinging to your lashes. “I don’t think my heart can survive another surprise.”
His gaze slid toward one of the side entrances, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and certain. “It has to.”
Before you could make sense of that, movement at the end of the tunnel caught your eye.
At first, your brain refused to understand what you were seeing. Your eyes registered the shapes before your mind could catch up, and for one impossible second, everything inside you went completely still.
Then the faces became clear.
Four familiar faces.
Your breath vanished.
Raegan was the first to react, her voice breaking into a squeal. “There she is!” And then she was running.
She came sprinting down the tunnel full-speed, dark ponytail flying behind her, and launched herself right into your arms before you could even brace for it.
You laughed so hard it nearly turned into another cry.
“Raegan!”
She was fourteen now, somehow all limbs and energy and movement, but when she wrapped her arms around you, she still held on the same way she always had. Fierce. Like she believed with all her heart that if she squeezed hard enough, she could make time stop.
“I missed you,” she mumbled into your shoulder.
“I missed you too.”
By the time you looked up, Rowan was already heading toward you with the exaggerated patience of a sixteen-year-old boy pretending to be far more mature than he really was. The second he reached you, he pulled you into a hug.
“I’m really happy for you,” he said, quieter now, emotion thick in his voice.
Your throat tightened. You smiled into his shoulder. “Thanks, Row.”
When you stepped back, your eyes landed on Rachel.
She looked exactly the same and somehow completely different at once, already crying before she even got to you. She opened her arms without saying a word.
You went straight into them.
The hug was gentle, familiar in a way that made your chest ache. There had been a time when you could never have imagined this ease, this comfort, this softness. Rachel held you like she had been waiting a long time to do it.
“I’m so happy for you,” she whispered, her voice thick.
“So am I,” you whispered back.
When she pulled away, she cupped your face for a second, smiling through tears that kept slipping free anyway.
“You deserve this.”
The words hit deeper than you expected. You swallowed hard, blinking fast, because for some reason hearing them from her made everything feel more real, more earned, more impossible to hold inside.
Then your eyes found your father.
He stood a few feet away with his hands shoved awkwardly into the pockets of his coat, blinking too quickly, clearly trying and failing to keep himself composed. There was something so familiar and so fragile in that posture that your chest tightened before you even moved.
For one long, suspended second, you were no longer standing in a tunnel full of people and noise and celebration. You were somewhere else entirely—some place older, emptier, more painful. Somewhere that belonged to the version of your life where this kind of moment would have felt impossible.
Five years ago, if someone had told you that one day you would run into your father’s arms because you were overwhelmed with joy at seeing him, you would have thought they had lost their mind.
And yet your feet were already moving.
You crossed the distance before you could think too hard about it, before doubt or old wounds or fear could catch up to you.
He caught you easily when you reached him.
Your arms wrapped around him, and the second he held you back, the emotion you had been trying to manage all evening came crashing loose. His arms tightened around you like he had no intention of letting go.
“I’m so proud of you.”
Something in your chest folded in on itself.
You closed your eyes and held on. Because there had been a time when all you ever wanted was this–not the ring, not even the proposal itself, but this simple, impossible thing. Your father. Here. Present. Holding you.
When you finally pulled back, you laughed through your tears, almost dazed by how full you felt.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
He gave you a smile that looked far more emotional than he wanted to admit. “There wasn’t anything in the world that would’ve kept us away.”
Rachel nodded beside him. “The last time we saw you was Christmas.”
Your smile softened.
It had been almost a year.
With Garrett’s schedule and your own life somehow always spilling over into deadlines, work, and responsibility, holidays had turned into phone calls, FaceTime dinners, and promises that the next visit would be better, longer, easier. Life had a way of getting away from people before they realized it.
Seeing all of them there now felt almost unreal.
Then the truth of it hit you even harder.
Garrett had flown them all to Boston.
Just so they could be here.
Just so they could watch this.
Just so they could stand beside you for one of the most important moments of your life.
You looked back at him and he was watching you already.
Your face.
Your family.
The way you were smiling so hard it hurt.
As if this, your joy, your people, your happiness was what mattered most to him in the world.
Your father followed your gaze and let out a quiet chuckle.
“You know,” he said. “He asked me months ago.”
You blinked. “What?”
Your dad smiled toward Garrett. “He came to see me. To ask for my blessing.”
For a moment, you honestly forgot how to breathe.
Garrett’s expression changed almost imperceptibly beside you, just enough to show the faint pink rising into his cheeks. He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking a little less composed than he had a minute ago.
“I…” He glanced at you, then away again. “I wanted to do it properly.”
That did it. Your eyes filled all over again, so fast it almost made you laugh.
“He talked to all of us,” Rachel said softly.
“Even me,” Raegan added, looking absurdly proud of herself.
“I voted yes,” she declared.
Rowan folded his arms. “I also voted yes.”
“You weren’t actually voting,” your dad said dryly.
“I know,” Rowan replied. “But I still would’ve voted yes.”
That finally pulled a real laugh out of everyone, the tension cracking just enough for the room to breathe again.
Your father looked back at Garrett, and the softness in his expression changed the whole atmosphere around you.
“I told him something that day.”
You swallowed.
“I told him I wasn’t giving him permission.”
Garrett gave a small smile, the corners of his mouth turning quiet and sure. “You told me it was never yours to give.”
Your father nodded once. “I told him that the only person whose answer mattered…”
His eyes found yours.
“…was yours.”
That sent a tremor through you.
You looked between them, between the two men standing here now with such different histories and yet the same steady care in their faces. One had spent years learning how to be your father again. The other had never stopped choosing you, not once, not even when love would have been easier if it had been smaller.
Your vision blurred.
And then Garrett wasn’t done.
“But…” he said, and his voice gentled again, “there was one more blessing I wanted.”
You frowned at him, already dizzy with emotion.
He hesitated, his thumb beginning to move slowly over your ring finger, over the diamond now resting there like it had always belonged.
“A few weeks ago…” He swallowed. “…I went to see your mum.”
Time stopped and everything around you seemed to fall away.
“You showed me where she was buried a few years ago,” he said quietly, watching your face carefully, like he knew exactly how close he was to unraveling you and was prepared to do it anyway.
You nodded, unable to force out a word.
“I went by myself.” His voice had become so soft you had to lean closer to hear him.
“I brought flowers and I sat with her for a while,” he continued.
A tear slipped down your cheek.
“ I told her how much I loved you.”
The room went blurry.
“I told her I was going to ask her daughter to marry me.”
His thumb brushed over your ring again, slow and reverent.
“I figured if I was asking the people who loved you,” he said, his own eyes shining now, “I couldn’t leave out the first person who ever did.”
Something deep in your chest gave way.
“And I promised her…” His voice broke just slightly. “…that I’d spend the rest of my life taking care of you.”
That was it.
You broke.
There was no holding it together anymore.
The tears came faster than you could stop them, and before you even realized you were moving, you had thrown yourself into his arms. He stumbled back a step with a surprised laugh before wrapping you up just as tightly, burying his face against your hair as though he'd been waiting to hold you like this all evening.
The ring pressed gently between you.
Behind you, your family was still crying. Your friends were laughing through their own tears, but it all faded into the background the moment Garrett's arms closed around you.
Somewhere between heartbreak and healing, between forgiveness and second chances, you had finally learned something the younger version of yourself never could have believed.
You had always been worthy of being chosen.
Garrett hadn't made you worthy of love. He had simply loved you so patiently, so completely, and so consistently that, somewhere along the way, you had finally found the courage to believe it too.
And if there was one thing you knew with absolute certainty, it was this: Garrett Graham would never stop finding new ways to love you.