The first thing I see when I push open our front door is a thick white card balanced on the console table beside the basket where we dump our keys. My name is written in his careful block letters, the same ones I used to see in his old playbooks when he doodled instead of paying attention in film study.

Shortcake.

Shoes off. Socks on. Follow the lights.

My chest tightens around the nickname. Shortcake. The first time he called me that, I’d brushed it off and told him it wouldn’t stick. It was too sweet and too soft for someone like me. But he only grinned like he knew better, repeating it until the sound of it wore down my resistance, and I realized he’d carved out a place for it in me I didn’t even know was empty. Now it fits in all the places my real name never could, and seeing it written here in his steady hand feels like being claimed all over again.

A laugh escapes me, low and shaky, as my toes curl against the welcome mat. He’s always telling me I’m safest when I start soft, when the world brushes against me with gentler edges. So, I slip out of my boots, tug on the knit socks waiting there, and step into the house that feels like us.

The silence inside doesn’t press or claw the way it sometimes can, doesn’t ring in my ears until I want to scream. This quiet feels altered by him, gentle and steady, protective in a way that wraps around me like an embrace instead of closing me in. Amber-colored LEDs run along the baseboards, a soft golden thread of light pulling me forward like runway markers.

“Okay, goalie,” I whisper.

The word tastes different now than it did the first time I threw it at him, back when I wanted to keep him at arm’s length. Tonight, it softens on my tongue, worn smooth by everything he’s been to me. It isn’t just his position anymore. It’s who he is, my last line of defense, my safe place, my always.

The lights guide me into the kitchen, where a square, cloth-wrapped package waits on the island. The fabric is soft, the kind that won’t catch or scratch, another detail chosen with me in mind. My pulse stumbles as I press my hand to the bundle, feeling how carefully it’s been prepared, and for a moment, I simply stand there, holding it, too full of him to move. At last, I tug the ribbon free, peel back the fabric, and find a matte black case with rounded edges, a silver wolf’s head gleaming across the lid, resting inside the folds.

The case is heavier than I expected, solid in my hands, and it feels weighted with his care, as if every detail he thought of has been folded into the gift. My fingers trace the seam, lingering there as if the touch might steady me, until finally, the latch yields beneath my thumb and the lid opens.

The sight nearly knocks the air from my lungs: Custom Beats, sleek and perfect, their ear cushions soft as velvet, and the band wrapped in the dusk-colored fabric he knows I reach for when the world cuts too sharp. And stitched into the hinge in lime-green thread is a tiny A. It’s so small, yet it nearly undoes me. My throat tightens, and my eyes flood, because of course, he thought of everything, down to the smallest thread.

A note rests inside, written in the same hand as the card at the door.

For the noise you don’t deserve to carry.

My knees weaken as I clutch the case to my chest, the way I once clung to my old headphones on the bus, drowning in static while teammates laughed too loudly a few rows back. Everyone else ignored me, or worse, nudged me to pull them off. Everyone but him. He sat with me in the chaos, never trying to strip it away, only anchoring me until the noise bent itself around us instead of breaking me apart. And now, years later, he’s given me that same refuge back, remade in the colors of us.

The lights continue past the laundry room and down the hall that is lined with photos tacked gently to the wall, no glass frames to click or echo. I brush my fingertips across them as I pass: Ramona’s chaotic lake selfie, Cole caught mid eye roll, Beau holding two coffees with that half smile that only ever belongs to me.

At the slider, the trail ends. Another box waits, simple and unassuming, though my pulse knows better.

I sink onto the step, pulse racing, and draw it into my lap. The cardboard is soft at the corners, worn smooth, as though his hands have traced it again and again, just to be sure it wouldn’t scrape me. The ribbon loosens with a whisper, and for a heartbeat, I just sit there, chest too full to breathe, until finally, I lift the lid, and my heart stumbles as I see them: Nikes, low profile and smoke gray, a cream swoosh curving down the side, lime-green stitching flashing like a secret. They’re his custom shoes, but remade for me, down to the A stitched on the tongue to match his B.

We’ve both been sneaker heads for as long as I can remember, though neither of us realized how deep it ran until we turned one of the spare bedrooms into a shrine of shelves and boxes, a closet overflowing with every release we could get our hands on. It was one of those discoveries that surprised us both, proof that even after growing up side by side, there were still corners of each other waiting to be uncovered.

A sticker clings to the inside lid, playful in his way: No break-in period required.

A choked breath bursts out of me, broken and wet, because of course he remembered how much I hate the squeak of new shoes. The release softens into something heavier as my eyes blur, because these aren’t just sneakers at all. They’re a promise that wherever I go, his stride will fall beside mine, our steps stitched together in lime green. The color he’s carried into every game since we were kids, now woven into me.

I slip them on with shaking hands, and the moment my feet settle, they feel like they’ve been waiting all this time, like he has. Beneath the insole, another folded note lies tucked away.

You don’t have to run to find me, but if you do, I’ll be there.

—B

The words smear as memories surge through me. I see myself bolting from the rink with panic clawing at my throat, fleeing holidays with my palms pressed tight over my ears, running from him because loving him felt too big, too dangerous. In every memory, he is the same. He never chased in anger, never pulled, never demanded. He simply stood steady, waiting, certain. On the slider handle, a final note dangles from linen ribbon, edges fluttering in the faint breeze.

Come out back when you’re ready. No rush.

(And yes, I left your—well, my—Timberwolves hoodie here because I know you’d forget to grab something.)

A broken laugh slips out, caught on a sob, because he’s right. He’s always right. The hoodie waits draped over a chair, moss green and worn, the same one he wrapped around me the night I shattered after the Timberwolves’ first game, the same one he shoved at me in high school whenever I forgot my own hoodie. The threads are frayed, the fabric thinning, but it holds his warmth the way it always has. Pulling it on feels like pulling him close, like every time he wrapped it around me was stitched into the weave.

I tug it on, sleeves swallowing my hands, and push the door open, my chest tightening as the world seems to shift around me. On the other side isn’t darkness at all, but a glow so soft and impossible it steals the air from my lungs.

The backyard shimmers with light, not the kind that blinds but the kind he made gentle for me, transformed the way he always transforms the world—taking sharp edges and turning them tender. Candles flicker like heartbeats in glass, floating tea lights drift like captured stars, and for the first time in forever, I feel like the night itself was remade so I could stand inside it without flinching.

The lights draw me forward, straight to the old maple, its roots circled with brass and russet blooms, lanterns rising tall around it like a skyline he built just for us. And above it all, suspended in the dark, glowing in sugar white neon.

Will you marry me?

The force of it crashes through me. My knees nearly give, my body flooding with heat and cold and tremor all at once, a storm twisting tight in my chest. Tears come fast and unashamed, spilling over before I can stop them, because there’s no stopping this. No reason to.

And then he’s there.

Beau steps into the glow like it belongs to him, like he belongs to me.

A backwards cap, black and worn. A dark Henley clinging to his frame, sleeves shoved to his elbows, ink curling over his collarbone. Jeans that fit him just right. And on his feet, the matching Nikes, lime-green stitching catching the light when he moves.

Of course, he’s wearing his pair. We always joked that our collection would outlive us, the sneaker wall in that spare room proof of our shared obsession. Seeing him in them now, standing in the glow of lanterns and petals, it hits me all over again—that even after a lifetime side by side, there are still ways we keep surprising each other.

He looks like every version of himself I’ve ever loved. The boy who draped his hoodie over my shoulders, the man who counted my breaths until I steadied, the goalie who once told me I didn’t have to run.

My lungs seize, my eyes burn, and when he pulls the cap off, scrubs a shaking hand through his hair, and shoves it back on, I realize he’s nervous. Nervous and still here. Still mine.

“Hey,” he says softly, voice rough with everything he hasn’t yet said.

“Hi.” It’s all I can manage without breaking open completely.

The petals shift under my shoes as I step closer, neon light haloing him, illuminating the man who has always, always seen me.

The box trembles in his hand, his throat working as he swallows, and I know this moment is the one my whole life has been walking toward.

Panic stirs at the edges of me, wings sharp against my ribs, but I remember what he taught me. In for four. Out for four. I count the way he once counted for me in a locker room when the noise was too much and my lungs refused to work.

By the time I reach him, my chest is steady. My heart is wild. My soul is certain.

This is it. The biggest save of my life, and I’m shaking so hard I have to curl my toes inside my shoes to keep from toppling over. Even on my knees, I feel unsteady. Every nerve in my body firing like I’m balanced on thin ice about to give way. My palms are damp, my throat raw, my body wired like I’m in overtime with the whole season on my shoulders. This isn’t a game I can win or lose. This is my forever.

She’s here. In the green hoodie she’s been stealing from me since I can remember. In the sneakers I built so she’d never feel trapped. With her brand-new Beats headphones slung around her neck, armor she doesn’t have to explain to me. She’s here in the backyard that I’ve tried to make quiet enough for her to breathe.

And God, she’s beautiful. Not the staged kind but the kind that makes your chest ache because you’re looking at every version of her you’ve ever loved, all layered on top of the woman standing here now. The girl in my hoodie. The teenager who rolled her eyes at me in the hallways. The best friend who sat through every bus ride. And the only person I’ve ever known who could make me believe home wasn’t a place but a person.

“I practiced this,” I tell her, voice hoarse. “It probably sounded better in the shower.”

Her mouth curves. “Everything does.”

I crack a smile, because of course, she’d save me with a joke. She always does, and the sound steadies me, because if I can still breathe with her here, with my heart trying to climb out of my chest, then maybe I won’t completely fall apart before I finish this.

I glance down at the box in my hand, the hinge sanded so it won’t squeak. I’ve opened and closed it a hundred times today, whispering the words I’m about to say. None of them are enough. There aren’t words big enough for what she is to me, but I’m going to try anyway, because she deserves to hear them.

“Before I ask you what’s already written up there”—I nod at the neon sign glowing above us, haloing her in white light—“I want to tell you what’s in here.”

Her eyes flick to the box as my heart climbs into my throat. It’s pounding so hard I’m sure she can hear it, the same way she’s always been able to hear me, even when I didn’t say a thing.

“You hate when the world cuts at you without warning. The tags that bite. The seams that burn. The rings that glare too sharply to bear. You’re not difficult, Alise. The world is just loud.” My chest locks, my voice splinters, and the box trembles in my hands because I can’t steady them, not with her eyes on me and the weight of forever pressing down. “You let me be your quiet when I didn’t know how to fix anything else. And I’ve been trying to build that quiet for you ever since.”

I open the box, and the ring glows in the lantern light, not a diamond but a matte platinum band, narrow and smooth, with a single groove running around it, the inner band designed to glide beneath her thumb when she needs to fidget. Inside the band sit three pale green sapphires, the exact lime-green color of our stitching.

And inside the band, carved in my own hand, waits the only truth I’ve ever known: Only ever you.

Her breath trembles, and my knees give. I drop down onto one out of instinct, like the ice taught me to when the only way to save something was to go low and give it everything. But this time it isn’t just instinct. It’s devotion, it’s surrender, it’s the only place I’ve ever wanted to be, looking up at her, knowing she holds every piece of me and always will.

 “I don’t need you to sparkle to know you’re everything,” I say. “I don’t need you to change. I just need to spend the rest of my life making a world for you that feels like this. Warm. Soft. Chosen. The way you once told me you wanted home to feel.”

Her lips part. Her hand covers her mouth. The same look she gave me in the kitchen months ago, when she whispered You are my soft place.

“Alise, will you marry me?”

The question hangs between us. In that instant, the world narrows to nothing but her face. I tell myself I know her answer, that every look, every smile, every step tonight has already said yes. But fear still claws through me, sharp and merciless, because asking her out loud feels like laying my heart at her feet with no armor, no mask, and no way to take it back. What if I’ve asked too much? What if forever is heavier than she can carry?

My pulse shatters, and I swear I won’t breathe again until she answers me. The air is a blade in my chest, each second slicing deeper, and all I can do is hold myself here, hoping she’ll take every fragile piece I’m offering. And even if she doesn’t, if she breaks me, I know I would still stay. I would spend whatever life I have left at her side, loving her until the very end of time.

Her lips part, tears brimming as her hand lifts to cover her mouth. Her eyes find mine and hold, like she is memorizing the shape of my soul. For a heartbeat, I think I’ve lost her, the silence stretching until it hurts. Then her laugh breaks free, trembling and fractured, sunlight splitting through storm clouds. Wet, unpretty, but entirely hers, and it undoes me. I could die right here in the glow of it.

“Yes,” she chokes out, the word cracking on her tongue. “Yes, Beau. Always yes.”

For a second, I can’t move. The sound of it crashes through me, filling every hollow I didn’t know was empty. Relief surges so hard I almost collapse forward at her feet, palms pressed to the earth as my chest caves under the force of it. It’s dizzying, the kind of release that leaves me gasping, like I’ve been holding my breath for years and she has finally, finally let me exhale.

The box almost slips from my hands, but I manage to slide the ring onto her finger. It settles like it’s always belonged there. Her hand trembles, mine steadies, and when her thumb presses into the groove, her whole body eases, as if the weight she carries has finally found a place to rest.

“You thought of everything,” she whispers.

“I thought of you. Same thing.”

She kisses me then, soft and certain, sleeves bunched in her fists. I tip my cap backward so nothing touches her that she hasn’t chosen. Her lips taste like salt and hope, a tremor of breath catching against my mouth, and the world tilts with the reminder that this is real, that she’s mine in this moment. I remember what I told her once: Every time your laugh catches, I’ll be there. And now I am, with everything in me, answering that vow.

She pulls back just enough to breathe. “Do it again.”

“What?”

“Ask me again. For the picture in my head.”

Emotion surges up, raw and unstoppable. My chest caves with the force of it, and what escapes is a fractured sound, part sob and part prayer, as I drop to one knee again under the glowing sign. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes.” She’s crying and smiling all at once. “A thousand times, yes.”

I kiss her hand, her knuckles, her ring. She rubs her thumb along the groove, humming like it’s music. And all I can think is how lucky I am that this is my song, that this is the soundtrack of my forever.

And I promise myself that, for the rest of our lives, I’ll keep asking. In grocery aisles. On porches. At center ice. Every time she needs a reminder that yes is ours.

We leave the circle hand in hand, petals whispering under our matching shoes. Sneakers we once swore we’d never crease, the kind that filled a spare room we turned into a shrine without realizing it was another way of building a life together. She tilts her head against my shoulder, sleeve brushing my wrist, and it floors me that even after all these years, we’re still surprising each other.

She tips her head against my shoulder, sweater sleeve brushing my wrist, and says the words that undo me more than any others:

“You are my soft.”

And I whisper the vow I’ll keep forever:

“I’ll spend my whole life earning that.”

She lets out a joyful sob, brushing her thumb across the ring like she can’t stop touching it. Then her gaze drops to our shoes, lime stitching glinting in the lantern light.

“Think this counts as a crease?” she whispers.

 “Best one I’ll ever make.” I huff, tugging her closer.

Her smile wrecks me, wide and certain. In that moment, every game, every save, every ounce of fight I have ever had finally makes sense. All of it has been leading here, to this night, to her hand in mine, to us. This is the only win that has ever mattered.

Game over. I’ve already won.