Page 167 of The Pucking Wrong Rookie

Was a pucking wrong,crazy, perfect…rookie.

EPILOGUE

SLOANE

One year later…

The gallery was buzzing with people, voices mixing with the soft hum of background music, but all I could focus on were the walls lined with my paintings. My work. My soul poured out onto canvas for the world to see. It still didn’t feel real, standing there in this beautiful gallery in New York, surrounded by my art, watching as people whispered in admiration and reached for their wallets to buy pieces that once felt too personal and tragic to share.

I’d never imagined this moment. Never thought it could happen. But Logan, Olivia, and the rest of our friends—my family—posted my artwork on their social media, flooding their followers with images of my darkest moments and my brightest ones. It felt like exposure, like standing in front of the world completely bare. And then, a call from a curator in New York. A huge art show. Me, in this space, with everything laid out in front of strangers who suddenly saw value in the pieces of myself I’d kept hidden for so long.

I walked through the gallery, brushing my fingers lightly against the frames. Some of the paintings were dark, heavy with pain and shadows, but others…the more recent ones…were filled with light, hope, and the kind of brightness I never thought I’d find. The contrast between them mirrored my own journey—darkness to light, broken to whole.

“Sloane, this is incredible,” Olivia said, coming up beside me, her eyes wide as she took in the paintings. “Every piece is just…wow.”

“I want them all,” Monroe added, her eyes glued to the painting in front of us.

I smiled, my heart swelling. “I still can’t believe people are buying them.”

“Believe it,” Logan said, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close. “You’re a fucking genius, and now the whole world knows it.”

I leaned into him, grateful for his unwavering belief in me, but my eyes were drawn back to one painting in particular—the one I wouldn’t be selling. The girl sitting on the pier under the cloudy night sky. The one that marked the day everything changed. It was dark, yes, but it was also the beginning of something new. Something better. That painting wasn’t for anyone else. It was mine, and it always would be.

“I love that one,” he told me, his eyes softening because he knew the story behind it.

“That one I told them I’m keeping,” I murmured, more to myself than anyone else. “It’s… special.”

Logan followed my gaze and nodded. “Yes it is.”

As I stood there, surrounded by strangers and friends, admiring the work I’d poured my heart into, the door to the gallery opened, and in came Ari, Blake, Camden, and Anastasia—this time with Rome in tow. I couldn’t help the way my heart skipped when I saw him, the little boy who had changed everything for me. We’d adopted him six months after we’d gotten married, when I’d felt mentally healthy enough to be a great mom to him, and every day with him had been better than the last.

His eyes scanned the room until they found me, and then his face lit up like the sun breaking through the clouds.

“Mommy!” he cried, his little voice cutting through the noise, and before I could blink, he was running across the gallery, his tiny arms wrapping around my waist.

I froze for a moment, the wordMommyechoing in my mind, filling every empty space with warmth, just like it always did. I knelt down, pulling him into a tight hug, my chest aching in the best way possible. “Hey, baby,” I smiled, my voice thick with emotion.

Rome looked up at me with those big, trusting eyes. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” I said, brushing a stray piece of hair behind his ear. “Did you have fun with Ari and Blake?”

He nodded enthusiastically, his face glowing with happiness. “But I wanted to see your pictures. They’re so pretty, Mommy.”

My throat tightened, tears prickling at the edges of my eyes as I glanced around the room. My paintings, once a symbol of everything broken inside me, now felt like they belonged here. I belonged here. I looked down at Rome, our son, and I still couldn’t believe just how perfect things had become.

“There’s my buddy,” Logan growled, scooping Rome up and setting him on his shoulders. Rome squealed in delight, and I immediately took out my phone to take a picture of them—to join the five million others I’d taken just like it.

Logan rested the hand that wasn’t holding Rome on my shoulder, his voice soft and full of pride. “I’m so fucking proud of you, Red.”

“Uncle Logan, that’s a dollar in the swear jar,” Walker and Olivia’s tiny daughter, Isabella, told him, yanking on his pants.

“He said one this morning when he spilled his coffee,” Rome tattled.

“Hey, we said we were going to keep that one a secret,” Logan griped, smirking down at me.

I smiled at them all, unable to find the words to describe how much this moment meant. Everything had changed, and somehow, despite all the pain, all the struggles, I was okay. More than okay—I washappy.

As I looked around the room one more time, from the dark paintings to the light, I saw the reflection of my journey in every brushstroke. The highs, the lows, the moments I thought I wouldn’t survive, and the moments that saved me.

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