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This entire time, he’d thought he’d been looking for Freddie.

Deep down, though, he’d been looking for himself.

The letters had woven their way into his soul with every handwritten word because Freddie had felt out of place. He’d been trying to figure himself out. He’d wanted to belong somewhere.

So did Nolan.

And Freddie had gotten his answers. He’d found them because he’d worked for them. He’d invested his time and himself. He’d let people know him. Taken risks. Built roots.

Freddie’s mystery was solved.

Now it was time for Nolan to solve his own life. If he wanted to belong, he couldn’t look for it in someone else’s story anymore.

He had to choose it for himself.

And that choice, if he let it, led directly to Eli.

Nolan looked at Eli. He wore a quarter-zip pullover in heather blue with a band of snowflakes across the chest and fitted black slacks that almost burst at the seams at his thighs. His face was, as always, an explosion of freckles, and his blue eyes held Nolan’s as though he had all the time in the world to wait for his answer.

How did he feel now that the mystery was solved?

Christ. How he felt was almost too complicated to put into words.

“I want to stay here,” he blurted and almost laughed when Eli’s brow furrowed.

“Here?” Eli looked around at the ongoing festivities. “Like, here here? I don’t think you can, Nole. The party ends at⁠—”

“No.” Laughing, Nolan kissed him quickly. “I meant here with you. In Vermont. I . . .” He got lost in Eli’s eyes for a second, and hell. Maybe he did want to stay here, in this exact spot, in this exact moment, and simply lose himself in Eli for the rest of his life. “I want to stay in Vermont,” he said inanely. “See where this goes. Because you make me feel like I’m floating, and I think we could build something pretty fucking great. Besides, I think your older teammates kind of adopted me.”

Eli’s eyes went glassy, and he swallowed hard. “Well. Yeah. Of course they did. And obviously we’re going to build something great. Like, dude, I think I told your dad I was keeping you, which . . . wait. I think I also told my mom I was keeping you. You don’t want to make a liar out of me, right?”

Nolan read between the lines and kissed the stuffing out of him.

Eli was telling him that not only did he want him, he’d already made room for him. Had already spoken about him to important people in his life. Had already introduced him to his future.

The mystery of Freddie and the letters might’ve ended . . .

But Nolan and Eli’s journey was just beginning.

epilogue

THREE MONTHS LATER

“That’s it,” Nolan said, clicking over to the last slide on his presentation deck, conveniently labeled Conclusion. He was only meeting with Roman Kinsey and Sandro Zanetti, so no, he probably hadn’t needed a formal presentation.

But who didn’t enjoy messing around on PowerPoint?

“Like I said, what you’ve built here works. There are a couple of key gaps, but what you have is a program that works for most people most of the time. Trust me when I tell you that’s not the case for most organizations.”

“Okay, but . . .” Roman leaned forward in his office chair and ran a hand over his shaved head. “How do we bridge those gaps?”

“I thought you might ask.” Nolan clicked over to the next slide—Appendix. “These are some solutions I’ve come up with that may help. I’ll go over them briefly here, but I did outline them thoroughly in the report I sent you. We’ll start with the obvious one: the culture as it currently exists tends to reward the—please forgive this terrible phrasing—the right kind of personality.”

Zanetti nodded.

Encouraged, Nolan kept going. “Without meaning to, the system favors people who are socially confident, comfortable in a crowd, speak up easily, and adapt quickly. And it tends to quietly disadvantage those who observe first and process later—those who need time to think before they speak. So fitting in is naturally easier for some people than others. The easiest way to get around that and make sure everyone feels included is to create low-stakes entry points that aren’t high visibility or high pressure for those people. Add quieter ways to engage, like a small group space in the arena or even a quiet space. Introduce small group activities, and even plan community engagement events with fewer attendees to make it less intimidating for your quieter players. That’ll give them a chance to shine.

“Your second gap,” Nolan continued, “needs to address new players. They arrive on this team expected to already know how to adapt to the Trailblazers’ culture.”