Page 50 of Floored

Cute little sheep in hand, I walked up the stairs, finished the scone, and smiled as I passed the guest room where I'd laid to read earlier. The doorway to his room, with its big masculine bed and sturdy wood frame, looked just about right. I'd set the timer on my phone and be back downstairs before he got home, I promised myself, as I crawled onto the perfectly firm mattress.

I groaned in bliss, pressing my face into a pillow that smelled like him.

My eyes fell shut, and with the phone call behind me and the smell of Jude surrounding me, I fell fast asleep.

14

JUDE

Everyone had left the pitch, dispersed to various meetings or treatments, so before I went home, I found myself standing in the middle of the endless stretch of green by myself.

It was hard to remember moments when this job wasn't complicated and didn't come with a metric ton of entanglements. All day, I'd faced various aspects of exactly how I was slipping from my long-held perch. The physio working on my hamstrings commented on all manner of issues she'd noticed in my play the day earlier. Declan cornered me in the weight room and had a chat with me about my attitude. But honestly, what kind of attitude did he expect when we were playing like shit and all eyes turned to someone new to fix our problems?

He'd struggle too if someone asked him to step down as the captain.

My manager sat across from me, the barrier of his desk impossibly wide as he discussed exactly why I was looking old and slow and distracted, and I was slowly whittling down all my chances at being in the starter position. With our upcoming match at Aston Villa, we had a chance—and a very good one—to earn three points and move higher. Behind me were players younger, faster, and in his words, had the focus that I used to be famous for.

Complications.

A hopeless mess that I wasn't even sure how to go about untangling.

The only thing that felt clear was the grass beneath me, the white lines lining the space, and the ball that sat in front of me. Digging my toe underneath it, I bounced it on the top of my foot once, twice, three times, and when the fourth bounce hit the grass, I pulled back my left leg and drilled it as hard as I could toward the goal.

It hit the back of the unguarded net, and the sound of the ball rattling the woven fabric of the net made me smile. Thought fairly innocuous to some, it was one of my favorite sounds in the entire world. Buried in that sound was my legacy.

And as much as I didn't want to admit it, that legacy was fading to everyone except me.

I walked off the pitch, nodding to the security guard stationed at the tunnel, and made my way to my car. The drive from the facility back to my house was less than twenty minutes, and as I got farther away, the knots surrounding my day loosened around my chest. It was the first time in a very long time—maybe ever—since I'd headed home with the knowledge that someone was waiting for me.

Someone I wanted to see, someone I wanted to spend time with, and not only because of the baby.

I was still wrapping my brain around the future, and how the addition of a child inevitably altered it. Lia wasn't just in my future, some concept I couldn't quite grasp. She was flesh and blood, and right in front of me as somehow the least complicated part of my life.

Her easy acceptance of what I needed to do today and the way she was able to face the reality of my life without flinching were attractive options to be presented with. I smiled as I pulled my car next to hers, thinking of how happy that scone had made her. Her ability to find pleasure in those small moments was something I could learn from her. I used to be able to.

Like the sound of a ball hitting the back of the net, normally drowned out by the roaring of the crowds. They were intertwined, to be sure, but maybe the lesson I needed to learn by this sudden veering my life had taken was to appreciate the building blocks when I was faced with them, instead of stepping my full weight on top in order to get to the next one.

The crowds wouldn't be there without the ball in the net.

I wouldn't either.

Unlocking the front door, I called out her name, wondering if coming home to her on this day was another building block. The house was quiet with Lia nowhere to be seen on the main floor. Tapping my thumb against my thigh, I thought of where she might have gone. It was a bit of a walk to any shops or restaurants, but doable. My phone showed no texts from her, and I was a bit later coming home than I'd anticipated.

From upstairs, I heard a creak, and I smiled. It came from my bed. I knew that sound. It was the sound my bedframe made any time I shifted. I took the stairs quietly, avoiding the spots that made noise. Approaching my room, I decided not to worry so much about what step might come next, what step should come next. I'd simply enjoy whatever place we found ourselves in, whatever place Lia wanted us in.

The rules would be made to our specifications, and I found that I quite liked that. No one could tell us how we should be doing this, whatever this thing was between her and I. This was the one part of my life that felt smooth, felt instinctual in an entirely different way than I was used to.

And lying in the middle of my bed, curled on her side underneath the quilt that Rebecca insisted on putting on my bed, I could understand why. Everything inside me felt drawn to Lia, tugged toward her like she'd yanked her fist inside my chest and refused to let go. No part of me could define why it made so much sense to me to climb quietly onto the bed next to her, so I didn't even try. That morning, she'd been open to the easy affection between us, and for a moment, I'd thought she'd curl her clever fingers around my trousers like she had that first night and pull me closer. It was in her eyes to do exactly that, but she'd resisted.

She was the stronger of the two of us, that much was clear. Because seeing her laid out on my bed like that, nothing inside me wanted to act along the same lines. The sleek line of her back, the silky fall of her hair down her back, and the perfectly round curve of her arse was the perfect gift to come home to.

She shifted when I carefully curled myself around her, sliding my arm around her waist and intertwining my fingers over top of hers. Of all the places she could have napped, she chose my bed, and as I held my breath to see if that shifting meant she was waking up, I knew she'd done so for a reason.

The hand not laying on hers brushed against something soft, and I lifted my head, eyes widening when I pulled the tiny sheep—made by my mum—from underneath the pillow.

"What the bloody hell? Where did you come from?" I murmured. His pink nose wasn't as bright as it used to be. The gray wool of his body faded with age. I didn't even know why I still had it because almost every single remnant of my childhood was tucked away—out of sight, out of mind.

Lia's fingers tightened around mine when I spoke, and her breathing shifted from slow and steady to shallow, rapid, excited.

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