Page 124 of Free Agent

Realizing his energy was off, my eyes narrowed. "Hope? Monty, what are you talking about?"

He let out a low chuckle, shaking his head. "I'm sick, Rori," he said, standing up. "Up here." He pointed to his temple. "Nobody can see it, or if they can, they won't tell me. But... I know. And it's been like that for a while. I don't know when it's gonna be my time, but I know it's coming. And there are things that I cannot leave without doing.”

“Like... having a child?” I guessed, as my brain churned through the implications of what he was telling me.

"Yeah." He nodded. "Like that."

"So, what?" I asked. "Is this about to be you explaining why it's my fault you cheated on me?”

“Why it's your fault? No. But why I did?" He shrugged. "Yeah. I wanted it to be you, but... since it wasn't, it had to be someone."

I blinked. Nodded. "Yeah. I get that. I just wish you'd had the balls to simply break up with me first."

"I didn't want to break up with you, Rori,” he said, moving around the couch. “I wanted to be with you forever. I wanted to have the family that we always talked about having!”

“I wanted that too! And then my sister died, of something that...you can't predict. You won't know what's happening until it's happening, and there's not much you can do to stop it."

"You think I don't know that?" he shot back, pointing at his head again. “Like I don’t fucking get it? And besides that…she was my sister, too," he reminded me. "We've been together forever, Rori. Nova was family. I felt that loss, too, and I understood why you were scared to have a baby. I never stopped wanting that, though.”

“And that's something you were perfectly within your rights to be mad at me about. Maybe even kind of hate me for it, for backing out of what we said we were going to do. For being too scared to just outright say, I'm not having any babies. Being pissed about it, sure. But none of that gives you the right to betray, and embarrass, and hurt me. Especially when you didn't even give me the respect of telling me why,” I said, swallowing a sudden flood of emotion. “We could have talked about it, we could have gone to therapy, we could have figured it out. Surrogacy, adoption, hell, maybe I could have come around to it. But no, you ripped that chance away from us by deciding you'd rather just stick your dick in someone else.”

"You're right," he admitted, putting his bottle down. "I should have done those things, but I didn’t know how. And it was easier to simply seek comfort somewhere else. I can admit that. There's wrong on both sides, but you're right, there's more wrong on mine. And I own that. So where do we go from here?"

"We don't go anywhere from here," I told him. "We are done. We have to accept that and move forward. Move on with our lives. We don't have to be bitter or angry. We can look at it as a season that has passed and take whatever lessons we need from it."

He bit his lip, staring at me for a long moment. "You're really done?"

“Yes, Monty. Too much has happened and I... I..." I sighed.

"You're what, Rori?"

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter."

"It does though. Just say it," he insisted.

"Just say what?”

“That we're done because you're in love with Tatum Wilder."

My eyebrows immediately wrinkled into a scowl. "What? We're done because you and your side bitch have delighted in humiliating me. We're done because you're having a child with someone else. We're done because I deserve someone who gets me, who makes me feel seen and happy. You don't get to blame Tatum for how this between us has gone down."

"Tatum has done petty shit too. The singing on the livestream, remember? And look at my fucking jaw." He turned his head, pointing to where the shadow of a bruise was still there from where Tatum had tagged him a couple of days ago.

I shrugged. "Yes, that happened. And what about your sidepiece livestreaming me finding out that you were with her on my fucking birthday, Monty? I don't think you want to pull out a list of tit for tat with me."

He threw his hands up. "You're right. It doesn't matter anyway. I'm tired and I've got to figure out where I'm headed from here."

"What does that mean?"

He shrugged. "It means I probably only have another year or two of football in me, and then I've got to figure my shit out. Before whatever is happening in my head takes my ability to do so. I want to have time with my son."

I nodded. “That makes sense. I want that for you too. So can that be it for the confrontations, the petty comments, all of that? We can just respectfully move on."

He gave me this wistful look and then nodded. "Yeah. Okay."

"Good. In that case, I wish you the best."

"You too."

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