Page 40 of Pucks and Likes

I grip her by her chin, forcing her eyes on me. “Erase that from your mind,” I demand, my words oozing with authority. “I want to be with you because I love you, Elliot.”

More tears fall, and she slowly shakes her head. “I am not a good person.”

“I disagree,” I whisper, stroking my thumb along her jaw. “I have a plan.”

She’s unmoving as she gazes into my eyes, her chest rising and falling in time with her heart. I can see the fear, the curiosity in her gaze. More than anything, I want to kiss her senseless, roll on top of her, and show her exactly how completely she is mine. I know I can’t, though. I have to explain my plan.

“What?”

“Give me three months.”

Her brows pull together.

“Give me until August first, which is a couple weeks after you have the baby, so I can show you that I can not only get you to fall for me, but show you that I can be your partner and be a great dad to our baby.”

“Alex, I have no doubt that you’ll be a wonderful father. I know you will. It’s me. I’m not who I appear.”

I want to shake her. “Why do you feel that way?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

I believe her words. I can see the emotions swirling in her eyes. “Elliot, do this for me.”

“It isn’t right. I’m too emotional. Of course I want our baby to have their daddy around. I’ll develop feelings because I think it’s what’s best.”

“No, you’ll realize your feelings because it’s what’s right. We are right.”

“We were sleeping together for three months, Alex?—”

“And I fell harder for you than I did any girl I was officially dating or in a relationship with.”

“Because the sex is good. Obviously. Here we are.”

She gestures her hand between our naked bodies, and I grin. “It is. I love burying myself in you, but it’s good because it’s you. Elliot, you are incredible.”

She swallows, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “You don’t know the broken pieces of me.”

“No matter how broken, I’ll love those pieces too.”

“And what if you can’t? What if you’re disgusted by me?”

I cup her jaw. “I think you’ve built this idea in your head that I will, and you won’t come off that idea. So I’ll just show you how the last thing I’ll ever be is disgusted by you.”

Her tears fall as she looks down at my chest, running her fingers along my tattoo. I watch her small fingertips as she traces the letters of the quote on my chest.

Die with memories, not dreams.

My mom used to say it all the time when we were growing up, and when I got it inked on me, she beat my ass for getting a tattoo but then told me she secretly loved it. As Elliot’s eyes move along the script, her breathing is labored, but she says nothing. I’d give my left nut to know what she is thinking, and I hate the silence. Breathing in through my nose, I say, “Give me this, mi sol. Let me prove to you what I already know.”

Her eyes cut to mine. “No one can get hurt if we just accept being the baby’s parents and that’s it.”

“I won’t accept that. It’s defeatist, the last way I want to live my life. I want to be yours, Elliot.”

She inhales deeply and then lets it out in a long breath, her eyes searching mine. “I’m gonna end up shattered.”

I cuddle her to me, her stomach and chest pressing into mine as I capture her by the nape of the neck. “No, mi sol. I’m going to love you whole.”

And that’s a goal I know I can score from inside the net myself.

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