Page 23 of The Final Game

Fuck. I want to tell her. I don’t like keeping things from her, and I want to just come out and tell her, and let her in on the secret that’s had me going out of my mind for days now. But I also don’t want to stress her out.

She’s so tired and stressed from taking care of Nova, and she rarely has time to just relax. And here she is, bordering on drunk from being relaxed. I can’t ruin this.

“You’re thinking,” she mumbles against my lips, pulling back with an arched brow. Her hands run through my hair and she leans in to press her lips against my cheek. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

I let out a laugh, feeling my heart pump in my chest. “You know me so well,” I muse, loving that my wife just knows when something’s up.

She sighs, shrugging. “I fell in love with you. I had to.” A chuckle bubbles out of me, loving how she continues to tease me. “What are you thinking about?” she asks.

My smile slips, and the muscle in my jaw ticks. “I’ll tell you another time.”

But Leila doesn’t let it go, narrowing her eyes. “Why?”

“Because, gorgeous,” I say, smoothing my hands over her waist. “I don’t want to do anything that might make you lose this bliss,” I tease with a smirk.

But the previously mentioned bliss leaves her as soon as those words are out of my mouth, and she stiffens, furrowing her brows. “What is it?” she demands, her brows knitting together.

“Another time, baby,” I tell her. “Let’s just enjoy the time we have together.” I lean in to kiss her, but Leila pulls back, her frown deepening.

“You never keep secrets from me,” she says, almost accusingly and I hate that she’s thinking the worst now.

“I know,” I reply with a sigh. “And I don’t want to. I want to tell you.”

“Then tell me,” she says, dropping her hands from my hair. Her expression hardens, and I breathe out a sigh.

“My mom reached out.”

Leila’s eyes widen, and she purses her lips. “When?”

“A week ago?” I say with a shrug.

She blinks a couple of times, her brows knitting together. “A week?” she repeats as if the words are foreign.

I nod, running my hands down the soft skin of her arms. “I wanted to tell you sooner, I just… didn’t know what to do,” I admit. I haven’t talked to her in a long time. A long, long time. She was a big part of my horrible childhood, and it made me wary of talking to her when all she had done was put me through hell. But… I’ve always had a sliver of hope she’d want to reach out. And now she has.

“What did she want?” Leila asks, tensing up. I almost smile, loving how she cares so much about me. I fucking love her for that.

“She’s sober,” I tell her. Leila’s eyes widen, and I continue. “Cameron told me she went to rehab, and has been sober for six months now.”

Leila’s brows dip, and I understand her reaction. My brothers and my mother have never been trustworthy, especially when my brother Brandon had threatened me for money after I got into the NBA. I had cut them off way before then, but after that, I decided not to ever even think about them.

Until one day, Cameron showed up at my door, crying, and begging me to help him, telling me he’d go to rehab if needed. I was apprehensive at first. They’d never wanted to be sober before. At first, I thought both of my brothers were in on it, wanting to scam me out of my money.

Until he told me Brandon had died of an overdose.

He fucking died.

My brother died and I didn’t even know.

It felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest when I saw my brother, my only brother now, at my door crying, begging me to save him so he wasn’t next.

I couldn’t say no.

I helped him, took him to the best rehab I could find, and kept in touch with him until he left a new man.

I’d never seen Cameron like that. Clean, sober, happy.

But my mom… she didn’t want to be helped.

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