Page 116 of Play the Last Card

“Come on, baby.” I guide Ivy off the stage. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ivy

My body hurts andI have a headache.

As in, my whole body. I’ve felt the aches of the flu, and the aches of being exhausted out of my mind. This is something different entirely.

And I can’t cry.

Is that weird?

I’m a self-confessed oversensitive girl. I am a crier. Stressed out? I’ll cry. Sad? Crying before I even know why. Having an argument? So many tears it frustrates me more.

But I haven’t shed a tear since Pops died.

Ouch.

My chest explodes with pain and I close my eyes. It hurts so badly.

Scott drives with one hand on the wheel and the other on my thigh. His fingers are digging into my jeans and his thumb stokes the fabric absentmindedly. He hasn’t stopped touching me since that kiss in front of eighty-thousand people.

The kiss. Oh god, the kiss.

I have no idea what on earth made him think that would be okay and I felt sick watching him stride toward me, the determination painted all over his gorgeous face. But when his lips touched mine for the first time in weeks, the world started to turn again and a little of the ache I had been feeling in my heart healed.

I don’t care about the photos that are probably circling by now.

I don’t care about the gossip columns, or news reports, or social media posts.

It hardly matters. I should’ve realized that I wouldn’t just be able to move on from the man sitting in the driver’s seat. Not when he’s spent the last two weeks showing me exactly where I rank on his list of priorities.

He’s tied himself to me and wrapped my life around his.

Football and I … well, we will probably never be friends. I still hate the reminder of what I lost every time I look down at the field. Every time I hear an announcer talk about my family. Every time I feel like I have to share a piece of my dad with the rest of the world.

So no, we won’t be friends. But we can befriendly.

Because Pops is gone. My worst nightmare has come true and I’m on my own. At least that’s how I viewed it before this summer. Before Scott.

Now, I see the man sitting across the console from me, his hand holding my leg as if I’m a lifeline and he’s scared I’ll ask him to leave again. The man that has been sleeping on the couch downstairs for two weeks because he didn’t want me to be alone.

Yes, I know.

Of course I know. He’s not exactly quiet and I haven’t been sleeping nearly as much as he and Katie think I have been. The home movies they played today? I’ve been playing them on repeat since I came home from the hospital that night. I’ve been watching Pops games, my dad’s games. I’ve been listening to them talk. To each other, to my mom and nan. To me.

I look down at the jersey. An old but hardly worn Broncos jersey that has been sitting in a sealed box for almost twenty-two years. My dad’s draft day jersey. The one that he would’ve been given when drafted to the Broncos if he hadn’t died before he made it.

I hadn’t even known the box existed two weeks ago.

I left the hospital the night Pops passed with Katie on one side and Dr. Bryden on the other. He gave me a hug after walking us to our car, then he pulled out a crisp white envelope with my name written in Pops’ neat scrawl across the front.

There wasn’t some big confession inside. No huge plot twist that may have set my life on a different path the moment I read it.

It was simply a reminder from Pops.

You need to live a little.

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