Page 22 of Sometimes You Fall

Chase:Love you too.

I hold my phone to my chest and breathe out a sigh of relief. Everything is going to be okay, especially if I can avoid seeing Grady until Chase graduates from high school.

The second his face pops into my head, I groan, tossing my phone back into my purse and trying to focus on arranging things in my new office. But, like every other time I’ve thought of Grady these past weeks, our night together plays back through my mind like a montage of black and white snapshots.

Me seeing him in the bar.

Me flirting with him, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

But God, he looked so rugged, so manly, so much hotter than he did as a teenager—even though he was attractive back then as well.

Me wondering what his lips tasted like as I watched him sip from his whiskey.

His eyes staring up at me while his head was between my legs.

The way his face tightened as he sank into me.

The sounds he made as he came, and the sounds he drew from me each time he gave me an orgasm, each one stronger than the last one.

It was just supposed to be one night—a few hours to give in to my curiosity, let myself live a little and be with someone who I knew was safe.

Grady was always a safe place for me.

Then why didn’t you say goodbye to him before you left, Scottie? Why leave him like that?

“Ugh,” I groan out loud, fighting with myself for the umpteenth time. It’s not that I didn’t want to say goodbye, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to say those words to him before—not whenI found out I was pregnant and changed my number at Andrew’s request, and I sure as hell couldn’t say them that night.

Fifteen years ago was one of the hardest times of my life. Reporters were calling me non-stop, wondering why I wasn’t playing in the upcoming season as planned. I was on track to make the national team, but I couldn’t tell them—not until it was too late to hide the reason. And by then, I was old news.

I was also in a relationship with a man whose child I was carrying, desperately trying to convince myself that marrying him and building a family was the right thing to do—that we owed it to Chase. Even if it meant I would be tied to him for the rest of my life.

I should have listened to my gut. Andrew turned out to be one of my greatest mistakes, and severing my friendship with Grady was another.

Pushing Grady away was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Watching him succeed, seeing him achieve his dreams just reminded me that I wouldn’t be chasing my own. And seeing him again only solidified what I already knew—he is the type of man you keep forever, the type who deserves everything he could ever dream of. And here I am, a mess—a single mom with an ex I wish would jump off a cliff, and a son who needs me now more than ever.

So I let myself be selfish for just that one night, to take what I wanted, what I needed, and live in a fantasy of what it would be like to be with Grady Reynolds.

But that’s all I got. That’s all I deserved. That’s all I would allow myself to have.

So I left without telling him and headed back to my life, the one I had chosen all those years ago.

My mom told me he stopped by her house looking for me just like I knew he would. That’s why I left before Christmas, days before Iplanned to—because I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing the look in his eyes when I told him that he and I were just a one-night thing.

But that was before I got the call from my mom about the job offer and the house.

“It would be good for Chase,” she said, and as a mother herself, I knew her heart was in the right place.

So I sat down and made a list of pros and cons. And ultimately, I knew this move was what my son needed. If I had it my way, I would have stayed far away from Grady and his magic dick.

The boy I once knew grew into a man who still made heads turn everywhere he went. Now I know it’s only a matter of time before we cross paths and have the inevitable awkward conversation about why I’m here.

But I’m not going to worry about that until it happens. I can’t. I have too many other things to focus on right now, like getting my office together.

So that’s what I do, ignoring the calls from Andrew that I know will eventually come and organizing the contents of my desk and hanging my degrees up on the wall.

Once I’m done, I sit back and take a deep breath, reminding myself that everything is going to work out for the best. Until another wave of nausea hits me, just like it did on the road a few days ago, and I throw up my breakfast in the trashcan under my desk.

Chapter five

---