Page 50 of Vegas Heat

“I love you, too,” he whispers, his breath warm near my ear, and tears fall from my eyes as I feel like this is the type of love people wait their whole lives for. The type of love people dream about and pray for and long for.

I only hope we can carry this feeling well past these first two weeks and hold onto each other through whatever the future may bring.

CHAPTER 22: COOPER

It was a blissful weekend that was far too short, and she cried when I dropped her at the airport.

I’ll be honest. My own eyes burned when I had to pull away knowing she was flying out of my reach.

Carla tracked down a replacement for me through Troy’s recommendation, and she tapped former outfielder for the Padres and homerun hitter Tim Williams. I’ve met him at several different events, and I have no doubt he’ll be a great spokesperson for local events. Plus he has four kids, and they’re all in the San Diego district, so he’s already somewhat familiar with the mission.

So now I just have to see if I can work something out between Gabby and Kaylee, and then Gabby and I might have opportunities to work together.

Maybe it’s a little crazy to even be considering that, but I know what I feel, and this is way more than just some fling.

When she said the words, I felt them in my chest.

We didn’t say them again over the weekend apart from that one time, and her words came out in the blissful moment when her body was racked with pleasure, but it didn’t matter. There they were, and she couldn’t take them back.

I wouldn’t let her even if she tried.

It was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me.

With my ex, she said the words so often they lost their meaning.

When Gabby said them, it was because shefeltthem. She was in the moment, living and breathing that feeling, and the wordsjust fell out of her. It was pure and beautiful, and that’s how I knew it was genuine.

And when I leaned down and buried my face in her neck, it was so she wouldn’t see the emotion in my eyes. I’m not an emotional man. I tend to be incredibly even-keel off the field. On the field…that’s a different story. I’m passionate, and I feel things, but there are only two times I can remember feeling enough emotions to cause me to cry: at my father’s funeral and when the doctor told me I’d need surgery that would take a year to recover from and I might never play baseball again.

The first was tears of sadness. The second was tears of frustration.

And when Gabby said those words, this strange sense of relief filled my chest that I wasn’t alone.

She made me feel like I’llneverbe alone again because I’ll always have her by my side.

We’ve known each other a sum total of eleven days. It’s too early to be thinking that way.

But I’m also a firm believer that people are put in our paths for a reason.

It took me a long time to see why Stacy was put in my path. In fact, I’m not sure I fully realized it until this moment.

I wasted five years on her.

I knew she was wrong for me from the start, yet I continued to chip away and try to make it work.

I should’ve listened to my gut.

And that’s the reason she was in my life. To learn that lesson.

To listen to my gut.

To not waste any more time.

I want to be with Gabby. She wants to be with me.

We can take it fast, or we can take it slow, but the end result will be the same either way. There’s no other choice.

The week drags as I get busy training Tim and spending my post-work hours at the apartment complex gym. I’m not out of shape, exactly, but I’m also not in playing shape, but I remember the rebuilding process from my playing days. I’m in the phase that comes before training to train, a place I refer to as Phase Zero. My goal is to start running five times a week and to do a total body workout three times per week. Then I’ll take the weekends off to rest…or, better yet, to work on my endurance in other areas.

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