Page 51 of Christmas Cheer

“What’s this?”

“The answer to your question.”

She unfolds it and stares at it far longer than the 8-digit number needs to be stared at. That’s all that’s on there. Nothing indicating what it means, but we all know what it means.

Keira pales so rapidly I put an arm behind her in case she faints. Her voice is unsteady as she says, “You can’t turn this down.”

“I can. I will if you tell me to.”

“I would never tell you to.”

“So then you’re coming home.”

“This is so much.”

“It’s what a first-round draft pick expects to get. Four years. A bonus. Plus everything else you heard. But none of it matters if you’re not there with me.”

Keira slumps against me, all but defeated, but we can’t have that, either.

“Let’s have dinner, okay? We’ll have a nice evening, a nice couple of days here, and you can think about it. No pressure either way.”

Chapter 19

Keira

I stare atEvan for a long time when I wake up. I’ve learned this week that he’s a late sleeper — or maybe it’s because he’s been keeping me up all night — and that he cuddles in his sleep. When I snuck out of bed to pee and then crawled back in to rest a little longer this morning, I had to stay on the edge to keep out of his sleepy grasp, but he’s reached for me twice already.

It’s adorable.

He’s adorable.

Dammit.

The moment we’re apart, I get mad at him again, but when we’re together, even if we’re just in the same room on our laptops doing schoolwork, I forget that I need to stay mad at him. I’ve even tried to not come back to his hotel after my shift is done at the gym, but he’s always right there waiting for me. Offering me his hand.

I take it every time. I don’t even try to resist anymore.

I’ve shown him around the gym and all the places I’ve come to love here. I’ve attempted to impress him by ordering food in German. I go with him to meet with the reps from the Adler and tell them we’ll get back to them once we decide what’s right for us. We discuss baby names. We make love.

A lot.

He is insatiable.

I am insatiable.

Outside of the meeting with the Adler, we don’t discuss football. He never pushes me to decide. But he does commit emotional warfare by showing me a video Mrs. Allore took welcoming me to the family and getting way too excited about her first grandchild.

I cave and unblock him on my phone and then add his mom. I attempt to take a baby bump selfie for her, but Evan photobombs it by hopping in behind me and giving me a big hug and a kiss. Mom will like that better, he reasons. I send it to her and then stupidly look at the photo a million times myself.

We look good together.

He looks like he loves me.

I look like I love him.

He forced my hand here. He lied to me. He tricked me. I’m pretty sure he broke a law somewhere. Accidents happen — even if he hadn’t done all the stuff he did, I might have ended up pregnant — but that doesn’t excuse him. If he hadn’t said all the things he had before I told him I was pregnant, I probably would have never suspected that wasn’t the case.

The problem is I’m pretty sure ignorance would have been bliss, at least in this case. If I never found out that he’d swapped medications and poked holes in condoms, there wouldn’t be a debate here. I’d be going back to Wilmington without question.

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