Page 84 of Good Guy Gabe

“What?” I snort and then do my best to reign my laughter in. “Ma’am, I can walk now. The team doc wants me to use a crutch for the next couple of days, and I’m kinda stuck here because the guys hauled me up the stairs when we got back instead of setting me up on a sofa, but I’m fine. Ligament tears happen. It’s really not a big deal. I mean, itcanbe career ending, but it’s usually a couple weeks of recovering. I’m—hey, hey, hey,” I say quickly when her bottom lip starts to tremble again. “I’m fine, I swear!”

She smacks my chest, but I’m pretty sure it’s more of an irritated swat than anything meant to harm. “You scared the crap out of me!”

“How?”

She climbs off me but stays on the bed, sitting crisscross next to me with her arms over her chest and the sweetest pout on her lips, her cheeks bright red and her blond hair falling out of the clip it was pulled back in. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it’s nothing to worry about. They put me in PT to make sure it heals right, but I’m mostly just going to be in a brace for a few weeks.”

She chews on her bottom lip. I can see she’s still working on her mad, but she’s sitting here next to me, close enough that if I shimmy my good leg over a couple inches, I’ll feel the warmth of her knee. “So you’ve been lying to me all week? Every time I texted you and—”

“No! Fuck. No.” That’s the last thing I need, her thinking I’m lying about more stuff. “No, I promise. It was dumb and not a big deal, and honestly, I was embarrassed.” I give her my most sheepish cringe and admit, “We were dicking around on Super Bowl Sunday, and I tripped over my own foot in the front lawn.”

“You—!” Joss’s face scrunches up. Her hands ball into fists. Her nostrils flaring like a petite, adorable, raging bull. “You tripped over your own feet and tore your-your-your whatever ligament? Why do you drive me to violence? Never in my life have I ever wanted to hit another human being except you, and now here I am ready to punch you because you’re so stupid! Why am I like this with you?”

I take a gamble. It’s a big one, but it’s the moment for it. Besides, since it’s the off-season and I have a good track record of not misbehaving while injured, they gave me opioids for the pain. I’m feeling pretty lucky right now. I take one of those fists and bring it to my mouth, kissing the knuckles knowing that there’s an outside chance I’m about to lose a tooth on them. “Because you love me?”

She snatches her hand away only after I say that, and I consider it progress. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t just forgive you, Gabe!”

“I fell in love with you that first moment I saw you in your studio, and not a single thing you’ve ever done has made me doubt that. But you’re so nice and smart and talented and beautiful that I thought once you met the rest of the team, you’d realize you were too good for me, so I did what I had to—”

I saw her softening up slightly somewhere in the middle, but she smacks me again at that. “Why do you always say stuff like that?”

“Because I mean it. You’re incredible.”

“Not that!” she huffs. “What do your teammates have to do with anything? What have I ever done to make you think I’m with you because you’re a football player?

“Because what else am I?” I sigh at the weight of my own words. “It’s the only thing that ever mattered to me. I threw away years working bullshit jobs instead of building a career because I didn’t want work to get in the way. But then my dream came true, and I had a couple good years, but now it’s over, and what am I?”

“You got cut?”

I shake my head. “Not officially, but no contract. Someone else might pick me up, but then I’d have to leave Wilmington and . . .” I shrug.

Joss thinks on that for a long time. She gets distracted momentarily by a thread on the quilt beneath her. I think having a place for her eyes to go is enough to get her to say, “Well, you’re definitely going to be a dad soon. And that’s something, right?”

“That’s a lot. That’s huge. I don’t want to lose a second of it that I don’t have to.”

She swallows. “That’s not fair.”

I rest back but grab her thigh, taking what I want, tired of this notion of fair. “I’m not going to say I’m sorry, because I’m not. I was sick with stress when I found out about your Aiden James and realized another pregnancy could be traumatic for you, but it isn’t, not for you, so I’m not sorry. Maybe that’s not right, but I don’t care.”

“You rewrote my life without my permission!”

I look her dead in the eye, claiming every ounce of her anger. “You keep saying you can’t forgive me, but what you’re doing, your actions? That’s not what they’re saying. I mean, you were having a whole meltdown because you thought I was hurt, and I’m pretty sure you’re mad I blew off a couple booty calls.”

Joss groans and pitches forward, faceplanting on the pillows next to me. “My body is dumb and makes bad decisions.”

“Then make a bad decision! You’re fucking right, I rewrote your life without your permission, but did I not give you exactly what you wanted, when you wanted it?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Your Christmas and Valentine’s Day presents are right there in the closet. Why don’t you see what else I’m giving you?”

She drags her ass off the bed dramatically and pulls the first package out of the closet. It’s wrapped all proper-like with a bow and everything, but the moment she picks up the giant gift, she says, “This is a bolt of fabric.”

“Yeah, obviously.”

She wants to tell me to piss off and die, I can see it clear as day. “I own every bolt of fabric on the planet,” she mutters as she tears through the paper. “Why would you think I need m—oh my god,”she gasps as she reveals the pattern of dense, intricatelyarranged orchids. “I’ve never seen this before. Where did you come across—?” She looks more closely at it and struggles so hard to stay irritated and not laugh that she nearly spits on it.

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