Page 134 of The Thing About My Rival

I drop back onto my heels and nearly fall headfirst into his eyes. If those eyes were the first thing I saw every morning and the last thing I saw every night, it would make every day the best day.

He moves the mike back between us. “I love you, Drew Wilcox.” A mixture of gasps and sighs ofaaawripple across the room behind him. “And I want everyone to know. Not just everyone here, but everyone everywhere. My love for you fills me so much I can’t keep it all inside, and I need to spew it out over everyone else.”

“Like puke?” a voice that sounds like Bakari’s calls from the back, provoking an outbreak of chuckles.

Unable to keep my hands off Hugo any longer, I slide them inside his jacket and around his waist. “I love you too.”

And our mouths come together with a feeling that could heal any wound, erase any scar. A feeling that willlead us into the future and help us handle whatever life throws at us.

A cheer erupts around the room as Hugo dips me backward, over his arm, like we’re in an old black-and-white movie.

Usually, I would hate anyone bringing all this attention to me. But although I can hear the clapping and the whistles, it’s like they’re not really there. All that matters is me and Hugo, what we have right now, and the even greater thing it’ll become in the future.

As he lifts me back upright, I look into his eyes. “Do you love me enough to work with me every day again?”

His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“More importantly, do you love me enough to have me as your boss?”

Now his brow shoots up to somewhere near his hairline and he looks back over his shoulder toward our tables, where Prince Oliver, Miles and Chase are all holding their thumbs in the air. Leo gives me a tiny nod.

They’re all in. They’re fine with it. Our one remaining obstacle is cleared.

“Okaaay,” Hugo says, turning back to face me with the most adorable puzzled grin. “What were they talking to you about earlier?”

Not so long ago it seemed impossible that I could ever have the man I wanted or the job I wanted. But now I can have both. And the idea of that is so overwhelming, so all-consuming, so utterly impossible to comprehend that out of nowhere a sob racks my chest.

“I’m going to come back and run the place.” The words just about make it out of my mouth before tears roll down my cheeks.

Hugo’s eyes expand to almost the diameter of the glass soccer ball at my feet.

I fight back the tremble in my breath just enough to form five crucial words. “If you can handle it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He beams with joyful disbelief. “You mean we’d work together? You doing the job you always wanted? And me doing the job I didn’t know I always wanted, but do now?”

I nod.

He puts his arm around my shoulders, spins us around to face the room, then moves the mike so close to his lips that he’s almost kissing it. “Ladies and gents, we are going to be un-fucking-beatable next season.”

And I’m absolutely certain he’s not talking only about the Commoners.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

DREW

It’s a beautiful May morning out on the training field. And I couldn’t be happier to watch Hugo and the guys in action from the owners’ office window.

The Fab Four are generally here now only for games and meetings and, with the spring weather warming up, they like to hold the meetings in the owners’ box, so they handed the office over to me.

In the six months since last year’s end-of-season dinner when they offered me the job, they’ve gradually passed almost the entire management of the club to me.

I might not be the owner—I might never be the owner—but for now it kind of feels like I am. And it feels good.

As does looking at Hugo’s legs in shorts as he jogs around the perimeter of the field with the squad. They’re in the closing cooldown stage after a hard session prepping for a tough game this coming Saturday.

Not that I can’t look at his body pretty much whenever I like. I stay at his place most weekends and sometimes anight during the week too, unless we’re busy or exhausted. Otherwise, I’m still at the pub, and on those nights I still join the Oldies for their nightcap.

They could not be happier for me that I got the job I wantedandthe man I wanted. They’ve even been to a couple games. Within minutes Mona had picked up the fan chants, Joyce was drawing up a league table of player butts, and Winston had declared the coffee from the concession stand “acceptable.”

---