Page 61 of The Long Game

“Change your plans, Lexi. Come to Mississippi in September. Be with me,” I begged her, standing outside of the lake house, my bags packed and on my way out before Luca showed up.

“What?” She asked, a look of shock on her face. She wasn’t expecting me to lay it all out. “I can’t come to the University of Mississippi. Admissions are closed. I wouldn’t be accepted.”

“Ok, then move there now and you can apply next year. We can be together for the first year and then you can start school as a freshman the following year.”

Her eyebrows furrowed deeper. “And leave my opportunity with my dad? Leave what I’ve been working for?”

This is the moment I should have seen it, but all I could think of was trying to think of a way not to lose her.

“Just for a few years. Shit, it won’t even matter once I get into the NFL–I’ll support us.” I tried to reason. “You won’t have to work.”

“So, what will I do once I get into school a year behind and then you get drafted the year after that? Now I’m stuck at a college nine hours away from my family while you go off to God-knows-where to play in the NFL?”

“No, of course not. You can transfer to whatever school is the closest to where I get picked up. Or don’t go to school if you don’t want.”

She shook her head and took a deep breath. I didn’t understand at the time what I said that was so wrong. I wanted us together. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t see this as a plan to make us work.

“Let me get this straight. You want me to drop the career I’ve started, move to a college I’ve never had an interest in attending, start school a year behind schedule, move awayfrom my friends and family to a rival school of my only brother, and ping-pong around from city to city, school to school, to chase your dreams?”

I felt her soft hands in mine.

“Can’t it be our dream?”

That wasn’t the right answer, and I could feel the moment she started pulling away.

“I think we need to take a step back and think this through. You’re in college nine hours away and I’ve got this incredible opportunity. I think we need to stay focused on the dreams we’ve already set out for.”

“Are you being serious? After what just happened the last few days? You want to go back to just being friends?”

“Let’s just see how the next couple of years go. After you get drafted, we’ll see where you end up. We’ll see where I am with the company.”

“I’m tired of waiting, Lex. I know what I want.”

I rubbed my forehead at the memory of the day that everything with Lexi went south.

She was trying to tell me and I missed it.

"Shit," I mutter to myself.

"She never told you any of this?" Luca asks.

"Fuck no! But I guess I should have known."

"Keep it down will ya," Brielle scolded playfully. "It took me forty-five minutes to get Bronx down tonight. I tried to get him down early so I can be down here when you came in. I didn’t realize you were bringing a meteor in a box."

"Shit, sorry Brielle. I’ll be quiet."

I thought through the stuff Luca told me and so much of why Lexi held back from me. It made sense. But I also knew the biggest reason. She thought I wouldn’t give up the "player" lifestyle.

"I was in college her Junior and Senior year. I didn’t see the work she was putting in. And I was too consumed with my own goals I was chasing to notice much else anyway. I didn’t see what the big deal was. I didn’t see how she couldn’t get a job with her dad after we moved home… after my years in the NFL. Or by that time, I thought we’d have kids and she’d want to stay home with them."

"Damn. You’ve been thinking about marriage this whole time?"

"No, or I don’t think so? Hell, I don’t know anymore. This situation has been a train wreck since day one. But I swear to you Luca, since the time she and I spent those days alone at the lake house, I’ve never seen a glimpse of my future and not seen Lexi standing in it with me."

Since my mom died, I never actually considered marriage. It wasn’t that I’d sworn off the idea, but I saw what my dad went through, and I just never gave long term relationships a consideration before.

Giving your heart to someone would equate to pain. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually.

---