Page 37 of The Long Game

I nod in agreement.

I turn on the T.V. to help cover up our conversation. The sports channel comes on as it was the last thing I watched before I left the day before.

"You watch a lot of this?" he asks, a little concern in his voice.

"Should I not?"

"No, I was just curious how much you keep up on pro football."

"I know enough."

He nods slowly.

"What does your physical therapist say about your knee?" I ask, a hint of guilt in my voice. Even though a hint is just the tip of the iceberg of how much guilt I feel. I need to address the elephant in the room.

"Can we not talk about this right now?" His somber eyes searching mine.

"Okay. What exactly would you like to talk about? The floor’s yours."

He shakes his head as I glances away from me.

"I wish you would have said that ten months ago in New Orleans before you ran out in front of traffic," he says.

The comment hurts, but he’s wrong. I shouldn’t have ran into that crosswalk but I couldn’t face him. Not after I had come toNew Orleans to give him my heart, my future, my everything. Only to find he was with someone else.

"Luca and I are doing good. I want us to be good too."

"What do you mean? You keep saving my life. I think we’re pretty good," I say as I’m pretending to rearrange the paperclips on my desk.

"No you don’t." He pauses until I lock eyes with him. "I want to talk about that night at the bar in New Orleans. I want to talk about the night at your house after the draft. I want to talk about your senior year at the lake house. I want to talk about the drive to the ER when I thought you might die in my arms after you almost drowned." His voice shakes for a minute at the last few words.

I can’t pretend to be a marble statue when he’s on the verge of emotion that I have rarely seen since his mom passed away.

"That’s a lot of history to unpack. And I have a forty-million-dollar merger to close at the end of next week. Any chance you can give me the cliff notes?"

"This is our life, Lexi. You want the fucking cliff notes? Are you kidding me?" He runs his hands through his hair and then places both hands on his hips while he tries to regain his composure. "What you saw at the bar that night…" I try to fidget out of his stare, but he waits to continue until he has my full attention.

"It’s none of my business what I saw. You can do whatever you want," I interject.

"Yeah, I know. But it upset you. I didn’t know you were going to be there. I texted you. I wanted to see you. You told me not to come. Do you remember that?"

"Yes, because I had already bought tickets to come surprise you," I say with frustration.

He takes a second to digest the information.

"She didn’t mean anything to me. I just let you believe whatever you wanted to after you let me get hit by a car. I think we’re even."

"Not exactly. I ended your career; you only broke my heart… not exactly eye for an eye." My confession has him closing the distance between us.

He grabs both my hands into his. "You didn’t end my career. I’m ready to play. And fuck, Lexi, I don’t want to break your heart." He locks onto my eyes, but the intensity is still too much for me to handle and I’m trying to squirm out of his gaze for the second time.

"Then don’t Tucker. Just leave this alone." His thumbs smooth over the top of my hand a couple of times and I think he’s about to kiss me. But he doesn’t. He lets my hands go and takes a few steps back with a large inhale and exhale.

"What about the ring? You wore it."

"Then I gave it back."

Instantly I wish I could have taken that back, but I was feeling insecure. I had spent the entire flight daydreaming of our reunion. I had spent weeks picking out an outfit. I had put my heart on the line. I knew there was a possibility he had moved on already but I had made the decision that it was now or never.

---