Page 52 of When to Call a Blitz

“Can I touch you?” he says quietly.

“Yes.”

Emmett bends down, and in a second he has his arms are around my calf, and in an instant I’m in the air.

I screech, grabbing for his shoulders as he sends me back onto the closed bonnet of his Barracuda.

I lay there for a second, collecting myself, a smile taking over my whole face as I stare at the ceiling. “I expect in the game you’re not as gentle?” I ask with a laugh.

Emmett offers a hand and pulls me up, but I’m not sure either of us are expecting to be so close as I take it.

Because suddenly we’re chest to chest, my feet swinging in the air as Emmett stands between my legs.

He stares down at me with those god damn blue eyes that search my face intensely. “That there wasn’t technically a chop block.”

The smile is wiped from my face. “What do you mean?”

He smirks just slightly, his hands placed on either side of me on the car. “Technically what makes them illegal is that plus another defender taking the same person out around the waist. It can lead to a lot of injuries.”

“Then why did you do all of this?” I whisper, looking up at him. His throat bobs in a rough swallow.

Emmett runs his tongue along his lip before tucking it under his teeth. “I don’t know,” whispers back.

Something stirs between us. A promise, or a fleeting, passing moment, I’m not quite sure. But the second I lean forward, closing the distance between us by another inch, Emmett backs away, his eyes wild like he’s waking up from a dream.

Because there is no “we.” There’s nothing between us, and there probably will never be.

It’s a moment of clarity for me. A loud and clear lightning strike that throws me back.

I just wish this moment wasn’t quite as embarrassing.

27

EMMETT

I’ve thought about that night for weeks.

What would have happened if I had stayed there. If I had closed the rest of the distance between us and just did what I wanted.

But my head and my heart have been at war, and no decision has felt easy or correct.

A large, looming part of me wants to move on. I want to live my life and figure out who I am from here. Something changed within me that night at the sound bath. Something was let go.

The other part of me never wants to move on. I feel like letting go is forgetting, and I don’twantto forget.

I had an entire life before football. A wife. A family. And every since that night I lost McKenna I’ve been missing a chunk of my soul. A piece of my heart that I don’t have to give someone else.

As much as I desperately want to find happiness in my life, I know that the higher you climb, the further the fall. The more I love someone, the more I have to lose.

I survived it once, but I’m not sure I can survive it twice.

The weather is getting colder as the fall sets in. Heidi and I find ourselves in an easy game of tag. We barely speak. Instead,the second she’s done her shifts with Juniper she tags me in, and I begin mine when she goes home. We stopped our morning runs, and I actually miss them a lot.

Her absence doesn’t prevent me from thinking about what could have been if I wasn’t as closed off. If I didn’t harbor my pain like impenetrable armor.

But the problem is, it’s not impenetrable.

I’ll tell myself that until I’m blue in the face.

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