Page 58 of Romancing My Grumpy Goalie

I knock on the door, and after a prolonged moment, Lucas shows up with a pair of crutches.

“Hey.” He eyes the pizza.

“I hope you’re hungry.” I lift the box.

He ticks his head toward the inside of his house. “Come on in.”

I awkwardly follow him in silence as he leads me to the kitchen, and I put the food on the table.

“Thank you.” He nods to the pizza. “I’m a little sick of ramen.”

I laugh. “Jace did mention you needed a visit.”

“That sounds like him.” He stares at the pizza box and grimaces.

“Everything okay?”

“Not to be weird or anything, but do you think you could carry that to my bedroom? I need to get my leg up, and I have my ice packs and my laptop in there.”

“Doing some gaming?” I ask, carrying the pizza as we head down the hall.

He smiles wryly. “How’d you know?”

“Because you’re sick. It’s not like you’d be filing taxes in your state.”

“Thankfully, I did that last month.” He shudders. “No, I’m playing some World of Warcraft. The Night Elf hunter is apparently the way to go.”

I laugh. “Jeremy used to play that game. You’ll have to tell Nolan. He’s even played it some, although he’s too young to play it unsupervised now that he reads better.”

I stop by his dresser, and he climbs into bed, setting his crutches against his bedside table.

A square of familiar brown fabric is carefully folded on top of his dresser. I pick it up. “Lucas . . . is this my shirt?”

He smiles. “The one you used as a rag to wipe coffee off of me? Yes.”

“You kept it,” I say softly. I unfold it, and it still has coffee stains on it, despite the fact that it’s already brown.

He nods, sheepish but sincere. “Couldn’t throw it away. It reminded me of you, and I figured you wouldn’t want it back with all those stains on it.”

“When we were in the hospital, you were trying to tell me something before we got interrupted by the nurse. What were you going to say?” I ask.

He shifts on the bed and puts an ice pack over his knee. “I’ve had a lot of time alone to ponder life lately, and it’s brought some things into focus for me. I could recover, return to Arsenal, and chase that life again. But lying there, thinking of you and Nolan,I knew exactly where my heart is—and it’s not in Atlanta. It’s here, injury or not.”

My breath catches, and my heart speeds up in my chest. This isn’t his vulnerability talking, is it? Or maybe it’s the painkillers. Will he still feel this way after he’s healed?

“Promise me you’ll think about it. No pressure—just promise.”

I nod. “I’ve been doing some thinking of my own, to be honest.” I step closer to him.

He pats the bed, and I sit next to him, my legs draped over the side, as the scent of woodsy soap hits my senses. This isn’t exactly the way I pictured being in his bed for the first time, his injured knee propped up with pillows and covered in an ice pack, but it’s unexpectedly okay.

“I’m going to tell Jeremy he doesn’t get to dictate who I’m allowed to date. Maybe he’ll take me to court, but knowing him, he’ll back out. He won’t even take Nolan for a visitation after moving across the country. What judge would give him custody? There’s no rule that we can’t date after divorce. People do it all the time.”

He puts his hand over mine and squeezes it. “So, what does this mean for us?”

I laugh and lace my fingers through his. Vulnerable or not, I need to say it. Push all my fears to the side. “It means I’m in love with you, and I’m not letting anyone stop me from being with you now that I know you feel this way, too.”

His eyes melt into two pools of warmth. “I love you, too, Anabelle. With all my heart.”

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