Page 100 of Delayed Offsides

Still… no “I love you.” Just marriage.

I take in a ragged breath. “Marriage?”

His eyes trail over my face. “You want that, right?” Leaning in, he strokes my hair and stares deep into my eyes. It’s like he’s trying to decipher if I’m just sleep-deprived or wanting something else from him.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then let me help you. Tell me what you need from me, and I’ll do what I can. We can make this work.” His voice is so sincere I believe him. Ineedto believe him. For my sanity. “If you quit work, you and Caleb can travel with me, and we can get a nanny to help. That’ll make it easier, right?”

While all that sounds pretty freaking cool, I don’t want that kind of pressure on him. “What do you want from me, Leo? I don’t know what this is between us anymore.” His mouth drops open, as if he’s surprised by what I’m saying. “I mean” I pause when his troubled expression meets mine. “We went from basically yelling at each other that day, tearing one another apart over words, and then I had the baby. We still haven’t talked about anything. It was like having Caleb pushed that aside, and I don’t want that. We can’t have that because… well… I don’t want any resentment toward him like we didn’t work because of him.”

Leo nods, his breathing heavier than normal. “Okay… what do you want to talk about?”

Did he hear anything I said?

“Us. This. Why is it so hard?”

Leo sighs. “Callie…” He squares his shoulders, as if preparing himself. “I didn’t mean what I said that day. Well, I did, but I didn’t mean for it to hurt you. I don’t like that you’ve fucked my friends. I’m never going to like that. Ever. It’s just not something I can get over. Just like I can’t get over what Dave did to you, or that I yelled at you and you ran away only to be hurt worse, and I nearly lost you. Or that I almost lost Caleb before I even had a chance to discover the very thing I needed in my life, almost didn’t happen. None of that is easy. And now, with the season starting and you crying all the time, I’m just confused. You seem unhappy, and I don’t know how to fix that.”

Smiling, I touch the side of his face. He leans into my touch. “I just need to know that you want me here. All this happened so fast. I guess I need to know that you want me here, with you. I kinda felt like you thought you had to do all this to own up to it.”

“I’ve never felt like I had to do anything but get out of that one-bedroom trailer in south Philly.” He laughs and takes a seat next to me on the couch, his knee touching mine. I look at our bodies touching and then find his eyes again. “When you told me you were pregnant, yeah, I was scared and felt like I needed to own up to what happened, but you never made me feel like I had to. I did that because I wanted to be with you, and if that meant being a dad, well, that came with it. It wasn’t easy for me when I found out I was going to be a father, because I’ve never had a good experience with family. All I know is hockey and what that gives me inside. I didn’t know what being a father meant or being there for you would be like. And then I let my pride get in the way, and I hurt you again. Like I didn’t have a single thing to lose, when I had everything to lose.”

He lets out a heavy, restless breath, bright blue giving me a look inside the foolish pride he’s held onto for so long. “When I saw you on the ground and knew then I could lose you, it hit me. I’ve never had that overwhelming urge to protect someone before. And then I held Caleb for the first time, and I finally understood that feeling. I never believed someone like me could feel that.”

He said everything I needed to hear, yet part of me is aching for more. I want the “I love you.” The “I can’t live without you.”

The more he talks, the more I finally realize the sacrifices he’s made. The obvious ones. He’s here. With me. And I’ve left him waiting for just as much as he has. I haven’t told him I love him, even when I do, but I realize the words are difficult to say the longer we wait, and neither one of us are the type to blurt it out.

“I’m sorry for the way I treated you, and for sleeping around. I know I don’t need to apologize for that because it was before us, but I never…” I can’t say the words. “Okay, I’ll say this much. I can’t change that I was with most of your team. And you’re right, we can’t change anything that happened between us, just what we’re doing now. New baby, fresh start, right?”

“Fresh start would be nice.” And then he grins and raises an eyebrow, glancing over at me and then Caleb. “We could start now. Fresh start with some stick stroking would be nice?” His eyes find mine again, hopeful. “How’s your hand feeling? Mine’s sore these days.”

“I’m not stroking your stick with the kid in the room.” I smack his stomach and lie back down on the bed. “Did you hear anything I said?”

Laughing, he turns and takes my face in his hands, brushing my hair from my face as he cradles it between his palms. “I heardeveryfuckin’ word.”

I want to say it. The words are on the tip of my tongue, but just as I’m thinking of saying it, Caleb’s cry blares through the room, startling both of us.

I groan. “He hates both of us.”

Leo laughs, twisting to pick Caleb up again. “Nah, he just has really shitty timing.”

Speaking of shitty timing, guess who’s about to learn a code brown?

If you guessed Leo, you’re right.

CHAPTER27

PEPPER POT

LEO

Player with great speed and quickness.

I might not bethe most observant boyfriend, or father now, but I can sense when Callie is stressed out. She poured her heart out to me, told me everything she needed from me, and I honestly felt like that was a new step in our relationship. Like finally, after everything, we can move forward.

And I didn’t say I love you. But to be fair, she didn’t either, and Caleb ruined the moment but by shitting his pants. Babies. They always know how to crap on the mood.

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