Page 83 of The Lady and the Footballer
“You? Wait?”
“Yes. I must wait for Lily.”
“To do what?”
“I don’t know,” he said, unable to help the bit of laughter that rose within him.
“You have got to be joking me,” Tommy said, staring at him as though he had lost his mind.
“She said she would figure this out and asked me to trust her. If I cannot do that, what good am I to her? So, I will do as she asks.”
“And have a secondary idea.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Colin,” Tommy said, gripping the arms of his chair and leaning forward. “Are you telling me that you are leaving your entire future in the hands of a noblewoman?”
“No better hands,” he said, a slow smile tugging on his lips at the thought of the determination she had worn on her face last night. “I love her, Tommy, and I know how capable she is. If she has a plan, she will see it through.”
Tommy let out a bark of incredulous laughter. “You’re crazy.”
“Don’t I know it,” Colin said, sitting back, his smile widening. He would have thought the same thing if he had been sitting in Tommy’s chair months ago. But he had changed. Lily had changed him. “Crazy for her.”
“We play the Athletics in two days. The winner will go to the final.”
“I know,” Colin said, sobering. “Don’t I wish I could take the field with you.”
“Maybe you can,” Tommy said. “What will they do, arrest you in the middle of the match?”
“They might.”
“Then they’d have ten other footballers to contend with.”
“I don’t want to bring any of you into it.”
“Too late,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “You and I have always been family, but the rest of them are part of us now, too. Whatever happens, they’re going to be there fighting along with you. You understand that?”
“I could never ask this of them.”
“Good thing you’re not asking, then.”
“Tommy? Just concentrate on winning this one. They’re going to need you.”
“Of course they will. They always do. But they’re going to need you, too, Colin. So rest up. Those ribs need to be healed enough for you to run.”
“How’d you know my ribs were sore?”
“By the way you’re curled around them like you’re holding a baby you’re trying to protect. Put some ice or a slab of meat on them, they’ll heal up just fine, but don’t try to pretend nothing’s wrong–with your body or anything else, Colin. Hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you just fine.”
He had finally accepted the fact that he could trust Lily, as much as it crazed him not to be the one taking care of everything himself.
But to give his trust to the rest of the football team, asking them to hold his secrets and his life in their hands?
He wasn’t sure he could stretch that far. Not now. Not yet.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
