Page 108 of End Game
“This thing between us has always been there and will always be there. I think I realized it when I heard the baby’s heartbeat,” he says softly. “But I knew it so strongly when Callum said that shit that I got scared. It was the first time I’ve ever felt that kind of loyalty to a woman. I knew that wasn’t true. I didn’t even think twice and that was a little unnerving.”
“I can imagine. You’ve been quite the player.”
“I have been. No doubt. I’ve been the best, actually.”
Rolling my eyes, I sigh. “Only you would take pride in that.”
“Now,” he insists, “I’m taking pride in being your man. If you’ll have me.”
My eyes fill with tears as I watch his face wash with sincerity. “What about away games? And the media?”
“Fine. Let’s say we stay apart from each other because of the fucking media. Is that the golden ticket? Is that going to get them to stop printing ridiculous stories and listening to assholes spewing garbage?”
I just look at him.
“We’re together, whether you want to realize that or not. Our lives will always be entwined, our stories overlapping in one way or the other. What I do will affect you and what you do will affect me.”
He shrugs. “Staying apart isn’t going to fix anything. You’re still going to wonder about road trips and I’m still going to want to break what’s-his-face for being here.”
“Max?” I giggle.
“Yeah. Max. I hate him.” He steps back and grumbles. “Our problems aren’t going away and neither are our fears. But I’d much rather deal with them together, where we can communicate and know what’s happening and have each other, than not.”
“What about the eighty percent?”
“There’s still twenty percent who make it. The smart twenty, the twenty who have something so good at home they don’t want to risk it. And you, Sunshine, are so worth it.”
I feel my walls giving in, his charm wearing me down. My brain says to be careful. My heart says to jump in head first. My gut, though, has a different reaction.
It’s my gut that says to give it a try, that it might not work but it’s worth seeing.
He’s always been honest with me, even when it was hard. When he’s been wrong, he’s apologized. And when he faced ridicule in the media about the baby, he trusted me.
As I look at his handsome face and the way his foot taps against the floor and he chews his bottom lip, I listen to my gut. Because my gut’s always right.
“What if it doesn’t work?” I ask.
“Then we can say we tried. I don’t know how to manage it all, but I want a family with you,” he whispers. “A real one. The holidays at the cabin and Christmas cards and a dog named Snickers.”
“Snickers?”
“Or Caramello. Whatever,” he whispers, reaching for my hand.
I place my palm in his and he pulls me to my feet.
“I want us in the same house,” he says, walking towards me, “figuring everything out together, eating coffee cake at midnight.”
“Promise?”
“I promise to love you and the baby and do everything I can for you.”
“No, I meant about the coffee cake.”
He picks me up, making me laugh, as he swings my legs over his arms. “You are going to be the death of me.”
EPILOGUE
Layla
