Page 14 of One and Only

Play football.

Wait for Olive.

Time with Olive that goes far too fast.

Even though it was the off-season and months before training camp started, I was still at the team facilities multiple days a week.

And days like that one, as I waited in the parking lot for Josie to drop off Olive, I realized just how much the waiting for her overshadowed everything else—even my job.

I loved football. But I’d never been able to deny that the all-consuming nature of the sport I played had always given Josie the edge in maintaining primary custody of our daughter.

Which is why I tried, as often as possible, to include her in that world. Allow for some overlap in those two pieces of my life when I could.

Leaning against the hood of my SUV, I watched her pull up to the security gate and get waved through. In the back seat of Josie’s car, Olive was wearing pink heart-shaped sunglasses—her favorite accessory—and when I waved, her lips split in a smile so sweet that my heart cracked open into a messy burst.

It did every single time she smiled.

Every time she laughed.

Every time she hugged my neck and wouldn’t let go.

It made the waiting, all the hours I wished I was with her, completely bearable.

Josie pulled her car next to mine and looked over her shoulder to say something to our daughter. The pink suitcase that went between our houses was on the back seat next to Olive, and she patted it reassuringly with her little hand. Josie nodded, and then Olive unhooked her seat belt and yanked on the car door handle. I crouched in front of the door once it was open.

Because of the sunglasses, I couldn’t see her eyes, but she climbed from the car straight into my arms.

“Hi, Daddy,” she whispered. No one was around to hear us, but she always whispered, just in case there was.

“How’s my favorite girl?”

She burrowed her face into my neck, squeezing me tight, and the way my ribs expanded just from the weight of her against my chest almost felt supernatural.

Forty pounds, and she could crush me if she wanted to.

Hardly a blip of what my muscles could handle, yet nothing else in the world impacted me the way holding my daughter did.

“Back open?” Josie asked.

I nodded.

“Ready to go play some football?” I asked Olive.

She pulled her face away, studying the team facilities rising on the horizon. Despite how reserved she was with … everyone, she had a few places she clearly enjoyed.

This was one of them.

Her lips curved up in a smile, and she gave a tiny nod.

I settled my hand on her back. “Good. I think Parker is in there warming up for you. He said he’d play catch with you.”

Her smile grew a little bit bigger. More than anyone else on the team, Parker was her favorite. In fact, she was about the only person I saw him soften for anymore.

As I said it, I noticed a tall brunette get out of a vehicle a few rows over and slide some sunglasses down over her face as she walked toward the building. She was wearing a T-shirt in Portland colors.

Something in the set of her jaw and the way she held herself as she walked was familiar.

Greer.

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