There wasn’t really an easy or wise place to begin my story, so I unceremoniously dove in at the most logical: the night I foundout my dad died.
“I’d been studying when I got the call,” I started. “It was Thanksgiving weekend, but with finals coming up and mandatory practices, I just couldn’t swing the few days off to head home. I had just made dinner, and my roommate and a couple other teammates were at our place pregaming, all of them giving me shit for not going out to the party with them.”
And all of it poured out: getting the call from West, listening to my mother wailing in the background, Trey finally telling me I needed to come home. Getting there and allowing myself one moment to break down before I took over, holding my family together in the wake of losing our glue.
“Although, as it turned out,” I mused, “Mama was really the glue.”
Delia squeezed my fingers tightly. Grounding me. Making it easier to get this next part out.
“Internally, I sort of fell apart, though from the outside it probably looked like I used his death as a motivator, a reason to throw myself even harder into football and school. And I kept my head on straight for the game, for my teammates, but away from that…I was a mess. Drinking more than I ever had, hardly sleeping or eating. It was honestly a wonder I didn’t faint any time I stepped onto the field. And who knows how long I would’ve continued like that if Trey hadn’t stepped in.”
“What happened?”
“My mom and siblings hadn’t been able to make it to the Pac-12 championship game, and they barely scrounged up enough money to make it to the Rose Bowl game. Afterward, after photos and interviews and all of my other obligations wereover, Trey locked me in a hotel room with him and basically forced it all out of me.”
I told her about my fit of rage, how I’d never acted like that before or since. How Trey understood that I needed someone there for me while I fell apart, since I’d been the one doing so for everyone else for over a month at that point.
“It was brutal,” I said softly, wincing. “The things I said. About myself, about my dad. I cursed anyone and anything I could think of. But it was cathartic in a way, you know? Finally letting someone else carry that weight.”
“That always helps,” Delia snarked, a callback to how this conversation started in the first place, and I shot her a glare that quickly morphed into a smile that matched hers.
“Anyway,” I continued, pinching her thigh. “Trey scheduled me an appointment with a therapist back in Eugene, and I saw her twice a week until I left for the draft and everything that came after.
“And things were almost…goodafter that. The weight of losing my dad, of taking on so much responsibility crushed me less and less every day. I moved out to Detroit and settled into my new life. The next ten or so years were…smooth.”
“Until they weren’t,” Delia said.
“Until they weren’t,” I agreed. “Losing the game hadn’t been like losing my dad. It was, after all, only a game. But when that game had provided for me and my family for a decade while my brothers and Aria grew up, whileIgrew up, when it gave me something to look forward to when the black clouds of grief shrouded me…it wasn’t easy to let it go.”
“Your whole identity had been wrapped up in it,” Delia said. “It’s normal to mourn that.”
I nodded, my throat thickening with emotion. “I started going to therapy again after that, and I still speak with her once a month or so. Just to keep myself on track.”
When I realized I’d never take a meaningful NFL snap again, I’d be damned if it hadn’t felt like getting the call that Dad died all over again.
“That’s how Jalen and I know each other,” I said, absently stroking my thumb across the smooth skin of her thigh. “They drafted him the same season I got hurt. Backing me up wasn’t easy for him, I’m sure. He’d been a hotshot in college. And I knew stepping into my shoes when I went down was probably the hardest job in the league that season. But he continued to impress all of us with his poise and hard work that year. When I ultimately decided to retire, I knew I was leaving the team in good hands. He still calls me for advice, and I watch every one of their games just so I can give him shit about some nonexistent error he made. Having a good guy like that, and a hell of a talent, taking my place made things…easier somehow. It would’ve been harder giving up my spot to an asshole.”
“And how does it all feel now?” Delia asked. “To have this separation from it all? From both of those losses?”
I shifted so I could drape her legs across my lap, reaching up to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear.
Staring deep into her eyes, I said, “A lot better with you around. I think I was just coasting before you showed up. And then you came in with your chaos and your demands and all that goddamn energy and…it was impossible not to bask in your light, Whiskey. To look at you, to be near you, and not want to be morethan just a shell of a man.
“This thing between us…I think it brought me back to life.”
The weight on my shoulders lessened significantly with the admission, and I heaved a long, steady breath, smiling at her as I softly exhaled.
Delia’s eyes shone brightly in the dim light of the room, and when she spoke, her voice was a hoarse, breathy whisper.
“I told you it was easy to be brave.”
Owen and I talkedlate into the night, both of us falling asleep without ever deciding to do so. An undercurrent of sexual tension pulsed through the entire interaction, every touch heightened, every glance setting my skin on fire. It scared me, how much I wanted him, how badly I wanted to shove him back into the couch cushions, straddle his lap, and have my way with him. But in the same way I wouldn’t want anyone to touch me after an emotional purging like the one he’d endured, I refused to let us go there. For his sake and mine, I wanted us both clear-headed when we took that final step.
Still, when I woke the next morning wrapped in the cocoon of his body, I felt safe. Cherished. Like a woman worthy of this man who had absolutely no idea how good he was. I was officially making it my job to remind him of that, to make him see himself the way I did. Even if another part of me practically begged on her knees in my mind to let him fuck me.
Shifting slightly, I pulled back enough to look at him. Hisbrow was smoothed in sleep, his hair sticking up in a thousand different directions, his full mouth slightly parted, each exhale blowing light puffs of air against my forehead. I grinned as I buried my face against his chest again, not wanting to get up quite yet.
Only, Owen’s alarm had other ideas.
