I fantasize about it daily. “I don’t want to coach. I don’t want to go into scouting. I don’t want to do all of this marketing bullshit, even if I’m good at it. I want toplay. And I—never mind. Your turn. Roll the dice.”
She doesn’t take the dice.
Instead, she scooches her ass over until she’s next to me, both of us trapped between the couch and the coffee table.
And then she does the worst thing she could possibly do.
She slips her hand into mine and squeezes. “You can still play today. And tomorrow. And probably through this whole season.Someday, a new chapter of your life will start, and you might be ready for it, or you might not, but you, Fletcher Huxley, are nothing if not stubborn and driven and determined. You’ll figure out where to go next when it’s time. I believe in you.”
And there it goes again.
Stupid muscle in my chest. It’s beating harder, teetering at the edge of a cliff, looking down onto a rocky shoreline, not certain if the parachute will open if it jumps.
It wants the thrill despite knowing that we’ll crash on the boulders.
It’s what we do every fucking time.
And despite knowing this, I’m currently safe.
Feeling like it’ll be okay when the day comes that I take off my boots and budgie smugglers and the rest of my kit for the last time.
Because Goldie has faith in me.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” I mutter.
Her smile says she’s aware that I don’t mean it, and she squeezes my hand harder. “You’ll be okay,” she says softly. “Not because I said so. But because you’re you. You’ll figure it out when you need to.”
I shouldn’t be squeezing her hand back like a lifeline.
I don’t need a lifeline.
I need to get over myself, be real with the Pounders, earn their trust, and help them decimate every other team in the league this year.
But I don’t want to let go of Goldie’s hand. “Are you going to London to run away from your ex?”
She leans closer to me. “I actually had the opportunity to attend this program as a student a few years ago, and I wanted to, but he asked me not to. He didn’t want me to be gone for the single month that each of the classes get.”
“So it’s still a fuck you to him.”
“If he wants to look at it that way. I don’t think about himmuch at all anymore unless I know I’ll be somewhere that he’ll be as well. Doing this residency has been a dream since Elizabeth suggested I take my degrees and get into life coaching. I’ll miss Hallie. I’ll miss my friends. But I amsoexcited about the opportunity and the doors it’ll open. And I—I’m looking forward to a fresh start somewhere without—without the baggage that my social life has here.”
“Will you miss me?” I don’t mean to ask, but the words leave my mouth all on their own.
Her smile goes soft. “I will.”
“I’d miss me too. I’m fucking awesome.”
“It’s precious how you hide your insecurities behind your ego.”
Shit. “I’ll miss you too.”
I don’t look at her when I say it.
I can’t.
It’s too damn true. I don’t want to look at her and see that she’s merely being nice. I don’t want to see the pity over the fact that I’ll miss her more than she’ll miss me. I don’t want her to see how much I mean it, because that’s basically flopping my heart out of my chest and offering the beating thing to her in my hands.
I don’t do that anymore.
