“If you asked any one of them what they’d do if their ladies ever left them, do you know what they’d say?” Waverly asks softly.
I squeeze my cider can too tightly and feel it in my still-recovering shoulder. “Are you calling me a chicken?”
“No. It’s completely normal to be afraid of getting hurt. It’s a risk. It’s a massive risk. And when you feel like you’ll have to choose between a man and your career…” She shrugs. “Do you know how many people told me I’d never go back to recording and touring when I announced I was taking time off to support Cooper while he finished his baseball career?”
“All of them.” I was there. I saw it firsthand. Cooper quit doing media availability for a while because even Mr.My life is awesome because Fireballs Forever!got tired of being asked nearly daily if Waverly was recording or if he’d tanked her career forever. “But it bothered him more than it bothered you. Unless you hid it well.”
She smiles across the pool. “He promised me he’d retire, and I believed him. I didn’t have any reason for the questions to bother me.”
“He played an extra year.”
“I told him to.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t ready to go back out on tour, and I just felt like he wasn’t done. Now? No regrets. He finished his time playing onhis terms, and he went out on the highest high you can go out on. Was it hard? Sometimes, yeah. But worth it. And the thing is…I don’t regret any of the guys I dated before Cooper. Including the ones who completely destroyed me. Including Cooper the first time. Because those experiences made me who I am today. They taught me so much about who I am and what I do and don’t want. What I will and won’t tolerate. What I can and can’t sacrifice for love.” She nudges me. “Sounds like you have a very firm grip on what you won’t sacrifice. But if you could be that happy?”
I watch the group across the pool too. Hugo’s stepped away from them and is smiling as he has a conversation on his phone.
Talking to his wife, I’m nearly positive.
Brooks has slipped around the group to stand closer to Mackenzie.
Darren Greene and his wife, Tanesha, step onto the patio from the house and head to the little group too. Darren’s also retired from the Fireballs, and he and Tanesha have two kids as well.
“What if it’s not in your genes to be happy in love?”
“Don’t you have four married older brothers?”
“Marriedandhappydon’t necessarily go hand in hand.”
“They’re unhappy?”
I wince. “I don’t ask. I don’t want to know. Especially when I don’t think they saw our parents’ relationship the same way I did. I don’t think they can. Being the only girl and the youngest… It was just different for me.”
Waverly leans closer. “You know who makes the best partners in life?”
“Who?”
“The people who understand all the ways relationships can go wrong and choose to actively be part of them anyway. Whochoose to do their best with all of the lessons they’ve learned from their own experience and from watching others.”
Duncan’s already told me about his sister and what he learned from watching her first marriage. Plus he’s been through a divorce himself. And he’s an athlete. Doesn’t matter that it’s a different sport. He’s seen his teammates struggle and triumph in relationships the same as I’ve watched my players struggle and triumph in relationships. He knows the ups and downs. The good and the bad.
“He says he’s retiring at the end of his next season.” I say it so quietly, I’m not sure the words are actually coming out of my mouth.
Waverly doesn’t squealI knew it!or bounce in her seat or clap at the hint. Instead, she asks back, just as quietly, “For you? Or for himself?”
“He says his body’s giving him signs.”
“What does he want to do after?”
“What does hesay? That he has a year to figure it out. What did Ihear? That he wants to do whatever’s best so that he can be part of my life.”
She smiles. “Do you want him to be part of your life?”
I blow out a long breath. “The man he is right now? I like that man. I feel like I can be me with that man, like he appreciates me for me, not for who he thinks he can make me be. But how do I know that that’shimand not the him that he wants me to see? How do I know that this isn’t best behavior rather than standard behavior?”
“You give him a chance.”
