My phone buzzes with another picture from Piper. This time, she and Ellie are making faces at the camera.
Piper: the bean says hi
I stare at the photo for a long moment, memorizing the way Piper’s eyes crinkle when she smiles, and how Ellie’s downy curls look like angel wings on the side of her head. My heart is flinging itself against my ribs because it knows these two amazing women belong to me.
One of the assistant coaches appears at the end of the hallway, waving me toward him, and I head back to the locker room. I spend another hour talking with my teammates and getting the lay of the Grizzlies’ land.
Eventually, I make my way toward the front of the building. Tyler is waiting for me in the lobby. “How’d it go?”
“Good. Really good.” I follow him out into the bright afternoon sunlight. “Hey, Ty?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not giving Ellie up.”
He stops walking and turns to look at me, a slow grin spreading across his face. “About damn time you pulled your head out of your ass on that one.”
“I still have no idea what I’m doing.”
“The way my sisters talk, that’s the whole point of parenting. You figure it out as you go.”
We walk to the car in silence, and I think about Tom’s words. The importance of having something solid off the field. What it would take to be more than just a wide receiver. And the idea that Piper already sees that in me.
I think about Piper saying she needs to stand on her own, and how I screwed up the proposal so badly that she probably believes I don’t want her.
But I do. God help me, I want her. I want all of it—the banter, the chemistry, the way she challenges me. I want to wake up next to her, fall asleep holding her, and build something real together.
I just have to make her believe I’m worth the risk.
Because Piper Hart deserves a man who does things right. Who plans and romances and actually uses words to tell her how he feels instead of blurting out panic-proposals.
“What are you thinking about?” Tyler asks as we pull out of the parking lot.
“How to win over a woman who thinks I’m a twatwaffle.”
Tyler laughs. “Good luck with that.”
“We need to make a stop.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Where?”
“A jewelry store.”
Tyler gapes for a second, but then grins and pumps his fist in the air. “You’re buying her a ring.”
“I’m buying her a ring.” The words feel right coming out of my mouth. “And then I’m going to convince her to marry me. The right way this time.”
“Hell yeah, you are.” My friend seems almost proud of me, and I’ll take it. A hundred times over. “I know just the place. It’s in Cherry Creek.” He pulls out his phone and types the name of the jewelry store into the GPS. “Let’s do this.”
Twenty minutes later, I slide back into the driver’s seat with an embossed bag in my hand. Inside is a velvet box, and inside that is a ring that isn’t flashy or ostentatious. It’s an oval diamond in a delicate platinum setting, elegant and understated. The kind of ring a woman wears because she loves what it represents, not because she needs everyone to see it.
It feels like exactly what Piper would want. I sure hope it is.
Because as I point the car west toward the mountains, heading back to Skylark—toward Piper and Ellie and the potential of what we could build together if I can find a way to get there—I realize I don’t need the luck Tyler talked about. I just need to stop being afraid of what I want and start fighting for it.
And I’ve never backed down from a fight in my life.
24
