We hug, patting each other on the back before moving to the door where Nadine and Paisley are saying goodbye to Molly and Kai. I give them both hugs and kisses, ignoring the lingering suspicion at my back when Nadine comes with me. There is no good reason she should.
Besides that she lives with me in all but name.
But he doesn’t say anything, and she barely acknowledges him with a wave.
“Everything okay?” I ask once we’re in the car.
“My brother asked if something is going on between us, but it was more like an accusation.”
I blow out a breath, shifting behind the wheel as I pull out onto the road. “Yeah. He’s not stupid. He knows.”
“I’m sorry about not believing you before when you said he’d be upset. I…”
Assuming she needs it, I reach for her hand, placing our woven fingers together in my lap as I steer with one hand. The car’s hum fills the silence between us as Nadine finally finds her words.
“You have nothing to prove to me or anyone else. Only yourself. Prove to yourself that you deserve me. I already know, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks about us, including my brother.”
I don’t react, her words stunning me. She’s close to herfamily, especially Erik, and to hear she puts me above them is staggering.
“Camden.” She tugs on my hand for my attention, and only when I glance her way does she continue, “I know how bad you feel about everything—your parents, the game, all of it. But you need to give yourself some grace. Be proud of who you are.”
“Proud?” My heart twists a little, hitting an uncharted part that seems to beat only in her presence, a sliver of vulnerability that is solely for her. “You want me to be my arrogant self?” I deflect, trying to drape some humor over my discomfort, but it barely hides anything, and she sees everything.
“I want you to be the man I love.”
I swallow the tangle of emotion in my throat. She wants me to be proud of myself, of my accomplishments, of how I’ve overcome indescribable pain and faced unmerciful animosity. And I can be.
I can drop the final shield, the last mask of the facade that I’d put on to keep anyone from finding out how worried I was that I didn’t belong. I was so scared they’d discover I wasn’t meant to be there, that I built up an aloof image to keep anyone from examining too closely.
But all that is done now. I’m finished playing the arrogant fool.
I skim my thumb over her knuckles. “As soon as the season is over, I’m telling him. Everything.”
“Everything?” she repeats with a laugh. “I hope not.”
“Everything, meaning my intentions.”
She leans into the console. “And what are they?”
As if she doesn’t know. But I play her game anyway. “My intentions are that I’m going to marry you. Retire at the end of this contract while I can hopefully still walk without too many joints cracking. By then, you’ll be done with your graduate degree and have some big-time job, so I can stay home with the kids. Of course, sometime in there, we’ll have found a house in the suburbs. Maybe next door to your brother.”
“And get a dog.”
“No.” I send her a bland look, but even if she can’t see it in the dark of the car, she laughs. “No way.”
“Don’t you want little Camden and Nadine Junior to have a furry playmate?”
“They’ll have each other.”
“Every kid needs a pet. Your sister has the guinea pigs.”
“Because you’re a bully and a bulldozer, and I never should have given you my credit card.”
“Too late to take it back now.”
“That’s for sure,” I murmur against the back of her hand. “Would never want to take it back.”
At home, I don’t waste any time. As soon as our bedroom door is closed, I peel Nadine’s sweater off, needing toshowher my intentions.
