Cameron’s mouth tightens, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I’m confused as shit,” I admit. “Because football is…it’s what I’ve been chasing my whole life. It’s what I clawed my way into when I didn’t have much else to hold onto.”
My throat tightens, and I hate it.
Because Cameron knows why. He knows the childhood I don’t talk about often.
He knows I learned early that being useful was the only way to stay.
“But Sloane,” I say, voice dropping. “Sloane is not some…pit stop on the way to the NFL. She’s not a distraction. She’s not something I’m using to feel good.”
Cameron’s eyes narrow like he’s listening for the lie.
“I’m here,” I continue, “because she needs me. Because Iwantto be here. Because she’s…she’s my person, whether we’ve said that out loud or not.”
Cameron flinches at the wordperson, like it hits too close to Pops.
I push through it anyway.
“And I don’t want to leave her,” I say. “I don’t want her waking up in this house alone with all of this. Not when she’s barely breathing through the day.”
Cameron’s face hardens again, but there’s something else there now too—pain, maybe. A cracked kind of understanding.
“So what,” he says, voice sharp. “You’re just…staying? You’re giving up the NFL?”
“I didn’t say that,” I answer honestly. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what the hell the right choice is. I don’t know how to want or have both without destroying something.”
Cameron stares at me.
For a long beat, neither of us speaks.
Then he exhales hard and looks away, blinking like he’s fighting the sting behind his eyes.
“When Pops was…when it was getting bad,” he says quietly, “I kept thinking—at least we have her.”
My chest tightens.
“At least we have Slo,” Cameron continues. “Because she was his person, and he was hers, and if she had someone…if she wasn’t alone…”
He cuts himself off and shakes his head like he’s disgusted with how emotional he sounds.
Then he turns back to me, eyes sharp again.
“You better not hurt her,” he says, voice low and lethal. “You hear me?”
“I hear you,” I say immediately.
“I’m serious,” he growls. “If you leave her when she’s already broken—if you make this worse?—”
“I’m not leaving her,” I say, firm. “Not like that.”
Cameron’s eyes search mine like he’s trying to decide if he can believe me.
Finally, he nods once, slow and tense.
“Good,” he says. “Because I’d hate to have to mess up your pretty face some more.”
I huff a weak laugh that makes my cheek throb. “Yeah. God forbid.”
