Quentin returns a few minutes later with a blanket, covering me up in it before joining me and getting under the blanket.
“C’mere. Cuddle time,” he announces as he gently pulls me against him with his arm around my shoulders.
“Oh, I’m not much of a cuddler,” I protest, folding my lips together to fight the smile that wants to be there.
Quentin’s brows rise so high I swear they’re going to enter his hairline. “Says the girl who was all over me in her sleep.”
“Tell anyone and I’ll have to kill you.”
He chuckles vibrantly as he says, “Your secret soft side is safe with me.”
We lie like that for a bit, comfortable in the silence.
Until Quentin asks, “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” I perch up so that I can look at him now.
“I know we don’t talk about it often and it’s okay if you’re not comfortable speaking about your retirement, but I’ve beenwondering more about it because it’s something I’m considering. Is it final or do you plan to go back?”
I sit up now, putting some distance between us as I wring my hands together. He has no idea about what really happened, and I don’t even know where to begin. So I go with telling him my future plans to see what he thinks before I tell him what led to my “retirement.”
“My plan is to compete again, specifically at the Summer Olympics in two years. I have one more in me. I can feel it. I know I’ll be a mom, but I want to do this.”
He places his hand on my knee, instantly comforting me. “Teagan, you can still compete even if you’re a mom. I’ll be here when you have long days of training and whatnot. If this is something you need to do for you, then do it. Our baby will be proud that her mother goes after what she wants.”
“Quentin, you have baseball. We’ll probably have to get a nanny. Even though I really don’t want someone else raising our baby,” I explain, hoping he understands without me explaining why.
“I know,mon coeur, neither do I.” He pauses, then takes my hand in his. “I’m going to tell you something, but promise it stays between us?”
“Always,” I reply, suddenly on edge for what he has to tell me.
“I’m officially retiring after this season is done.”
I’m speechless, words attempting to leave my mouth but failing. “But…why? You’re not doing this because of our family, are you?”
“I’m doing it for me. As you know, this season I’m not feeling one hundred percent like I used to, and I want to be healthy and present in my daughter’s life. Before I met you, I had been debating on retiring. But I didn’t know what else to do, nor did I want to give your brother what he wanted.” He smirks at their rivalry that seems like eons ago. “Your brother’s ready for it, and now I have a purposebesides baseball. I’m all in for this next chapter of my life, with you and our daughter. So I can take on more while you finish what you need to for yourself. Eventually, I’ll do something for me, but until I figure out what I want to do, I’m just going tobe.”
I can’t help it as tears roll down my cheeks. For fuck’s sake, I hate crying so much. He doesn’t understand how much I needed to hear that, though, how I’m finishing this for myself.
I’m suddenly on his lap as he holds me tightly, whispering how everything’s going to be okay, which only makes me cry harder.
He has no idea the extent of it.
Of how I’ve been forced to retire. Of how they hid the evidence of what really happened.
An idea sparks in my head as I remember something he told me not long ago.
I wipe at my cheeks and sniffle, doing my best to pull it together as I ask, “You said you have a friend that’s good with hacking into things, right?”
“Yeah, Idris. He was the head of security back home, and he followed me here to keep an eye on my sister and me. He’s got his own family now, so we only see him a few times a year. Why?” he asks, his tone more concerned than it was before.
“I need to tell you something,” I say, my throat thick with emotion as I move my body so that I’m straddling him and we can be face-to-face.
“Okay,” he says as his arms wrap around my waist, holding on to me.
“I didn’t retire from gymnastics of my own free will. I was kicked off the team for what my old coach would say is attitude reasons. So, at my last competition, I delivered a nearly perfect floor routine. I was expecting high numbers, and then one of the judges gave me an 11. I asked him why and he said it’s because my bra strap was showing. My fucking bra.” My voice cracks as I relive one of theworst days of my life. “I told him to fuck himself, naturally, because it was bullshit. And my coach pulled me to the side in a closed off hallway where no one would hear. He told me that I needed to control my anger and for that reason I was off the team. I told him I wouldn’t need to control it if he had stuck up for me, and I threatened to go to social media with what happened. So he told me that the team was going to bury any evidence of what happened today, make it seem like I retired, and if I tried anything, he’d guarantee I’d never see the Olympic stage again. He was blackmailing me and it worked, because he knew how badly I wanted that. Back then, it was driven by the need to impress my mom and the hope that she’d be there, and he knew that.”
Quentin’s face transforms to one of anger, his body pumping up and down with shallow breaths. “What. The. Fuck.”
