I flipped on the light in the bedroom. No Lake. No Trzy. Dropping my bag on the floor I walked to the closet and switched on the light.
Empty.
All of her stuff was gone. It felt as barren as my heart.
“Fuck.” I closed my eyes.
After looking for a note or any sign of her and coming up empty, I hopped back in my truck and drove to her apartment.
It was late or early. I didn’t care, as I banged on her door. A good minute or so later she opened it, standing before me in a Hello Kitty top and matching shorts. It took all the strength I had to not drop to my knees and beg her to come home. Her eyes were red, her posture lifeless.
“Hey.” She smiled and I hated how forced it was. I wanted to own each one of her smiles, but in that moment I didn’t feel like I owned anything but her grief.
“You moved out.”
A slow nod.
It hurt. It hurt so fucking bad.
I cleared my throat. “Why?”
She wet her lips and rubbed them together as her eyes shined with tears. “I hated being your mistake.”
“What?” I narrowed my eyes.
“You said you didn’t want this to be a mistake.” She blinked and the tears broke free down her beautiful cheeks. “I-I can’t sit around waiting for you to decide if we’re a mistake. I can’t handle feeling like your whole world one minute and then being proposed to with a ‘sure’ the next. I can’t be with you and notbewith you. I can’t handle having you so close and not feeling like I can touch you.” She wiped her face and sucked in a shaky breath.
“Jesus, Lake…” I pressed my palms to the side of my head, shaking it side to side. “I didn’t mean us.” My hands went from my head to hers, clenching her hair a little tighter than I should have, but I needed her absolute, undivided attention to the words that I had to say. “Football… my fucking job.Thatwas what I meant when I said I didn’t want it to be a mistake.Thatwas what I meant when I said I understood if it was too much for you.”
I bent down until we were at eye level, our faces just inches apart. “It’syou, Lake. It’s you every damn day of the week and twice on any game day. It’s you today, it’s you tomorrow, it’s you a fucking millennium from now. Get. That.”
A sob ripped from her chest, and I had to fight my own fucking tears. Nothing in my whole life had ever hit me as hard as the gut-wrenching realization that this woman—my whole damn world—didn’t truly feel the infinite depth of my love for her.
LAKE
Harder.
I wanted him to hold me harder. I needed his hands everywhere at the same time. I needed his touch to breathe life back into me because leaving him felt like a slow death. When I opened the door, I barely had a pulse.
“Cage …”
He kissed me, pushing me backwards and kicking the door shut behind him.
“You’re everything,” he murmured into my neck, pulling my top off. His mouth dropped to suck in my nipple as my shirt fell to the floor.
I slid his shirt up his torso as he continued to lead me backwards toward my bedroom. When my legs hit the edge of the bed, Cage dropped to his knees and pulled down my shorts and panties, his lips eager to devour every inch of my skin. “Sit,” he whispered with his lips pressed to the top of my leftleg.
I sat. He slowly removed my leg, and rolled down the sheath leaving me completely naked. We went from a hundred miles an hour to zero in a matter of seconds. Resting his forehead on my leg, he breathed in and breathed out like it took herculean strength to make each conscious exchange of air as his hand caressed my residual limb, feeling every angle as if he needed to memorize it.
“Lake?” he whispered with his head still pressed to my leg.
I ghosted my hand along the back of his head, feeling a little unsteady—a little afraid—because he seemed so vulnerable.
“Yes.” I exhaled a slow breath, attempting to calm the surging march of my heart trying to break through my chest.
Cage inched his head up just enough to meet my gaze. “I love you.” The pain in his expression brought more tears to my eyes. He owned every single one of my emotions. “Marry me.”
Oh God …
