“I’m assuming that you’re done with soccer for the foreseeable future.”
She nodded. “I was able to hide it before. Plus, we’d lost enough matches in the beginning of the year that we had no chance of playoffs.”
I knew that, too.
I watched every single game that she played.
That was why I paid outrageously for every streaming app there ever was, just so that I could catch her games on television, if I wasn’t able to make them in person.
And I made a lot in person.
She may not know that I was there, but I was there all the same.
This season had been rough. They’d lost three starters due to knee injuries and one due to a torn Achilles tendon. They had a roster full of young athletes that had never played in professional games before, so the team had just let them.
I’d noticed over the last few months that Nettie hadn’t played nearly as much as usual and had even looked encouraged by the idea that she wasn’t playing. That she liked the young team out there playing instead of her.
I mean, they’d lost nearly all of their games and had no chance of making playoffs. What was the point in not letting them play?
But now, knowing she was pregnant during the last four months of her season, it was understandable why she didn’t play. And she didn’t bitch because she wasn’t playing.
Nettie was a good player. She had a great head on her shoulders. She loved the game fiercely, and she was the captain of her team. However, she hated not playing. She was the worst when it came to sitting on the bench, and it showed.
I hadn’t seen any of that watching her play this year.
Which was what kept me from blowing up at her for playing soccer while pregnant.
She knew the risks.
Hell, we’d lived the risks.
When that girl had kicked her stomach in high school, I’d watched my life disappear before my eyes.
It’d started with that foot to the belly. Then it’d ended with Nettie walking out of my life and refusing to look back.
Sure, we’d spent a lot of time together over the years.
When she was in town, she’d come to me. When I was in Miami, I’d go to her.
To be completely truthful, whenever I was in Miami, I was there because I was dying without her. I couldn’t breathe or think if I was away from her for too long. When I went to Miami, it was because I was on my last breath.
But it was never anything more than physical.
Just a stolen moment in time where we spent days with each other, doing the only thing she allowed—physical intimacy.
I was weak when it came to her.
Totally and recklessly in love to the point where I’d burn the entire world down if she only asked me to. Just to see the smile that I loved light up her face, I would happily watch it burn.
“How long are you done?” I asked carefully.
Soccer was a touchy subject for her.
I could not—would not—take away her one true love. Even if I was so totally jealous over it that it made me see green.
“Until next season,” she said. “Per my contract, they can’t fire me. They have to give me maternity leave. I have to pass a physical to play the next season, though. Which I don’t think I’ll have any trouble doing.”
No, she wouldn’t.
