"I am all in," he said. "But are you? Are you, really?"
I didn't know how to answer that. I wanted to say that I loved him, too, but there was so much more to what we had than that.
"Sloan," I said his name since I didn't know what else to say.
He reached for me, and I let him pull me to his chest. My throat worked as he pressed a kiss to the top of my head.
The question lingered… Was I all in?
He tilted my chin and breathed a light kiss against my lips, testing things out. I opened for him and kissed him right back. Pressed against him in that little room, I questioned everything about what I'd found to be true.
I’d thought that maybe if I rearranged my life like furniture, it'd get better. And it did.
But now, Sloan wanted to move the furniture again, and I had to figure out if I was okay with it and if I'd help him. Or if I was stuck again.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
SLOAN
Maya left for the airport, and I hung out in the locker room. I didn't want to go to my Denver apartment, and there was no way I could go home to the house I thought of as ours. Not without her tonight.
I sat on an empty bench in the empty locker room, feeling pretty damn empty.
"What's up, dog?" Finn tapped the side of a locker with his fist as he came into the room. "Maya still here?"
I shook my head. "She had to get back."
"I'm guessing the pepper shit wasn't something you're into?" Finn nodded knowingly. "I was worried about that."
"Jackass," I said with a chuckle. "It's the code we use when we need to have a serious conversation about the rules of us."
"Well, fuck," Finn said, dropping to sit on the bench across from me. "That makes me feel like a grade-A jackass. And it sounds way less fun than what I was thinking."
"I think she's pulling away from me," I said. "I told her I'm in love with her, and she's pulling away."
Finn let out a long whistle. "I'm firmly against telling anyone you're in love with them. Best to keep that shit locked tight, if you ask me."
"Kid, that's why you're single." Coach strode into the locker room, his hands on his hips. He looked right at me but jerked his thumb toward Finn. "Don't listen to people who don't know what it's like to make a woman happy."
"I know what it's like," Finn said in defense.
"What's it like then, Romeo?" Coach asked.
Then he waited for Finn to come up with an answer we all knew would be bullshit.
"I think I'll just sit here and let you two talk," Finn said, stretching out on the bench to stare at the fluorescent lights above us, his hands linked behind his head.
"Good call," Coach said. Then he pointed at me. "What'd you do?"
"What makes you think I did anything?" I asked, eyebrows drawing together. Now, it was my turn to be on the defensive.
"Given you're the one pouting in the locker room while everyone else is out celebrating the win, I'd say you did something. Tell me I'm wrong." Coach didn't sit. Then again, he never sat. He leaned against the lockers, which was about as relaxed as I'd ever seen him, really. Like he was all settled in and ready for a good story.
"I told my wife that I'm in love with her," I said, and if that was wrong, then I didn't know how to be right.
Coach pursed his lips, nodded. "What'd she say to that?"
"She flew out here to ask me if I meant it and to find out how that changed things." I cleared my throat. "We'd agreed when we got married in Vegas to leave love out of it. Agreed that things would be easier if we kept love out of it."
