I stand, telling the girls I need to make a few phone calls before the second half starts, and they thankfully don’t question me.
I’m only halfway up the stairs when I hear him. “Jade!” The deep resonance of his voice stops me in my tracks, and I glance over my shoulder to see him vaulting over the barricade and taking the steps two at a time to reach me.
He’s sweaty and out of breath from the exertion of the last forty minutes of non-stop play, but his eyes are alight with joy. That is, until he sees the look on my own face.
“Are you okay? I didn’t get to ask earlier, and—fuck, love. Are you alright?”
Looking at him is too hard, like trying to stare at the eclipse because it’s this great, wondrous phenomenon even though doing so threatens to blind you.
“I have to go,” I whisper nearly inaudibly. “I only came to make sure you didn’t throw away your future.”
His face falls slightly, but he doesn’t try to mask it anymore, the pain he used to harbor inside so no one would know it was there. It’s now sitting proudly on his sleeve. “We can figure this out,” he says, but I’m already shaking my head.
“The news is…it’s not a good outcome, Tieran. I can’t be the reason you give up your dream. I won’t wake up one morning to see resentment filling your eyes. It would kill me.”
“More than this is already killing you?” he asks boldly, challenging me.
“Yes.”
He stays quiet, eyes jumping back and forth over my face like I’m some quantum physics equation he can’t figure out yet. I cast my eyes down, the eclipse causing my eyes to blur.
“Do you remember what I told you?” I can’t look at him while he speaks—can’t bear to see the love in his eyes as I sacrifice my heart for him. He forces my chin up as tears stream down my cheeks, and he wipes them away before settling both palms on my face, holding me in place. “I told you I was going to take care of you, just like you’ve been taking care of me. Trust me, baby, I’m going to fix this.” He crushes his lips to mine, and a cracked sob flows from my mouth to his as the tears fall in front of the whole world. “I love you, Jade.”
He runs off without knowing the extent of what the headlines are saying, without knowing the true severity of it all.
He leaves without knowing there is no fixing this.
There is only forgetting.
The team’senergy is exhilarating as we walk through the tunnels, riding the high of our victory. Yet, all I can think about is getting to Jade, kissing her until she forgets about the past forty-eight hours, and then never letting her go.
It would seem the universe has other plans, though, because as I walk into the locker room, I end up bumping into Amari, who’s come to a standstill behind the crowd of other players.
“What’s going—” Suddenly, Cavan is standing in front of me, blocking my view.
“You need to keep a level head right now.” In the worst of times, Cav is always the steady voice of reason. He’s slow to anger, to emotion in general, but right now, he looks concerned and pissed at the same time.
That’s when I hear his voice, and everything in my body goes tight with barely restrained anger. Lawrence Chapman is at ease in the middle of the room, his ruddy face set in a self-satisfied smirk, and I’m one second away from killing the pompous fuck standing in front ofJade’steam, acting like he owns it.
My knuckles go white from clenching my fists at my sides, and I take one step forward, my foot falling like ananvil of doom, before Myles grabs my arm to hold me back.
“Ah, there’s the man everyone’s been talking about.” My jaw clenches hard enough that I could crack a molar. Seventeen different, inventive ways to hurt him without anyone finding out run through my mind. “Gather ‘round, lads. We’ve got some housekeeping to go over.”
I move over to my locker, careful not to get too close to Chapman in case my thinly veiled restraint snaps and I decide to lay him out like he deserves.
Grabbing my phone out of my bag, I shoot off a quick text to Harry.
Tieran
Is everything sorted?
Three dots pop up immediately before his reply comes through.
Harry
On our way.
Tieran
