She slides down my body until her feet are on the floor, but when she goes to step away, I wrap my arms tightly around her back, securing her right to me and she smiles, wrapping her arms around my neck to do the same, leaning up to press a kiss to my jaw. “Explain.”
Dipping down, I kiss her forehead and then reach up behind my neck to flick her bracelets, the clinking sound music to my ears as I link my finger with hers. “It’s probably better if I show you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
TYLER
“You brought birthday night to me,” Sophie says five minutes later, a tiny hint of disbelief in her voice as she watches me spread the striped blanket I brought from my parents’ house over the living room floor of her hotel suite.
Taking her hand, I tug her down to the blanket with me, both of us sitting cross-legged facing each other, our knees touching and our hands woven together. “I absolutely did.”
“I was trying to get home,” she says, her voice a little thick as her fingers tighten around mine. “As soon as my interview was over, I tried booking a flight, but nothing would have gotten me to Pittsburgh in time. Then I texted my dad to see if I could use the plane, but it was in Pittsburgh for some weird reason. So, I threw myself a little Broadway dance pity party, but it didn’t have its usual healing properties. I tried calling you thirty times or something, and when you didn’t answer, I decided to just go to sleep.” She grins at me. “This is way better than that.”
Reaching up, I run the back of my hand down her cheek. “I’m so sorry I made you sad.”
She frowns at me. “You didn’t. You couldn’t. I mean, I guess Iwas kind of sad when you didn’t pick up the phone or respond to my textson my birthday.” She emphasizes those last words with a raised eyebrow, and I can’t stop the laugh that falls from my throat. “But you’re forgiven on account of this epic grand gesture you were trying to keep a secret.”
“I should have come with you,” I blurt out. “It was so stupid of me not to come with you on this trip. You could have had your interview and we could have done epic San Francisco things and we would never have had to be apart.” Tightening my hands around hers, I hold her gaze. “I never want to be apart again. Ever, Soph,” I say, as serious as I’ve ever been. “I’m coming to California with you. If you want to take the job, I’ll be so fucking proud of you, and I’ll be right here with you, every step of the way. I’ll talk to Brian and get out of my contract with the Renegades and join a team out here. Or I won’t, and I’ll do something else. Or do nothing else and become a stay-at-home husband who gardens and teaches myself how to make sourdough with a starter I’ll name something like Yeast Mode. I think I would kill at the stretch and fold part, and I just know I’ll have strong feelings about the appropriate amount of time for cold proofing. The point is, if this is where you need to be, then this is where I need to be too, because I never want to be anywhere unless it’s with you.”
“Don’t think we won’t talk about the stay-at-home husband of it all later, but, well, this is a bit of a conundrum,” Sophie says with a laugh, her eyes lighting up with humor and fun.
“You’re laughing,” I say suspiciously. “Why are you laughing?”
A single beat later, Sophie is launching herself directly onto my lap, covering my face in kisses, her laughter filling the room with delight. “As much as your grand gesture rocks, and I love that you would give up football for me, I’m not taking the job.”
“You’re not?” The relief that fills me at her words is so overwhelming I have to take a beat, wrapping my arms tighter around her to bring her closer to me.
She shakes her head, setting herself deeper into my lap, onehand stroking over my chest and the other tangling with mine. “I’m not.”
Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, I play with one of her curls, winding the soft strands around my finger. “Did the interview not go well?”
She shakes her head. “The interview was fine. It wasn’t even really an interview so much as it was them showing me a bunch of cool shit hoping it would entice me to uproot my entire life to run their company.”
“Of course they hoped you would join them. You’re brilliant and amazing and you would kick so much ass at that job.”
“I would,” she agrees. “But that’s not a reason to take it.”
“Do you want to tell me why you decided not to?” I ask, hoping she does. That she will. I want her to keep talking. I want every single thought in her head because her brain is wonderful and fascinating, and also, I love the sound of her voice.
“Of course,” she says, picking up one of my hands and kissing the back of it. The gesture is so sweet it makes my chest ache. “I don’t want to take it because it’s here, and my life isn’t.”
“It could be,” I remind her. “We could make a life here.”
She laughs again, twisting around so she can look at me. “As much as I love and adore you, you are not my entire life. We could build a good life here. I suspect you and I could build a good life together anywhere.”
“We could,” I agree, tangling our hands together again.
Sophie nods. “But we wouldn’t have our friends and family. Our parents. Grandparents. I would have to give up the work I love at the foundation. Leave someone else in charge of what I’ve spent the last few years building. I wouldn’t get to wear a Renegades jersey with your name on the back of it to watch you play on the team we both love so much. I don’t want to yank our roots out of the ground and move them somewhere else. I want to dig those roots in deeper. There is no job in the world that’s worth giving up what I have in Pittsburgh. What we have.” She pauses for a beat,the look on her face going soft. “Our stories. Our memories. That’s our place, Tyler, and those are our people. I don’t ever want to give that up. I want us to love each other there, as well as we can for as long as we can. To make a family with you one day in the place that made us, with the people who raised us.” Smiling a little, she shrugs. “You know, if that’s the kind of thing you want.”
“I want,” I say immediately, scooping her back up to cuddle her against me, sinking into the feel of her in my arms. “I want it all. The friends and the family. The memories and the roots. One hundred years of birthday nights in my parents’ backyard. The love. So much fucking love, Sophie. I want it all with you.”
She sighs happily, her head tipping onto my shoulder. “So that’s that I guess.”
“No way,” I say immediately, sitting up straight and lifting her off my lap to settle across from me and gesturing to the myriad bags lined up alongside the blanket. “That is absolutely not that. If I’m not mistaken, it’s still April tenth, and we have some serious birthday things to attend to. I came with a plan.”
Her brows furrow as she seems to consider something. “Did you fly with all this stuff? How did you talk your way onto a plane with like twelve carry-ons?”
Chuckling, I glance over at everything I brought with me. “I think you know me well enough to know I could talk myself into any situation that required it, but I didn’t fly commercial. I used your dad’s plane. Or, his company’s plane. I got lucky that he had it in Pittsburgh, and he took pity on me when my mom called him and told him I was sulking because I was hopelessly in love with you and there were thousands of miles between us.” I’ll tell her about the panic attack eventually—and my plan to ask Maddy for a referral for a therapist to help with my anxiety—but not tonight. Tonight is just for us. For happiness and love and everything good.
