Chapter 9
chapter nine
Ryan
Today’s Learning Objective:
Students will take calculated risks.
Nervous wasn’t a feeling I experienced.
Even before the playoffs and championship games, I’d be pumped, hyped, focused . Never nervous.
My coach in college liked to say I was fearless. That I didn’t break a sweat when the biggest, baddest defensive ends had me in their sights. That I put everything into the game and left it all on the field.
And yet here I was, holed up in a school principal’s office with sweaty palms and a swirl of adrenaline in my belly that made it impossible to stand still.
The last time I’d been this nervous—well, that’d involved Emme too. I should’ve known it would always be like this.
Stella collected me from the office before I could turn myself into a real wreck. She kept up conversation as we walked down the corridor with the principal, who had been nothing but nice, but she was not the person I wanted to see right now.
At the other end of the hall, I spotted Emme walking with her class. She said something to them and they chorused back in response. Her dark hair was swept over one shoulder, and with her navy dress, she wore a cardigan in a deep shade of orange that was probably called something like persimmon or marmalade.
“Miss Ahlborg will get the students settled and then introduce you,” the principal said. Lauren was her name, though I’d lost track of her last name hours ago. It was Mrs. Something-Something, and if I hadn’t been preoccupied with trying to catch a glimpse of Emme everywhere I went, I would’ve remembered. “This group is a bit more high energy than some others you’ve visited today, but Miss Ahlborg and I will be in the room the entire time to handle any issues.”
I nodded while flashing a glimpse toward the media crew waiting outside Emme’s classroom. It was a solid bunch. No surprise Stella had invited only the pros and none of those hacky assholes who thought they could get me to slip up and shit-talk the coach, the manager, the entire organization.
If the wear and tear on my body hadn’t been enough for me to make retirement plans, the media games and league politics would’ve been enough all on their own.
I straightened as Emme approached with her class. Most of the kids goggled at the camera equipment. Others didn’t give us the time of day and I respected that. If a media crew had shown up in my second-grade classroom, I probably would’ve glared at them too.
Emme leaned against the threshold, glancing at her students before grinning up at me. “Are we ready to do this?”
I kept telling myself this didn’t matter. That I could fumble the whole thing and bore these kids out of their skulls, and no one would care because I gave them a bunch of money today. But I wanted to be good for Emme.
“If you are,” I said, watching while one kid karate-kicked his way across the room.
“Then here we go.” She patted my arm and breezed inside. “All right, my friends. Raise your hand if you remember me talking about a very special guest coming to visit us today.” She raised her hand while pressing one finger to her lips as the kids started murmuring to each other. “Our visitor’s name is Ryan Ralston and I think some of my friends might’ve heard of him before because he is a very famous New England football player.”
Shit. She didn’t even roll her eyes at that. Her teacher face could give my game face a run for its money.
“Give me two thumbs up if you’ve heard of Mr. Ralston before. Okay, I see so many thumbs! Now, wiggle your pinkies if you like football.”
Stella chuckled beside me as hands and fingers all waved in the air. “Oh my god, Ryan, she’s the cutest thing in the world. I want to gobble her up,” she whispered.
“Love it, love it,” Emme drawled. “Now, my friends, let’s make sure we show Mr. Ralston the best, shiniest versions of ourselves today. That means we listen by keeping our lips zipped and our listening ears open. We raise our hands if we have questions and we wait silently for Mr. Ralston to call on us. Even though we have lots of visitors in the back of the room”—every head swiveled toward the media crew assembled against the wall like a defensive line—“we are going to keep our eyes up here. Got it?”
“Good,” they chorused.
“Great,” she replied. “Let’s take twelve seconds to organize our spaces so we don’t have anything distracting us while Mr. Ralston is speaking. Go!”
“How do you know her again?” Stella asked.
I watched Emme help the karate-kicker tuck a disaster of papers in his desk. When she was finished, she gave me a nod. I felt my lips turning up into a smile. The obvious answer was from back home, from high school, from ninth-grade biology, from listening to music in her car during lunch all of senior year so I didn’t have to talk to anyone. But I heard myself say, “She’s my favorite thing in the world.”
I stepped away from Stella and made my way through the tight clusters of desks as Emme said, “Friends, let’s give a big welcome to Mr. Ralston.”
I met Emme on the rainbow rug at the front of the room and dropped a hand on her shoulder as I greeted the students. I knew the cameras had followed my hand. That was the plan.
“I’ll leave you to it,” she said.
My gaze followed Emme as she retreated to a wooden desk overflowing with green plants and several mugs filled with pens in the back corner of the room. She tucked herself behind the desk, her arms crossed in that sweet persimmon sweater, her hair cascading over her shoulder, and she turned an expectant grin in my direction.
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say. This time, she didn’t hesitate to roll her eyes at the ceiling.
My smile widened and it wasn’t the I’m working very hard at being neutral and not a snarly beast expression I usually forced in front of the cameras. Emme smiled right back at me and all the nerves died down. It was like we were connected in a way that science and logic hadn’t figured out how to define, but I knew without a doubt was true.
I glanced at the obscenely small chair she’d set out for me and knew right away it wasn’t an option. Even if I didn’t break that little thing, I’d look like a jackass. Couldn’t have that.
I started off with the same introduction I’d given all the other classes and presented a condensed, child-friendly version of my journey through college and pro football. I mentioned growing up on the New Hampshire seacoast, studying economics at the University of Arizona, and how I hadn’t originally intended to enter the NFL draft because I liked numbers more than football. That detail was met with a frenzy of “What!” and “Why not?” from the class and a pointed side-eye from my future wife.
“It was my grandmother who changed my mind on that,” I said. “She’s a very smart woman. I always listen to her advice.” I waited out the rumble of murmurs about grandmothers. General consensus: everyone listened to their grannies. “My grandmother reminded me that, as long as I had my education, I could always use it. No one could ever take that away from me. But football? Not the same. Most players have five, maybe ten good years in the game. So, she told me to play while I could and then go back to numbers, math, and business.”
I watched as Emme dropped her gaze to her desk. She rolled her lips together and started organizing some of the papers there. She remembered those conversations—all the doubt and uncertainty I’d felt about skipping out on grad school, all the times I’d told her she was the only person I really trusted, all the times she’d gently asked, “Who are you really doing this for?”
Since that wasn’t a mirror I’d been ready to face, I’d let Gramma CeCe’s common sense guide the way. Play for a few years, earn big and take care of my mother and sisters, and then do whatever the hell I wanted.
It’d seemed like the right choice and it probably was, but almost eight years later, I still couldn’t take the field without hearing Emme in my head, saying, “You’re going to be one of the great ones. I just hope that’s good enough for you.”
She glanced up at me then, her teeth scraping over her full bottom lip, and I forgot to breathe. I had to clear my throat and reach for one of the bottled waters Stella’s team had marked for me before getting back on track.
“The most important thing you can do is learn. Any guesses what the second most important thing is?” I fielded a mixed bag of responses before saying, “The second most important thing is keeping your body healthy.” I glanced back to Emme, pausing until she met my eyes again. “Can we do some activities? Get up? Move around?”
“Yeah, of course,” she said. “Friends, let’s stand up and tuck in our chairs.”
I motioned to Emme. “We always need to follow Miss Ahlborg’s directions. She’s the quarterback here. She calls the plays, she makes the decisions. To be a winning team, we have to listen to our QB all the time.”
I rolled up my sleeves and led the kids in a few sets of jumping jacks, squats, and stretches. Then, with Emme’s permission, I took them to run around the building a few times.
The media crew went crazy for it. They ate it up like there was something novel about jogging with little kids. Then they pulled me into an unplanned interview while the kids returned to the classroom and packed up for the day. I kept shooting Stella what the fuck is this? glares but she liked the questions and ignored my cries for help.
My publicist was a sadist. A straight-up, soul-eating sadist.
She came off as happy and bubbly, but she lived to torture her clients.
When it was all over and the crew was on the road and Stella knew I wouldn’t be talking to anyone for a solid fucking week, I went looking for Emme. The halls were quiet, save for the ever-present whirl and chug of copy machines. Her room was empty but her phone was on her desk along with some purse-looking bags. She was still here, somewhere.
I turned in a slow circle to finally take in her classroom. It was bright and cheerful, and more aggressively organized than seemed natural for Emme. The University of Vermont catamount was clearly the class mascot, which meant I was legally required to send them a ton of Arizona Wildcats swag in response. It was only appropriate.
I had my phone out to call my assistant with a request for twenty-five stuffed wildcats and maybe an obnoxiously large one too when I noticed the bulletin board at the back of the room. The paper border hung limply from the frame and several star cutouts were scattered on the floor.
The crew had done this. Between the gear and all the people back here, they probably hadn’t noticed, but they’d fucked it up just the same. I crouched down, gathering the stars and then trying to get the border back in place.
“Whaaaa—what are you doing?”
I glanced over my shoulder to find Emme stopped in the doorway, her hands on her hips. I couldn’t look too long or I’d stare. I’d never been able to look at her for more than a few seconds without feeling like my chest was about to cave in or my head turn to sand.
I pointed to the bulletin board. “I’m fixing this,” I said, reaching for the stapler on her desk.
“It’s fine,” she said, finally unsticking herself from the doorway. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”
I held up the stars. “Where do these go?”
She snatched them from my hand. “They—you don’t have to do this.”
“My crew fucked up your wall. I’m gonna fix it.” I shook the stapler at her. “You can either tell me where these star things go or I’ll figure it out by myself.”
She huffed out a breath and passed me a star. “There,” she said, pointing beside a planet cutout with Laribel written on it. Her knee brushed the back of my arm and I had to shut my eyes for a second.
My ability to be close to her and continue to function had been cut in half. I didn’t know when it’d happened, but there was no denying it had happened. Whatever resistance I’d had in the past was gone now.
I really was ruining my whole life with this scheme and I could already feel it breaking me.
We continued like that until we returned the rest of the stars to their proper places. I mended the border, but that made little improvement.
When I gained my feet, she frowned up at me. “Sometimes I forget you’re twenty-nine feet tall.”
I ignored that and hooked an arm around her shoulders. “How much of your day did I ruin?”
“Only most of it,” she said, resting her head against my biceps. “But the kids had a lot of fun and everyone was on their best behavior, so I have no complaints.”
All I had to do was turn my head a few degrees and the scent of Emme’s hair filled my lungs. It was subtle but warm. Something like vanilla. I’d been chasing that scent all day.
“Let me take you out to dinner,” I said.
“It’s three thirty,” she said.
“We’ll start with drinks and apps.”
She laughed. “As much as I’d like to start drinking at three thirty on a weekday, I have to meet your stylist to pick up my dress for Saturday.”
The charity ball. I’d almost deluded myself into forgetting about that. “Why isn’t this stylist delivering everything to you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I’m not home during the day to accept a delivery?”
“Trust me, Muggs. They can work around your schedule.” I’d have my assistant straighten that out first thing tomorrow. “I’ll take you to get your dress and then we’ll grab something to eat.”
Another laugh. “I have to help Ines prepare for an interview tonight.”
I couldn’t believe she hadn’t pulled away yet. I couldn’t believe I was standing here with her pressed up against no less than twenty percent of my body while I drowned myself in the scent of her hair. This was all I needed. All I’d ever ask. I could survive on this and I could be happy. Or something resembling that.
“We’ll go back to your place, then. I’ll order something,” I said. “We should talk about the event this weekend.”
That did it. That burst the bubble.
A breath rushed out of Emme and she stepped away from me, her eyes lowered as she moved to her desk and sorted through the papers there. “What…is there to talk about?” She shuffled the papers without looking at them. “You’re picking me up at eight, right?”
“Yeah.” I leaned against the side of her desk, my arms crossed. “How should we—hmm—how do you want us to interact?” When she cut a sidelong glance at me, I added, “Am I allowed to touch you?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Like you’re my wife?”
I held my gaze on her hands because I wasn’t prepared to see the reaction on her face.
I was even less prepared to hear her say, “I think you mean fiancée. You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
I realized then that Emme was going to make me work. Even if this deal of ours was all about getting back at her ex and winning over the Wallaces, I still had to put in the work and fucking earn her. And I would. I wanted to.
I was no stranger to hard work. I’d graduated with top honors while also leading an underdog team to back-to-back Bowl Championship Series titles. I made a habit of studying my opponents so thoroughly I could recite their playbooks to them, flipping tractor tires to warm up every morning, and training harder and smarter than anyone else in the game.
So, when I found myself staring into the eyes of the only woman I’d ever loved, I knew it wouldn’t feel like work at all.