42. Indie
The adrenaline faded as Theo drove us back to his family’s house. The anger I’d used to get through standing up to my father left me hollow and exhausted. But the accompanying relief was so profound it confirmed how right my choice was. I was finally free, for the first time in my life, to choose what to do next without the impossible weight of my parents’ demands.
For the first several minutes of the ride, neither of us spoke. The knots in my stomach reformed when I thought about how I had kept all of the events of this past week from Theo.
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning in my seat to look at his profile in the driver’s seat. “It wasn’t that I was hiding this mess my parents roped me into before I could process it…”
“Rocky.” His expression was calm when he looked at me quickly before returning his eyes to the road. “Let’s talk at the house, okay? We’re almost there.”
“Okay,” I replied quietly, looking down at my hands in my lap. It was fair to give Theo some time to process the shitshow he’d just witnessed in my father’s office.
Hell, I’d just done the one thing I’d feared all my life: taking a direct stand against my parents’ orders.
So I could certainly give Theo a few minutes with his thoughts.
As if to reassure me, Theo reached across the console to take my hand in his. He interlaced his fingers with mine, leaving our joined hands resting on my lap. A surge of relief and gratitude washed over me.
We would be okay. Theo was the only one I wanted by my side as I took on this next stage of my life.
Emery’s suggestion of teaching surfaced in my thoughts. The more the idea rattled around in my mind, the happier I felt. With the right qualifications, I could live anywhere while doing something that I loved and mattered to me.
And Theo. Most importantly, I wouldn’t have to leave Theo. Even if my father decided to go to his contact in the Tempests’ head office to get me fired, making my life difficult like he promised, I had more than enough savings to stay in Toronto until I could work out some sort of visa.
Before I knew it, we’d arrived back at the Yao-Miller house. Theo guided me into the house before whisking me into his arms as soon as the front door closed behind us. Even caught off guard, my legs had wrapped themselves around his waist automatically.
He pressed me into the back of the now closed front door and brought our foreheads together, searching my face with concern.
“Are you okay? That was a hell of a moment you just had.” That his first words were asking about my feelings had me melting into his arms.
I trusted him to hold me up.
“Yeah. I just blew up my life, didn’t I?” I buried my face against his neck, calmed by the scent of his skin.
“Look at me, Rocky.” He spoke his request against my hair.
As much as I wanted to stay fused with him forever, I knew I owed him an explanation for what he’d heard my father say. I lifted my head so that I could see his face once more.
“An engagement? Is he insane?” Theo growled.
“I should have cut ties with my father when he sprung this absurd plan on me when I arrived. I was just so caught off guard and felt so trapped all of a sudden, I couldn’t think straight.” I kept my gaze steady on his, hoping he could see how sorry I was.
“Baby. First of all, you’re mine,” he growled, the caveman persona making its reappearance. “There is no fucking way some rich douchebag is going to come between us. I know you.”
He punctuated his words by capturing my mouth in a filthy kiss before pulling back with a nip to my bottom lip.
“God, you’re delicious.” His tone was gravelly with lust. “Definitely more of that later. But please promise me that we’re going to lean on each other from now on. I know it’s so hard when you’ve taken care of everyone, including me, before yourself. But I need us to be partners, okay?”
My eyes widened in surprise. “What do you mean ‘taken care of you’?” What was he talking about?
“I heard you that day, sweetheart. Remember when you ripped that reporter a new one over his questions about my mom?” His expression brimmed with affection.
“Oh. That.” My cheeks heated, slightly embarrassed at how intensely I’d gone after the reporter. But who was I kidding. This was Theo. I’d do it again and again.
“That was the moment I started falling in love with you. Even if it took me some time to realize what I was feeling. You stood up for me, even when things were a mess between us. No one in my life has had my back like that for a long time, Ind. It meant everything to me in that moment. Now, you mean everything to me. But more importantly, for what I think is the first time, you put yourself first today. You stood up against your father’s bullshit manipulation and took your life back, Rocky. I’m so proud of you.” His beaming smile blurred as my eyes filled.
I was so overwhelmed by the last part of what he said I couldn’t address it right now. But there were things I absolutely knew to be true that I could share with him.
“You’re everything to me too, Theo. And yes, I’m going to do my best from here on out to be your partner and let you in. I know I’m going to make mistakes, though. Can you be patient with me as I figure it out?” It was a struggle to keep eye contact when I wanted to hide from my own vulnerability.
“Considering I plan on spending forever with you, baby, I can definitely promise to do everything I can to honor your trust,” he said and grinned.
A few tears escaped my eyes at his declaration. I quickly swept them away. He shifted me in his arms, and I realized that we’d just had this whole conversation with him holding me up.
I wiggled my body until he set me down with a chuckle.
“Wait! Don’t you have to be in Dallas in, like, eight hours?” My brain caught up to reality in this moment. Shit! What was he even doing here? He wasn’t allowed to miss games.
“I couldn’t wait to see you. I’ve felt wrong all week without you in Toronto. I know hockey made it impossible for me to be here with you the whole time, but next time something happens and you need to be somewhere, I’m coming with you. Where you go, I go, from now on, okay?” He wrapped his arms around my waist as if he couldn’t bear any space between us.
I lifted my face to his for a kiss that quickly turned heated again. After a few minutes of making out like teenagers after curfew against the front door, he pulled back, both of us breathless.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Now, tell me the rest,” he demanded.
“Okay, okay! Can we at least move out of the front foyer for this?” I squeezed his forearms where my hands rested.
Theo grunted before he picked me up again, carried me into the kitchen, and deposited me on the counter.
“Yeah, it’s absolutely insane. Apparently, I was na?ve in thinking this kind of thing didn’t happen anymore, but my parents insisted. They wanted a connection with this Fairbanks family. They’d tried setting me up multiple times before, but I never expected anything like this. I guess I’d underestimated how far they would go to get what they wanted.” I leaned back against the cabinet door behind me and waited for Theo’s reaction.
“Let me get this straight. Your parents wanted you to marry some stranger sooner than later, but you potentially chucked your inheritance—which now makes a lot of sense when you talked about your nonprofit idea—literally in their faces and walked away from your family and what was rightfully owed to you for… us?” Theo’s eyes started welling up in the corners. He tried to blink rapidly to clear it but kept his watery gaze on me.
“For us. For you. And for me.” I wiped the errant tear that rolled down his cheek with my thumb before I kissed the path where it had trailed over his skin. “The life we’re building together, be it in Toronto or wherever your contract is next year, that’s what’s most important to me. To be free of all of the stuff from my childhood that I’ve always hated and make choices about what’s best for us and myself.”
“Holy shit. We’re really doing this.” Theo’s smile was as bright as I’d ever seen it. “Fuck, ten million dollars, really?” He scrunched his nose.
I got it. I really did. It was a lifetime’s worth of money.
“Yes. Don’t tell anyone, but I have ten million reasons right here worth infinitely more.” I brought my hand between our bodies and pressed it against his heart. “There is no contest, goalie. You win every time.”
“You have turned into your own worst nightmare right here, Rocky. We might as well be writing billboard messages to each other at this point.” Theo kissed me sweetly.
I gave him a faux annoyed look. “But your secret is safe with me,” he promised.
It was true. For Theo, I was a not-so-secret marshmallow on the inside.
“And about next season, I’m hoping we’ll be spending it in Amado.” His gaze held mine.
“What? What about your contract in Toronto? Are you okay? Is it your knees? Why did you pick me up if you’re hurt?” Worry raced through me that something had happened that no one had told me about.
“Easy, baby. I’m fine. I’ve got a bit of a long story for you too, but the gist is that I told my agent that this season is my last.” Theo’s face was the picture of calm.
“What? Why?” He was giving it all up? Oh god, did he think I didn’t want him to play anymore?
“I can see you freaking out.” He squeezed my waist in reassurance. “Like you, Ind, I’ve realized I have new dreams. I’ve loved playing professional hockey, but I’m at a point where for the first time in a long time, I have so much more than hockey going for me. I want to spend my time living rather than keeping up with a grind that left me constantly nursing injuries and separated from those I love most. ”
I slumped in his arms in relief but couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Because you know that I’d go anywhere with you. You don’t have to retire to make me happy. I want you to have your dreams.”
“You are my dream now, baby. Buying a house together and building a life with Giz. The best part is that we can do that from Amado, which I know you miss, and I can make up for all the years I’ve missed with my family.” He brought his hands from my body to my cheeks so that I had to really look into his eyes.
His expression was confident and happy. He really wanted this.
“Okay, Theo. Let’s do it. I love you.”
“I love you too, Ind.” He kissed me quickly before he pulled back to make eye contact once more. “And, baby?”
“Yes?” He leaned forward again so that I spoke the word against his lips.
“The only person you’ll be marrying one day is me.”