The Thing About My Rival (The Boston Commoners #1)

Chapter 42

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

DREW

I can’t watch that. I can’t.

As soon as the ballroom door closes behind me, I lean against the wall and exhale the breath I’ve been holding since I got out of my seat.

It was like I was suffocating. Like a tank had parked on my chest. Like the only way I’d be able to breathe again was to get out of there as quickly as possible.

It might be unprofessional to walk out, but I can’t let the Fab Four, the players, literally every important person in the League or, dear God, Hugo himself see me like this.

Any credibility I’ve clawed back would be washed away in a heartbeat if they saw me get overwhelmed by the sight of Hugo being recognized for the person he really is—the person I always knew he was.

But worse than any professional impact of the balloon of emotion that’s ready to pop inside my chest, is that it tells me exactly how I still feel about him.

It hasn’t gone away. Not one bit. Not one iota .

But it’s all pointless, because there’s even less of a chance now that Hugo and I could make it work than there ever was before.

I mean, the Fab Four offering me the general manager’s job is a major deal, but how could I take it? I couldn’t be his boss whether we were an item or not.

If we weren’t together, being around him every day and not being able to be with him would be unbearable. And watching him live his life with this, that, and the other woman would be soul destroying.

Not to mention I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to bear me managing him.

And if we were together, there’s no way that Miles, Leo, Chase, and Oliver would ever stand for it—they’d think the general manager dating the head coach was a disaster waiting to happen, particularly with Hugo’s relationship track record.

Anyway, what would happen when he inevitably gets a job at a more glamorous club on a different continent? I’d just be setting myself up for heartbreak all over again.

So, either way, I can’t take their offer of the closest thing to my dream job that I’m ever going to get.

I take a sharp breath to help me get a grip, push off the wall and steady myself.

I need to get my coat, a cab to my hotel, and a flight to Portland as soon as I can. The easiest solution is to put as much distance between me and Hugo as possible, as quickly as possible.

At the coat check there’s no escape. Hugo’s face is on a screen suspended from the ceiling. And the attendant’s hanging on his every word with such rapt concentration I have to cough to get her to notice me.

Look at him, though. It’s so hard not to be drawn to that face, that English accent, the charm and charisma he oozes even on screen.

The applause dies down from whatever gem he just dropped, and I slide my ticket across the counter to the attendant.

“Sorry,” she says, tipping her head toward the monitor. “I just love him.”

She disappears toward the back to get my coat as Hugo starts to speak again. “But there’s one person without whom I definitely wouldn’t be standing here with this in my hand.” He holds up the trophy. “Wilcox…”

A sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob flies out of me at the sound of my name falling from his deliciously beautiful lips—lips that have made every inch of my skin tingle.

He scans the room before him. “Wilcox, I don’t know where you’ve gone, but everything I’ve learned that’s put me in this spot tonight, I’ve learned from you.

“I didn’t realize how closed my mind was until you opened it to the possibility of doing things in different ways.

“I didn’t know what a self-centered arsehole I was… Well, maybe I did”—he pauses for the audience’s laughter—“until I saw you put others ahead of yourself over and over and get better results.

“And I didn’t know what true team spirit was until I saw what the Commoners mean to you.”

The attendant returns with my coat. “Isn’t he amazing?”

I take it without looking at her, my eyes transfixed by Hugo’s face, my mind transfixed by his words.

“Yes,” I whisper, just about forcing it past the soccer ball-sized lump in my throat. “He is. ”

“This club,” he continues, “is a part of you. It’s in the beat of your heart, the air in your lungs, and the blood in your veins. It lives in every fiber of your being. And that has been a magical thing to behold. I’d thought that was how it was with me and Man U. But that was before I witnessed firsthand the way the Commoners are you, and you are the Commoners.”

The music starts up to play him off stage, but he leans into the mike and holds up his hand to stop it. “Please, can I have a moment more? I’ve never said anything as important as the things I’m about to say.”

The music fades. “Thanks.”

He places the trophy on the lectern and runs his fingers over it. My body reacts as if it’s me he’s caressing, my pulse racing, the skin of my arms and neck tingling, a warmth between my legs.

“You see, folks, I really was an arsehole.” The titter that runs through the audience is quieter now, responding to the shift in his tone—more serious, less the frivolous, lighthearted Hugo the world knows and loves.

“I probably still am to some degree. But I’m a lot less of one for being around Drew Wilcox.”

My chest hitches when he says my name, my whole name. What was it he said that one time he used my first name before? That he was doing it to get my attention? Well, he definitely has it now.

On that screen is the Hugo I know and love—yes, fuck it, I love him. What the hell else could this feeling be that consumes me every minute of every day? This feeling like I’m not me if I’m not around him, I’m not whole if I’m not around him, that there’s no fun, no joy, no goddamn point in anything if I’m not around him.

“If I hadn’t spent the last couple months of the season around Wilcox,” he continues, “I would never have backed the team’s decision to refuse to play on against Orlando. The pre-Wilcox me would have yelled at them, threatened them with fines and suspensions until they kicked the goddamn ball again. That me would have cared about nothing other than winning the match.

“So, if it hadn’t been for Wilcox, I wouldn’t have done the thing you’ve given me this award for. Yes, if I’d made them play on, we might now be storming through the playoffs and on our way to winning the big, shiny cup. But there’d be no post-Wilcox me. I’d still be the total arsehole.”

“Oh my God,” the coat check attendant clutches her chest, eyes welling up. “Whoever that is is the luckiest person alive.”

I stare at her for a second, the awe on her face mirroring the awe in my heart. The awe for a man who is the person I hoped he really was, who deep down I knew he really was.

“She is,” I whisper. “She really is.”

I slide my coat off the counter and, without processing exactly what I’m doing, allow my feet to carry me back toward the ballroom.

“I don’t know where you are, Wilcox,” his voice says through the speakers, “but I don’t deserve this award. The only person who deserves it is?—”

The door lets out a loud squeak as I pull it open, and all heads in the ballroom turn to face me. Hugo’s eyes land on mine, lighting up as that famous smile spreads across his face. But the smile isn’t for the audience, the camera, or the world. The smile is for me.

He dips his head to the mike until his lips almost touch it .

“…you,” he finishes softly.

Taking the microphone from the stand, he picks up the trophy and makes his way down the steps from the stage, his eyes never leaving mine.

“When I showed up for that first day at the Commoners, three-quarters of the way through the season, and discovered we were going to have to share this job, I hated it. It meant I wouldn’t be the sole leader, the sole voice, the sole glory-taker. And I hated you for being the person I had to share it with.”

He moves between the tables toward me, people turning in their seats to keep their eyes on him as he passes. My feet are glued to the floor, my heart in an all-out race against itself. Hundreds of people are in this room, but it’s like they’ve all vanished, faded into insignificance in the face of the man walking toward me.

“But then I realized that without you to share the wins with, wins are meaningless. I didn’t know what true meaning was, what true love was, until I met you. I’m not the man who taped a line through our office in August, Wilcox. I’m a better man. The man you showed me I could be. The man I want to be for you.”

He’s so close now that I can hear his words coming from his mouth, his heart, rather than from the speakers.

“You taught me that winning isn’t everything. My only regret is that I had to lose you to learn that.”

His words expand my heart beyond my chest to fill every empty, hurt corner of my soul. I was wrong. He’s not like my dad at all. This man is everything. I need nothing more than Hugo Powers. He’s my inspiration, my teammate, my love, my home.

“So this”—he raises the trophy next to his head—“is for you. ”

Two more steps and he’s right in front of me, handing me the glass soccer ball. I don’t know what else to do but take it.

“Because the only thing I want to win is you. Please, dear God, Wilcox, please give me some extra time to prove myself. Please tell me you haven’t already blown the final whistle on me.”

I place the trophy on the floor, put my hand over the microphone, and push it away. Stretching up on my toes, I rest my mouth against his ear and whisper to make extra sure no one can hear me. “I’m sorry I said you were like my father. You are not. You are ten thousand times the man he will ever be.”

It’s hard to tear myself away from the aroma of him—the herby wood of his hair, the almost shower-fresh scent of his skin.

I drop back onto my heels and nearly fall headfirst into his eyes. If those eyes were the first thing I saw every morning and the last thing I saw every night, it would make every day the best day.

He moves the mike back between us. “I love you, Drew Wilcox.” A mixture of gasps and sighs of aaaw ripple across the room behind him. “And I want everyone to know. Not just everyone here, but everyone everywhere. My love for you fills me so much I can’t keep it all inside, and I need to spew it out over everyone else.”

“Like puke?” a voice that sounds like Bakari’s calls from the back, provoking an outbreak of chuckles.

Unable to keep my hands off Hugo any longer, I slide them inside his jacket and around his waist. “I love you too.”

And our mouths come together with a feeling that could heal any wound, erase any scar. A feeling that will lead us into the future and help us handle whatever life throws at us.

A cheer erupts around the room as Hugo dips me backward, over his arm, like we’re in an old black-and-white movie.

Usually, I would hate anyone bringing all this attention to me. But although I can hear the clapping and the whistles, it’s like they’re not really there. All that matters is me and Hugo, what we have right now, and the even greater thing it’ll become in the future.

As he lifts me back upright, I look into his eyes. “Do you love me enough to work with me every day again?”

His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“More importantly, do you love me enough to have me as your boss?”

Now his brow shoots up to somewhere near his hairline and he looks back over his shoulder toward our tables, where Prince Oliver, Miles and Chase are all holding their thumbs in the air. Leo gives me a tiny nod.

They’re all in. They’re fine with it. Our one remaining obstacle is cleared.

“Okaaay,” Hugo says, turning back to face me with the most adorable puzzled grin. “What were they talking to you about earlier?”

Not so long ago it seemed impossible that I could ever have the man I wanted or the job I wanted. But now I can have both. And the idea of that is so overwhelming, so all-consuming, so utterly impossible to comprehend that out of nowhere a sob racks my chest.

“I’m going to come back and run the place.” The words just about make it out of my mouth before tears roll down my cheeks .

Hugo’s eyes expand to almost the diameter of the glass soccer ball at my feet.

I fight back the tremble in my breath just enough to form five crucial words. “If you can handle it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He beams with joyful disbelief. “You mean we’d work together? You doing the job you always wanted? And me doing the job I didn’t know I always wanted, but do now?”

I nod.

He puts his arm around my shoulders, spins us around to face the room, then moves the mike so close to his lips that he’s almost kissing it. “Ladies and gents, we are going to be un-fucking-beatable next season.”

And I’m absolutely certain he’s not talking only about the Commoners.