25. Chapter 25
Chapter 25
LANE
The parking lot is completely empty when we pull into Arrowhead Park.
I glance over at Teagan, wondering what his plan is. He gets out without a word, opens my door, and pulls me out.
The muscles in his back flex beneath the soft cotton of his shirt as he heads for the entrance of the park where a large metal gate blocks the pebbled walkway. A sign that reads: Closed at dusk. Violators and Trespassers will be prosecuted, hangs askew.
“They’re closed,” I say, motioning toward the sign. “We’re not supposed to be here.”
Teagan glances back at me, one brow quirked. “And?”
And he’s forgetting he’s with the rule follower, a Careful Carol. Okay, I just made that up, but does he not remember the night we went skinny dipping and I confessed I’d never done most things before?
Well, that includes trespassing and breaking into state parks after dark.
“It’s just . . .” I shift on my feet, glancing around me as I bite my lip. I feel like, at any moment, one of the park guards is going to jump out of the bushes and put me in cuffs.
Teagan smiles. “Do you always follow the rules?”
“Generally,” I admit with a grimace, but is that really a bad thing? “Rules exist for a reason.”
“What if I promise you it’ll be okay. We’re just going to sit and watch the sun finish setting. That is, if we make it.” He presses his lips together and glances at the horizon, then back again, and if the deepening of his dimples is any indication, he’s trying not to show his amusement at my fear of getting caught.
“Look, we’re not harming anything, so we won’t get in trouble. Even if someone sees us, at most, they’ll just tell us to leave.”
I narrow my eyes as steps over the knee-high gate, holding a hand out to me. “Do you trust me?”
I inhale, allowing a cleansing breath to ease the knot in my chest, and I nod, because I do. I really, really do trust Teagan, and the knowledge of that strikes me with enough force I move my feet.
Once they’re planted firmly on the other side of the gate, Teagan steps back and shakes his head. “Lane Turner,” he says, his tone teasing, “skinny dipping and breaking into the park. What a rebel you are.”
“Are you making fun of me?” I ask archly.
“Only because you’re so damn cute.”
I shake my head, biting my lip as he draws me to his side, wrapping an arm around my shoulders in a friendly gesture that makes me question if he really does only see me as a friend.
“Whatever shall we do with you.” He guides us past the grassy knoll toward the playground, over a walking trail, and through a grove of trees until we reach a bench that overlooks a vast, green field that the park uses for recreational sports.
“It’s not the lake,” he says, sitting and tugging me down with him. “I’m sure your place has a much better view, but it’s quiet and pretty all the same.”
He’s right on both counts.
I take a seat beside him. The sun is already a dipping fireball in the sky, but from our spot on the bench with the field stretched out before us, it seems to go on for miles.
I’m quiet as we watch, both of us settling into a companionable silence and decompressing from the excitement and chaos, as fun as it was, from our time spent at the exhibit. I bite my lip, wishing I could lean into him and lay my head on his shoulder. But that’s something a girlfriend would do. And I shouldn’t wish for things like that because it’ll only end in disappointment.
As if he can sense the direction of my thoughts, he reaches out, only hesitating a moment before he laces his fingers through mine.
And this isn’t something a boyfriend would do?
I give my inner voice the middle finger and close my eyes, focusing on his touch, the warmth of his hand, the rough bite of his calluses against my palm.
“Tell me what you’re thinking?” he murmurs, and when I blink my eyes open, I find him staring down at me, a hunger in his eyes that takes my breath away.
My thoughts scatter, my mind a minefield. One wrong move and I might detonate. So I shake my head, clearing my throat as I rip my gaze from his. “Nothing.”
He doesn’t push.
Instead, I see him shift in my periphery to stare back out at the last of the sunset. “You asked your father about me?”
My mouth hitches. “I was wondering when you’d bring that up.”
“What did you want to know? You know I’d tell you anything.” He gives my hand a squeeze to emphasize his words, and I nod.
“It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t . . . prying for information,” I say for lack of better words. “I just asked him about how he thought you were doing. How far he thought football might take you. If he thought you had a shot to go pro, that’s all. I was just, I don’t know, wondering after our conversation the other night.”
Teagan hums. “And what did he say?”
I jab him in the ribs. “Fishing for inside information, Nichols?”
He chuckles, a soft rumble that vibrates through me even from a distance. “Just curious,” he says.
It shouldn’t bother me if he wants to know. Of course he craves his coach’s approval, but there’s a tiny part of me that fears the second he finds out my father sees his potential and believes he could make it all the way, he’ll be gone. Just another Chance Lockhart who once held a piece of my heart.
And therein lies the problem.
Teagan Nichols was never supposed to have a piece of my heart in the first place. And fuck it all to hell if he isn’t bulldozing his way in and staking claim.
It’s with this in mind that I say, “In not so specific terms, he basically said he thinks you have the potential to go wherever you want football to take you. He called you a dark horse.”
I can see the sheer pleasure this brings him, the way his eyes brighten a little more, and his smile widens, deepening his dimples.
My heart lurches. “That pleases you,” I say, then cringe because it sounds more like an accusation than a statement.
He glances down at me with a frown. “Should it not?”
“Of course. I just . . .” I snap my mouth closed, but he’s not letting me get off that easy. Instead, he pulls my hands closer to his chest, running the pad of his thumb over my knuckles in a dizzying rhythm.
Friends, Lane.
You’re friends.
It doesn’t matter.
“Did this conversation have anything to do with you refusing to go out with me this afternoon when I called?”
I shrug, saying nothing. He’s too damn perceptive for his own good.
“Lane.”
I exhale, my lungs shaking with the effort. “Maybe a little. It’s a reminder, one I needed. It’s important I remember that no matter how good of a friend you become, you’ll be leaving. Your future is elsewhere,” I say, even though I’m fooling myself. I already know that what I feel for Teagan is more than friendship.
All the more reason to keep him at arm’s length. Because I can’t go there. Not with him. It’ll only end poorly.
He says nothing for a moment, staring down at me while I do everything I can to avoid the heat of his pointed gaze. “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers.
“You can’t say that.” I rise from my spot on the bench, forcing him to drop my hands. I need to breathe, need to think without his touch muddling my brain.
Friends don’t hold hands.
Friends don’t look at you like that—like they’re drowning and you’re the only one capable of carrying them to shore.
“Why not?” He stands alongside me, his expression a mask of frustration. “I should know.”
I whirl on him, an atomic bomb building inside of me ready to explode. I’m a living, breathing, exhibition in frustration and anger and want.
Because as much as I don’t want to admit it, as hard as I’ve been trying to avoid it, I want Teagan.
Which is fucking ridiculous.
I have zero right, not when I’ve only known him a few weeks, and certainly not when we’re at two different junctures in our lives.
“Are you really telling me that if you got an offer from the NFL, you wouldn’t take it? Are you really telling me that you plan on staying here after college when all your family and all your friends are elsewhere?”
“Lane, I’m not going to sit here and say I’ve never thought about what it would be like to get drafted. Hell, I’d be lying. Every single guy I know in my shoes has thought about it. You can’t commit yourself so fully to one thing for so many years and not think of the possibilities, but dreaming about what it would be like and the reality of it happening are two very different things. Have you even thought about asking me if I’d go? Have you ever thought that I might not want to?”
I snort. “Of course not. Why wouldn’t you want that? You’d be crazy to pass up an opportunity like that.”
Teagan stiffens, his jaw flexing. I catch a flash of disappointment before he glances away from me, out into the fading watercolors on the horizon. “I see. So, if I told you that I’d rather stay here, that all I’ve ever really wanted is a simple life, one where I earn an honest living teaching and coaching high school football, that would be crazy? A waste of an opportunity? Is that how you see it?”
Guilt grips my stomach while the rest of me free-falls, unable to stop the impact as he continues.
“Is it so wrong to just want a normal life with a family and friends? One where I’m not destroying my body day in and day out. One where I’m not always on the road for half of the year, away from the people I love? A life where I live for the people in it instead of my work?”
“I . . . no. It’s not . . .” I shake my head. How could I think what he’s saying is anything short of amazing. Hell, it’s the path my father took until he reached his ultimate dream of coaching at the collegiate level. “Is that what you want?” I ask, my voice small.
“Yeah, Lane. It is. It’s what I want.”
I turn my head, gazing out at the darkening horizon, the sun so low in the sky now it’s merely a fireball dipping below the trees. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that at the end of four years, you’ll leave. You have nothing keeping you here.”
“I could have you, Lane.”
“Teagan.” I scoff, glancing down at my hands.
He doesn’t know what he’s saying.
He doesn’t. He can’t possibly mean that.
Even if he does, he might change his mind. About me. About Sophie. Just like Chance did, and then what?
His fingers slide beneath my chin, tipping my face up toward his until our eyes lock. “What if I told you I wanted to stay here after graduation?”
I shake my head, tears blurring my vision.
Oh God. Do not cry.
“Do you even know what you’re saying, Teagan? That would be c-cr-crazy.”
The corners of his mouth curve, affection in his tone when he says, “There’s that word again.”
I inhale sharply. “You can’t stay for me.”
“Why not?”
“We barely know each other. It’s barely been a month since we even met.”
He cocks his head as if assessing my argument. “Maybe. But you can also know someone for years only to discover you don’t really know them at all,” he says, his mouth tightening in a way that tells me he’s talking about Knox. “Trust me, I know.”
I do, too.
Chance was coming by our house for years prior to hooking up. My father took him under his wing fresh out of grade school, and if someone would’ve told me he would get me pregnant only to leave and abandon me in my time of need, I would’ve said they were crazy, too.
“You can’t just say things like this, Teagan. It’s not just about me.”
“You don’t think I know that?” he says, waving a hand around him. “Haven’t I proved I have room in my life for Sophie, too?”
My chest inflates, too full for comfort. “Is that what today was about? What all of this is about? Proving yourself?”
“That’s not fair.” He shakes his head, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “You’re trying to start a fight, Lane, to find some flaw, and it won’t work. I won’t fight with you. Not over this.”
He’s right.
That’s exactly what I’m doing.
But I don’t know what else to do about the way I feel, and that’s the problem.
The one and only time I followed my heart instead of my head, I’d been wrong. Terribly, horribly wrong.
I can’t let that happen again. Not with Sophie involved.
I scrub my hands over my face, only for them to tremble and shake when I pull away. I’m so fucking scared, I can’t see straight.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I have no idea what else to say, and I’m about two seconds away from breaking.
“My parents met when my father moved to Riverside their senior year in high school. They knew each other only weeks before they started seeing each other, and they were engaged not long after graduation, married a year after that. They’ve been together ever since, so I know it can happen just like this, Lane. Crazy or not, it can happen. And, yeah, maybe you have a daughter, and maybe that complicates things, but as soon as I found out about Soph, I asked myself if that was something I wanted to take on. If I cared your life was one step ahead of mine, and I don’t. I decided then and there that I’d catch up. Lane, I want you just as you are, daughter and all, and I don’t give a damn who knows it, including your father.”
My heart riots as those sapphire eyes stare straight through me. How is he so freaking calm? How is he so . . . steady?
Teagan is a rock—unyielding, immovable, and solid as the day is long—and if I’m brave enough to let him, he’ll be my rock.
I clench and unclench my hands by my side in an effort to contain the emotions raging inside of me. How many times have I heard the expression, when you know, you know?
Teagan has done nothing but prove himself to me this last month.
But the part of me petrified to risk Sophie won’t let go. My self-preservation clings to her. “What happened to just being friends?” I ask, but my voice is brittle, as weak as my thinning resolve.
“Does this feel like just friendship to you, Lane? The other night, in the lake?” His eyes heat, and he takes a step closer, “Did that feel like friendship? I proposed the friend thing because I knew it was the only way you would let me into your life. But make no mistake, I’ve never wanted to just be your friend. I’ve always wanted more.”
My breathing grows shallow. The thread of my restraint is thinning, ready to snap.
“None of that changes the fact that there’s a good chance you and I”?I motion between us?“this won’t work. And I don’t want Sophie to know what it feels like to have someone she thought loved her walk away.”
He blinks, understanding flickering through the green-blue flecks of his eyes. “I get why you’re afraid, Lane, and if you tell me right here, right now, you don’t want me—us—then I’ll walk away.” He reaches out, cupping my face in his hands. “But if you do . . .”
“I just don’t understand why you want me. Of all people, why me?” I whisper. It’s the same thing I wondered about Chance. I remembered thinking how lucky I was, and in the end, he didn’t want me, not as long as I had Sophie.
What if Teagan changes his mind and decides I’m not good enough?
Teagan shakes his head, his tone fierce. “I swear to God, Lane, one of these days, I’m going to make you see what I see. I’m going to make you see just how special you are and how fucking lucky I am, or anyone else is for that matter, to have whatever piece of yourself you’re willing to give.”
“Teagan, I—” My voice cracks.
I snap my mouth shut, unable to finish the sentence, unable to cut him loose and set him free, yet unable to claim him.
It’s wholly unfair; I know this, yet I can’t seem to force myself to either take a step back or forward, too scared of making the wrong move.
He lets out a tremulous breath, the muscles in his neck straining as if the effort of holding himself back is too much. “If friendship is still what you need, I’ll take it. I said it before, and I’ll say it again.” He straightens, his gaze steady on mine. “I’ll take whatever piece of you you’re willing to give. For now. But make no mistake, Lane.” He steps forward and tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I’ll prove myself to you. And when I do, you will be mine.”