21. Owen
“What do you think they’re talking about over there?” Brent asked, inclining his head toward the women.
“Knowing our wives,” Mitch said to his best friend, “probably us.”
I quirked a brow. “They have a habit of that?”
Logan snorted. “Those two are thick as thieves,” he said, pointing at his sister and Lexie. “And with Chloe added to the mix…well, you’ve seen how Delia is with her sisters, right? It’s like that.”
“What’s going on with you two?”
Though I kept my eyes trained on my whiskey glass, I knew Brent was asking me. “I don’t know.”
Mitch snorted. “Been there, brother.”
I looked up at him then. “Seems we have a lot in common.”
Mitch nodded sagely. “It really was a shame about your shoulder,” he said quietly. “Speaking from experience, I know how hard it is to go down like that.”
I shrugged, not wanting to get into it here and now. I knew he understood, and that Brent likely did too, having been on the frontlines when his best friend lost his career. Not to mention getting onto that ice every night with the knowledge that the same thing could happen to him.
“It worked out okay,” I said, though my shoulder twitched slightly, as though itching to pick up a football and give it a toss. There were days when missing the game was the phantom pain of a long lost limb, but I powered through.
In the grand scheme, I had a lot to be thankful for.
“How’s the distillery construction coming?” Logan asked. “My dad has been MIA for months now.”
I grinned sheepishly. “It’s good. We’re just about ready to start painting and decorating, which is why I asked Delia to come with me this weekend.”
Logan snorted. “Yeah, that’s why you brought her.”
I gave him a good natured slug on the arm as the four of us devolved into laughter.
“I like her,” I said quietly. “A lot more than I ever thought I could or planned on.”
“They sneak up on you like that sometimes,” Mitch said, staring across the rooftop at his wife. “You never really see it coming.”
“Psh,” Logan scoffed. “I saw Chloe coming from a mile away.”
“Yeah well you’ve literally known her your entire life,” Brent reminded him. “Personally, I never saw Berk coming. But once she showed up…I was done for.”
“We know,” Logan and Mitch said simultaneously, and I choked on a laugh as Brent crossed his arms petulantly over his chest.
“So what exactly are you waiting for?” Mitch asked me.
“Her,” I said. “She’s been through some shit, and I’m not trying to rush her. She’s also so much younger than me, you know?”
Logan rolled his eyes. “She’s twenty-seven, man. Not exactly young .”
“I know, it’s just…” I trailed off, unsure how I wanted to finish that statement. They seemed to get what I was saying, though—Mitch especially.
“I waited a long time for that girl,” Mitch said. “I would’ve waited forever if that’s what she needed from me. She’s it for me, and even when it killed me to give her that space, she was worth it.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face then tossed back the rest of my whiskey, the burn down my throat doing nothing to soothe the fire Delia ignited in my blood. Still, I couldn’t look away from her. I was mesmerized by the way the firelight danced on her dark hair, turning it more milk than dark chocolate, by the way those same flames set her eyes aglow.
And when she glanced up to find me staring, I held those whiskey depths with my ocean ones, wondering if she could read all over my face what I was thinking. That I wanted to be part of more nights like this in more than just a physical sense. That I wanted to bullshit with my married guy friends while our wives sat across the room gossiping about us, about our kids, about the fucking PTA or whatever other bullshit they wanted. That I wanted to mold our two massive families together, to make her sisters mine and my brothers and Aria hers .
That maybe, if she’d have me, I wanted forever with her.
“What was the comment you made to Mitch earlier about his back?” Delia asked in the car on the way home from the bar.
I shifted to face her, her profile illuminated by the passing street lights. “About five years ago, only a few seasons after my shoulder injury, he took a bad hit in a game that aggravated an old lower back injury. He was forced into early retirement or he risked paralysis in his lower extremities.”
Delia gasped. “God, that’s awful.”
I nodded, though she wasn’t looking at me, and swallowed around the lump that had lodged in my throat. Talking about this stuff was always difficult for me, dredging up memories I’d rather stayed buried. “It is,” I agreed. “It’s…hard. Giving it up. Losing it. This intrinsic piece of you is just gone suddenly, and you have to figure out how to fill the hole.”
“Which is why you started your little business empire,” she said, shooting me a grin, teeth flashing in the dark, and slapping a palm down on my thigh.
Her warmth spread through me instantly, and it took every ounce of willpower I had to keep my cock from hardening. I only covered my hand with hers and growled, “There’s nothing little about it, Whiskey.”
Our car pulled up to the hotel then, and as she exited, she tossed over her shoulder, “We’ll see.”
Fuck, she was going to be the death of me.
As we strode into the lobby, I extended my stride to catch up with her, unable to resist the urge to hold her hand. When we touched, she only looked up at me briefly, giving my fingers a squeeze as we made our way to the elevator.
Safely ensconced inside, without looking at me, Delia said quietly, “You can talk to me about it, you know. Any of it. Losing football. Your dad.”
“I know, Whiskey,” I whispered. “But I don’t want you to have to carry that on top of all your shit.”
“I don’t mind,” she said, turning to face me. “In fact, I’m asking you to let me. Let me bear some of the burden for you. I trusted you with my so-called ‘shit,’ so why can’t you do the same?”
“It’s not that easy.”
“It could be,” she said. “You’re just being a man about the whole thing.”
The elevator doors opened then, and she ripped her hand free from mine and stomped off down the hall. I chased after her, catching her around the waist before she could unlock her door.
“Owen!” she squealed as I hauled her backward, in the direction of my room. “Put me down right now!”
“No,” I grumbled.
Even as I keyed open my door, I wasn’t sure what I’d say to her, what words I’d be able to force out of that locked cage inside me where everything I didn’t want to face lived.
But maybe…this moment with this girl was the perfect time to face them.
“What is wrong with you?” Delia shouted as I set her on her feet in the center of my massive suite.
“You wanted to talk,” I said .
“Yeah, talk . Not be manhandled by a broody quarterback.”
“Retired,” I reflexively reminded her.
She rolled her eyes. “God, you’re infuriating. If you don’t want to tell me, I’m not going to force you, Owen. I’ll just go back to my room and go to sleep. We can forget this ever happened.”
Before she even moved, I took a step to the left, anticipating her intention to shove past me and blocking her path.
“I do want to tell you,” I said quietly, though I held her gaze. “In fact, I think you’re the only person I can tell. But that doesn’t mean I’m not terrified you’ll look at me differently afterward.”
“You think I didn’t feel that way dumping all my shit on you?” Those whiskey eyes were fierce, boring into mine, cutting straight to my soul. “But I did it anyway. Berkley said something to me tonight that I think you can benefit from right now.”
“And what is that?”
“That it’s easy to be brave with the right one. So I’m asking you to be brave right now, QB. For me. For…us.”
The last word was spoken barely above a whisper, but she might as well have shouted it for how loudly it echoed in my mind, in my chest, in my heart.
“Us?”
She nodded. “Can you do that?”
“Can I at least change first?” I asked, gesturing to my jeans.
“Duh,” she said. “I’ll run over to my room and be right back.”
“Absolutely not,” I said, catching her wrist before she could leave. “I’m afraid if I let you go, by the time you come back, I’ll have lost my nerve. Or that you won’t come back at all. I’ll give you a shirt to wear.”
One of Delia’s brows arched. “Just a shirt? ”
“You got a problem with that?”
“Of course not,” she said, though the thickness of her tone said differently. “Just…keep your hands to yourself.”
I raised said hands in the air and backed up a step. “Whatever you want.”
I moved into my bedroom and withdrew two tees from my suitcase, turning to toss one at Delia, who stood at the threshold.
“You can come in, you know,” I said.
Delia vehemently shook her head. “I’m good here.”
I chuckled. “You can use the bathroom,” I said, nodding at the door adjoining it to my room.
Delia nodded and rushed past me, ripping the tee from my hand as she did. I quickly stripped, shoving my legs into athletic shorts and donning one of my endless, well-worn Carhartt shirts.
The bathroom door creeped open, and my mouth dried out when I took in Delia. My shirt hung to mid-thigh, more than covering all the important bits, but I didn’t stop my mind from wandering. Even with the knowledge that nothing was happening between us tonight, I couldn’t help the way my imagination ran rampant with ideas about the positions I could contort those long legs into when I finally got her naked.
Yes, finally . At this point, we were an inevitability, even if something still held her back. Maybe she wanted all our cards on the table, and it was my turn to fold.
Whatever she needed, I’d happily give it to her.
We settled on the plush, deep-cushioned couch in the sitting room, pressed close together.
There wasn’t really an easy or wise place to begin my story, so I unceremoniously dove in at the most logical: the night I found out my dad died.
“I’d been studying when I got the call,” I started. “It was Thanksgiving weekend, but with finals coming up and mandatory practices, I just couldn’t swing the few days off to head home. I had just made dinner, and my roommate and a couple other teammates were at our place pregaming, all of them giving me shit for not going out to the party with them.”
And all of it poured out: getting the call from West, listening to my mother wailing in the background, Trey finally telling me I needed to come home. Getting there and allowing myself one moment to break down before I took over, holding my family together in the wake of losing our glue.
“Although, as it turned out,” I mused, “Mama was really the glue.”
Delia squeezed my fingers tightly. Grounding me. Making it easier to get this next part out.
“Internally, I sort of fell apart, though from the outside it probably looked like I used his death as a motivator, a reason to throw myself even harder into football and school. And I kept my head on straight for the game, for my teammates, but away from that…I was a mess. Drinking more than I ever had, hardly sleeping or eating. It was honestly a wonder I didn’t faint any time I stepped onto the field. And who knows how long I would’ve continued like that if Trey hadn’t stepped in.”
“What happened?”
“My mom and siblings hadn’t been able to make it to the Pac-12 championship game, and they barely scrounged up enough money to make it to the Rose Bowl game. Afterward, after photos and interviews and all of my other obligations were over, Trey locked me in a hotel room with him and basically forced it all out of me.”
I told her about my fit of rage, how I’d never acted like that before or since. How Trey understood that I needed someone there for me while I fell apart, since I’d been the one doing so for everyone else for over a month at that point.
“It was brutal,” I said softly, wincing. “The things I said. About myself, about my dad. I cursed anyone and anything I could think of. But it was cathartic in a way, you know? Finally letting someone else carry that weight.”
“That always helps,” Delia snarked, a callback to how this conversation started in the first place, and I shot her a glare that quickly morphed into a smile that matched hers.
“ Anyway ,” I continued, pinching her thigh. “Trey scheduled me an appointment with a therapist back in Eugene, and I saw her twice a week until I left for the draft and everything that came after.
“And things were almost… good after that. The weight of losing my dad, of taking on so much responsibility crushed me less and less every day. I moved out to Detroit and settled into my new life. The next ten or so years were…smooth.”
“Until they weren’t,” Delia said.
“Until they weren’t,” I agreed. “Losing the game hadn’t been like losing my dad. It was, after all, only a game. But when that game had provided for me and my family for a decade while my brothers and Aria grew up, while I grew up, when it gave me something to look forward to when the black clouds of grief shrouded me…it wasn’t easy to let it go.”
“Your whole identity had been wrapped up in it,” Delia said. “ It’s normal to mourn that.”
I nodded, my throat thickening with emotion. “I started going to therapy again after that, and I still speak with her once a month or so. Just to keep myself on track.”
When I realized I’d never take a meaningful NFL snap again, I’d be damned if it hadn’t felt like getting the call that Dad died all over again.
“That’s how Jalen and I know each other,” I said, absently stroking my thumb across the smooth skin of her thigh. “They drafted him the same season I got hurt. Backing me up wasn’t easy for him, I’m sure. He’d been a hotshot in college. And I knew stepping into my shoes when I went down was probably the hardest job in the league that season. But he continued to impress all of us with his poise and hard work that year. When I ultimately decided to retire, I knew I was leaving the team in good hands. He still calls me for advice, and I watch every one of their games just so I can give him shit about some nonexistent error he made. Having a good guy like that, and a hell of a talent, taking my place made things…easier somehow. It would’ve been harder giving up my spot to an asshole.”
“And how does it all feel now?” Delia asked. “To have this separation from it all? From both of those losses?”
I shifted so I could drape her legs across my lap, reaching up to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear.
Staring deep into her eyes, I said, “A lot better with you around. I think I was just coasting before you showed up. And then you came in with your chaos and your demands and all that goddamn energy and…it was impossible not to bask in your light, Whiskey. To look at you, to be near you, and not want to be more than just a shell of a man.
“This thing between us…I think it brought me back to life.”
The weight on my shoulders lessened significantly with the admission, and I heaved a long, steady breath, smiling at her as I softly exhaled.
Delia’s eyes shone brightly in the dim light of the room, and when she spoke, her voice was a hoarse, breathy whisper.
“I told you it was easy to be brave.”