Chapter 43
Rio
Using my key, I unlock the front door of the house I grew up in.
But before I open it, I do my best to tamp down the anger that’s simmering in my veins.
Once I landed in Boston, I got a second text from my mom, asking if I knew what Hallie’s mother had said to her all those years ago when she accidentally caught our parents together. Of course I had no fucking clue, but now that I do, I can say with certainty, I’ve never actually felt hatred for a person up until now.
How fucking dare she put the burden of her choices on Hallie’s shoulders. How dare she use the person her daughter cared for most as a ploy to scare her into keeping that secret.
Shit. I’m getting amped up again, just as I was the whole drive over here, but I do my best to swallow it down as I step inside. Thankfully, when I catch Hallie’s eye as she’s turning around from the couch to find me dropping my bag in the entryway, that anger all but disappears.
Her jaw goes slack, and her hazel eyes widen in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
She stands, rounding the coffee table to meet me, practically slamming into my chest. It’s the best hit I’ve ever taken, and I instantly wrap her in a hug. Hallie has always been this grounding force in my life, and that’s no different now.
I exhale, holding her tighter. “I was at the airport, about to catch an early flight back to Chicago to surprise you for your birthday when I found out you weren’t there. Luckily, there was a flight to Boston that still had room for me.” I glance back into the living room. “Thanks for texting me, Ma.”
She looks over the couch with a knowing smile on her lips.
I’m still in a bit of disbelief from the first message that landed on my phone while I was about to go through security at the airport, telling me that Hallie was in Boston and that she and my mom had talked through some things.
I went to a desk agent and booked a new flight right then.
Hallie rests her chin on my chest as she looks up at me and a bit more of that sickening feeling dissipates. More centered. More grounded.
“You were coming home early for my birthday?” she asks.
“Hell yeah, I was. It’s my favorite day of the year.”
She huffs a laugh as I push her hair out of her face.
“You okay?”
Her smile is sweet and genuine as she nods to tell me yes.
“Ma,” I call out. “You good?”
She throws a thumb up in the air, which I can see over the back of the couch. “I’m good.”
I do a double-take between them again. Part of me wasn’t sure what I was going to walk into. From the text my mom sent me while I was at the airport, I knew the two of them had talked, but I wasn’t sure what that talk looked like. Was there screaming involved? Crying? Did my mother break anything? Don’t get me wrong, I love the woman, but her Italian blood runs hot. I didn’t exactly expect to walk in and find the two of them sitting on the couch watching The Great British Bake Off together.
My mom stands from the couch, and Hallie slips out of my arms to let me greet her with a hug. It’s a bit tighter than usual because we haven’t been okay for a while now, and I fucking hated that.
“Are we good?” I ask quietly.
“No.” Pulling back, she puts a hand on either side of my face. “I have a lot to apologize for before we’re good.”
I shake my head. “Ma, we’re good.”
“I’ll get out of here and let you two chat, but I hope we can talk later.”
“We will,” I promise her. “But you don’t need to go anywhere. Hallie and I can talk upstairs.”
She smiles at me, but I can tell she’s both tired from today and regretful from some of her actions lately. “I love you, Rio. I’m sorry we haven’t been okay.”
I bring her in for another side hug. “We’re okay now, and I love you too.”
Hallie is already a few steps ahead of me as I start up the stairs, so when she gets to the top of the landing, I slip my hand into hers to stop her.
“Wait, Hal.”
She turns around, confused, as I stay two steps below her.
“Why didn’t you tell me what your mom said to you?” The anger towards that woman starts simmering under my skin again. “I feel sick. You should’ve told me after I learned about your dad.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t need to add onto your plate with how you were feeling at the time. You had already forgiven me for not telling you about the affair. It didn’t matter then. You already understood without that piece of information added on.”
“I think I hate her.”
She huffs a laugh. “Get in line.”
“This is what your dad meant when he told me she said something unforgivable around the time of his diagnosis.”
Hallie nods.
“And none of you talk to her anymore?”
“No.” There’s not an ounce of sadness on my girl’s face. “My dad offered to forgive her because he knew if he didn’t, it meant I’d be the one taking care of him during treatment. But there was no way I was going to let her around him after what she did to him and after what she said to me.”
Fuck, I love this girl.
“You’re good down to your core, Hal. You know that?”
“So are you, baby.” She wraps her arms over my shoulders. “Now let’s stop wasting energy on her. I can tell you’re worked up right now, but she’s not worth it.”
There’s that soft, contented smile again and I decide to focus on that. Focus on her and us and what’s ahead instead of what’s in the past. It was six years ago, and she’s clearly moved on.
“Call me ‘baby’ again.”
Chuckling, she drops a kiss on my lips before turning to head for my room, but once again, I stop her.
“Thank you.” The words come out like a breath of relief because that’s exactly how I feel. “Thank you for coming to talk to her, Hallie. You have no idea how much that means to me.”
Or rather she does know and that’s why she did it.
Hallie’s expression softens as she puts a hand on either side of my face, thumbs running gentle strokes against my skin. “I’d do anything for you, Rio.” Her eyes bounce between mine. “Anything.”
“I think you meant to say, ‘I’d do anything for you, baby . ’”
She playfully rolls her eyes as I take the last two steps to meet her. Picking her up, I carry her the rest of the way to my childhood bedroom where I don’t put her back on her feet until we’re inside, with the door closed behind us.
Hallie immediately takes herself on a tour, as if she hasn’t been in here a million times before. It hasn’t changed since I last lived here in high school. My walls are still covered in Boston Bobcats memorabilia. My closet is still filled with clothes I haven’t fit into since I was a teenager.
She rifles through the closet before finding one of my old team hoodies, slipping it off the hanger and pulling it over her body.
Leaning back on my door, I watch her.
It feels like déjà vu without one specific memory to tie it to. Her in my childhood room, wearing my high school team sweatshirt. Shit, just her being in Boston again feels nostalgic.
Where it all started.
I spent six years missing a huge piece of who I am because that’s how integral she is in my life. That’s how embedded she is in the fabric that makes me me . I’ve heard the claim that you don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it, but I knew what I had. It made losing us that much more unbearable.
Those six years were their own kind of torture, and it would’ve made it a hell of a lot easier to go through if I knew this was the outcome. Me and her, for good.
I’d rewind and relive every goddamn moment.
Hallie continues her tour of my childhood bedroom while I cross to the window to check the roof. As I had hoped, it’s clear.
“It’s almost midnight,” I remind her, sliding it open.
She looks at me over her shoulder. “Are you trying to say it’s almost my birthday?”
“Meet me on the roof?”
Her smile is tender as she crosses the room to me, carefully climbing out the window. Once I’m sure she’s steady on her feet, I grab a blanket off my old bed and follow her out.
It’s a crescent moon tonight, but it’s big and bright, and feels impossibly close. It always had a way of showing off on these nights, lighting the roof enough that we could see one another. It does the same tonight as we move to the center point of the roof on instinct, regardless that Hallie no longer lives in the house that connects to this one.
I follow her gaze when her attention snags on the window of her old bedroom.
“Does it feel strange to be back here?” I ask her gently.
She shakes her head. “It feels good. A little sad because I miss that time in my life, but these nights were always my favorite memories.”
“Want to make another one?”
With my hand that’s not holding the blanket, I offer to help her sit, but when she slips her hand into mine, she takes a step closer to me, staying on her feet.
Looking up, her eyes bounce between mine before she exhales the words as if desperately needing to get them off her chest. “I told your mom that I love you.”
I can’t help the smile that slowly slides across my lips, or the way the skin around my eyes creases at the corners.
Fuck, that feels good to hear.
Of course, I already knew that Hallie loved me, but the words sound like music to my ears after not having the privilege of hearing them for six years. Like a form of music that I wish actually was a song, just so I could add it to our playlist.
I slide my hand along her lower back, pulling her into me. “You don’t think you should’ve told me before you told my mom?”
Hallie chuckles, picking up on the connection to the first time we said those words to each other, when I told Luke that I loved his sister before I told her.
“I thought it was another one of those unspoken things.” Reaching up, she wraps her arms around my neck. “But it shouldn’t be. It should be said as much as possible. Because I love you, Rio. I have loved you since we were children, and I will love you until we’re old and gray. But if you didn’t already know that, then I’ve been doing something wrong.”
My smile only expands. “I know you love me, baby, and you know I love you. I haven’t stopped loving you.”
“Not once,” she agrees.
It’s the most peace I’ve ever felt, Hallie coming back into my life. To know that I’m loved, long before hearing the words again. To feel it in every fiber of my being. To see it in the way she looks at me. To hear it in the way she speaks to and about me.
We are rare. What we have is rare and I’m going to spend the rest of my life protecting it.
“I love you, Hallie Hart. Spoken or unspoken, I’ve always loved you.”
Leaning down, I kiss her. Soft and slow, but for a long while. So long, I eventually have to pull back because I know it’s after midnight now. “Happy birthday.”
She smiles against my lips, pressing up to give me one more kiss before we take our seats on the roof.
With my legs spread wide, she sits between them, leaning back against my chest. I wrap the blanket around us, crossing my arms in front of her.
Hallie sighs this content sound, and I fully understand that calm, that peacefulness. It feels like we’ve come full circle, sitting in the same place on the same date where I once sat with the girl next door on her thirteenth birthday.
But there’s one thing that this birthday is missing.
Digging into my pocket, I pull out my wireless earbuds, handing her one and putting the other in my own ear.
“What’s this for?” she asks.
On my phone, I tap on the music app and scroll to the playlist I’ve been putting together since October.
“Every birthday, I used to love listening to you tell me about all your important moments from the year, so I was hoping on this birthday, I could tell you about mine.”
She turns back to look at me. “Really?”
With a nervous smile on my lips, I nod.
“Yes. Please. I’d love that, Rio.” She drops her head back to rest on my shoulder. “I’d really love that.”
“I couldn’t exactly make you a mixtape like you always did for me, so this modern version will have to do.”
I press play on the first song on the playlist.
As it starts filtering into the earbuds, she closes her eyes and listens. “What important thing happened with this song?” she asks.
I rest my head against hers. “This is the song I was listening to in the locker room right before I went out to play the game where I saw you for the first time again.”
She quickly turns, her eyes shooting to mine.
Without letting the whole thing play through, I skip to the next song because I’m not going to be able to wait the entirety of this playlist to tell her what I need to say.
She swallows hard. “And this one?”
“This is the song I played in my house that first day you came over for a design meeting. It was the first time you ever stepped foot inside that house, actually.”
Her brows crease as she begins to catch on to what’s happening.
I skip to the next. “This is the song you fell asleep to in my car the first night I drove you home from work.”
Her hazel eyes begin to gloss over, but then the next song plays, and she laughs, though it’s a bit watery. “ Moana ?”
“The night you came over to help me babysit,” I explain. “The first night it felt like maybe we could be us again.”
Next.
“The song that was playing the night you asked me to keep driving. It was the night we kissed for the first time again.”
Next.
“This is the song you played over the speaker system in the house. It was the first time I heard you voluntarily play music for yourself again.”
Her soft expression shifts, lifting a brow. “You mean the day I walked in on you in the shower.”
“Yeah, that may have happened that day too.”
She laughs, head falling back to my chest as I hold her tight and skip to the next song.
“This is the song we danced to in the kitchen when we decided to give us another chance.”
As it plays in the earbuds, Hallie shakes her head in disbelief. “They’re all our important moments.”
I press pause.
“Hallie, do you remember the very first day we met, and you were listening to music? You had to finish the song before you could talk to me.”
She smiles to herself. “Of course.”
“Do you remember why you said you kept track of those songs?”
“Something about when I want to relive a moment, I can rewind it back and start from the beginning.”
“Exactly. I want to rewind all of it, Hallie. I want to remember everything. You made sure we could remember our first years together, so I made sure we would remember this one.”
She’s looking out over the neighborhood with her head leaning back on me, but I can still see her attempt to discreetly wipe at her cheek. “Are they all moments we shared?”
“Actually.” I hover my thumb over the last song on the list. “You weren’t there for this one.”
Pressing play, I let the music come through the earbuds. I let her listen for a while. I let her be the one to ask.
She looks up at me. “What happened while you were listening to this song?”
I smile at her softly. “This is the song I was listening to when I signed my contract extension with the Chicago Raptors.”
Those hazel eyes go wide as she abruptly sits up. “What?”
I just chuckle at her reaction because I know she heard me.
Turning, she straddles my lap, knees bent on either side of me with a mix of panic and confusion etched on her face. “But... but I heard you. After family dinner, talking to Indy. You said you were signing.”
I search for the memory of what she’s referring to until it clicks. “Yeah. I was referring to signing with Chicago.”
“You said, and I quote, ‘How is she supposed to come visit?’ and ‘I don’t know how I’m going to tell her.’”
I can’t help but laugh. “So nosy, baby.”
“Rio. You were talking about me visiting you in Boston.”
“No, Hal. I was talking about my mom. I didn’t know how I was going to tell her ,” I explain. “She’s been planning on me moving back here for years now. And I didn’t know how it’d work with her visiting Chicago because she wouldn’t be allowed to stay with us if she continued to have an issue with our relationship.”
I watch as the realization settles in.
“You’re serious.”
“I asked team management to not make the announcement until next week. I’ve been planning to tell you like this. Listening to our important moments together. On your birthday. On the roof. Only, I didn’t know it’d work out so perfectly that we’d end up back on this roof.”
She puts her hands on either side of my face, holding my attention as if it weren’t already on her.
“Rio, playing for Boston is your childhood dream.”
I shake my head. “ You’re my childhood dream.”
Her lips part without words.
“Some dreams have changed, but others have remained the same.” I brush her hair behind her ear. “I love the city we live in. I love my team. I love my friends. And I love you. We lost six years, Hallie, and I’m not missing another day of you again.”
Her brows crease with worry. “If it’s about me staying in Chicago, I don’t have to. I can come with you. I don’t want you to give up the chance to play for your hometown team for me.”
“Playing for Chicago feels like I’m playing for my hometown because it is my home now. You’re my home. Being loved by you for the rest of my life is the only dream of mine that’s never wavered. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m already exactly where I want to be.”
She lets the idea settle in before the beaming smile slowly lifts on her lips. “You’re staying.”
“I’m staying, baby. But I’ve got to say, if we ever do decide to move, we need to pick a warmer place to live if we’re going to keep sitting on the roof in fucking March. It’s freezing right now, and I know the roof of our home in Chicago is just as cold.”
She laughs, her head falling back, until my words sink in, and her eyes cautiously make their way back to mine. “ Our home?”
“Our home.” Sliding my palms up her thighs, I pull her tighter against me. “I thought you would’ve realized it the first time you came over. Hallie, the irony of hiring you to design the house is that you’re the person I bought it for.”
Those eyes start to gloss over again, and she shakes her head. “I thought there was no way, at first. I noticed the white walls and the four bedrooms. The proximity to the city while still being in a neighborhood, but I thought there was no way you would have remembered that.”
“I remember everything about us.”
“When I learned you still had the mixtapes and I saw the tattoo, I thought maybe it could be.”
“The house has always been yours, Hallie. Ours. It was just waiting for you to come make it a home.”
She laughs this small disbelieving sound, but still she’s emotional. It’s sweet and beautiful and vulnerable. So much more vulnerable than she was when we first ran into each other again a handful of months ago. It’s my soft girl I grew up falling in love with.
Watching her allow herself to feel what she needs to feel seems so much bigger than her simply shedding a few tears.
Hallie leans in and kisses me, whispering against my lips, “How lucky am I to have been loved by you for fifteen years now?”
“What do you say we get to work on making that number so high we start losing track?”
She smiles against my mouth. “I think we can do that.”
“Happy birthday, baby.”
“Thank you for making it my favorite one yet.”