CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Lucas
The wine tastes better than it should.
Or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m sitting across from Emery, watching her laugh, watching the way the candlelight flickers across her face as she tells me a story I’ve already heard twice—and still I don’t want her to stop.
She’s smiling. Laughing. Here.
And yet . . . something’s off.
I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel it in pauses that linger a half a second too long. In the way her eyes drift when she thinks I’m not looking. Like she’s holding something in and is afraid if she opens her mouth, it’ll spill out.
“You’re staring,” she says above the rim of her glass.
I grin. “I get a free pass to stare. To kiss you. To touch you.”
“I mean if that’s how you prefer to celebrate . . .” Her eyebrows quirk up but her smile doesn’t fully reach her eyes.
“As long as it’s with you.”
I can’t remember ever having someone to celebrate something like this other than Brendan or my teammates.
This feels different.
It feels special.
It feels . . . permanent.
And I’m not sure what that means, but I like it.
God, I feel fucking incredible.
Not just happy, but steady. Settled. There’s that fucking word again.
But it’s true. I do feel settled. Like after years of fighting my own body, something finally clicked into place. The thing I wanted that felt just out of reach I was finally able to grab.
I made the cut. It’s not like I didn’t come here with a contract—but contracts are only as good as your performance, and they could have easily cut me.
But they didn’t.
I’m here for the season. I’m a Lone Star Rebel.
The words still don’t feel real.
My phone was nonstop earlier with texts.
Brendan losing his mind, bragging that this was a no-brainer decision for the coaches, and that he knows I’m going to do great.
Teammates blowing up the group chat for those who felt like they were on the bubble.
Emery’s eyes tearing up when I told her I made it—like it mattered to her as much as it did me.
Everything feels like it’s finally lining up.
“You know,” I say. “The wine is almost gone. The food is long gone.” I lean over and press a lingering kiss to her lips that has me growing hard in an instant.
“Are you suggesting we take this celebration to a different level?”
“I mean, if you insist.”
She laughs as I stand and hold out a hand for her. She slips her fingers through mine, and we head to the bedroom.
“No luck on the scans working then?” I ask.
I glance back, Emery’s lips part to answer—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
We both startle.
I frown. “That’s weird.” I hold up a finger to her and move to look through the peephole.
Shit.
Oh shit.
I turn back to her, and whisper-yell, “Bedroom. Now. You need to hide.”
“What? Why?”
I stride over and blow the candles out, waving the smoke away. “It’s Mark Jensen.” One of our linebackers.
Her eyes grow wide, realizing why I’m freaking out. She’s in my apartment at ten o’clock at night. A bottle of wine’s on the counter, candles are on the table, so it’s pretty fucking obvious what’s going on to even the most oblivious of people.
She rushes to grab her wineglass and put it in the dishwasher to hide the fact that there’s two of them before frantically looking around the space to eradicate any trace of herself. She grabs what she sees—shoes, purse, phone—and slips into the bedroom and shuts the door.
With a deep breath, I open the front door.
Mark stands there looking like he’s been put through the wringer.
His eyes are red. His jaw is clenched. His expression defeated.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” he says hoarsely. “With our history . . . I thought—I knew you’d understand.”
“Of course. Anytime. Come in,” I say quietly.
When he steps inside, I catch the sour scent of whiskey, but it’s fleeting as he begins pacing the living room, like he might fall apart if he doesn’t keep moving.
“Can I get you a drink?” I ask.
“Nah. I already had enough.” He stops and looks out the sliding glass door to the balcony, his hands in his pockets and shoulders slumped.
I give him time but am pretty sure I already know what he’s going to say before he says it.
And it’s the last thing I want to hear.
“I didn’t make it,” he finally says, confirming my suspicions. “They told me tonight. Cut out of everything. No practice squad. No nothing.”
Oh fuck.
I nod slowly, heart pounding. “I’m sorry, man. You deserve to be here.”
And he does. He’s had an incredible career up to this point—no major injuries, a steady on-field presence, and a great team attitude.
“They picked potential over experience,” he says.
What the hell do I say to that when they most likely picked me for the exact opposite?
“Fuck, man.” I scrub a hand through my hair, at a loss for how to console him.
“I mean, I get it, I’m not getting any fucking younger but”—his voice breaks and he runs a hand over his jaw to combat the tears welling in his eyes—“I moved my family here. Kids just started school. My wife finally unpacked the boxes because we had such a good feeling. And now I gotta pick up and go again. I know that’s part of the game we’ve been lucky to play.
But Jesus, Lucas, where do I go now? Season’s started.
Teams are set. I . . . I don’t fucking know. ”
I listen. That’s all I can do, because this could’ve been me. Because it’s happened to so many of my friends over the years.
“I know it’s the last thing you want to hear, but that experience, the years we have in, at least you’re released and can sign elsewhere.”
“I know. That’s good and all, but fuck—I thought I could play my last years here. I’ve uprooted the kids enough to chase this goddamn dream of ours. At what point does me picking up and leaving again be deemed selfish rather than driven and determined?”
“You’re just trying to provide for your family,” I say.
He chuckles. “That’s bullshit and you and I both know it. I’ve made enough for us to live comfortably the rest of our lives, but walking away is the last thing I want to do. This game is an addiction, and I don’t know how to quit it.”
I reach out and squeeze his shoulder. “I get it, man. I fucking get it.”
“I haven’t told Evangeline yet,” his voice breaks on his wife’s name. “I don’t want to disappoint her. Don’t want to upset the kids. Fuck.”
“You can stay here as long as you need to,” I say. “Until you’re ready to go home.”
He groans and it sounds frustratingly hopeless. “I’m too fucking old to be the shiny new thing, Lucas. Teams want younger. Cheaper. It doesn’t matter the years I bring to the table. Those are looked down upon now.”
“I disagree. Have your agent make the calls anyway. You’ve got solid stats. You’re reliable. You’re smart. Every team needs that.”
He snorts. “You sound like a coach.”
“Maybe someday,” I say quietly.
I think of Emery in the other room—she can hear this. Maybe—just maybe—she’s finally seeing what this life costs.
Sure, it has some incredible fucking highs, but it also has some of the lowest lows. And when it comes down to it, we’re just men, after all.
He finally stops pacing and sinks his hulking frame down onto the couch.
“You’re not done,” I say. “This doesn’t erase the resume and career that you’ve built. It just . . . reroutes it.”
“That’s a flowery way of saying I’m fucked,” he jokes and emits a self-deprecating laugh.
He stays for some time after that. Each minute that passes with him here is another reminder of how close I came to this. To being in his shoes. To being the recipient of this utter devastation.
The minute he leaves, I open the bedroom door to find Emery curled up on the bed, sound asleep.
I stare at her for a few minutes as the day runs through my mind. The highs. The lows. The knowing how thin the line really is.
I crawl into bed and pull her into me, needing to hold on to something. She snuggles into me, her lips pressed under my jaw, her hand flat on my heart. She exhales softly and curls her fingers into my shirt.
“I don’t want to see you broken,” she murmurs, half-asleep.
I press a kiss to her hair. She did see how broken Mark was tonight. She knows how close the line really is.
“You won’t,” I whisper back. “Besides, you fix broken people.”