Chapter 16
Juliet
Everything about last night was absolutely perfect. I can’t stop smiling today, and for the millionth time this morning, my head swings to the direction where Parker is sitting.
He’s already watching me, and gives me a soft smile from his seat across the small, indoor practice space.
This morning, me and some of the other soccer players are doing a mini training camp with some of the kids in Winterbrook.
I think some of the funds raised from the charity event are going to help their athletic programs, which is pretty cool.
Mostly though, I’m glad we got to get away from the lodge a little bit and back onto the field.
I smile at Parker, before focusing on the girls in front of me. Five of them were assigned to me—two of them are forwards like me and the other three play different positions.
We run through a few drills so I can see how they play. My mind, which was so focused on what it feels like to be kissed by Parker, focuses now on the girls in front of me and the game I love.
We end up doing a mini three on three game, and I give pointers to all of the girls. By the end of the hour we’re sweaty, but they’re all grinning.
“Can we take a photo with you?” one of them, Gabriella, asks.
“Of course,” I say.
“Could you take a photo of us?” one of the girls asks one of the guy soccer players. He turns around. Axel.
Shoot.
“Sure,” he says.
He and I haven’t spoken since his outburst at the polar plunge yesterday. He snaps the photo and hands the girl her phone. The girls all thank me again, before heading off to find their other friends and teammates.
“Could we talk for a second?” Axel asks.
“You can have two minutes,” I say. Two minutes feels generous, but I’m still on cloud nine, all thanks to Parker.
“I’m really sorry about yesterday,” he says, surprising me. “I just didn’t realize how much I missed you until I saw you with that guy this week.”
“You mean my boyfriend?”
He winces. “I wish I hadn’t messed up, Juliet. I loved you.”
I scoff. “When you love someone, you don’t cheat on them. Twice.”
“I was dumb back then. But I’ve changed.” He looks at me, with those puppy dog eyes that used to do so many things to my heart. But now I feel nothing. “Give me another chance.”
I shake my head. “That’s not going to happen. Even if I was single, which I’m not, I wouldn’t give you another chance. You broke something in me Axel, and it’s taken a long time to realize that I’m worthy of love. A kind where the person who’s with me chooses me, every time.”
He has the decency to look sorry.
“You’re a good guy, and I hope for your sake you have changed. Maybe the next woman you date, you won’t cheat on. But it’s not going to be me.”
I glance to where Parker is standing, his hands in his pockets, watching me. I can tell he’s ready to come to my side if I need him, but he won’t come and barge in because he knows I can handle myself. I love that with him. He lets me be me, without trying to control me.
“We didn’t work,” I say, turning back to Axel.
“We do though, we did work.”
I shake my head. “I thought we did, too, until I learned what love really is.”
He jerks his head in Parker’s direction. “There’s no way that nerd loves you more than I did. Than I do.”
“It wasn’t him that helped me learn,” I say.
And as I say it, I realize what I’ve learned in the past six months.
From Blair, but also from myself. “I started to love myself. Not in a selfish way, but a way that taught me I’m valuable, just being me.
And that I deserved a lot more than a guy who says he loves me, then cheats on me the second he gets bored. ”
He looks hurt, but I don’t apologize.
“We’re done, Axel. Please leave me alone.” And without another word, I walk away from him and toward the man I’m hopelessly falling for. The man who was here and ready to find my mostly healed heart, and help heal it all the way.
He gives me that soft smile again, and I grin back at him. I shouldn’t be falling for him, but I am.