Chapter 25
Teddy
“I might need to throw up,” I admitted to Micah as she lounged on my sofa, eating the protein bars I’d made earlier.
Our favorite ones with chocolate almonds, too.
I’m sure she smelled them being cooked, and that’s why she was here.
Or maybe it had to do with the fact that my diary was mysteriously updated with a visit to the girls’ school and she gets notifications.
Either way, she managed to get a delayed start this morning, and I’m suspicious.
She was acting like today was normal, when it definitely didn’t feel normal.
“Relax, you’ll do great.”
See? So chill. I wish I had an ounce of that right now. Instead, I was some kind of caffeinated gremlin who had been awake past midnight.
Micah kicked her feet up on my coffee table, crumbs scattering like she owned the place.
That would usually bother me, the crumbs, but I had bigger things to worry about.
Namely, Connor O’Riley. How we had spent years together in college without feeling anything but hatred toward each other to now being… well, nothing, but also not nothing.
“You’ve captained a professional team in front of thousands of people,” she said around a mouthful. “You can survive a room full of teenage girls.”
“That’s different,” I muttered, pacing from the kitchen to the window and back again. “Teenage girls can smell weakness. And nerves. And lies. They’ll dismantle me in under three minutes.”
She snorted. “They’re rugby girls, Ted. They’re going to ask about tackles and training and whether Connor O’Riley actually smells that good.”
I stopped short. “He does not smell—”
Micah’s grin was instant and merciless. “Oh, he absolutely does.”
She was right, and I hated it. I hated that I had a very specific memory that reminded me of just how good he smelled and tasted and… I pressed my palms to my face and dragged them down slowly, grounding myself the way I did before a match. Breathed in through the nose. Out through the mouth.
“I don’t understand why I feel like this,” I nearly groaned, and as soon as I said it, I knew I was lying to myself and Micah.
“It’s because Connor makes you go all…” She paused, then waved her arms around like a crazy person, as though that explained my mental state around him. And weirdly, it did. “…like you’ve forgotten how to just be. I saw it all at Frank’s the other night.”
“That is not reassuring.” I let my hands fall, exhaling hard. “I don’t like that he does that.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re very committed to being composed and competent at all times.”
“I am composed,” I shot back automatically. The very idea that I wasn’t was borderline offensive.
Micah’s eyebrow lifted. Slowly. “You were pacing like a caged animal thirty seconds ago.”
“That had nothing to do with him.” Liar. I was a big, fat liar.
She laughed her pity laugh I knew well. “Ted, it’s okay to like him, or want to like him. Maybe he bypasses the parts you use to keep everyone at a distance. It’s a talent, he did it in college too, but it’s different now.”
My chest tightened at that, because she didn’t know I’d kissed him.
She just thought there was something going on.
There was, and it was a tornado of the unfamiliar inside me.
And she was right; he used to be able to disarm me in college, though it was much more academic than sexual…
Or maybe I was delusional the whole time and college was just the foreplay. I didn’t know, and I wanted to know.
I turned toward the window, staring out at the strip of sunlit street below.
The palm trees lining the sidewalk barely moved in the heat, fronds tipped with gold where the light caught them.
A couple of cyclists rolled past, slow and unhurried, their shadows stretching long across the cracked pavement.
I drew in a slow breath, pretending I could feel the warm air, the salt that always seemed to linger around you from the ocean, and the way you’d stay warm all day just from one hit.
California knew how to wrap around me like a warm hug.
I craved this place. I loved this place.
It was home, and with that thought, the tightness in my chest eased, just a fraction.
Pushing my shoulders back and breathing deeply, I murmured, “Today isn’t about him.”
“I know,” she said. “And he knows that too.”
That made me glance back at her. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Because if it were about him, he’d be trying to impress you. Instead, he’s showing up for the girls. He organized this for them. This is a good thing.”
I swallowed. That shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did.
Micah shifted, planting her feet on the floor now, attention fully on me. “You don’t have to be perfect in there. You just have to be regular Teddy, with a hint of captain.”
My phone buzzed on the counter, the sound slicing through the room.
Micah’s gaze flicked to it, then back to me, lips curving. “And there he is.”
I didn’t pick it up because I knew it would be him. He’d text me last night, saying he was driving us there. He seemed to love doing that, driving me places, trapping me in cars with him.
“He’s not going to derail you,” she added, gentler now. “And if he makes you feel something in the process… that doesn’t make you weaker.”
I closed my eyes, taking one last steadying breath.
“Okay,” I said finally, zipping up my Valkyries hoodie.
I caught the weight of my mom’s watch on my wrist and stilled for a second.
I didn’t wear it when I trained, never had.
It didn’t belong in collisions or mud or anything that might break it.
Today, though, I’d put it on without really thinking.
Maybe because I wanted something familiar.
I guess I wanted to know she’d be there with me. “Do I look okay?”
“Gorgeous, as always.”
The buzzer on the door went this time, and I knew I needed to go. “You should probably go before he decides to come up and witness your pre-public appearance spiral.”
“I was not spiraling.”
“We’ll call it… active processing.”
I snorted under my breath as I walked to the door. “Are you staying here?”
Micah followed, leaning against the frame as I stepped out into the hall.
“I’ll lock up when I leave,” she said. “No promises those protein bars will still be here when you get back.”
I pointed at her. “Those are for recovery.”
“Sorry? Can’t hear you, you’re breaking up, byyeeeee,” she said sweetly and shut the door in my face.
I stood there for a second, staring at the closed door, then shook my head and turned toward the stairs. Each step steadied me, gave me something to count. By the time I reached the bottom, the edge had dulled enough to breathe properly again.
The front door swung open, and the outside hit me all at once—sun already bright, air warm and salty, just like I knew it would be, the city moving on without any awareness of my internal chaos.
Connor’s car was pulled up at the curb. He was leaning against it, jacket zipped, sunglasses pushed up into his hair. Unfairly put together.
The door closed behind me with a thud, and his attention snapped up, finding me instantly. Those dark chocolate eyes looked endless today, and that was a problem.
“Morning, Captain,” he said, his voice gruff and raspy. Sometimes that Irish twang came out, the vowels rounding in a way that didn’t quite fit with his American accent. It used to send the girls in college wild.
I thought, not for the first time, that maybe I understood why. Just a little.
“Morning to you too.”
He grinned widely as he looked at me, then opened the passenger door. I stopped just as I got to the car, turning to face him. The morning sun shone behind him and he looked beautiful.
“I can open the door myself, you know,” I said without any resistance.
“I know you can,” he replied with a devilish smirk. “I like that you let me do it for you.”
I got in the car without another protest because I wanted him to have that win.
I’d never done that with Connor before. Ever. The version of us we’d carried for years hovered awkward and wobbling, and clearly no longer built for whatever this was turning into. But I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit what that meant either.
Connor moved around the front of the car and slid in beside me, the space filling with the clean scent of his aftershave and something warmer that I remembered from that night at the dinner.
He adjusted the mirrors, started the engine, all unhurried, like he wasn’t aware he’d just unsettled my entire morning.
“Ready?” he asked, as though it was my job to start the car, take us somewhere, and perform for important people.
If I’d looked at it differently, and he was really asking if I was okay, maybe he could sense that I was halfway to the loony house this morning.
Maybe he couldn’t and he was simply asking if I was ready for what we were about to do. Either way, I liked that he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Let’s go.”
He pulled out onto the street, and my mind began to go over the email he’d sent me. It didn’t give me much to go on, so I decided to pry a little more.
“So, remind me how this started?”
His eyes flicked to me for a split second, then back to the road, hands flexing as he moved the wheel to turn. “I spoke to Richard Hale at the investor dinner, and he asked if we would do a Q he chose to be.
He wanted to show support, and I… was at a loss.
I’d spent years building armor that functioned automatically. Smile. Perform. Lead. Take the hit. Keep moving.
My fingers curled against my thigh, then flattened again, as if my body was testing whether I needed to brace. I kept my eyes forward, because if I looked at him, there was a good chance I might lose it.
I wasn’t used to someone choosing me without being asked.
There was something deeply inconvenient about the timing of it. About the fact that it was him. That he was sitting there like this was obvious, like siding with me wasn’t a calculated move, but a given.
I exhaled slowly, forcing the breath all the way out this time.
“That’s not usually how this works,” I said, eyes fixed on the road ahead.
He glanced at me, then back again. “How what works?”
“Support,” I replied. “It normally comes with strings.”
I’d learned early that approval wasn’t freely given.
It was earned. Re-earned. And quietly withdrawn.
My father was never in the stands. I learned not to look for him, not to expect him, not to build my sense of worth around whether he showed up.
Connor wasn’t him, but he could still disappear without warning.
“There aren’t any strings, Teddy,” he said, voice softening.
I blinked away lingering emotion. “People always say that.”
“I know.” There was no impatience in his response. “But this isn’t about leverage.”
“Then what is it about?” I asked, still not looking at him.
He shifted slightly in his seat, one hand tightening on the wheel before turning toward the gates of the school. “Being present. Making sure you’re not alone.”
I nodded once, slowly. “I’m capable of standing there on my own.”
“I’ve seen that,” he said. “That’s not the point.”
“Which is?” I asked, feeling warm all over.
“That you shouldn’t have to.”