Chapter 3
Three
She told me to take care of my eyes, because they were the only balls that I had.
—Text from Boone to Denver
Boone
I was in a state of shock.
I didn’t know which way was up and which way was down.
And the woman in the kitchen I’d specifically designed for her was staring at me like I was the answer to all of her questions.
I may look put together, but I definitely wasn’t.
“So what do you think we should do?” she asked the one question that’d been circling around in my brain.
I mean, there were others of course. But that one was the first one that needed answered.
“I’m assuming that you’re done with soccer for the foreseeable future.”
She nodded. “I was able to hide it before. Plus, we’d lost enough matches in the beginning of the year that we had no chance of playoffs.”
I knew that, too.
I watched every single game that she played.
That was why I paid outrageously for every streaming app there ever was, just so that I could catch her games on television, if I wasn’t able to make them in person.
And I made a lot in person.
She may not know that I was there, but I was there all the same.
This season had been rough. They’d lost three starters due to knee injuries and one due to a torn Achilles tendon. They had a roster full of young athletes that had never played in professional games before, so the team had just let them.
I’d noticed over the last few months that Nettie hadn’t played nearly as much as usual and had even looked encouraged by the idea that she wasn’t playing. That she liked the young team out there playing instead of her.
I mean, they’d lost nearly all of their games and had no chance of making playoffs. What was the point in not letting them play?
But now, knowing she was pregnant during the last four months of her season, it was understandable why she didn’t play. And she didn’t bitch because she wasn’t playing.
Nettie was a good player. She had a great head on her shoulders. She loved the game fiercely, and she was the captain of her team. However, she hated not playing. She was the worst when it came to sitting on the bench, and it showed.
I hadn’t seen any of that watching her play this year.
Which was what kept me from blowing up at her for playing soccer while pregnant.
She knew the risks.
Hell, we’d lived the risks.
When that girl had kicked her stomach in high school, I’d watched my life disappear before my eyes.
It’d started with that foot to the belly. Then it’d ended with Nettie walking out of my life and refusing to look back.
Sure, we’d spent a lot of time together over the years.
When she was in town, she’d come to me. When I was in Miami, I’d go to her.
To be completely truthful, whenever I was in Miami, I was there because I was dying without her. I couldn’t breathe or think if I was away from her for too long. When I went to Miami, it was because I was on my last breath.
But it was never anything more than physical.
Just a stolen moment in time where we spent days with each other, doing the only thing she allowed—physical intimacy.
I was weak when it came to her.
Totally and recklessly in love to the point where I’d burn the entire world down if she only asked me to. Just to see the smile that I loved light up her face, I would happily watch it burn.
“How long are you done?” I asked carefully.
Soccer was a touchy subject for her.
I could not—would not—take away her one true love. Even if I was so totally jealous over it that it made me see green.
“Until next season,” she said. “Per my contract, they can’t fire me. They have to give me maternity leave. I have to pass a physical to play the next season, though. Which I don’t think I’ll have any trouble doing.”
No, she wouldn’t.
Because she’d dedicated her life to the game. Nine months pregnant, she would be better than eighty-five percent of the women on the field.
I’d watched Nettie in championship games. I’d watched her play for the United States of America during the Olympics. I’d watched her fend off offers from Europe. I’d watched her sink her heart and soul into this game.
So yes, if anyone could come back and be just as good as she was pre-baby, it’d be this woman.
“How will that work with a baby?” I asked carefully. “Will you be taking her with you?”
She looked at me solidly then.
“I’ve negotiated a new contract,” she said softly.
“With Oregon FC. In that contract, I’ve agreed to make two out of every five practices on site.
The other three I’ve negotiated to do on my own at the state-of-the-art facility an hour away with a private coach with Oregon.
When I need to be on site, they’ll send a private plane for me.
I’ll do this for two years, where I’ll work with their young forward that’s in high school right now.
She has three more years, and she refuses to leave high school before she graduates. ”
“Oh, wow.” I blinked.
“They have a forward that’s retiring next year, so it works out perfectly,” she said. “And it works out great because that forward they’re hoping to bring to the team actually lives and plays here now.”
“Who? Bossy?” I asked, feeling like I already knew who.
She nodded her head in affirmation.
Nettie was a twin. Her twin sister was Eddy. Eddy was engaged to one of my club brothers, Weaver Grant. And Weaver Grant had a daughter that was a phenomenal soccer player. Berkley “Bossy” Grant.
I hadn’t realized that Bossy was that good.
To be honest, I hated soccer. So of course I wouldn’t pay attention to Bossy’s games.
I had an irrational hate for it because it’d stolen my life from me.
Maybe not in actuality, but that was what it felt like.
Each time she walked out of my door, it was because of the soccer game she needed to get back to.
It was impossible not to hate it.
“So where are you staying until you have to go back?” I asked carefully.
I fully expected her to say Miami, where her main residence was, and not the apartment that my father had bought for her and Eddy. The one he’d purchased for them when their parents had kicked them out when they’d found out that Nettie was pregnant.
My dad, the best man that I knew, was a softy.
He also hated my mother and would do anything he could to rile her up.
Like buying a couple of teen girls that he really liked an apartment building and letting them move into it when he knew it would piss his wife off.
“Here,” she said softly.
My entire being just…sighed.
“Oh, thank god.”
Her lips quirked. “But we have to set boundaries.”
I frowned. “What?”
“We can’t sleep in the same bed. We can’t be together, Boone.
We will strictly be living together for the baby’s sake,” she stated.
“I want you to be a father to this baby, Bart. Not on the periphery. When I start work again, I’ll have to leave and spend days away.
I want the baby to have their life as uninterrupted as possible. ”
Here.
She meant to live here.
With me.
This was…beyond anything I could’ve ever hoped to imagine.
Sure, she didn’t want to have a relationship.
But that was something I could work with.
I could make this work.
We could make this work.
She stood up and walked to the hall where she’d left her stuff, gathering it all up and standing at the door as she turned to look back at me.
We stared at each other for a long moment before she said, “And Boone?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes?”
“I don’t want your mother having any part in our baby’s life.” She backed up toward the door. “Not to hold her. Not to know anything about her. I want her nowhere near, or I’ll use every single cent I have in savings to fight you for her. Your mother comes anywhere near here, and you’ll regret it.”
With that announcement, she backed out of the house and shut the door.
My shoulders sank.
She would ask that.
The impossible.