Chapter 37 Maverick
maverick
. . .
Ipress my palms against the wall, forehead slammed between them, and let it burst out of me—the loss of my mama, the constant pressure of this career, the sponsors breathing down my neck, and Amelia’s silence.
“Mama,” I rasp, water and tears mixing until I can’t tell them apart. My voice breaks, chest heaving. “What the hell am I supposed to do? I’ve been trying so damn hard, and she still doesn’t trust me. She’s shutting me out, and I don’t know how to get through.”
The only answer is the water pounding against my skin, steady and relentless.
I slide down until I’m sitting on the shower floor, arms resting on my knees, my head bowed. The heat burns, but I welcome it—anything to feel something other than this ache tearing me apart.
Eventually, the sobs fade away, leaving me hollow and exhausted. I pull myself up, rinse off, and step out, wrapping a towel around my waist. My reflection in the mirror looks battered—red eyes, hair plastered to my forehead, and my shoulders hunched.
I grab my phone from the counter, thumb swiping across the screen—one new message.
Carter
They’re back.
My heart pounds so hard that I almost drop the phone. I scrub a hand down my face, taking in a shaky breath.
When I enter the kitchen, Rex is perched on the counter, his wrinkled little alien-cat body glaring at me. Cupcake lifts her head from where she’s sprawled across the floor, tail thumping lazily.
I lean against the counter, still dripping, staring at them like they’ve got the answers.
“She’s back,” I tell them, voice hoarse. “And I don’t know if she’s coming back to me.”
Rex blinks at me like he’s judging my soul. Cupcake flops her tail harder.
I let out a laugh that’s more broken than amused. “What do I do, huh? Cat, you hate me. Dog, you love me. Neither of you are Amelia, and she’s the only one who matters.”
Rex meows sharply and annoyed, as if he’s telling me to shut the fuck up. Cupcake licks my bare shin.
I scrub both hands over my face. “Yeah. You’re right. It doesn’t matter what I feel. It doesn’t matter if I’m scared shitless. She’s back, and I’m not letting her slip away again.”
I stand in front of the dresser, staring at the mess of clothes as if I’ve forgotten how to be a person.
My hands move on autopilot—grey sweats pulled up over my hips, a white compression tee stretched tight across my chest. It clings, outlining muscles still raw from practice, with my ribs aching underneath.
I pull a backwards cap low over my damp hair.
The mirror catches me as I head out. I look wrecked—red-rimmed eyes, jaw clenched, dark stubble across my cheeks. Not Maverick Hayes, the golden boy quarterback. Just a man barely hanging on.
Cupcake pads after me, tail wagging, ears perked like she knows I’m leaving. Rex perches on the counter, his wrinkled skin glowing under the kitchen light, judging me with those alien green eyes.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter, grabbing my keys from the hook. My voice cracks, and I clear it roughly. “Don’t give me that look. She’s back. I’m not wasting another second.”
I shut the door behind me, the night air sharply cool against my overheated skin. Gravel crunches under my sneakers as I stalk toward my Bronco, every muscle tense.
Inside, the cab smells like sweat and leather, with faint traces of her perfume still soaked into the passenger seat from that one night she sat there wrapped in my hoodie. My throat tightens at the memory.
The engine roars to life. Headlights cut across the empty driveway, flooding the trees with harsh white light. I grip the wheel so tightly that the leather creaks, my pulse pounding as if it’s trying to burst from my chest.
The drive to Carter’s feels endless, yet too short all at once.
Tennessee dusk fades into complete darkness, the road stretching out in long, winding curves. Gravel spits beneath my tires when I take sharp turns. The radio remains off—silence loud enough to drown me out. My thoughts collide in my mind.
By the time I reach Carter’s long gravel driveway, my stomach is in knots. His house glows ahead, warm and golden against the night, as if it’s mocking me. A home. A family. Things I’ve been desperately wanting, with her, only to watch her slip through my fingers.
I turn off the engine, headlights dimming to black, leaving me in darkness with only the constant chirping of crickets and the rasp of my own breathing. My chest rises and falls too quickly, adrenaline pounding like an extra heartbeat.
The porch looms ahead, wood creaking beneath my weight as I climb the steps. Light spills through the windows, soft voices muffled inside. Silhouettes moving past the curtains.
My fist hovers over the door.
For four days, I’ve gone without her voice, her laugh, her snarky remarks that drive me crazy. For four days, I’ve been falling apart.
And tonight, I either get her back—or lose her forever.
My knuckles rap against the door, harder than I mean to. For a second, there’s only silence, then the heavy tread of boots across hardwood.
The door swings open, and there he is. Carter.
He takes me in with one look—jaw tight, eyes too wild to hide. He doesn’t say a word at first, letting out a low breath before reaching out to give me one firm pat between the shoulders.
“C’mon in,” he mutters.
I step past him, the familiar scent of cedar and faint smoke wrapping around me as I enter his house.
The living room glows warmly, lamplight spilling over the couch where Catalina and Amelia are sprawled. Catalina’s got a family-size bag of chips balanced in her lap, crumbs dusting her fingers, while the TV flickers softly in front of them.
The second Catalina sees me, she coughs mid-bite, almost choking. “Oh, holy shit,” she wheezes, grabbing her water bottle.
Amelia’s head snaps up.
Her wide green eyes lock on me, pupils blown wide with shock, lips parting as if she can’t quite breathe.
My chest feels so tight I can barely breathe. Four days without her, and one look almost destroys me.
She stays silent. I do the same. The air hums between us, heavy and loaded, as if every word we haven’t spoken is lingering in the room.
I don’t wait for Catalina to break the silence. My eyes lock on Amelia, and the rest of the room fades away.
“Come home,” I say, voice rough, cutting through the silence.
Her throat moves as she swallows, fingers twitching on her lap. She doesn’t respond, only staring back at me with those wide green eyes, walls already rising brick by brick.
She looks at me like I’m a stranger.
I step closer, kneeling in front of the couch. “Four days, dollface. Four days of waking up to nothing. Not your voice. Not your texts. Not your laugh. Nothing.” My voice cracks on the last word, and I run a hand down my face.
Amelia shifts, pulling her knees up against her chest.
“Please,” I rasp, leaning forward on the cushions, desperate to close the distance. “I don’t care if you’re mad at me. I don’t care if you need to yell, throw things, or call me the biggest idiot in the NFL—I’ll take it. Just don’t shut me out like this.”
Her lips part, but no sound comes out. She drags her gaze away, like looking at me hurts too much.
My chest caves in. I reach across, fingers trembling, and take her hand. She flinches but doesn’t pull away. The feel of her skin against mine nearly undoes me.
“I need you,” I whisper, thumb gently brushing her knuckles. “Not the version of you that runs. Not the version that hides. Just you. Messy, stubborn, smart-mouthed—mine. Come home.”
Her breath falters, her eyes glassy as they dart back to mine. I see it—the fight inside her, the walls she’s building up, the fear tearing at her.
So I grip her hand tighter, anchoring her, begging without shame. “Don’t leave me in the dark, Amelia. Not when you’re the only light I’ve got.”
Her hand jerks away from mine, her eyes flashing, glassy yet hard.
“You don’t get it, Maverick!” she snaps, her voice sharp enough to cut through me. “This—” she gestures wildly between us, her chest heaving rapidly, “—this was never real!”
I flinch, but she keeps going.
Her voice rises, sharp and frantic, with words spilling out like poison she can’t contain. “It’s fake, remember? A convenient little arrangement to clean up your image, to make you look like some family man? I don’t want the studio, I don’t want this, and I sure as hell don’t need you!”
The words hit like a linebacker to the chest. My lungs seize, vision blurring.
Behind me, Catalina gasps loudly, the bag of chips sliding right off her lap. “Excuse me?”
Carter’s voice rumbles low and dangerous. “What the fuck did you just say?”
But I can’t look at them. I can’t look at anyone but her.
My hands grip the cushion near her legs, as if I can hold myself upright or stop her from slipping further away.
Tears burn hot in the corners of my eyes, but I fight to speak, my throat raw. “You don’t mean that.”
Her chin quivers, but she still rips the ring off her finger. She holds it out to me with trembling hands.
My chest caves as I take it, the cool metal biting into my palm like it knows what it is—proof of everything I thought we were building.
Her voice cracks, but she screams anyway, as if raising her voice will make it true. “This was fake, Maverick! That’s all it ever was. From the beginning. A convenient marriage to fix your image!”
The room falls deathly silent, except for the sound of my heart splitting apart.
I look at the ring in my hand, then back at her, and it takes everything in me not to break completely.
Because even as she’s tearing me to pieces, all I see is the woman I love, even if she can’t admit it.
The ring feels heavier than anything I’ve ever held. My knuckles ache from gripping it so tightly, and my chest feels like it's splitting open as her words echo through the room.
Fake. Convenient. Never real.
I swallow hard, the sting of tears blurring her face, but I force myself to look at her anyway. To memorize every flicker of fire and fear in her eyes, even as she pushes me away.
“If this is what you want…” My voice is strained, low, scraped raw as if glass is scraping down my throat. I nod once, the movement stiff and mechanical. “Then okay.”
Her lips press together, trembling, but she doesn’t answer. Doesn’t take it back.
I push myself up off my knees, my body feeling twice as heavy and twice as broken, each step away from her a tearing wound.
She can say it’s fake. She can scream she doesn’t need me. She can hand me this ring and tear me apart piece by piece. None of it matters because I know the truth: she’s mine. She’s always been mine. And I’ll wait—no matter how long it takes—for her to realize it. I’m not going anywhere.
I close my fist around the ring until the edges dig sharp into my skin, a promise burned into flesh.
Behind me, Carter mutters a curse under his breath, Catalina’s voice rising with fury, but I don’t hear them clearly. The only sound I hear is the echo of her voice tearing me apart.
I’ll wait for you, dollface, even if it kills me.