Chapter 60
RAKE
“You’re good to go. Cleared. I’ll get the paperwork started and the staff will work with you to return to training.”
I look at the team physician and feel like he’s telling me I won the lottery. I guess in some respects, I have.
My world, which has been on hold, starts to feel normal again, even though I’m still sitting on an exam table and Petal’s standing across the room with her arms crossed, one hip against the wall.
She’s wearing a small smile and I know when we get outside she’s going to tell me she knew all along things would be fine.
And just like that, my life is back on track. Like hitting the play button on a music app, the song starts up like it never even stopped.
To say relief is washing over me is an understatement. Sure, I’ve known for some time I was on the path to recovery, but every athlete knows not to take that for granted. Shit happens, and then your career is over.
In addition to relief, I’m feeling gratitude—to myself, yes, for following my treatment plan like I was born to—but especially to this woman smirking at me from across the room, who is so damned sexy in her rolled-up jeans, red Converse high tops, and T-shirt that says ‘Women Who Read Are Dangerous.’
The red Chucks are new. When I saw her old ones had a hole in the bottom, I threw them out and ordered her a new pair.
She griped about having to break them in, but I told her no wife of mine is going to run around San Francisco with holes in her shoes.
She said no husband of hers is going to tell her what to wear, so I guess we’re even.
She blows my mind. Here’s a woman who can have any number of shoes she wants, and yet she wears holey sneakers.
She’s been my rock through this whole thing. The nights I laid in bed, sleepless, she’d stay up with me, sometimes reading to me from her romance novels. I am not kidding.
I’ve gotten to where I kind of like it. I can always pick out the ‘grand gesture’ now.
Her solid optimism has become a kind of fuel for me, kicking my ass through painful physical therapy sessions, pushing me through the fear that comes with an injury.
The team doctor drones on about how to ease back into play, to not overdo it, yada, yada.
I’m honestly dying to lace on some skates and fly around the rink to feel the cool air on my face, but I know I have to wait a little longer before I can go gonzo on all that.
Getting sidelined will show a guy he’s not invincible. I have to listen to the professionals.
Petal and I are quiet as we return to the car with our forefingers locked together instead of full-on holding hands. But as soon as we’re out in the sunshine, I pull her to me, and we hold each other.
“Baby,” I say into her hair, “no one’s ever done for me what you have. I’m sorry for every time I was a difficult asshole. I’ll never do that again, no matter what kind of injury I’m facing.”
She pulls back to look at me. “I know you won’t.”
Of course she says that.
“You did it,” she adds.
“Mmmm, no. We did it.” I get behind the wheel of my Range Rover, happy to be driving again after being chauffeured around for weeks.
We entwine our fingers as I leisurely drive, in no hurry to get anywhere, probably irritating the city buses and cabs stuck behind us in traffic.
None of that matters. We’ve got it going on, Petal and I.
Sure, I’m happy as hell that I’m getting back on the ice, but it’s having her by my side that’s the real victory.
The game will call me back for as long as I can play it, but it’s Petal who’s my real champion. I hope to spend every day we’re together showing her that.
We get to my apartment and race each other to the kitchen to see what Betty left us for dinner.
“No way,” Petal gasps, checking out the meatloaf and homemade mac and cheese warming in the oven. “Oh my God, this is my favorite meal.”
How many San Francisco heiresses have meatloaf and mac and cheese as their favorite meal?
“Hey, baby, I have a question for you.”
She pulls out plates and silverware. “You cannot have any of my meatloaf. This is all mine. Betty told me so.”
“What can I eat for dinner?” I laugh.
“I think there may be some bologna in the fridge. Sorry, buddy.”
While I watch her loading our plates with Betty’s fine cooking, I slink up behind her and slide my hands under her T-shirt to cup her breasts.
“Dinner’s going to get cold.”
“I don’t care,” I say, brushing my lips in the crook of her neck, the little spot I know drives her crazy.
She sighs, all thoughts about cold meatloaf gone. “Hey, I thought you had a question for me,” she murmurs quietly, looking over her shoulder at me.
“Yeah. I do.”
“What is it?”
“Will you marry me?”
She spins around with a huge smile on her face. “Last time I checked, we were already married. Remember that yellow plastic smiley face ring you sprang for in Vegas? The one with the googly eyes?”
“Yes, yes, I do. Do you still have it? I consider that one of my finest purchases.”
“I do have it, and consider it one of my most precious possessions.”
I push everything on the counter aside—the meatloaf, mac and cheese, plates, forks, everything—to clear a spot to ravish her as soon as I get her clothes off.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asks, assisting me in getting her naked as fast as possible.
“I am, but not for meatloaf,” I say, kissing her luscious lips, moving my way down her sexy body.
To think this all started with a charity auction neither of us wanted to go to, followed by a date neither of us wanted to go on, and a fake marriage that turned out to be one of the realest things I’ve ever known.
EPILOGUE
“Jesus. What happened here?” Rake asks
I look up from my spot in the middle of the living room floor, where I’m surrounded by a mess of paper, tape, scissors, and markers that look like a first-grade art class. I scramble to collect as much of it as I can before he sees what I am up to.
He raises an eyebrow. “Ah. I get it. My wife has a little project going on, and it seems I was not supposed to see it.” He turns and heads to the bedroom with his backpack, chuckling and looking back over his shoulder.
“Hey, if you know you’re not supposed to see this, why do you keep looking?” I ask. “Give a girl a break, big guy.”
I slam shut the giant photo album I’ve secretly been working on for weeks and, come to think of it, it’s no big deal whether he sees it at this point.
It’s for him, anyway. Well, both of us, really.
I leave my mess on the floor where I created it, where I’ve camped out for a few hours every day when he’s not home, to put together a scrapbook of everything we’ve shared since we met at my mom’s fundraiser auction.
“Hey, can you come meet me in the living room, babe?” I call.
He pokes his head out of the bedroom. “Thought I wasn’t supposed to look. Shall I close my eyes? Wear a blindfold?”
“Just get over here,” I huff.
He plops onto the sofa next to me after kissing me on the temple. “Mmmm. Baby smells like Elmer’s Glue. Sexy.”
I put my hands on the album, an anthology of our life to date. “This is a scrapbook I made for us. Check it out.”
He looks at me and slides the album onto his lap, and when he flips it open, he immediately starts howling.
The first image is of me onstage with my mother, just having learned I won him in the auction. My expression is part confusion, part disgust.
In short, it’s not flattering, but also perfectly captures the start of our romance, when there was nothing but resistance, irritation, and wariness.
“I’m so glad you started with that photo. It really is classic. You have ‘I’ll have nothing to do with that guy’ screaming across your face.”
“Totally. I thought it was the perfect way to start the chronicling of us.”
He flips through the following pages, filled with the coffee stirrer I swiped from our first meeting where Vince was babysitting, to a napkin from our steak dinner in Vegas, to the marriage license from the wedding chapel.
“Holy shit. Do you just collect shit wherever you go?”
Busted. “Yeah. I tend to do that. Fill my pockets with stuff that I just drop into a drawer in case I want it later. I have a lot of stuff from our encounters. Look, here’s a napkin from one of your games covered with nacho cheese.”
I’m classy that way.
He crinkles his face. “Gross. Is there something wrong with you?” he laughs.
I nod. “Most definitely. But look, I don’t hide shit. Don’t tell me anything I do surprises you.”
He keeps turning pages. “True. I always know what I’m getting with Petal Parker. Holy shit. You took a picture of the jumbotron when Tyler filled my water bottle with lemon juice?” he gulps.
I’m trying not to laugh. “Lucy took it. I had to include it. So perfect.”
“This really is. Thank you, baby. It perfectly captures the insane shit show that has been our relationship to date. I love how you recorded all this because if it wasn’t here in black and white, no one would believe it.”
“Just wait till our kids see this someday.”
His gaze snaps in my direction. “Are you trying to tell me something by mentioning kids?”
My eyes widen. “No. Hell no. That might be in the cards for us, but not just yet.”
“Cool. Cool, baby. Hey, what’s this thing right here?” he asks.
At the last minute I threw in a picture of a ring I found on the internet, and pasted a question on top of it.
“What do you think it is?” I ask.
He turns it right-side up. “Will you be my teammate for life?” he reads.
I look at him, grinning widely. After my question sinks in, he joins me. “Isn’t the guy supposed to ask this?”
I shrug. “Yeah. Usually. But we’re not usual. We’re unusual. Just how we like it.”
“Yeah but, that’s my job, to ask this kind of thing.”
“Fair enough. Then go ahead and ask. What are you waiting for?”