CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Cole
The bar is half full.
Low lights. Two of today’s games replay on televisions around the bar, sound muted. Some guy at the other end is arguing with the bartender about a bad call from our game that ended over three hours ago.
Normal clamor that doesn’t require anything from me.
I pull my baseball hat down lower on my forehead and do my best to blend into the shadows. I have a beer in front of me I haven’t touched, and it’s so much easier to stare at the condensation sliding down the glass than replay what just happened at the house.
It doesn’t work. I still replay it.
I shouldn’t have left. I know that. Hell, I knew it the second the door shut behind me, but pride can be a real asshole once it gets behind the wheel. And mine? Mine apparently has a lead foot with no intention to ask for directions.
My phone sits faceup on the bar. No new messages.
Not that I’m looking.
I’m absolutely fucking looking.
Either she’s giving me space or she’s well restrained in the text bombing. Every other woman I’ve ever known would have lit up my phone by now.
The door opens behind me, letting in a slice of night air and street noise. A few seconds later, the stool beside me scrapes back.
Lucas drops onto it, takes one look at me, and then glances around the bar.
“You dragged me away from my very hot wife in a very warm bed for this?”
I lift my beer. “Hello to you too.”
He nods to the bartender. “Whiskey. Neat.” He looks back at me. “Last time we were in this bar together I was dragging you out of it, and you weren’t too happy with me.” He slides a twenty across the bar when the bartender sets his drink down. “What am I doing here, Valor?”
I don’t fucking know.
I huff out a breath. “You’re the one person I know who’ll give me honest feedback.”
His mouth twitches. “That’s a dangerous thing to ask for.”
“Yeah, well . . . feel free to go back to that warm bed of yours. I’ll manage just fine with about ten more of these,” I say, lifting the beer I’ve barely touched.
He takes a sip, leans back in his chair and nods. “I’m here. Let’s hear it.”
I drag a hand over my jaw. “Fucking women.”
He doesn’t even blink. “That’s your opening argument?”
“It’s a strong one.”
“It’s lazy as hell.”
“See?” I point at him. “Honest feedback.”
He studies me with that calm, irritating expression he wears when he’s already ten yards ahead of everyone else. “Dublin?”
I don’t answer.
He nods once. “Dublin.”
I take another sip of beer because that’s easier than saying any of this out loud.
“You’re gonna have to talk or I can’t do you any good,” Lucas says.
“Fuck,” I sigh. “She came out of nowhere. That’s the fucking problem.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah.” I turn the bottle between my hands, head shaking.
“One second, I know what my life is—football, practices, games. Avoiding my dad’s calls.
Hanging with the guys. Living that QB1 life, right?
And then she walks into a conference room, calls me on my bullshit, looks at me like she’s already solved half of me, and suddenly—”
Because suddenly what, Cole-y boy?
Suddenly I’m leaving a jersey from my private collection in the suite for her.
Suddenly I’ve memorized how she takes her coffee, what she likes on her hamburger, what she refuses to eat.
Suddenly I’m skipping my routine with the guys, making lame excuses why, because I’d rather spend it with her.
Lucas nods like he understands what I’m processing. “Suddenly?” he prompts.
My laugh borders on a sigh. “Suddenly I’m fucked.”
He smacks a hand on the bar top. “There it is.”
The memory of the suite flashes in my mind. Dublin in my jersey . . . pulling me into that blind spot. Dublin . . .
“She was a blind spot,” I say, the words coming out before I think them through, causing his brows to lift. “I didn’t see her coming.”
“Or you weren’t looking.” He shrugs and then smirks. “So this is really, real then.”
“Do you think I’d be sitting in a bar hours after a game with my ribs aching like a motherfucker and calling you if it weren’t?”
“Hmm.” It’s all he says.
All he needs to because it’s like all these words have been held in, and I need to get them out.
“She’s living with me,” I say. “Sleeping in my bed. Wearing my jersey. She fits in my house like she’s supposed to be there, which is insane because Dublin Locke shouldn’t fit easily anywhere in my life.”
His smile is faint. “Sounds about right.”
“And tonight I come home after getting my ass handed to me on the field, and she’s there.
Waiting. Worried. Beautiful. Frustrated over the fucking case and still trying to clear my name, even though doing that might cost her everything.
” I take a sip. “And then I bring up after the season. Taking her away. A trip. Bali. Somewhere. Fuck if I know. A place that isn’t this shitstorm and she looks at me like I offered to fly her to Mars. ”
“Maybe for her, you did.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means some people don’t think past survival when their whole life is burning down.” He gives me a knowing look. “You asked for honest.”
“Unfortunately.”
“So what happened?” he asks.
“I told her I loved her.”
Lucas goes still for a second and then exhales slowly. “And?”
I bark out a laugh. “And? That’s all you’ve got?”
“What do you want? Fireworks? A parade?” He taps his glass against my bottle. “Congratulations, you used your words.”
“Fuck off.”
“There’s the Valor I know.”
I shake my head but some of the tension in my chest eases.
“She froze,” I say. “She stood there looking at me like I’d hit her with a blitz she didn’t see coming.”
“In other words, she didn’t say it back.”
“Bingo.”
“But she didn’t say she didn’t feel it,” he says and I glare at him. “There’s a difference.”
“She didn’t say anything.”
“Hmm.” He looks around the bar before coming back to me. “Ever gotten hit so hard you forget what play you called?”
Where’s he going with this?
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Did that mean you didn’t know it?”
“No.”
“Exactly,” he says with a definitive nod.
Fucking hell.
I groan. “I left.”
“I figured since you’re sitting here.”
“I needed a minute.”
“No,” Lucas says. “You wanted control.”
“No, I—”
“You told her something you couldn’t take back,” he says. “Then when she didn’t hand you the exact response you needed fast enough, you bailed before she could reject you.”
“That’s not—”
He lifts a brow and I shut my mouth, because yeah.
Maybe.
Fuck.
Lucas leans forward, forearms on the bar. “You didn’t tell her you loved her so she’d say it back to you.” He pauses. “You told her because it was true.” He slides his empty glass forward “So why are you acting like she failed a test?”
I stare at the bottles lined up behind the bar. At the labels. At anything that isn’t him and the wisdom I sought out.
Because that’s exactly what I did. I made a play call in my own damn relationship and got pissed when she didn’t run the route perfectly.
Jesus.
“I’m not good at this,” I mutter.
“No shit.”
I glare at him as he smiles into his glass. “So helpful,” I say.
“You didn’t call me because you wanted me to coddle you.”
“No. I called you because apparently, I hate myself.”
“That too.”
I laugh but it fades as the truth hits. “She scares the hell out of me.”
“You have to ask yourself the question why and that might give you the answer you’re looking for.”
I run my finger down the bottle. “Because I want things with her I’ve never wanted before.
Not like this. Not in a way where I can see her toothbrush next to mine and think, yeah, leave it there.
Not where I look at her in my house and it feels better because she’s in it.
” I exhale a shaky breath. “Then tonight she hesitated and all I heard was my dad.”
Lucas doesn’t move. He doesn’t interrupt. And I hate how much that makes it easier to keep talking.
“I know it doesn’t make sense, but my dad is harsh .
. . and when she didn’t say anything, all I heard was how I’m not enough.
Not good enough. Not steady enough. Not whatever enough.
And I know she’s not him. I know that.” I press the heel of my hand against my eye.
“But for a second it felt the same. Like rejection. Like I laid a part of me out there and got judged.”
Lucas is quiet for a long moment. “It’s not like I know anything about your dad or your relationship, but, dude . . . she’s not him.” He turns his glass slowly in his hand. “You want to break the pattern? Stop making her pay for damage she didn’t do.”
“Fuck,” I groan.
He’s right. Again.
Dublin didn’t reject me. She froze. And what did I do in response? I didn’t give her space before I decided for her what she should have done. Fuck.
“From the brief time I’ve seen her at the facility, she’s careful, Cole.
Anyone who’s watched her work can see that.
She’s lost control of her work, her reputation, her life.
She knew that was a risk and still she took it.
Then you hand her something that means more than all of it and you expect her to catch it clean? ”
“Stop making sense,” I mutter.
He squeezes my shoulder. “She deserves better than that. So give her better.”
I nod and then shake my head. I’m confused but I now have more clarity than when I walked out that door.
My phone buzzes against the bar. I stare at the lit-up screen for way too long.
Lucas chuckles. “You going to stare at it until it combusts or are you going to see what she has to say? Do or die time, Valor.”
I pick it up and unlock the screen.
DUBLIN: Come home to me.
Four words.
My chest aches and stomach twists but for all the right reasons.
Lucas watches me over the rim of his glass. “Well?”
“She said to come home,” I say.
“Then why are you still sitting here? You can’t fix things between you over text.”
I chuckle as I push my beer across the bar and then toss money for the tab beside it. “Thanks.” I stand. “For being here. For . . .”
“My honest feedback?”
“Yeah. That.”
“For the record?” he says, just as I start to walk away. I pause to look back at him. “The fact that you told her means you’re already doing better than you think.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I nod.
The night air hits when I step outside. I walk toward my SUV, her text still burning in my mind.
Come home to me.
Not, come explain.
Not, come apologize.
Not, come fix everything.
Just, come home.
And now . . . I understand the difference.
I’m not going back because I know what happens next. I’m going back because she asked . . . and because Lucas is right.
I didn’t tell her I’m in love with her so she’d say it back.
I said it because it was true.