Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
ANNIKA
The stadium roars, but all I hear is the warning under it. Something feels like it’s about to go wrong, very wrong. I’ve learned to trust my instincts and right now, they’re screaming.
Even though the sun is shining on a chilly day and the stadium is at capacity, filled with fans here for the pre-game activities for Parker’s foundation.
The air feels tighter, pressing on my lungs like today might be the day I lose him.
Why? I don’t know.
Last night, I didn’t get a chance to confess what happened with my dad since he was on the phone with his foundation all the way home. I know I need to tell him the full story, but I’m not ready for him to let me go.
I stand near the end zone, just off the sideline, arms folded across my stomach trying to hold myself together.
I’ll tell him after the game.
After he’s won and is flying high. He’ll understand.
Won’t he?
But I can’t shake the feeling that it may be too late.
Parker is everywhere at once, moving between groups, clapping hands, smiling for cameras, and crouching down to talk to the kids lined up for his foundation’s first event.
The forty-yard dash is set up across the field, gold cones bright against the turf, staff buzzing around trying to organize the contestants.
He’s in his element—controlled chaos, like his family. Well, not just like his family. They’re not to be controlled. They just live.
And for a moment, I let myself watch him.
How at ease he is with people of all ages.
How his purpose is wrapped in performance.
If he’s not in the league, his foundation might fail and he’s told me other than playing football, giving back to the community is his goal. To help kids that have lost a parent, been abused, or are sick or who just need mentoring.
I watch him drop to one knee in front of a little boy, adjusting his stance and saying something that makes the kid grin and hug him like he just met a superhero.
Parker laughs, unguarded and easy like none of the weight he carries about failure or comparison matters. It’s all about the foundation.
This is the version I didn’t see of him in college. The version I’ve come to understand. Because now he shows me what he didn’t back then.
The one who cares about giving. The one who shows up for others.
The announcer’s voice crashes through the stadium, yanking me from my thoughts.
“Let’s hear it for our competitors!”
The crowd erupts as names are called one after another. Kids wave from the sidelines, parents clap and cameras flash while Parker’s foundation staff hustle around setting up the forty-yard dash lanes.
Then the announcer says, “And give a warm welcome to our adult competitors, Brea James and Nadia Petrov.”
My mind spins and wobbles off its axis.
The name doesn’t just hit me—it detonates somewhere deep in my chest, setting off every fear I’ve spent years trying to outrun.
“No,” I whisper under my breath. “No, no, no.”
My fingers curl into my arm, nails pressing into my skin as if pain might keep me from floating straight out of my body.
Why is she here?
This can’t be random.
Not today.
Not at his foundation event.
Not before I’ve told him the truth myself.
Cold panic spreads through my body so fast it leaves me dizzy.
I scan the line of contestants and find her instantly.
Nadia.
Her blonde hair whips in the wind as she moves toward Parker with calm, deliberate confidence, like she already knows she belongs in his orbit.
My pulse pounds so violently it drowns out the stadium noise. The cheers blur into static.
I can’t breathe.
The younger kids line up and race first, tiny sneakers pounding against the turf while the crowd cheers them on. But I don’t see any of it.
I only see her.
Someone steps aside, giving me a clear line of sight just as Nadia closes the distance between them.
Parker smiles automatically at first—that practiced, public version of him he gives reporters, fans and strangers. Warm. Easy. Polite.
Then Nadia touches his arm.
Not casually.
Intentionally.
Her fingers slide across his bicep like she knows exactly where I’m standing. Exactly what she’s doing.
A sharp wave of nausea rolls through me. My fingers dig deeper into my skin as Parker’s expression changes.
It’s so subtle, most people wouldn’t notice it.
But I do.
I know every shift in his posture. Every crack in his composure. Every sign that his thoughts are turning dangerous.
His shoulders tense first.
Then his brows pull together.
The easy looseness in his stance disappears.
He says something to her. I can’t hear the words from here, but I see the confusion forming on his face. See the moment her answers stop making sense to him.
Or maybe start making too much sense.
My stomach drops.
What is she telling him?
The crowd explodes again when one of the little boys wins his race, but Parker doesn’t even look toward the finish line. His focus stays locked on Nadia now.
Listening.
Trying to piece something together.
Fear crawls up my throat.
Because I know that look.
I’ve seen it in sessions when his confidence starts slipping away from him. When his brain gets trapped between instinct and doubt.
It’s the exact moment he starts spiraling.
And I did this to him.
Not Nadia. Me.
Because I should’ve told him.
Before the late-night confessions.
Before the waterfall.
Before I let him love me.
Nadia says something else and Parker’s smile disappears completely.
His jaw flexes hard enough that I notice it from across the field.
My chest caves inward.
He looks… blindsided.
Hurt.
The adult competition is announced, but I’m already backing away.
One step.
Then another.
I can’t stand here and watch his world unravel in front of thirty thousand people.
Before his eyes can lift and find me, I slip into the tunnel.
The cool concrete swallows me whole.
Instantly, the noise dulls from deafening to distant.
I press myself against the wall painted with the green and gold Armadillo logo, forcing air into my lungs that refuse to cooperate.
You should have told him.
He trusted you.
You should have—
I shove my hands over my face.
God.
He trusted me with everything.
His fears.
His failures.
The parts of himself he hid from everyone else.
And I loved him enough to take all of that from him—but not enough to trust him with the truth about me.
Because I was scared.
Still am.
The game passes in fragments after that.
The roar of the crowd after big plays.
The groan when passes are dropped by number eighty—Parker O’Ryan.
Every reaction slices through me because I know him well enough to understand what’s happening inside his head right now.
When Parker spirals mentally, football follows.
I hide in one of the meeting rooms at halftime, unable to stomach the thought of seeing him before the game ends. By the fourth quarter, I’ve destroyed my nails and chewed the inside of my cheek raw.
I tell myself to leave at least a dozen times.
Get in the car and go home.
Run before he comes looking for answers I don’t know how to give, but running is what created this mess in the first place.
So when the stadium finally begins to empty and the post-game noise fades into exhausted chatter, I force myself back into the tunnel.
My legs feel unsteady beneath me.
Like I already know what’s waiting.
Now that the game is over, I’m torn between disappearing before he sees me… or staying long enough to let him break my heart to my face.
I’ve torn off all my nails, biting them, picking at them. Then I start chewing on my lip.
It’s time for me to grow up and stop hiding so I wait. All the players pass by me. Matt sees me and shakes his head.
What? How can he know anything? I forget how close they are. Matt might be quiet but he’s Parker’s champion.
I change my mind and speed walk toward the exit, but I hear my name.
“Annika.”
I stand frozen on the cold floor.
He called me Annika, not Anna. He’s been respecting my name change at least in public.
I turn bit by bit and Parker stands a few feet away, helmet in hand, chest rising and falling like he ran sprints for sixty minutes straight.
I’ve never seen him like this.
Not angry.
Not exactly.
Something worse—the kind of hurt born from betrayal.
Confusion tangles in his voice. “Tell me,” he says, fighting to keep his emotions in check. “I need to know everything. Now.”
My throat constricts.
“Parker…”
“Tell me I’m missing something,” he says, stepping closer, his voice breaking under the weight of it. “Because right now my brain can’t make any of this fit with the woman I know.”
The words slap against my cheeks.
His chest rises sharply, emotion flickering across his face so fast I almost miss it. Anger is there, yes—but underneath it is heartbreak. Confusion. The look of a man trying to reconcile the woman he loves with the story unraveling in front of him.
“I… I…”
Swinging his arm, the helmet leaves his hand and slams into the wall with a crack that echoes through the tunnel.
I flinch.
But a suffocating silence follows.
The anger flashes hot and immediate, but it fades just as quickly into something worse. Pain. The kind that hollows out his expression and makes him look at me like he’s already grieving us.
“You said it yourself I was a kid,” I manage, my voice thinner than I want it to be.
His head jerks back, eyes blazing. “No, Annika,” he says, shaking his head hard. “Being a kid explains why you were terrified. It doesn’t explain why you carried this alone.”
“I know.” I drop my chin into my chest, unable to look him in the eye.
He’s more upset than I’ve ever seen him. He’s been arrogant before and he’s walked out my office, stomping, but I’ve never seen this type of frustration from him.
He says quietly, like he’s trying to understand it while saying it out loud. “And maybe part of me understands why you ran… but what I don’t understand is why you didn’t trust me with your pain.”
“Those girls were kids too,” he says, emotion finally spilling over. “Do you understand how hard this is for me to process?”
He’s right.
I walk toward him and reach for his hands, but he makes it clear that he doesn’t want me to touch him. But God, I want to. I want to make him understand.
“I was scared,” I say, the truth creeping up my throat.
For a second, his expression cracks completely. Pain replaces anger so fast it steals the breath from my lungs.
“You disappeared,” he says, quieter now. “And I understand why you thought you had to… but those girls still had to stand there without you.”
Panic claws its way up my body. “You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand how to love you through this,” he says, voice breaking completely now. “Because I don’t want to walk away from you, Annika… but right now I don’t know what to do.”
The fracture in my heart widens, sharp and unbearable. Yesterday he looked at me like I was everything. Today, I can’t tell if he’s trying to hold on or let go.
“Please tell me you didn’t know how bad it was,” he says, and this time the anger cracks enough for me to hear the plea underneath it. “Please tell me there’s something I’m not understanding.”
My mind races as I search for an explanation, trying to recall what I saw or what I thought was happening.
His expression softens. “I work with kids through my foundation,” he says, quieter, no less devastating. “I see what this kind of damage does.”
His eyes lock in mine. “How could you just walk away?”
His voice drops at the end, rough and wrecked instead of furious now, like the question hurts him as much as the answer might hurt me.
Tears blur my vision. “I didn’t walk away,” I whisper, but it sounds weak, even to me.
He moves his head from side to side, disappointed and hurt. The look on his face guts me because he doesn’t seem angry anymore. He looks heartbroken.
Parker drags a hand over his mouth, looking away from me for the first time. “Witt warned me I was too close to this. That maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see.”
My stomach drops. The contents of my breakfast, threaten to spill out.
His eyes close like the words hurt him too. “And maybe you were right all along,” he says quietly. “Maybe this was a terrible idea.”
His words don’t just hurt, they make me feel hollower than I did before we connected. It feels like he’s shutting down and shutting me out of his life.