Callan
Charlotte isn’t home yet, and I already confirmed with her assistant that she’s not at the office.
According to Beckett, she’s not at Finley’s.
Addie is reffing tonight, which I only know because I downloaded an app for minor league basketball and flipped through all the games and recaps until I found her in California.
Thank goodness she’s one of the very few women refs—especially with that color hair—so spotting her wasn’t that difficult once I found the right game.
But I don’t know whether that means Charlotte is at her old place by herself or if she’s somewhere else.
With someone else.
No.
Not that.
I have no idea what’s going to happen when I ask Charlotte to be with me for real, but one thing is certain in my mind: she isn’t with another man tonight.
That doesn’t mean I know where the hell she is, though.
I pace from the door to the garage to the kitchen and back again.
She’s going to show up. She is. She’s going to come home and—
I stop at the sudden noise, straining to make sure it truly is the garage door opening and not a figment of my imagination. Again.
A door slams, and the restless animal in my chest settles.
She’s home.
Charlotte walks through the door and runs into me, where I’m standing right inside. “Ooft. Hey.” She tilts her face to mine, her expression pulling into a cautious smile. It’s not the full one I want, but I’ll take it.
“I need to talk to you,” I blurt out, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the kitchen.
She shuffles something in her other hand, her shoes clacking as she follows me. “Okay. I need to talk to you about something, too.”
“Me first,” I declare, not willing to let her try to let me out of this arrangement, or, fuck, to tell me she’s moving out.
“What…” Charlotte murmurs, pulling to a stop at the edge of the kitchen.
There are over a hundred candles spread around the room, interspersed with vases of the brightest flowers I could find.
I’ve also added a small, two-person table to the room, something intimate for us to sit at, rather than the huge table or the kitchen island.
I’ve been planning this since poker night, and it took a few days to get everything together.
I turn and face her, the knot in my stomach loosening slightly as I take in her wide-eyed wonder and the way the candlelight reflects in her gaze. She is so beautiful.
“Do you want to sit down?”
She looks at me, a timid uncertainty in her gaze. “Maybe?”
“Come on, Princess.” I hold out my hand, and she takes it automatically.
Maybe there is still hope.
After pulling out her chair, I don’t let go of her hand as I sit down across from her. “I don’t want us to fake date anymore.”
Her face falls. “Oh. I—”
“Shit,” I cut her off. “That came out wrong.” I squeeze her fingers with mine.
“Fuck. I even practiced this.” I let out a deep breath.
“What I mean is, I want to date you. For real. And I know I am going to get traded, probably to fucking Minnesota, where I’ll freeze my balls off, but I can come home in the offseason.
You can still be fully Team Stallions. You’ll just have to cheer for me, too. Ugh.”
“Callan, I’m—”
I let go of her hand and drop my head. “Leaving? Shit. I’m fucking this up, aren’t I?
I don’t care who you cheer for. I meant that when I was thinking about what it would mean to leave Denver, I realized it wasn’t only Nan I didn’t want to leave.
It’s you, too. I don’t want to be away from you. I don’t want you to move out.
“I want to have dinner with you every evening. To listen to you at night as you proofread your emails out loud before you send them. I want to hear every thought you have, in and out of the bedroom. I want to wine-and-dine you at fancy restaurants, and I want to eat pizza on the couch with you in our pajamas. I want to keep a secret stash of Nerds Clusters in my pockets for when you have a bad day, and I want to hold your hand as I drive down the road, listening to a perfectly curated playlist. I want all the little pieces of you, Princess. Because I love each and every one of them.”
I hadn’t meant to say that; all my plans running straight out of my head the moment I saw Charlotte.
She lets out a light chuckle before standing. “I brought you something.”
Okay, not exactly the response I’d imagined the first time I told a woman I love her. Though maybe I didn’t do that?
“It’s nothing big. Not a room full of candles and flowers and something delicious-smelling in the oven, but I do think you’ll like it.”
I rise, following her as she continues.
I’d follow her anywhere.
“So, I, too, might’ve realized how much I missed what we had, and I really wanted to do something to make it up to you, but the only thing I could think of was the chocolate chip cookies you like, so…” She holds up a paper plate wrapped with plastic wrap, a dozen or so cookies inside.
“Did you bake me cookies?” I ask, a warmth spreading throughout my body. Heating up Charmaine’s meals is the most cooking I’ve seen Charlotte do in the six months we’ve lived together.
She gives a cute, quick nod before shaking her head. “Well, technically, I helped. I wore a chicken apron and everything. But I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, and she had the…”
Charlotte continues, but my mind snagged on two words—chicken apron. The same one I’ve worn since I was a teenager.
I gently take the plate of cookies from her and set it down before wrapping her in a tight hug. “You saw Nan?” It comes out more shocked than it should, but after their first meeting, I’d resigned myself to spending months trying to convince Nan that Charlotte isn’t the enemy.
I can feel her nod against my chest. “I needed her cookie recipe.”
“I do like other types of cookies, you know.”
This time, she shakes her head. “Not good enough.”
“So you braved Nan for me?”
“Nan and the whole gang.”
I squeeze her. “Was she mean to you?”
Charlotte tilts her face up to look at me. “She’s very protective of you and your generous heart. Worried I’m like your parents. Selfish.”
I press a gentle kiss on her forehead. “You’re ambitious and caring. You’re nothing like my parents. And certainly not selfish.”
She lets out a little sigh. “You’re wrong. I am selfish. If I wasn’t, I would let you go. Let you find a woman who would put you first always. Who has a heart as big as the moon to reflect your sunshine back. But I’m not going to do that.”
“You aren’t?” I smile down at her.
She shakes her head. “No. Because I’m too selfish to let you go.
But I promise I will never take advantage of your heart or your generosity, and I’ll protect you from the people in your life who will.
I’ll buy you bags of Nerds Clusters, and I’ll make you a new playlist every time our lives change.
Because I’ve realized that being with you isn’t picking one playlist, one flavor of ice cream for the rest of my life: It’s having someone to experience every song, every flavor with. And I want that person to be you.”
I think my heart is about to explode with the joy radiating through me. I lean down to kiss her, but she pulls back, startled.
“Oh! And I love everything about you, too. I’m not sure if that’s the same thing as you telling me you love me, but I love you, which maybe is a weird thing to say right now because we’re just getting back together, or I’m not sure if you can even call it that since we were fake dating that whole time, but—”
I press a kiss to her lips. “I love you too, Charlotte. And this hasn’t been fake in a very long time. Not for me, at least. Maybe not since the first time you slept in my bed, but certainly not since you pulled me out of that funk after the game in Vegas.”
“That was so long ago,” she whispers.
I kiss her nose. “True. Better start figuring out what you’re going to get me for our one-year anniversary now. It’s coming up fast in my book.”
“I’m going to get you a tour of the Nerds factory. We’re going to go on August 1st.” She’s clearly making it up on the spot, and it makes me smile.
I smile down at her. “The day you moved in?”
“We could go with the Jaxon Steele concert, if you want to keep the story straight for my father, who we’re obviously never telling that this was fake. Well, maybe we can in like five years. Or maybe ten. Definitely by the time our first kid graduates from high school.”
A quiet hum of happiness starts growing in me as I lift an eyebrow. “Our kid, huh?”
She drops her head onto my chest. “Oh fuck. I didn’t mean that. I mean, I did mean that. But I didn’t mean for it to be an outside thought. I’d like to do this all at a normal pace, like a normal person would.”
I lift her chin with my finger, needing her to see the amusement on my face. “You moved in with me before we’d ever had a civilized conversation. I don’t think we’ve ever done things at a normal pace. And normal people are boring. Why would you ever want to be like them?”
She smiles, and it almost takes my breath away. “How did I get so lucky? You were certainly never part of my game plan.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask. “Well, that’s too bad, because now every game plan I have involves you. Even if it means taking a pay cut or getting my ass traded to someplace it snows all the time.”
“Wait.” She steps back, her eyes darting between mine. “You don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?”
“I figured out why Hugo has been pushing trading you for so long. Turns out, he made some bad decisions with contracts a few years ago, and it fucked our cap for this coming year. Chris met with him this morning, and you should be getting a call from your agent soon about restructuring your contract. Which I know isn’t ideal, but I was hoping maybe—”
I cut her off, pressing my lips against hers. She wraps her arms around my neck, giving me the contact I’ve been craving. I lift her onto the kitchen counter, so our heights are more aligned. Sliding my hand into the hair at the base of her neck, I pull her closer, deepening the kiss.
“Wait,” I gasp, leaning back far enough to press my forehead against hers. “Chris met with him?”
“Yeah. I had to call him in. It was never going to work if I was the one who brought up what I found.”
Holy shit. “But doesn’t that mean you’re sacrificing your chance of running Langford?”
She shrugs, her gaze not quite meeting mine. “Probably. But that’s okay. Turns out, some people are more important than work.”
“I don’t want you to regret me someday when you realize I’m the reason you lost your family legacy.”
She cups my cheeks. “I won’t regret standing up for what I think is right. And I’ll never regret you.”