Chapter 38
MILO
I haven’t been here in over three years, but there’s something sacred in the way the soles of my feet remember the ground.
I spent so many days in this stadium, running plays until they were well-worn paths in my brain, my muscles and nerves so practiced they could understand the language of the game even when my heart wasn’t in it.
I still love football—despite everything. Or maybe because of it. There’s something about the way it let me down that never quite untaught me how to love it.
We’re standing inside the entrance when Caleb appears. He’s double my age, his dark hair silver around his face, and he knows me better than I know him.
“Well, this is a welcome surprise!” Caleb greets me with a hearty hug. When he pulls back, I watch his brows lift as he looks at Sadie. “And who’s this?”
“This is Sadie Summers,” I introduce, finally giving a face to the name he already knows well. “Sadie, this is Caleb Harper.”
Sadie’s lips twitch slightly, and her brown eyes widen as she reaches out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Caleb.”
But in true Caleb fashion, he doesn’t shake her hand. He wraps her up in an embrace. “It’s good to finally meet you.”
“Finally?” Sadie asks after he’s let her go.
“You’re all this guy ever talked about,” Caleb replies instantly as he smirks at me. “I thought you were a fairy tale, but here you are.”
“Here she is,” I cut in, my tone sharp enough to end it. “She wanted to see the stadium.”
“Ah. Looking to see where Milo could still be?” Caleb asks, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening.
I send Caleb a warning look before glancing at Sadie, who looks both confused and amused.
“Could still be?” she questions, crossing her arms as she looks at me.
“Been trying to get this guy to come back and coach the running backs,” Caleb explains, and I look away.
It’s a dream coaching job, but dreams change when you realize what you really want in life. Or who you don’t want to lose.
“Oh,” Sadie says. “Well, that’s amazing. That’s got to be a bit better than coaching at Dusty Hollow High and filming TikToks.”
“Is he still doing that?” Caleb chuckles. “Does he still use those fake glasses?”
Sadie’s red lips stretch out in a smile. “And the empty coffee mug.”
“Oh, man. At least have the decency to make yourself a real cup of coffee,” Caleb teases.
“Decency? Do we want to talk about who scheduled 5 a.m. workouts and called it a ‘light day’?” I ask.
He chuckles. “Hey, it’s part of the job.”
“What is your job?” Sadie interrupts, her tone curious.
“Well, now I’m the offensive coordinator, but I was the running backs coach when Milo played,” he answers.
Sadie shrugs. “I don’t know what all that means.”
I laugh lightly at her honesty before I say, “She’s the girl who baked cookies for the other team if she knew we were going to destroy them.”
Sadie lightly punches me on the shoulder. I grin at her as she says, “I just wanted to soften the blow.”
Caleb smiles at Sadie. “I like you. Already did, but now I really do. Sounds like you might have to bake me some cookies if Milo here keeps turning me down.”
“Guess we’ll see,” she says, as if what Caleb is offering me is still an option.
It’s not. I’ve made my decision. I already chose football over her once. It’s a mistake I won’t make again.
“So, what’s the fuss about a pro football stadium?” Sadie shrugs.
“You’ve never seen one?” Caleb questions.
She shakes her head. “I mean, I grew up in Texas, so all stadiums, including small-town high schools, are a little glorified.”
“Follow me,” Caleb commands as he turns around.
Sadie grabs my hand, an action that pulls me back to what she wants and not where we are. She said she wanted to be where I had been, and it makes me ache that I’ve seen things she never has.
We follow Caleb, but I keep my eyes on Sadie. She’s taking it all in just like she did at the library, as if this place holds just as much history.
When we walk out of the tunnel onto the field, her jaw drops, and she freezes as her eyes trail up to the thousands of seats above us.
“How many people can the stadium seat?” she asks.
“82,500,” Caleb answers.
I watch as she blinks and bites down on her bottom lip, calculations drawing themselves out in her mind.
It’s a look she often had in high school—one I’d watch in amazement when she’d land on the correct answer without needing paper and pen.
It was Geometry she struggled with, where I finally had the opportunity to lean over her paper and make sense of it for her.
“That’s everyone in Dusty Hollow almost fourteen times over,” she marvels before she turns to me, eyes wide. “How did that feel? That many people watching you?”
I smile at her softly, because it didn’t matter how many people watched me. I only cared about who was missing in the stands. When she told me she watched me play with her dad, a piece of my heart felt full again just knowing her eyes had been on me, even if it was through a screen.
I shrug. “Strange,” I say. Lonely, too—but I don’t tell her that. Especially not with Caleb listening in.
“I bet,” she replies. She spins in a circle, her eyes taking it all in. “Wow. Milo Carter . . .” Her eyes are back on me. “You really were a Hot Shot.”
I chuckle and shake my head. “People cared about my stats.”
“Oh, I bet they cared about more than that,” she argues playfully. “I saw the way you looked in that uniform.”
I glance over at Caleb, who is still close enough to hear her words, and his brows arch in amusement.
“A man is more than the way he looks in his uniform,” I argue.
She turns, crossing her arms, and smirks at me. “Is he, though?”
“You’re more than a pretty woman in a sundress and red lipstick,” I say as I take a step toward her.
And while she is more, she is also a very pretty woman in a blue sundress with red lipstick. I watch from my peripheral as Caleb leaves us—giving us space without saying a word.
Her smile falters as her gaze falls toward the turf; then quietly she murmurs, “I don’t know, Milo.”
I reach for her instinctively, my hands wrapping around her arms. “Hey. Look at me,” I say gently.
Her chin lifts slowly, uncertainty pooling in her big brown eyes.
“What do you mean by that?”
She sucks her lower lip as she inhales deeply. “I haven’t done anything with my life. Not like you have. Not like this.” A tear tumbles down her cheek and I catch it with my finger, brushing it away. Her eyes drift from mine. “I was just . . . I just thought . . . I was supposed to be more.”
I’ve written words to this woman about how I’d give all this up if I had the chance to go back in time, but those are just words, and I find myself needing to give her more than that at this moment. I kneel before her, not wanting to hover above and make her seem small.
“Sadie,” I say. “I wish you could see yourself the way I do. You’re so much more than what you do.”
She looks down at me. “All I am is what I do. What everyone expects of me. This trip, the list, is the first thing I’ve done for myself since . . . forever. I’m afraid to go back, afraid to undo all I’m doing and feeling.”
“What are you feeling?” I ask, my heartbeat beginning to pick up its pace.
She sighs. “Myself. I feel myself.”
I grin softly at her words. “Sadie, you’re so beautiful as yourself.”
Her cheeks turn red and her eyes dart around the stadium, but I take her hands in my mine and pull her down so she’s kneeling in front of me.
I wipe another tear tumbling down her face before I wrap my arms tightly around her.
I feel her breathe into me, her body resting against mine.
Her muscles relax as she grows heavier in my arms, letting me be the strength she needs right now.
“You have to say that because you’re my ex-boyfriend,” she mumbles into my chest.
I laugh. “Most ex-boyfriends would say the opposite, even if it was untrue.”
Seconds pass before she asks, breath hot through my shirt, “Milo?”
“Hm?”
“Did I say you could kiss me the other night?” Her voice is quiet, almost timid, as if she’s tiptoeing around the details of karaoke and pina coladas.
“You did,” I confirm.
“Did you kiss me?”
“No,” I say simply.
“What if I asked you now?” She tilts her chin up at me.
I pull back slightly so I can see her fully. “I won’t kiss you unless it’s your choice, Sadie.”
I need her to choose me, because I know that right now she feels everything in her life has been chosen for her.
“Milo?” Her voice has grown deeper and steady, and it’s reflected in her eyes.
“Yes?”
“Can I kiss you?”
I’m sure she can hear my heart pounding between us, enough to know what my answer is.
“My lips are yours, Sadie,” I say.
She pulls away from me slightly, then studies my face before her finger traces my lips, and I beg them not to tremble against her touch, but they do. Sadie is destined to be both my undoing and my making.
When she leans in, I don’t meet her partway.
I wait for her. When her lips press into mine, it’s soft at first, the imprint of her lips no longer a memory on my mouth but a reality.
A burning heat rushes through me, and it must also happen to her, because her kiss deepens and light flashes behind my eyes.
Her hands are soon in my hair and mine in hers.
I’ve felt a lot of things on this field, but nothing compares to the strength of this.
Air suddenly seems unnecessary as the breath in my lungs become filled with hers. If this is all she gives me, I’ll spend the rest of my life grateful for it.
I hear a familiar hum through the stadium before the speakers crackle and pop.
“This is a family show,” Caleb’s voice booms, but it’s light. “But don’t worry, I’ve got you.”
Sadie finally withdraws her swollen lips from mine. Her hair is tousled in the best of ways, and she laughs. The sound is rich, warm, infectious.
Music begins to play through the speakers. “Slow Dance in a Parking Lot” by Jordan Davis.
I stand, my legs shaky, and offer Sadie my hand. “Want to dance?”
Her brown eyes sparkle. “It appears that’s next on the agenda.”
When the lyrics almost arrive at the words parking lot, Caleb’s voice is loud in the speaker, correcting it to stadium. Sadie’s smile stretches out farther and she leans back as I hold her, laughing.
I never want the song or her joy to end.
I spin her around, her movements wild and free.
When I pull Sadie back to me, we sway easily to the rhythm.
When the song fades, Caleb’s voice booms again, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to MetLife Stadium for tonight’s matchup between the beautiful Sadie Summers and the worse-for-wear Milo Carter! ”
I shake my head as Sadie looks up at me, a mischievous tilt to her mouth.
“Well?” she says softly.
“Well, what?”
“Let’s play, Hot Shot.”