Chapter 23
Jalen
As I picked up the flowers, my thoughts drifted back to everything that had happened before she called.
The day had started with another phone call from Whitaker, but this time he wasn't calling about Darren.
He was calling about the waitress.
His investigators hadn't stopped working after uncovering the evidence against Darren Hill because, while reviewing interviews and surveillance from the practice facility, they had stumbled onto an entirely different pattern.
According to Whitaker, the waitress had spent months deliberately placing herself in environments where professional athletes were likely to be, including upscale restaurants, exclusive lounges, charity events, and even team facilities after practices and games.
Several players quietly admitted that she had approached them in similar ways over the past year, although none of those encounters had gone beyond brief conversations.
Then Whitaker shared the piece of information that made everything finally make sense.
A freelance photographer had voluntarily come forward and admitted that the waitress contacted him nearly thirty minutes before I ever walked out of the facility.
According to his statement, she offered to pay him if he would wait outside with his camera because she planned to create a moment that could be sold to celebrity gossip outlets.
The investigator showed me copies of the messages they exchanged, along with payment records and time stamps that confirmed exactly when the arrangement had been made.
Every piece of evidence supported the photographer's account and established that the entire encounter had been carefully orchestrated before I ever stepped outside.
Whitaker leaned back in his chair after I finished reading the report.
"She wasn't trying to meet you," he said calmly. "She was trying to manufacture a story."
I looked up from the file.
"For attention?"
He slowly shook his head.
"For money."
He explained that several entertainment blogs routinely paid for exclusive photographs involving professional athletes, and she believed that a few carefully staged pictures would be enough to create a scandal worth selling.
Unfortunately for her, the plan had worked far better than she expected.
The photographs spread across social media within hours, major news outlets picked up the story, and speculation exploded before anyone bothered to ask what had actually happened.
Once the photographer came forward, however, the narrative began shifting almost immediately because his testimony, the messages, and the payment records all supported the same version of events.
The Texans' legal department immediately coordinated with league counsel, public statements were drafted, and Whitaker's team began providing verified information to reporters who had originally published the photographs.
On paper, everything was finally moving in the right direction.
None of it gave me any peace.
The media could correct the story.
The lawyers could release statements.
The internet could eventually move on.
None of those things mattered if Mars still believed I had betrayed her, because no amount of evidence would erase the pain she had already experienced.
On paper, everything was finally moving in the right direction.
The media had started correcting the story.
The blogs that rushed to publish the photographs were quietly updating their headlines.
The photographer's statement was spreading across social media faster than the original rumors had.
People were finally beginning to ask the right questions instead of making assumptions.
None of it brought me any peace.
Public opinion had never been what worried me.
The headlines would disappear within a few days.
Another story would replace mine.
That was how the news cycle worked.
What kept me awake wasn't the media.
It was Mars.
I had replayed our last conversation so many times that I could practically recite every word from memory.
I kept wondering if there had been something else I could have said.
Maybe I should have driven to her apartment sooner.
Maybe I should have fought harder to get upstairs.
Maybe I should have told security to tell her I wasn't leaving until she heard me out.
None of those thoughts changed the outcome.
She hadn't answered.
She hadn't returned a single call.
She hadn't responded to one text.
That silence hurt more than anything the internet had managed to say about me.
I spent the rest of the morning pretending to focus on meetings that I barely remembered.
People congratulated me on the playoff win, but their words drifted past me without really sinking in.
Someone joked about the touchdown pass.
Another person asked how my shoulder was feeling.
I answered every question automatically, but my thoughts never stayed in the room for very long.
Every few minutes my hand found my pocket before I even realized I was reaching for my phone.
Nothing.
No missed calls.
No messages.
No sign that she was ready to talk to me.
I finally stopped pretending to work and walked outside.
The afternoon sun reflected off the glass buildings downtown, and traffic rolled steadily through the streets as though the rest of the world hadn't changed at all.
I leaned against the hood of my truck and stared across the parking lot.
It amazed me how quickly life could change.
Three days earlier I had been planning another date with the woman who made every ordinary day feel extraordinary.
Now I was standing alone wondering whether I had already lost her.
I thought about the first afternoon we met at Oliver's.
She had laughed when I offered to carry her coffee even though she was perfectly capable of doing it herself.
She had rolled her eyes every time I teased her.
She had looked at me like she wasn't quite sure whether she liked me or wanted to argue with me.
I smiled without meaning to.
Somewhere between that afternoon and now, she had quietly become part of every plan I made.
When I finished practice, I wondered if she wanted dinner.
When something funny happened, I reached for my phone before remembering she wasn't there to text.
Even grocery shopping felt strange without wondering whether I should grab the strawberry lemonade she liked or the chocolate-covered almonds she always claimed she wasn't going to eat before finishing half the bag.
She had woven herself into the smallest parts of my life without either of us noticing.
Loving her hadn't happened all at once.
It had happened one ordinary moment after another until I couldn't imagine my life without her in it.
I looked down at my phone one more time.
Still nothing.
I let out a slow breath and slipped it back into my pocket.
"If you're listening, God," I said quietly, "I'm not asking You to fix everything today."
I looked up toward the sky.
"I'm just asking for one more conversation."
The phone vibrated in my hand before I could lower it.
My heart nearly stopped.
I looked down.
**Mars Calling.**
For a second I simply stared at her name, almost afraid that if I moved too quickly the screen would disappear.
Then I answered before the first ring had even finished.
"Amara?"
For just a moment, neither of us spoke.
I could hear her breathing softly on the other end of the line, and somehow that sound alone made every ounce of tension leave my body.
"Hi," she whispered.
I closed my eyes and smiled to myself.
She had called.
She had finally called.
"Where are you?" I asked gently.
"I want to see you."
There was a brief pause before she answered.
"I just left Gutters."
I glanced toward the passenger seat where the bouquet of white roses and the dessert box from Oliver's had been sitting since that morning.
I had bought them hours ago because some stubborn part of me refused to stop believing she would eventually call.
"Meet me at Bayou Park," I said softly.
"The park across from Oliver's?"
"Yeah."
I heard her let out the smallest laugh through her tears.
"I'd like that."
"I'll see you soon."
The moment the call ended, I picked up the flowers, grabbed the dessert, and headed for the door.
For the first time in two days, hope felt stronger than fear.
The drive to Market Square Park felt completely different than the drive to her apartment two nights earlier.
That night I had driven with a knot in my stomach, wondering whether I had already lost the best thing that had ever happened to me.
Tonight I drove with hope.
It was fragile.
It was cautious.
But it was there.
The flowers rested on the passenger seat beside the dessert box from Oliver's, and every time I glanced over at them, I found myself wondering if she would smile when she saw I remembered.
I pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later and shut off the engine.
For a second I just sat there with both hands resting on the steering wheel.
My heart hadn't pounded like this before a game since college.
I laughed quietly to myself.
Eighty thousand people screaming my name had never made me nervous.
One woman waiting on a park bench somehow managed to undo every ounce of confidence I thought I had.
I picked up the flowers and the dessert before stepping out of the truck.
The evening air was cooler now, and the fading sunlight painted the skyline in shades of orange and violet that reflected across the water.
As I rounded the path, I saw her.
She was sitting on the same bench where we had laughed together after leaving Oliver's weeks earlier.
She hadn't noticed me yet.
She sat quietly with her hands folded in her lap while the breeze gently lifted a few loose curls away from her face.
She looked peaceful.
She also looked exhausted.
The last two days had left their mark on both of us.
I stood there for a moment longer than I probably should have.
Not because I was afraid to walk toward her.
Because I wanted to remember this moment.
I wanted to remember the exact second I realized she was really here.
Then she looked up.
Our eyes met across the path.
The moment she recognized me, something changed in her expression.
The worry she had been carrying softened, and I watched her shoulders relax in a way they hadn't the last time I saw her.
I hadn't realized until then how badly I needed to see that look.
I started walking again.
Every step seemed to quiet another fear that had been living inside me for the last two days.
When I finally reached her, I didn't think.
I set the flowers and the dessert on the bench beside her and pulled her into my arms before either of us had the chance to speak.
The moment I felt her arms wrap around my neck, I closed my eyes.
She hugged me back.
Not politely.
Not cautiously.
She held me with the same desperation I had been feeling since she stopped answering my calls.
I lifted her off the ground without even realizing I was doing it.
She laughed softly through a shaky breath as she settled against me, and hearing that laugh again felt like someone had finally turned the lights back on after days of darkness.
I buried my face against the side of her neck and simply held her.
For the first time since the photograph appeared online, my mind finally became quiet.
She was here.
She had called.
She hadn't walked away.
I felt her fingers slowly slide through the hair at the back of my neck, and I realized she was comforting me just as much as I was comforting her.
The thought nearly broke me.
I had spent two days trying to convince myself to be strong.
The truth was I hadn't been strong at all.
I had been scared.
Scared that trauma had stolen one more thing from her.
Scared that Darren had managed to hurt her again without ever laying another hand on her.
Scared that I had become another reason she believed people couldn't be trusted.
I never wanted to be that man.
Not for her.
Not ever.
I finally let out the breath I felt like I had been holding for two days.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
The words weren't an apology for something I had done.
They were an apology for every ounce of pain she had carried because of me, even if I hadn't caused it.
She immediately pulled back just enough to look at me.
"I'm sorry too," she said, and I could already see tears gathering in her eyes.
I gently brushed one away with my thumb before it could fall.
"You don't have to apologize to me."
"Yes, I do."
She shook her head.
"I should have trusted you."
I listened while she poured everything out, and I realized she had been hurting every bit as much as I had.
There wasn't any anger left in me.
There wasn't any frustration.
The only thing I felt was gratitude.
She came back.
That was enough.
When she thanked me for protecting her, I looked down at our hands intertwined between us.
I hadn't protected her because it was the right thing to do.
I had protected her because somewhere along the way, without either of us noticing, her happiness had become more important to me than my own.
I looked into her eyes and finally stopped fighting the truth I had been carrying for weeks.
"I love you."
The words felt strangely peaceful once they were spoken.
They didn't scare me anymore.
They felt like coming home.
When she smiled through her tears and whispered that she loved me too, every fear I had been carrying quietly disappeared.
For the first time in a very long time, everything felt exactly the way it was supposed to.