Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Tate
The team got in late last night from Detroit, so on top of losing game eight and blowing our winning streak to a dumpster team, I’m running on four hours’ sleep.
Hell, I should be used to it by now. It’s been weeks since I’ve slept eight hours.
Exactly four weeks, but who’s counting. It’s my first broken heart, but so far, I’m sporting all the classic symptoms, according to Max.
It’s late and the locker room is emptying out. I’m only half dressed when Max comes by and says he’s taking off.
“By the way, you have a visitor. In the training room.” He gives me a wink and I wonder what shit he’s pulling. If it was Sean, I’d expect something devious, but since it’s Max, I get off my ass, grab a shirt and head for the training room. As soon as I push open the door, I know it’s her.
Chloe has a special scent that I’ll never forget as long as I live. It sends a spasm of longing and excitement, fear and joy running through me in a shiver as I step inside and close the door behind me, locking it.
She turns to face me and whatever warring chaos is fucking around in my head stops, the numbness that’s gripped me like a close friend disappears like a ghost. There’s something in her beautiful violet eyes that compels me forward, that clears my emotions like a tornado clears a forest.
Stopping in front of her without touching her, as if I’ve hit a glass wall, I say, “What is it Chloe? What’s wrong?”
I shouldn’t let my guard down because I know what lies just beneath it.
More than lust, more than caring—more than I want to think about because that way lies madness.
As in madly in love and I know why they call it mad now, understand the craziness it causes, how it messes up your head, fucks with your whole life and everything you thought you knew.
But the look in those eyes scares me more than anything else I’ve ever experienced. The room is deathly quiet and the air between us tense.
“I don’t know how to tell you this.” Her voice is wobbly, like she’s on the verge of crying and my fear for her blows up, spewing out fresh new emotion to replace whatever came before. Taking the last step to close the distance between us, I hold her arms.
“Tell me. What’s wrong?”
“It’s not wrong . . . but it’s not exactly right,” she says, her eyes glittering, but different than the last time I saw her with unshed tears. This time there’s no holding back as tears leak onto her cheeks in a small stream.
“I’m sorry—I’m extra emotional. It’s hormones,” she says as I don’t bother resisting my urge to brush her cheek with my thumb.
“You’re scaring me, Chloe.” My voice is shaky and it’s no exaggeration.
I’m preparing myself to hear that she’s dying and my gut roils and my heart screams, the sharp pain of it shooting through my chest. And that’s when I know I can’t walk away from her, should never have walked away from her, that she’s worth the risk.
Everything in me is quaking with equal measures of love and fear.
She puts her hands on me, touches my chest and leans in, looking up at me. “No, don’t be scared, Tate. It’s all right. I don’t expect anything from you. I’ll be fine.”
“You will?” I don’t believe her. Tears still stream down her beautiful cheeks from those remarkable wide-open violet eyes. You sure, Chloe? Tell me what this is about.” My words are soft, meant to sooth us both.
She nods like a bobblehead and I smile.
“That’s good.” I blow out a breath, but relief is quickly supplanted by confusion. “So tell me what the fuck is going on, Chloe? What’s making you cry?”
“I’m messing this up—I’m sorry. But it’s so hard, such a big, big thing and a surprise—such a surprise, and—”
“Chloe,” I grip her shoulders, “tell me what this big fucking surprise is right fucking now.”
“I’m pregnant.”
Boom.
“What?” My mind is blank. The shock is like jumping into Lake Michigan in early spring, the first time when the water’s fresh off the freeze.
My whole body goes numb and I hold my breath, my eyes close and I wait to resurface, for the world to start up again with a big breath of air.
But the big sad violet eyes staring at me are still sparkling with unshed tears and my heart beats wildly, pounding too hard to be healthy.
Something hot and electric starts in the pit of my stomach and spreads through me like a wildfire. “What did you say?”
“I’m pregnant, Tate. With our child. You’re going to be a father. I’m going to be a fucking mother. We’re having a baby—” Once she gets going, she can’t stop, but her words are registering now.
“Chloe.” I whisper the words like I have rust in my throat. “Are you sure?”
She nods, shaking another stream of tears loose, and I reach up and wipe her cheek with my thumb again, my hand shaking.
“I just came from the doctor.” She clears her throat, sniffles and goes on with bravado. “It’s official. You and I will become parents in about seven and a half months. It turns out my birth control patch was overdue for replacement.”
But the bravado doesn’t hold and her cocky smile quivers. “I’m sorry, Tate.”
Her voice is soft and heart wrenchingly sorrowful. My chest feels like I’ve just been branded by hot irons—with Chloe’s name on them. Reaching out to her I pull her to me and wrap my arms around her, pressing her against me, as much to soothe the searing in my soul as hers.
She doesn’t want me and I’m not so sure she wants this baby, even as brave as she’s trying to be, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to be the best damned father this baby could have. No kid of mine is going to live a minute feeling unwanted.
Tears soak my sweaty shirt and I realize belatedly the last place she probably wants to be is pressed to a smelly practice shirt in the arms of a man too foolish to appreciate her, too stubborn to forgive her.
“Chloe.” I don’t know what to say, where to begin.
“You already said that, Fontanna,” she mumbles into my shirt and I let out a big breath, a smile in spite of the jumbled confusion in my head and heart.
Relief that she sounds like her irrepressible self, that I haven’t crushed her spirit, overwhelms me, helping to clear away some of the hurricane of emotions knocking me on my ass like no offensive lineman ever did.
When the fog clears, the one emotion that’s left standing is pure, ecstatic joy. I don’t go looking for any chasers of uncertainty or doubt to ruin the moment. There’s nothing else in me now but pure euphoria, a burning well of happiness like I’ve never felt before. I squeeze her tight.
She pushes back and looks up at me.
“You’re smiling,” she says. “Two dimples.”
“You bet your sweet ass.” I lift her off the ground and swing her around. “This is unbelievable. You and I?”
She nods, tentative at first, then smiles back.
“Does this mean you’ll marry me, Fontanna?”
I check her eyes to make sure she’s serious, but I know she is. She wants me and the baby. I should be shocked, but I’m not. I’m tight and welling over with emotions and I try to control them enough to function or at least speak up, say what’s bursting from me unchecked.
“You sure that’s what you want?” my voice shakes.
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
I laugh, because it’s so Chloe Smith.
“The only way this is going to work is if I’m the one who asks.” Steadier now, I take her face in my hands and bring my lips to hers in a caress and then ask her.
“Chloe, will you marry me?”
“Only if you love me.” Her voice is quiet and brave and sends a wave of warmth through me.
“I’m madly in love with you.”
“Do you trust me?” she whispers and then holds her breath. I don’t think, I talk, saying what’s in my heart.
“I trust you with all my heart. I trust you to be the mother of my child.”
Her grin lights up the universe and she nods wildly, spilling curls onto her face as she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say in between kisses. We hold each other tight in the middle of the training room at the stadium. Tears are streaming down her face now, but I know they’re happy tears and I kiss them away.
“I love you so much, Fontanna. You have no idea how happy you’re making me right now.”
I should be in shock, should feel like this is all a dream, but it feels more like I’ve awakened from a nightmare, the one where I was trapped in old fears, held captive by my own inability to trust myself, or to trust and to forgive the woman I love.
“I think I have an idea.”
She pulls away from me.
“No changing your mind.”
I laugh and pull her back into a hug. “I won’t don’t you worry. Things are starting to make sense to me now. You’re making me happy.”
“What if I make you mad? What if I—“
“I’m sure you will, Chloe. I’m sure I’ll make you mad too. It’s the nature of our relationship.”
“I don’t car how mad you make me Tate. I want you, I want to be with you. I want you to be my family, the person I go to for… everything.”
“Like you used to go to your dad?” I pull back and look into those eyes and the honesty I see there doesn’t disappoint me.
“Yes.” She breathes in deep like she’s about to dive into the deep end of a pool and says, “Only more. So much more.”
The banging on the door startles me and I hold her away from the door, automatically protecting her, blocking her from view.
“What do you want?”
“It’s Max. Everything okay, Chloe?”
I turn to her and she smiles.
“Everything is wonderful Max.”
I add, “How do you feel about being best man at a wedding—“
I don’t get any further before a whole commotion lets loose on the other side of the door and I’m glad it’s locked.
“Oh my God, Fontanna, you announced our engagement. I… I…”
“You’re speechless?”
“It’s a lot for a girl to process.”
“You’re no ordinary girl. You’re Chloe Smith, daughter of the late, great Oscar Smith, bold and beautiful and fearless.” I cup her face with my hand. “And don’t you forget it.”
Then I kiss her, touching her lips softly, then pressing hard to possess her, to make her forget the past month, to forget everything but the two of us—and our baby and our future together.