28. Serena
SERENA
We’re all a little crazy in my family. Some of us are just a little more willing to whip it out, throw a leash on it, and take it for a walk in public than others.
—Serena’s Secret Thoughts
“Are you sure you don’t mind us crashing here for a few weeks?” Aurora asks the next day as the movers bring in another box and she points up the stairs. “Second door on the left.”
“Listen, Sleeping Beauty, if I minded, I probably would have said something before you set up the movers.” I twist to look out my beautiful stained-glass front door at the next mover to come a little too close to shattering that glass and shake my head. “No luck with the realtor yet?”
“Nope,” Saylor answers as she walks by, carrying a cat bed. “But I think Teags wants in on it too, so that changes what we’re looking for a little bit.”
Aurora squeaks, and Saylor and I both stare.
“Come on, it’s not like Teagan and I have ever gotten along. This ought to be interesting.”
“Sounds like you better suck it up, buttercup,” I taunt, then step aside as her arm swings my way. “Hey. No hitting your roommate.”
“Roommate?” comes from a new voice, one I’d know anywhere.
“Hi, Mom.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders and squeeze. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard a rumor your first day at King Corp. is Monday and wanted to bring you a present.” She looks at the complete chaos my house is in and blinks. “But I didn’t realize you had all this going on.”
“Olivia isn’t moving back in.” Pretty sure she knows it too.
Her Vegas wedding has become a full-blown marriage, and I’m positive my ride or die is madly in love.
That part though, she might not be completely sure about just yet, but I won’t be sharing that with Mom. “So I figured the more the merrier.”
Aurora grunts and stomps upstairs after a mover. “Not that room.”
“You sure you’re up for this, honey?” Mom asks as Kevin, the girls’ beautiful white Persian cat, launches itself from the back of my couch onto a box one of the movers is carrying, making him scream like a little girl. “Oh . . . I forgot about the cat.”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Me too. Want to go outside?”
“To hide?” Mom asks.
I nod. “Something like that.”
“The wind is changing,” Mom says as she rubs her hands up and down her arms. “There’ll be snow on the ground before we know it.”
“It’s not even Christmas yet, Mother,” I scold, not ready to race through fall just yet. I love this time of year. The frigid winter . . . not so much.
She hands me a slim white box with a beautiful vibrant purple bow. “Are you excited for your new direction?”
“I am,” I tell her, rubbing the silk ribbon between my fingers. “Honestly, I was shocked when Ty mentioned selling the team and wanting to sell it to me—”
“You were his first choice, Serena. Why were you shocked?”
I lift my eyes from the box to hers slowly. “And how do you know that?”
Guilt flashes across her face for a single second before she masks it with a devious smile. “Oh, honey, don’t ever forget that your father isn’t the only one with a family legacy in professional sports. I have my own connections, and Ty happens to be one of them.”
Self-preservation kicks in as my defenses go on high alert. “Did you tell him to make the offer?”
“No.” She shakes her head, her blonde shoulder-length bob moving with her. “He called me to see if I thought you’d be interested. He didn’t want to bring it to King Corp. without your involvement. You, my darling girl, were his first choice.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I move around the table and pull out a chair. “It’s been weeks.”
“Because I didn’t want to sway you one way or the other.
You’ve always needed time to work through things, Serena.
Ever since you were a little girl, you’ve weighed every pro and every con.
Sometimes longer than I thought was healthy, but we each have our processes for getting through life.
I’d know. We’re similar in that regard. But I was worried if I brought it to you, you’d jump on it because you thought that’s what I wanted.
” She sits down across from me, one brow arched.
“You can’t blame me. That’s exactly what you did when your father offered you the job with the Revolution. ”
“Have you ever taken time to work through something because you thought that’s what you should do, but your gut has been giving you the answer all along?
” I ask, directing the conversation away from work and right into the personal category.
Not sure she realizes it though. “I guess what I mean is have you ever gone with your gut instead of your pros and cons?”
“Oh, honey, every decision I’ve ever made, I’ve made because it felt right. Anything can look good on paper. But that doesn’t make it good.” She lifts a shoulder and purses her lips. “We’re not talking about work, are we?”
I shake my head.
“Is this about Hendrix Sinclair?”
I drop my head to my hands. “Does everyone in this town know everything?”
“Your car was in his driveway, Serena. Word travels.” She looks a little too pleased with herself, but in all honesty, I’m not even surprised.
“It hasn’t traveled to your father yet, though, so maybe pull him aside and let him know you’re seeing one of his players before he overhears it in the locker room. ”
She lays her hand out, palm up and asking for mine, and squeezes when I give her what she wants. “Is he good to you?”
“This time?” I ask, knowing what I’m giving away.
“Was there a last time?”
“Yes.” My eyes jump to the French doors where Kevin McFluffington III just shredded my favorite blue dupioni silk curtains. I’m going to kill my cousins. “He was good to me then, and he’s good to me now. It’s just complicated.”
“It will always be complicated, sweet girl. Love always is.”
Aurora, Saylor, and I watched the Revolution crush DC before the girls went to their rooms and I stayed on the couch, staring at my phone, wondering what to say.
I can hear Octavia in my head as if she were sitting here next to me.
Say what’s in your heart, Serena.
Why does it sound so easy coming from her?
And as if I’m having an actual conversation with myself, I can also hear my answer.
Not sure what that says about me. But at least I know the answer.
It sounds easy because it is easy. I’m making it hard.
I’m protecting my heart, and okay, that might not be a bad thing, but at some point, I’ve got to decide whether the risk outweighs the reward.
The thing is, I already know the answer.
Serena
You looked great out there tonight, Superman.
It takes over an hour for Hendrix to read the message, according to the read receipt, and the dots appear in the next second.
Hendrix
Can I see you tonight?
Serena
I can’t drive. I had a few glasses of wine with the girls while we watched the game.
Hendrix
Can I come to you? I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.
Serena
I’d like that.
Hendrix
I should be there in about an hour and a half, princess.
Serena
Be safe.
Hendrix
Always.
I spend the next hour reading on the couch with Kevin at my feet. But if anyone were to ask me what I read, I’d basically be screwed because I can’t focus on anything but the conversation I’m about to have and the way it’s making my stomach churn.
Probably should have stopped after one glass of red wine.
Tires on the gravel driveway alert me to Hendrix’s presence before he’s out of his car, and I have the door open by the time he gets up the stairs.
“You look so pretty in my shirts, princess.” He grins as I throw my arms around his shoulders, and his hands go right to my ass, lifting me in his arms.
“I’ve missed you,” I whisper and cup his face with both hands as I wrap my legs around his waist. “I don’t want anymore space.”
He kicks my door closed and stops in the foyer. “Where to, Serena?”
“Top of the stairs. Third door on the left,” I tell him, smiling. “But we have to be quiet. Aurora and Saylor moved in today.”
“What?” He stops halfway up the stairs. “Like moved in? Permanently?”
“Sort of. It’s a long story,” I say, clinging to him, then nod to my room and smile when he steps inside and kicks that door shut too. “You can put me down now, Hendrix.”
Instead of letting go, Hendrix sits down on the bed with me in his lap like some kind of glorified spider monkey. And I’ve got to say, I’m not complaining, not after spending too many days without him.
“Serena,” Hendrix says at the same time I utter his name.
We both smile, and I run the tip of my pointer finger over his lips. “Can I go first?”
“Always.” He grins, and I can’t be bothered by his innuendo because it’s always been true.
“We need to talk, Hendrix. Really talk and really listen. No more dancing around things.” He nods and kisses the tip of my finger softly, and my nerves settle just a little bit more. “No more throwing hurt in each other’s faces. If we’re going to move on, we need to actually move on.”
“I agree, and I need you to know how sorry I am. I heard what you said about saying no the other day, and baby, I’m so fucking sorry.
I was so hurt and so angry, I never thought about why you said no.
I was too busy focusing on the fact you said no.
” He runs his fingers through my hair and tucks it behind my ear, tilting my face up, and I relax just a little bit more and listen.
“I knew how important soccer was to you. I knew how hard you worked to get where you were. I wasn’t trying to change you or hold you back or say your career was any less important than mine.
I saw you in pain and knew you were a five-hour flight away, and my brain went into problem-solving mode. ”
“I didn’t want to be a problem to be solved,” I admit.
“When I found out I was pregnant, I was so scared because I didn’t know how we’d ever balance it all.
But I knew I wanted to try because that baby was a little piece of us.
I would have given up my career for us, if that was what was right for us.
Or I would have taken a year off, and we would have hired the best nanny in the world.
But we would have figured it out together. ”
I dig my fingers into the long hair at the back of his neck and close my eyes. “If you had said, I love you and can’t live without you. Marry me and we’ll figure this all out . . .” I open my eyes and stare into his. “I would have said yes.”
“I was so busy trying to fix everything, I fucked us up,” he says softly and rests his forehead against mine. “I felt like it was my fault. All of it. The pregnancy. The miscarriage. The fact I couldn’t be there when it happened. And fuck, the fact you didn’t want me there after. I—”
“You were human, and we were so young, Hendrix. We both made mistakes.”
He rubs his thumb along my jaw and cups my face. “Can you forgive me?”
“For that night?” I ask as my stomach churns.
“For everything. Not just that night. I should have called you and told you everything about Britt. If I had, we could have worked it out. I still could have claimed Bodhi, but I could have done it with you knowing the truth. And we could have found a way to take care of Britt together.” He pulls back and presses his lips to my forehead.
“I lost track of how many nights I lay in bed wondering what would have happened if I’d done that instead. ”
“I used to do the same thing.” My fingers begin working the buttons on his shirt until I’m able to shove it off his shoulders and feel his bare skin against my hands. “Wonder if I could have done things differently. Said things differently. But we can’t go back and fix it now.”
“No, baby, we can’t.” He lays me down on the bed, then shucks his pants, leaving just his boxers on before climbing in behind me and dragging me back to him.
One arm wraps around my chest, holding me reverently.
“I can’t promise everything will be easy, but I can promise I will love you every day for the rest of our lives, Serena. ”
I wrap my arm around his. “I don’t need easy. I just need you, Hendrix.”
“Can you promise me you’ll stop running before we get the chance to be good again?” He asks, softly, propping his head up on his hand, looking down on me. Waiting for an answer I’m scared to death to give.
“I promise to try,” I whisper back, praying it’s enough. “Can you promise me something?”
“Anything,” he sighs, his chest moving against my back and I let out a shaky breath. “One day, when we’re ready, will you ask me to marry you again?”
“The minute you tell me you’re ready, princess.
It was always you, Serena and it will always be you.
” He presses a kiss to my head. “You know in some cultures they believe in seven lifetimes. And in every life you find your person again and again and again.” His arms pull me impossibly closer until we’re breathing the same air.
“I feel like we’re on our second lifetime.
It’s not our first because I knew you were going to be my entire life way too early for it to be the first time I found you.
But we still had our struggles, so I don’t think it was our sixth or seventh time at this.
I figure by the time we hit six, things will be so easy we’ll meet and be married five months later and live disgustingly happy wedded bliss with our six kids and two dogs. ”
“Hendrix . . .” I breathe out, barely above a whisper.
And when his mouth finds mine and I love you is whispered against my lips, I think I might just believe it too.