21. Declan
Declan
To be trusted is a greater compliment
than being loved.
~ George MacDonald
I propel into the training room, aiming for the table where my therapist will evaluate my progress and then do some massage and mobility work before sending me to my workout with our trainer.
I’m only halfway across the room when Delaney pokes his head into the room.
“Announcement!” He claps and whistles. “Announcement!”
I shake my head, a half-smile on my face even though I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.
“Hear ye! Hear ye! Let it be known in this fair land that our tight end has secured himself a girlfriend!”
Whoops, catcalls and laughter fill the therapy room.
Girlfriend.
I’m good with that.
Winona seems to still be a little confused as to what we’re doing. I am not confused at all. I want her. And now that we’re clear about our feelings for one another, I’ll take all the labels. Dating. Girlfriend. All of it.
I nod my head, basically confirming Delaney’s announcement. Then I turn around using my crutches to maneuver and bow once, turn and bow again, and then pivot one more time and bow to the final group of my teammates.
“Get it out of your systems,” I say. “I knew this was coming. You’re not original or surprising.”
“We’re just warming up!” Caleb Sutton shouts from the other side of the room.
“She’s in the building!” Aaron Hayward adds.
“Wait,” Nico McBride says. “It’s your nurse?”
“Winona,” Delaney says for me. “She’s got a name.”
I propel the rest of the way to the therapy table. The guys settle down.
I don’t dignify their curiosity with an answer. I just say, “You are worse than a salon full of seniors with your hunger for gossip. Get a life!”
“Someone’s gettin’ a life!” Jaxon shouts with a series of whistles. “Injured but still making the moves, O’Connell!”
This gets everyone riled up again. My therapist enters the room, making a beeline for me. The team might love to joke, but we also know when to be serious. Once Lynn’s at my side, the heckling subsides.
I answer her questions. No pain. No swelling. No issues since last time. When I finish in the therapy room, I meet my trainer in the weight room, and then I wrap my cast and shower.
I text Winona from the locker room.
Declan: Just getting dressed after my shower. Meet me in the cafeteria in ten?
Winona: Yes! My stomach is literally growling. Should I tell you that? Maybe that’s not the sort of thing I should say to the guy I’m dating. It’s not exactly sexy.
Declan: Cheesy as this is going to sound, everything you say is sexy. Let’s get you some food.
My phone pings and an image of her smiling fills the screen. I save it to my camera roll and set it as my lock screen.
Linc comes out of the showers and walks over to his locker next to mine. He glances down at my cell.
“Lock screen updated? This is serious.”
I smile because I can’t help myself.
“Yeah. It’s serious. She’s different.”
“She definitely is,” he agrees. “I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks. So, you’re not going to give me grief?”
“Oh. No. I’ll be giving you grief. I just wanted to be nice first.”
I chuckle. “Yeah. That’s what I figured.”
“I give my stamp of approval on Winona, though,” Linc says. “She’s the real deal.”
“She is.”
I don’t say anything else, but Linc’s approval means the world to me.
My team watched me go through devastation over Ginger.
I wasn’t broken up over her so much as the way she dragged my name through the mud.
I did like her before she pulled her stunts.
But if I knew then that I could ever feel what I feel for Winona for a woman, I wouldn’t have given Ginger the time of day.
I dress quickly, throwing my towel in the hamper and heading out to the cafeteria.
Winona’s already waiting for me when I come through the doors. Her face lights up with a smile that’s more expressive than usual. I’m struck with the realization that we both were holding back. No more of that. I propel over to her and place a kiss on her lips.
When I step back, she’s blushing. She glances around the cafeteria and then back at me.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m just really happy to see you.”
I run my hand down her arm.
I’ve never felt such an insatiable craving to spend time with someone.
She stares up at me. “I’m happy to see you too. How was therapy and your workout?”
“Good. I’m feeling stronger.”
The guys come in behind me.
“Winona!” Jaxon shouts. “Sit with us.”
“Okay,” she says, a note of bashfulness in her voice.
Winona carries my tray and we load up two plates, and then she goes back through the lines to get her own meal. I watch her move through the room with a familiarity that warms me. She’s at home in my world.
When she takes her seat next to me, Jaxon starts in. “Winona, if you wanted to date a Thunder player, we could have found you someone worthy of your awesomeness. You went and settled for O’Connell.”
Winona laughs as if his taunting is entertaining.
I glance around the table. The guys are all laughing. And they’re smiling—at her.
She’s special and they know it.
I can’t stop smiling, either. Despite the burn that comes with the idea of Winona being with anyone else.
“I’m kidding, O’Connell.” Jaxon laughs, sloughing off the joke.
I smile, settling my arm around Winona’s shoulders.
Delaney’s face straightens and his tone is more conspiratorial. “Seriously, Winona, don’t go breaking Declan’s heart. He had a rough go a few years back. We all wondered if he’d ever date again.”
“Okay, Okay,” I say, not wanting to bring up my past relationship failures in front of Winona. “She doesn’t want to hear all that.”
“Actually, I do.” She pops her hand on her chin. “Spill the tea, gentlemen.”
She wags her brows at me.
I take a breath. If anyone’s filling her in on my history, it’s going to be me. “I dated the wrong woman. It went south. I learned some hard lessons.”
She puts her hand over mine. “We’ve all made some bad choices in the past.”
“Not like this one,” Delaney says. “Trust me, Winona. She was a piece of work.”
Quietly, Linc says, “But that’s all behind us. As for you? We give you the Thunder seal of approval.”
She smiles and then she looks at me with a softness that tells me she’s sorry for what I went through. That’s Winona—always absorbing the pain of others as if it were her own, and making the world brighter wherever she goes.
“The past is in the past,” I assure her.
She nods.
Someone starts humming Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart. Another guy joins in, and pretty soon the whole table is humming. Winona’s laughing with her head tossed back. I shake my head, but an unfamiliar warmth fills my chest.
I’ve had everything I wanted at my fingertips for years.
But I’ve never had this.
After lunch, I walk Winona to the empty office. She studies while I watch film and then sit on the sidelines during practice. I stop into the therapy room on the way out to tell Lynn I’m feeling fine after my workout.
I pick up my pace through the hallway, passing players and staff on the way to the office where Winona has her books and notebooks spread around on the floor. She’s leaning back on the wall, her knees up and a textbook spread open.
I stand in the doorway, watching her until she looks up.
“Oh! I didn’t hear the door. Are you ready?”
She shuts her book and starts gathering her things.
“Are you coming over for dinner?” I ask.
“Are you inviting me?” She looks up at me with a smile.
“I am most definitely inviting you.”
“You’re not too tired from treatment and your workout?”
“I’ve barely seen you all day.”
I know I sound borderline eager. I don’t care. Winona and I aren’t teenagers. I’ve been waiting to see how she felt and now that I know, I want to spend every minute we can together.
She stands, lifting her backpack. “You saw me at lunch.”
“I had to share you with the guys at lunch. I want you to myself.”
She shakes her head as if she can’t believe me.
“What’s for dinner?” she asks, stepping past me into the hall.
“Steak bowls with sweet potatoes.”
“We’re so spoiled!” she says.
“Yeah,” I agree. “I guess we are.”
We’re quiet on the way home. I lean back and close my eyes. It’s a good kind of exhaustion—the kind that tells me I put in the work. Days like today mean I’m that much closer to getting back on the field.
As we’re approaching the first gate in my neighborhood, I open my eyes.
Winona looks over at me. “I didn’t mean to pry at lunch.”
“About my past relationship?”
“You don’t have to tell me anything.” Her brows lift.
She’s curious. I can’t blame her.
“I really don’t want to ruin our time together with talk of my past relationships.”
“Relationships,” she says. “Yeah. It might be best not to dive into all that.”
I imagine what she might be thinking. Winona has quite the imagination.
“I dated a girl in high school. Went out with women in the early years of my career but didn’t get serious. Not until Ginger.”
“Ginger?” she laughs. “Why do all the women who chase you have names that could be in a spice rack or a jewelry store?”
I laugh. “Beats me.”
“She hurt you?” Her face is as full of concern as it was the times she stayed to make me comfortable during a pain spike.
“She did. I hate to characterize people, but she was a gold-digger, a fame-chaser.”
I pause, gauging Winona’s reaction. She’s quietly focused on the road, but her brows draw in.
Her obvious concern for me settles somewhere deep, easing an ache I didn’t realize still existed.
During the fallout with Ginger, Dad was focused on image management.
Mom was furious on my behalf. Winona isn’t interested in my future with the Thunder or my public image. She just cares—about me.
I’d want to know if she had gone through something this cruel and disruptive, so I fill her in on the rest.
“Ginger just wanted a piece of my spotlight to shine on her. It got pretty ugly. My mom had fixed us up. She met her through a mutual friend. It was the one time I actually capitulated and dated one of the women my parents attempted to fix me up with.” I shake my head. “An utter train wreck.”
“Declan,” Winona says, her voice is soft, filled with compassion. “You don’t have to go into this. You’ve had a long day. I get the picture.”
She’s right. I don’t have to go into it. But I want to. I want Winona to know everything. Even before we were dating, she’d become one of the few people I can tell everything. Maybe she’s the one person.
A lot of women would come into a relationship with me already knowing about Ginger and the headlines and the drama that followed. But not Winona. She didn’t follow football until we met. She’s not interested in the gossip that comes with the job.
Winona’s interested in me.
She pulls through the second gate in our neighborhood.
“I want you to know,” I say. “Ginger went to the press with a bunch of false statements about me. She thought she’d build her own fame by tearing me down.
Our PR and legal teams were on the situation like white on rice, so I outlasted the defamation.
But it soured me on dating so much that I haven’t been out with anyone since. ”
Winona’s face is horrified. Of course it is. She’d never consider the possibility of taking advantage of someone.
“That’s awful!” she exclaims. “What is the matter with people?”
“The guys call her Barbie 2.0.”
“Nice,” she says, still seeming to hold on to her rare standards of decency, even though she’s obviously appalled by the way I was treated.
“Yeah. I never use the term,” I say. “But if I’m honest, I don’t hate it when they do.”
“They’ve got your back.”
“Yeah. They do.”
She’s quiet, pulling through the gate to my house.
“That’s all water under the bridge, though,” I assure her. “I moved on.”
“And you haven’t dated since then.”
“No interest.”
“Until now.” Her smile is coy—like she’s secretly delighted, but trying to hide the fact.
“Now? I have a lot of interest.”
She puts the car in park. I stare into her eyes. “All the interest.”
She giggles and shimmies her shoulders playfully. “Because I’m so awesome?”
She’s joking. But she has no idea.
“You are.”
“Did you ever hear the saying, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”
“Of course.”
“You see me in a way …”
She doesn’t finish, but I hear what she’s not saying.
“Maybe you should try my glasses on for size.”
Winona doesn’t lack self-esteem. She’s a confident woman. Her comfort in her own skin is one of her most attractive qualities.
But she really doesn’t see how she outshines every other woman.
I reach over, running my hand down her hair and then down her arm. A new mission forms in my mind. I’m going to make her see what I see. It might take a while, but I’m determined. And nothing stops me when I set my sights on a goal.
I lean across the console and kiss her cheek, hoping my affection tells her everything she needs to know.
She’s the type of woman a man builds a life with.
The thought sneaks up on me: I want to be that man.