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“Say that again.” His voice was dangerously low as he waited to hear the words.
“I want you, Tommy Mikals.”
Every part of me knew the words were true. They had been living inside me since the moment that he had kissed me the last time we were in Los Angeles. I knew the moment my pen had touched that contract Monica had put in front of me that I wasn’t supposed to catch feelings. At the time, I had thought that would be an easy task. I had known Tommy Mikals to be a player that only cared about women, drinking, and money. But what I had learned over the little time I had known him was that that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
I had fallen for a guy that was incredibly patient and kind, someone who saw me with all of my scars but still thought I was the most beautiful person in the room. The feelings I had for Tommy hadn’t been there when I first met him. They had been watered through our time spent together and had slowly bloomed with every shared smile, fleeting glance, or hand held.
Both of Tommy’s hands came up to cup my cheeks as he covered my lips with his. A hunger exploded from his mouth as it explored mine. His teeth skated across my lips, teasing me and sending shocks of pleasure down my body. Heavy want blazed through my body as Tommy pulled me even closer, trying to erase every nook and cranny of space that lived between us. I sighed into his mouth as he kissed me slower and with more passion than I had thought was possible. Tommy pulled back so he could study me.
“You have no idea how much I have wished to hear you say those words.” I slid my hands down his chest, wanting desperately to fist my hand in his shirt, but I knew Monica would kill me if we appeared on the carpet a rumpled mess.
“I want you too.” Tommy took a step back from me as he ran a hand through his hair. “God, Maggie. I want more for you than this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to date you. Really date you. Without all of this.” He waved a hand in the air to encompass the mess the two of us had gotten into. “I don’t want to put our relationship out there publicly like this. I know what that can do to a couple. It can tear the relationship up from the inside out.”
My mind flashed to the uncashed check that was sitting on my counter at home. I had stared at the zeroes on it for almost an hour, debating what to do before I decided I wasn’t going to do anything and left the check on my counter where it had been since.
“We can’t walk away now, Tommy,” I reminded him. “You’d lose your contract.”
“Part of me wonders if that’s such a bad thing anymore,” Tommy whispered softly.
“I would never let you give up baseball for me.”
“I know that.” Tommy’s voice was still barely audible. “But I’m a wreck, Maggie. I’ve about fucked my way out of my career—literally. The girl I thought I was going to marry messed me up so badly, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust anyone again. I’m constantly worried about screwing up and having all of this taken from me. But not because I’d lose the lifestyle—because I’d lose the only version of myself I know. I’m way too much to ask you to take on. These last few months have allowed me to have you without the risk of losing you because I’ve always known you could never be mine. I don’t deserve you.”
Tommy’s hands continued to work through his hair, ruining the work that had been done to prepare him for the carpet we were about to walk down. The sadness dripped down his features like a steady rain as he looked at me.
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t mean what I just said. I want to be clear about that. I want you, Maggie Redford. So goddamn much. But you deserve to be with someone that can make you happy.”
I had never seen so much raw emotion displayed on Tommy’s face outside of the baseball field. He looked beautiful. Like a city with all the lights on at night. Warmth spread through my body, all the way to my fingers, because that emotion was there because of me. Because he cared about me too. My hands curled around his jaw.
“You make me happy, Tommy, and if you haven’t realized it yet, I’m also a fucking wreck. So let’s be one giant wreck together.”
A small smile pulled the corners of Tommy’s mouth upward. I pushed up on my tiptoes and brushed a gentle kiss across his mouth, sure that if I gave him the kind of passion he gave me earlier, he would crumble right in front of me.
“Are you sure?” he asked me when he pulled back.
“I could say something cheesy about standing here in my best dress, but I won’t. So of course I’m serious, but how about this? For the past four years, I haven’t even looked at guys in any sort of romantic way. Until I saw you. You changed everything for me, Tommy.”
“Maggie . . .” My name passed his lips like a prayer as he leaned down to press one more kiss to my lips. “Let’s do this.”
The nerves I had felt from the moment we had walked into the hotel room left my body as Tommy slid his hand in mine. For the first time in four years, it finally felt like I had a little bit of luck.
Maggie
Acar took us to the venue where SUVs were waiting to drop off their passengers at the red carpet. Police officers had the surrounding streets shut down, and fans stood on the sidewalks wearing their favorite athlete’s jersey and holding signs as the cars passed them. I spotted a few Tommy Mikals signs as we edged closer to the carpet. He wasn’t up for any categories tonight, but Monica had gotten him to present one of the awards.
“Are you doing okay?” I asked him as I watched his leg jiggle faster and faster the closer we got to the venue.
“Honestly . . .” His hand threaded through mine. “Not sure yet.”
“Good or bad, we’ll get through it together.”
Tommy lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to it without looking over at me.
Our phones went off at the same time, tearing our attention away from each other. I tapped on my screen to see that I had been tagged in an article from NewsWeekly. The headline reported that Tommy and I were discussing moving in together. A headache that felt always present nowadays whenever it came to the media circus that Monica was orchestrating pressed against my skull.
