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“Oh.” I glance down. The threadbare material has seen better days, torn on the left sleeve and a hole forming under my right breast, but it smells like him and it feels like him. I never want to take it off. “Yeah. I am.”
“What if we don’t end it?” he asks.
I stare at him. “Not end what?”
“Our arrangement.”
“What do you mean?”
“What if we were in a relationship? Arealrelationship?”
“For real? For real how?”
“Well.” He runs his knuckles down my jaw and hums. “For starters, I could sleep over. I could spend every night with you, then wake up next to you in the morning. I’d cook you breakfast; scrambled eggs, just the way you like them.”
“You want to cook me breakfast?” I whisper, incapable of any other words except for his own mirrored back to him.
“I do. I could give you a key to my apartment and let you have free rein. I could stop by when I got back in town from games and not have to go home alone. Bring you with me on the team plane and sneak you into the bathroom so I could kiss you senseless without anyone teasing us. And I would tell you I love you. Very much and very often, because I do. I do love you, Lacey. I don’t want to let you go just yet. Can I keep you a little while longer?”
My bottom lip wobbles. My hands tremble, and I sniff. “How much longer?” I ask.
“How does forever sound?” Shawn asks. His lips pull up higher in the corners and his nose scrunches. Little wrinkles form around his eyes, and there’s so muchjoyon his face.
“You want to be with me?”
“More than I want anything else in this world, Lacey girl,” he says, and my heart nearly bursts out of my chest.
I grab the lapels of his fancy coat and pull him toward me. He chuckles when I stand on his boots to make myself taller, but I need to be as close as I can to him.
“Forever is a long time,” I say.
“And it still wouldn’t be long enough. I love you so very much. I think maybe I’ve always loved you,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse, but he’s sincere, resolute, a sure thing he knows with absolute certainty.
“I love you too,” I whisper back.
I choke out a sob as I say it, the four words barreling into me with a wave of emotion. My fingers dig into the wool of his jacket, and I clutch onto him for dear life. I’m afraid that if I let go, my feet will come off the ground.
“Sometimes I think you’re this perfect person I dreamed up.” He takes a deep breath, and energy builds between us. “And it scares me you might not be real. That what we have might not be real.”
“I’m real,” I say, and my eyes prickle with tears. “And this is real. What I feel for you is as real as the sky is blue.”
“I think about you when I’m away. I miss you when I’m gone. I count down the seconds until I can see you again,” Shawn says. He wipes a tear from my cheek then kisses his thumb, as if he’s collecting the drops to save for later. “I can’t—I don’twantto go through life without you by my side.”
“You won’t have to. I’m here with you, Shawn. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours, and I’m always going to be yours.”
I loop my arms around his neck and pull him close. I stand on my toes and kiss him so hard I think I might explode. His nose brushes against mine, and a giggle lodges its way into my throat.
“You make all of this tolerable,” he says. “The traveling, the long days, the sleepless nights. But I’d give up football tomorrow if it meant keeping you. If you want to do this without cameras and without games on the road and without stretches of time where we don’t see each other except for once or twice a week, say the word, baby, and I’ll walk away from the sport right now.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Football is who you are. There’s room in your heart for me and the other part of you that you love. I know there is. It’ll take some getting used to, but we’ll make it work. We’re going to make it work. You’re my best friend, Shawn.”
“Fuck.” He scoops me into his arms and walks toward my bedroom. His shoulder knocks a picture off the wall, but he ignores it and keeps going. “I missed you so much. I saw you yesterday, and I still missed you. There’s a hole in my heart when you aren’t around, Lacey. Do you know I hear you in the crowd? I hear you scream my name and I hear your laugh. I listen for you. I don’t care about the other seventy thousand people. I only care about you.”
“I love you.” I bury my face in his neck and revel in the smell of his cologne and the heat of his skin. “You’re the only one I’m ever going to cheer for.”
Shawn kicks the door to my room open. He sets me down on the mattress and takes off his coat. “Let me touch you,” he says. He runs his hand down my bare leg and tugs on my sock. “Let me take care of you.”
“You always take care of me,” I say.
