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Shawn drags his hand over his jaw and sighs. He stares at the bracelet around my wrist and shakes his head. “How did I miss the signs? Those bracelets. Thanksgiving. It’s so obvious. You have until Thursday to figure your shit out. We fly out for the Super Bowl on Monday, and I cannot be dealing with this out there. Neither can you.”
“You have my word.”
“A lot of good that’s done so far.”
I grin. “Did you just make a joke, Coach?”
“Fuck off, Lansfield, before I change my mind.”
“Yes, sir.” I give him a salute and head for the locker room.
Four days.
I only have four days to come up with a plan.
But first I need to see my girls.
FORTY-EIGHT
MAVEN
I pacearound the living room.
Dallas is putting June to bed, and I hear his voice drift down the hall. It settles around my shoulders like a warm hug, and I smile.
He’s reading her favorite book, the one with a princess and a dragon and an evil king. I know he’s using his different voices. There are probably props too. It’s a full theatrical production just to get his daughter to smile.
God,I love him.
And he loves me, too.
The thought hits me square in the chest, and I almost can’t breathe.
When he yelled it to the entire team, to the entireworld,I went weak in the knees. An arrow hit my heart and lodged itself there. I didn’t have a chance to say it back during all the chaos, but I do.
I love him more than I’ve loved anything in my entire life, and I can’t hide it from him any longer.
“Hey.”
I glance up and find Dallas leaning against the wall. His arms are folded across his chest and his ankles are crossed. Hisfavorite pair of gray sweatpants hide his long legs, and there’s a bruise forming on his cheek from where he got hit with a helmet during the victory celebrations.
He’s so beautiful, it almost hurts to look at him.
And he’smine.
“Hi,” I say, and the right side of his mouth hitches up in a smile.
“You do this thing when you’re thinking really hard,” he says, and he walks toward me. “You stick out your tongue.”
“No, I don’t.”
He stops right in front of me. I tilt my chin back to look up at him, and his smile has melted to a full-on grin.
“I’m dead serious. You wrinkle your eyebrows, too, and it’s really cute.” He laughs and runs his thumb down the line of my throat. “It’s one of the many things I like about you.”
“Are there more?”
“Tons. Hundreds, in fact. Like when you’re really happy, your nose scrunches up. When you’re sad, your bottom lip does this pouty thing.” His thumb moves across my mouth, and I sigh. “It’s incredibly sexy.”
