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“Being in the league for seventeen years, straight out of high school, and being together for thirteen of those? She had no delusions that I was a saint. And I kissed the ground she walked on every time my eye strayed.” He squints again and shakes his head.
“I’m not an asshole. But I wish, when I was young and hopped up on how tight her pussy was,” he says. “That someone would have pulled me aside and told me that I am never going to be enough for this girl.”
My throat goes dry when his eyes meet mine. Clear, direct, and brutal.
“What exactly are you saying?” I choke on a nervous laugh.
He doesn’t so much as blink.
“Look, girls like Faye? I know them.” He presses a finger to my chest. “You don’t know these girls.”
“I know Faye.” I can’t keep the anger out of my voice.
He presses a placating hand to my shoulder, but I shrug it off.
“But you don’t know these girls. Connecticut girls are a different breed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I feel my nostrils flare, but my throat is still dry.
“Your girl dropped out of med school. Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You really think that means she’s lost her ambition?”
“She’s not after money. She doesn’t want fame.”
“That’s a different thing,” he says, waving his hand as if the idea of someone not being after money or social status is no different than a mosquito. “Yeah, it’s great to find someone who doesn’t want to use you as a steppingstone. Faye doesn’t want that. Faye would love to live a quiet life, far, far away from the cameras. You’re going to face an uphill battle with that.”
“I don’t like the cameras either,” I say, but he actually laughs at that.
“Man, I’veseenyou on camera. In interviews? You’re great. The camera loves you. You ever want to get into commentating? I’ll be the first in line to sign you with my agency.”
I arch an eyebrow, and he grins before I can stop it.
“You need a woman who wants to walk a red carpet with you. Who is comfortable doing that. Faye’s never going to be that girl.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Coop,” he says, palms raised in surrender. “I know Faye Benington. I know her family. She’s got her issues with her family, anyone with eyeballs knows that. But she’s just notthat girl.”
I bite my tongue, ready to tell him to go fuck himself. I bite it harder and swallow hard around the fiery ball I want to aim at him.
“Well, I don’t wantthat girl.”
He puts his hands on his hips and presses his lips into an appraising smirk.
“Okay, fine. Say you don’t want that girl.” He kicks the toe of his shoe into the grass as a breeze rustles through the tree line, sending gold and red leaves onto the greenway.
“But someday, you’re not going to be enough. All this—the games, the contracts, the constant travel, it’s not going to be good enough. Unless you have one hell of a plan laid out for her, being a former pro isn’t going to be enough for Faye.”
“I don’t think you know Faye as well as you think you do,” I say through gritted teeth.
He shrugs and takes a drink. “Maybe not. That a chance you’re willing to take?”
I grit my teeth into a tight smile and stare at the putting green not twenty feet downwind. His words are like a punch to the gut, and fuck if I don’t them taking root there. Because it’s something I’ve thought before. Something I’ve worried over and fuck, the whole reason I dated Megan was because I didn’t think Faye wanted me. That she would never want me as more than a friend because I wasn’t enough for her.
To hear this guy saying it out loud—a guy I’ve idolized since I was a kid—it’s a kick to the teeth. But there’s still an ember of fight deep inside me, and I rub at the spot on my chest.
