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“Yeah, that’s…yeah. Great. Good for them.”
It was almost poetic in a way that Blake squeezing my finger, itching to go to the zoo—even though she’d been too young to understand what it was—showed me the path to what eventually became my future. Just her. Her squeezing my finger, her stumbling forward, me holding her up, me…needing her more than air.
The other guys around me couldn’t help themselves. They walked down another memory lane and swapped anecdotes from the field while we ate. I could barely pretend to stomach the food, much less their stories.
I clenched my jaw and forced another mouthful of pizza to slide down my throat.
All I wanted was to see Blake again.
Some men met women and got a kid as a side order. I’d met my future daughter and gotten a mom attached to the kid. Piper and I had joked about it, how I’d fallen for Blake long before I’d… Well. I’d loved Piper; we just hadn’t beeninlove. Or so she’d assured me. But considering she wanted me back, I wasn’t so sure about her true feelings. Maybe she felt more for me.
I hoped that wasn’t the case, because unrequited love fucking sucked, and she and I were meant to be buddies. And co-parents. Blake may have dragged me out of my misery when I’d learned Elliott was back with his ex-wife, but Piper had played a big part too. We’d started spending more time together. She’d made my transfer to San Diego a lot easier, and I’d never had to regret my move.
I couldn’t even regret hooking up with Piper since it’d given me a much more important role with Blake.
It’d been comfortable.
I wouldn’t call iteasybecause there was no forgetting the first year when Piper and I had been very on-and-off. I’d been reluctant to commit to someone I viewed mostly as my friend, and she had a temper that produced ultimatums when she was pissed. I didn’t deal well with those.
Then one day, she’d sat me down.
“I wanna go for it, Joel. I want us to be all in. You and me—and Blake. I want you to be her dad.”
The last sentence had sealed the deal for me. I’d stopped searching for something else. I’d stopped thinking about what-ifs. I’d committed right then and there.
Not long after, I’d learned from Piper’s folks that Elliott had gotten divorced after all, and yeah, that’d stung too, considering he hadn’t called me, but it didn’t matter. I’d channeled my hurt into determination to just avoid the motherfucker, and I’d been the luckiest dad alive.
Being Blake’s father was my purpose.
I couldn’t lose her.
I just couldn’t. She was all I had left.
Regardless, I could’ve forgiven Elliott. Iwouldhave…if he hadn’t insisted on hating me instead. All these years. Now, I was running out of energy to pretend. I couldn’t hate him back just because he saw me as his mortal enemy. I could beangry—anger was easy. But I couldn’t hate him.
I didn’t wanna be exposed to his hatred either, so if we couldn’t reach a truce of any kind when this was over, what I’d told him in Toronto was legit. I didn’t wanna see him again.
“All right, all right.” Coach’s laughter rang above the din and stole my attention. “Maybe we should get some work done before we hit the sack.”
We couldn’t sleep on the damn plane?
“Elliott, this next part is your show.” Coach tossed him something—a marker. “Tell us what you need and—”
“Sorry,” Shay said quickly. “Can I just say something before you begin?”
“Of course, kid.” Danny nodded.
Shay cleared his throat and left a half-eaten piece of pizza on the tray. “I only wanna say thank you. All of you—you saved my life. You flew all the way down here to bring me home and hopefully uncover another clue about where we can find Marisa and Blake, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you. For a while, I didn’t think I’d ever come home at all. And…” He swallowed hard and was soon enveloped in River’s arms, followed by Reese’s. “Just, thank you,” Shay continued, taking an unsteady breath. “I owe you everything—and I wanna help. Whatever I can do in Europe to help you save Marisa and Blake like you saved me.”
I swallowed hard and nodded with a dip of my chin. Flying over to South America hadn’t really been a question with more than one answer. Of course we’d offered to go. We’d just been chasing guesses in Spain.
As furious as I had been initially about Crew’s choice to put Mercier’s mission before ours, he’d made the right call. Thanks to Mercier, we knew Luiz Gajero was traveling to Europe with Marisa and Blake.
“You don’t owe us a damn thing, Shay,” Elliott replied and stood up. “We’re just glad you’re okay. And we’ll gladly accept your help in Europe—from a safe distance.”
“I love you, Elliott,” Reese said.
The others chuckled.
