Out of Bounds(33)

I’d laughed and swatted his chest. “You competitive bastard.”

He nodded and kissed me more. “I am, but I want to do all those things with you because I’m crazy about you.”

I sigh heavily. So much for being crazy for me. Lot of good that did. I raise my chin, take a hearty sip of the last of my margarita remains, and then set down the glass.

“So I should dye my hair green, and get a mermaid tattoo?”

I blink and wrench back. “What?”

Ally laughs and points. “You’re so not paying attention.”

I sigh. “I was. I swear I was.”

She shakes her head, amused. “You weren’t. But I understand.”

“Sorry. It’s just a crazy week and I’ve been working all hours.”

“Sure.” But it’s clear from the way she says the word that she doesn’t believe me. “That’s exactly why you’re not focusing.”

I give her a pointed look. “I have been working hard.”

She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “I know, sweetie. But that’s not what I mean. Have you thought about talking to him?”

I roll my eyes. “There’s nothing to talk about. There’s nothing to discuss. This is a black-and-white situation.”

“And yet you’re an attorney. You’ve always told me that every situation has shades of gray. How can this be the only black-and-white situation?”

“Because it is,” I say firmly. “He ended it because he was losing his focus. I can’t make him regain his focus. We didn’t have a misunderstanding. We didn’t have a fight. There’s nothing for me to talk about with him.”

Ally arches an eyebrow. “I beg to differ.”

I don’t know what she could possibly beg to differ about, but I’m curious as hell. I sweep my hand out, giving her the floor. “So differ, then. Tell me.”

“You saw the game on Sunday right?”

“Of course.”

“And did San Francisco not play its ass off in that game?”

I nod. We are both football daughters. Ally knows the game inside and out. “They were great.”

“No one was going to beat them. He’s an idiot if he thinks he lost because of you.”

Can’t argue there. But that’s the problem. I can’t argue with him on this because he gave me no choice. So I simply agree with my sister. “He’s definitely an idiot. But it’s not my place to convince him of that.”

“I know. But it’s not like you to just accept his explanation when he’s so patently wrong. I’m not saying get back together with him. I’m not even saying you can change his mind. But I am saying you should make your case for not taking the blame. Whether you get back with him or not isn’t the point. He shouldn’t go about thinking that loss had anything to do with you. It had to do San Francisco.”

My sister is right. Drew didn’t simply lose the game. San Francisco won it. The other team was hell-bent on victory, and I don’t have to let that rest on my shoulders.

“They were like a freight train,” I say, adding on to Ally’s point.

She nods. “Damn straight.”

“They weren’t stopping for anyone.”

Ally makes a chugging sound, like a train careening down the tracks. “Not just a freight train. A silver bullet,” she says, piling on this metaphor.

I laugh, but inside I feel stronger, more confident. I might take on the weight of all these other things—work, and my sister, and my own strict devotion to how I want to handle life’s responsibilities—but a win or loss of the team I work for? That’s not mine to bear.

“You really think I should say all that to him?”

Ally’s voice is emphatic as she answers. “Yes, yes, yes. And if it’s any consolation, Jason said he’s miserable as hell this week.”

I smirk. Admittedly, I find some small consolation in that detail, but whether he’s miserable or not isn’t the point.

Even though I disagree with his decision, I respect the fact that he has to live, work, and love on his own terms.

And I have to do the same.

For me, that means closure. That means saying what needs to be said. I don’t need to do it face-to-face. I don’t want to open up a conversation where I’ll get hurt again. But I need him to hear my words.

I start with a letter. Taking my time that night, I write down my thoughts. The most important ones. Then I sleep on it. The next morning, I head over to his place, knowing it’s safer and more private to leave this letter here than at the stadium.

I slide it under his door. I’m glad he doesn’t have a neighbor who likes to water the porch plants.

When I walk away from his door, I do so feeling like at least I was able to say my piece.

Drew

I startle when I see a white envelope on my floor after I unlock the door. A bead of sweat drips down my forehead from a morning run after a weight-room workout, and I wipe it away as I bend to grab the page.

“Love notes?” Jason asks as he follows me inside and grabs some water from the pitcher in the fridge.

“Not sure,” I mutter as gruffly as I can, mostly to hide the goddamn flutter that hits my heart unexpectedly from seeing my name in her handwriting. True, I’ve never seen it before, but I know it’s from her.