The Crush (42)

Me: You are turning forty. Mom reminded me ten times so I wouldn’t forget.

Isabel: Yeah, she’s making a whole thing of it. I hate parties. And I really hate parties when everyone is staring at me.

Me: You could always skip it. What are they going to do? Kick you out of the family?

Isabel: If they haven’t kicked you out yet for how little you come home, then I think I’m safe.

Me: Funny.

I wasn’t smiling, though. None of them knew why I didn’t come home for my normal pre-training camp visit. Mom and Dad came for five days at the end of March before Dad got busy with the draft. Iz and her husband, Aiden, were able to squeeze in a long weekend in April with their two youngest girls—Violet and Willa.

Claire and her husband, Bauer, came in May, their two boys and I crafting epic sandcastles at the beach.

Molly hadn’t been able to make it and neither had Lia. Their husbands traveled so much, so I understood.

And if any of them had wanted to ask why I didn’t come home, they didn’t. This was the closest anyone had come, and it didn’t surprise me at all that Isabel was the one calling me to the carpet on my shit.

Isabel: We miss you. Even if you buy obnoxious presents.

Isabel: But I guess if I made forty million dollars a year, I’d spoil my favorite sister too.

Me: Nailed it in one. Don’t tell the others.

Me: I miss you guys too.

Isabel: If you really wanted to prove your love, you’d stroll into my birthday party next weekend and pull all the attention off me. Just sayin’.

Me: I’m never buying you a gift again.

Isabel: I’m serious.

Me: So am I.

I sank my head against the seat and stared across the parking lot. I’d avoided the idea of going home because it seemed so much safer to bury myself in work. But this meeting, more than the other weeks I’d tried to have this talk with them, threw in stark relief the uphill battle I was facing. There were rules in place for a reason. Players, no matter who they were, couldn’t request to be traded without the permission of team ownership if they’re not in free agency.

Once the season started, and that date was looming closer and closer, it was almost unheard of for anyone to move to a different team.

Not because it wasn’t allowed, but because no one wanted to have their focus shifted to a new team dynamic in the middle of a season. Once that regular season started, I’d have to make peace with another year in Ft. Lauderdale.

If the last four months felt impossibly long, my skin crawled painfully at the idea of another five to six without her. And then another full season after that.

I wasn’t sure I could manage it.

The possibility of seeing Adaline one more time set my heart thrumming, the kind of racing, stuttering pace that made my ribs feel too small. In the distance, though, the practice facilities loomed. This close to the season starting, it was hard to get away.

But not impossible.

I set my phone aside without saying anything else. If I told Isabel I’d try to come, she’d tell my mom. And if my mom knew, the whole family would know, which meant Adaline would, too.

The last thing I would ever do was promise something to Adaline that I couldn’t deliver.

Imagining myself as the cause of any of her disappointment or pain was unforgivable. But I was past the point of ignoring what I was feeling too. I just needed time with her to see if she was anywhere close to the same place I’d been.

Maybe my mistake in my first attempt was not telling her how I felt. The shadow of Nick had still been hanging over us, his inability to understand why she wouldn’t move away from her family.

But I couldn’t keep doing this. And I had to know if she was suffering even a fraction of how much I was.

As I drove home, something foreign spread through my veins. It had been missing for the last four months.

Hope.





Adaline



“A little help please,” I called at the front door.

No one rushed to my aid.

With the toe of my sneaker, I kicked at the solid wood a few times. My arms ached, wrapped around a box that was a bit too large and a bit too heavy to be carrying with all the other things I was balancing.

My purse was falling off my shoulder, loaded down with Lord knows what. My water bottle was in one hand, and in the other, the strap of another shopping bag filled with samples for my meeting.

I kicked again, a little bit harder, and I heard Paige Ward’s voice as she hustled toward the door.

“Coming!” she yelled. “Hang on, hang on.”

She wrenched the door open, an apologetic smile on her gorgeous face. Honestly, if someone told me she bathed in virgin goat blood to look like that in her fifties, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.

Emmett’s mom—with her long red hair, big blue eyes, and mile-long legs—could be a case study on how to age well.

“Sorry, honey, I meant to help you with your stuff, but my husband called, and I got distracted.” She reached forward, grabbing the bag and water bottle from my hand. “I think Molly wanted to set up on the back patio table since it’s so nice today.”

My history with the Ward family was not typical, considering Molly had been my boss for a handful of years. But as my personal assistant job morphed into the party planning business—starting with Molly’s kids, then all her sisters’ kids, then their friends and friends of friends—it was clear that I couldn’t balance both for very long.