Page 13

MASON

For all the post game celebrations, the politics and talks afterwards, gifting to the charity, and close off for the unofficial season, it didn’t take long for the grounds to clear out.

I waited until last with Leon, making sure I had showered and sprayed myself with enough deodorant to kill a locker room.

I bounced on my toes, still full of nervous energy despite my deadened thighs from that last run that no scalding shower or rub down would help.

I’d stretched plenty, listened to Coach’s secondary pep talk that was for me alone, but for this next part no one could help me with, but me.

Any maybe one other, but that part would come a little later on .

“If you keep jumping around, you’re gonna need another shower,” Leon stared at me, looking more like a father figure than my trainer.

Or maybe they were the same thing.

I had a few of those, but he came on board as an extra a few years back and just sort of stayed.

Even Hansen had a few words of his own for me before he left.

That talk had been nerve wracking enough.

“Alright. You think everyone’s gone?” I peered around the outside of the door, but the stands were deserted as far as I could see.

“You’d better get moving or she’ll be gone, too.” Leon clapped my shoulder hard enough to rock me forward onto my toes.

I took the hint and stepped out of the tunnel for the last time that night.

The sun had started setting, leaving a slim strip of light above the horizon, through a deep haze had settled over the grounds.

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.

If I screwed this up, I knew Nyla wouldn’t give me a second chance.

I glanced back at Leon who gave me an encouraging nod.

“It’s okay to risk it all when everything is worth the risk,” he murmured.

I grinned. “You should get that tattooed over your heart, Coach.”

“Who said I don't already have it somewhere else?” He sauntered away, flicking the giant floods on as he left me alone.

The grounds illuminated, but that would leave outside the stadium still dim enough that…

Ah, hell. I just needed to balls up and do this.

I pushed one hand into my pocket to reassure myself and jogged around the outside of the stadium to the parking lot. The whole place was deserted and after the brightness of the floodlights, it took me a moment to see the single car left in the lot.

I slowed to a walk, heading over to Brady and Nyla. Brady stuffed a hotdog into his face while Nyla leaned against her car.

“Are you always the last one out?”

I shrugged. “I thought you gave me that spiel once. Wasn’t it ‘first one in, last to leave’ or something like that?”

“Yeah. Something like that.” She tipped her head to one side as I leaned down to kiss her. “I have a night off, and Brady seems to be wide awake…if you’re not dead on your feet.”

“Yeah. I know you have the night off.” A lump grew in my throat I couldn't get around.

Nyla studied my face. “Are you okay?

”

“That was a great try, Mason! You really ripped up the grass.” Brady mimed skidding across the car park on his tummy.

“Ah, that.” I winced.

The groundskeepers would be fixing my dive divot for the next week or two.

“Don’t lose your hotdog, okay? I just want to talk to your mum for a moment. You remember that game on my phone?” I passed the device over.

“Oh yeah! The one with the monster trucks, and…” Brady was off and running with his current obsession.

“Yeah, that one.” I coughed into my fist.

Nyla was still watching me.

“What are you doing?”

“What?” I tried to look innocent and completely fucked it up.

“I know I haven't known you for too long, but?—”

“Mason.” Nyla folded her arms. “There are better places to break up with me.”

“What?” I squinted at her. “Sh– No. No. That's not what I’m— Dammit.” I dropped to one knee and managed to extract the ring box from my pocket at the same time without fumbling the velvet. “This is the opposite. I’m just better with actions than I am with words.” I took a deep breath when she said nothing, though her eyes widened. Actually, I couldn't remember the last time I left her speechless outside the bedroom, and I wasn’t sure if that boded good or bad right now, so I just ploughed right ahead. “It’s been a few weeks, no, a month since we met.” Okay, words aren’t my only weakness. Let’s add math in there too. “It’s been a massive whirlwind. I fell in love with you fast, Nyla. And I’m not letting go anytime soon, not unless you tell me you don't want me around. I love you, and I love Brady. You’re both the two most important people in my world. Honestly, I can’t imagine my world without you in it. This afternoon, I nearly screwed up a game because we were talking in the middle of it. And after that try, you two were the first faces I looked for. You say you don’t have a family but…I think you come preloaded with one. If you want it. So…” I managed to inhale part of a breath and flicked the ring box open to display the solitaire emerald cut diamond set in a bezel that she’d be able to wear for work, or so the jeweller assured me when he designed it. “I’d love it if you would marry me. And let me maybe try out being Brady’s stand-in dad, if you’d let me, and if that’s okay with him.”

Please.

Nyla stared at me with her mouth open while my knees ached and my thighs throbbed. Somewhere in the back, Leon threw the floods on for the parking lot and blinded me. I still didn’t move.

Please say something. Please react. Please, please, please.

Please.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Brady piped up from the back of the car, his mouth full of hotdog.

“Shhh,” Nyla hushed him and turned back to me. “I— I thought.” Nothing else came out, and her mouth closed.

“I know,” I managed, wondering if I would ever be able to stand upright at this rate or if I'd have to roll out of the crouch. “You’ve got all of my heart, Nyla. I promise. And all of my family, too. Every part.” Both my team and my actual family had adopted Nyla straight in, which was typical of both of all the people I loved, probably because they gave love the same way I did.

Openly and unconditional.

I wondered belatedly if that scared the shit out of her and if I should have maybe prepared a different sort of speech.

“Yes,” she whispered.

I blinked. “Can you say that again please?”

She caught my wrists and hauled me upright. Several things popped and I hoped nothing hurt because I was a bit numb all over. Nyla grabbed my shirt and pulled me down for a long kiss. “I said yes, Mason,” she whispered.

“Oh, good.” I gathered her into my arms, crushing her into my chest and inhaled the cloud of frangipani and other sweet things that seemed to float around her in a giant cloud. Turning her in my arms, I managed to wiggle the ring onto her finger the way Hansen coached me, and then kissed the tips—my own touch, not his. “Because I really do love you and didn’t want you to say no.”

She snuggled into my shoulder, her tears dripping onto the back of my hand. “I thought?—”

“I know. I’m terrible at this stuff.”

She shook her head. “No, you’re not. I’m just really ruined.”

I shrugged. “So, we have some healing to do. All of us. And we do it together, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered back. “I—” Nyla took a deep breath, and her words ran together. “ Iloveyoutoo .”

“I know, gorgeous.”

My girl might be a bit broken, but I hadn’t lied to her either. That really was okay and I was here for her every step of the way, whatever that looked like. I kissed her again until something nudged my thigh .

I looked down to find one of the training balls I’d been missing for the last week proffered out the window of her car by sticky hotdog sauce fingers.

“Uh, Mason? Since you’re gonna be my new dad, can you sign my ball, please?”