Page 26 of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend (Catching Feelings #1)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SEAN

I ’ve just gotten home when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I drop my keys on the entrance table, already grinning as I answer. Kayla’s dove-gray tumbler sits by the keys, and seeing it without her hand wrapped around the handle hits like a jab to the ribs.

“Hey, Boss,” I say, unable to keep the smile out of my voice. “Congrats on the win. How’d the rest of the day go?”

There’s a little pause, a quiet exhale that tells me more than words could.

“Pfft. It’s done,” Kayla says, like the tension is rolling off her. “But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to hear how things went with Otto! Tell me everything, starting at whatever’s happening next season. I’m on your side no matter what.”

This woman. How is she real?

I lean against the counter for a second, and my elbow bumps something soft—one of her thick brown hair ties.

She must have forgotten it this morning when she came back to the house to get my jersey.

I hold the phone between my ear and shoulder and stretch the thick brown tie between my fingers before sliding it onto my wrist beside my watch.

“Sheesh, no warm-up? We’re diving right in?” I tease. “He liked what he saw. They want to offer me a conditional contract.”

“SEAN! That is such good news! But not surprising. I watched every second you played with the Arsenal. You’re amazing.”

She watched clips of me playing? Is she trying to make me fall for her?

“What are the conditions?” she asks.

“Me training hard all summer and passing a physical with the team doctor later in the summer.”

“How have your knees been?”

“Old.” I laugh. “But Otto gave me some modifications last season, and the Arsenal trainer put me on a different regimen than my AHL trainer did. They’re not as bad as I thought.”

“I happen to think they’re in great condition,” she says. “You didn’t seem to have any problem getting down on one knee, after all …”

I chuckle. “Am I allowed to groan at that?”

“No. You’re allowed to swoon and marvel at your wife’s delightful sense of humor.”

“Swoon,” I say in a mystical voice. “Marvel.” I stretch out the word like it’s magic itself.

She laughs, and the sound washes over me like a cool shower on a hot day, waking me up to something I haven’t felt in a long time.

Wanted .

“You joke, but you know you love it,” she says, still laughing.

I sit down at the small kitchen table, spinning my wedding band slowly around my finger. It has some kind of hammered, rough-cut surface that catches the light in broken flashes. I never would have picked something out that wasn’t a plain tungsten band, but this is so much cooler, so much more me.

“I can’t deny it. Won’t even try.”

“Good boy.” She pauses. “Is that frustrating at all that your knees could have been better all this time, if you’d known then what you know now?”

“I can’t focus on that. Besides, how would I have met my spectacularly hot wife?”

She laughs, but I’m not sure I’m teasing.

“How are you feeling about the offer, Cap? Are you happy? Nervous? Disappointed? All of the above? Tell me.”

I love how she’s open to any possibility. I love how she cares enough to ask at all instead of just congratulating me and leaving it at that.

“All of the above,” I say. “I’m happy he likes what he sees. Nervous I won’t be up to snuff. Disappointed it wasn’t an outright yes.”

“That makes sense,” she says. “You’ve been waiting for this a long time, haven’t you?”

“That’s the thing: I stopped waiting for it the second I turned it down. I couldn’t keep hoping and stay sane. So I moved on.”

“So was getting called up last season hard, then?”

“Kind of. I couldn’t get comfortable. I wasn’t there because they wanted me; I was there because they needed me.

” My throat aches at the words. If Kayla were in front of my face, I’m not sure I’d be able to speak so freely.

But with her three hundred miles away, it’s easier for some reason.

“That’s my highlight reel, in a nutshell. ”

“Veto.”

I laugh. “What?”

“I’m vetoing what you just said. I’m the Boss, so I have ultimate veto power, and I’m using the heck out of it.”

“I don’t think that applies here?—”

“That’s because you’re too pretty to understand important business concepts like executive vetoes and, like, synergy, probably.”

I laugh harder. “Did you hit your head? Blink twice if you need me to send help.”

“I’m not blinking. The Sean O’Shannan highlight reel is not a montage of people calling you when they’re in their hour of need and you waiting idle between emergencies.

” She pauses, like she wants to draw attention to what she says next.

Like it matters that I hear her. “Your highlight reel is you caring so much that you make people your top priority. That’s what you do.

You care about people and serve them, so you assume people only want you around when they need something from you. ”

She exhales gently, but her words are made of steel.

“And I’m not saying no one’s ever taken advantage of that.

Hello, Serena. But I don’t think you see all the people who love you so much we’d do anything to keep you around.

If that means asking for your help, so be it. We’re not too proud to beg.”

“‘We?’”

I don’t know why I blurt that out, except it’s sticking in my mind like glue, that word.

“Yes. We. You’re a keeper, Captain. I’m starting to like having you around.”

Her words sear into my heart like a tattoo, burning but beautiful.

My mom battled her own demons all her life, and while I’ve forgiven her, it left a mark on me.

She left when things got hard, whenever she got overwhelmed or simply wanted more.

That was about her, not me and my family.

But the message I internalized whenever she came back home was that we would do … until something better came along.

Serena only reinforced that.

I honestly never believed I’d meet a woman who thought I was something better.

Is there a chance Kayla could feel that way about me a month from now?

A year from now?

“I’m yours, Boss. However long you’ll have me.”

My voice is too husky when I say that. Too raw.

Except I could almost think there’s a catch in her voice, too. “Careful, Captain. I may not let you go.”

If she means that—even a little—I’m done for. “I may not let you let me go.”

There’s a pause.

And then we both burst out laughing.

“I didn’t mean to make that sound so threatening,” I say.

“No, it’s cool. I threatened you first,” she says, full on giggling.

“Is this what they call mutually assured destruction?”

“Let’s soften that. Mutually assured devotion . It’s not creepy at all.”

“Not at all.”

We both chuckle into the phone. “Your game’s about to start, isn’t it?” I ask.

She makes a humph sound. “Yes. I wish you were here.”

“Me too. And I wish you could be here for the potluck Sunday.”

“On second thought, maybe Nashville isn’t so bad,” she teases.

“Nashville is so bad. I can’t wait to see you.”

“Mutually assured devotion, for the win.”

I stay on the phone for a few seconds after she hangs up, not wanting this connection to end. For a minute, it feels like I’m on hold, just waiting for her to pop back on whenever’s convenient for her.

I’d wait on hold for a lifetime for a woman like her. For her.

But the thing is, I don’t think she’d ask that.

The more time I spend with Kayla, the harder it becomes to think of this relationship as purely out of necessity.

We’re not in love. We don’t have years of emotional connection to build a life on.

But who’s to say we can’t build one while we’re married?

I rub my thumb over my wedding band, feeling the solid, faceted surface catch under my skin—strong enough to take a few hits, and it shines brighter with each one.

It’s not a heavy ring, but it’s substantial, like it’s made of more than metal.

I glance at the tumbler on the entry table again, waiting like a promise, telling me she’s only stepped out for a second.

And maybe she’s already looking forward to coming back.