Page 51

Chapter 51

With You

Isaiah

W hen I pull into the parking lot of the Valor’s training facility and offices, I don’t see Robyn’s Jeep, but that’s probably because I’m twenty minutes early. Ever since I realized I’m the biggest idiot ever, I’ve been running.

I run into the lobby. I run up the stairs.

Robyn and I are supposed to be interviewed together, but when I spot two people from HR, Bob, and the President of USA Valor, Ken Cartwright already sitting in the glass conference room and looking at Robyn and Dell’s statements on the monitor, I run again.

Every second counts.

“Excuse me,” I huff, realizing now just how out of breath I am.

Dan from HR holds up his hand. “Isaiah, you have at least another fifteen—”

“If I step down as head coach,” I interrupt as I step inside and the door closes behind me. “If I resign, will Robyn be able to keep her job?”

The four of them look between one another and the statements again. Ken, a white man well into his sixties with a crisp haircut and permanently stern face, looks at me. “Mr. Johanssen, do you understand the severity of this situation?”

“Yes, of course. The perceived power imbalance alone should be enough for me to lose my job.”

Ken gestures to the monitor. “She says here that—”

“I know what they said and it’s all true. I love her. I love him. More than this job—no offense, it was a great gig—but I will happily step down if it means she can keep her job. This is her livelihood, but it is just a job for me.”

Ken turns to Dan, and they nod before everyone looks at me again. “She can keep her job if you resign.”

“Done, 1 ” I laugh.

A giddy energy bubbles from the soles of my feet and evaporates above me. I just quit a job most rugby players would dream of having, but I feel nothing but raw joy at my future. Is this what Dell always feels like? Making a decision no matter how big or small and flinging himself into it with abandon? I thought it would be a lot more terrifying. Maybe it would have been if I was doing it alone, but I’m not.

Robyn and Dell’s public statements play in my mind.

They’re with me.

They didn’t give up on me.

And as I exit the conference room without another word, I turn and there, waiting in the lobby is my whole life.

Robyn and Dell. Watching me.

“Did you just do what I think you did?” she asks, her eyes round and gleaming with hope and unshed tears.

I stop short. “I did. You’re gonna need a new head coach.”

Her brow furrows. “But, I don’t know if I still have a job.”

I step closer. “You do. They agreed you could keep your position with the team if I resigned. They saw your statements—your wonderful, heartfelt statements—and I said they were true. Robyn,” I say solemnly, swallowing a nervous lump before taking both of their hands in mine. “I made, quite possibly, the dumbest decision to leave us. There’s no job more important than you two. I let fear take over, and it convinced me I was better off in the shadows. But I was a coward. So I… I took some inspiration from both of you.”

Their hands squeeze mine, and the corner of Dell’s mouth turns up the slightest amount before I say to him, “I could hear your encouragement and feel your head-first energy.”

Then I direct my gaze down to her. “I saw you running to me from across the field. I could feel the warmth of your smile. And you two made this decision so easy for me.” Tears fall down our faces, but her smile has me floating.“Can you forgive me? I promise to never make you feel like this again. I promise to prioritize us before anything else. I promise to never let fear drive.”

“Yes,” she swallows. “I’m not going to let it drive me either. Every hit will be worth it.”

My chest could explode from her forgiveness. My knees could buckle from the impact of her words. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that I made the right call.

“And can you forgive me?” I ask Dell, his warm brown eyes filled as my heart punches harder than ever. “Can you forgive me for breaking her heart and breaking yours? I want it to be the three of us. Always and forever.”

Staring at him in this moment is like looking down the barrel of a gun, and with every passing fraction of a second, I grow more antsy. If he doesn’t forgive me, I would understand, but I wouldn’t give up. I’d grovel until my dying breath. Hell, even if he does forgive me, I’ll still grovel just so he can rest assured that I mean every word—that I believe in us.

All at once, Dell wipes the stream trickling down from his eye and smiles before wrapping both of us in his arms. “Of course, baby. We’re with you.”

1. Could Have Been Me by The Struts