Page 27 of Goal Line (Boston Rebels #4)

Chapter Twenty-One

LUKE

H olding my phone out, I show Eva the missed call from about half an hour ago, while we were both sleeping—before the constant pulsing sound from the moving box woke me up—and my ringer was off.

Even while we made a conscious choice to ignore the messages from our families we saw coming in yesterday, I can’t ignore this one from my boss.

I tap play on the voicemail and AJ’s voice fills Eva’s small apartment, which, until this moment, had felt like a sanctuary where we could avoid having to deal with real life.

I’m being proactive and sending Morgan out to LA to meet with you and Eva. She’s getting on a plane right now and will be there late morning, your time. You’d better be ready to work with her on how you’re shaping this story for the media.

Eva glances over at me. “Is this the same Morgan I met last week at the Neon Cactus? ”

“I think so?” I’m as confused as she is. Aside from being my agent’s daughter, I have no idea what Morgan’s connection is to AJ or the Rebels.

“Why...” It’s like Eva doesn’t know what questions to ask and, honestly, neither do I. She shakes her head. “How does AJ know where we are? And do you think this means our parents know, too?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” I say. “I think we need to listen to our messages.” When she gives me a brief nod of agreement, I hit play on the first voicemail that came in yesterday morning after we texted our parents.

Luke , my mom says, help us understand what’s going on. You and Eva got married? When? Why? How? Your father and I are really confused and, quite frankly, hurt that you would keep this from us. Please call me.

There are several other similar voicemails from both my mom and my dad, and then the voice of Preston, my eldest brother and the new CEO of Hartmann Enterprises, thunders from the speaker of my phone.

What the fuck, Luke? You better have had a prenup in place before you made this impulsive decision. We love Eva, but you’re a goddamn Hartmann—you can’t just get married out of the blue like this without having certain safeguards in place.

Eva’s face falls, and immediately I wish I hadn’t played that one out loud. “I’ll sign a prenup,” she says quietly. “Or whatever you call it after we’re already married.”

“Fuck that,” I say, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and pulling her to my side. “I trust you unconditionally.”

“Not that you shouldn’t trust me , ” she says, “but your brother is right. You can’t take risks like that, especially not after what happened to Tucker. ”

Hmmmm. The sound rattles around in the back of my throat, because I hate that she’s sort of right. But still, she’d never do something like that to me.

“Should we see what your parents have to say?” I ask her.

“Do we have to?”

“Maybe we should see if they know where we are, at least?” It had never occurred to me that they’d realize we were here, though maybe it should have. Going to LA to get Eva’s stuff and bring it to Boston now seems pretty obvious.

Eva sighs and walks over to her bed and, as she crawls to her nightstand to retrieve her phone, I try not to focus on the way her ass looks in those short pajama shorts. I look away, because while there’s no ideal time to be checking out your best friend, this certainly isn’t the right time.

She lets out a deep sigh as she walks back to me with her phone in her hand.

“Regretting our decision, wife?” I tease, but it doesn’t disguise the genuine worry that compelled me to ask in the first place.

“No.” She sighs again. “Just wishing we could fast forward through this part where we have to come to terms with hurting our families.”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“I know.” Her shoulders sag as she looks down at the ground. “I just hate disappointing them.”

“At some point,” I say as I reach out and sweep her hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear, “we’re going to talk about why that’s always the driving force in your decision making.”

She glances up at me, and a look of annoyance flashes across her face—the kind that tells me I’ve hit a little too close to her insecurities.

I’m close to my family, too, and I know many of my decisions are based on “being a Hartmann.” But sometimes, it feels like Eva gets stuck in a pattern of perpetually trying to please her parents at the expense of her own happiness.

She’s a grown woman, and now my wife, and that’s something we’re going to need to deal with or it’s going to get in the way of our relationship.

We can deal with that later , I remind myself.

“I don’t even want to listen to these messages,” she says, glancing back at her phone. “I just want to keep living in this world where we’ve made this decision and are dealing with it together, without all the outside factors.”

“It’s the outside factors that led us here in the first place,” I say, immediately regretting my words because they imply that we were forced into this position. In a way, I guess she was. I, however, would have wanted this marriage regardless—not that I can tell her that.

“I know.” Her words are clipped, and now I’m certain she took my statement the wrong way.

“Heyyy...” I drag the word out as I bring my hand back up to her neck and curl my fingers around the ridges of her spine. “I didn’t mean it the way you’re taking it.”

“Oh yeah? How did you mean it, then?” She glances up at me, looking pissed off. Honestly, with her tired eyes glaring, she’s cute as hell.

I pull her against me, wrapping my other arm around her back as I press my lips to the top of her head. “I told you before, Eva. You’re the only person I’d want to spend the rest of my life with.”

“That’s not what you said, actually,” she mumbles into my chest, her hot breath skimming over my bare skin .

“It’s not?” I’m pretty positive that’s what I told her when we were talking about this marriage.

“No, you said if you had to pick one person to spend the rest of your life with, you’d pick me. And when I asked you if I was forcing you into this, you never actually said no.”

I hate the way her voice is tinged with hurt, and that my word choice caused this pain. “Can you explain something to me?”

She buries her face into my chest like she’s embarrassed, but says, “Sure.”

“What could I have said differently so I wouldn’t have hurt you?”

Obviously, I couldn’t have said If I could pick anyone .

..because then she’d know how I really feel.

And the only thing more awkward than having very real feelings for my best friend would be her looking at me and saying, “You flatter yourself,” in response.

We’ve been down that exact road before, and I have no desire for a repeat experience.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It was just a reminder that you felt like you had to do this.”

“Eva.” I pause and wait for her to look up at me. “I didn’t have to do this. I wanted to, and I’ve told you that all along. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I only made this offer out of necessity or obligation.”

“But you did make the offer because you had to,” she whispers. “If I hadn’t gotten pregnant, hadn’t been worried about telling my parents, hadn’t stressed out about the possibility of losing my healthcare, and?—”

“None of that means I didn’t have a choice. I very much did.”

“Then why? ”

I’m not sure what I see in her eyes. It looks a bit like hope, like she wants me to tell her that I’m choosing her. “Because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

She looks down quickly, saying, “I know,” as she buries her face against my chest again and squeezes me in a hug.

And I’m not sure why, but somehow, I know she’s still disappointed with that answer—I just don’t know how to make that better, because I’m certain that telling her my real feelings would actually make things worse.

It would make me into the exact guy I’ve never wanted to be.

“ W ell, if this isn’t the cutest studio I’ve ever seen, I don’t know what is,” Morgan says, walking across to the open French doors through which fresh air and sunlight are streaming. “And this patio! My god, this is amazing.”

“Thanks,” Eva says, following behind her. “It was kind of a dump when I first bought it five years ago, but I enjoyed fixing it up.”

“Kind of a dump” is an understatement. When she first texted me the pictures, telling me how much promise the place had, I tried to talk her out of buying it.

But when she went ahead with the purchase, I helped her find a contractor, then secretly had him charge her only half of his fee—so she could do everything she wanted—and I made up the difference.

Now, it actually is adorable, and it’s very Eva .

Dark-green painted cabinets and light wood countertops in the kitchen, floral wallpaper in the dining area with a white table and pink chairs, an upholstered headboard running across the small alcove where her bed is, and the marble-tiled fireplace with a large gilded mirror resting on the mantle.

Everything bears her touch, and it’s perfect for her.

“What are you going to do with the place now?” Morgan asks, eyeing the boxes packed up next to her kitchen table.

“I’m not sure,” Eva says. “It probably doesn’t make sense to keep it.”

Beyond coming here to pack her things, we hadn’t discussed what we were planning to do with her place.

It’s making me realize just how many things we still need to work out and, for the first time since we made the decision to get married, I’m starting to worry that we jumped too fast. I wish we’d talked through more of these details yesterday when we were packing everything up.

I thought we’d have all day today.I didn’t realize AJ would be on top of this so quickly or that Morgan would be standing here now.

Her presence is, however, a great distraction from the conversation Eva didn’t want to have about the mystery pulsing sound we heard earlier this morning.

My mind hasn’t stopped imagining the possibilities, and while I’m not planning to go dumpster diving to find out, I’d be a liar if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.

“If you want to hold on to it,” I say, “we could hire a property management company that could rent it out.”

“Maybe,” Eva says, and I can tell just by the tone of her voice that she likes the idea of keeping this place.

“It would also mean we could come out here whenever you wanted,” I say. “Or you could, if you just wanted to have a girls’ weekend and visit friends or something.”

Eva’s friend group in Los Angeles is small.

Because so much of her life has revolved around skating, and because that schedule is so demanding and unpredictable, most of her close friends have been other skaters.

And they haven’t always stayed put in LA when they’ve switched partners or coaches, or retired.

Christopher has been her one constant and, as much as it drives me crazy that she has such an important man in her life who’s not me, I’m still glad she has someone. Or at least I was, until he stomped on her heart and she wound up pregnant as a result.

She glances over at me and widens her eyes—a clear reminder that she’s about to have a newborn while training for the Olympics. But unlike her, I’m thinking long-term, and I want her to keep this place so she doesn’t feel like she’s giving up everything that’s her to become part of us.

“We’ll figure it out,” Eva says and turns back toward Morgan.

“Seems like you guys have several things on your plate to work out...” Clearly, Morgan is sharp and observant, just like her father.

Oh shit, does Carson know about this? I didn’t even think to tell him, which is exactly the type of thing he’ll be furious about. Athletes do impulsive and public shit all the time, and he’s always told me how thankful he is that he doesn’t have to worry about that with me.

He thinks it’s because I’m such a stand-up guy—and that’s pretty much true, but I’ve also had decades of training on what it means to be a Hartmann.

If I was ever going to do something inappropriate, I’ve learned from my older brothers how to keep it from going public.

Somehow, though, I was so wrapped up in the details of marrying Eva that I didn’t think to plan ahead.

“We do,” I say, stepping up behind Eva and wrapping my arms around her waist, pulling her back against me. “We thought some parts of our marriage through before tying the knot, but we certainly didn’t have time to plan out everything.”

“So was this a spur-of-the-moment decision?” Morgan asks.

I can’t tell if she’s just being curious, or if she’s collecting information in order to help us frame this story in a way that puts us in the best light possible.

When I ask, she just lets out a small chuckle and says, “My job here is to help you craft a message that will reflect well on both of you, personally and professionally.”

“So you’re a fixer,” I observe.

She rolls her eyes and says, “Only when people need to fix their image. Is there anything that needs fixing here?” Her gaze lowers, and she notices my hands are splayed across Eva’s belly, with hers resting on top. “Oh shit.”

The way Morgan sighs those words lets me know that she’s connected dots that we’d hoped no one else would without us telling them, and the way Eva stiffens in my arms lets me know she’s noticed too.

“Okay,” Morgan says decisively and walks over to the kitchen chair where she set her bag when she walked in.

“I’ve got an NDA here, which we can all sign.

And then I’m going to need you to level with me about what’s going on, because I can’t help you spin this story if I don’t know everything that we’re dealing with here. ”

Eva glances up over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised in question, and I give her a quick nod.

I don’t see any other—or better—option besides working with Morgan on this.

I’m confident that she can identify any holes in our story and help us fill them now, so that they won’t come out publicly at some point in the future.