Page 183 of Pucking Sweet

“I want it to be yours,” he says, squeezing my hand. “I want it to be yours so fucking badly.”

“Why?” I say again.

“Because you don’t have my heart conditions. Nov, what if I hurt him? What if I set him up to fail? You can’t get far on a weak heart. Trust me, I know.”

“Hey.” I roll up to my knees and grab his face in both my hands. “Stop. Do you hear me? Enough. Have the doctors given you any cause for concern?”

He shakes his head. “No. They say development looks normal.”

“So then cling to that,” I say, my tone firm. “Do you have a picture?”

He nods.

“Show me.” Anything to calm him down and get his mind out of the bad place. I let him go, and he shows it to me. It’s just a black image with a little white thing floating in the middle that looks like a peanut. “Is that it?”

“That’s him,” he replies with another nod.

My heart stops. “Him?”

He smiles. “Yeah, it’s a boy. We’ll have the full anatomy scan in a few weeks, but the doctor is like seventy percent sure. Poppy calls him Lentil.”

“Well, we’re changing that,” I mutter, my eyes locked on the phone screen.

Poppy’s having a boy, and Cole wants it to be mine. Another Novikov, with her pointy chin and my bad attitude? Oddly enough, I can picture it, a preppy little kid wearing Oshkosh and talking withhis hands on his hips, just like his mom. He’ll be a terror. He’ll break my stuff and steal my car keys and talk his way out of everything because he’ll have her blue eyes.

Fuck.

“Nov…”

I glance up at Cole, seeing the depth of his anxiety etched on every line of his face. “What?”

He groans, dropping the phone to his lap. “I don’t know how to…I don’t want to cross this line or push you. I mean, there’s pushing you, and then there’spushingyou—”

“Just say it.” I wait, heart in my throat.

“Will you hold me?” he whispers. “Just for a minute. I just wanna try it out.”

“Yeah,” I say on a breath. “Yeah, Coley, I’ll hold you.”

We turn off our lamps, set aside our phones, and lie down on the bed. Unsure of exactly what he wants, I slide over across the middle of the bed onto his side. He rolls over, making space for me at his back. I slot myself in as the big spoon, wrapping one arm around his waist as I tuck the other up under the pillow.

We settle into each other, Cole, weaving our fingers together and tucking my hand up against his chest. We lie there, the heat of our skin transferring until it feels like we’re a human furnace. I’m not asleep, and I know he’s not either.

Brushing my lips to his shoulder, I whisper the words sitting heavy in my fragile, skittish heart. “I miss you so goddamn much.”

Lifting my hand to his lips, he kisses my knuckles. “I didn’t know I was looking for you until I found you. Now that I have, I’m not letting you go.”

I breathe a sigh of relief, nestling my face at the nape of his neck. His comforting scent surrounds me, and I shut my eyes tight. For the first time since I bolted in LA, I don’t try to crash into the oblivion of sleep. I stay present. I hold him in the dark, and I let myself imagine the possibility that someone could stay. I imagine that someone could really want me…love me.

Feeling bold, I imagine I could let them.

68

Istand under the shower’s hot spray, eyes closed, mentally preparing for game day. This will be a quick away trip. I take stock of my body, doing my pre-game damage report. Shoulders feel tight, but a massage should help. My left knee is still aching from a hard hit earlier this week. I worry another bad over-extension might tear something. That’s the last thing we need right now. We’ve already got Langers out with a knee injury.

My music plays from my phone on the counter as I turn, letting the water hit my front. I rub my face with a tired groan.

The music stops.