Page 32

Parker

There was nothing like the atmosphere of a stadium just before kickoff.

It didn’t matter that preseason games didn’t really count. It was that first hit of adrenaline that we’d been waiting for since the previous season ended. And in the case of our team, that ending fucking hurt.

We’d finished our first round of stretching, back on the field in full gear doing our final warm-ups, and soon almost every seat in the Voyagers stadium would be full—a sea of blue and green and white, the energy electric in a way that couldn’t be replicated.

The start of a new season was hope, and even though the past two weeks were some of the hardest I’d felt in a long fucking time, I couldn’t deny that I was feeling it too.

With our tight end coach snapping the balls, I finished running through my route tree a few times, the repetitive actions soothing my nerves as the clock ticked down. The Wilder family was watching the game somewhere up in one of the luxury boxes. Preseason games weren’t usually when they showed up in force, but they wanted to see me do well.

After a twenty-yard sprint, I cut back about three or four yards for a comeback route, and the ball hit me right between the numbers. I cradled it to my chest as I jogged back toward Ben and tossed it back into his waiting hands.

Beckett walked over and held out his fist. I tapped it with my own. “Feeling good, old man?”

He smiled. “So far. Ask me again in a few weeks.” My brother-in-law looked around the field, soaking in the atmosphere. “I think this is my last year.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “I’m tired. I want to be home with Greer and Olive. Want to try for another too.”

I slapped him on the back. “Hey, good luck with that. A mini-version of Greer? You’re fucked, big man.”

Beckett smiled, merely shaking his head. His eyes were over on the sideline, where family members were allowed to wait before the game. “You talk to Anya?”

My chest constricted at the sound of her name. “Not yet,” I hedged.

“Greer said she couldn’t stay for the whole game when they talked earlier.”

My head snapped up. “Greer talked to her?”

Beckett gave me a strange look. “Yeah, she was just over there when I saw Greer and Olive. Figured you knew.”

Was it a thousand degrees in here? God, someone cranked the fucking furnace up, I just knew it. Heart thrashing wildly behind my ribs, I looked over at the family area. Behind bright blue ropes, and between two people I didn’t recognize, I saw a flash of bright, golden hair.

He gave me a knowing smile. “Go say hi, and get your ass back to the sideline. We gotta head to the locker room soon.”

It didn’t matter there would be eyes on us, more cameras than I could count aimed in our direction, I was only thinking about her as I jogged over, hope exploding under my skin the closer I got.

Her hair shone under the lights as she moved her head, lifting it in my direction, and our eyes locked.

Something in my chest broke free, and it took every shred of discipline not to sprint because her presence didn’t mean she was coming back. It didn’t mean she was ready for the same thing I was. But the cautious look in those blue eyes had my hope spinning quick and fast.

I stopped short, aware that every head in the family area had turned in our direction. She wasn’t wearing one of my jerseys. Instead, a simple Voyagers tank top was molded to her upper body, her toned arms bare and on display. Around her neck was a family badge.

“Hi.” God, I was out of breath just from that short jog over here. Pathetic.

She smiled, small and reserved. “Hi.”

Gently, I reached out for her hand and pulled her to the edge of the family area, trying to get even the smallest amount of privacy. Her fingers tangled with mine, and I had to close my eyes, dipping my head to speak closer to her ear. Her scent swam in my lungs—grapefruit and that warm note I’d never been able to name. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Anya’s chest rose and fell on a deep breath, and when she looked back up at me, I was undone by what I saw there.

Her sadness. Her frustration. And something edging close enough to affection that I wanted to fall to my knees.

“I promised I would,” she said carefully. “I didn’t want … I hated the idea that you had no one waiting for you today.”

Probably not a good time to tell her there were seven hundred members of my family up in the suite, and it was entirely possible that they were all fucking watching right now.

It was almost impossible to swallow, but I managed it, and so many conflicting thoughts raced through my head. What did this mean? Was it really that simple?

I couldn’t say what I wanted to say right here. Couldn’t make this moment everything I wanted it to be with so many eyes watching and such a limited amount of time.

So I settled on a smile, and said, “I’m really glad you’re here.”

Her eyes held mine long enough that my heart jumped around in my chest.

“How’s Leo?” she asked.

I smiled. “Good. Slept seven hours last night without waking up.”

“You probably feel amazing, huh?”

“Are you kidding? I got up three times just to make sure he was still breathing.”

Anya tossed her head back and laughed.

She was the sun, her warmth seeping through the cold bones and aching muscles left in her absence.

I almost grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her. But I let the moment pass, knowing this wasn’t the time for it. God, let there be another time for it.

“How have you been?” I asked quietly.

“Good. Working at the gym since Isabel is still out. Vida’s keeping me busy too. She’s … she’s ready to take over the world.”

“That’s great.” I studied her freckles. The ones you could only see when you were really close. The dip at the top of her lip. She was a work of art, and I wondered how I’d managed not to tell her that every single day.

I should have.

Everything that felt scary for so long, the things I didn’t want, thought I didn’t need, they vanished like smoke.

She pulled in a deep breath, her smile fading as she studied my face. “And you?”

Someone barked my name from the sidelines, and I held up my hand. “Two minutes,” I yelled over my shoulder, refusing to pull my eyes from Anya. Her jaw clenched, tension tightening the skin around her mouth as she glanced down at the field. I ran a hand through my hair and blew out a harsh breath. “Trying,” I told her. Her eyes lifted. “I’m trying to be better. Make the choices I’d want Leo to make.”

Her eyes glossed with unshed tears. “That’s great, Parker.”

“I want to be the kind of man he can look up to.”

“You already are,” she said, looking over my shoulder for a moment, like the eye contact was too heavy to hold. My heart stopped beating when she finally looked at me again. “But I hope you’ll let me meet the new, improved Parker when you’re done working on him.”

There it was again: that ferocious need that only seemed to appear when Anya was around. It was an urgency that I only experienced with her. For her.

I’d mislabeled it out of some stupid sense of self-preservation. Lust made for an easy excuse, but wasn’t it embedded so much deeper than that? Wasn’t she ?

“I’d like that,” I told her, and there was no hiding the gruff edge to my voice. Before she could respond, Coach screamed my name again, and I pinched my eyes shut, deciding to ignore him until he came over and dragged me off the fucking field. “Will you be here after the game?”

A moment alone with her was all I needed. Without the prying eyes of the entire fucking world.

She shook her head, and my heart sank. “I can stay until about halftime. Isabel had a rough day after PT yesterday, and I have to help get stuff ready for Willa’s birthday party tomorrow.” She looked up and sighed. “A dozen eleven-year-old girls at my parents’ house. My dad is thrilled.”

Disappointment sat like ice in my chest, but I managed to smile. “I bet.”

“Pray for my survival,” she said ruefully. “It’ll be touch and go for a while.”

“If anyone can handle it, it’s you,” I told her. “Where are you sitting?”

She pointed over by the end zone, her grin mischievous, that dimple appearing in her cheek. “Greer said I could join them in the box, but I’d rather sit closer to the action.”

I fucking adored this woman. Panic seized my lungs, not knowing when I’d see her again, and I wanted to clutch her to my chest, press a fierce kiss to her soft, pink mouth until this violent want of her ebbed.

“Parker fucking Wilder, get your ass into the locker room,” Coach bellowed. “I will fine you into next year if you delay kickoff.”

I smiled down at her. “How are you gonna send me off to battle?”

She bit down on her lip, hands coming up to grip my chest pads. “Go kick some ass,” she said. Then she slapped my shoulder pads and shoved me backward.

I laughed, and God, it felt so good.

Anya did too, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. Taking the risk, I moved closer again, then dipped my head down and placed a featherlight kiss on her cheek. “Drive safe, golden girl,” I whispered into her ear.

Her eyes were still closed when I pulled back, and instead of waiting to see what was on her face when she opened them, I took off toward the locker room and slapped my coach on the ass when I caught up with him.

“I’m gonna bench you if you take that long again,” he yelled.

I turned around and walked backward so he could see my grin. “Totally fucking worth it.”

It was late when I got home, later than I had anticipated. Louise was reading on the couch when I let myself into the garage.

“Goodness, I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere,” she said.

I smiled. “Poppy had her baby at the stadium after the game.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “What now?”

“In one of our training rooms, if you can believe it.” I pulled out my phone and showed her a picture of my sister and Jax holding a squalling little girl wrapped in a blanket provided by the EMTs on duty for the game.

“Oh my,” she breathed. “And she’s okay? Baby too?”

“Perfect,” I said. “Named her Rosie. She’s sweet. Plus, I won a bet that the rest of the guys could hear her screaming in the locker room during labor.”

Louise rolled her eyes.

“He go down okay?” I asked, gesturing toward the guest room with a nod. Greer was working on some designs for me to turn it into Leo’s nursery, but for now, the bassinet worked just fine.

She nodded, tucking her book away into her bag.

I dumped my duffel bag on the floor, bypassing the kitchen to go check on Leo. The guest room was dark, with only a small night-light plugged into the wall to give me enough light to see.

He was sound asleep, one arm having worked free of his swaddle, resting near his head in a loose fist. His tiny chest rose and fell on even breaths, and I gently touched the tip of his nose. “Some days I’ll be home before you’re in bed, I promise,” I told him. It would only get harder as he got older, and I wondered how the hell guys did this for years, missed all this precious time with their kids as they grew. I bent down and kissed him on the head before leaving the room.

Louise was waiting by the door when I came down the stairs.

“Watched a bit of the game. Nice touchdown in the second quarter.”

“Thanks. Thought he had me for a second before I broke to the right.”

“So did I.” Her eyebrows rose meaningfully. “She was there.”

“She was.” I tucked my hands into my pockets and rocked back on my heels. “Not sure what that means for her, though.”

The smile on her face was knowing, and sometimes I hated how much this woman saw through my shit. With a gentle hand, she cupped my face. “It does you no favors to pretend you don’t. You just have to be brave enough to act on it.”

“Speaking of which,” I said slowly, “think you can stay a little bit longer to help me with something?”

She arched an eyebrow. “You gonna pay me overtime?”

I wrapped Louise in a hug as I laughed. “Yeah. I think we can figure something out.”