Page 17 of Tides Of Your Love (Riviera Shores #3)

Owen

SIMON’S VOICE, LOUD enough for me to hear from Rio’s phone, was the jolt of reality I needed. A bucket of cold water. A hand yanking me back from the edge.

Every night under the same roof as his sister, every day seeing Rio, was a slippery slope I wasn’t willing or able to slide down. Because this wasn’t a game I could play. Toying with her heart wasn’t an option even if I was willing to risk mine.

Relationships, for me, had always been a transaction.

“Be a winner and we’ll be proud of you,” my parents all but said.

“Be a winner and we’ll love you,” the world I worked in said.

The transaction continued with women—a warm, beautiful body, for the perks that came with being by my side—the status, the sex, the media attention, the taste of the high life.

In return, I got company. Distraction. An easy way to fill the empty spaces.

Because that’s what love was, wasn’t it? Conditional. A give and take. And if I had nothing to give ... ?

I checked the sports sites every night, looking for a mention of me. Something to confirm I still existed in that world. But after the first day, there was nothing.

My agent took half a day to text me back, when once he would’ve been at my beck and call.

My contract was still on hold. I was too proud to answer calls from teams I considered beneath me, too stubborn to let go of the belief that I could get back to where I’d been. That I would get back.

Because football—it was everything. It gave me everything. The emotion, the drama, the love, the rush. It was all I needed and all I could get.

Or at least, I told myself it was. Even in the middle of it all—the cheers, the wins, the women—there was a hollow space nothing seemed to reach. And now, with the game gone, that void was all that remained.

But that wasn’t a reason to go to Rio. Not when the need for her was tangled up in everything I’d lost. Not when she deserved more than a man who had nothing to offer her.

And definitely not when I wasn’t sure I could handle what it would mean if she looked at me and saw nothing worth loving at all.