He stretched and dropped his feet to the floor before reaching for my hand. His skin was warm, and his grip was gentle and familiar. My eyes smarted again. “I’m okay.” I swallowed and took a breath. “I need to tell you something.”
His body stiffened in his seat. I hoped like hell he wasn’t going to hate me for admitting how weak I’d been.
“What is it?”
“It’s about why I wasn’t answering your calls and stuff. Why I left Houston without saying goodbye.”
Tiller’s face relaxed, and he leaned in closer. “I know what happened with your dad, sweetheart. I know about the threats.”
His words surprised me. How on earth did he know what my dad had said? Had Coach threatened him, too?
“How?” I asked. “Did he say something to you?” If so, I was going to kill him even worse than I already planned.
“No. I think you accidentally texted Sam.” He held up a hand. “And before you get mad at Sam for telling me, you need to know I was beside myself with worry I’d done or said something to run you off. I was in a really bad place. That’s the only reason Sam finally caved and told me what he knew.”
I reached for his hand and brought it to my mouth for a kiss. “I don’t want you to be traded away.”
“He’s not going to trade me, Mikey. I’m the highest-rated wide receiver in the league. He needs me more than I need him, and we both know it. I wish you’d come to me about this.”
Tiller studied me for a minute while I contemplated his words. “Mikey, are you worried about the cookbook? Because it’s a good thing for the league in general. They’re always looking for marketing opportunities like this. I don’t think they’re going to let your dad pull team support from the project. And if they do, you’re still going to kick ass with it. You have so much support already from lots of people in professional sports in Houston. Even if the league and the team don’t endorse it, the individuals can still provide quotes for the cover, right?”
I nodded, feeling a little clearer-headed than before. “No. The editor said they have contacts at the league and have talked to them already. I think it’s fine.”
Tiller’s grin was huge. “See? That’s great. Everything’s going to be fine.”
But it wasn’t. Not really. Because after everything that had happened with my father, I didn’t have any plans to go back to Houston anytime soon. I simply couldn’t face him, and I honestly wanted nothing to do with the Riggers either. The team and the game had taken too much of my family’s attention over the years, and I needed time to finally let myself process it.
I needed to mourn the loss of the father I’d never had but always wished I did.
I swallowed. “Did… did the team win in Buffalo?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah. Thank god. Maybe the fallout of my absence will be a little better because of it. Brent and Mopellei came through with some great plays, and…”
As rude as it was, I let myself drift off while he told me about the game. I honestly didn’t care. If Tiller didn’t play in it, I no longer gave a shit about football. I cared about him, not the game, to the point I worried it might be a deal breaker between us.
Football was his life, his gift. It was my albatross. It was the thing that had taken my father from me my whole life and had almost taken Tiller from me, might still take Tiller from me.
His hand was warm on my forehead as he began to stroke my face and hair. “Sleep, baby.”
But I couldn’t. I knew tomorrow was going to bring a heapload of trouble. My father, Tiller’s agent, and whatever other doses of reality I wasn’t lucid enough to think of at the moment. I needed to find a way to let Tiller know I understood how important his job was and I’d do anything in my power not to stand in the way of it.
When I woke up again, Tiller was talking to the nurse about discharge instructions. They did the whole wheelchair routine, and Moose was out front waiting for us in Jill’s minivan. The drive to the lodge was fairly easy, and when I entered the house, I felt the bittersweet realization this would be one of my last times “coming home” to it.
“They took the lodge off the market,” I told Tiller. “I found out earlier this week.” I’d texted him about the Civettis having a family emergency, but I hadn’t explained about any of the rest of it.
“I know,” he said, helping me down the hall with an arm around my back. I noticed the door to the locked bedroom wing on the far side of the entryway was open, and light flooded in from big windows looking out of the front of the house.
“Oh. That’s nice. How’d you open that? Did Stacy come by?” I wondered if I’d have the energy to snoop once I took a nap.
“C’mere,” Tiller murmured, steering me down the sunny hallway. We passed several bedrooms with sturdy four-poster beds and cozy furnishings. It gave me mixed feelings about losing out on the opportunity to live here and run it for the Civettis. But I had a plan.
“I found a place I want you to look at,” I told Tiller, following him past a small wood-paneled office and into what looked like a large solarium at the end of the hallway. “It needs some work, but I think I can get Sam to come help.”
I stopped in place and stared at the room we’d stepped into. It was completely made of glass and shaped in a large oval off the end of the house. I hadn’t seen it from the outside because of the angle of the room and some overgrown trees in front of it.
“Holy fuck,” I breathed, walking through the sun-filled space. It was the perfect breakfast room for my dream bed-and-breakfast. The room was empty except for a small conversational grouping of two love seats on either side of a coffee table, but I could picture it filled with a hodgepodge of dining tables surrounded by comfortable chairs.
“I thought this would make a good breakfast room,” Tiller said, guiding me over to sit on one of the love seats.
“Yeah. It would. For sure. It’s lovely.”
Tiller sat next to me and reached for my good hand. “Can you picture it?”
I let out a short laugh. “Yeah, but it hurts, you know? It’s hard to imagine someone else here. I’ve totally fallen in love with the place. That’s selfish, I know. Besides, the place I found has an awesome screened-in porch. It’s a little small, but—”
He cut me off. “Okay, don’t be mad,” he blurted. “Now I’m worried I did the wrong thing. Fuck.” He looked out the wall of windows, down at the honeyed wooden floor, and back at me before taking a breath.
“What’s happening?” I asked carefully, beginning to get an idea.
“I bought this place for us,” he said before wincing.
“What place?”
“This place. Rockley Lodge. I bought it. Out from under the Civettis.”
I stared at him. “You what?”
“Please don’t be mad. Please. Am I a controlling asshole? Do you hate me for being heavy-handed?”
Lightness and laughter bubbled up in my chest. “You bought Rockley Lodge?”
He nodded. “Kinda? I mean. Yes. I did. I bought it. It’s ours. Well… technically it’s yours. In a trust for you. My attorney did it. Just in case you don’t want me invol—”