Not just talk, but talk like this.
We’d spoken the night before, and he’d had Avalee hand me the phone. But tonight? Avalee had just started skipping away from me when he’d said, “Call me when Ava’s asleep.” I had barely made it off the couch when his demand came through like a bomb before the call disconnected.
My stomach had filled with lead and dropped to the floor. Staying behind while I’d pretended everything was perfect for our daughter through shower time and getting ready for bed.
All while my thoughts had run wild.
A lawyer? Likely.
Forcing us back to Seattle when we weren’t ready? Probable.
Going for custody? I would destroy him.
“We’re right here,” my mom said when I made it into the living room to grab my phone.
I picked it up, feeling its weight in my hands that somehow seemed so significant. “Should I go outside?” I asked softly, gesturing to the door behind me. “You know, for Avalee?”
My mom started to protest, but it was my dad who spoke first. “You should do what you think is best.” His head shifted to the side. “But we’ll be right here for ya either way.”
My chin wavered. “Thanks, Daddy.”
I rocked backward before deciding against it and moved closer to where they sat.
When I continued standing even after the call was going through my phone’s speaker, they stood with me, watching from across the coffee table. Hands clasped tight and expressions pure strength.
I loved them for it. All of it.
“Madison,” Raf answered, sounding irritated and relieved and ten kinds of stressed.
“She’s in bed,” I said shakily.
A second passed before a sigh came through the phone. “Okay, good. Good.”
“What’s going on?” I nearly begged when he didn’t continue, voice betraying all my worry. And there wasn’t one part of me that was able to care at that moment.
“Rumors were circling around,” he began slowly, his agitation and stress rising. “But, I got called in today.”
I stared at the phone for a while before finally blinking. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Sounders.”
Relief barreled through me at the word—the name. Because whatever he needed to talk about, it wasn’t any of the things I’d been fearing.
My head nodded frantically as I tried to jump from the subject of Avalee to his team. “Called in—wait, what rumors? About being released?”
He grunted something like a hiss and an acknowledgment. “Yeah, that. I’m not.”
“Okay, good.” I swallowed past the whiplash and shakily made my way over to a couch now that I wasn’t panicking. “Raf, just talk to me. What happened when you got called in?”
“Been with that team my entire career, Madison. I’m one of the top-ranked strikers in the U.S.”
I brushed my hair from my face and held it away as I nodded. “I know.” When silence met me, I sank to the couch and lowered my voice, “Raf, I’m not understanding. They aren’t releasing you. What’s wrong?”
“They offered me a one-year contract. Said they wanted my last year.”
I sucked in a sharp breath as my stare went to my parents. Both gave each other careful looks before we all looked to the door when a knock sounded.
My dad held a hand toward us as he headed that way, and I focused on my phone’s screen again.
“Raf, that’s . . .” My head shook quickly. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m thirty-two,” he said sullenly.
“Yeah, but like you said: You’re one of the top-ranked strikers . . . in . . .” I trailed off when my entire body seemed to come alive at the sight of the man coming toward me.
Baseball hat in his hand and staring at me like he needed me.
“Madison?”
“The U.S.,” I finished quickly and licked my suddenly dry lips. My heart took off, pounding so fiercely I was sure even Rafael would be able to hear it through the phone. I forced myself to remember what I’d been saying, my head shaking as I thought. “You’re not slowing down, and you don’t have any major injuries.”
“But that’s just it. They don’t wanna risk a five-year when I’m at retiring age. They said something like, ‘Things can change in a year. Go out while it’s still your choice. Go out on a high note.’”
I hesitated because I knew how hard this must be for him. His dad had played until he was almost forty—but his dad hadn’t been a striker. “Raf . . .” My head jerked back when I finally realized it was no longer my job to have these conversations with him. “Where’s Madelyn? Shouldn’t you be talking to her about this?”
He loosed an aggravated laugh. “She doesn’t understand this part of it. And we need to talk about this because it concerns Ava.”
There it was again.
That deep, sinking pit in my stomach. Crushing the butterflies that had erupted at the sight of Hunter and stealing my breath.
I bent over, hugging my knees as I managed to ask, “Concerns her how?”
“My agent called a couple days ago, saying there was an offer on the table. Five-year for sixteen-point-five.”
“Where?”
I trembled as I waited.
And waited.
It was Rafael’s dream to play for Brazil. To go back where he was from.
When I glanced up, Hunter filled my vision. His expression solemn and guarded even though he didn’t understand what was happening. But he could feel it. And I couldn’t watch him while Raf potentially ripped another rug out from under me. But my parents weren’t any easier.
From the worry they were failing to hide, their thoughts had gone to the same place mine had. They’d been more than aware of Rafael’s dream. They’d worried about it for years.
Seattle had been far enough.
I lowered my head and shut my eyes, my lips parted to ask again when Raf said, “Dallas.”
My head snapped up. My gaze darting from my parents to Hunter, where it stayed.
But even as something indescribable rushed through me, Hunter worked his jaw, looking more worried than before. As if he didn’t trust this gift Raf was handing me.
“Raf, that—”
“I don’t know if I can take it, Madison.”
The air rushed from my lungs as he tried to steal away that moment of excitement. “Why? You can take a two-million-dollar cut, Rafael.”
“It isn’t that,” he ground out. “It’s trading.”
“You want more than a year, they’re offering that,” I argued.
“I’ve been here my entire career. How am I supposed to leave at the end of it?”
“Players do it all the time.”
“And a lot of them get screwed in the end. They get traded . . . the teams realize they were a bad trade . . . they get dropped.”
“You’re not just some player they’re gambling on, Raf.”
He let out an exhausted groan. “You’re saying this shit because of where the offer is located.”
“Of course I am. It would be a problem if it were anywhere else because I won’t follow you there, which means Avalee wouldn’t be going. But this would have you coming here.” When he didn’t respond in any way, I said, “You’re at the top of your game, and you aren’t ready to quit. They’re offering five years. Take it.”