I loved them.
She was changing, somehow getting more and more beautiful with each centimeter she grew, and I felt very much like I was staying the same.
“What’s got your balls in a bunch?” Declan asked, tossing his dirty kit onto the floor and tightening the towel around his waist. “You yelled even more than normal today, which is impressive, considering how much you yelled the week before. Conworth is going to be out a job not because he can’t win, but because you’re going to take it from him.”
I ignored that because I didn’t want to coach. I wanted to play. I didn’t want to be sitting on the bench in any facet of my life, and I seemed doomed to that position.
Waiting on an opportunity to play
Waiting for calls.
Waiting for pictures.
Waiting for something to happen so I could shove the door open and see what was on the other side.
I scrolled back up to the last few pictures she’d sent, all in front of the same long mirror in a big bedroom with a fucking terrible purple cover on it. I stopped, realizing she’d missed a week, and I hadn’t even noticed at the time.
“Did you know that a baby at twenty-four weeks’ gestation is the same length as sweetcorn?” I asked.
He froze, glancing at me with wide eyes. “Err, no. I wasn’t aware.”
“Well, it fucking is, all right? An ear of corn. I didn’t get a picture that week. I missed the sweetcorn.”
Declan pulled some trousers up and discarded the towel. “And what week are we on currently?”
“Twenty-six.”
He nodded. “Right.”
When I didn’t speak, Declan carefully lowered his big body onto the bench. “And this is the American?”
“Yeah.” I tossed my phone back into my duffel. “She’s back home now.”
“Congratulations,” he said dryly. “Relationship issues are difficult, mate. If you need the name of my therapist, he’s a bloody miracle worker.”
I groaned. “Just what I need. Someone to make me lay on a couch and purge my feelings. I’ve already got one person telling me I’ve got the emotional IQ of a potato. I’m not sure I should add a second.”
“You’d be surprised how much it helps.”
I eyed him.
Declan smiled, completely un-self-conscious. “How do you think I manage you lot without punching people in the face all the time?”
“Never given it much thought, really.”
Declan elbowed me. “Glad to know it’s that, if I’m being honest.”
“Why?”
“Here I just thought you were in a shit mood because you haven’t been playing well enough to start anymore.”
I gave him a dry look.
“Well, you haven’t. If you were doing the job correctly, you’d be out there, not sitting off to the side.” He slapped my back as he stood. “Nobody ever wants to bench the best person for the job, McAllister, and if that’s you, then bloody prove it.”
I rubbed a hand down my face, wishing I could ignore the truth of his words. “And if it’s not?”
He shrugged a shirt on, his expression thoughtful. “Then move aside for whoever is and teach them what you know.”
Those words, those bloody words from that bloody great grump of a captain stuck with me for weeks.
Every time I got a few minutes to play, I heard them in my head. I scored in stoppage time against Wolverhampton and earned myself more playing time in the next match. And in that game, I played them on a loop when all I managed was a yellow card and an epic yelling match with the linesman.
I heard them in my head all the time, it seemed, like a puzzle piece I couldn’t quite fit into place.
When I practiced.
When I tried to sleep but thought of her instead.
When I worked out, and my thoughts waffled between football and Lia and the baby (now a bloody cauliflower at twenty-seven weeks).
When she and I talked on the phone, about her appointments and class and apartment search and family.
When I’d get a picture or text between phone calls and had to think on exactly how to respond so she wouldn’t realize just how horribly I missed her in my life.
Sometimes I did better than others, matching her tone easily when we’d text about meaningless things. Foods we liked, and things we’d done that day. And others, I didn’t do as well.
Lia: Are you still awake?
Of course, I’m still awake. It’s still early enough that I’m in the lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, contemplating how I’d gotten my life so bloody off course portion of my evening, I almost answered.
Jude: Yeah. What’s up?
I almost fell off the bed when she started a FaceTime. Fumbling with the bedside lamp, I answered the call once I had it switched on.
Her face filled the screen, and I almost fucking wept at the sight of her broad smile. “Hi!”
I cleared my throat. “Hello.”
Her eyes tracked down to my bare chest, and her cheeks pinked immediately. “Sorry, I know it’s late, and I didn’t give you any warning.”
“You never to apologize for calling, lov-Lia.” I caught myself just in time, and she didn’t seem to notice my almost slip. “What’s up?”
Her eyes glowed. “You have to see this.”
Lia pulled the phone away from her body, so I could see her bump from the side. She was lying in her bed too.
My ribs felt tight seeing it. “It looks so different than in the pictures you send.”
“Shoot, it stopped.” She tugged up her shirt, and my heart started hammering at the sight of her bare stomach. Then something moved. “Did you see that?”
“Bloody hell,” I whispered. I practically jammed my nose against the screen to see it better, laughing incredulously when something pushed along her tight skin. “What is that?”
She laughed. “I don’t know, it feels like an elbow maybe?” Lia’s hand drifted over that spot, and her fingers pushed. When she pulled back, the baby moved again, and I found myself laughing.
“Did he just push you back?”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “This is the weirdest thing ever.” After one more small roll underneath the surface of her skin, Lia tugged her shirt down and moved the angle of her phone so I could see her face. “You said he.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.