Sunlight streamed in through my window too early that morning, the endless night blending into day as if it hadn’t existed at all. In so many ways, it felt like a dream.
In so many others, it felt like an awakening.
I held Julep against me, both of us naked and wrapped up in my sheets and comforter, our body heat keeping one another warm. I had my arm under her and wrapped around her shoulder while the other held her waist. She had one leg threaded between mine, and she scrawled secret messages into my skin with a lazy fingertip.
If we’d slept, it hadn’t been much. Neither of us had wanted to stop touching, to stop kissing and tasting and feeling every bit of connection humanly possible. My body hummed with a vibration I’d never felt — not like the usual sated buzz after a good fucking, but something deeper, something… heavier.
It had been the most sensual, erotic experience of my entire fucking life.
Julep rolled in my arms, turning until her back was pressed against my chest. I curled around her, fitting myself to her seamlessly and resting my chin in the crook of her neck. I kissed the skin there, and a long, sweet sigh left her lips at the touch.
I knew I needed to get up soon. I didn’t have to look at the time to know I probably had less than an hour before I needed to head to the stadium. But I held her tighter, closer, praying for time to hold still for just a few moments longer.
More than anything, I wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone. I wanted to share something with her that I never shared with anyone, something that showed none of us react to death in “the right way.”
There was no right way.
“I wanted to quit.”
I said the words against the back of her neck, and Julep froze for a moment before she wiggled back against me, letting me know she was listening.
“When my mom…” Emotion strangled me, but I swallowed it down. “When she took her life, when she left me alone because she couldn’t handle the pain of losing my dad and Hannah, I didn’t see a point to football anymore. I didn’t see a point to anything.”
Julep squeezed where her hand rested on my forearm that held her to me.
“I was a ghost when my uncle Kevin came and got me, when he brought me here to New England. For months, I barely spoke to him, barely ate, barely showered. I didn’t try out for the football team, no matter how he begged me. But one day, when it was the perfect kind of gray fall day for playing ball, he dragged me down to the park and made me play catch with him. He told me if I would just throw the ball for an hour, he’d leave me alone.
“I was annoyed at first. I dragged my feet on the way there and I threw the ball lopsidedly like a little kid having a hissy fit. But after a while… something came back to me. I found myself breathing easier for the first time since Mom left. I felt the closest thing to joy I could manage. Uncle Kevin didn’t say a word, didn’t try to talk to me or give me any kind of therapy. But with that one simple hour in the park, he reminded me of something I’d forgotten.”
Julep angled her head a bit toward me, like she wanted to know.
“That I love life. I love my life. I love my mom, even if she hurt me by leaving. And I love my dad and my sister. I loved having the family that I had, the life that I had — even if it was ripped from me too soon. I love my uncle. I love that despite everything he had going on in his own life, it wasn’t too much for him to sacrifice a little more and do everything he could to help me. And what really hit me in that moment was that I remembered I love football. I love football. And just like pole saved you, it was the game that saved me.”
I was quiet for a long while, and Julep turned in my arms until she was facing me again. She didn’t have to say a word for me to see that she was thankful I’d shared that with her, that I’d shown that she wasn’t alone in feeling the way she did.
My throat tightened the longer I looked into her eyes, the more my fingers trailed through her silky hair. And then my heart spoke before I could consider whether it was better or not to muzzle it.
“I want to be with you.”
Julep’s bottom lip trembled, and a tear leaked out of the corner of her eye and down over the pillowcase.
“I see you, everything that you are, and I’ve never needed anything more in my life. And don’t say we can’t,” I warned her when she opened her mouth. “I know the risk. I know. But… maybe, if we can show him how good we are together, your dad will understand.”
Julep’s face lit up a little with an amused curl of her lips, the first I’d seen in twenty-four hours at least. “You don’t know my father.”
“I don’t, that’s true,” I conceded. “But I’m starting to know you. And I want to know more.”
Julep sighed.
“Please, just think ab—”
“Would you let me speak?”
She smiled a little with the question, shaking her head before she cuddled into me more.
“I want to be with you, too.”
Relief smacked into me, and I pulled her into me and kissed her while she laughed against my lips. But then she pressed her palm into my chest.
“But…”
I groaned. “No, no buts. Except this one,” I added, squeezing her ass.
She rolled her eyes. “But I want to wait until after the season to tell anyone. Especially my dad. He’s already stressed out enough as it is, and I think if we stand any chance of getting him to understand, to be okay with this… we need to wait until he’s in a better headspace. Until he’s not in Coach mode.”
I considered, chest tightening with how much I hated the thought of waiting at least another two months to claim Julep the way I really wanted to.
But she was saying yes.
She was saying she wanted me, too.
In the end, that was all that mattered to me.
“Okay,” I conceded. “With one exception.”
Julep arched a brow. “Are we in negotiations now?”
I smiled, sweeping her hair behind her ear. I let my thumb rest there against her jaw, smoothing over the bone.
“I want you to meet my uncles.”
