“Explain to me why we’re here so early again?” I asked Paige, who hustled us into my suite well over an hour before kickoff.
I mean, yes, I understood the significance of playing on Monday night. Ratings were higher, games were usually more important, and it was our first one all year. Because of everything that had happened, and it being a division game in the latter half of the season, there was a lot riding on it.
“I, umm, just really wanted to get comfy.” She wouldn’t look me in the eye. Against one wall, there was a massive floor-to-ceiling entertainment center with large flat-screen TV mounted against the wall and surrounded by built-in bookcases. “If you were a remote, where would you be hiding?”
From the mahogany coffee table, I handed her the remote she needed. “Were you day drinking again?”
“It was touch and go there for a couple of hours,” she muttered. “But no.”
“What is going on?”
Outside the box and the relative privacy of the glass doors leading out to our two rows of cushioned seats, I could hear muffled music. The players were stretching, and I tried not to stare down at them, so small on the bright green grass. I tried not to pick out where Luke was tossing the ball to someone else in tight pants and a T-shirt.
Paige didn’t answer, fumbling with the remotes and squinting at the TV when the guide appeared. “Finally, good grief.”
“Paige,” I huffed, crossing my arms over my black long-sleeve t-shirt. Joy had picked out the fitted V-neck style from the pro shop, something new we’d gotten in last week because she said it looked good on me. Written down one sleeve was Washington and along the other was Wolves. Over my heart was the red, black, and white logo of the howling beast. Briefly, I laid my hand over it, the silly little drawing that had become so ridiculously dear to me in such a short time.
“There,” she breathed when she found the Monday Night Football countdown that was currently being filmed on the very field we looked down on.
“Seriously?” I asked her. “We’re at the game, so why do we need to watch this?”
For the first time since we got in the car, she cut me an apprehensive look. “I just … really want to watch Jon Gruden’s interview. I love his Monday night interviews.”
“Since when?”
“Since now.”
I shook my head and picked up the catering menu but tossed it down again because nothing sounded good. For the first time all season, we’d be the only ones in the box. Usually, I invited different family members of the players or gave passes to employees to use for friends and family, but Paige really wanted us to relax tonight and not feel like we had to entertain.
I sank onto the couch and propped my sneaker-clad feet on the coffee table while the announcers gave updates from around the league.
“It’s important for the Wolves to win tonight,” one said, giving a nod back to the field behind them. “They’ve got a two-game lead in their division, but they end out the season with one of the toughest stretches all year. Two back-to-back away games against two of the best scoring defenses in the league. They’ve stayed healthy, which is huge, but they’ve also been plagued with distraction on and off the field.”
Paige looked at me, and I crossed my arms over my stomach, determined not to show how uncomfortable this made me. This was the stuff that Luke hated. The rhetoric. The narrative that you couldn’t control. People who didn’t know you dissecting your life, your livelihood, colored with their own bias.
Gruden nodded. “Indeed, they have. One thing we know about Luke Pierson, besides his huge arm and ability to manage the game, is that he’s not prone to those kinds of distractions. He normally avoids guys like me, so when he called and asked if he could sit down with me, I was more than a bit surprised.”
I sat up slowly, my lips falling open.
The other two at the curved table laughed. “Us too,” the third announcer said. “We thought you were kidding.”
Gruden held up his hands, an affable smile wide on his face. “I’d never lie about the elusive Luke Pierson asking for a one on one.” He looked straight at the camera. “So here you go. My most surprising and revealing interview of the season.”
My heart catapulted up into my throat as I sat forward fully, my knees bouncing in place. The camera cut to a dark room, only two chairs facing each other with lights behind each.
Gruden sat in one. Luke in the other.
I had to cover my mouth with a shaky hand at how good he looked. His hair had been recently cut close to the scalp. It would be soft against my hand. He was wearing a simple white dress shirt with a light blue plaid pattern that made his skin look golden and healthy. His shoulders stretched the seams when he shifted in his seat.
“Thanks for having me,” he told Jon.
“I was a bit surprised, man. You don’t usually call me to have a chat.”
Luke gave a look that was half grimace, half smile. “Yeah, sorry about that. I haven’t always had the best of luck with the media.”
“How so?”
He took a deep breath, visibly prepping himself before he spoke. In the set of his jaw, I could see how uncomfortable he was. My hands wanted to crash through the glass to get to him even though I was just seeing an image of him, a replay of something that had probably been shot the day before. Maybe even earlier.
“I’ve always struggled with the feeling that when I spoke to the media, I was defending myself. Defending how we played, how we didn’t play, defending the things that happened off the field that might have affected our game.” He swallowed and looked down. “When my daughter’s mother died, it only magnified that feeling because I had no desire to explain any of that. It was private to me, and it was difficult to see my silence taken as tacit agreement to a made-up story about what my life had been like with her.”
“And by that, you mean that your relationship was more serious than it was in reality.”
“Yeah.” Luke stared past Gruden’s shoulder for a minute. “Cassandra, Faith’s mother, wasn’t someone who I knew all that well. Not really. And I regret that, especially for my daughter. I wish I could tell her more about what her mother was like, but I can’t. And when I was suddenly stuck in the trenches of being a single father, I wasn’t ready to open myself up to that conversation, and it really affected how I started dealing with the media.”
Gruden leaned back, folding his arms and shaking his head. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “Man, and here I thought we’d talk pass rush and how you read a blitz so well.”
Luke laughed, and my heart somersaulted, sluggish and lovesick. “We can do that, too.”
“But that’s not why you wanted to sit down with me?”
Another heavy exhale that I felt in the tip of my fingers, a rush of blood with hot anticipation. “No. It’s not.”
“You want to talk about Alexandra Sutton.” Not a question. No surprise in his eyes.
“I think I’m having a panic attack,” I whispered. Paige rubbed my back. Beyond the glass, I realized I heard an echo of Gruden’s words. My eyes darted out, and with a dawning sense of horror, I realized that they were projecting the interview up on the main screens of the field. During warm-ups. For everyone to see. “Holy shiiiiiiiiit,” I breathed. Both hands covered my mouth now, and I fought the urge to go lock myself in the bathroom.
Luke’s smile was soft. Soft! It was sweet. And he looked like he might vomit.
OMG, join the club.
“I do,” Luke said. He licked his lips. “I’m not someone who believes that regret is this big evil to be avoided. It’s how we learn. If we won every single game, we’d never be forced to sit back and rethink our strategy, to replay our choices, see where we could have been better, been faster. Regretting the ability to get to know Cassandra is something I can’t change, but I can change the regret I have over not speaking to the media a couple of weeks ago when Allie’s and my privacy was clearly invaded. It doesn’t matter that there are no legal ramifications for the person who took our picture during a private moment because I regret not protecting someone who I very much respect and care for.”
“So that’s why we’re here? You want to apologize to her?”
“Yes and no,” Luke replied. “I’ve already apologized to Allie for the pictures even though I’m not the one who took them or sold them to the media. And I’ve apologized to my teammates for the distraction it caused as a consequence.”
“The fight with Marks,” Gruden said.
Luke shook his head, grinning a little. A dimple popped next to his lips, and I fought the urge to swoon. I didn’t know I could want to swoon through panic, but there I was. Heart-eyes all around, I was helpless against them.
“The fight with Marks was ill-advised,” he said carefully. “But that is not something I regret.”
Gruden lifted his eyebrows. “No? That was a hefty fine you were given.”
Luke leaned forward. “Not for one second would I take that back. I’d pay twice that much and still do it again.”
“Why?”
“Because no one will ever speak about her the way Marks did and get away with it. Not in front of me,” he said with terrifying, incredible certainty.
My heart. Poof. It was gone somewhere in a glittery cloud of pink. Paige sighed, and I felt my lips twitch into a helpless smile. From outside the glass, I heard applause. Cheering.
Gruden grinned. “Because she’s your boss?”
Luke rubbed the back of his neck, one side of his mouth hooked up in a smile so sexy, so heartbreaking, that I felt my breath catch before he said a single word. “Because I fell in love with her.”
I gasped. “Did he? Did he just …”
Paige sniffled. “He totally did. Oh, my word, Allie.”
“You love her,” Gruden clarified. “Does she know that?”
His shit-eating grin was one of a sports reporter who knew he just got the scoop of the season. One that would be replayed a million times. And that was just by me. I stood slowly, my ears ringing, my heart racing, my blood screaming to go find him.
For me. He did this for me.
Luke shook his head. “She doesn’t.”
Gruden tilted his head. “Why do it this way? You don’t strike me as the guy who puts this on display.”
Luke laughed. “I’m not. But I’m doing this for her. She’s given the whole team space for the past few weeks so we could focus on winning, and I wanted her to know, in front of however many people are watching this, that win or lose, she’s what I want. If she’ll have me.”
“This isn’t live, though,” Gruden said. “How will you get your answer?”
He lifted his hands and shrugged. “I guess if you guys are kind of enough to show this while I’m still down on the field warming up tomorrow night, then she’ll be able to find me pretty easily.”
I was standing before my heart chugged out another single beat, and I couldn’t feel my hands as I flung the door of the box open. The fans that were dotted around the stands roared when I appeared. My eyes raced over the field until I saw him, standing at midfield, holding a bouquet of bright pink tulips in one hand, a jersey in the other, and wearing a hopeful smile on his face.
Down the cement steps I flew, people cheering and clapping, darting out of my path as I made my way down to the field. When I reached the barrier, two smiling security guards greeted me. People patted me on the back as I waited for them to open the gate down to the field, and I swiped happy tears from my face. When my foot touched the field, Luke started jogging my way, dropping the flowers and the jersey as we got closer.
I couldn’t run fast enough.
My body yearned to fly, to erase the space between us, to be wrapped in his arms in front of the world with the bright lights overhead. Even players from the opposing team hooted and hollered as we ran toward each other. But nothing, nothing matched the sheer explosion of sound in the arena when I launched myself into his waiting arms.
They banded around me like iron, and he exhaled heavily into my hair while I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. I was so safe, so surrounded. Loved. It was too big for my ribs, too pure to be real.
But it was real.
“I love you, too,” I whispered in his ear.
He leaned back to see my face, and for one moment, we smiled at each other. His mouth took mine in a searching, sweet kiss, and everything was gone except us. All I could see and feel and smell and taste was Luke.
The whole world could’ve been watching, and it wouldn’t have mattered.
