Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
My stomach snarled and tightened, happy to remind me I hadn’t eaten since Danny, Reese, and I had been stuck in the back of that delivery truck.
Elliott tossed us bottled water, and I caught one with a nod of thanks.
Within seconds, the room smelled of oregano and cheese, and everyone’s spirits lifted.
Before I could even get off the couch, Elliott grabbed one of the oven trays and sat down next to me, and he told me to dig in.
He always stayed so fucking close to me, and he always wanted me to go to hell. He loved to tell me I didn’t know what I was doing, that I should crawl before I walked, that I was in the fucking way and whatever. So why was he here? Why wasn’t he sharing Danny’s couch? Or Coach’s? Why did he hate me so goddamn much?
Granted, I hadn’t made it easy for him at first. When Piper had told me he’d given his ex-wife a second chance, it’d fucking broken me. I’d been walking around for almost a year, thinking he was gonna call soon. Thinking we’d finally get our shot. Fucking hell, I’d been happy. Then everything had gone to shit. My future had disappeared with a by-the-way type of comment from Piper when she and I had been on our way out. We were gonna take Blake to the zoo.
“Oh, I talked to Elliott, by the way. He’s trying to patch things up with Lizzie. Isn’t that great?”
I still remembered how I’d felt all the blood drain from my face. How my stomach had dropped. My chest had squeezed and tightened.
“Yeah, that’s…yeah. Great. Good for them.”
It was almost poetic in a way that Blake squeezing my finger, itching to go to the zoo—even though she’d been too young to understand what it was—showed me the path to what eventually became my future. Just her. Her squeezing my finger, her stumbling forward, me holding her up, me…needing her more than air.
The other guys around me couldn’t help themselves. They walked down another memory lane and swapped anecdotes from the field while we ate. I could barely pretend to stomach the food, much less their stories.
I clenched my jaw and forced another mouthful of pizza to slide down my throat.
All I wanted was to see Blake again.
Some men met women and got a kid as a side order. I’d met my future daughter and gotten a mom attached to the kid. Piper and I had joked about it, how I’d fallen for Blake long before I’d… Well. I’d loved Piper; we just hadn’t been in love. Or so she’d assured me. But considering she wanted me back, I wasn’t so sure about her true feelings. Maybe she felt more for me.
I hoped that wasn’t the case, because unrequited love fucking sucked, and she and I were meant to be buddies. And co-parents. Blake may have dragged me out of my misery when I’d learned Elliott was back with his ex-wife, but Piper had played a big part too. We’d started spending more time together. She’d made my transfer to San Diego a lot easier, and I’d never had to regret my move.
I couldn’t even regret hooking up with Piper since it’d given me a much more important role with Blake.
It’d been comfortable.
I wouldn’t call it easy because there was no forgetting the first year when Piper and I had been very on-and-off. I’d been reluctant to commit to someone I viewed mostly as my friend, and she had a temper that produced ultimatums when she was pissed. I didn’t deal well with those.
Then one day, she’d sat me down.
“I wanna go for it, Joel. I want us to be all in. You and me—and Blake. I want you to be her dad.”
The last sentence had sealed the deal for me. I’d stopped searching for something else. I’d stopped thinking about what-ifs. I’d committed right then and there.
Not long after, I’d learned from Piper’s folks that Elliott had gotten divorced after all, and yeah, that’d stung too, considering he hadn’t called me, but it didn’t matter. I’d channeled my hurt into determination to just avoid the motherfucker, and I’d been the luckiest dad alive.
Being Blake’s father was my purpose.
I couldn’t lose her.
I just couldn’t. She was all I had left.
Regardless, I could’ve forgiven Elliott. I would have…if he hadn’t insisted on hating me instead. All these years. Now, I was running out of energy to pretend. I couldn’t hate him back just because he saw me as his mortal enemy. I could be angry—anger was easy. But I couldn’t hate him.
I didn’t wanna be exposed to his hatred either, so if we couldn’t reach a truce of any kind when this was over, what I’d told him in Toronto was legit. I didn’t wanna see him again.