by K. Bromberg
The whole scene has shaken me to the core in a way I never could have expected. I knew Gunner was a good man, but he gets these kids in a way most can’t. Even though it sounds like no one was there for him. No one held him. No one reassured him. That exchange with Joey right there might save him years of worry and stress over his dad’s final moments. But because he trusts Gunner, he’ll now believe what he said. He’ll now maybe have some peace.
“He makes it impossible, you know,” Ellie says beside me, as she wipes smudged mascara from under her eyes.
“Who makes what impossible?” I ask.
“Gunner. He makes it impossible to not fall in love with him.”
“I’m not—I can’t—”
“Sure. Justify it any way you want, but you are.”
She states it so matter-of-factly that I don’t even disagree. And maybe by not agreeing, I’m trying to pretend it isn’t true. “I have a life to get back to. A job. A family. My thesis.”
Her eyes hold mine for the longest time. They reflect compassion and understanding but also a fierce protection for her friend. “It’s funny how sometimes the things you left behind feel different when you return to them after new experiences. It’s like what was important suddenly shifts and a whole new set of things replace them.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Gunner
My chest hurts.
It’s the first time in as long as I can remember that throwing the baseball as hard as I could didn’t help things.
It’s the second time in as long as I can remember that I called in sick to work and had someone cover my shift when I wasn’t really sick.
Fucking Joey. And his innocent and heartbreaking questions and my downright lies. I can’t shake the look on his face when he asked me if his dad was scared. What was I supposed to tell him? That I’m sure he was as terrified as I was as pain owned my body and the metallic scent of blood and explosives was all I could smell. That like me, his every instinct was to get up and run, to fight, but that he couldn’t. I couldn’t think, couldn’t comprehend anything other than sheer terror. I may have said goodbye to everything I loved, but I still wanted to live.
I didn’t have a wife. Or a sweet little son. All I had was a sport and an opportunity missed.
When I woke up in that hospital bed, all I could think about was making sure the second chance I was given was earned.
Yet the question often rattles around in my head—why am I here and he’s not? Especially on days like today when I’m faced with a pair of innocent blue eyes asking me questions I don’t have answers to.
I take the turn down my street. My legs ache and my chest burns, as my feet pound the pavement, step after step. My head’s still a fucking mess, but all of those things assure me I’m alive. They tell me . . . no regrets.
My pace quickens when I see the house.
When I see the light on and know there’s someone there waiting for me. Wanting me.
Is it a waste to have this life, this second chance, this woman I want to come home to, and not live it to the fullest? To not fight for more with her? To not wonder what it’d be like to have a little Joey of our own to watch grow up?
Slow the fuck down, Gunner.
You can’t want that with her.
Hell, you’ve never even wanted that yourself until now. Until her.
She’s not staying.
And yet when I see her shadow pass in front of the window, I wonder what it would be like.
I question what it would take to change the situation.
I force myself to wonder just how hard I’m willing to fight.
But I don’t know the answer. I don’t have one, because this whole situation has taken me by utter fucking surprise.
Don’t think, Gunner. Just feel.
Don’t question. Just enjoy.
Chase.
I feel broken but know there’s only one way to fix me. One place to go. One person to wrap her arms around me and make the pain lessen. To make me feel that much better.
And I’m not certain how I’m going to let her go in the coming weeks but then again, no regrets.
It’s all I can rationalize as I jog up the walk, needing her more than I’ve ever needed someone before.
No fucking regrets.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Chase
“Chase?” Gunner’s voice and the slam of the door that follows takes me by total surprise.
He’s supposed to be at the bar. He’s not supposed to be home until two in the morning.
In an act of desperation, I take all my work—notepads and endorsement contracts and . . . freaking everything I have on the desk in front of me—and shove it into my oversized bag so he doesn’t see it.
“In here,” I stutter and snap my laptop shut before tripping over my bag—which in turn regurgitates some of its contents back out. With haste, I shove it back in and practically jog to find out why he’s home.
“Gunner? Is everything okay?” I ask as I clear the family room to find him standing there. His T-shirt has a small sweat-darkened V around his neck and his chest is heaving, but it’s the look on his face that owns me. Confusion. Melancholy. Need. “Gunner?”
He crosses the room towards me and without a single word, wraps his arms around me, pressing my back to the wall, and kisses me.
There’s desperation to the kiss. Urgency. An underlying emotion I can’t place.
“I just need you right now, Chase,” he says when he comes up for air. “I just fucking need you.”
Our eyes meet, and I know in that moment anything he asks for is his. After the emotion with Joey today and the look in his eyes now, it’s clear he’s struggling and needs connection.
I don’t know what I can offer besides getting lost in us, but I’m here. I’m his.
He doesn’t say another word. Instead he kisses me again, the pace a little slower, the emotion in it almost palpable.
“Chase,” he whispers as he pulls my shirt over my head and closes his lips over my bra-clad breast. “I just need you.”
“I’m here,” I whisper as I pull his shirt off too.
There’s no forethought to our actions. No planning to move to a bed or make sure we’ve given each other equal foreplay. There’s just him and me and this swell of unexpected pain that’s drowning us whole.
My hands run over the lines of his body. Sculpted edges marred with raised scar tissue. My lips express words I don’t speak. My body pressed tightly against his, showing him that I’m here for him however he wants or needs.
Words are irrelevant as we move toward the bedroom. The only break in kissing is when clothes are discarded. The only breath of air is the other’s exhale.
I kiss my way down his body as we stand at the foot of the bed. Over scars he hisses at when my lips connect. Over abs that tense beneath my mouth. Over the length of his cock, hard and ready for me.
His moaned exhale is the only sound in the room as I take him in my mouth. His hard crest. His full length. The salty taste of him on my tongue. The feel of his hands bunching in the back of my hair and tightening as I slowly work him in and out of my mouth.
His breathing grows harsh, his thighs grow tense, and with a feral growl, he drops to his knees in front of me, brandishing his lips to mine once again.
“I—just—you—Chase.” His words make no sense, incomplete thoughts as he tries to process this, us.
“I’m right here.” My lips meet his again when he leans back against the bed and I straddle myself over him.
“Look at me,” he moans. “Look at me.”
And when I do, when our eyes lock, he guides my hips to slowly sink down onto him. It’s ecstasy. It’s torture in the most pleasurable of ways. It’s everything to watch his eyes grow cloudy and his mouth grow lax as he groans with the same pleasure that’s assaulting every nerve in my body. My name ghosts over his lips and for some reason, I know the sound—how he says it—will stay with me forever.
It�
�s as if he has everything he’s ever needed in this moment.
Tears spring to my eyes in complete contradiction to the bliss I know is coming. And when one slips over and slides down my cheek, he presses a kiss to it.
“I know,” he says quietly against my skin. “I know.”
My breath catches then, because he begins to move. It’s slow but not timid, desperate but not urgent.
As two bodies connect and become one.
As we begin the slow process of subconsciously saying goodbye.
And afterward, when I’m in the bathroom trying to scrub the tear stains off my cheeks, I know walking away from Gunner Camden is going to be the hardest thing I’ll ever do.
“Hey,” he says from the doorway and startles me.
I look up from the sink and stare at him through the mirror. He’s dressed and his keys are in his hand, but his eyes are still heavy with a wariness I can’t pinpoint.
“Are you leaving?”
He stares at me for a bit longer before finally speaking. “This is crazy, and I don’t understand it whatsoever, but I’ve fallen for you, Chase. Fallen, when I’ve told myself it’s not possible to because I know you’re leaving and this will be over. But I promised myself after everything I went through, that I’d never leave anything on the table again, and so yeah . . . There you go.” He chuckles nervously, while I just stare at him through the mirror, trying to process words and feelings I don’t know what to do with either. He gives a shake of his head. “I’ll see you later.”
“Wait. What?” I ask as I spin around to face him. He can’t drop a bombshell like that on me and then leave. “Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“Out? Why?” My voice cracks.
“Because this,” he says motioning to the two of us, “isn’t you. I know it and you’ve made sure to let me know it numerous times . . . so I’m going out to give you some time to come to grips with what I just said. I either just screwed up and you’re going to be gone when I come home, or you’ll be here and we’ll at least spend the rest of our time knowing where we stand.”
He strides forward with a purpose that was absent earlier and presses a chaste kiss to my lips. Without saying another word, he walks out of the house with a slam of the front door, leaving me behind, staring at where he just was.
And then I freak.
I can’t get to the door fast enough. His truck’s not there and I panic that he’s already left, but then I realize that he ran home so he has to walk back to wherever he left his truck.
“Gunner!” I yell when I spot him halfway down the block.
My feet move toward him as he stops. At first in a fast walk and then at a jog until I reach him and jump, wrapping my legs around his waist.
He laughs and staggers back a few feet from the impact as my mouth finds his again.
“This isn’t normal for me. I don’t do this,” I say in between kisses.
“Kissing someone on the sidewalk? Neither do I.” He laughs and then kisses me back.
“The person you’ve fallen for isn’t the normal me. Normally I’m Big City Chase in high heels and a million things to do and a stress level through the roof. This—being here—is a different version of her. You might not even like her for all I know.”
His laugh is muffled against my lips. “It sounds like you’re trying to talk me out of liking you, Kincade.”
I lean back and look at him, my look so intense that when I try to drop my legs to the ground, he lets me.
“Chase?” he asks as the words clog in my throat.
“I’ve fallen for you too, Gunner. I’m scared to say it. To admit it. Because I don’t know how to deal with this feeling. All I know is when you walk into the room, I sit up a little taller, wanting you to notice me. When you leave the room, I can’t wait for you to come back. When I wake up at night, I feel safer knowing you’re close to me. And when I look across the breakfast table, I smile when I see you there.”
“That says a lot considering I’m a scary sight when I wake up.”
I shake my head and laugh, suddenly feeling more than shy as we stand on the sidewalk for the world to see. Although, it feels like it’s just the two of us.
“So what do we do now?” I ask.
“I get it. This isn’t you. This town. The single movie theater. The Center. You have your sights set on stadiums and neon lights. I admire that about you. You go after what you want and you have goals. A ton of goals that I’d have killed for when I was younger. If I had, maybe things might have ended up differently . . . but it didn’t, and I love my life, Chase. I can’t ask you to be who you’re not. I can’t ask you to stay when you have a whole goddamn world to conquer.”
I stare at him, at this incredible man, and wonder how my whole world just narrowed in such a short time and became solely about him. My world used to have no beginning or ending point but now when I look at him, he’s both of those to me.
But he’s right. Completely and utterly right. I have things to accomplish. The world to conquer, and I can’t do that sitting here in some small town in the middle of nowhere-ville.
But I don’t put words to my thoughts, to my concerns. I simply press my lips to his while figuratively burying my head in the sand.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Chase.” He reaches out and touches the sides of my face, that shy smile of his owning his lips and my heart. “I’ve never said that to anyone before.”
He doesn’t wait for me to say it back. Maybe he already knows that I’m struggling with accepting the truth of it and kisses me.
And late at night when we’re lying in bed and I’m staring at the shadows dancing on the ceiling, I realize I made a huge mistake.
In the midst of the euphoria of feeling the power of love for the first time, I forgot that this can’t be real.
That this can’t happen.
And I realize I just did something worse than leaving him when this is over.
I gave Gunner hope that there could be more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Gunner
“Yeah. Let me get it. I think I brought it home with me,” I say to Ellie as I stumble through the house, half asleep but on a high from trying to process last night.
The low of Joey.
My confused feelings.
Then coming home to Chase.
I love her. Fucking love her. It feels like a weight off my chest to be able to say it out loud all while knowing she feels the same.
“I saw it under your arm when you left,” Ellie adds, having no clue I’m over here in a love fest of my own. “But that was like three or four days ago.”
“Shit,” I mutter as I stub my toe.
“That good of a morning, huh?” She chuckles.
“Yes. I’m just tired. You know better than to call me this early.” I shuffle through the papers I set on the console when I walk in the front door. “Not there,” I mutter to myself and run a hand through my hair as I yawn. Then I head to the kitchen counter to see the pile I set down when I came in the house last night, but the rosters aren’t there either.
“Where was Chase?” she asks.
“What do you mean where was Chase?”
“I mean, I’m sure that’s where you set the folder down, because no doubt you walked inside and went straight to her since you two lovebirds can’t keep your hands off each other.”
I roll my eyes but she does have a good point, so I head into the second bedroom to the desk Chase works at. I start shuffling through the small stack of my stuff on the corner, accidentally knocking over her bag.
“Shit.” The contents come spilling out. “One sec, Ell. I knocked something over.”
“Figures,” she teases as I set the phone down.
I’m halfway through putting the disarray of folders back into her bag when something catches my eye.
It’s an orange envelope on the floor next to my foot. I freeze as memories collide with the sud
den confusion roiling around inside of me.
There’s no way.
It can’t be.
It’s a common envelope.
It’s merely a coincidence.
Yet when I pick it up, when I see my handwriting on the front of it and my name in the upper left-hand corner, my whole world lifts off its axis and crashes back down in a completely different location.
All the air is sucked out of the room as a suffocating, confusing feeling dizzies my head.
I can’t breathe.
My pulse pounds in my ears.
I can’t think.
To make the memories and the pain of that night, of writing this letter, go away.
I can’t fucking process.
To make the sudden gut punch of seeing this—in my house—ease.
This was in Chase’s bag. Why would she have this? Why would . . . but when I look closer at the faded sports agency it’s addressed to, it’s like a lead weight drops through me.
KSM.
How did I ever forget what that stood for? How did I not make the goddamn connection?
Kincade Sports Management.
Chase Kincade.
My stomach churns as I stumble to the spare bed and sit, trying to comprehend what I’m seeing. What I’m assuming.
“Gunner? Gun?” I barely hear through my cell I set down.
I grab it. “I have to call you back,” I say, but don’t wait for her to respond before I lower my phone.
Chase knew who I was.
She knew all along.
My hands are shaking as the past—a past I’d long ago walked away from—collides with the future. A future I thought I was possibly walking into.
“Gunner? Are you here—” Chase’s words stop about the same time the padding of her feet on the floor do.
It’s going to kill me to look at her. It’s going to gut me to look at this woman who’s wearing my T-shirt and whose hair is messy from sleeping in my bed—a woman I love—and know she deceived me all along.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Chase
My stomach drops to my feet when I see Gunner sitting on the spare bed. My bag is on its side, the contents partially fallen out from his surprise return home last night, but it’s the letter he’s holding in his hands that devastates me.
