by L. J. Evans
“He would have been happy for you. That you’re entering the draft, going pro.” She smiled.
“Thank you?”
She laughed. “Listen to me. All mopey. He would have given me shit about that, too. The thing I really wanted to say is: there may be a lot of people who want you to be him, but I’m glad you aren’t. I’m glad you have your edge and your health…” She stopped, more emotions flowing over her face again. “I’m glad you can have something he didn’t.”
“You don’t think I should stay another year at college?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I think life is so short you should always live your dreams as soon as they show up on your doorstep.”
She came into the room farther and pulled something from her pocket. “I want to give something to you. It’s something he gave me, which I never thought I’d part with, but I think you might just need it more than me.”
She put a necklace in my hand. It was a pair of dolphins, nose to nose. “He named a star after me. Did you know that?”
I nodded my head. It had been in her journal.
“I like to think he’s out there, looking after us all from that Delphinus constellation. And I quite like the idea of you carrying a little piece of him into some games. Into the battle. He’d get a kick out of it.”
She looked down at the dolphins I was fingering and continued. “They used to be a pair of earrings, but I had them made into a charm when the backs started to break off. I know they’re girly. I know—”
“Thank you. I’ll make sure I find a way to take him with me.”
She gulped, and a tear rolled down her cheek that she brushed away. Then, she came in and hugged me, holding me tight. “You’re him in so many ways, Ty, but you are more you than him. Don’t let anyone try to talk you into anything else. Just be you. Do it all your own way. That’s all that matters.”
I smirked, purposely lightening the mood. “Do it your way. Really? I didn’t know you were into cheesy motivational songs.”
“If you tell anyone, I’ll send Blake’s assassins to kill you in your sleep.”
“Mama would be devastated.”
“She’d get over it. You aren’t even her favorite,” she teased back.
I put my hand over my heart. “Wow, that really hurts.”
She pushed a hand through my curls. “Do you love that girl you brought with you today?”
“More than football.”
And I knew it was true. I thought I’d have to think about that choice between football and Maleena if I was forced to make it, but I’d responded without a moment’s hesitation. She was the only choice.
Aunt Cam smiled. “Don’t let her ever forget it.”
She walked out, and I looked down at the necklace in my hand. It was girly. Kissing dolphins. But I’d figure out a way to take it into every game with me. There was no way I’d go back on my word. There was no way I’d piss off a god who was sitting out there in some faraway constellation, waiting to cause havoc on me if I pissed off the love of his life.
Which just made me think of the love of my life and how much we still had to say to each other.
Maleena
UNDERNEATH THE TREE
“'Cause you are near and everything's clear
You're all I need
Underneath the tree.”
Performed by Kelly Clarkson
Written by Kurstin / Clarkson
Ty had left me with his family while he put back his aunt’s journal he’d stolen and read. I couldn’t blame him exactly. I understood why he’d taken it. Living in the shadow of a dead football god couldn’t have come easy. Especially when Ty loved football more than anything on this earth.
My family unit was small: my parents, my sister, and my grandmas on both sides of the family. But the grandmas lived on opposite ends of the country, and we lived in Tennessee, so we didn’t see them often. Being with Ty’s family was like being at a college party, because there were so many people. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends all congregated together, yet they never made me feel out of place.
While Ty was gone, Stephen came up next to me as I put a few more desserts on my plate. “Last I heard, you’d given him the shaft,” he said.
I huffed and picked at the UTK shirt Ty had thrown at me. I had more clothes in the car and could have put on something else, but it smelled like Ty, and for some reason, I was feeling stupidly girly in my desire to have him close to me. Maybe it was because I’d almost lost him to both of our stupidity. Mostly mine.
“Someone has to keep his ego in check,” I responded with a shrug. “I figure I’m the right person for the job.”
Stephen’s smile slipped. “I think so, too. But…”
“Just say it, Brennan.”
He chuckled. “Don’t hurt him. I have friends in low places.”
“God, that’s so ridiculous.”
He laughed again and moved away.
Ty joined me, slipping his hand into mine again—more PDA that I wasn’t accustomed to coming from him. We’d been in hiding for so long I wasn’t sure how to react to all of it. A part of me didn’t want it. A part of me wanted to just continue to be Maleena and not superstar Ty’s Maleena. But I also knew he’d never ask that of me. He’d never ask me to give up everything to follow him around the country while he played football.
“Let’s get some air,” he said, dragging me toward a back door.
The bitter cold hit me as soon as we exited. “Shit, it’s freezing. Couldn’t we have done this inside?”
“Done what?” He grinned down at me, but he wrapped his arms around my body as we made our way to the barn.
He opened a side door, and the smell of hay and horses hit me. I may have lived in Tennessee my whole life, but I was not a country girl. Horses, dirt, and I didn’t get along.
“I’m not riding a horse today.”
He pulled me to him and slid his hands that were somehow still warm under the shirt I was wearing, all the way up to my bra, caressing as he went.
“You don’t have to ride a horse.”
I snorted. “Please do not make a, ‘Ride me, baby,’ comment, or I’m dunking you in that water trough.”
He laughed. I didn’t hear Ty laugh very often. Not with joy. He would normally laugh with derision or sarcasm, but a joyful one was rare and golden from him.
“Why are we out here?” I demanded again.
“I wanted to talk to you before I called your dad.”
“And it couldn’t wait until we got back to your house?”
“When have I ever waited when I set my mind to something?”
“This. This is exactly why the pros are going to pass you up faster than you can say four-leaf clover.”
“Maybe I won’t be joining the draft yet. Maybe you have time to help me change my ways.”
“Fat chance of you changing for anybody,” I said sarcastically.
“I’ve already changed for you.” His words and his look stilled me. “Before you, I wouldn’t have given two cents about what anybody said. I would have done what I wanted and to hell with everyone else.”
“You still do that,” I said. “So, I’m not seeing the change?”
He sat down on a bale of hay and pulled me onto his lap. Normally, he would have already been ripping my clothes off. Normally, I would have been ripping his off, but for some reason, there was more to us tonight than sex and desire. There was a new emotion. One he’d called love. One I’d called love back. I was still adjusting to it.
“I’m thinking I should wait to enter the draft until I know where you’re at, and then I can make a play for that team.”
I looked into his eyes, shadowed in the dim light. “What if that team doesn’t want you?”
“Then I wait until they do.”
It was said so simply. Casually thrown out. But I knew it wasn’t any such thing. For Ty to offer up football. To say he’d
wait to be accepted to a team that may never accept him…for me. It was like a god climbing down and offering you a cloud to ride upon. I sucked in my breath, holding it, then slowly exhaling it. Trying to find words.
“That’s pretty stupid.”
“What?” he said, shocked.
“If you turn down a pro offer because it isn’t where I’m at, I’ll kick your ass from here all the way to Florida and back.”
He chuckled quietly. “We’d have a lot of fun if you tried.”
“Shut up. If we end up on different teams, you can live with me during the off-season, and we’ll travel back and forth during season.”
“You’ve thought this through?” The god-like smirk was back.
“No. I’m just responding to your harebrained ideas.”
“What if I don’t want to be apart from you quite that much?”
“The sex will be better. All that time apart building our anticipation.”
“The sex is pretty damn good now.”
I nodded. It was. “But today was nothing.”
His turn to nod. He knew we could do way more damage to each other than that. Good damage. Damage that would make us both soar to the skies and back. Damage and passion intertwined in a deliciously painful way.
I tugged at his phone that was in the pocket of his sweatshirt and handed it to him. “Call my dad.”
“And tell him that I’m keeping you?”
My heartbeat faltered, skipping a beat, and then colliding into a fast rhythm. “You keep forgetting, I’m the one who broke up with you. If anyone is keeping anyone, it’s me keeping you.”
“I’ve already said I’m yours. I’ll go where you want me to, Maleena. I mean that. With every single fiber of my being. Football, schmootball. You. Me. This.” He waved a hand between us. “It’s all that matters.”
I kissed him. I couldn’t help it. This huge dynamo saying he’d give up everything for me. Repeatedly. Meaning it, because Ty didn’t lie. He didn’t bullshit his way through anything. In fact, the only lies he’d ever told were the ones I’d made him tell about me. Lies about us. I didn’t want that anymore. I wanted people to know he was mine. That he was off the field in that one way. But I also wouldn’t let him give up a career that would have him wearing a Super Bowl ring. Not for me. Not for anyone.
My lips must have conveyed some of what I was feeling, because, before I knew it, Ty had flipped us so I was lying on my back on the hay, and he was above me, legs between mine, rubbing on me in the most delicious way. Making me want our clothes to dematerialize so we could be skin to skin, even in the thirty-degree weather.
He bit my neck, and I hummed in enjoyment. He nibbled again before pulling back.
“What do you want me to do? Really?” he asked.
“I want you to join the draft. I want you to figure out where you’re getting a contract, and then I want to get onto that management team.”
“You’d follow me?”
“If they don’t take me, I’ll just become your agent.”
“I like this train of thought. I kind of like the idea of you being my agent.”
“Not out the chute. We need somebody the pros have to play ball with—like Baldwin—even though you hate him. But if you need me to be your agent in the future, then we can go that route, too.”
“A team,” he said quietly, multi-colored eyes flashing at me.
“A team,” I said back.
“I fucking love this idea. I love you.”
God. Before today, I never thought I’d hear those words from him. I’d thought he couldn’t see past the play. But I should have known better, because Ty was a field reader. He read every person and knew exactly where they were going. Only, this time, he’d read me and found a way to my end zone. To my heart.
My dad was going to be crushed. That dampened my joy a little, but I also thought he’d understand. Ty and I had a future we needed to build. Dreams to make come true. I knew Dad would want that for me. My hand found Ty’s phone where I’d dropped it on the hay. I picked it up and handed it to him.
“Call my dad.”
And he did.
Cover Images: © Deposit Photos | golubovystock and iStock | Antonel
Eliza Waters and Brett Davies
Eliza is the baby girl of Mia and Derek from My Life as a Pop Album. She grows up in the shadow of a whole host of famous family members in a way that has caused havoc on her heart. Once she finds the one man who truly makes her feel whole, will those scars be the thing that tears them apart?
Still confused? Check out the “My Life as an Album Series Who’s Who.”
Eliza
WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL
“I wondered who I'd give all my love to
I asked Santa who he'd recommend.”
Performed by Gwen Stefani
Spending Christmas with Brett and his boisterous, terribly chic, and welcoming family had been a dream come true. I’d spent the holiday reveling in the family I’d inherited when I’d started dating Brett. They were all mine. I hadn’t had to share them with or lose them to the rest of the rowdy crew I’d grown up in. It had been selfish of me to stay behind in Knoxville. I’d known it when I’d called Mama and told her I wasn’t coming home with my sister, Ginny. I’d heard the sorrow in her voice but hadn’t let it sway me from my decision.
For over a week now, I’d loved being in the little bubble my famous family couldn’t burst. But now, it was going to explode, and with each mile that brought us closer to my small town and my home on the hillside by the lake, I felt my blood pressure spike. I was known for my spur-of-the-moment, rash decisions, but this one… This one might cause a mile-long path of hurt and destruction to me, Brett, and my family.
I’d thought I’d taken the step as an act of bravery, but really, it had been cowardice.
Fear had driven me. Fear of losing him.
Impatience and anxiety filled me as I tapped my fingers and shook my leg, scrolling through the posts my siblings and cousins had put up the day before on social media. In my self-interest, I’d missed Khiley’s big moment―her and Stephen’s engagement and the baby announcement. It made my heart twist. I hadn’t been there for her because I’d been absorbed in me and the world I was making with Brett. The world I thought I’d been protecting by keeping it far away from my family.
Brett sensed my unease, reading me in a way not many people in my life had ever been able to do. I’d always been good at hiding behind a wall of stubbornness, smart-alec remarks, and my camera.
“It’s going to be okay, ‘Z.”
His deep baritone calling me ‘Z slid down my spine smoothly. He’d started using the nickname on our second date. The moment played in my head like a black-and-white film. I had all our moments glued there like a moving photo album. The old-school kind that Mama, Aunt Cam, and Grandma had on their shelves. Not the ones we called albums today, which were just digital collections of colors and pixels.
“They’re going to be upset,” I said, which was true, but only half of why I was as uptight as a cat in a thunderstorm.
“We should have told them,” he agreed, but there wasn’t even a twinge of I told you so in it when there could’ve been.
He’d wanted me to tell them. He’d begged me to give them an opportunity to show up, even when it would have been nearly impossible for them to do so from the time we’d made the decision until the time we’d made it happen for real. But I’d dragged my heels into the ground, listening only to the voice screaming inside me to build the wall between my two worlds as high as it could go before it all came tumbling down.
“They’re going to be pissed at me more than you,” Brett said, voice deepening with discomfort.
Guilt swarmed over me as I wondered if them being pissed at him was such a bad thing. Wouldn’t it do exactly what I wanted? Keep them all on separate sides of my invisible barrier? It was an awful thought that I didn’t truly mean. I didn’t wan
t them to not like Brett or to be angry with him. He was goodness and light, charm and grace, warmth and sincerity. He deserved to be loved by my family as much as I was loved by his.
“Where are you, ‘Z?” Brett’s voice was laced with concern.
I squeezed his hand. “Nowhere and everywhere.”
“We can still call it off, you know.”
My eyes whipped to his face. He was staring at the road, but there was a tightness to his square jaw that made me realize just how upset he was. My damn impulsiveness had done this, and it brought tears to my eyes because I didn’t want him to regret what we’d done. It was the very last thing I wanted…to let him go. Not when I’d done everything in my power to keep him.
I blinked back the tears, looking down at our joined hands. While my hair was as black as his, my pale skin was the complete opposite of his brown silk. We were black and white. Alpha and omega. Perfectly matched pieces.
“You regret it,” I choked out, my stomach twisting.
He looked over at me, saw the tears I was holding back, and jerked the car to the side of the road. He was out of the car and ripping open my passenger door before I could breathe. He unlatched my belt buckle and pulled me from the car. Not roughly. Not cruelly, but with determination.
“Eliza Davies,” he said, using my new name with an impassioned plea. “I will never, ever regret marrying you. You are the best thing to have entered my world. It was the best day of my life when you finally said yes to a date, and it was the best day of my life, triple times over, when you said yes to becoming mine with that ring on your finger.”
Then, he kissed me. Using all the passion and sin and life force he’d been kissing me with since the very first time. It pushed at the ugly fear inside me, trying to lay it to rest. Almost accomplishing the task.