“Start with that.”
“With what?” Wyatt asked, frowning.
“Tell her you love her.”
Wyatt grimaced. “That’s it? That’s your big advice? Just tell her I love her, and it’ll all be magically fixed?”
“You’d be surprised what those three little words can do.” Eric chuckled. “But a grand gesture would help, too.”
“A grand gesture,” Wyatt said slowly, his brow wrinkled. “Like what?”
“Whatever you think will show her you love her, and that you’re serious. For me, it was quitting my job and moving to Texas. For others, it’s as simple as flowers and some pretty words. It depends on the girl and the guy and the situation, I guess.”
Wyatt didn’t say anything.
He was too busy absorbing this information.
Grand gesture. That’s what he needed. The question was…what was grand enough? Quitting football for her? Losing a game for her? Winning one? Standing out here on her lawn until she accepted his apology and gave him another chance? Giving her flowers every day?
None of those seemed big enough.
Eric chuckled. “It’s kind of funny. A year ago, you were the one giving me advice about Shel, and now here I am, returning the favor. It all comes around.”
“Yeah, thanks, man.” Wyatt swallowed. “I have to go. I’ll tell you how it goes.”
“Good luck,” Eric said before hanging up.
Wyatt slipped his phone back into his pocket and set the flowers down on the stoop. Inside the bouquet was a note with three simple words.
I’m sorry.
—Wyatt
That wasn’t enough. He needed his grand gesture. His brother had driven across the country for his. He had no clue what Brett and Chris had done to get their girls to forgive them. Walking up to the door, he pressed his face against it. “I screwed up, Kass. I know that. You know that. But I refuse to give up on us. You’re everything I never knew I wanted, and if it takes me years to get you to believe me and give me a second chance, then I’ll wait years.”
Walking backward, still hoping she’d open the door, he moved toward his car. It didn’t open. As he slid into his driver seat, he headed toward the gym, but as he turned down Walnut, he realized he had one more stop to make.
He knew what his grand gesture needed to be.
Pulling in front of the flower shop, he tightened his grip on the wheel. It was time to make this right, both with Kassidy and her brother. Her parents had no clue he even existed, as far as he knew, but if they were there, he’d make it right with them, too.
Clenching his jaw, he pushed out of the car and walked up to the shop, hands in his pockets. As he opened the door, Caleb lifted his head. When he saw who stood there, the smile he’d been wearing faded away, and he blinked. “You again?”
“Yeah.” He hesitated. “I need your help.”
Caleb crossed his arms. “I already told you her favorite flowers. I’m not going to give them to her for you, too.”
“I gave them to her already. Or, actually, I left them on her doorstep.” Wyatt ran a hand down his face. “She didn’t open the door for me.”
“Then maybe you should leave her alone,” Caleb said. He came around from behind the counter. “She wants more than you can give her. It’s time to accept that.”
“What if I could give her everything she wanted?”
Caleb eyed him. “Then it would be up to her whether she wanted to take it or not.”
“I love her,” Wyatt said slowly, leveling with the man.
Caleb straightened his spine. “Go on.”
“I hurt her, and you don’t like me very much because of that, and neither does she. She might never forgive me, but at the very least, I want to tell her that she’s my world, even if I’m not hers anymore. I want to make her happy, to never make her cry again, and I want to spend the rest of my life making her smile.” He locked eyes with the other man. “But I need your help to do it.”
Caleb was silent for so long that Wyatt thought for sure this was a lost cause, but finally he said, “What did you have in mind?”
Chapter Twenty
Not opening that door last night had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done. When he’d stood out there for a good half hour, trying to get her attention, that had been hard enough to ignore. Then when he said those perfect words through her door, begging her to give him another chance, she’d had to practically sit on her hands to keep them from opening that door for him.
Every other time he knocked, she’d let him in. Every other time he’d asked, she’d given him what he wanted. But not last night. Last night, she’d stood strong.
Being strong had never been so hard.
She blinked down at the forms she had to fill out, her eyes blurring with tears like they’d been doing nine times out of ten these past few days. It was maddening and frustrating, and she could only blame it on the baby, though, in all reality…it was because of Wyatt.
She’d loved him. She’d lost him. It hurt.
There was no denying it anymore.
Swallowing hard, she checked off the box that had her relationship status as single, and then x-ed out the spot where she was supposed to enter her spouse’s information. Nothing like forms at an OB/GYN office to really grind in just how alone in this you were. She lifted her head, glancing around the room to see if anyone else was as uncomfortable as she was.
A couple sat in the corner, holding hands and reading a Parents magazine. Another couple sat a few seats over from them, but the woman was on her phone, and the man stared blankly at the wall. In the other corner of the room was a young woman with her mother, both looking as unhappy to be there as she was.
She was the only one alone.
Guess she better get used to that.
Swallowing hard, she pressed a hand to her still flat stomach. You won’t be alone. I’ll always be there for you, and I’ll do my best to make sure you never lack for anything. I swear it. With that silent promise, she picked up the pen again and started jotting down her address. She might not have Wyatt, but she had her family, herself and this baby and that was enough.
It had to be enough.
When she and Wyatt had first started seeing one another, she’d seen how this would end. She’d always stood a higher risk of falling than he did. Even when he confessed to wanting more from her than a fling, she’d known that eventually this would end with her alone and sad. She just hadn’t expected to lose something bigger than herself when she lost him. She just didn’t expect to fall this hard, and to be in this much pain.
She missed him so much that there was an unending emptiness inside her where he used to be. Every night that she slept alone, she relived what being in his arms, safe and cherished had been like. Every night she came home to an empty living room was a night she remembered how full it had been with him inside it, helping her cross another item off her list of things to do to truly live. He’d shown her so much. Given her so much.
Now she had to let him go.
She had to lose him.
Guess she’d have to get used to that, too.
Shaking her head at her morose thoughts, she returned her attention to the three-page form, finishing her address. The door opened behind her, and she heard a collective gasp. She didn’t even look up. She had to finish this before they called her name—
“Is that Wyatt Hamilton?” the guy who’d been studying the wall whispered to his companion.
Kassidy stiffened.
No…he couldn’t be here.
She hadn’t told him her doctor’s name. There were at least a hundred OB/GYNs in the city. For him to have narrowed it down to this one office, in such a short time…
“It is,” the woman whispered, sitting up straight. “Why is he wearing a costume?”
Now she knew it couldn’t be him.
And yet…
Slowly, so slowly she was half convinced this was all a dream, she stood up and turned around. When she saw him
, she knew she was dreaming. He was in a 1950s costume from her shop, which Caleb had worn last week to deliver a singing telegram to a woman in her eighties.
A frigging costume.
He had on a pair of khakis, a button-up shirt, a bowtie, a top hat, and a pair of polka dot suspenders. In his hands, he had a seemingly endless number of It’s a Boy and It’s a Girl balloons, as well as plain pink and blue ones.
He locked eyes with her, his grip on the balloons tightening. “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “How did you find me?”
“I followed you.” He took a step closer to her. “And I’m here because you wouldn’t let me in last night, so I decided to come here to see you instead.”
“In”—she gestured at him—“that?”
Wyatt smiled.
It did nothing to hide his nerves.
He glanced around them, taking in the phones that were pointed his way. He was probably used to that. “It’s all part of my grand gesture.”
She blinked. “Grand—?”
“I’ve been told when a guy messes up, he has to make a grand gesture to apologize to the woman he—” He broke off, glancing at the phones again. No one lowered them. “So, basically, I’m here to make it up to you. Or, to try, anyway.”
She hugged herself. He was about to say some pretty words that would make her want to forgive him, but she shouldn’t. He didn’t want this. Not really. “Wyatt—”
“I messed up, Kass.” He took another step closer. She almost backed up, but instead, she stood her ground. “I never should have said those things. If I could go back and have a do-over, I’d take it. From the moment you knocked on my door and sang, I’d do it all differently.”
She swallowed. “All of it?”
“All of it,” he echoed.
“Why would you change that first day…besides my horrible singing?”
He smiled sadly. “It wasn’t horrible. It changed my life.”
“No, it was horrible,” she said, the words barely making it out through her swollen throat. “We’ve gone over this before. I can’t sing. It’s no secret.”
“But I have to tell you something,” he said, shifting his weight. “I’m even worse.”
Her eyes widened. “No.”
“Yes. I can’t carry a tune.”
She choked on a laugh. “Liar.”
“I’m not lying.” He rolled his shoulders. “I promise, here and now, to never lie to you again. That every word I say to you, from here on out, will be the truth. And I don’t make promises I can’t keep, Kass. Do you believe me?”
“Yeah. Sure. Okay.”
“If you don’t, then I’ll wait till you can. Until you do. I’m a patient man.”
She snorted. “Not really.”
“Well, I’ll try to be,” he admitted sheepishly. “Now. Where was I?”
“You said you’d have never opened the door that day,” she supplied.
“That’s not what I was saying.”
The mother stood up, trying to get a better angle. She was probably on Facebook Live or something, showing the world what Wyatt Hamilton was up to at the OB/GYN.
She tried to ignore the audience, since he seemed to be doing so, but having people record their conversation was weird. “Then, what would you change?”
“On that first night, I would tell you that you intrigued me, and I’d tell you that for the first time in my life I was thinking about something more than myself and my career.”
She swallowed. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” He took two more steps toward her. “That second time, I’d tell you that I came back because I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and that I thought this thing I was feeling for you might be called infatuation.” Another step. “By the third time, I would have admitted something I never thought I’d admit my whole life. I’d tell you I was falling for you, and that I was terrified of it all, but that I wasn’t going to leave. That I couldn’t leave.”
Tears burned her eyes, and she sucked in a ragged breath, shaking her head. These were just words. Pretty words, but still. He didn’t want this. “Don’t say things you’ll regret.”
“I won’t regret this. I regret a lot of things I said the other day, but not this. Not you.” He pressed his mouth into a thin line. “Never you.”
She didn’t say anything.
Truth was she wasn’t sure what to say.
“You don’t believe me, and that’s because I fu—messed up,” he said, glancing at the cameras again. “Those things you talked about wanting? I want them, too.”
She didn’t move.
Didn’t dare to breathe.
If this was a dream…she never wanted to wake up.
“Last time we were in public together, I denied that you were my girl. I told everyone you were a friend.” He addressed their little crowd. “She’s not a friend. She’s more. She’s the mother of my child, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her if she’ll let me.”
She gasped, covering her mouth, and dropped the clipboard to the floor.
“She doesn’t believe I want this. She thinks I want to walk away from her and our unborn child, so…” He turned back to Kassidy, giving her his full attention again. “So, I’m going to do the most embarrassing thing I can think of to show you I’m not kidding around. That I want to be with you, and I’m in this for the long haul. Not for the maybes. Not for the casual. I want it all…with you. A relationship. Trust. Love. Marriage. I’m all in, babe. I never thought I’d say this to a woman, or that I’d feel this way about anything besides football and my family, but…I…I love you. I love you, Kass, and I don’t want to lose you ever again.”
She held her breath, tears rolling down her cheeks at those beautiful words coming out of his mouth, and shook her head because she knew what he was about to do, and it was going to be on camera. “You don’t have to do this. I—”
“Yes, I do. We started out this way, and now we’re going to take our fresh start, our new beginning, the same way. It’s got to come full circle.” His lips quirked into a half smile. “With a song.”
Without breaking eye contact, he opened his mouth, and started singing “She’s Having My Baby.” He was right. He was awful. He couldn’t hold a single note properly.
Still.
It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard.
Chapter Twenty-One
The more he sang, the more he realized he should never, ever do so again, but he didn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop until Kassidy realized he was the man she deserved. Until she knew, without a doubt, that he meant every word he said about wanting to be with her. Never again would she doubt his love for her, or the how happy she made him. Never again would he leave her.
She had to know that.
There was no hesitation left inside of him.
He’d had her. He’d lost her. He knew which side of the field had the better vantage point. If he had to choose between a life with her or without her, he’d choose with her every damn time.
His brother had asked him if he would do anything for her, give up anything for her, and he now knew the answer to that question. Yes. Unequivocally yes.
Hell, he’d even make a fool out of himself, with cameras rolling, knowing this video would show up on the news by this afternoon, and he didn’t regret a second of it.
Not if it got him his girl back.
If it didn’t? He’d find another way. And another. And another, until one of them worked. She’d told him she wanted a lifetime of forever with him, and even if it was the last thing he did, he’d give it to her.
He’d give her everything.
As he finished the last note, he caught her hand, holding on to the balloons tightly, and bowed, breathing heavier than when he sprinted down the field to escape an opponent.
The crowd cheered, and he grinned, bowing playfully to them as well.
Turning back to Kassidy, he slowly reached out to cup her
cheek, giving her time to reject him if she chose to. She didn’t. When he touched her skin for the first time in what felt like years, it was like all was well with the world again. He could be standing under an Earth-destroying asteroid heading straight for him, but as long as he had her skin touching his, he would be okay.
“That was horrible,” she said, laughing with wet cheeks.
“You’re crying, so it must have been,” he joked, wiping her cheeks off. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your makeup like that.”
“That’s not why I’m crying,” she replied, playfully swatting his arm then grabbing on to him as if she never wanted to let go. “Wyatt…”
“I love you, Kassidy. I love you, and I’m never going to stop loving you. I’ve never put someone first or wanted someone’s happiness even more than my own, but I get it now. I would do anything, give up anything, for you.” He hesitated, then added, “I’ll even walk away from football if that’s what it takes for you to give me another chance. That’s how much I love—ow!” She’d smacked his arm. “What the hell?”
The crowd around them went wild, talking about him quitting, but he ignored them.
All that mattered was what his girl wanted.
And what was best for his child.
His child… Fuck, he couldn’t even wrap his mind around the fact that he and Kassidy had made a person. A child. Their child. They were a family, and he’d never let them down again.
“Listen, mister.” She smacked him again, and he rubbed his arm. “If you ever talk about quitting football again, I’ll kick your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit for a week.”
He held his hands up, laughing. “Okay, okay. I won’t. I swear.”
“Good.” She grabbed his hands, and he dropped the balloons, letting them float up the few feet to the ceiling. “Are you sure you want this? I told you, I’ll be fine on my own. I can—”
“Kass.”
She broke off, her cheeks flushing. “Yeah?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
A small laugh escaped her, and she rose on tiptoe, wrapping her arms around him as she pressed her mouth to his. The crowd around them went wild, and he smiled against her mouth as she laughed, hugging him even tighter. “I love you,” he whispered.
Catching the Player (Hamilton Family) Page 16