by Naima Simone
A low drone buzzed in her ears. Mouth dry, she tried to swallow, but couldn’t. He hadn’t reached out to her once in the six days since she’d walked out of his hospital room. What was he doing here? And why now? What did he want?
The firm rap of a fist sounded again.
You can do this. So seeing him again was happening sooner than she’d expected. It didn’t change anything between them. Didn’t change that she’d decided to move on.
Inhaling a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and opened the door.
Her grip on the knob tightened, and for several precious seconds she swore it was the only thing that held her up, kept her grounded. Prevented her from being sucked into the vortex that was Dom.
God, he was…beautiful.
This strong, powerful man who stared at her with such bright, hot intensity it sizzled over skin. Years of habit almost had her moving forward to hug him, but at the last moment, she checked herself. They were no longer “Dom and Tenny.” She was no longer that girl-turned-woman whose world revolved around him, hoping that one day he would really see her, love her as she needed.
Now she loved her own self.
“Dom,” she said, proud that her voice didn’t tremble or sound weak.
“Hey, Tenny.” Silence fell between them as they continued to stare at each other on opposite sides of the threshold. Finally, slipping his hands in the front pockets of his pants, he dipped his head in the direction of the room behind her. “Can I come in?”
No, self-preservation roared. But she still stepped to the side and waved him inside. She closed the door behind them, and for an instant, she leaned against it, still stunned that he stood here. In Dayton. With her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice a hell of a lot stronger than her knees at the moment. “It’s Wednesday. You should be at practice.”
He nodded. “Yeah, and I’m going to be fined heavily for missing practice, and no doubt benched for this coming game. Maybe games, according to Coach.” He lifted an arm, as if reaching for her, but she stiffened. A flicker of emotion spasmed across his face, and he lowered his hand, sliding it back into his pocket. “I needed to talk to you.”
She pushed off the door, crossing her arms over her chest. “I thought we covered everything in the hospital. I don’t think there’s anything left to say.”
He glanced away from her, his throat working. When he returned his gaze to her, she couldn’t decipher the shadows darkening his blue eyes. “I know you have your plans here in Dayton, and I swear I’m not going to try and change your mind. Just…give me a few minutes, okay?”
Again, that instinct to protect herself objected. But she nodded.
“First—and I need you to listen to this carefully and accept it—you could never be a burden to me. I know I fucked up and didn’t say the right words in the hospital… Hell, didn’t say anything. And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I hurt you, Tenny. But please believe that I depend on you just as much as you’ve leaned on me. If not more. I know Brian put that hindrance bullshit into your head, and I’m pleading with you to take it back there, dump it, and light the bitch on fire. You could never weigh me down. Just the opposite. You lift me up.” He trapped her in his bright gaze, the power of it startling in its intensity. “Tell me you understand that, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said. Though she sounded firm, even a little cold, inside she quaked at the endearment. She couldn’t bear to hear him use the name he’d whispered to her time and again while they made love—correction. Fucked. It blistered her heart like acid poured on an emotional wound.
His eyes briefly closed, and his lips moved as he uttered something too low for her to catch. But when his lashes lifted, more than a little pain gleamed there. Like moments earlier when she first opened the door, she almost reached out to him, but again, she stopped herself.
“I’m an idiot,” he murmured, his tone almost subdued. As if he were talking aloud to himself rather than her. “For so long I didn’t see, truly see, your beauty. Of course, I knew you were lovely, but I didn’t see the wild fire of your hair. The pretty darkness of your eyes. Your sexy, wide mouth. The proud elegance of your features. The curves of a body that was created to take, welcome, and love a man. I don’t understand how I missed what was right under my nose for so long, but that’s my sin, not yours. While I’ve been an ass, you’ve always been…you. And I’ve missed you.” Removing his hands from his pockets, he shifted forward, erasing some of the space between them. “God, I’ve missed you.” He shook his head, and a small frown creased his forehead. “Not just touching you, tasting you, sliding deep inside you. Yeah, all of that, but so much more. I’ve missed coming home, finding you in the kitchen, and inhaling the delicious scents of what you’ve cooked. Missed sitting on the couch and watching movies with you. Missed talking to you, seeing you…just being with you. I didn’t realize how empty my life was until you weren’t there.”
What she wouldn’t have given to hear this declaration just a week ago. Now…
“What are you saying, Dom? What do you want from me?” She lowered her arms, holding her hands out, palms up. “I can’t go back to how we were. Everything was good for you, but for me? I lived a half-life where I couldn’t be honest with the most important person in my life because I feared rejection, of losing our friendship. I don’t want to live that lie again. I won’t.”
“I’m not asking you to, Tenny,” he said, his gaze intense, piercing.
She glanced away from it. But, in the next second, returned it. No more ducking, no more dodging. She’d found her voice in the last week; she would use it.
“I don’t know if I could trust you, Dom,” she admitted, her voice cracking just a little on the confession, reflecting the fissures zigzagging across her heart. She caught his flinch, and a part of her hurt for causing him pain. But she couldn’t take back the truth. She’d been doing that for far too long. “With my safety, my physical well-being and security, yes. There’s no other person who could protect me, provide for me, care for me. But trust you with my heart?” She pressed her palm to her chest. “I don’t know if I want to risk that again.”
A week away hadn’t diminished her love and need for him. Hell, maybe nothing would. But he’d broken her heart in that hospital room. He’d left her emotionally bruised. She’d laid herself in front of him, bared herself, made herself completely vulnerable. And he’d betrayed it. No. She curled her fingers, as if she could squeeze her pounding heart and make it stop beating. Stop aching. She’d braved the fire of Dom’s rejection and came out stronger for it. But opening herself to him again… She was afraid to chance it.
“Tennyson,” he whispered, her name a husky rasp full of so much….what? Pain? Sadness? Fear? Frustration? Or maybe that was her just projecting her emotions on him. “The ride to the airport, during the flight, and on the drive here, I had no clue what to say. Just that I had to speak with you. To apologize. To convince you how important you are to me. Tell you how much I need you. And that’s all true. But…” He thrust his fingers through his hair, his strong, rigid jaw clenching, a muscle ticking along it. “But,” he repeated, voice rougher, hoarser. “Standing here, looking at you, seeing for myself how I’ve fucked up so bad, I feel you slipping away from me, and I can’t do shit about it. I feel like I’m fighting for my life, and I’m losing.”
His blue eyes burned into hers. Slowly, he spread his arms wide, as if offering himself to her. Wide open. Vulnerable.
“You’ve been my reason for never giving up. Now you’re my reason for breathing,” he rasped. “Not football. Not my parents. Not the team. Not a championship trophy. But you. It’s always been you. Has been for a long time, only I was too blind and dumb to see it.”
He paused, swallowed hard, lowering his arms. “If anyone had asked me a week ago if I wanted a relationship, possibly a family, I would’ve said no. More people to lose to the whims of fate or God or whatever? No
, hell no. But fourteen years ago, it’d already been too late. The decision had been made for me. A girl with large, dark eyes had burrowed her way into my heart and set up residence in it. And years later, the woman had claimed it for her own. I want to share my life with you. I want to have the family that was stolen from me with you.”
Her breath turned jagged in her lungs. She claimed his heart? A relationship? A family? Oh God. The part of her that never stopped hoping, never stopped dreaming, leaped for joy. But the other part—the one that had been rejected by him before, that had been slapped down and disappointed too many times—warned her to proceed with caution. To stop his flow of words before she weakened and gave in.
She squeezed her eyes shut, the battle between her head and heart raging strong.
“Look at me, Tenny. Please.” Unable to resist him, she obeyed. And noted the stark lines of strain bracketing his mouth. Saw the pain in the blue depths of his eyes. Caught the uncertainty in his voice. The…desperation. “You have no reason to trust me. And I only have myself to blame. But there’s one more thing I need you to hear. If I’m lucky, I’ll have a long career. And by ‘long’ I mean maybe seven or eight more years. But when it’s over? What will I have? Who will be there to share my life? To give me a family, a reason for all of the years spent on the field? To affirm that I’m more than a fast body and stats? Without you, Tenny, none of this is worth having.”
Shifting back a step, he removed his phone from his pocket. His fingers swept over the screen before he extended the cell toward her. “Here.”
Confused, she accepted it, glancing down to see a link.
Drawing in a shaky breath, she clicked on it, and a video started to play.
Dom and a man she recognized as one of ESPN’s journalists filled the phone screen. Of course. She’d scheduled the interview—an Outside the Lines type piece—several weeks ago. The anchor introduced Dom as the All-Star quarterback of the Washington Warriors. A montage of pictures of Dom’s football career, from high school, to college, and finally to the league played along with a narration of his stats and successes.
They mentioned the death of his parents and being adopted by his high school coach, along with how he’d persevered to become one of the top picks in the draft his senior year at Ohio State. The commentator relayed his career with the Warriors, before the camera shifted to a studio shot of Dom and the ESPN journalist. After several questions about his season and the game, the topic switched to the personal aspect the show was known for.
“One of the things most often mentioned about you is your mental toughness,” the host said. “What do you attribute this focus and strength to?”
Dom propped his elbows on the arms of the chair and steepled his fingers under his chin. “I think it’s common knowledge that my parents passed away in a car accident when I was twelve years old. I spent a couple of years in the foster care system before I was adopted by my coach. Most people would assume that could account for my focus and perseverance. But they would be wrong. I attribute it to one person who gave me a reason to push forward when I could’ve easily gone down a different, more destructive path.”
“A person?” the host repeated.
Dom nodded. “What isn’t common knowledge is that I met my best friend in foster care. She became my rock. Anytime I thought about playing hooky, skipping practice, hanging out in places I had no business being, I remembered she was counting on me. And at that time, I needed to be needed. I’d lost my parents, my security, my stability. She gave that to me; she offered me purpose, a reason to succeed, to be the best. To get into the league so we could both have a future. I guess some people could look at it and think I saved her. But the truth is, she saved me.”
The journalist blinked, appearing momentarily stunned. She sympathized with him. Her breath lodged in her throat, shock paralyzing her. But the truth is, she saved me. The words, as well as the passion in his voice, resonated in her, causing tears to sting her eyes.
“I’m curious,” the other man said, recovering. “Are you still friends today?”
“Of course,” Dom replied. “You don’t let people that important leave your life.”
The interview continued, and the anchor brought up Dom’s recent injury. “Just a couple of weeks ago, you suffered a head injury in practice. You were cleared for a concussion, but you did have a sprained ankle. You ended up not being able to play against Green Bay because of it. That must’ve been difficult for you.”
“That’s an understatement.” Dom chuckled. “There’s competitive, and then there’s me,” he drawled, and the anchor laughed at the self-deprecating remark.
“Did the injury start you thinking about the mortality of your career? About how long you would continue and what life holds for you after football?”
“Definitely.” Dom paused, folding his hands on his lap and studying them for a moment as if gathering his thoughts. “Especially the possible concussion. Thank God I was cleared, but I was reminded that when this part of my life ends, I want to be able to look back and say football was what I did, not who I am. I want to be a husband, a father, a blessing in someone else’s life. Do I want to be known as one of the greatest quarterbacks in the game? Of course. I would be a liar if I said it didn’t matter. But I realized it’s not the most important thing.”
“What is the most important thing to you?” the host pressed.
“Tennyson Clark.”
Oh my God. Tennyson pressed a fist to her chest, certain her heart would burst through at any second. Jesus, had she heard him correctly? No. She couldn’t have. He wouldn’t have said something like that on a nationally televised interview. Who did that? Not Dom. Not Mr. Football. She clutched the phone so tight the case poked her fingers.
“A name.” The anchor smiled wide, probably sensing he was being handed one of the most sensational interviews of the season. “Would this by any chance be the name of your childhood best friend?”
“Yes,” Dom affirmed with a quirk to the corner of his mouth. “That’s her. My best friend. And the woman I hope can forgive me for being blind for so long to how much I love her.”
“Is this your way of groveling?” the other man teased.
“No, my way of groveling is telling her that if she decides to move back to Dayton, I’ll follow her,” Dom stated.
The pressure against her sternum swelled so huge, she couldn’t contain it. The pain, the grief, the loneliness—it escaped her on a thick, hard sob.
The anchor cocked his head, his eyebrows arched high. “Are you saying you would leave Washington?”
“I love the Warriors—my team, my friends, my coaches, the city. They welcomed me, offered me a place to play as well as call home. I consider my teammates my family, and to finish out my career as a Warrior would be my first choice. But since we were younger, Tennyson has supported my dreams, my passion, and now I’ll do whatever’s in my power to support her. So yes, that’s a discussion we would need to have, because while I love football, she’s my life.”
“Not many men would have the courage to admit that,” the anchor said, leaning forward and extending his hand to Dom. “Thank you for sharing it.”
He wrapped up the interview, and when the video ended and the screen went black, she continued to stare at it. What had just happened? Had he just declared he would leave the Warriors for her? Oh Christ.
Stunned, she raised her stare from the phone to him.
This time, when he stretched his arm toward her, she didn’t pull back. He tunneled his fingers into the hair above her ear, fisting the strands. A shudder rippled through his big body, and he exhaled, slow, deep.
“Tenny,” he whispered, voice thick, heavy with emotion. “I meant every word in that interview. I’m sorry it took this long for someone—for me—to tell you how extraordinary, and special, and beautiful you are. Never again will you have to go without hearing it. If you’ll let me…if you’ll forgive me…I’ll make it my purpose in life to remind you ever
y day.” He burrowed the fingers of his other hand in her hair, too, so he cradled her head between his palms. “I let you walk away from me once, but never again. I’m following. Wherever you walk or run, I’m going to be right behind you, convincing you of my faithfulness and love until you either get tired of running or start believing.”
Releasing her, he again moved back, placing space between them. But his gaze… It was her turn to shiver. Because that gaze didn’t release her at all. Just the opposite; it entrapped her. Refused to let go.
“I love you,” he said. His declaration surged through her, swelling, crashing like a massive wave. She’d heard those three words before, but never with the passion, the need, the reverence that echoed in them now. The same passion, need, and reverence that flowed through her, drowning her.
“Say it again,” she breathed.
His face twisted as if in pain, but it was relief she glimpsed in the gleam of his eyes, the softness of his mouth. Relief and joy.
“I love you,” he repeated, cupping her cheeks and pressing his forehead to hers. “Sweetheart, so much.”
Sweetheart. Before, she’d ordered him not to call her that. This time, she treasured it.
“I believe you,” she murmured. Tears pricking her eyes, she encircled his wrists, rose on her toes, and brushed her mouth over his. “And I love you, too.”
“Damn, I was afraid I’d never hear you say that to me again. I’m never going to get tired of hearing it.” He captured her mouth again, his tongue thrusting between her lips, tasting her, claiming her. And she claimed him right back. “Tell me again.”
“I love you, Dom,” she whispered, and opened her lips wider, offering him more of her. Knowing he wouldn’t reject her, but would cherish not just her body, but her heart.
Breaking the kiss, she threw her arms around his neck, tipped her head back and laughed. Oh God, it felt good to do that.
She shook her head. “Damn, I’m just flabbergasted.”
He grinned. “You’re using one of your ten-dollar words, so I’ll take that as a good sign.”