Floored

by Karla Sorensen

  Waiting on an opportunity to play

  Waiting for calls.

  Waiting for pictures.

  Waiting for something to happen so I could shove the door open and see what was on the other side.

  I scrolled back up to the last few pictures she'd sent, all in front of the same long mirror in a big bedroom with a fucking terrible purple cover on it. I stopped, realizing she'd missed a week, and I hadn't even noticed at the time.

  "Did you know that a baby at twenty-four weeks’ gestation is the same length as sweetcorn?" I asked.

  He froze, glancing at me with wide eyes. "Err, no. I wasn't aware."

  "Well, it fucking is, all right? An ear of corn. I didn't get a picture that week. I missed the sweetcorn."

  Declan pulled some trousers up and discarded the towel. "And what week are we on currently?"

  "Twenty-six."

  He nodded. "Right."

  When I didn't speak, Declan carefully lowered his big body onto the bench. "And this is the American?"

  "Yeah." I tossed my phone back into my duffel. "She's back home now."

  "Congratulations," he said dryly. "Relationship issues are difficult, mate. If you need the name of my therapist, he's a bloody miracle worker."

  I groaned. "Just what I need. Someone to make me lay on a couch and purge my feelings. I've already got one person telling me I've got the emotional IQ of a potato. I'm not sure I should add a second."

  "You'd be surprised how much it helps."

  I eyed him.

  Declan smiled, completely un-self-conscious. "How do you think I manage you lot without punching people in the face all the time?"

  "Never given it much thought, really."

  Declan elbowed me. "Glad to know it's that, if I'm being honest."

  "Why?"

  "Here I just thought you were in a shit mood because you haven't been playing well enough to start anymore."

  I gave him a dry look.

  "Well, you haven't. If you were doing the job correctly, you'd be out there, not sitting off to the side." He slapped my back as he stood. "Nobody ever wants to bench the best person for the job, McAllister, and if that's you, then bloody prove it."

  I rubbed a hand down my face, wishing I could ignore the truth of his words. "And if it's not?"

  He shrugged a shirt on, his expression thoughtful. "Then move aside for whoever is and teach them what you know."

  Those words, those bloody words from that bloody great grump of a captain stuck with me for weeks.

  Every time I got a few minutes to play, I heard them in my head. I scored in stoppage time against Wolverhampton and earned myself more playing time in the next match. And in that game, I played them on a loop when all I managed was a yellow card and an epic yelling match with the linesman.

  I heard them in my head all the time, it seemed, like a puzzle piece I couldn't quite fit into place.

  When I practiced.

  When I tried to sleep but thought of her instead.

  When I worked out, and my thoughts waffled between football and Lia and the baby (now a bloody cauliflower at twenty-seven weeks).

  When she and I talked on the phone, about her appointments and class and apartment search and family.

  When I'd get a picture or text between phone calls and had to think on exactly how to respond so she wouldn't realize just how horribly I missed her in my life.

  Sometimes I did better than others, matching her tone easily when we'd text about meaningless things. Foods we liked, and things we'd done that day. And others, I didn't do as well.

  Lia: Are you still awake?

  Of course, I'm still awake. It's still early enough that I'm in the lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, contemplating how I'd gotten my life so bloody off course portion of my evening, I almost answered.

  Jude: Yeah. What's up?

  I almost fell off the bed when she started a FaceTime. Fumbling with the bedside lamp, I answered the call once I had it switched on.

  Her face filled the screen, and I almost fucking wept at the sight of her broad smile. "Hi!"

  I cleared my throat. "Hello."

  Her eyes tracked down to my bare chest, and her cheeks pinked immediately. "Sorry, I know it's late, and I didn't give you any warning."

  "You never to apologize for calling, lov-Lia." I caught myself just in time, and she didn't seem to notice my almost slip. "What's up?"

  Her eyes glowed. "You have to see this."

  Lia pulled the phone away from her body, so I could see her bump from the side. She was lying in her bed too.

  My ribs felt tight seeing it. "It looks so different than in the pictures you send."

  "Shoot, it stopped." She tugged up her shirt, and my heart started hammering at the sight of her bare stomach. Then something moved. "Did you see that?"

  "Bloody hell," I whispered. I practically jammed my nose against the screen to see it better, laughing incredulously when something pushed along her tight skin. "What is that?"

  She laughed. "I don't know, it feels like an elbow maybe?" Lia's hand drifted over that spot, and her fingers pushed. When she pulled back, the baby moved again, and I found myself laughing.

  "Did he just push you back?"

  "Yeah." She sighed. "This is the weirdest thing ever." After one more small roll underneath the surface of her skin, Lia tugged her shirt down and moved the angle of her phone so I could see her face. "You said he."

  I traced every part of her face, documenting the changes since I'd last seen her. "Did I?"

  Lia nodded. "I'm trying not to guess."

  "Why not?" I settled back against my pillow, in no rush to end this conversation. I'd talk to her all bloody night if she'd let me.

  She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "I don't know. It feels like ... how often do we get this big of a surprise, right? There's nothing else in life, no bigger moment when you could find out news of this magnitude. I like not knowing, not expecting. And when they come …" Her voice trailed off, and she got a dreamy expression on her face that about had me fucking crying. "Then I'll get that moment, you know?"

  "What moment?" I asked, so fully entranced by her.

  "When you meet the most important person in your life, and your soul can go, Oh, yes, you're the one I've been waiting for."

  This.

  This was the danger in us talking face-to-face.

  I wanted to spout words, poetic and emotional and impossible to take back. And I think she knew it because she was looking at me carefully in the silence that followed what she'd said.

  I cleared my throat. "I like the sound of that moment."

  She smiled. "But it's okay if you want to guess what it is."

  "Truthfully, I don't care whether it's a boy or girl." I shook my head. "Though I'll probably be a rubbish girl dad."

  Lia laughed. "Why do you say that?"

  "Because I'll want her to conquer a world that won't make it easy for her to do so."

  "Oh." She sighed, her whole body going soft. Then her eyes teared up.

  "Shit, I'm sorry, please don't cry."

  Lia waved a hand. "Don't mind me. I'm just ... hormonal, you know? I cried yesterday when Emmett made me a fresh chocolate chip cookie because he heard me say it sounded good."

  "I'd cry if someone made me one too."

  She smiled widely.

  I decided to risk one small confession. "I miss seeing you eat things you love."

  "Do you?"

  I nodded, holding her gaze steadily. "That's one of the things I miss."

  Lia's eyes got sad, and her mouth opened, then closed.

  At that moment, for the millionth time, I thought about what Declan had said. Nobody ever wants to bench the best person for the job, McAllister, and if that's you, then bloody prove it.

  This was the first time we'd done a FaceTime, and in our weekly phone calls, we'd done so well, shared so much of the things that must have been important to her. And if this was my shot, then I'd take i
t.

  "Maybe I shouldn't have said that," I started, "but I do miss you, Lia. Very much."

  She let her head fall back with a sigh, against a dark gray upholstered headboard, and her eyes never wavered from mine. "I ... I don't know what I should say to that, Jude."

  "Why don't we start with what you want to say?"

  Her eyes closed briefly, and I saw the struggle in the pinch of her brow and the lines that appeared on her forehead when she was deep in thought.

  "I wish I could," she whispered. "I wish I could tell you those things without worrying about the consequences that might come with it."

  I rubbed a hand over my forehead and again, cursed the distance between us.

  "I almost didn't even call you," she admitted.

  "Why not?"

  "Seeing your face …" She paused, sucking in a slow breath and then letting it out through pursed lips. "It's hard, Jude. Because it makes me wish we could be back like it was before. And I'm happy being back home. I'm happy to be with my family. I was afraid you'd make me wish I wasn't. And even though I know it's the right thing to be home right now, I was afraid you'd make me wish I was still there with you," she admitted quietly.

  Frustration ebbed and flowed inside me, not in any great giant waves, but a low simmer that was out of my hands just as much as it was out of hers. It was the truth of our situation that she couldn't stay in England forever, and I was in the middle of a season, unable to even contemplate what changes the next season might bring.

  But still, there was an irrational spark of hope at her softly spoken confession. Could I yet prove that I was the best man for her? I wanted to. That much was clear.

  "And have I made you wish that, love?" I asked. The moment it was out of my mouth, I knew what a selfish question it was. And I saw in her face that it was the perfectly wrong thing for me to say.

  She sighed. "Oh, Jude."

  "I'm sorry." I shook my head. "That was stupid."

  "No, I'm muddying things too." She covered her face with one hand. I wanted to rip that hand away. I wanted to kiss her fingers and palm. I wanted to taste her mouth again and cover my body with hers, see how it had changed and how it felt now. But even more than that, I found myself wanting to take away whatever brief flash of pain I'd just caused her with my stupid pride.

  Wasn't that always my problem?

  My unrelenting need to prove myself valuable, prove myself worthy had cost me so much more than it had gained me. Especially in the past few years.

  "Look at me," I told her gently.

  She lowered her hand.

  "I won't do that again," I vowed. "I think I was momentarily weakened by the mental image of you eating a freshly baked cookie. I know what sounds you make when that happens, and I'm only human, love."

  Lia smiled so brilliantly, bloody hell, it hurt to look at. I'd do anything to see her smile like that, I realized. Even if it cost me.

  She bid me a quiet good night, and we disconnected the call. For a long time after, I stared at the ceiling.

  Maybe that was what she'd been trying to show me when she walked away all those months ago. It cost her to walk away from me, but she'd still done it. There was strength in putting someone else first, like she'd done with our child. I knew that now. I was far enough removed from the bloody dinner that my own selfish words echoed like a broken bell in my mind, discordant and harsh. Yes, my parents said some bloody terrible things, but in my choices that night, in my complete inability to be honest with people about the things I was struggling with, I'd made Lia suffer as a result.

  Lia's strength had been showing me what love looked like when you asked someone to be accountable for their actions.

  If she'd cared less, she wouldn't have minded half as much how I was acting. Her leaving proved something that I hadn't been able to see at the time.

  And not once in my life had I ever had that modeled for me, not until her.

  It was the edge piece I was missing, where Declan's words provided the full image I'd been puzzling over.

  Sometimes, you proved your worth by showing what you were willing to give up.

  What Lia was asking of me was a selfless love, not a parade of proof or a litany of accomplishments for why I'd earned her priceless favor. Not even for her, but for our child.

  They were both priceless, a legacy that I could never have built by myself and never could have earned. But if I could pull my head out of my arse, I just might yet be able to.

  I pulled out my phone and sent two messages. The first asking for a phone number. The second asking for some time.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lia

  With a very dramatic arm movement, I whipped back the dressing room curtain.

  I turned to the side, then the other. "Well?"

  Claire grimaced.

  "Oh, come on," I groaned. "That bad?"

  "You just look a little bit like ... like Nana's old kitchen wallpaper puked all over you."

  I glanced down at the dress. The purple and blue flowers on a cream background had seemed so cute on the hanger, and then she had to go and say something like that.

  "Shit."

  She winced. "Sorry."

  "I'm so sick of trying on dresses, Claire," I whined. The comfy chair in the corner of the dressing room held my weight when I sank back into it, sticking my legs out to rest on the poufy ottoman in front of it. Maternity dressing rooms were the shit.

  "Hey, we can stop. You'll just have to show up to your shower naked."

  I rolled my eyes.

  She started ticking off options on her judgy little, non-pregnant fingers. "The blue option was cute. It was comfortable, the color looked really good on you, and most importantly, it was machine washable."

  "Only you would list that as the most important feature."

  "How happy are you going to be when you stain it and have to bring your pregnant ass to the dry cleaner?"

  "Wellllll, since I'll probably only wear this dress once ..."

  "What about the next time you're pregnant?"

  My gaze zipped to hers. "Holy shit, I never even thought about that. I might have another kid someday."

  "People do it all the time," she answered gravely.

  "And my kids might be like, ten years apart for all I know."

  "They might be."

  My eyes widened. "And I have to keep stuff for those ten years, don't I?"

  Claire held her hands out in a magnanimous gesture. "You are welcome."

  "I thought I was doing so good at thinking ahead too."

  She walked into the dressing room and lifted my feet so she could sit on the ottoman, then lowered my feet into her lap. "You are. You looked at that apartment for a second time last week. That's really good, Lee."

  "I liked it," I told her. "It had so much light, and the bedrooms were big. Only ten minutes from Logan and Paige's too."

  Claire smiled. "So why the hesitation? You said that Little Cabbage was moving like crazy while you were in there."

  "Is it so weird that all I can imagine is a Cabbage Patch Doll now?"

  She nudged my feet. "You need a dress. Your shower is next week."

  "I know." I let my head fall back against the chair. "I don't know why I'm hesitating."

  "Don't you?"

  "What's that tone?" I asked, without lifting my head. "You're shrinking me. You know how I feel about that."

  "I don't know how many times I have to tell you that I'm not a shrink, but a little bit, yes."

  Claire, with her infinite patience and ability to see through me like I was made of Saran Wrap, waited quietly. Truly, it was her superpower.

  "The season ended today," I said. "Jude's."

  She hummed.

  "We've been texting a little more during the week. All friendly stuff, nothing too deep, you know. After that FaceTime last month, it was ..." I stopped, shaking my head. There were a host of things I could've said.

  It was hard because seeing his face turned my hea
rt inside out.

  It was impossible because even if he'd changed some, we still had the same issues.

  It broke my heart because of how much he tempted me when he looked at me like I was his entire world.

  "It was difficult to move past," was what I settled on. "It was the first time we even tiptoed past our friendly truce since I came back."

  "That makes sense," Claire said, smoothing a hand over the top of my foot. "How does that tie into the apartment?"

  I swallowed. This part was hard for me to admit out loud. The big unanswered question that would only be answered when he and I were face-to-face again.

  "What if ... what if he comes here, and I'm making all these strides to move forward, and he's moved forward too, but ... but I'm still in love with him?"

  "Would that be a bad thing?"

  My eyes burned with unshed tears. "Not if he loves me back, no. But what if he doesn't? You know? What if all this distance I asked for, that I insisted on, is the one thing that ends up pushing him away? And at the end of this, he's like ... fixed and happy and healthy, and I'm just"—I sniffed, trying not to choke on the words as they came up my throat—"alone."

  When I could finally meet Claire's gaze, her eyes were bright with tears too. "You'll never be alone, Lee. But I also know that's not the kind of loneliness you're talking about."

  "No." I wiped at my face. "I left and I don't recognize anything about my world now. So much of it is good, you know? Molly is practically engaged, and you and Bauer are stupid happy, frickin’ Finn is working ninety hours a week in his residency and he still manages to find a perfect girl, and I think, I think I still thought Jude and I would come to the end of this, and it would work out. That this distance would help us get closer."

  "It still might," she said gently.

  "But what if we don't end up together?"

  She reached forward and grabbed my hand. "Then he's not the one for you."

  "I'm nervous to see him."

  "That's okay too." She smiled. "When will he get here?"

  "He said he'd try to get a flight out in the next week so he can make it for the shower. Logan is hooking him up with one of the apartments they lease for players when they need a place to stay, said they may have him run some sort of clinic for the players or something so he could get it cleared."