29. Maggie

Tommy and I showed up to his house about an hour later. His parents were parked out front, waiting for us. The four of us walked inside together, Scott and Tommy chatting back and forth about the game. They were dissecting Tommy's at bats and discussing what had worked for him tonight that he should practice on replicating. It was a completely different experience watching him interact with his dad than what had happened the first time we traveled to California.

Linda and I left them to continue chatting while we headed toward the kitchen to start dinner. I dug through Tommy's cabinets to find the pasta and ingredients for the garlic bread. Linda began heating up a pot of water. The two of us let Scott and Tommy's conversation fill the space, just enjoying the camaraderie between the two men.

Scott pointed out all of the paraphernalia that Tommy had kept and displayed proudly on his shelves in his living room. I watched the two of them as I helped Linda roll the dough out for the garlic bread and begin cutting them into shape.

"I feel like I owe you more than a simple thank-you." Linda broke the silence that had filled the kitchen. Her eyes were also locked on the two men in the living room. She had barely taken her eyes away from them since the stadium.

"I don't know about that," I told her as I dumped the pasta into the now boiling water. "All I did was say what Tommy needed."

"I've been telling Scott to be more vocal about how he feels about Tommy for years. He's listened, but ultimately, he's always fallen back on tough love. His father did it with him, and then Scott thought it was what he needed to do for Tommy. I had tried to break that generational pattern, but with very little luck." Linda slid a sheet pan full of the garlic bread we had made into the oven.

"How was what I did different?" I asked.

"You are clearly someone Tommy cares about very much and I think hearing it from you, Scott felt like he was hearing it straight from Tommy. You are the first girl that Tommy has ever brought home to us, so we knew it was serious with you."

I stared at Linda incredulously. "He's never brought anyone else home?"

Linda shook her head.

"What about Sutton?" The two of them had dated for over a year. I found it hard to believe that Tommy never brought her around his parents when they were all in San Diego at the time.

"We never met Sutton and probably for the better. I don't think that girl wanted to hear what I had to say about her choices when it came to my son. She never put him as a person first, only his money."

I glanced over to Tommy as I thought about what Linda had told me. I found it hard to believe that the first girl he would bring home, after never having brought anyone home before, would be a girl that he was fake dating. He hadn't even brought a girl that he had been seeing for over a year home to his parents. Why me?

Tommy caught me looking at him over his shoulder, and he flashed me a quick smile before rejoining the conversation with his dad. Part of me wondered if he had wanted Monica's contract to work so badly that he would toss his previous morals out the window. Or maybe there was something more that I was missing. Because Tommy didn't seem like the type of guy that would forgo everything he stood for simply to fix his past wrongdoings.

"It's like I'm watching my son morph into who I knew he always was. But I would be naive to think he had done that all on his own." Linda's voice brought my attention back to the kitchen. Her eyes were flitting between me and Tommy, taking in the way I had been looking at her son.

"I'm sorry?"

"You don't seem to fully believe that you are important to Tommy in the way that I have been saying. Tommy knew he would have to change some of his habits when he moved to Chicago, but I don't think he knew how to at the time. He's grown up and has become more of a man. A man's strength is in how gentle he loves a woman. And he treats you like you are the most precious gift this world has given him yet." Linda wrapped a hand around my forearm. "A mother can tell when her son's in love."

Love?

My mouth grew dry as my brain tried to process what she had said. Linda thought her son was in love with me, and her evidence wasn't the press photos or when we were staging for the cameras. Her evidence was moments that were for the two of us, with no expectations or obligations making us do anything.

Was she right?

Did Tommy love me?

It felt like there were too many obstacles in play for that to matter, even if it were true. Tommy was trying to regain control over his life and his career. I was trying to pick up the pieces of mine. We were both under contract for the rest of the season to publicly be linked as a couple. Meanwhile, I was getting paid to do so. The idea of us loving each other—despite all of it—felt impossible.

I looked back at Tommy, who was now walking over toward us with his eyes locked on mine. He gave me a small smile, one that was for only us. I couldn't help but return it as he and Scott joined me and Linda at the kitchen island.

Even if the possibility of a relationship with Tommy felt doomed from the start, that didn't mean I couldn't enjoy the time we had left with each other before everything would go back to normal. Because wasn't that what was going to happen? When the contract was over, he would move on with his career with a shiny new image and I would go back to trying to make a name for myself in my career.

"We could have helped!" Scott exclaimed, making me want to chuckle. It was the ultimate dad catchphrase after having missed all of the work while they were off doing something else.

"That's okay." I waved him off.

"So, Maggie," Scott started. "I was meaning to ask Tommy about this when I saw it, but now seems as good a time as any."

Tommy's eyes narrowed, like he still didn't quite trust his dad enough to not say something terrible following that sentence.

"Linda and I saw those horrible articles that were put out about your late fiancé. We wanted to make sure you were okay." Tommy's eyebrows shot up in surprise. I was expecting my heart to clench at the mention of those dreaded articles that had photos of me and Luke plastered all over them, but it didn't. Instead, I felt grateful that someone was asking if I was okay first and not digging to find some version of the truth that fit whatever narrative they had made up from the article.

"I'm okay," I told him. "It wasn't a lot of fun when I first saw it, but I've since realized that I owe them a thank-you for posting it. It let me close some doors that I had left open."

Tommy gave me a soft smile. It was one that was full of care and support, like if something were to be said next that I wouldn't be able to handle on my own, he had my back. I drew comfort from the feeling that gave me. Not even Olivia or my parents knew the extent to which I was still trying to heal from Luke. It had always been a journey I needed to take on my own. Until Tommy. His steady presence gave me the confidence to unburden some of my guilt and share it with someone else. Someone that would help me finish this path of healing I had taken.

"We're here if you need anything, sweetheart," Linda added.

It was an odd feeling the moment it seemed like your family was growing. Linda and Scott were checking on me like they would a daughter, like someone they cared about. It reminded me of Luke's parents. The loss of Luke had rocked my village more than just losing the love of my life.

Having Tommy's parents care about me was like filling a hole that I didn't realize had existed.

The conversation over dinner flowed. Scott and Tommy chatted easily about the season and Chicago, catching up over topics that previously had been off-limits to avoid arguments in the past. As the night wore on, I could see Tommy grow visibly lighter.

After dinner, Tommy walked his parents to the door. Linda reached up to give him a kiss on the cheek and whispered something in his ear before she followed Scott out into the night. Tommy closed the door behind them and paused for a second before he turned back around to look at me. There was a slight flush to his cheeks, and I wondered if that had been a result of whatever Linda had said to him.

"So I've been thinking about something all night." Tommy started walking slowly toward me. "Either my father was abducted by an alien and they replaced his brain, or somebody talked with him in a way that actually got through to him for once."

I turned away from him quickly and walked toward the living room to hide the nervous smile that was trying to spread across my face. What I had said to Scott was not done for appreciation from Tommy. I did it with his happiness in mind, not for selfish reasons.

"So what did you say?" he asked as he sat down on the couch next to me. His arm immediately rested on the couch cushion behind me, his fingers rubbing circles into my shoulder.

"I wasn't going to say anything to you," I told him.

"Did you think I wouldn't figure it out?" The smile on his face was quickly becoming my new favorite accessory of his.

"I wanted your dad to see all of the amazing things you've done this year. You've been trying to pave a new path for yourself, and you've done a damn good job."

Tommy didn't say anything right away. That smile stayed on his face, though, while he looked at me, his fingers now rubbing circles on my lower back. His head began to shake slowly from side to side as his eyes roved over my face.

"What?" I asked.

"I think you're amazing." The look he was giving me made a pressure fill inside me. My mind flashed back to what his mom had said earlier at dinner, that she knew when her son was in love. I wasn't sure if that was necessarily accurate, but the look on his face was making me wonder if Linda wasn't too far from the truth.

"You're pretty amazing yourself," I told him.

"Stop doing that." Tommy sighed.

"What?"

"Stop brushing off my compliments. You are an expert at dodging them and reflecting them back onto me. I want you to take them. Just take the compliment, Maggie." Tommy's arm encircled my shoulders and pulled me into his chest.

An awkward laugh rumbled out of my chest as my body curled into his. He had called out one of my worst qualities: my inability to graciously take any compliments anyone ever gave me without feeling extremely awkward.

"Will you let me call you amazing?" Tommy continued. "Because I think you are fantastic. You exude such passion for your career, you've got one of the biggest hearts I've ever seen, and you are always taking care of the people around you."

The intensity in his eyes as he told me what he thought about me practically took my breath away. There wasn't a single sign of him being insincere. Silence fell over us as we looked at each other. Tommy's fingers traced down the side of my face before they hooked under my jaw and drew me closer to him. His lips brushed mine before he pulled back, now inches from me.

"I never want to let you go." The words were barely loud enough for me to hear, making me wonder if I had heard him right.

Tommy's arms wrapped around my waist to support me as he slowly lowered me onto the couch. My body sank into the cushions before his body covered me from above. Every inch of me was yearning to be pressed against him, like Tommy was the other half of me and I was desperately trying to make us whole again.

His mouth covered mine again and it was like his kiss had me running on all cylinders. I was tired of feeling hesitant about giving in to my feelings for Tommy. Everything about him drove me crazy. The way he kissed me, the way his hands seemed to want to feel every part of me, the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, and how all of these were quickly taking root in my head as some of my favorite things.

Our movements grew frantic, like we couldn't keep up with the need that was running through us. Fingers were digging into skin, pulling at clothing, tangling in hair. I was sure the emotions I was feeling would consume me if they weren't expressed in some way, and it seemed that Tommy felt the same way.

He made quick work of my clothes, leaving me naked as I undressed him. As Tommy held me in his arms, it felt like he was making a mark on my heart in the shape of him, and I was terrified that I'd have to cover it like a bad tattoo. But a much larger part of me pushed that thought away, too concerned with how perfect he felt nestled there in the spot beneath my rib cage.