Chapter 19 Lottie

Chapter 19

Lottie

"The first snow accumulation of the season is happening today with this massive snowstorm that's barreling across the Midwest. Parts of Chicago could see upwards of twelve inches after it's all said and done. Kids, you may just have yourself a snow day tomorrow if this accumulation manages to stick around. Be careful out there, folks! A snowstorm this early in the season can often bring a lot of panic for those that don't feel prepared. Just remember, this snow will probably melt by mid-week, there's no need to stockpile water or toilet paper."

The snow was coming down in sheets outside. It was a ghost town. Snow days in the city were some of the most magical moments during the holidays. The fireplace in my apartment—one of the reasons I fell in love with the place—was roaring trying to keep everything warm.

A few children squealed with joy down on the street outside where their father pulled them on a sled down the middle of the unplowed road. As I watched them over the rim of the hot chocolate I held in my hands, a sense of longing panged inside of my chest.

The buzzer went off in my apartment, pulling my mind away from how I had never had a parent be the one to spread the magic of the holidays for me and Olivia.

"Who is it?" I asked into the buzzer.

"It's me," my sister's voice crackled back. "Open the damn door. I think I may lose a toe to frostbite."

I hit the buzzer for her to get inside and waited the few seconds it took for her to get to my door. My sister barreled in wearing all Cougars gear from head to toe. The team had won the World Series this past week and the city was still riding the winner's high after celebrating like it was the last day on earth during the parade a few days ago.

"Did you drive here?" I asked her, ready to unleash one of my many lectures about being more careful.

"No, I took the train." Olivia shook the snow off her before she noticed that I was still in my pajamas. "What are you wearing?"

Confused, I replied, "My pajamas? It's the Bobcats' bye week. We don't have a game today."

"Did Nolan not call you?" Olivia asked.

Nolan.

I hadn't heard from him all week and I felt his absence every morning as I went on a run by myself.

"Nolan? Why would he call me? I haven't talked to him in days."

"Jamil told me that we were all going sledding and that it was Nolan's idea." Olivia held up her phone to show me her text conversation with the outfielder.

Before I could tell her—again—that Nolan hadn't told me anything of the sort, the buzzer to my apartment went off.

"Who else is here? Isn't the city shut down?" I asked as I went to answer it. "Who is it?"

"It's Nolan."

I glanced back at my sister to see her raise an eyebrow at me. "He knows where you live?"

I waved her off and ignored the pleased smile that spread across her face. Nolan's large frame appeared on the other side of my door. His face was guarded, like he was fully expecting me to throw him back out on the street—which I can't say I didn't debate, if only for a split second before I opened my door to allow him inside.

"Did you drive here?"

Nolan nodded. "I was careful, I promise." One of his small, rare smiles showed for only a couple of seconds before he returned to being guarded once again.

"Hi, Nolan!" My sister was perched on the arm of my couch, watching our interaction as if it were more interesting than the final inning of the World Series earlier this week.

"Hi, Olivia." Nolan gave my sister a quick nod before he looked back over at me. "Can we talk?"

"About the impromptu sledding you told everyone but me about?"

He winced when he saw how irritated I was but continued to stand his ground. "Among other things."

I took in the steely, determined look in Nolan's eyes and knew that he was going to figure out a way for this conversation to happen, even if I turned him away now.

"I'll just be … in your room," Olivia announced loudly before she scurried toward my bedroom in her attempt to give us some privacy. Although I watched her leave the door cracked, presumably to spy on whatever conversation was about to transpire.

That sneaky little bitch.

"I have a lot of things I need to say and I'm not sure any of it is going to make sense," Nolan started. He wrung his hands together as he began pacing in the middle of my living room. "I know that I haven't been the best version of myself this season, and I'm not even talking about my performance. I've been a shitty friend to everyone, and I pushed you away when that's the last thing I want to do."

"Nolan." I gently said his name to stop him in the middle of his rambling speech. "I know this season means a lot to you and that's okay. You don't have to explain yourself."

His face crumbled with anguish. "But that's just it, Lottie. I do have to explain myself, because even if this season does mean a lot to me, I don't want to let it ruin the relationships I have with the people that are most important in my life."

I heard an intake of breath from my bedroom and had to fight the urge not to yell at my little sister to close the door the rest of the way.

"I never got to tell you this last Sunday—but I like you, Lottie. I didn't expect this to happen when I first met you. I wanted to avoid you at all costs and not because I found you utterly distracting by how beautiful you are, but because I was scared that someone as smart as you would see just how pathetic I am. A grown man who can't just fucking move on. What I didn't expect was for you to still see through all my different pretenses and accept me for it all while working with me to figure out how you could best help me achieve everything I want."

Nolan's words stripped me bare. I had never expected him to be so vulnerable with me, especially after his injury during the last game. I was certain he was the exact kind of man I needed to avoid—someone who put their career and interests over the people in their life. I had watched my father constantly choose football over my mother and then Olivia and me.

I deserved more than to be an afterthought.

"I don't expect you to forgive me right now. I'm not sure I deserve that," Nolan continued. "But I wanted to extend an act of good faith or an olive branch. I know you wanted to go sledding for part of your bucket list and I called in the troops to make that happen."

A voice in my head told me I needed to trust easier and not expect every man in my life to abandon me, but that was a trauma that still had years of healing. I hated my father for how badly he'd managed to stain every aspect of my life without even caring enough to do so intentionally.

"I only want you to know that I care about you, Lottie. I didn't want to admit out loud that I'm scared of what's next for me after this season is over, but I must if I want to do better. I'm not perfect, I know that. I'm just asking for you to take a chance on a guy that's in the process of trying to figure out who he is now."

It would be hypocritical of me to not forgive Nolan because I understood what it meant to reinvent yourself. I remembered an eighteen-year-old Lottie promising that someday she'd be somebody people wanted instead of being discarded and she worked every day of her adult life to achieve that when it came to her work. Maybe Nolan and I weren't that different—he wanted to be loved and remembered, just like I did when I first stepped out on my own.

"I'll go change," I told him. I wasn't ready to tell him that I forgave him yet and especially that I hadn't stopped thinking about him all week, even after he tossed me to the side so easily. Instead, I could at least meet him in the middle on this. I didn't miss the relief that filled Nolan's brown eyes before I disappeared into my bedroom.

"You didn't tell me about you and Nolan Hill !" my sister whisper-shouted at me the moment I closed the door behind me.

"That's because I wasn't sure there was anything to tell," I told her as I dug around in my closet for clothes warm enough to go sledding in.

"What happened?" Olivia asked as she threw herself onto my bed.

"The best way to describe Nolan is he's a man who's afraid of the unknown, and for a moment on Sunday, he let that get in the way of our relationship—both professional and whatever else is happening between us." My voice came out muffled as I pulled my thickest sweatshirt over my head.

"We're all afraid of something, Lottie," Olivia said, with a look on her face that suggested she was familiar with the feeling.

"Is everything okay?" I asked her.

Olivia waved me off and flashed me one of her carefree smiles. "Oh, I'm fine. Now tell me, big sister, did you sleep with Nolan Hill?"

There wasn't any chance that I was going to be able to hide the truth from her. She knew me better than anyone else and the flush creeping up my neck was bound to be a dead giveaway.

"Oh my gosh!"

I tried to hush her because the man we were speaking about was only on the other side of my door.

"Was it good? Damnit, why is everyone getting some action around here except for me?"

I cringed because although Olivia and I were best friends, I still didn't want to hear about my little sister's sexual escapades.

"Who knew my perfect older sister would be the one to do something so scandalous."

"It's not scandalous," I argued, growing hot for something other than the many layers of clothes I had on.

Olivia rubbed her hands together like an evil villain. "Oh, today is going to be so fun."

"No, no, no." I pointed a finger. "You are not going to mess with Nolan. Absolutely not."

My sister just gave me one of the smiles that I knew meant trouble before throwing my bedroom door open and walking back out into the living room. Nolan was now waiting for us on my couch and avoiding eye contact.

Damnit, Olivia. Could you have spoken any louder?

"We're ready," I told him. Nolan jumped up like he was thankful for something to do to avoid the awkward tension that Olivia was eating up like popcorn.

"Everyone should be waiting for us over by the stadium."

"The stadium?" I asked.

Nolan opened the front door and gestured for us to go first. "There's a great sledding hill right between Gateway Stadium and Lake Michigan."

Olivia bounded out to Nolan's black Range Rover that was parked on the curb next to all the other cars that were covered in inches of snow. "I call the backseat!"

"Nobody calls the backseat, Olivia."

"They do if they want a front row seat to her sister and the guy that's clearly smitten with her," Olivia stage-whispered loud enough I was afraid Nolan would have heard her yet again.

"Get in the car," I sighed.

The roads and nearly every parking lot we passed were completely empty the entire way to the sledding hill next to the stadium. The view was like something out of a movie with everything around Gateway covered in a blanket of snow. Lake Michigan was grey and angry as the wind from the snowstorm raged on. A group of kids were packing snow together to make snowballs and throwing them at each other while squealing with joy. A group of adults stood off to the side watching them, and once we were close enough, I realized it was Adam and his wife, Hawthorn and his wife, Maggie and Tommy, Jamil and Derek.

I knew that Nolan probably invited everyone with the intention of making this as comfortable for me as possible. I had to admit it was nice having all the people I considered my friends—and was beginning to think of as family—so willing to do something like this with me.

Nolan parked his car and went to pull three sleds out of the back.

"Here, let me help," I told him as I took one.

"Finally!" Nolan and I turned to see Derek looking at us as if he'd been waiting for hours instead of minutes. "I've been waiting for you three to get here so I can be the first one down the hill."

"Not if I have anything to say about that," Olivia called out to him as she grabbed the other sled from Nolan and took off running toward the top of the hill.

"Wait a minute!" Derek shouted as he held his sled over his head and took off after her. "How are you so fast?"

"Be careful! If anyone gets hurt, the coaches are bound to be upset and so will I." I tried to suppress a smile as I watched my little sister let out a joyous laugh at the top of her lungs as she enjoyed doing something that we'd never got to experience in our lives.

"Ready?" Nolan asked me as he motioned up the hill where Olivia was sticking her tongue out at Derek after she reached the top first.

Nolan's shy smile made him look like a little kid again flirting with the girl he liked. This was the Nolan Hill that I'd come to like—the one that showed up with donuts for his teammates, gave up his favorite seat on the airplane to make me comfortable, watched the sunrise with me to thank me for my help, and took the time to see me . He wasn't perfect, but neither was I.

So, I found myself extending my hand to his as my own peace offering. Nolan studied it for a few seconds before he reached out to take my gloved hand in his. As the two of us climbed up to the top of the hill together, Derek and Olivia went speeding past us—both shouting at the top of their lungs about who was in the lead.

Adam Steel was at the top once we finally made it, helping his kids get onto their sleds and giving them a big push.

"It's nice to see you again, Lottie," he told me.

I smiled at him. "Congratulations on the World Series win. It must be nice retiring on something like that."

"It was. Now it's Nolan's turn." Adam slapped Nolan on the shoulder with affection before he pushed his youngest down the hill with enough force to make his wife yell at him to be careful. "Now I get to make different memories with the people I love."

"Happy for you, Adam," Nolan told him. "Truly."

"You're next," Adam told us. "Do you guys want a push?"

I followed Adam's gaze down to the sled in Nolan's hands. "Oh, we weren't going to go down together."

"Oh, come on. Nolan will get you more momentum going down. It'll be fun, I promise." I noticed the twinkle in Adam's eye and concluded that he was either the most oblivious person ever to the lingering tension between me and Nolan or he was the world's best mastermind.

Adam took the sled out of Nolan's hands and positioned it on the ground before motioning for me to take a seat first. My heart began to race inside of my chest at the thought of being close enough again to Nolan to feel him. I heard snow crunch under Nolan's boots as he positioned himself behind me. Slowly, I felt his weight come down on the sled as his chest pressed into my back.

"Is this alright?" His breath tickled my ear as he leaned close enough so only I could hear him. He threaded his arms around my waist so he could be the one to hold the reins of the sled.

It took me a few moments to get my breathing under control before I squeaked out, "Yes, that's alright."

That same feeling of peace filled every inch of me once his arms tightened around me. It was the same feeling I had a hard time identifying in Nolan's penthouse because I'd never truly experienced it before.

"Ready?" Adam called out from behind us. Before either of us could say anything, there was a sharp push that sent us careening down the hill.

Wind rushed around my face as we rocketed down the steep incline. Laughter bubbled out of me as we picked up speed. Nolan pulled me tighter into his chest, tight enough that I could feel his chest rumble first before I heard his laughter over the wind roaring in my ears.

The sound melted away any lingering hurt I had from the moment between us in the locker room. By the time we slowed down at the bottom of the hill, I'd realized that Nolan and I were just two people broken inside trying to figure out a way to make themselves whole again.

We were one and the same.