37

“Did you know Olivia is thinking of transferring?”

Chris looked up from the page he’d been scribbling on. His gaze locked on Ella, who hadn’t said so much as a ‘hello’ before dropping that bomb on the table.

“What?” Noah asked.

Ella threw her hands up, looking agitated. “She told me she’s considering moving to a different university.”

“Why?” Chris asked, stepping into a conversation he probably wasn’t welcome in.

Ella’s harried eyes moved away from her boyfriend to land on him. She pulled out a chair and plopped into the seat with a sigh. “She said she wants to move somewhere where people don’t know about Drew.”

Chris’s fingers tightened around his pen. “Are people bothering her?” he asked, unable to keep the angry growl from his voice.

Ella shook her head. “I don’t think so, but people were definitely staring when we arrived.” She sighed. “But she mentioned it before we even got to campus.”

“Did she say where she wanted to go?” Asher asked. Riley was working in the shelves, but Chris was sure he’d fill his girlfriend in as soon as he got the chance.

“No, she hasn’t decided yet,” Ella replied. “But something tells me it will be somewhere on the other side of the country.”

Chris’s stomach dropped. If that was true, he’d barely see Olivia. If he ever saw her at all. Maybe she wouldn’t even come back for the holidays.

“I don’t like it, but maybe it’s what she needs,” Noah said quietly.

Chris wanted to argue. He wanted to say that what Olivia needed was her family and her friends. She needed the people who loved her, not strangers in a city thousands of miles away.

But he stayed silent. Noah still hadn’t quite forgiven him for sneaking around with Olivia behind his back, and he was probably the last person who had a right to say anything about her decisions. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t do something about it, though.

Chris hated the thought of not seeing Olivia on campus, and he couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing her for months at a time.

“We need to go,” Noah said, drawing Chris from his thoughts. “Coach will have our heads if we’re late.”

“Right.” Chris packed his things and waited while Noah kissed Ella goodbye.

Ella smiled up at her boyfriend, and Chris’s chest squeezed. Olivia had looked at him like that before he’d screwed it all up. He just hoped he wasn’t too late to fix it.

He did the strength training with Noah and the rest of the team, but his mind stayed on Olivia and how to fix what he’d broken. He’d never had someone he wanted to fight for before, and it was fucking scary. He was terrified that Olivia would slam her door in his face or tell him she didn’t want to ever see him again.

He spent the entire time in the weight room planning out what he would say to her and imagining all the ways she would probably tell him to get lost. He knew he likely only had one shot to get it right. Chris just hoped he wouldn’t mess it up.

His hands were shaking when he knocked on the pool house door that evening, and he had to pull in a deep breath to steel his nerves. Chris could manage pre-game jitters with no problem, but this felt a hundred times worse. He stood in front of Olivia’s door, and each second that went by without her answering felt like an eternity.

Chris was about to knock again, but the door opened before he could, and there she was. Still in the plaid skirt and long-sleeved black shirt she’d been wearing earlier, her hair unbound and falling in loose waves.

Olivia’s blue eyes flared behind her glasses, and her eyebrows disappeared behind her bangs.

Chris swallowed. She was so goddamned beautiful.

“Chris?” she asked when he failed to say anything. “What are you doing here?”

He cleared his throat and tried to remember the speech he’d rehearsed in his head. His mind went blank. Fuck. “Can I come in?” he asked after an awkward beat of silence.

Her lips pinched together, but she stepped aside after a few seconds to let him pass. “Okay.”

Chris waited until she’d closed the door and turned to him before he spoke. “Please don’t leave Georgetown,” he blurted, his rehearsed speech apparently out the window.

Olivia blinked at him. “Ella told you?”

“She told Noah, and I was there,” he explained.

She nodded and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not like I’ll be gone tomorrow,” she said in a poor attempt at reassuring him. “I’d only be able to transfer in the fall.”

“And then we’ll barely see you,” Chris said, his throat painfully tight. “ I’ll barely see you.”

She bit her lip and looked down. “Maybe it’s for the best,” she said with a shrug.

Chris let out a choked scoff. “I can’t think of anything worse,” he retorted.

Her eyes flew up to meet his, and her lips parted. It was as though she were surprised to hear him say he hated the idea of her not being around anymore. Chris hated that she could be surprised by it. He hated what it meant that she doubted even that.

“I’m sure a lot of people don’t want me here,” she said.

“Like who?” Chris asked, genuinely stumped. If anyone still thought she was guilty of something, they were delusional idiots.

She arched a brow. “Your teammates, I’m sure.”

Chris’s brow furrowed. “They have nothing against you.”

She sent him a pointed look. “I’m sure more than one of them still thinks it’s my fault Drew is dead.”

“None of them blame you,” he argued. “Not even Eric, who’s an absolute dick.”

She looked amused at his last comment but didn’t seem terribly convinced.

“Most of them hate themselves for not realizing what Drew was doing earlier,” he told her.

Hell, Ryan and Jacob hadn’t stopped apologizing to Noah for not telling him about Drew’s cheating. They’d both felt responsible for keeping Drew’s darker side hidden, and Chris couldn’t say he wasn’t still pissed off that they had.

Brady had known more than anyone, but Chris oddly couldn’t quite bring himself to be angry with the defensive lineman. He’d kept silent because Olivia hadn’t been ready to come forward, which was the only reason Noah and Chris hadn’t sent him to an early grave. Besides, Brady had been looking out for Olivia long before any of the rest of them.

“They couldn’t have known,” Olivia finally replied.

“That doesn’t make them feel better about being friends with a piece of shit,” Chris told her. “If you were scared they wouldn’t want you at Georgetown, don’t be.”

Olivia sighed and dropped her hands to her sides. “It’s not just them. It’s everyone. I don’t know if I can stand the constant stares and whispers.”

“Was it really that bad?” Chris asked. He didn’t doubt her perception. He just worried about how it had affected her.

She shrugged. “It wasn’t as bad as I expected,” she admitted. “Most people didn’t seem to know or care.”

“And the ones that do probably won’t remember any of it in a few months’ time,” he said. The interest around her would die down, even if it took a bit of time to happen.

She darted her tongue out to wet her lips, and Chris traced the movement, unable to peel his eyes away. He missed those lips. He missed her .

“Even if that’s true, I think I could use a fresh start,” she told him.

“What if I came with you?” he said, his words coming out too fast, his nerves getting the better of him.

She stared at him. “What?”

“What if I came with you?” he repeated. “I don’t care if you want to go to California or Europe or Canada. I’ll come with you.”

“Coming with me wouldn’t magically make me forget everything,” she argued.

“No,” he admitted, “but I’d come with you because I’m willing to wait for the day you might give me another chance.”

Her lips pursed. “That day might never come.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Olivia sighed. “What about your family?” she asked. “What about Paige and Luke?”

“It’ll be hard to leave them,” he said. “But it would be even harder to see you go.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” He stepped closer, so close that the scent of vanilla teased his nose. “I don’t want to say goodbye. You’re it for me, Olivia. Nobody else has ever made me feel the way you make me feel. Nobody else has ever made me want forever with them.”

He could see her eyes softening, the wall she’d built between them crumbling, but she blinked, and the hardness was back. “That was a nice speech,” she said coldly. “You should write it down and save it for the next girl you set your sights on.”

“Fuck, Liv. There won’t be a next girl,” he told her. Nobody would ever compare to her. Nobody would ever make him feel the same way.

She let out an ugly laugh and stepped back, putting more distance between them. “Of course, there’ll be another girl. You’re Chris Hartley. There’s always another girl.”

“Liv, please.”

“Please, what? Forget how you wanted Riley first? Forget how you kept her secret from me?”

“I never wanted Riley,” he tried. “I just said that because I was angry.”

“So you didn’t find her attractive?” Olivia asked.

His answering silence spoke for him. He could have lied to her, but that wasn’t the way he wanted to fix things.

She took another step back and shook her head, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “You’re just like everyone else in my life,” she said. “And I’m not willing to settle for someone who settled for me.”

If she thought he’d settled for her, she had no idea how he felt about her. She had no idea how fucking amazing she was, and it broke Chris’s heart.

“I deserve someone who doesn’t look at my sister and see the lost possibility of something better. I deserve someone who doesn’t regret settling for me when he could have a new woman in his bed every week instead,” she said in a tear-choked voice. She took off her glasses and placed them on her desk before swiping at her damp eyes with the back of her hand. “I deserve better, Chris, and you’ll never be able to give me that.”

“Liv,” he said, his voice breaking. “You can’t really believe that’s how I see you?”

She lifted a shoulder in answer, and Chris closed the distance between them, lifting his hands to cup her face. His thumb swiped over the tear that had rolled down her cheek.

“Liv, I fucking love you,” he told her. “I thought Riley was cute for about a minute, but I never wanted her the way I want you.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but Chris spoke again before she could.

“Nobody has ever made me feel the way you do. Nobody has ever made me want more with them.” He shook his head. “I never settled for you, Liv. You settled for me .”

“I’m just another notch on your bedpost,” she argued, but she didn’t sound so sure anymore.

“No,” he argued, his fingers sinking into her hair. “You’re so much to me, but never that.”

She searched his eyes. Her walls were lowering, but not enough.

“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he told her, “but the thing I love most about you is your mind. You’re so ridiculously smart, and I’ll never understand why you even gave me a chance. You’re so unbelievably strong and brave.”

He smiled and rested his forehead against hers.

“You do deserve so much better than me,” he admitted. “But it’s not because you aren’t my first choice since that couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s because you’re just way too fucking good for me.”

“You’re smart, too,” she argued weakly.

He let out a short chuckle and drew back a few inches. “Not even nearly as smart as you.”

“You have so many other options,” she said, the new light in her eyes dimming again.

“None of them even compare.”

Her blue eyes brightened enough to give Chris hope.

“You could have any guy you wanted,” he told her. “You’re the most incredible, beautiful woman I know, and you could find someone so much better than me.” He hated that it was true. That he would never be good enough for her. “But if you give me another chance, I promise I’ll prove to you every day that you’re the only one I want.”

“You’d really come with me if I transferred?” she asked.

“I would.” He swallowed. “I’d follow you anywhere.”

Olivia’s chest rose with an inhale, and then she was rising on her toes to press her mouth to his. Chris had never felt so happy, and he smiled against her lips before giving himself over to the kiss. Her lips parted beneath the press of his tongue, and a bolt of electricity shot down his spine when their tongues brushed against each other.

He groaned and tilted her head up to deepen the kiss further. His hands moved down to her waist, and he tugged her into him, another pained sound escaping him when Olivia’s fingers slid under his shirt and met the strip of skin just above the waistband of his jeans.

She drove him crazy in the best way possible, and he could only hope she’d keep doing it for the rest of their lives.