Chapter Twenty

Blake

I enter my living room and she's standing there, gazing out the window. Sunlight streams in, giving her an ethereal glow, and I allow myself to think about what it would be like for her to be in this space all day, every day.

"Hey, gorgeous. Eyes up here." I point to my face.

She blushes, dropping her chin to her chest. "I didn't want you to catch me looking you up and down like a piece of meat."

"It's fine. I'm sure you get it all the time."

"I do." She's still standing too far away.

I cross the distance between us, my long stride eating up the space. When I get close enough to touch her, I reach out, taking her into my arms. She comes willingly, pressing her body against mine. "You don't even try to fight me adoring you here," I whisper, pushing her hair out of her face.

"Because I know someone isn't across at the building next door with a long lens, getting pictures of us. I love where I live, don't get me wrong, but I've been burned more than once. Including by my neighbors."

"Jesus, Willa, that's a hard way to live your life." I cup my palm around her jaw. "I'm sorry."

She shrugs. "It's what I wanted, although I'm not sure I realized how big it would be. I had dreams, of course, and I wondered what it would be like to be world-famous, but not like this."

"Understandable." I lean in, kissing her softly on the lips. "The one thing I hope you can do when you come here is relax. Truly relax."

"I think I'm going to be able to do that." She smiles brightly before leaning her forehead against my collarbone. "Can we watch TV and eat popcorn?" she asks, her voice muffled by my skin.

"If that's what you wanna do, we can do that."

"That's definitely what I wanna do."

I gently push her toward the couch, and she sits down, kicking her shoes off. She pulls her legs up underneath her, wrapping her arms around her knees. I pull a blanket I keep on the back of the couch off so we can wrap up in it. Although it's early fall in the south, I like to keep the air on full blast so that I don't sweat too much. Losing precious fluids isn't what I need during these months.

"Come on in here." I have a seat next to her before holding the blanket open, and wrap my arms around her.

"This is quickly becoming my favorite place to be," she says as she snuggles in close.

I don't think I've ever felt like more of a man than I do with her in my arms. I could march across a field with land mines, and dodge bullets if it meant keeping her safe. "I'm glad. I want you to be comfortable and happy with me."

"I am." She leans her head onto my shoulder. "So, what is it we're going to do? Watch TV?"

"You ever seen Schitt's Creek ?" I raise an eyebrow, gazing down at her.

"No, but I've heard good things."

I all but rub my hands together in glee. "I'm gonna love this journey for you, Willa. Trust me, you'll get that after we watch a couple seasons."

She doesn't look convinced. "If you get that popcorn I asked for earlier, I'll sit here with you all afternoon and not worry about anything other than what's going to happen on that TV screen."

I have a feeling it's been a long time since she was able to wind down like this. I get up and move the kitchen, setting up the popper I have for such occasions.

"You have an actual popper?" she asks, glancing back at me. "I thought it was going to be microwave. This is a treat."

"We used to pop our own when I was a kid."

"Yeah? We just had the microwave kind."

I debate in my head for longer than necessary if I want to tell her how my childhood differed from hers. Then I realize that it's what makes me the person I am today. "We couldn't afford the microwave popcorn when I was a kid." I say the words quietly. "Mom and Dad struggled with two boys who wanted to play sports, and then when our little sister came along, things got even tighter."

"You two don't mention her much." She rests with her arm on the back of the couch, folded hand holding up her chin.

"Patty's younger than us. She's ten years younger than me, and still in college. Senior year, but as I'm sure your sibling knows, it's not easy having a famous member of a family—much less two. We purposely keep her out of the limelight. She goes to Belmont, and she's majoring in Physical Therapy." I smile, proud as hell of her.

"You must be proud."

"I am. Hopefully she'll be able to help us when we're old and decrepit from years of putting our bodies through hell." I pour the kernels into the machine. "Bret pays for her school; I pay for her expenses, at least through this year. Then we've told her she'll have to stand on her own two feet."

She grins, laughing softly. "But then I have a felling you'll be like me, and still depositing money into her bank account. I do it with my brother and he's twenty-eight."

I roll my eyes. "No doubt. What does he do? You don't talk about him much."

"For the same reasons you don't talk about your sister. He lives a quiet life, and prefers it that way. He works with children in Cincinnati. He runs an after-school program for low-income and at-risk youth. Instead of sports, which a lot of those programs fall back on because it's a way to get the kids out of their situations, he teaches more daily life, growing-up lessons. Like he teaches them to balance a checkbook, how to budget to buy groceries, how to actually write a check. He explains about credit scores and things like that. It's not glamorous by any means, but I think he fills a void that's there for a lot of kids—not even just the kids he teaches." She plays with her hair, braiding it as she talks to me.

"Oh my God, I wish someone would've done that for me before I got in the league. My first contract was so much money." I turn the popper on, and wait for it to start giving me the fluffy pieces of popcorn. "I made such stupid decisions and almost went broke.That's how bad it was."

She laughs. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me about young Blake. I guess I was lucky. I wasn't of legal age to sign a contract when I first had to, so it was either my parents or a third-party administrator. We decided to go third party since I didn't want to be mad at my parents if they did something I didn't like. It worked well, and there were trusts set up for me for when I became of age, and there have been advisors every step of the way." Her eyes light up when the popper finishes. "I'm sure I could save money by not having so many advisors, but they know their job better than I ever could pretend to."

I bring the bowl over and have a seat next to her, putting my legs up on the couch. She leans into me, her back to my chest. I set the popcorn bowl in her lap, my arms wrapping around her, and together we finish the snack and get through three episodes before I realize she's asleep. Dark circles under her eyes let me know she needs it, and when I turn into the couch slightly, she follows me, as if she trusts my presence.

Dropping a kiss on her forehead, I cover us up and allow myself to relax into a nap, too—something I haven't done in years, and at the same time something I think will become one of my favorite afternoon activities with her.