Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

JETT

I'm not just going to forget those two interceptions I threw at the worst possible moments of the game, but Ava storming the field to get to me is not something I'm going to forget either. In her arms, my soul calmed. The mistakes were still there, but they mattered less.

The night I begged her to come to Nevada with me, I told her I needed her there, and maybe I don't actually in a logical sense, but tonight felt a lot better with her.

So what do I do?

Dad texts me that he'll wait in the family room if I want to talk for a minute after the game. Devin took everyone else home. I'm sure they're all excited that we won, but my mom and Jenna probably want to get out of the stadium as quickly as possible. There will be talk from the fans about my huge mistakes that almost cost us the game, and my mom especially hates hearing that. I text Dad back that I'll come and meet him, if only to reassure them all that I'll be fine.

Dad walks up and throws his arms around me as soon as I enter the family room. Devin and I get our height from him, so I don't have to stoop at all to return the hug. "It's better to learn from a win than a loss, Jett. I don't care what you or anyone else says; you played good." He steps back and gives me a stern eye.

"Thanks, Dad." It's easier to accept this admonishment of sorts after getting comfort from Ava. I smile and nod, hoping to let Dad know I really will be okay. His words bring back emotion. He's always been there for me, through thick and thin, as I fought for this career. When things were dark after Ava left, he sent me funny memes every day for a month. It was such a small thing, but they were all handpicked, just for me, not just random ones he found on the internet. I'll always remember that.

He squints at me. "I saw Ava down on the field with you…"

I almost laugh at his observation and the question clearly in it, asking what's going on. "Yeah." I shrug at him, and he tries to hide a smile.

He claps me on the shoulder. "Come by for dinner sometime this week, okay? Your mom wants to see you."

"Will do," I promise. We chat as we walk out and then head our separate ways.

My brain goes straight to Ava the minute I'm sitting by myself in my truck. Another thing I can't forget is Ava giving up on us. Ava walking away. Ava leaving me when things got tough. She was there tonight when I needed her, but will I always be able to count on that? What if I have a bad season? What if I get injured? What if I get traded to a city she doesn't want to go to?

I try to stop the spiraling. It's not like it's a sure thing that Ava and I will get back together, even though that's what it feels like. The way we held each other after the game was like we'd healed everything broken between us, so what's standing in the way of the future I always planned?

Just my ability to believe in her. I did that once and ended up with a shattered heart. Can I walk that road again without being sure of the outcome?

Gabriella and Ava take their time coming over to my place. Colby and a couple of other teammates arrive first. No one tries to comfort me for what happened, which I'm glad for.

While I'm waiting for Ava to come, Claire texts me.

Claire: Sorry about pushing the thing with Hayden. I didn't see that coming.

She adds an emoji of a worried face with a bead of sweat on the side, which I chuckle at.

Claire: Looks like if I'd just left it up to you, it would have settled itself.

There's a link in this text to a celebrity-gossip account. There're already pictures of Ava hugging me on the field. I click on a picture to save it to my phone, smiling.

Claire: Just … hire a social media manager, Jett. You'll thank me later.

Jett: Fine. Consider it done.

Dating Hayden taught me at least one positive thing. Posting photos to social media doesn't always have to be the chore I thought it was that night we first went out. Among the perfectly posed pictures she took of us were a few off-the-cuff selfies with silly faces that my fans ate up. She snapped one of me studying plays one evening and convinced me to post it to my account, and more than a few people commented that they knew I was a hard worker and how much they related to it. For better or worse, Hayden has a community of people around her, and there's something to be said for me having that too.

I'm definitely going to use my power for good though. Maybe I'll post this picture of me and Ava later tonight and talk about how the support of my family and friends has gotten me through the tough times, football and personal alike. There's nothing more genuine than the comfort Ava offered me down on the field.

By the time she and Gabriella do arrive, their arms full of food, I've settled again. When Ava looks at me from where she unpacks snack foods from a bag, her eyes are full of the questions I've been asking myself.

What happens next?

I picture her at the picnic, Ruby in her arms, a smile on her lips, and my heart clenches.

We don't watch game film. I had some good plays, as Ava has pointed out, but that was a hard game, and watching replays tonight will only make me think about those interceptions, make me wonder why I made those throws or analyze why I under-threw that last one to Colby.

We just sit around on my couches and chat, mostly about Colby and Gabriella's wedding. It's on our bye week. It'll be tucked into a Saturday afternoon after team meetings, and they won't get a honeymoon until the season's over, but neither of them wanted to wait another five months.

Ava sits across the room next to Gabriella, but I've caught her looking at me a dozen times. She's probably caught me more than that. I stand when the guys can't help but start discussing the way Colby hammered that defensive end to force the fumble, and I wave them off when they start apologizing.

"No, give him his due," I say. "He saved my bacon." I force a huge grin because Colby was a monster out there. We wouldn't have won without him, no question. Everyone pretends not to notice as I slip outside to stand on my deck. It's not the same as the beach, but I can smell the ocean and hear the waves out here, and that's enough.

"Hey," Ava says from behind me.

I turn and take her hand to pull her into my arms. "Thanks again for today."

She leans back and shrugs. "You needed it. If your mom had been brave enough to vault out of the stands, it would've been her."

I laugh at that visual.

I don't let Ava go, even though I should. "I miss you," I say softly.

She nods and swallows, then bites her bottom lip in a way I know means she's holding back emotion. It strikes me that she did that right before she told me she was leaving Reno.

"Yeah. Me too," she finally says, her voice shaky. "What do we do?" she asks in a soft voice.

We stare at each other for a long time, my longing building with each passing second. My hands press into her lower back, and the feel of her arms around my chest is so familiar but intense, all at once. It feels as new as the first time I kissed her, at the end of our first date, because I already knew . And yet it's as comfortable as our first night together in Reno, when she came over to my apartment and we snuggled and smiled because we were finally together again.

I want her, as badly as I did the night she left. I want to cling to her, to hold her against me, to know she'll never leave me again. I'm fighting a losing battle in trying to forget how much I loved her. How quickly I've fallen for her again.

I love her. And it's hard to say whether I ever truly stopped.

She leans closer, her eyes full of worry, maybe over the fear in my expression that must be warring with my need. "Jett?" she asks in a soft voice.

I shake my head because I can't fight this anymore. Not after all these weeks of pushing it away, trying to ignore it, pretending the sparks were there with Hayden when that was only a candle next to a bonfire.

I pull Ava closer and lean over her, bringing my lips down onto hers. The moment they touch, a relief washes through me that makes it obvious I've been wanting to do this since I saw her again. She snakes her hands around my neck, pulling herself up and into me. Her lips move with mine in a slow, familiar way. She's coming home.

That's when I notice the way I'm gripping her as though she's going to escape me somehow. I'm kissing her like no matter what I do, she'll slip away. I break off the kiss, swallowing and breathing hard.

She tilts her head at me, gently cupping my cheeks with her soft hands. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know." I drop my hands from her waist, but she doesn't move away, peering at me with her head tilted. "I don't know how to trust you again."

She presses her lips into a thin line, then draws in a long breath. "I'm sorry for leaving. I know how much it hurt."

She's speaking from her own experience, clearly. So why doesn't it feel like enough for me to get past, knowing that we both suffered?

Because of how worried I am that it could happen again. "What's going to happen when things get hard again?" I confess to her, maybe hoping she has some kind of magic answer that will fix it all. "It's not going to be easy just because I'm playing pro now. Today is proof of that."

She takes a step back, her entire body tensing. "That's how it's always going to be, isn't it?" she asks, and her tone stings with accusation. I'm defensive immediately. She's accusing me? For being honest? "I left," she goes on. "That's it. The end. There's nothing else for you."

I fold my arms and lean back against the railing. "How else am I supposed to see it?"

She lets out a short huff of air that's maybe supposed to be a sharp laugh but doesn't quite land. "You were talking about quitting football, Jett. I couldn't make rent and tuition was coming due, and you were saying you were going to get a job, and if you had to, you'd quit. I left because you were throwing away your dreams. "

"For you," I protest. How can she not see that? "Football was never worth anything without you."

"You're not mad because I left," she says. "You're mad because I made the sacrifice instead of you. I couldn't bear to be the reason you quit football, so I let you go. I sacrificed you to save that, hoping that someday you'd understand. That maybe we could make it back together. I gave up on that little by little over the years, but I believed it in the beginning." She shakes her head and turns away. "If you quit, that was it. I sacrificed you; you wanted to sacrifice football. Why do you get to be the noble one?"

I turn to the railing, squeezing the wood in frustration. "You made the decision for me, Ava. We never talked about it. One day you just told me you were leaving."

"I know what that conversation would have been—you deciding to give up what you loved for me. Jett, your whole career is proof that you know how to get what you want. Keeping me meant walking away from the dreams you'd had your whole life, to pay my rent. There was no point in trying to have that conversation with you. I could not be the one to take football away from you."

I spin back around to face her. She stands still and tense and now several feet away from me. "I would have been fine without football. I haven't been fine without you." I don't want to admit this, but the lack of real relationships the last few years, Claire's insistence that I've turned into a grumpier version of myself, Jenna's words about how she hasn't seen me as happy since then—they all force me to admit it's the truth.

Ava shakes her head more vehemently than before. "You don't know that. It would have changed everything."

I throw my hand out in the direction of my brother's house just down the road. "Look at Devin and Jenna. They're happy, much happier than we are. Devin is fine without football."

She backs away even farther, and I want to reach out and reel her back toward me. I can't stand to watch her leave me again. "You're not Devin," she says fiercely.

"I wish I were." He has everything I've always wanted, and nothing made that clearer than when I watched Ava hold Ruby the other day and I knew my heart was irretrievable. But everything I want is about to walk away again.

Ava clenches her jaw and backs up a few more steps, her back almost against the door that leads inside. "Is that why you'll never forgive me?" she says in a husky voice, full of hurt.

I look down at the deck. "You ran away from me."

"I was eighteen and scared," she excuses herself. "You were going to throw away something you'd worked your whole life for, and I didn't know how else to stop you except to leave."

I nod toward the door she's almost huddled against. "You're still doing it."

Her cheeks flare red with anger, her eyes bright and shimmering with emotion. She straightens but doesn't change the distance between us. "It's easy when you're pushing," she says. She shakes her head and opens the door, looking at me one last time before going inside.

I watch her shoulders rise and fall in a couple of deep breaths before she reaches Gabriella and then bends over her to whisper something. Then she walks across my family room and disappears in the direction of the front door. Her car starts and she drives away. All the while I'm rooted to the spot I'm standing in on my deck, our argument spinning through my mind and me with no way to fix it.

I'm not wrong, right? Football can end in a blink—an injury, a bad season—but she was my forever.

I get to be noble because I care more about a person than a job, don't I?

But the way Ava just explained it right now says she cared more about a person too. About me and what my future meant without football. I never considered what I was doing, thinking about quitting. I never considered how I would feel about giving that up, because Ava was more important. I believe that still.

But once again, it's not the whole story. She's trying to tell me that she felt the same. That I was more important than her happiness. And she's right. We were young and trying to figure out big adult things, and it was hard.

It's also a revelation to me that when she left, she never meant it to be forever. For her, it was a temporary solution. I'll accept blame there.

But how can I reconcile our past and the mistakes we both made when I don't know how to believe she'll stay this time?