“That’s what the game deserves,” I say. No point in playing half-assed. Ever.
“Are you sure this is your last season?” he asks, with a hopeful note in his voice.
I laugh. I had a feeling he was buttering me up for something—in this case, to get me to stay beyond my last year. “I’m pretty sure.”
“But you’ve hardly had any injuries your whole career,” he says, in a leading the witness tone. “And you’re looking sturdy and fast as a fox.”
I peer around, hunting for wood to knock, but of course finding none. “That’s how I’d like to go out, sir. Injury free.”
He nods, exhaling deeply, perhaps in understanding. “Fair enough. Just glad we’ve got you for the last season.”
“Me too.”
I trot the rest of the way off the field, catching up with Drew in the corridor. “That was a great training camp,” I remark.
“What a difference a year makes,” he seconds. Last year at this time, he was still playing on the Los Angeles Devil Sharks. The Mercenaries traded for him right around the same time they traded for me.
“But I sure won’t miss seeing you for the next few days,” I add as we near the locker room.
He laughs. “Fucking won’t miss seeing you either.”
“Don’t break the speed limit on your rush back to LA,” I joke.
“Same to you,” he says. And it’s unsaid, but understood, why we’re both eager to return to Los Angeles. He’ll want to see his fiancée, Brooke, and I’m climbing the walls to see Ellie.
* * *
A little later, I’m heading to my car in the parking lot at the same time he is. Even though I don’t want to waste a second before I see my woman, I also want to do something for her. I clear my throat. “So you want to grab a bite sometime when we’re back in LA? You and Brooke and Ellie and me?”
As Drew tosses the keys to his Tesla up and down in his palm, he shoots me a cocky grin. “Aww. I thought you didn’t want to see me and now you do.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s for Ellie, asshole. I know Ellie would like to meet Brooke. And I bet they’d hit if off.”
Drew doesn’t give me shit this time when he says, “She will. Brooke’s awesome and so is Ellie. Let’s do it.”
Three hours later, I’m pulling up to Ellie’s place. Before I even cut the engine, the front door flies open and my brunette beauty rushes across the lawn and out to the driveway. My heart soars, right along with my dick. Package deal, those two.
I step out of the car and close the distance in a heartbeat, hauling her into my arms. Right where she belongs. “I missed you,” she says.
“You have no idea how much I missed you,” I say, savoring the smell of her, the feel of her.
We head inside. Where someone else, evidently, missed me too. In the front hallway, Gigi does the dog greeting dance, jumping up and down, shouting my name in Dog. So I pick her up and kiss her little nose.
“You are the cutest,” Ellie says.
Then I set down the little lady, and I spend a good long time kissing the woman I missed. The woman who was my fake real girlfriend. Now she’s mine for always and that’s exactly what I want.
* * *
Later, after we reconnect properly—or improperly as the case may be since Ellie turned out to be a very naughty student and I had to put her over my knee as her professor—we pore over dinner options in the kitchen. Once we choose Korean, I ask her if she wants to go out with Drew and Brooke sometime.
She lights up. “I would love that.”
I drop a kiss to her forehead. “I had a feeling you would. I know you said you wanted to make friends in LA, and I think you and Brooke would get along.”
“Look at you! You’re like a friend matchmaker.”
“I just want to make you happy,” I tell her.