“You’re not going to show me around?” I arch a brow.
She freezes. Just for a heartbeat. A flicker of hesitation crosses her face, like she’s deciding whether letting me see her space again means letting me see too much of her.
Then she exhales. “You’ve seen my place before.”
“Not all of it.”
A beat. “I guess I can show you around.”
I shrug out of my coat and hang it on the narrow hook beside the door. “Living room looks the same.”
She nods, suddenly shy, and I take a slow step inside. Like the first time I was here, it’s cozy but still bare. This time I notice a sofa. A single chair. One throw blanket. Still no family pictures. No memories on the walls.
A heaviness settles in my chest. A place without echoes of a childhood. Without laughter caught in photographs. Without… warmth.
It makes me ache for her in a way I didn’t expect. If it were up to me, I’d toss her onto that sofa, kiss her breathless, and start filling this room with new memories—loud, messy, joyful ones.
“I haven’t done much decorating,” she says softly, almost apologetically, like she can feel what I’m thinking. “I haven’t been here long. And even if I had… there’s never time.”
I put my hand on her back again—because I can’t not touch her—and guide her down the hall. The smallness of the house makes everything feel closer, more intimate. We enter the kitchen, with an eating nook tucked under a window.
“This is nice,” I tell her, stepping up to the glass to look out at the tiny backyard, more postage stamp than yard. But it’s hers. And I can picture her sitting out there with coffee on a quiet morning, hair a mess, sunlight on her shoulders.
“Has your mom been by to see it?” I ask.
“Yes.” Her voice flattens. “She said it was a good starter home.” A pained, almost strangled laugh sticks in her throat. “Until I have a mansion, she won’t be pleased.”
I look at her sharply. “That’s what she wants for you? That level of success is the only thing that’ll make her happy?”
“It’s what she always wanted for herself,” she whispers. “And now she’s projecting. I kept her from having it, so I damn well better make it happen for me.”
That hits me like a check to the boards.
I step into her space and pull her into my arms. She comes easily, like she didn’t realize until this moment how badly she needed someone to hold her.
“Jesus, Rowyn,” I murmur into her hair. “None of that is right. Not one piece of it.”
“Yeah.” She exhales shakily against my chest. “I know.”
I ease back enough to see her face. Her eyes are tight. Guarded. Like she’s holding something heavy behind them. Something she’s terrified to say out loud.
“You have to do what’s right for you,” I tell her softly.
Her throat works around a swallow. Something flickers, vulnerability or fear or longing. But before I can name it, she slams the door on it. That bright smile—too bright, too quick—flickers back into place and she pokes my chest.
“I am doing what’s right for me. That’s what you and I are all about, remember?”
Remember?
Yeah, I remember.
I scrub a hand over my face as my heart thuds uncomfortably. “Right. Lessons.”
I spent years shielding myself, building walls, avoiding anything that could hurt. But with her? Something cracked open. She made me unlearn fear without even trying.
And now all I want is to help her unlearn hers. Help her see she doesn’t have to chase some impossible version of success to make someone else happy. That the WAGs, their kids, the team…me—we’re all here. She doesn’t just have one person to call family. She has a whole damn crowd.
“Jax?”