I pause, thinking of Mama’s warning. “You sure you’re OK with this?” I search her face, looking for any sign of hesitation. “It’s not too late to back out,” I add.
She meets my look, and all I see is her usual calm and the sparkle in her bright-blue eyes. “Why? Are you getting cold feet?”
“I’m just not sure the world will believe someone as stunning as you would date the likes of me.”
“Too cheesy, Chase.” Serena laughs and the sound is bright and musical as she heads upstairs. It’s the kind of laugh that lands somewhere behind my ribs and settles in. The laugh I first heard in Miss Fenton’s third-grade homeroom and have been chasing like a touchdown ever since.
An hour later I’m standing on the back porch in my tux, staring out across the lake. The sky has gone that velvety shade of navy with only the faint glow of a crescent moon lighting the water. Somewhere close, an owl hoots and the breeze rustles in the spruce trees, cool enough to make me tug the lapels of my jacket a little closer. Serena was right about the temperature drop on her weather report this morning.
I rub my shoulder absently, letting my thoughts drift to last Sunday’s game against the San Diego Skyclaws. It was another messy win that didn’t feel earned. It was only game four of the season, but it already feels like the fans are restless. The owners too. The pressure is on. This is my second year playing for the Stormhawks. I’m the golden quarterback. The man they’re counting on to take them to the playoffs and deliver them a win at the Super Bowl.
Only I don’t feel like that guy right now. I deal with the pressure by being first to practice, grinding through every drill, giving it everything. But something’s off. I don’t know if it’s me or the team. Maybe both. This bye weekend and a break fromthe field couldn’t have come at a better time. In two weeks, we’re home to my old team—the Trailblazers. There’s no way I can let them beat us. And before that, we’re playing the Las Vegas Desertraptors, who haven’t lost a game this season.
And that feeling that something’s off? I’ve been burying it, throwing myself into football and pretending it doesn’t exist. But with half of Denver laughing about my love life and the other half trying to join it, it’s harder to ignore. Maybe what’s missing has nothing to do with football at all. Maybe it’s everything outside the field.
My old coach at the Trailblazers saw it. He thought I was holding back. He thought the reason was to do with my head, not my skills. He sent me to a sports psychologist and she agreed. After an hour of listening to me talk about my childhood, she looked me square in the eyes and said I had textbook commitment issues.
There’s still a wound inside you, Chase, she told me.Your biological father abandoned you before you were born. Your mother when you were two. Then your adopted father died when you were seven. Imagine those events as bricks. Bricks you’ve been stuffing into a backpack and carrying ever since. Until you open that backpack and deal with what’s inside, the weight is going to slow you down—on and off the field.
She said some other stuff too, like how I’m scared to commit to relationships. I called bullshit on all of it. I told her I was raised by the best woman on the planet. That Mama gave me everything a kid could ever need: love, safety, a place to belong. But later, when I couldn’t sleep, her words circled back. And over the years, as that weight has pressed harder, I’ve started to wonder if the psychologist was right.
Maybe that’s why, this summer, I tried to find my biological mom.
It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. More like a thought that had been gnawing at me for years, wearing me down until I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Always the same thoughts warring inside me. The fear of another rejection from a woman who left me on Mama’s porch and stayed gone for twenty-six years, and the fear of not hearing the answers I want.
When I asked Mama for help finding Leanna, she didn’t hesitate. She went to her desk, pulled out an old slip of paper, and handed me an address.It’s the last one I had for her, she said quietly.
My hand shook the whole time, but I wrote her a letter. I sealed it, mailed it, waited. A month later it came back, unopened.
Return to sender. No longer at this address.
That letter has been sitting in my drawer ever since. I haven’t tried again. I tell myself I don’t care, but if that’s true, why does that damn envelope still sit there, like it’s waiting for something I can’t name? Why do I lie awake at night sometimes, wondering where she is? What kind of life she has. If she’s happy. If she ever thinks of me. If she ever regrets walking away. And what she’ll say if I ever find the courage to ask her: Why did you never come back?
Some days I think the past should stay buried. Especially when I think of my biological dad. Jamel Bishop played for the Stormhawks for one season and got my mom pregnant during a one-night stand. Then he peaced out, moved to Canada, and left her to deal with the fallout. Twenty-four years later, he came back, saying he wanted to connect. Except he didn’t.
What he wanted was a second chance at his own career. He wanted to ride on my coat tails and get a gig commentating for the NFL. I didn’t want to accept the truth the first two timeswe met and the paparazzi were there to capture it. By the third time, when he hadn’t asked me a thing about myself or my life—hadn’t offered so much as a whisper of regret for not owning his responsibilities and, instead, asked if Mama had any contacts in the media—I got it. He was using me.
I forced myself to walk away, but I was crushed and confused. I had a family. I was a Sullivan. I had my brothers and Mama. I couldn’t understand why a complete stranger had the power to make me feel like I wasn’t good enough to be loved just because I shared half his DNA.
It was Serena I called first. She took a week off work, risked her cheer contract with the Stormhawks, and drove eight hours overnight just to show up in Kansas with bagels and coffee and this fierce look in her eyes like she dared the world to mess with me again.
But there are other days when I’m not so sure the past is best left buried. Days when I think the sports psychologist with her cozy armchairs and her office filled with potted plants was right. That the weight of my past is holding me back from being the man I want to be. On the field with my game. Off the field in relationships and my inability to commit.
And until I face it—until I find Leanna and ask her why she left me—I don’t know if I’ll ever really be free of it. But these are thoughts for another day because there’s the sound of movement behind me—the tap of heels, the swish of silk—and when I turn, every thought in my head disappears. Everything stills. Because standing before me is the most beautiful woman in the world.
She steps onto the porch wearing a gold silk dress that drapes over her curves like liquid light. Like it could slip right off her with one wrong move. Her long blonde hair is curled and shining, falling in loose ringlets around her shoulder and down her back. Her makeup is subtle but damn effective. Her eyes are framed with soft liner, lashes thick and long. Her cheeksshimmer and her lips are painted a glittering pink. And with those strappy gold heels, she looks elegant, sexy, and completely breath-taking.
She arches a brow and holds out her arms. “Well?”
I swallow, finding my mouth has gone dry. “You look nice.” The second the words are out, I cringe inwardly.Nice?Nice is Mama’s pecan pie. Nice is the pink and red heart throw Serena keeps over the side of her couch to wrap herself in when she’s watching TV. The woman standing before me is a lot of things, but “nice” isn’t the word for any of them and, by the way she’s rolling her eyes, she knows it.
“Chase Sullivan. We both know I look better than nice. And we’re supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend tonight, remember? Try again. If I was your girlfriend, what would you say to me?”
“You really wanna know?”
“Yes!” She laughs.
If Serena was my girlfriend…