“If you go all in with Colt every single one of your stones may be turned. They might not. There’s no guarantee either way and you absolutely cannot ask him to give you any. But he will give you everything else in the world, Hendricks. Colt would pull down the stars for you if you asked him to, so you need to ask yourself which is more important? The strongest, most passionate, faithful love you will ever know in your lifetime, or your privacy?”
I look through the door to the living room. I look at my family, at my dad, and I wonder and I worry. I wonder what will happen to all of us in the coming months. In the next couple of years. I wonder where we’ll be.
I worry I’ll be alone.
I worry I’ll have given up my future to preserve something that’s impossible to save. Something that’s slipping through my fingers at a rate that makes my head swim and my stomach curl.
I worry I’ll lose my dad.
I worry I’ll lose myself.
“Look, Lilly, I gotta make this flight out to Minnesota or I’ll never hear the end of it, so are you in or are you out?”
I worry I’ll lose this love. This deep, intrinsic, irreplaceable love.
I step back into the house, heading straight for my shoes. “What gate do I meet you at?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
LILLY
LAX
Los Angeles, CA
Sloane is a strange traveling companion. She met me at the gate out of LAX with my ticket already in hand.
“Don’t worry,” she told me as she led me toward the security checkpoint. “I’m billing it to Colt.”
That did not put my mind at ease. I’m curious how this will all shake out if Colt’s not happy to see me. I’m pretty sure I owe Sloane Ashford the balance for a last minute, one way ticket to Minnesota, and she is not a woman I want to be in the red with. I’m already hamstringing the bakery leaving Rona alone with John and Gina. Not only does she have to manage it without me, she has to keep those two from fighting like junkyard dogs all day.
Once we get on the plane she pops on headphones and stretches her legs out into the spacious first class seating area. She doesn’t speak to me the entire flight.
Somewhere over Denver I fall asleep.
“Lilly,” Sloane calls gently, shaking my arm. “Wake up. We’re here.”
I open my eyes slowly. The plane has landed. People are already disembarking.
“We’re in Minneapolis?”
“Unfortunately,” she replies, digging through her bag. “I got an email from Colt’s mom while we were in the air. She’s already here.”
“Is there an airport in Galena? I thought it was tiny.”
“It is, but there’s an airpark. I chartered a plane to pick her up and bring her in. Also going on Colt’s bill.”
“Jesus.”
Sloane smirks. “Don’t worry. He’s good for it.”
“I guess he must be.”
She looks up at me, taking me in seriously. “You really don’t know how much he’s worth, do you?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
She smiles softly. “I knew I liked you.” She stands suddenly, gesturing for me to do the same. “Now let’s get out of this damn thing. It smells like hot sauce.”
As we wheel our carry-on bags, our only bags, out of the concourse I check my watch. Nine P.M. California time.
“Is Minneapolis Eastern or Central time?” I ask Sloane, struggling to keep up with her brisk pace.
“Central. Two hours ahead of L.A.”
“Will he still be at the stadium or did they move him to the hospital?”
Sloane frowns at her phone in her hand. She deftly dodges a small child that runs out in front of her, though I have no idea how. It’s like she has a sixth sense.
“My phone is still updating,” she explains vaguely. “I’ve got messages coming in from his mom, Carol, Coach Allen, and Trey. It looks like it’s not that bad. It’s not a break. No torn ligaments.”
“Oh, thank God,” I sigh with relief.
“They’re thinking it’s a sprain but they’ll know more when the swelling goes down. They tried to bus him back to the hotel at halftime.” She laughs to herself as she’s reading. “But he told them he wasn’t ‘going fucking anywhere until the game is over’. He was on the sidelines for the last half of the game, propped up on crutches and doped out of his mind. He’s back at the hotel now.”
“Did they win?”
Sloane frowns. “No. They lost. Fourteen to nine. Trey says Tyus took a hard hit and was on the sidelines with Colt for the last ten minutes of the game. They couldn’t get anything going after that.”
“What happened to Tyus?”
“They’re worried about a concussion.” She tsks unhappily. “That’ll be his second this year.”
“That’s not good.”
“No,” she agrees grimly, stowing her phone in her pocket. “That’s two too many.”
Sloane leads me outside into the dark, snow-filled night and I almost pass out from the cold. My lungs can’t handle it. It feels like they’re freezing inside my chest. I bounce from foot to foot, collapsing in on myself into a compact ball while Sloane hails us a cab. She’s got a large jacket on and I’m jealous as shit that I wasn’t prepared for this, but I don’t think any jacket I own could have helped me survive this. When we finally get a taxi I launch myself into it like the devil is on my tail. It’s blissfully warm inside.