Someday, I was going to walk through the produce section of a grocery store, pass the mangoes, and pop a very inconvenient hard-on.
“I feel bad for both of you, Emmett. I do.”
Her eyes were gentle, which was not a word I ever associated with Isabel. Isabel was the one who kicked all our asses when we needed it. So I braced for when the not-gentle part would start.
“But…”
She smiled briefly, her face growing serious again in the next breath. “But this thing you’ve been waiting for? The eventuality of a great big love like the ones you’ve grown up with? None of them came easily. Not even a little bit.” I must have made a facial expression she didn’t like because she leaned forward in her chair. “You were a kid; it wasn’t your job to notice all the shit we went through to find our happily ever afters. But let’s start at the top, shall we?”
I blew out a breath. There was no point in stopping her, not when she was just getting herself wound up.
“Your mom and dad?” She ticked off one finger. “They got married when they were virtual strangers just so Logan could keep the four of us. Paige walked into a house with four teenage girls and a husband she hardly knew. Do you think that was easy? The fact that they survived the four of us long enough to even fall in love is a fucking miracle.”
I knew the story, but I’d never heard it from one of my sister’s perspectives.
Then she glanced over at her husband of a decade and a half, her face softening into a tiny smile. “All of us have stories like that. The details might differ, but none of us had a cakewalk to get to this point.” Isabel turned back to me and pinned me in place with her implacable gaze. “Emmett, you never saw our struggles, but they were there. Nothing about this”—she gestured to the people in front of us, all the people we loved—“came easy. And what makes our love stories so amazing is that we fought through all that shit to get here. None of us gave up when it was hard.”
“I’m not giving up, Iz.” I met her gaze head-on. “Not even thinking about it. Am I not allowed to be frustrated? Feel like there’s nothing I can do to fix this for either of us?”
“Oh, bullshit,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“There’s always something you can do. And as much as it sucks, sometimes being patient while the person you love works through something hard is the thing you’re supposed to do.”
“I am being patient,” I told her. “I have been.”
“No, you assumed you could waltz into her life, and everything would magically fall into place. You’ve been patient because you had no other choice. This isn’t some offensive scheme you can plot out with Xs and Os before you take the field, and fucking hell, I hate that I’m using football clichés right now,” she said.
I smiled, despite the sting of her accusation. She wasn’t wrong. And that stung too.
“Loving her, and being patient, are good,” I said. “I can do that. I’m willing to wait if I have to. But they’re still not enough. I cannot force Ned to listen to trade offers, no matter what I say or do. He’s holding so tightly onto that golden fucking leash, and I can’t do anything about it.” I emitted a laugh, a harsh sound devoid of humor. “Except quit. Walk away from all my teammates and let go of every shred of integrity I’ve built in this league over the past five years. Do you think that’d make her proud?”
“No,” Isabel said unflinchingly. “It’s a dick move, and that is not you, Emmett Ward.”
“So then what?” I spread my arms out. “I’m still stuck.”
She gazed out onto the sound, narrowing her eyes in thought. “It’s a shitty situation,” she admitted. “But maybe you shouldn’t be approaching it—Ned—like the Golden Boy would.”