“What do you mean?”
“Maybe,” she said slowly, “you need to play a little dirty.” Her eyes settled on my mom, then Molly and Claire and Lia. Isabel’s lips curled into a devious smile. “You know how the saying goes?”
“What?”
“What would Paige Ward do?” she asked lightly.
“Oh fuck,” I muttered. “I don’t know if I’m ready to answer that question.”
But as Isabel laughed, a wisp of an idea curled through the back of my head.
Emmett
“Do these look good?”
Davonte, one of our rookie receivers, looked over at my phone screen. “No.”
“What?” I scrolled through the pictures. “Why not?”
“Too much frosting.” He pointed at something beneath the picture I’d shown him. “See … that’s the shit right there. You gotta have the right balance.”
Josh—a veteran linebacker—slung his arm over Davonte’s shoulders. “How sad is it that we have to tell him why a cupcake looks good or not?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know I don’t eat sugar.”
“No sugar,” Darius mumbled. “Saddest shit I’ve ever heard.”
“Who’re the cupcakes for then?” Josh asked. “Didn’t you ask us about chocolate fruit or some shit last week?”
I ignored him. “So these are better?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
I clicked order and typed in the address for Tim and Sheila’s house. According to Molly, Adaline’d be there all week.
Once a week for the past four weeks, I’d sent something sweet to Adaline. To her office, or her parents when I knew she was there. Once, to her apartment so she didn’t have to share.
Maybe in the strictest sense, we weren’t in a long-distance relationship, but it was something. A tether, some small thing that made certain Adaline knew I was thinking of her.
And for the past four weeks, I thought over and over and over about what Isabel had said.
What would Paige Ward do?
First, it was a terrifying proposition because if I asked that question to anyone who knew my mom well, they’d either burst out laughing or wince.
There was nothing she wouldn’t do when it came to the people she loved. I’d heard my parents’ love story my whole life—and she knew almost immediately that my dad was who she wanted. He was more reluctant. He had more to lose. He was terrified of what she was capable of making him feel. And because of that, he’d held her at arm’s length until he couldn’t resist.
The parallels to my own relationship with Adaline were not lost on me.
Strangely enough, it was those parallels that helped.
I arrived back in Ft. Lauderdale with a clear head. Not because I was willing to sacrifice two years of my life to keep my position there safe. Because now, I knew what was going to build the foundation of the rest of my life.
And it wasn’t in Florida.
My first week back, I strolled into the weekly meeting between Coach and our GM, sat in the chair, and told them I’d leave them alone.
“Thank fuck.” Don sighed.
Coach eyed me. “What changed?”
“First chance I get, I’m going to tell Ned that he’s left me no choice but to walk away if he refuses to listen to trade offers before the window closes.” I met both of their incredulous looks unflinchingly. “He has until November second, right? That should be enough time for him to figure it out. Otherwise, you’ll play the last half of the season without me.”