Page 97 of This Wild Heart

Gently, I closed my laptop and angled toward him further. My knee brushed his leg, and he stared down at that one small place we touched, his jaw visibly clenching. “Maybe it’s time to stop watching it,” I told him.

His eyes flicked up to mine. “That easy, huh?”

I nodded. “Preparation is good,” I said, tapping the tablet. “But only if it helps you get better. If it’s just forcing you to sit in that shitty feeling, then don’t watch it. All your teammates need to know is that you’re still going to show up for them this season. Last season is done, there’s no point in dragging it forward.”

My throat tightened at the intense scrutiny in his eyes.

“What is that saying? Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it,” he said in a rough voice. “I will not forget. And I will not repeat it.”

The way this man broke my heart was entirely foreign. I couldn’t stop the swell of affection any more than I could stop the sun from rising. He wanted to be better than his past self so badly thatIcould taste it, like watching someone else get injured and immediately tasting the metallic tang of blood.

Despite the fact that it wasn’t my pain, I’d still absorbed a bit of it anyway. It was impossible not to, wasn’t it? When your life was planted somewhere, even temporarily, it was inevitable that even shallow roots would form. These didn’t feel shallow. Nothing with Parker did. They felt deep and meaningful, curling into the edges of his life without explicit permission from either of us.

It felt like getting dropped into the middle of the tornado, and somehow, I’d become the one trying to wrangle it.

He hadn’t asked me to.

No one had.

It’s not your job, Anya, I instructed myself. It wasn’t my job to fix him, it wasn’t my job to make him see things clearly, and the urge to try almost left me breathless. I’d already been trying, each time he seemed to listen to me only buoying the desire to keep pushing through.

“I don’t want to repeat the past either,” I told him.

His gaze was heavy on mine, the gentle reminder of my own failings introducing the slightest bit of tension into the room.

Quietly, I opened my iPad and tried to calm my racing heart as I started working on another scene for Vida to review.

“How do you come up with that?” he asked, and when I glanced up, his eyes were locked on the stylus in my hand. “I can’t imagine being able to draw something out of my head the way you do.”

I smiled, tilting the screen so he could see it more clearly. I filled in some shading and added some light along the animal’s back. We sat there quietly, and as I drew, I talked. “You review film and lift weights and practice for hours, right? You study the playbook night after night after night.” Pinching my fingers on the screen, I zoomed in toward the face and tapped my stylus to select a different color. “I do this over and over and over. Until my lines get better, and I can imagine the drawings more clearly. Until I can see the way it needs to look in my mind before it’s ever done on the page.”

I held my iPad out and tilted my head. “This is Gumdrop the turtle,” I said. “He’s stubborn and hates that he’s slower than all the other animals.” I flipped to a new picture. “And this is Champ the squirrel. He’s a quick-thinker, but a little impulsive. Willow the deer is shy and sweet. Peanut the badger is a little grumpy, and he doesn’t always know how to trust people.”

“And your book is about them?”

I sighed, zooming back in on Gumdrop’s face. “The first book is about Gumdrop, but she’s still tinkering with the story. Kids learn lessons differently. Breaking it down so that it’s understandable is her job. I just need to make them look cute.”

He made a small noise. “You’re bringing them to life. That’s no small thing.”

A flush of pride crept up my chest. “I suppose not.”

“Leo will get to read these some day, huh?” Parker smiled. “That’s pretty fucking cool.”

“No cooler than having a football player for a dad.”

“Nah. I think what you do is way more important.” He tapped the edge of his tablet. “I play a game that everyone just happens to love. But you’re teaching kids life lessons. Helping them learn how to read. I think you win this one, golden girl.”

I gave him a searching look. “You’re teaching them lessons too, Parker. When you mess up, then get back out there to focus on the next play, you’re showing every kid who watches you that they’re bigger than the mistakes they make.”

Every word out of my mouth was destined to shine a spotlight on my inconvenient feelings, it seemed, and I moved my gaze back down to my work, hoping he wouldn’t press much further.

Parker’s eyes stayed on my profile for a few moments, and when he finally shifted his attention back to his tablet, I let out a tiny sigh of relief. After finishing my scene and emailing it to Vida, I tucked my iPad back into my bag and stood.

While he continued watching game film, I cleaned up our dinner dishes and pulled a squawking Leo out of his bassinet when he woke up from a nap. His stretches of being awake were getting a little bit longer, and even after I finished feeding him, he showed no signs of being ready to sleep.

From his seat on the couch, Parker watched us from underneath his lashes, and even though my cheeks felt warm, I resisted the temptation to ask him what he was thinking. Spike wandered into the family room, his tail twitching ominously as he stared down Parker.

“I feel like he’s weighing the worth of my soul right now,” he said in a dark tone.

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