Page 109 of Just Say Yes

As I barrelled down her driveway, a part of me screamed to stop, to go back and tell her everything clawing at my chest. But what could I say? That I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything? That I wasn’t sure who I was if I didn’t have rugby?

She deserved more than half answers and half commitments.

The engine growled as I hit the main road, and I gripped the wheel hard, the words I didn’t want to think bleeding into my mind anyway.

My phone buzzed, and I pulled it from my pocket to see that my agent was calling me.

Here it is.

That call was supposed to be everything I’d been working for.

The comeback I had earned.

And yet, as I pictured the empty hotel rooms, the sleepless nights on the road, and the adoring fans––it wasn’t enough anymore.

Not when I could so easily recall the way MJ had looked at me tonight—like I was worth something.

The phone buzzed again, the name of my agent lighting up the screen like an accusation. My thumb hovered over the answer button before I let it drop.

Not tonight.

I couldn’t fake the excitement he’d expect to hear in my voice, not when the thought of leaving made my chest feel like it was caving in.

Not if it meant leaving her behind.

I drove in silence, the heater doing little to shake the chill that had settled in my chest. MJ’s face flashed in my mind—her laugh, the way she’d whispered my name, the way she’d looked when she said,Please, don’t stop.

I didn’t want to stop.

Not with her.

A prickle of fear rippled through me.

What if she didn’t feel the same? She had never made me feel like I was a conquest, but we’d also never discussed the possibility of things being long-term. What if her interest waned once I wasn’t some Olympic rugby star, but a has-been?

I didn’t know what scared me more—leaving for the Sevens or staying long enough to lose her.

The road stretched ahead, dark and empty, but I couldn’t stop seeing her—wrapped in a blanket, mussed and beautiful, standing on her front porch, smiling at me.

I wasn’t the kind of man who let people in—not fully. It had always been easier to keep moving, to focus on what was next. But with the vision of MJ, standing on that porch looking at me like what we had was something worth staying for, I felt the ground tilt.

I didn’t know how to be what she needed. But god help me, I wanted to try.

And I knew, in that moment, that I was already too far gone.

TWENTY-NINE

MJ

The house wasquiet when I walked in, the soft creak of the doorframe breaking the stillness. The air inside was warmer than the crisp autumn night, carrying the faint scents of cinnamon and the lemon oil Aunt Bug used to polish every piece of wood in the place.

I dropped the stolen blanket onto the couch, smoothing it down like I could erase the evidence of what I’d just done. The fleece was warm, the faintest hint of woodsmoke clinging to it, but it wasn’t the blanket that made me hesitate.

It washim.

My pulse thrummed, uneven, as I stood there in the living room, staring at the empty space. He wasn’t here, but he might as well have been.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror as I turned toward the stairs, and my breath stuttered. My hair was a hot mess—tangled from his fingers. My sweater hung crooked, stretched from the way he’d pulled me close. My lips looked swollen, still tingling from the press of his kisses.

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