Page 66 of Time Out

I was going to be out almost five-thousand dollars, a bit more if I decided to store the rest of the things, just in case. It was pennies compared to what was probably in his bank account.

“I’ll pay you back,” I told him, and I must have been more forceful than intended because his eyes widened before narrowing again.

“Maggie.”

“I know. I know you can do it. I know I don’t have to worry about a thing, but I also need this. To take help and make this work with you without feeling like I’m giving everything I’ve worked so hard for up.”

“What are you thinking then?”

“I pay you the same amount of rent I’m paying now. And I help with food.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Okay.”

He made everything so easy, so willing to follow my terms. I wasn’t sure I’d ever met a man who would allow himself to not be the one setting the terms for any kind of deal.

“Are you sure?”

He bent his arm, ran his hand through his hair, and tilted his face toward the ceiling before looking back at me through the screen. “I don’t have the hang-ups about money or a need to be independent like you do, Maggie. I had parents who loved me regardless, who put my happiness and reaching my goals above the dollars that would follow. I send them things, I help with my nephews. But they love me. Unconditionally. I have everything I need right now, and my parents always made sure I did, so yeah”—he gave a little one-shoulder shrug,—“if you need this and it’s in my nature and abilities to give it. Easy as that.”

Easy as that.

Huh.

He certainly made it so.

Which only made my decision this morning to give this a chance that much more appealing. A relationship with Davis would be easy. Fun.

“I also need to keep working.”

“Maggie.” He laughed and leaned off the couch. His face grew closer to the phone before he resettled it, and I imagined him with his elbows on his knees. “You’re not getting this. I want you. I want to take care of our baby. Nothing else matters and however I need to do that, whatever you’re willing to take from me, it’s not a burden… it’s a privilege. You want to work, I get it. Work as long as you’re able. All I ask is after, you make sure you’re physically and mentally ready to return or don’t. Again, if there’s something you need and I can give it, it’s yours. No questions asked, no expectations in return. It’s just how I believe relationships are supposed to work.”

A relationship.

I was in a relationship with Davis Hall. First-year running back for a professional sports team I barely remembered the name of before a month ago, and now I was having a baby with him and he was more incredible than I hoped.

Which made the next decision I made earlier easy to say.

“I want to go to the game on Sunday. With your friends.”

Chapter 20

Davis

Nerves mixed with excitement were thrumming beneath my skin, making me bounce on the soles of my feet and shake out my arms. Sure, it was to keep them loose. But any second, we’d return to the field after warm-ups, and for the first time since I took the field since my freshman year of college, there was something larger than football on my mind.

Maggie would be there… sitting by Eden and Jasper while Cole’s parents, Kate and Dave, sat behind them. She was taking Marley’s seat, a beloved friend of the family who passed earlier in the season, and yet Cole hadn’t hesitated when I asked if Maggie could join them. Of course he wouldn’t.

Cole Buchanan, our quarterback and one of our team’s captains, wasn’t only one of the best quarterbacks I’d ever witnessed, he ranked in the top five of the best guys I knew. He, and Dawson, who was currently standing in our locker room, half-dressed, back to the team and on his phone. He was standing three seats down from me, but I could still hear the harsh whispers coming from him. The white-knuckle grip he had on his phone and the clench of his jaw made it obvious who he was talking to.

Crystal. It had to be. She was unlike any other and any day now she would most likely end him up in a world of trouble. Or drain his bank account.

As for me, my blood was pumping. Couldn’t sit still. Maggie hadn’t been in her seat when we were out there on the field earlier, stretching, warming up, and I’d looked. Looked for her and the seats I’d always saved for my parents. My dad—who was running late due to a storm in Chicago, would be there for sure, and all I was thinking about was how he would react to Maggie when I introduced them.

He’d be nice and respectful, and probably love her on the spot because he’d see how happy she made me, but if I was given the go-ahead from Maggie to tell him she was pregnant, that could change on a dime.

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