Page 46 of Let You Love Me

I take a sip of my water, while my thoughts drift.

He’s never been anything more than a giant teddy bear with me, even after I shattered his image of the perfect daughter. Overnight, his innocent little girl got pregnant, yet he never made me feel anything less than because of it. Though, I suppose, I did a good enough job of beating myself up. Instead, he accepted meandmy mistakes while supporting me every step of the way. Even when I tested his limits and told him the father was a boy from California visiting for football camp, who wantednothing to do with the baby and not to contact him, he took me at my word. He respected my wishes.

I still live with the guilt of that lie every day.

But I didn’t feel as though I had any other choice. The truth would ruin everything and I’d already turned our world upside down; I wasn’t going to ruin my father’s future in college football, too. Getting pregnant at sixteen, then having a baby at seventeen was already a burden on them. No point in making an already hard situation harder, and the last thing I wanted was for my father to sacrifice his dream because of my mistakes.

Which brings me to Chance.

My father took him under his wing at the age of twelve when he coached him for the first time at a camp. Chance’s parents had been out of the picture since he was young, leaving his elderly grandmother to raise him, so when Dad offered himself up as a mentor, Chance took it.

“Chance Lockhart, for one,” I blurt, then wish I hadn’t.

Bringing up the father of my child—my biggest secret—probably isn’t the smartest move, all things considered.

“Chance?” Teagan blinks.

I nod, wishing I hadn’t said anything. “By the time my father met him in junior high, he was being raised by his grandmother, who was older. She meant well and did her best, but it was hard keeping up with a young boy, so when Chance came into the program, my father sort of took him under his wing. He stepped up and became the father figure he needed.”

Which is precisely why it would crush him if he knew Chance was Sophie’s father. After everything my father did for him, for Chance to knock me up is one thing. For him to abandon us is unforgivable. And I don’t want to be the one to break my father’s heart. Just like I didn’t want to crush his dreams of coaching for a division one college team.

“So, did he get Chance the full ride at CU?”

A slightly bitter laugh bubbles from my lips.

No, I want to say,it’s the other way around, but I don’t.

There are some things I’ll take to the grave and my father getting the job on account of Chance is one of them; it’s too closely tied to the reason I lied about him being Sophie’s father. But the fact that I want to tell Teagan at all says something about his character.

I have no time and no energy, no room in my life for a male friend with questionable intentions, but Teagan’s . . . different. It’s the best way to describe him, other than to say I’m comfortable around him. Even with Sophie, which speaks volumes. I generally trust no one outside of my inner circle with her.

“So you must know him pretty well, then? Chance, I mean,” Teagan says, and I get the feeling he’s fishing.

“You could say that.” I fidget with my napkin. “He was around a lot in high school, that’s for sure.”A bit too much, actually.

Teagan nods slowly, taking in this newfound information, and I wonder what he thinks of it. I wonder if he’s questioning whether anything ever happened when he asks, “But you never . . . dated?”

I shake my head no at the same time his gaze flickers toward the entrance of the restaurant and hardens.

“Speak of the devil,” he mutters.

I blink for a second, absorbing his words before my stomach sinks.

Turning, I crane my neck, knowing what I’ll find when I zero in on Chance hovering around the hostess counter.

Shit.

I duck back into the booth and squeeze my eyes shut, praying he didn’t see me. After the last two conversations we had, the last thing I want is for him to come over here and ruin our good time.Not to mention, I completely loathe him in Sophie’s presence. The way he ignores her only serves to piss me off even more.

When I open my eyes, they lock with Teagan’s.

He’s watching me, and I have no doubt I look just as panicked as I feel when he says, “He’s coming this way.”

All the blood drains from my face.

I have no idea what Chance wants or what he might say. We don’t make it a habit of interacting these days. In fact, our conversations at practice have been the first we’ve had in a very long time.

A shadow falls over me and I know it’s him.

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