Page 52 of Hitting the Goal Line
“Thanks,” he says, and I don’t need to pull away from him to know that the grin on his face is somehow bigger. “But there’s something else that comes with it, though, and I don’t know how you are going to feel about it.” He lets out when I’m back on my feet.
“What?” I ask, a huge grin on my face from all the excitement that I’m feeling. All thoughts of Theo and what happened earlier are now completely gone.
“Move to Chicago with me.”
A laugh forms in my chest, and I try to keep it in but I can’t. It escapes and for a solid minute I’m laughing as if Blake just told me the funniest thing in the world.
My laugh becomes almost uncontrollable, but when I look up and see the hurt in his eyes, it stops completely.
I look him over, my eyebrows shooting up in the process.
Oh my god. He’s serious.
Blake wants me to move to Chicago with him and I just laughed in his face.
This rollercoaster of a night is about to go into hyper speed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BLAKE
Sophia’s eyes are wide,like they are about to pop out of her head if I walk over and squeeze even the slightest.
It wasn’t the reaction that I was expecting, but at least she’s not yelling at me for not telling her about signing my contract today. We always said that she was going to be right there next to me whenever I did it, but because I wanted it to be a surprise, I took that away from her.
As for asking her to move to Chicago with me, that was something that I’ve been thinking for a while. I knew that if I signed, there was no way in hell that I would be able to move to a new city without her at my side. Having her move to Chicago is selfish, I know but when it comes to Sophia, I’m always going to be selfish. I’m going to do everything I can to always have her there with me.
Take coming to Montana State for example. I could have gone to any school in the country that had a hockey program, but I chose Montana because she chose Montana to be close to her parents. I don’t regret that decision one single bit, and I know I’m not going to regret taking her to Chicago with me either.
My delivery could have been better, though. I should have waited to ask her to move with me, or at the very least, done it when she wasn’t emotional from a breakup. Dinner might have been a good option to broach the subject, or even during one of our movie nights, but I got too excited.
After leaving the hotel, with my freshly signed contract in hand, I wanted to come tell her right away. When I turned my phone back on and saw that she had called me four times. Right away, I wanted to call her back and tell her, but signing something like an NHL contract isn’t news you tell over the phone. It’s something that you do in person, and that’s what I was going to do.
I went to the bar first, since she said that’s where she was going to be, but when her friends and Theo, who know that I think of it, looked pissed to see me, told me that she had left, I didn’t think anything of it. I just came straight here.
If I would have known what had gone down between Sophia and her douchebag boyfriend, I would have slammed his face in. I never liked the fucker, he’s a prick that acts like he’s the sweetest person in the whole fucking world. Apparently he’s the sweetest person that would cheat on his girlfriend. I saw through his fake persona the first day I met him, but I didn’t say anything. Sophia liked him, and even if I didn’t like it, it looked like the asshole made her happy. So, I didn’t say anything, now I know that I should have.
But now the fucker is out of her life, thank fuck for that, and she can now seriously think about moving to Chicago with me.
“So are your eyes popping out of your head, your way of saying yes to moving to Chicago with me?” I ask, breaking the silence in the room.
I think I’d rather have her laughing her ass of at my question than have her silent, looking at me like I have two heads.
The question takes Sophia out of her stupor.
She shakes her head, as if to clear it and then looks at me straight on.
“You want me to move to Chicago? With you?” she asks, clarifying.
I give her a nod. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Is she serious? We always talked about moving wherever I landed.
“Because I want you there with me,” I say, closing the distance between us and placing my hands on her shoulders. “We always said that no matter where I land, you would come with me so that I wouldn’t be alone or get homesick.”
She looks up at me, her bottom lip going between her teeth. It takes everything to keep my hands at my side and not reach over to release her lip and soothe it with my thumb.
