Page 66 of Wild Pitch
“Oh, I’m not going.”
Jack arched his brows and waited for an explanation from one of us.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. My sister is bringing my dad to the game, not me.”
Her dismissive shrug showed Kylie thought this was normal and no other explanation was necessary.
“But Luc can get you tickets…”
Kylie’s face fell, and she looked at me, hoping I would explain it. She still held fast to the conviction that I couldn’t meet her family, and while I had been understanding at first, I was tired of trying to prove to her that our relationship was more than the secret she forced it to be.
I shook my head, signaling for Jack to drop it. I fully expected him to pressure me for answers afterwards.
At the end of the night, Kylie caved and slept over, though she came to bed in full-length pajamas. Something she only wore when she had her period, and I knew that had ended the week before. And no, she wasn’t angry, but something bothered her, and talking about it wasn’t in the plan.
She left early the next day and asked me to apologize to Jack for skipping out.
Jack signed with the Minutemen a few days after they lost in the second round of the playoffs. It sucked that the season had ended with a loss, but we had gone much further than predicted at the beginning of the year. With the rest of the fall and winter off, I planned to spend as much time with Kylie as she would allow.
Sam had invited me to his wedding in December, and I planned to push Kylie to go public with our relationship before then. Her new resistance centered on her refusal to be the center of attention on Kelsey’s day or during their wedding week. They planned the wedding for Christmas Day so Crew’s father could attend during his brief hockey break. The week leading up to the event and a few days afterward, they were hosting us all at a villa on St. John.
In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, I tried to get Kylie to come to California with me to visit my family. She’d refused.She also avoided Jack the next two times he was in Boston. We hit an impasse in this part of our relationship, but as long as I didn’t bring up our families, my relationship with Kylie was fucking perfect.
Jack lectured me at least once a week that I should tell her about my probable sterility, but I didn’t want her to be influenced by me if she wanted children. If she confessed that she never wanted children, then I would share it with her. I wasn’t blind to Kylie’s feelings towards me. I was madly in love with that woman as well. But I would never forgive myself if she agreed to a future, only because she didn’t want to lose what we had. If Kylie wanted a family, I would make sure she got that, even if I had to give her up to make it happen.
CHAPTER 31
KYLIE
Sam had sprung for first-class tickets for the entire family, and the airline gods once again arranged for me to be seated next to Luc.
Of course, Kendra did her best to make the entire event awkward when she introduced herself to Luc before takeoff. She winked at him before sliding into the row behind us.
“She knows?”
I nodded. Luc’s expression was unreadable, and he looked away before I could delve too deep into what that meant. We had grown closer in the last few months, and while I still had an apartment, I had spent only a handful of nights there since the season ended—Thanksgiving week and the days surrounding it.
We were only apart when I was with my family or he was with his.
Being together in his house, the playroom, and out in the city created a sense of living in a perfect bubble. Within that bubble, what we had was real, beautiful, and everything we wanted. It never had to end.
The reality that I had fallen just as hard for a man overshadowed my happiness for Kelsey and Sam. I could never experience this with Luc. Our friends and family would neversurround us, we would never say our vows, and no, I would never carry his child.
Had my late period last month taken my imagination on a dangerous path? I hid my disappointment when my period arrived by acting like a bitch and blaming it on hormones.
If I told Luc I wanted more, if he thought this wasn’t enough, I knew he would leave.
That would fucking break me.
I pretended it was enough. We could carry on; my family would never find out—that it was alright by me. But inside, I was screaming at him to tell me I was enough—that he couldn’t—wouldn’t ever walk away from me. I knew this boundary hurt him, but you see—hurt people, hurt people.
I fucking bled.
Every time I heard Kelsey say,I love you,to Sam, I bled. Every time Sam proudly introduced my sister as his fiancée, I bled. The internal bleeding left me battered, bruised, and bitter.
As my father used to tell me when I was a kid, “Jealousy doesn’t become you.”
