Page 63 of Not Falling for the Forward
“Good night, love,” I say.
“Night.” She smiles as she disconnects the call.
She wants to pick me up. Like a lot of the players’ wives or girlfriends do when we come back from a stint away. She won’t know this, but it feels like a big deal to me.
I’m still grinning from ear to ear the next morning when I board the team bus to take us home.
Chapter twenty-eight
Emily
Eight days. Thats how long it’s been since I last saw him. Only eight days. I shouldn’t miss him this much. Not someone I have just started dating. Not someone who was supposed to be a rebound and I didn’t want to date in the first place. And not when I have literally spoken to him every day, be it text, phone call orFaceTime.
Nothing beats actually being with him, though. Being wrapped in his arms with my head on his chest, breathing in whatever expensive aftershave he is wearing. I’m going to need to commandeer a hoodie of his or something for next time he is away because the smell of him thaws something in me, I go from wound tight and tense to a melting pool of calm in just one whiff.
My phone rings where it is connected to my in-car Bluetooth and I answer. “Hey, just checking in. The girls miss you,” Dan says, and I hear his twins shouting something along the lines of ‘miss you Emmy’ in the background. I grin.
“Miss you too, girls,” I shout so they can here.
“What you up to today? We’re going to the park soon, if you wanted to join? Help me round them up when they run in opposite directions?”
“I wish I could.” I cringe as the guilt of not seeing the girls since Christmas creeps up my spine. “I’m picking Jack up, he’s been away.”
“Oooh, I see. Start seeing one celeb and you just bin off all your old non-famous friends. I get it,” Dan says, teasing.
“100 percent,” I agree. “Canyouset up an introduction with Taylor Swift?”
“Canhe?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even think he was in one of the VIP tents at the Eras Tour. I think he just bought tickets. Oh my god!” I gasp in mock horror. “What if his people don’t even know her people? Am I wasting my time here?”
“Sounds that way,” Dan chuckles. “How is it going with you two, anyway?”
“You want the details?” I ask, surprised Dan would be all that bothered about hearing the gossip, he normally just lets me get on with it and come to him if I need him.
“Not the kind of details you give Jess.” I can almost feel his cringe, “But like, I don’t know, I mean. You’re picking him up, when all his team are going to be there. So I take it it’s getting serious? If you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, I know you like your privacy,” he adds quickly at the end, as if he is trying not to spook me. I take it for the invitation it is, to use him to sort through my feelings.
I sigh. I have been too closed off with my friends in the past. The fact that Dan still feels the need to tiptoe around me when asking for simple details about someone I am seeing is so stupid. He has been one of my best friends for years. He’s been there for me through everythingand all he’s asking for is to be able to continue to be there for me, but this time before shit hits the fan.
I pinch the top of my nose and scrunch my eyes whilst stopped at a traffic light. Why am I always so scared to let people in?Be brave, he’s your best friend, he has never judged you. He just wants to know what’s going on with you.
“It’s going good,” I say quickly. “We have been making as much time for each other as we can. Mostly doing things in private because of the press and trolls and stuff but we have been managing. It’s nice. He’s nice. You know?”
“I do know, yeah.” I hear the smile in his voice.
“I think I really like him,” I admit, shocking myself. Not just at the admission, but at the fact that I have actually told someone.
“You think?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. I just know I haven’t seen him for over a week, and I miss him like crazy. I thought him being away frequently was going to help me not get too close and keep my wall built. But. I don’t know. I guess Jack got behind the wall. He built a gate, or smashed a hole, but he’s there, sat with my heart. And that’s scary.”
“It is,” Dan agrees, not giving me anything else. Giving me space to talk through my thoughts. This is why I normally go to Dan for advice, he did a stint with the mental health doctors and psych, and from that he has become basically a free, if not quite fully trained, therapist.
His minimal contribution to the conversation has me continuing, “Jack is gentle, and kind and I don’t know. Maybe if he continues like that,maybeI could let him have it. My heart?” It would fit so perfectly in his big hands. He would keep it warm and beating.
Dan asks the one question that I have yet to think about, let alone be brave enough to ask myself. “Do you trust him with it? Your heart?”
I answer honestly, “I want to.”
