“Sure. Why not?”
Seriously? “Maggie, you’re almost thirty-five weeks pregnant. The clock is ticking here, darlin’.”
She shrugs. “I haven’t had Braxton Hicks in several days, and I’m feeling better than I have in a while. You know my goal is to go forty weeks. I’m taking it easy, chugging water constantly to keep my placentas hydrated. Lock down your sponsorship, then you can worry about everything else.”
“What if you go into labor while I’m at practice or a game? Do you think it’ll be better to sideswipe Santos with the news then?”
Will Coach flip out if I have to miss a game because Maggie goes into labor? It’s something he’ll have to live with, because there’s no way I’m missing it.
“You want me to tell you to march up to his office and give him our news? Well, sorry, that’s not going to happen. I don’t want to be responsible for giving you bad advice and messing up your relationship with your coach or ruining your sponsorship. Because if things go downhill because of something I told you to do, you’re going to resent me.”
It hurts to hear that she thinks this. “I’ll never resent you.”
“You say that now, but what if that sponsorship gets pulled because of my advice? What then?” She shakes her head. “No. I don’t want to go back to how things were between us before Kayla’s wedding.” Those big brown eyes turn imploring. “Michael, it would kill me if you hated me again. I can deal with a lot of things, but I don’t think I could handle that.”
I wrap her in my arms and pull her close. “I could never hate you, and truthfully, I didn’t hate you then. Maggie, swear to God, you’re the love of my life.” Doesn’t she know this by now?
Her face goes splotchy, and she sniffles. “Love you too. With all my heart and soul. And that’s why I’m so scared. I don’t want to do anything to screw this up.”
I lift her chin. “Darlin’, there’s nothing you could do to mess this up, okay?”
She nods slowly, but the forlorn look in her eyes tears at something in my chest. How will I ever get this woman to trust me and believe I’ll be there for her, no matter what?
61
OLLY
Gossip spreads in the locker room like a wildfire. It starts slowly with a whisper here and there, but if it’s a doozie, it burns hot and fast.
As I change after practice, the locker room goes strangely quiet. I look up and find several of the guys standing in tight groups.
“What’s going on?” I turn to Cam, and he shrugs.
Billy lopes over and rubs his brow. “So that blog, the Lone Star Stud Report…”
“What about it?” Just the thought of that damn website makes my temple throb.
“Word on the street is Vanessa Fox is behind it.”
Cam frowns. “No way. She wouldn’t do something like that.”
I think about the coolly reserved woman I dated for a few weeks. “She always wanted to go to the parties.”
Billy points at me. “And lo and behold, the blog would have pics from those festivities.”
“I never saw her take any photos, though. That’s kind of a wrench in the theory she’s behind it. And we probably shouldn’t be making any allegations without any proof. She’s given us some cool coverage in the Bronco Times, and I’d feel bad maligning her name over false accusations.”
Billy leans in. “A guy says she paid him for pics. That she gave him tips on what was going on, and his job was to get the shots.”
It’s plausible he took some. Maybe Vanessa took others covertly. She and I were never glued at the hip when we attended parties together.
I’m having a hard time imagining this quiet, reserved woman doing these things.
When I get home, I grab my phone, pull up the blog, and scroll down the page. Everything looks the same. Except one image is missing. The one from that wild party at the beginning of the season where you could see those strands of vibrant red hair.
The one that almost looked like a selfie except the photographer cropped out most of herself.
If it was Vanessa, was she trying to get busted? Or get credit for the blog in some strange way?
