Teasing: Chapter 24

With ten minutes left in the game, we’re up 24–0, and I stand next to Coach Ryan on the sidelines, watching as Camden gets us another first down.

Fucking beautiful.

“Mav.” One of the assistants grabs me.

I barely turn to look at him as I watch the offensive line get into position. “Yeah, man. What’s up?”

“I need you to come with me.”

I turn to the guy, who’s maybe only a year or two older than me. “There’s ten minutes left.”

“Mav—”

Brady Ryan turns away from the sidelines and looks at me.

Our QB coach isn’t looking at the field where our QB is, he’s looking at me, and dread washes over me. “Go with him into the locker room, Maverick.”

“Coach?” I ask as my heart slams against my ribs.

“You two,” he points at Ryker and Jamie. “Asses on the bench. Mav, in the locker room now. That’s an order. Go.”

He turns back to the field, and I jog down to the tunnel as dread fills me.

My mother and Scarlet come into view, waiting for me with red-rimmed eyes and horror-filled faces, and my knees threaten to buckle.

“Where are the girls? Where are Rosie and Emmie?” I yell over the roar of the crowd.

Mom wipes tears from her eyes, and my stomach sinks.

“Rosie was exposed to peanuts,” Scarlet finally tells me, and my entire world tilts on its axis. “Emmie and your dad are in an ambulance on their way to the hospital.”

“Is she okay?” I plead, ready to make a deal with the devil to get the answer I need. “Scarlet—” I yell when neither of them answer me.

“She wasn’t breathing, Mav.”

I sprint through the hospital doors, with my mother and aunt on my heels, and race to the reception desk, ready to steamroll over whoever stands in the way of me getting to my daughter.

Dad is already there waiting when I get there.

I grab him with shaking hands. “Where is she?”

He looks like he’s aged ten years in the time it took to get me off the field and to the hospital.

“She’s okay, Mav. She’s going to be okay.” I’m not sure if he’s trying to convince himself or me, but it doesn’t work.

He pulls us with him and flashes his badge in front of a security check, then leads us down a hall to an elevator. Hospital staff move by us as patients go in and out of rooms, and visitors chat, like the world hasn’t just stopped spinning. And for them it hasn’t. But for me⁠—

“Which is it? Is she okay or is she going to be okay?” The elevator doors slide shut, and it feels like the walls are closing in on me. “Dad . . .”

“She’s as good as she can be right now, considering, but she’ll be perfect again soon. It was peanuts. Her throat closed up, like we knew it would if she was exposed. Emmie gave her both EpiPens, and then we gave her the one in Mom’s purse too. But even then, she needed to be intubated, and the tube was too big, and her throat was too swollen.”

Mom takes my hand in hers. “Your father saved her life. He got the tube in.”

“Dad . . .” My voice cracks, and he shakes his head.

“Her throat’s going to be sore for a few weeks.” He grips my shoulders, keeping me standing. “Listen to me when I say it was close. Too close. But she’s going to be fine. Our girl’s a fighter.” And this time when he says it, I believe him as much as I can until I see her for myself. “You should be able to take her home in a few hours.”

The elevator chimes, and it feels like we wait a fucking lifetime before the doors open, and I follow him out and down another hall.

“But she’s okay?” I can’t wrap my head around any of this.

He stops me outside her closed door. “She was scared and only wanted you or Emmie, but she’s already so much better now.”

“Is Em with her?” I try to calm my racing heart and brace for what I’m going to see when I open the door.

“That woman in that room with our girl didn’t hesitate, Mav. She found both pens and then the third. She never left her side, and I’m pretty sure she’d fight me if I tried to pry her out of Rosie’s bed right now.” He rests his hand on the knob and holds my eyes. “Prepare yourself. Because if you lose your shit, Rosie’s going to get scared again, and she just calmed down.”

I nod and blow out a breath, and Mom wipes a tear from my cheek.

Fucking peanuts. I never should have let her go.

Once I’m good, I push through the door and stare at the bed. Rosie is tucked against Emmie’s chest. Her entire face is swollen, and her lips are cracked and swollen. Her beautiful eyes are closed, and she’s clinging to Emmie whose face is buried in Rosie’s hair.

I move closer, and Emmie’s eyes snap open, ready to attack until she realizes it’s me, then they soften and pool with tears. She reaches for me, and I wrap my arms around her and Rosie and listen to my baby breathe.

Sweet, soft, strong breaths, showing me she’s alive.

Letting me believe it.

Thank you, Lord.

“She just dozed off,” Em whispers as I pull my girls as close as I can, giving them all the strength I have. What good is any of it if it can’t protect the people you love? “She was asking for you.”

I nod, incapable of words for a long time, and I hold them silently until I can speak.

“Thank you,” I whisper and press my lips to Em’s forehead. “For saving her life.”

She looks down at Rosie, no doubt seeing what I do and hurting because of it. “Your dad was the real hero. The medics couldn’t get the breathing tube in, and he did it. He saved her life, Mav.”

“He always said he wanted to save lives. I bet he never thought one of them would be his granddaughter’s.” I’ll never bitch at him again for wanting to go to church.

“Daddy . . .?” Rosie’s scratchy voice asks. “Is the game over?”

I sit on the bed next to her and Emmie and hold her as close as I can. “Not yet, baby girl. I left as soon as they told me what happened to you. How are you feeling?”

Her lip wobbles, and any sense of control I had snaps. I move to the other side of the bed, lift her up, and lay her between Emmie and me. I need to hold her. I need to feel her breathe. “It’s okay to cry, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she cries, and my heart shatters. “They said there was no peanuts. Emmie even asked the waiter.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Rosie.” I look over her head at Emmie. “Neither of you did.” I want to make sure she hears me because I wouldn’t put it past Em to try to take this on herself. “My brave girls.”

Ryker, Jamie, and Camden are all waiting for us when we get home later that night, but Rosie’s asleep on my chest when we walk in the house. I brush my lips against Emmie’s temple. “I’m going to put her to bed. I’ll be down in a little bit. Will you stay?”

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away, Cujo.”

I stare into her gorgeous green eyes, completely in awe of this woman.

Completely in love with her too.

“Are you okay, Maverick?” She cups my cheek in her palm. “I’m worried about you.”

I turn and kiss her palm. “I’m fine. I’ll be down after I get her down.”

Emmie nods and steps back, then gently rubs a hand down Rosie’s back. “Sleep tight, little rose.”

Emmie

Maverick never came back downstairs.

I didn’t think he would.

I fill the guys in on what’s now tied for the worst day of my life and make my way upstairs to check on him and Rosie, only to find them both asleep in her bed. Mav tucked into a full-sized bed, and Rosie’s butterfly comforter caught between them. His big arms are wrapped around his daughter, shirtless, and his football pants . . . it’s definitely a site to be seen.

I stand there, looking at them for a long minute and wonder when they became my world.

My strength.

My reason.

Because somewhere along the way . . . they did.

Rosie rolls away from her daddy, attempting to starfish out across the bed the way she likes to do, and I decide to risk his wrath and wake him up. My lips skim his ear. “Maverick.”

He hears me enough to wrap an arm around my waist and tug me toward him but not enough to open his eyes.

“Mav . . . you need to shower and change. You can sleep in here after.”

Heavy eyes, the color of a midnight storm, open, and exhaustion clings to every line of his face, but he carefully pulls himself away from Rosie and puts his hand in mine, letting me lead him through his room and into the bathroom.

I turn all five of the knobs in the shower to hot and leave my hand under the two shower heads and three body sprays, waiting for them to warm up before turning to Maverick.

He’s leaning against the vanity, watching me. “We could have lost her today.”

And the fact he says we breaks me more than I knew words ever could.

“But we didn’t.” I step into him and run my palms down his chest and tug at his black football pants. “Come on. You need to get in the shower.”

He lets me pull his pants down his legs and steps out of them and his boxers, then kicks off his socks and stands in front of me. “Shower with me, Em.”

As if I’d ever tell him no when he needed something.

I strip out of my clothes and follow him into the shower, then push Mav under the water and grab his shampoo. “Turn around.”

He quirks an eyebrow but does as I ask as I lift on my toes.

The minty fresh scent of his shampoo billows around us as I wash his hair, then run his body wash over his exhausted muscles. “Feels fucking good, baby.”

I watch his muscles physically relax in front of my eyes.

The first time I’m betting they have since early this morning.

The suds glide down his body and hopefully wash away some of this hellish day.

The fear. The stress. The anger.

It’s all there because I feel it too.

Mav lathers his hands and runs them over my body. Down my ribs, tracing my tattoo. “You ever going to tell me what this means?”

I wrap my arms around his neck and let him block the spray. “It means broken looks different on everyone.”

“You’re not broken, baby.” Maverick presses me against the wall and presses his mouth to my neck. “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met, and I’m so fucking in love with you.”

“Thank God. Because I realized something today.” I trace the lines of his face, committing them to memory in case one day I can’t . . . “You own my heart. You and Rosie. I’m yours. Only yours . . . if you’ll have me.”

His eyes darken, and his pupils blow wide.

“I need you, Em.”

“Then take me, Mav. I’m on the pill. I’m clean. And I need you too.”

He doesn’t wait for more, just lifts me against the wall and wraps my legs around his hips. His cock kisses my entrance, pulling a beautiful moan from both of us before he buries himself deep inside me, and we both take what we need.

And hours later, when we’re lying in bed with Rosie asleep between us, something just clicks, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel as broken.