“Renata.” He croaks my name like it pains him to hear my voice. I pause, waiting for him to say something else, anything else.
“Macklin, what’s going on? Tell me this is a joke. Tell me it’s your family trying to play with me, trying to hurt us—”
“We can’t do it—not right now.” I wait for him to say he can explain it away or that there’s some kind of misunderstanding.
“We can’t do what?”
“We can’t get married, Ren. Not with how our relationship stands. Not right now—”
Everything in front of me seems to go red as rage rises in my veins. This is the only thing either of us has ever wanted, save for Mack’s career in football. And hell, he wanted that with me. Not apart from me. “What the hell, Mack?” My voice breaks. “You asked me to marry you less than a week ago. You gave me a ring. What in the Lord’s name is going on here? You’re really telling me that this is all over? This was all just a dream…” My voice trails off, and hot tears sting my eyes, mixed with the dust from our yard.
“That’s what—” He pauses as if the words are stuck in his throat. “That’s what I’m saying. It’s true. It’s over. I can’t—” Macklin’s voice cracks, and I hear a click of the phone. Jared looks at me with a smug expression on his face and turns to walk back to the pickup truck. My tears fall to the dusty ground before me, and I watch as he gets into Mack’s car, the car I shared with him while I was in college, the car he drove to my dorm the night he picked me up for our first date. There’s something disturbing about watching someone else drive it, especially someone who loathes me and my family so much.
And now we’re back at it. The Prides and the Youngs won’t have the sweet reunion I’d always hoped for at my wedding. It looks like neither of these families wanted us together, and now they have their wish. The tears fall for a long time after, pouring from my eyes like so many raindrops, even when I go inside and hide in the shower, They mingle with the hot water of the shower, the only place I feel safe and hidden and unexposed. I hear my parents voices outside the door—my mother, concerned for once, and my father with his deep monotone voice telling her to go on and calm down. That this is all for the best.
It only makes me cry harder.
And sitting there, I know without a doubt that I will still rise to the top of my field. I’ll be the best damn sports agent that the country has ever seen, and I’ll work with stars in every major sport.
That night, I pack my bags and drive into Charlotte. Before I go to the airport to book the next flight back to California, I drive by the hotel where the team puts up their new recruits. Something didn’t feel right about the words I exchanged with Mack on the phone, and even through my rage and my tears, I want to check one last time. After all, this is the man I love more than anything in the world. When I ask the concierge for Macklin Pride’s number, there’s no one by that name. Before I leave the lobby, I call him again, and the message reports the number has been disconnected.
Standing up straight, I walk to the revolving doors and out into the still-warm summer night. With the last money in my bank account, I buy a ticket straight for California and don’t look back.
Some things, well, some things aren’t meant to be.
That's what people say, anyway.
I push aside the voice that tells me something is deeply wrong with this whole situation, that Mack Pride has never been a drinker, and in all my time at Brooks University, I never once saw him with a real hangover.
“People change,” I mutter as I walk to my gate.
I decide I’ve wasted enough tears on Mack. Haven't I?
There’s plenty of time to find another soulmate. Right?
CHAPTER THREE
Six years later…
“Macklin get your sorry ass out of bed. It’s the last game of the season, and I can’t deal with you waking up like this one more day. I swear to the good lord above, when I went to work with you, this wasn’t what I bargained for.” I hear Wingate’s voice, and the world starts to fade in around me in a haze. There’s a girl in the shower—or maybe two girls. I’m not really sure. I know there were two last night, but I think one of them left in the middle of the night. That’s how they are, these football groupies. They follow Carolina with a passion, pick out one of the players, follow them home, and then they leave. Without fail, they come with their own condoms.
That’s good. Because Macklin Pride stays protected. Clean and protected. Tested every three months because by God, my body is a freaking temple. It’s my moneymaker—never mind the beer I put into it—that’s just calories. And calories are good for a linebacker like me. I chuckle and close my eyes again. My cousin Wingate doesn’t give a single shit that I’m in bed, that I’m probably naked—I can’t remember—and that there’s a young woman lingering around my house like a ghost. That’s what’s good about him, I guess. He’s a good manager because all he cares about is the game, and how well I do in it.