"Really?"
"The beach is hardly ten minutes away. You'll be able to see the water from the apartment."
"Does your place look anything like your old one here?" I asked. He laughed. I felt it rumble in his chest.
"No. It's going to be full of your stuff," he said. He pulled me on top of him so my legs fell on either side of his body. "Would that be a deal-breaker?"
"No, you'd just have to agree to leave the decorating to me."
"Don't get mad," he said.
"Why? What did you do?"
"I let another woman handle my decorating. Rachel. She works with the team, basically helping new players find places in the city."
"You want me to move into a house that another woman decorated?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"She did a really good job," he said, teasing me.
"If she did a good job by your standards, I'm worried." I yelped, s
uddenly hitting the blanket. He had flipped us over. He leaned over me, holding himself up on his arms.
"Looks like you'll have your work cut out for you," he said.
I couldn't picture the place he was staying, but part of me didn't care. It sounded nice. He was selling the hell out of it, so maybe I would get there and be pleasantly surprised, but it didn't really matter, I realized. We'd be together. Wherever and whatever this place was, we'd be together, so it wouldn't matter what it looked like, who decorated it, how far it was from the beach.
"How soon do we leave?"
"You’re ready?"
"I'll go anywhere with you," I said. He kissed me softly.
"How about we have lunch first?" he asked. Oh. Oh, right, there was food. I had totally forgotten the reason we were even here. Well, talking about stuff and reconciling was the real reason we were here, but it was a picnic, and I hadn't eaten yet. He shifted off of me and handed me a sandwich.
"How were your tests?" he asked me. It was two hours before we left. Then we went back to my place, and he helped me start packing.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Roman
Six in the fucking morning. Training camp started every day at half past six in the morning. I was used to getting up before then anyway, but something told me this was going to end up feeling like boot camp. I wasn't preparing for warfare again, but I wasn’t about to kid myself that this was about to be easy.
Ron had still been asleep when I had left. Since I had eaten breakfast at home, I could go straight into the gym to start lifting. I had been training here for a while already, so it wasn't hard getting into a rhythm, though it was different being at the facility when it was full.
I recognized some of the guys who were coming back. I had gone through the team's roster, checking out my new teammates. The newbies were pretty easy to spot, too, especially the guys who had never made the trip to the facility before today.
Right after that was practice. I had been waiting for this. It was the first day of training, so I wasn't sure how many people we'd have watching us. I'd make sure I told Ron, in case she wanted to come. That way I wouldn't feel so bad not seeing her practically the whole day. I was lacing up my cleats, sitting in front of my locker when I heard a couple guys walking in. They were talking. One of them came over to the locker next to mine.
"Hey," I heard him say. I looked up at him. He had taken his shirt off and all the skin on his back and arms was covered in tattoos.
"Hey," I said back.
"Where'd you trade in from?"
"I got picked after the Houston combine."
"Yeah? What position?"