Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 11 TESSA

I’m touched that he named his foundation with a piece of our shared history. It doesn’t just mean a lot. It’s a signal that he wants me to be part of his foundation’s future. His future.

I want that, too. Whatever happens at the end of this time together, we won’t part ways without holding onto our friendship at the very least. We can’t. I can’t leave him again, and I don’t know what that looks like moving forward, but I know one thing for certain. He won’t just be a ghost from my past anymore.

As long as he can accept me for who I am. As long as he can get past everything I’m keeping from him…if I tell him everything , that is.

I pray he can get past everything.

I can’t imagine going back to a life that he’s no longer a part of. I had to live in that reality for seven years, and having him back for the last few days has me feeling like our friendship practically picked up where we left off…except for all the missing pieces.

Our intimate relationship—well, that’s another story. But the way my chest aches when I’m not around him, the way he looks at me, the way I can’t stop thinking about him, they all tell me that we might be able to get that back in time, too.

I grab my mom’s little calendar out of the junk drawer and flip to March. “Are you thinking a one-day event?”

He nods. “A Saturday?”

I nod, too. “March twenty-sixth?”

“Works for me.” He lifts a shoulder. “How much of this are you willing to take on? I don’t have any idea what I’m doing, but my publicist is willing to help however she can and she has experience planning charity events.”

“Can you put me in touch with her?” I fiddle with the calendar. “I don’t have experience but I’m happy to be the event coordinator. And I’m sure our parents would help. My mom would be a great asset for children’s entertainment given her role at the church, and depending how this year goes, she might even be interested in coordinating the event next year. And your parents have tons of connections in Davenport.”

“Coach would help, along with Mr. Kelly and Mr. Danvers,” he adds, naming the principal and athletic director of FRHS.

I hold a hand up, and he links his pinkie through mine…just like old times. “T and T,” I say.

“We’re dynamite,” he finishes, and we both laugh even as the heat rolls through me at the point of our connection.

“We’ve got this,” I say a little awkwardly once we drop our hands.

His eyes flick down to my right hand. I took the ring off last night because my hands were swelling after eating salty bacon yesterday.

It’s sitting on my dresser. I think the only time I’ve taken it off since he gave it to me was to clean it, and my hand feels naked without it. But swollen hands are part of pregnancy, and I just hope he doesn’t ask me why I’m not wearing it.

He lets it go, and I’m glad I don’t have to explain myself. The bacon excuse would probably work, but I just told him I never take it off.

“Let’s call Ellie and see what advice she has to get the ball rolling.”

“Ellie?” I ask as he starts pulling up a contact on his phone.

“My publicist,” he amends, and I nod as the phone starts ringing.

“Twice in one day?” she answers. “What did you do, Higs?”

“You’re on speaker, so don’t say anything incriminating,” he says, and she laughs.

“Oh, so I shouldn’t mention that super private thing you mentioned earlier?”

My brows dip. What super private thing?

He rolls his eyes. “She’s teasing me,” he says good-naturedly. “I have a friend from home with me and she just volunteered to be my coordinator for the event I was telling you about earlier.”

A friend . It feels so weird to hear him describe me as that so easily when there’s so much left unsaid about the truth of our relationship, but I guess telling his publicist that he’s sitting with his ex-girlfriend who technically never broke up with him and who still has raging feelings for him might complicate this conversation.

“Right,” she says, her teasing turning to business. “Hello friend from home. I’m Ellie.”

“Tessa,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too! Tristan tells me he’s putting together a foundation for a struggling family in your community. Have you hammered some things out since we last chatted?” she asks.

“Yes,” he says, his eyes meeting mine. Excitement burns in his, but he keeps his tone even. “I spoke with Erin, and she already submitted the paperwork for my new foundation. So now we’re onto the event planning stage.”

“Are you planning to fund this, or how is that going to work?” she asks.

He averts his eyes from mine toward the window. “A lot of our costs will be covered by donations and volunteers, which is one of the benefits of living in a town where everybody knows everybody, but I can cover the rest.”

“You can use the proceeds to reimburse your costs, and whatever’s left will go to the recipients,” I suggest.

He shakes his head. “I want the full amount to go to Landon’s family.”

My heart swells at how kind he is. “Then we work a little harder for donations.”

Ellie fills us in on some tips to get started. She says she’ll outline a marketing plan to help highlight our event on social media and talk to some of the other players she works with to get them to attend the event, or, if they can’t, to donate something to the auction and raffle.

My mom walks in shortly after we end the call, and she sees her kitchen table filled with chaos in the form of paper, pens, and notes.

“Gosh, if this isn’t exactly like old times,” she says with a smile as she sees the two of us working at the table with our heads bent close together as we review some of the notes we took on our call with Ellie. “What are you working on?”

“Your daughter has agreed to be the coordinator for the first charity event benefitting my new foundation,” he says.

“What do you think of a craft fair featuring all local artists at the end of March?” I ask.

Her eyes light up. “I think it’s an incredible idea! There’s so much talent in this town. Knitted goods and handmade soaps.” She glances at Tristan. “Your father’s woodworking…”

I nod. “We’re thinking food trucks to avoid permits, and I’m sure Fallon Tavern would put up a beer garden spilling out onto Main Street.”

“Bounce houses in the park, kids’ games, raffles, an auction, and, of course, all the vendors,” Tristan adds. “Maybe a dunk tank.”

“Ooh, what about a cake walk?” my mom suggests.

Tristan and I glance at each other. “What’s that?” I ask.

“We gather donations of all different sorts of cakes, and we have squares labeled one through fifty on a table. Contestants place a quarter on one of those numbers with only one quarter at a time allowed on each number. Then we spin a wheel with the same numbers on it, and whichever number comes up on the wheel is the winner. If there’s a quarter on the spot, that person is the winner and gets to pick a cake to take home. If not, nobody wins that round. Either way, we sweep all the quarters into our bucket and start the next round.”

“I love it!” I say. “Maybe it could cost a ticket instead of a quarter.”

Tristan nods. “And tickets are a dollar apiece?”

She shakes her head. “Stick with the quarters. People will sit there all night gambling for a cake and I swear you’ll make more. Once we do one round, we’ll have enough to cash in dollar bills for quarters, too. People in this town will have cash, trust me.”

My mom sits and offers ideas and suggestions, and the three of us spend hours making plans and creating lists as loud laughter shakes our shoulders and new ideas continue to form. And I can even tell from her enthusiasm that this is exactly the type of thing she might love taking over next year. She loves this town, loves the people, and she would love doing something to benefit a family here.

It’s the type of afternoon I haven’t had in far too long, and the excitement level in the kitchen reminds me of a time in my past when my dad would’ve come in and asked us to quiet down.

He’s not here to temper our excitement, though, and by the time my mom glances at the clock only to realize it’s well past our usual dinner time, we have a solid plan in place and I have more than few projects to keep me busy over the next few days.

We organize the chaos and my mom invites Tristan to stay for dinner, but he heads back home. And then it’s just the two of us as she fixes some tortellini she had in the freezer.

“You two already seem close again,” she comments as she fills a pot with water. I’m still looking up phone numbers as I try to sketch out a plan of attack for tomorrow.

“We’re just planning an event together, Mom.” I don’t admit that we feel close already, too.

“Have you told him?” she asks.

I shake my head even though I’m not sure if she means the fact that I’m pregnant or the fact that I was . The answer’s the same in either case. “No. I haven’t found the right time.”

“It’s only been a couple days,” she adds. “You’ve got lots of time.”

Time is a funny thing, though.

It passes in the blink of an eye, sometimes without us even noticing.