Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 29 TESSA

I watch as his truck glides to a stop in front of his parents’ house. I’m staring at the movement out the window, naturally, as I sit on the couch next to my mom. Wheel of Fortune is on, and as much as I love guessing the answer and getting it right before my mom does, I’d rather talk to Tristan.

Except…I’m not sure he wants to talk to me. Especially not after he was all over social media yesterday. Apparently he went to some club the other night, and photos of him laughing with his friends emerged right along with photos of him smiling and hugging other women. He looks like he’s kissing a woman in one photo, but it’s hard to tell.

I’m not sure what it means. I try to push away those feelings of jealousy, but it’s hard.

He seems to want to be with me. That kiss the other day indicated that, anyway, but then he skipped town and was hanging around other women after I rejected him.

Other women don’t care that he’s married.

Maybe he’d rather be with one of them.

After what I just went through—what I’m still going through—with Cam, reality is setting in. I’m not sure I can be with someone in the spotlight the way Tristan is. Between Cam and my father, I’m left with a host of trust issues, and I’m not sure how to be with someone whose every move will be scrutinized.

He turns and glances in my front windows, and he catches me staring at him. He lifts a hand to wave, and I wave back, feeling a little sheepish that he caught me.

Although…he was looking at me, too. Maybe he should feel sheepish, though I doubt Tristan Higgins has ever felt sheepish a day in his life.

He nods toward his garage and looks back at me, and it feels like the signal I should come hang out a while. “I’m going to go say hi to Tristan,” I tell my mom, but she’s so absorbed in Pat and Vanna that she barely gives me a second glance.

I grab my shoes and make sure my sweatshirt is nice and baggy to hide baby girl, and then I head next door.

I knock on the side door to the garage, and when he opens it a few seconds later, my chest races. His head is ducked down, that ballcap backwards on his head again, and he glances up from under his long lashes so his dark eyes meet mine. His jawline is covered with scruff, like he didn’t shave the last few days, and all it does is serve to multiply his hotness factor. He wears jeans and a well-fitted, short-sleeve black Aces t-shirt, his biceps stretching the fabric.

My eyes fall to where the fabric hugs his chest, and I have the sudden urge to crawl into his arms and never leave—for those biceps to wrap around me and for my cheek to rest on the broad planes of his chest. I can smell him even from here—a fresh smell of laundry detergent and soap, not of a spicy cologne used to impress women, but of a clean scent that’s just so reminiscent of him .

“How was your trip?” I ask quietly.

He clears his throat as he looks nervously at me for a beat, and my heart picks up speed as I wonder what it was all about.

“It was fine.”

“Fine?” I ask, doing my best to keep my tone level. And then the words come tumbling out of my mouth before I can stop them. “The pictures of you from that lounge looked more than fine.” I clear my throat, and he averts his gaze to the ground as he shakes his head.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “I hate those damn appearances, but my buddies were booked that night so I tagged along. I needed to get out of my house a while, blow off some steam with my friends. Every move I make is examined under a microscope. I saw the photos, too, and you have to believe me. They’re completely innocent. In one, I was thanking a fan. In another, I kissed a buddy’s wife on the cheek. Harmless shit the media spins to make me look like something other than what I am.”

“Oh,” I say, not sure what else to say here. It sounds innocent, and I want to believe him. The way he’s looking at me so earnestly…I do believe him. I knew him better than anybody back in the day, and he was always a bad liar. Despite his rise to fame, I doubt things like that changed over the time we’ve spent apart.

“I got some donations from my buddies while I was there,” he says, holding up a jersey signed by Aces running back Jaxon Bryant. He sets it on a table with a stack of other stuff he must’ve brought back with him. “And both Travis Woods and Jaxon said they’d do their best to attend the event.”

“Whoa,” I breathe. I pick up a football signed by a handful of Aces players, another signed jersey, an Aces pennant, a towel that looks like maybe it was a freebie at a game, and some signed photographs of different players. “This stuff’s incredible, Tristan.”

I set it back down and face him. Despite the excitement in my chest over these items he brought back, the tension in this room is thick.

“I, uh…something happened the other day in here. I kissed you, and you bolted. You said it was because I’m married, so I went back to Vegas to take care of the problem,” he says, his tone quiet.

“You what?” I ask, surprised at his admission and further surprised that he’s already that invested in us again.

He shrugs. “I’ve tried so hard. I’ve tried divorcing her, and she always comes back with something else. But when you wouldn’t touch me because I’m married, that was the final fucking straw.”

My hand flies to my chest. “What does that mean?”

“It means I told Coach about the shit she has on me, and he told me the entire Aces organization is behind me. If she takes what she has and gives it to the league and I have to miss four games, so be it. I’m ready to face the consequences of something I didn’t even do just to get out of this marriage. The stakes weren’t as high before, and if you hadn’t walked back into my life when you did, maybe I could’ve taken her beating a little longer. But you gave me a reason not to.”

This is it.

I have to tell him.

I have so much to tell him, but I need to start with the present.

What happened in the past doesn’t matter right now, but we can’t forge a new path together if he doesn’t know exactly what he’s getting into with me. It’s not just me. I’m a package deal now.

I’ll worry about the other stuff later. I’m still not convinced it’s something he needs to know, especially not after our conversation about the past.

I open my mouth to say the words, but he keeps talking.

“I talked to my publicist, and she’s got my back. I spoke with my lawyer, and he drew up new papers. He advised me to get evidence she’s blackmailing me, and for someone who called me dumb because she found it so easy to drug me, well, it was pretty easy to get her to admit what she did on video. I sent the evidence to my lawyer, and I told her to get the hell out of my house. I packed up the rest of my stuff and turned in my keys. I’m officially homeless now, and with any luck, a judge will take pity on me and force this thing through once and for all.”

“Whoa,” I breathe. “That’s a lot.”

“I know how I feel, Tessa.” His voice is a little strained. “I’ll be honest. All the feelings I felt for you came back the moment I saw you.” His eyes lift to mine across the small space separating us. “I’m still in love with you. You’re still the same person deep down, and even though we’ve both been through things, and we’ve both grown, I’m falling in love with the person you are now. Things happened that were out of our control, but I really think they are things we can get past. Don’t you want to try?”

I heave in a deep breath at his words. Tears pinch behind my eyes.

Of course I want to try.

But he deserves the whole story before he can say these words to me, and right now it’s time to fill in one more piece.

My chest thunders as the words form on my lips, and then they finally squeak out of me.

“I’m pregnant.”

TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK 3, HONEST MISTAKE