Wildflowers and Wide Receivers

40. Sophie

Chapter 40

Sophie

H e loves me.

I should have known this already. In fact, if I’m honest with myself, I knew he did. Since the night I met him, he hasn't been able to hide his emotions, but hearing him say it is entirely different.

His lips brush against the back of my hand, and if I wasn’t already sitting, I’d swoon, and he’d have to catch me.

“I’ve never been one to believe in love at first sight, but if that’s not what happened to us, then I don’t know what to call it. From the very first moment I saw you step out onto the back patio at Reid’s that night so long ago, you were it. I wasn’t interested or looking for anyone either. All I’d wanted for my life up until then was football—that was my singular focus—but then there you were, and my world tilted, shifted, whatever you want to call it, and I was certain the trajectory of my life was changing. And when I walked out of your place that following morning, I knew deep down in my gut I was right. I was a different man, and I was completely yours.”

“How did you know?” I ask him, inching my way closer to him on my chair and loving hearing about how he fell in love with me.

“Call it a gut feeling, call it cheesy, whatever, but for the first time in my life the word soulmate struck me.”

Soulmate.

Tingles of love race down my spine, as my very being has a visceral reaction to this word and indefinitely tethers itself to him. Our connection, the feeling of wholeness, the mutual understanding and respect of each other, my best friend, and the unconditional love and my lover all wrapped into one. Is there anything in this world more treasured than this? My throat tightens, and I blink back the burn in my eyes.

“But how did you know we would get along?”

He gives me a flat look.

“Come on.” He holds up his hand and glances at his pointer finger. “Well, first of all, you’re friends with Camille. I happen to hold her on a pedestal, and she’s very particular about who she lets in. She let you in.” He adds the next finger. “Second, you laughed a lot, which told me you had a great sense of humor, which I value.” He adds the third. “You were down for whatever that night. We could have driven to Georgia and back or just ended up at your place, and you were happy to go along. This told me you were adventurous.” Now, he holds up four. “I saw your place. You weren’t hiding fourteen smelly animals or a closet hoarder. And fifth.” His whole hand is open now. “I could go on and on, but you were kind, sweet, and so damn beautiful it hurt to look at you. I couldn’t find any red flags, not that I was really looking. You had me spellbound, but unless something off the wall emerged, my mind was not changing. There is no changing my mind. But then Vivi happened.” He drops his hand. “I grieved the loss of my brother, but I need you to know I also grieved you.”

“Jonah . . .” I take both his hands and wrap them in mine. “I still wish you would have reached out and told me. I’m sorry I let my hurt feelings get in the way of being there for you. I will forever feel terrible about this.”

He shakes his head.

“No. I don’t want that. A relationship shouldn’t start like that. I was so overwhelmed by it all too. I was twenty-four years old and knew nothing about shutting down someone’s life or taking care of a five-year-old. It wouldn’t have been fair to you.”

“I hear what you’re saying, and we’ve talked about this before, but it doesn’t change the fact that I wish I could have been there for you both.”

“You’re here now,” he says, dropping one hand and leaning forward to tuck some loose hair behind my ear. I love it when he does this, he always runs a finger down the side of my face when he’s done.

“Can I ask you something? It’s completely random, but I am curious.”

“Of course,” he says, now inching his way closer to me. His knees brush up against mine as they bracket them on the outside. We’ve completely forgotten about dinner, not that I wanted to eat anything until this conversation was over anyway.

“When is your birthday?” I ask him.

His brows pop, and he lets out a single chuckle. “May eighteenth.”

So I just missed celebrating it with him.

“So that makes you twenty-seven.” I’m feeling oddly nervous that he might now realize our age gap.

“Last I checked. When is your birthday?”

“November sixteenth.”

“Hmm,” he mumbles like he’s committing that date to memory. “And how old will you be on November sixteenth?”

My stomach clenches. I just need to spit it out. “I’ll be thirty-four.”

He chuckles again, this time his smile stretching across his handsome face.

“I always did like older women.” He winks, flirting with me.

The admiration I have for this man is endless, but then I remember my speech. There are things I want to tell him—no, I need to.

“My father is getting married,” I announce, which might feel out of nowhere for him, but it doesn’t to me.

His eyebrows rise. “Okay. That’s good, right? You did mention he was hinting around to it.”

“Yes. But it’s official, and get this, they bought a small RV.”

One side of his mouth quirks up. He doesn’t understand, but he sits patiently as he wants to listen to me.

“All these years, I wanted to be there to be with him. That’s what family does, right? They stick together. But then he tells me he and Chrissy bought an RV and are planning to travel during the winter months. Like snowbirds.”

He frowns. Now he’s catching on.

“Snowbirds. So you’re going to move back to Minnesota and he’s going to turn around and leave you there?” He shifts in his chair, not happy with the picture he’s just painted.

“Basically, that’s what I was thinking and how I felt too, until he tells me that his plan was to spend the winter months down here with me.”

He tilts his head as he thinks about this, and in an instant, his eyes widen and flash to mine.

“So regardless of where I live, here or there, I’m getting him for half of the year.”

Hope suddenly surrounds his aura, and I can feel it floating in the air. Color rises into his cheeks and the hazel in his eyes intensifies.

“So you could choose to stay here, then?”

There’s so much emotion in his voice that I nearly choke out the answer he wants to hear, but I have to finish the story first.

“I took a job offer.”

He inhales sharply. His face falls, but then he masks it because he’s that kind of man who’d put how he feels aside to show me support.

“But not there . . . here.” I lean a little closer to him and place my hand on his thigh. His solid warm thigh.

“I don’t understand. You already have a job here.”

“Well, at the same time I was interviewing for the position in Minneapolis, one of my old attendings reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in teaching. You saw me talking to her at the hospital gala. It’s not a full-time position, as I do already have one, but I’ll be an adjunct professor, specifically helping students publish different articles of research within their field of specialty in orthopedics. This professor just received a large grant, and she needs additional help while she starts a new study of her own.”

“And this is something that you want to do?”

“Yes, very much. I’ve realized that I like to be stimulated and challenged. I don’t like being stagnant, and that’s what I’ve been over the past year. But, Jonah, I don’t want to move to Minnesota. I don’t know what will happen between us down the road, I just know what’s happening now.”

“And what is that?” he asks, that hope trying desperately to drip back into his tone.

“That I’m in love with you. Both of you. You’re my family too and I don’t want to leave you. I can’t.”

Silence settles over us as he stares at me. His eyes turn watery and his nose flares once as he breathes in. His shoulders fall forward as he exhales and he takes both my hands in his. Looking down at them, he rubs a few of my fingers until he drags his gaze back to mine.

“I feel like I’ve been waiting a long time to hear someone say that they love me,” he says quietly.

“What do you mean? So many people love you.” I tangle our fingers together, because I want to feel his hands too. Hands that have calluses from all the hard work he puts in at the gym and with catching the ball.

“Yes, but until this moment, they weren’t the ones who I wanted to hear it from. You, I wanted to hear it from you.”

Leaning forward, I cup his cheek. “I love you. Very much,” I tell him again, and his whole body shudders. It’s wild how such small words can have such a profound impact. “All this time, I’ve been so focused on my plan, this antiquated plan I put in place years ago before I even lived any life to figure out exactly what I want, so it shouldn’t be surprising that somewhere along the way, my plan changed. You became my plan. You and Vivi. I love you both so much, I can’t imagine not being with you. The two of you are stitched into the very fiber of my being and I would give up everything and move anywhere as long as I get to be with you. It’s not about the location, it’s about the people I love, and I love you so much.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You should know it wasn’t just you. That night, your soul spoke to mine and together they whispered soulmate. I felt it too and I wanted it so bad. I still do. I want you and Vivi. Sweet Vivi who I want to shower with so much love. You both deserve it and I feel lucky to be the one you chose.”

He slowly blinks at me, those dark blond eyelashes sweeping up and down, but they do nothing to hide the array of emotions coursing through him. He’s happy, he’s humbled, he’s hopeful, and he’s in love. With me.

“Move in with us.” He’s so serious, but then the corners of his mouth lift too.

I blurt out a laugh. “Don’t you think that’s a little fast?”

“No.” He sits up straight. “I know what I want, and it’s you. It’s always been you. You should be with us. You complete us. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from John’s death, it’s that tomorrow isn’t a guarantee.”

Should I take more time to think about this? Probably. But do I want to? No. I want to be there with them in Jonah’s beautiful home, too.

“Okay,” I tell him.

“Okay?” He looks at me with shock and so much optimism.

“Yes.” I laugh.

He reaches over and yanks me off my chair and onto his lap so I’m straddling him. I laugh again as he wraps his long arms around me and hugs me fiercely. Minutes pass as the pounding of his heart slows, and my weight gradually settles onto him. Pulling back, he drags his lips across my face until they press against mine, and that’s when I realize I get to kiss this man every day, multiple times a day, for what I’m hoping is the rest of my life.

“I’m so happy, I don’t know what to do with these feelings,” he tells me, kissing me all over my face.

“I can think of something,” I breathe out as I run my hand down his back and my feet curve around his legs.

“I like the way you think,” he mumbles against my mouth as his hand runs up under my dress and his fingers slip under the edge of my underwear. “But what about dinner? You worked so hard on it.”

“It’ll be here when we get done.”

He groans into my mouth, tilts my head, and then kisses me in that all-consuming way of his. I love it. I love him and dissolve into him, knowing he loves me too.

“While I do love this position, what I’d love more is you, in my bed, and naked.”

He pulls back to look at me, and he narrows his eyes. “Technically, it’s no longer your bed. There is no yours or mine. It’s all ours.” He grins and then stands with me wrapped around him. I hook my ankles on his lower back.

“Then I guess we should enjoy this bed since we won’t have it too much longer,” I tell him.

“I have a plan.” He smirks.

“Do I get to hear this plan?”

As he starts walking toward the stairs, I start undoing the buttons on his shirt. His skin is so warm and so golden, and the bone doctor in me can’t help but to appreciate the strong lines of his clavicles.

“Remember when I said I wanted a beach house?”

I push his shirt open so I can run my fingers over the bones in his shoulders and then around to the back of his neck. “You want to move my things there?”

“Yes. At least your furniture. We’ll keep whatever you want.” He pulls on my dress and it’s loose enough that it pulls straight over my head. He drops it on the stairs and then his large hands slide under my butt where he lifts me so we’re eye level. The heat in his gaze is enough to raise my temperature a few degrees.

“You really are something else,” I whisper, leaning in to kiss him. He kisses me back and there’s no hesitation in the glide of his tongue against mine. He groans as I finally free him of his shirt and the sound reverberates through his chest and into mine as I thread my fingers through his hair.

“Since we’re on all the subjects,” he mutters against my skin. “Should we just get married too?”

I throw my head back and laugh. This man. What am I going to do with him?

“I’m not opposed,” I tell him, and his eyes get all excited. In the past I would have had a wave of nervousness or anxiety over his question, as it’s change, but since I firmly decided that he and Vivi are my plan indefinitely, I’m open to anything with them. Anything and everything. How could I not be? “But I’d like my proposal to be somewhat of a surprise.”

“And this isn’t?” He grins as he nuzzles his face against mine.

“Where’s the ring?” I tease.

He smiles that beautiful smile of his at me, and my heart flutters.

“I hear you, and when you least expect it, it’s coming.”

With that, he tosses me onto the bed and ends all of our conversations.

Sometime in the early morning, I wake and roll over to find him asleep on his stomach. His long, muscular arms are folded and up under his pillow, his hair, which is starting to get just a tad bit too long, falls over his forehead, and his full, delicious lips are slightly parted as he steadily breathes in and out.

So many nights over the past couple of weeks have been spent with one of us sneaking out that I never get to see him this way. To admire how perfect he is. The sheets are lowered so his long, lean back is on full display. There’s the way his rounded shoulders smoothly transition and guide my eyes to travel over the bumps of his spine, and his waist narrows just so that it’s perfect for me to slide my fingers around. I won’t, though, because I want him to sleep. He needs to sleep. And the best part is, I know he’s mine.

And he loves me.

Just as I love him.