Riley squeezed her arm gently. She didn’t respond to Mollie’s question, but then, she didn’t have to. Mollie already knew what she had to do.

She had to let Jackson go.

For his happiness and her own.

Chapter 30

Jackson had ended his call with his old coach five minutes ago, but he still held his cell phone, staring blindly down at it.

It was happening. Not immediately, obviously. He needed to give Oxford at least two weeks’ notice. And then he’d have to figure out what to do with this damn penthouse. Figure out where to live once he got back to Texas. He’d need a new truck.

But within a month, he’d be back.

Not as a player. Never as a player. But he’d be back on the field. Be back with the team. Back to where there was decent barbecue. And beer. And actual backyards. He’d be back with his friends. With his favorite local restaurants, which let him sit in a back booth where nobody could bother him.

And hell, once this Oxford magazine article came out, he might even get some of his dignity back. Not that everyone would read it, and those who read it might not believe him, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.

It had occurred to him that now that he had his team back, courtesy of Madison coming clean with Coach, he didn’t even have to do the article. The only reason he’d agreed in the first place was the stipulation that he clean up his image before he’d even be considered for the position.

But Jackson surprised himself by wanting to do it. He was tired of the weight of the lies and the assumptions and the complete bullshit.

He might be going back to his old life, but he wanted a clean slate too. A clean slate with no scandal, no New York, no stupid suits…

No Mollie.

Mollie.

It had been nearly twenty-four hours since she’d walked out of his apartment. Out of his life.

They’d been the longest hours of his life. He’d spent all of yesterday a zombie. At one point he’d found himself staring at the front door as though he could will her to come back through it with all that bright energy and goodness.

And love.

He wanted her love back even though he didn’t deserve it even a little bit.

But she hadn’t come.

He’d gone to bed early in hopes of finding some relief from the pain, but that hadn’t worked either. He’d lain in bed for hours before giving up and going to her bed. Her bed, which still smelled like her. In her room, which still had all of her belongings.

He’d gazed at the ceiling, wondering if he should give her the apartment. Wondering if that would make her hate him less, even as he knew it wouldn’t make him hate himself less. At dawn Jackson had given up on sleep.

Now he leaned his head back on the couch and closed his eyes, trying to imagine what it would be like to get back to Texas. Trying to imagine how it would feel when he stepped off that plane. How it would feel when he stepped onto the field.

How it would feel when he could come home after a long day, and…

His eyes opened.

And what? Pop open a can of beer, watch a game? Was that enough? Would it matter if he had all of the things he wanted but nobody to share it with?

Jackson cursed and tossed his phone aside before leaning forward and burying his head in his hands. How the fuck had this happened? How had one girl turned his entire life upside down in just a few weeks?

Although that wasn’t entirely accurate, he realized. This thing with Mollie had been building for years. Not romantically, of course, but she’d always been important. And then he’d seen her in that damn little red dress, and she’d gone from important to…

Everything.

Mollie was everything.

So what the hell are you doing, man?

Jackson’s phone vibrated with an incoming call, and his heart leaped in hopes that it might be her. He swallowed his disappointment when he realized it was only the doorman of his building.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Burke, I have Cole Sharpe and Penelope Pope here to see you.”

Jackson frowned. What the hell were Sharpe and Pen doing at his place on a Sunday?

“Sure. Send ’em up,” he said.

A few moments later, he opened his door to a duo of very grim-looking colleagues.

No, not just colleagues. Friends. Cole and Penelope were his friends. Good friends, although they looked good and pissed at him now.

“You’re an idiot,” Cole said as he shoved past Jackson and made his way to Jackson’s fridge. “I’m having one of your beers. Pen?”

“Nah, I’m good,” she said. She touched Jackson’s forearm briefly as he shut the front door. “You okay?”

He glanced down at her big brown eyes, which were almost always smiling. But not now.

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you let a girl you’re obviously crazy about walk away?”

He froze. “How the hell—”

Cole shook his head as he popped the cap off the beer. “Don’t even question it, man. You’re one of us now. No more secrets.”

One of us. Jackson felt a surge of happiness, until he remembered that Cole was dead wrong. He wasn’t one of them. He was a Redhawk. He was…

Fuck. He didn’t know what he was.

“Mollie called Riley,” Penelope explained. “And Riley called—”

“Everyone,” Cole finished.

Penelope shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“Are you shitting me, Burke? You’re leaving us?” Cole said.