Page 137 of Tangled with the Tight End

“Good. I’m feeling stronger.”

The guys come in behind me.

“Winona!” Jaxon shouts. “Sit with us.”

“Okay,” she says, a note of bashfulness in her voice.

Winona carries my tray and we load up two plates, and then she goes back through the lines to get her own meal. I watch her move through the room with a familiarity that warms me. She’s at home in my world.

When she takes her seat next to me, Jaxon starts in. “Winona, if you wanted to date a Thunder player, we could have found you someone worthy of your awesomeness. You went and settled for O’Connell.”

Winona laughs as if his taunting is entertaining.

I glance around the table. The guys are all laughing. And they’re smiling—at her.

She’s special and they know it.

I can’t stop smiling, either. Despite the burn that comes with the idea of Winona being with anyone else.

“I’m kidding, O’Connell.” Jaxon laughs, sloughing off the joke.

I smile, settling my arm around Winona’s shoulders.

Delaney’s face straightens and his tone is more conspiratorial. “Seriously, Winona, don’t go breaking Declan’s heart. He had a rough go a few years back. We all wondered if he’d ever date again.”

“Okay, Okay,” I say, not wanting to bring up my past relationship failures in front of Winona. “She doesn’t want to hear all that.”

“Actually, I do.” She pops her hand on her chin. “Spill the tea, gentlemen.”

She wags her brows at me.

I take a breath. If anyone’s filling her in on my history, it’s going to be me. “I dated the wrong woman. It went south. I learned some hard lessons.”

She puts her hand over mine. “We’ve all made some bad choices in the past.”

“Not like this one,” Delaney says. “Trust me, Winona. She was a piece of work.”

Quietly, Linc says, “But that’s all behind us. As for you? We give you the Thunder seal of approval.”

She smiles and then she looks at me with a softness that tells me she’s sorry for what I went through. That’s Winona—always absorbing the pain of others as if it were her own, and making the world brighter wherever she goes.

“The past is in the past,” I assure her.

She nods.

Someone starts humming Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart. Another guy joins in, and pretty soon the whole table is humming. Winona’s laughing with her head tossed back. I shake my head, but an unfamiliar warmth fills my chest.

I’ve had everything I wanted at my fingertips for years.

But I’ve never had this.

After lunch, I walk Winona to the empty office. She studies while I watch film and then sit on the sidelines during practice. I stop into the therapy room on the way out to tell Lynn I’m feeling fine after my workout.

I pick up my pace through the hallway, passing players and staff on the way to the office where Winona has her books and notebooks spread around on the floor. She’s leaning back on the wall, her knees up and a textbook spread open.

I stand in the doorway, watching her until she looks up.

“Oh! I didn’t hear the door. Are you ready?”