Page 188 of Tangled with the Tight End

“I’m his emotional support animal,” I laugh.

“I think you are. In the best of ways.”

“You’re my emotional support animal,” I say.

It’s true. Cass settles me like no one else. It’s a twin thing.

“But he’s a contender,’ she says.

“No one replaces you, Cass. He’s just carving out his own spot in my heart. Next to yours.”

She leans in and rests her head on my shoulder. I wrap my arm around her back.

“Thanks for being here with me through the highs and lows,” I say.

“Always. Plus, you’re so much more fun now that you love football.”

I pick a chip out of the bowl and throw it at her face. She plucks it off her lap and pops it into her mouth.

The Thunder wins the game. Cass and I cheer them on together.

Declan calls me later that night. We talk on FaceTime briefly before he falls asleep. He’s on his bed in his hotel room and I’m on my bed eight hundred miles away.

“How was it?” I ask him.

“Good to be at an away game, traveling with the guys. Makes me all the more itchy to get out and play, though.”

“I bet.”

He looks pretty wiped out, so after a little more conversation, I say, “I’d better get to sleep.”

“Yeah. Me too,” he says. “I miss you, Winona.”

“I miss you too.”

He kisses his palm and blows the kiss at the phone. I blow one back to him.

He’s home two days later, and when I show up at his house, he greets me by leading me into the kitchen where he’s set a bag of Cuban coffee and a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper on the island. I tear into the gift like it’s Christmas morning.

The wrapping paper gives way to a print of a rooster.

“They’re everywhere in this one section of Tampa called Ybar City. Since you couldn’t be there to see them, I brought one to you.”

I stand on tiptoe, placing a soft kiss on Declan’s lips.

“Thank you. You’re the sweetest.”

He tugs me in toward himself. “I missed you.”

“Did you?”

“I really did. I drove the guys nuts complaining about how much I missed you.” He stares down into my eyes and I smile up at him.

“Hmmm. I can’t say I feel sorry for you. I missed you too.”

We stand like that, staring into one another’s eyes and holding on to one another.

The next day I wake to Cass calling me from the hallway. “Winona! You need to see this.”