Page 160 of Hometown Halftime

Kinsey stares at me. For one terrible second, all I can hear is the pounding in my ears while emotion flickers across her face so quickly I can barely keep up with it. Then her eyes close and a shaky laugh slips out of her like she’s overwhelmed.

“Oh my God, Riley.”

The way she says my name nearly undoes me. When she looks at me again, tears cling to her lashes.

“I love you too,” she says, eyes shining.

Relief crashes through me and I bend toward her with a breathless laugh, dropping my forehead against hers while my hands find her face.

And then she’s kissing me.

I can taste her tears and feel everything between us finally laid bare while Kinsey wraps her arms around me.

When we finally pull apart, she presses her forehead against mine and laughs through another watery breath.

“I think I knew I loved you after the screaming-in-a-field incident.”

A rough sound escapes me, and sitting there beside her on the couch, I realize nothing about my life is ever going to feel the same after this.

Kinsey pulls back and turns the necklace carefully between her fingers before speaking again.

“You should still go, though,” she says quietly. “Back to school and to the draft. All of it.”

For a second, I genuinely don’t know what to say. Because hearing her talk about it so calmly suddenly makes the future feel terrifyingly real.

“I thought about that,” I say cautiously. “What if you came with me?”

She shakes her head slowly, still looking at the necklace. “No.”

The answer comes gently, but there’s no hesitation behind it. She looks at me despite the tears still shining in her eyes.

“Riley, football is your dream. I don’t want you changing your future because of me.” She exhales a shaky breath. “My friends are here. My life is here.”

I stare at her helplessly while frustration, love, and panic twist together inside me.

“We could come back during the off-season,” I tell her quickly. “You could coach anywhere now that you have a season under your belt. We could figure something out.”

“Riley.” Her hand lifts to my face, thumb brushing slowly across my cheek. “We both knew this had an end date.”

The certainty in her voice makes it painfully obvious she had already decided she’d let me go before I ever had the chance to ask her not to.

Because she isn’t making me choose between her and football. If anything, she’s trying to make this easier on me, and somehow that hurts in a way I can’t explain.

Part of me desperately wishes she’d ask me to stay.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to leave you.”

The words feel terrible on my tongue.

Kinsey’s expression crumples, and for one long second neither of us speaks. The Christmas lights glow softly across the room, and suddenly the scrapbook on the coffee table feels less like a gift and more like a goodbye.

Then she climbs into my lap and wraps herself around me so tightly it almost feels desperate. I hold her just as hard. My face presses into the curve of her neck while her fingers grip my hair, and we stay like that on the couch, holding onto each other like neither of us knows how to prepare for what comes next.

Finally, she speaks quietly against my skin.

“You have to chase this, Riley.”

I squeeze my eyes shut hard because I wish I could chase her instead.