The Defender (Gods of the Game, #2)

by Ana Huang

Don’t go. I need you. I can’t live without you.

“Je serais toujours là pour toi, mon coeur. Quoiqu'il arrive.”

But Brooklyn was different. She’d walked into my life through coincidence and stayed by choice. Yes, we had

mutual friends, but she chose to be with me the same way I chose to be with her—through uncertainty, through fear, and through every obstacle life had thrown at us so far. She saw every fucked-up part of me and never flinched, and that terrified the hell out of me because I knew what I’d feel if I lost her. Not just pain. Not just regret. But a hollowing-out so complete I wasn’t sure there’d be anything left.

want you to give the Moore job a chance because I don’t want you to look back and wonder what if. If you don’t like it, you can quit and move back. I’ll be right here waiting for you. If you do like it, then fucking smash it in Chicago, and we’ll find a way to make our relationship work. I promise. If

you think I’d let a few thousand miles come between us, then you don’t know me at all.”

“If I had to bet on you or a few thousand miles, I’d always choose you,” I said. “But I’m going to ask you something, and you have to answer honestly. Are you pushing me to move to Chicago because you’re afraid the intruder will come after me?”

“I should’ve known you’d see

through me,”

“You’ll be safer in Chicago. The intruder won’t follow you there if I’m not with you, and I need you to be okay.”

“If anything happened to you, I wouldn’t survive. Do you understand? Tu es plus que mon cœur. Tu es mon tout.”

was the sheer, devastating agony of choosing between myself and the person who felt like home.

I poured everything I couldn’t say into the kiss—all the longing, all the heartache, all the promises I couldn’t voice without shattering into a million pieces. And later, when his body slid over mine and he whispered my name like a prayer, I held on tight and pretended, for one desperate moment, that this would last forever.

I’d never imagined I would find someone who made me feel the way he did, like I was finally whole and seen. Like every broken part of me was just a little softer and more at peace when I was around him.

I’d certainly never thought that person would be the one standing right in front of me, waiting for me to realize he’d been there all along.

Don’t sound so happy to see me, buttercup. I’ll get the wrong idea. Let’s see who’ll cave and kiss the other first. I’d lose every single fucking bet in the world if it meant I could be with y...

I’ll miss you. I’ll wait for you. Don’t forget this. Don’t forget me.

I’ll be back Tuesday. It’s not like I’ll be gone for a year. Four days without you is a long time, buttercup. Getting needy already, DuBois? I always need you.

“There’s nothing else. I’m the one who encouraged her to go, and I’m glad she’s safe, but I just…miss her. It’s fucking with my head. I know I need to shape up for tomorrow’s match, and I will. Today was just a bad day.”

She was the only person who made me feel whole, and her absence left a hollow ache where her presence used to be.

sucked in an audible breath as the truth hit me.

I still had ambitions for my career, but football wasn’t the only important thing in my life anymore. There was something—someone—I loved more, and my only regret was that it’d taken me this long to realize it.

“I’d choose you. Every time. Because you’re it for me, Brooklyn Armstrong. There’s nothing and no one else I love more.”

She was here, she was safe, and she was mine. For the first time in my life, love didn’t feel like a risk. It felt like the safest bet I’d ever made.