False Start: A Fake Dating Sports Romance (Red Zone Rivals)

My stomach was tied into the tightest knot by the time we made it back to the hotel.

I held Madelyn’s hand the entire drive. She didn’t say a word, but she also didn’t pull away. She just sat beside me, her eyes trained out the window, silent tears streaming down her cheeks before she’d thumb them away.

I didn’t know what to think. My brain wanted to race, but I couldn’t even begin to guess what was going on. I had to wait for her to tell me, for her to let me in.

All I could surmise was that it had something to do with that night.

It had something to do with why she told me to stay away from her.

I wanted to know. I needed to know. And yet, at the same time, I was sick even thinking about it. Going back to that time in my life was like sticking my hand in a hot fire. I didn’t want to relive the pain — but I knew the only way for us to move forward was for us to face our past.

Blessedly, the media had gone by the time we pulled up to the hotel doors. Still, I shielded Madelyn with my suit jacket just in case there was someone sneaking around trying to get a photo. I rushed her to the elevator, holding her hand all the way until we slid inside our room and the door shut behind us.

Immediately, we were engulfed with the heaviest silence I’d ever felt.

I laid my jacket over the back of the desk chair, my eyes on Madelyn as she sat on the edge of the bed like she was in a daze. Her eyes were wide and unfocused, her fingers curling into the comforter as if it was all that held her to this Earth.

I didn’t rush her. Instead, I left her alone for a moment — just long enough to get ice from down the hall. I poured us both two tall glasses of ice water when I returned, and Madelyn took a long drink of hers before setting it aside.

“Tell me what happened that night,” she finally said, her voice low and cracking. “And the next morning.”

I swallowed. “You know what happened.”

She shut her eyes tightly and shook her head just once, fast and hard. “I need to hear it. I need you to tell me everything. Don’t leave out a single detail.”

My heart protested in my ribcage, lungs squeezing painfully. My entire body was ready to revolt at the thought of having to go back to that dark time in my life.

But I’d do anything Madelyn asked me to — even if it meant bleeding out right here at her feet.

I sat down beside her on the bed, giving her enough space to make her feel comfortable while also being close enough to give myself the courage to speak. I folded my hands between my legs, staring at them as I spoke.

“I was upset with you,” I admitted. “Something was wrong that week. I knew it, and you wouldn’t talk to me. I think I knew you were going to break up with me, and I…” I cleared my throat. “I felt so out of control. All I wanted was for you to be there with me that night at my parents’ party. I wanted you to let me in. I wanted a chance to fix whatever I’d done wrong.”

Madelyn didn’t blink, but two tears slid down her cheeks and hit her dress.

“In hindsight, I’m glad you weren’t there,” I said on a sigh. “Because you would have had to witness what my father did — to your mother, to your father…” I swallowed. “To me.”

She did close her eyes then, and I watched the way her chest rose and fell in a slow, steadying breath.

“The next morning, when all the dust was settling, I didn’t realize how bad it really was. Not until you showed up.”

My throat was thick with emotion that I could barely contain.

“I saw you from my window. And, fuck, Mads,” I said, shaking my head and looking right at her. “I can’t explain what I felt when I did. I was relieved, happy, hopeful, and yet shaking like a fucking leaf, too, because I didn’t know if you’d ever be able to love me again after what had happened. The way my father had treated your mother, the things he’d said, and then…”

Madelyn looked like a zombie beside me, like she was listening but was incapable of any reaction.

“I just… I thought you and I could make it through anything,” I confessed. “I waited in my room just thinking of how you’d open the door, how you’d see me and your face would crumple, and I’d run to you and you’d hug me and we’d hold each other and whatever you’d been angry at me for that week would just disappear. It wouldn’t matter. It…”

Goddamnit.

I scrubbed a hand over my mouth and looked away from her, my eyes on the ceiling as I tried to regain my composure.

“When you didn’t come, I ran downstairs. And my parents told me what you’d said to them, what you’d asked of me.”

“They said I wanted you to stay away from me,” she whispered, the first words she’d said since I started speaking.

I nodded.

“It fucking killed me,” I said through the thickness in my throat. “My parents knew it would. They said we were going to move, that I wouldn’t have to live in the hurt. They told me to pack my things. And when I saw you on Monday, when I showed up to get my stuff from school… I thought maybe you’d run to me. I thought maybe they were wrong, that you’d change your mind, that you wouldn’t let your parents control you. But I saw it in your eyes. I saw how…”

I cursed, nostrils flaring as the memory resurfaced.

“I saw how fucking scared you were of me. It was like you saw my father when you looked at me, and that gutted me more than anything.”

Madelyn covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head, her eyes squeezing shut.

“I hated you,” I whispered. “I did, Mads. I hated you with everything that I was for years. Until I saw you again.” I laughed then, the sound just a huff of air leaving my chest. “And then I realized that the only reason I could hate you was because I couldn’t see you, couldn’t touch you, couldn’t remember what it was like to be in your presence. And the moment I was around you again, all that was eviscerated. Because the truth is I can’t do anything but love you.”

Those words broke her, and I hated it — the way her shoulders shook, her hands covering her face as little sobs left her. But it was the truth, and she needed to hear those words as much as I needed to say them.

“I’m about to prove you wrong,” she said after a moment, dropping her hands into her lap. Her red, blotchy eyes met mine. “You’re going to hate me after what I tell you.”

My chest hollowed out.

“I never could—”

“You will,” she argued. “Because I didn’t tell your parents that I wanted you to stay away from me, Kyle. I told them I was pregnant.”

A blink.

A heartbeat.

And then my stomach bottomed out.

The room turned upside down. My entire world turned upside down.

My pulse kicked loud and heavy in my chest, in my ears, and I stared at Madelyn willing myself to comprehend what she’d just said.

But it felt like she’d spoken to me in a foreign language, or like she’d garbled out some nonsense that didn’t equate to anything.

I didn’t breathe for the longest moment.

And then, I sucked in a breath that burned my lungs and made my eyes sting. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. My lips trembled until I pressed them together again, and Madelyn broke at the sight of me, rolling her lips together as her eyes welled with tears that spilled down her face.

“You…” I started, but stopped immediately, my stomach flipping so violently I nearly lost my dinner. I stood, shaking my head, hands flying into my hair as I walked away from her in denial.

When I was on the opposite side of the room, I froze, numbness invading every inch of me as I tried to process.

I turned slowly to face her, and I didn’t know what hurt more — the crushing weight on my chest or the sight of her falling apart.

“I wasn’t mad at you that week,” she said, her voice trembling as she fought back tears. “I was terrified of losing you.”

“Losing me?” I let out a breath, shaking my head in disbelief. “Why… how could you ever lose me?”

“You were sixteen,” she cried. “You had your whole life ahead of you. You had football and a dream.”

“I had you, Madelyn.”

She shook her head, crying again as she looked at her hands. “I was just a kid, too. We both were. I had no idea how you would take it. I was afraid you’d hate me, that you’d be mad at me for stealing your life away.”

I was already shaking my head and walking toward her when she put up a hand to stop me.

“Wait,” she said, then she forced a deep breath. “I just… I needed time. So, I told my parents, and they told me no matter what I decided to do, they’d support me. I went to tell you, but your parents said you were sleeping. They saw how upset I was… I was crying…”

My hands curled into fists at my side.

“So, I told them, and… and they said they would tell you when you woke up, that they’d have you call me. They hugged me and swore it would all be okay.”

“Fuck!” I dragged my hands through my hair again, and then I couldn’t stand to be apart from her any longer. I knelt in front of where Madelyn sat on the bed, folding her hands in my own and kissing her knuckles as she looked down at me.

“I’m so sorry, Kyle,” she cried. “I should have told you. I should have—”

“You did, you tried. You trusted my parents to tell me and…” I went wide-eyed. “Oh, God. Madelyn, when you saw me at school on Monday…”

“I thought you hated me,” she sobbed. “And then you left and—”

I climbed up to sit next to her on the bed, pulling her into my arms and holding her to me in the tightest hug I could manage. One hand cradled her head against my chest, the other wrapped around to hold her to me, as if my arms could put the pieces back together, as if I could heal her when I now understood I had been the source of all her pain.

“I lost the baby,” she cried into my chest, her hands clinging to the fabric of my dress shirt. “And I lost you. And I lost myself. And now, realizing you didn’t even know… I… I…”

Fuck.

I couldn’t help it.

I broke.

Clutching Madelyn to me even harder, the first sob wracked my body, and that made Madelyn crack wide open, too. She clung to me, both of us crying like we were kids again, like this conversation and this room had transported us back to that time in our lives.

“Mads, I am so sorry,” I croaked, my chest splitting open with every word. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone. I’m so sorry I didn’t force you to talk to me, that I let my stupid anger get in the way of me running to you.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not yours either.”

And maybe that was what hurt the most.

I pulled back, framing her face with my hands and swiping away the fresh tears I found there.

“You’re not mad at me?” she asked pathetically.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I shook my head, locking my eyes on hers as I bent to her level. “I’m furious, Madelyn, but not at you. Never at you.”

As if acknowledging my rage allowed it to burn brighter, I felt my chest squeeze in the way it did before I got into a fist fight. I saw red at the thought of my father. I had no doubt he was the one who told my mom what would be said to me. And then I cursed my mother, who no doubt didn’t have the spine to stand up to him and say no.

Both of them were fucking dead to me, but I could deal with them later.

Right now, the only thing that mattered was this woman in my arms.

“They stole you from me,” I whispered, stomach curdling at the realization. “They stole our child from us.”

Madelyn closed her eyes, freeing more tears as her hands covered mine where I held her face. She leaned into my touch as if it was the only thing that could save her.

“We can’t go back and change any of that,” I said, voice cracking again.

A baby.

A child.

I was a father.

Madelyn was the mother to my child.

My throat constricted, and Madelyn swiped away the tears that slid down my jaw.

“We can’t go back and do anything different,” I finally said, forcing a long inhale and exhale. “We can get angry, and sad, but none of that will change what happened.”

Madelyn nodded, her bottom lip wobbling.

“But we can be together now,” I said, tilting her chin up.

“How?” she whispered. “You’re about to be a rookie in the NFL, Kyle. I… have a kid, one who isn’t yours. I have to get away from Marshall. I have to—”

“Fuck all of that,” I said gruffly. “Fuck any excuse your brain is trying to give you right now. You’re a survivor, Mads, and I get it now. I understand why. You’ve had to survive on your own your entire life, and now, you have Sebastian depending on you, too.”

She let out a little sob at that.

“But listen to me,” I added, bending to hold her gaze again. “You don’t have to do this alone. Not anymore. Not ever again. You’re mine, Mads. You always have been. I lost you then, but I refuse to lose you now. Whatever you need, I’ll give it to you. Whatever we have to do, we’ll do it — together. No more letting anyone or anything get between us, you hear me?”

She nodded, her arms wrapping around my neck.

“From this moment on, it’s you, and me, and Sebastian. Okay? We will figure it out. We will find a way. But I’ll be fucking damned if I ever let you go again. I’ll lay down my life before I let you walk alone. I’ll walk away from everything else if I have to — Seattle, the team, football, my family — but never you. Do you understand me? Never, ever you, Mads.”

The words were still leaving my lips when she pressed her mouth to mine, and I crushed her to me, one hand in her hair and the other flat against the small of her back. As if neither of us could bear to sit any longer, we were moving, standing, clinging to one another like a lifeline.

I breathed her in, everything that she was, everything that we never had the chance to be.

And I swore on my life right then and there that I’d make it right with her.

I’d make it all right again.

Madelyn deepened our kiss, pulling me to her like even a centimeter of space between us was too much. She climbed into my arms, and I held her waist as she wrapped her legs around me. Every kiss was urgent and needy, every touch burned like the hottest flame.

“Kyle,” she sighed into my mouth, her tongue dancing over mine. “I need you. I need—”

I silenced her request with my mouth, one arm still holding her tight to me as the other weaved into her hair and tugged with just enough pressure to make her gasp and arch her neck for me.

I knew what she needed. What we both needed.

And I was all too eager to lose myself in her forever.