Love, Ally by Hannah Gray

thirty-eight

Ally

Six Weeks Later

“They are totally going to do it!” Jenn squeals, jumping up and down. “They are going to win the championship!”

I smile, looking down at the only player on that field that my eyes care to see.

As the clock runs out, all of the players throw themselves on Cole before Knox and Weston pick him up and put him into the air.

Champions.

Cole, a freshman, led his team to a football championship and won. He’d wanted an undefeated season, yet that one game was his setback. After that loss, he came back ten times harder. Just like I had known he would. Training harder, working out harder, and practicing harder. And he did it. He really freaking did it!

Unable to stop herself, Jenn flings her arms around me. Embracing me in a full hug. “I’m so proud of him. So proud,” she cries, wiping tears from her cheeks as she releases me.

I smile, continuing to watch him. “Me too.”

As soon as his team puts him down, his head turns to find me.

What a wonderful feeling, knowing that even after a huge moment like this one, I’m the first person he thinks of. I’m the first one he looks for to see if I’m watching.

I’m watching, baby. I’ll always be watching.

Once he spots me, he takes off in a fast jog, making his way up the bleachers.

I waste no time in pushing through the other spectators to get to him. Not giving a damn how ridiculous I might look.

Once we get to each other, I leap into his arms, throwing my entire body around him. He holds me like I weigh nothing, lifting me up higher.

“I’m so proud of you,” I say, cupping his cheeks before pressing my lips to his. “So damn proud.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you, angel,” he murmurs against my skin. “My good-luck charm.”

“You could have, and you would have,” I argue. “But I’m so happy to be a part of it. I never doubted you, not for a second.”

Watching him play football and command a game he was destined for is such a turn-on. And honestly, I can’t wait to get him alone.

“Cole!” Jenn says from behind us. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks, Jenn.” He smiles before setting me down.

She throws her arms around him, her small body squeezing him. “Thank you for giving us a second chance. I’m so happy that we get to be in your lives.”

Matt clears his throat behind her. “Good job, bud.”

Once Jenn releases him, Matt holds his hand out, but Cole does something that shocks us all. He pulls Matt in for a hug, and though Matt might be a grown-ass man who works out daily, I swear his eyes turn misty.

Cole has been a little standoffish with him. It’s been hard for him to get used to the fact that they are brothers.

But Jenn and Matt have been so emotionally supportive of both of us. And not to mention, they are the reason why Dave and Marion are now behind bars.

Their hearing is coming up next month, and I’ll have to testify. But I meant what I told Cole—if I can show one other person that it isn’t their fault that this happened to them, if I can be brave for them, then that is exactly what I’m going to do. I hope it gives me some closure as well. Though I know there is no finish line, where I’ll magically forget the past. But I’m going to take it day by day and lean on those who have my back. I finally have a circle of people around me who care about me. It was a foreign feeling. Aside from Cole’s love, I had never felt that before. But when I opened my heart up and accepted it, I was so glad to have it.

I think love can be defined differently in each and every relationship. My version of love might not be the same as someone else’s. But to me, love means feeling everything the other person feels. It’s about absorbing their pain, feeling it on top of your own and yet not wanting it any other way.

My heart only beats peacefully when it beats along with Cole Storms’s. He’s far from the perfect person. But he’s my perfect person. And that’s all anybody needs. We don’t need a hundred people surrounding us with love. Sometimes, we just need one.

In his eyes, I’m the one he was waiting for. His angel who came down and took away his pain. But what he doesn’t know is, he’s my angel, my saving grace, my medicine to numb the pain of life’s cruel ways.

They say to love, one must love themselves first, but I disagree.

What if you find someone who shows you howto love yourself? What if they show you how they see you through their eyes? Without Cole, I wasn’t even a fraction of the person that I am when I’m with him. His soul feeds mine, awakens it, and brings it to life.

Our future will have its hurdles. With him being in the limelight in the NFL and me doing whatever the hell I decide to do, there will be tough times. But I know that as long as we have each other, we’ll be all right.

Throwing his arm around me, he kisses my hair. “A few more years, and maybe this will be a Super Bowl win, huh?”

I nod softly. “If that’s what you want, handsome, then, yes, I’m positive it will be.”

He’s a force, a weapon, a storm. If a Super Bowl win is what he wants, a Super Bowl win is what he’ll get because once he has the hunger for something, there is absolutely no stopping him.

Add that to the other millions of reasons why I love him so much.