GROUNDING 🏈 Nick Bosa. {Bosa Brothers series.}

#ONE HUNDRED TWENTY TWO.

Later that night I text Nick a link of a house I found and wait patiently for his reply.

He doesn't. Instead he calls me again.

"Hey." I answer.

"Liliana, that house needs work." He says, immediately.

"Yeah, it's perfect. We can customize it and make it ours." I tell him.

"I feel like you're just avoiding coming back at this point." He responds, in an unamused tone.

"Well, I'm not. Are you able to go look at it this week, please?" I softly, ask.

"I'll see what I can do, okay?" His voice sounded tired.

"Okay, thank you." I sweetly, reply.

"So, this house has 5 bedrooms. Does that mean you want three kids?" He quickly, changes the subject.

I quietly laugh and my body instantly, reacted to it. How could I be happy at a time like this? But laughing felt good for once.

"No, master bedroom is ours, obviously. The two other rooms are for the kids and the last room could be an office. It also has a bassinet so we could do a game room or gym.. or whatever we want.." I reply.

"Two kids?" He questions me.

"Yes." I tell him. Two was plenty for me.

"I like that." He breaths. "I love you, Liliana." He says, wrestling the phone around. "—And I'm sorry if I was being an asshole earlier."

"Well, I accept your apology, Nick." I reply in a goofy manner. "And I love you a lot, so stop stressing."

He softly, laughs. "I will when I get to see you again. You're coming this time, right?"

"That's right."

California.

I stood by my word and flew back to California for the football game. There wasn't a one way ticket available, so I took the next best option and would be spending the night here, and then flying back to Florida in the morning.

Mark promised me he would be fine for one night, and I believed him. He was already doing a lot better physically from the accident, but mentally I knew he was still struggling with Dales death the same way that I was. God, the feeling was terrible every time a wave of sadness washed over me. I could barely comprehend that he was even gone and never coming back.

*

Luckily, Nick had a private family booth resting at the top of the stadium, so it was easy to avoided people. Cheryl met up with me in the personal players booth and handed me my number 97 jersey, adding that I might need it. I smiled wildly as I put it on. I had been so sad lately, I forgot I could actually smile and it felt really nice etched into my lips. She didn't stay long, because she was a very active mom wanting to be right on the turf where her son was. I avoided the field all together that day. I couldn't face anyone, at least not at this moment. I carried so much guilt for everything that I had done and I just didn't want to have any hard conversations. At least not today. I was happy that they won, because it was a win, but I was more happy knowing that Nick was going to be happy, and I got to see him after being away alone with all this pain.