Clandestine || J. Garoppolo

[46]

Hey guys!!!

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas :) I know I did!! It was filled with family, fun, and a lot of surprises

If you didn't, there's always next year!!!

I'm so excited omg I got a pair of Bs tix to go see them against the Kings and I get to say one last goodbye to Looch so 😭😭😭😅

So I've decided this will be the last chapter! I have an epilogue written that will raise questions (of course so I can make a sequel if I get bored) and I'll update w that in about a week or so!!!!!

This has been an amazing ride, and I hope you guys have enjoyed this as much as I have!! I'll save the mushy stuff for later though xx

Enjoy!!
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Hazel stayed with Logan and Malcolm over the next month and a half, and she seldom left the house. Malcolm was perfectly fine with her there, and Logan slept on the pullout couch.

(After all, Logan insisted, the pullout couch was perfectly comfortable. When she pointed out she would be just as comfortable on that than in his bed, he grinned crookedly and kissed her. And she would never admit it, but being enveloped in blankets and pillows that smelled like his cologne made her feel safe and happy.)

Training Camp had started, and it was well on its way to the beginning of the season. Hazel hadn't talked to Jimmy since the night of the fight, and it had been like hell for her. She missed him, she admitted it, and she listened to that message he left her more than she liked to admit, too. She practically had it memorized.

"I've spent the last hour or so thinking about everything. Looking at old college pictures, looking at pictures from the Draft, from the CFAs. Son of a bitch, I'm crying.

"Please just listen. If you don't listen to any of those other messages, that's fine. I couldn't care less. But please, please listen to this one. Please. God, where do I even begin?

"So I know you left, and that's fine, I guess. Well no, it's not fine, but....You and I promised we would always be together, us, Hazel and Jimmy. Goddamn, just three months ago you were smiling into my shoulder or even crying into my neck and at that moment I had no idea those would be the best of times and they would be the worst of times. Shit, I swore I'd never quote A Tale of Two Cities. But the only thing that mattered is that we were us, you and me. The dynamic duo. I just....You're my best friend.

"Sometimes I think of you and Gabe. How dumb I was to set that up? But I also sometimes think of what could've been if you two became something, and it scares me, because it means I would've lost you long before tonight. Things change and so do people, and I just....Hazel, I have acted so goddamn dumb, but you know? I guess part of me understands if you're done after nineteen years. I don't know if you are.

"But I just...when you look at all your old books and records, please don't forget our conversations at three in the morning, the ones all about football and home and the nights we cried because we were all alone on a separate coast, away from all the family and all the friends we've ever known. I loved that it was just us. I loved that we were each other's family.

"Right now I'm looking at a picture from college. It's after a game. And we're smiling so wide that it's hard to imagine just a few short years later you would scream at me, "I don't love you." Remember the night we kissed? Shit, obviously. You threw it back in my face. Anyway, I felt nothing. I was so miserable the next day. And do you...do you remember the very first night you fell asleep next to me? We were watching something on TV in your dorm, I don't remember what or why, and you fell asleep. We used to nap together as children, but as an adult it felt different to have someone in such a vulnerable state in your arms. And that's how I felt when I was with you, even when I was awake. Vulnerable.