End Game

Forty-Three

"Hey guys. Sorry I'm late." Michael pushes into the studio, his eyes glued to the screen of his phone.

"You disappeared for three days, you're late, and you can't even look up from your phone?" Ashton sounds amused as he asks.

"Sorry." Michael quickly looks up, but his eyes drop again almost instantly.

"What are you watching?" Calum chuckles.

"Game three." Michael sighs, dropping into the couch beside Luke.

"So everything went well in Vegas?" Ashton grins.

"No, but everything with Jo and I did." Michael chuckles, "Her dad and her ex are both assholes though."

"I still can't believe you went running after her after the way she left you so broken." Luke frowns, shaking his head softly. "She wasn't even the one who called you!"

"Luke, I know it seems crazy, I get that. But Jo is special, and everything gets blown up in a long distance relationship. All the little things seem so much bigger, good things and bad things. We left New York on rocky terms, and that's on us, but it directly impacted what happened. She tried to talk to me after that, but I wouldn't let us actually figure anything out, afraid to fight over the phone. After all of that when she came out to LA to try and fix it there were things that she interpreted in ways that caused her to panic, and end things. It was all miscommunication, distance, and too much emotion. Things that wouldn't have been blown out of proportion if we weren't trying to navigate the first six months of our relationship from opposite sides of the world. Every relationship goes through things, every couple fights, just because our issues don't look like your issues did or do, doesn't mean they aren't the same thing. We talked a lot while I was there, she apologized a lot, and we are good again. I hope you can respect me, and my relationship. She makes me happy, Luke. Happy like I've never been, try to remember that."

"I don't want to see you hurt again." Luke mumbles.

"I know, but you also have to let me decide what hurt I'm willing to endure. I promise we talked through our issues while I was there. Jo and I are good, so good, and I need you to trust me in that. Even if it scares you. Because I know you know what it's like to fight for love even when it includes hurting yourself to get through the messy bits."

"I don't want you to have to go through the messy bits." Luke grumbles, crossing his arms.

"I chose to fall in love with a female athlete who has been surrounded by systemically sexist men her entire life. Helping her unlearn their ways and let go of their hold on her is going to be messy, but she's worth it. And she deserves better than them."

"Of course she deserves better than them!" Ashton nods, "She deserves you."

"And I want her." Michael nods, "But it's taken a huge toll on her mentally to accept all of the things she'd been blind to before. I don't consider myself a perfect boyfriend, not by any standards, but me simply caring about her as a human and not as an athlete only, that was new to her, Luke. She'd never had a bad game and not been ridiculed about it by her previous boyfriends, and her dad does the same. When she called me for the first time after a bad game she knew I'd watched, she was literally waiting for me to point out all the things she did wrong. I had to talk her down when she started doing it to herself and trying to get me to agree. That's the life she has lived for the last twenty-seven years, one where nothing was good enough and everything needed improvement. She got scared, she didn't know how to accept what I was offering her in this relationship. She legitimately did not understand the idea that I was here simply for her, no ulterior motives, no contingencies, no agendas. It freaked her out, she closed herself off, she had to work through that on her own, I hated it, but I get it too. And she did work through it, she realized what she wanted for her, how she wanted to be treated by men in her life, and she was ready to accept what I was offering when we finally got to talk this week."