His body gave a little flinch.
It was enough.
“Holy shit.” Unbelievable! I threw my head back and laughed out, “You’re jealous!”
Sanchez’s eyes widened until I thought they were going to pop out of his head and roll toward Jax’s feet. “Whoa! Time out! You’re boning your sister?”
Jax groaned. “Could you just . . .” He shook his head. “Not be yourself for five minutes, Sanchez?”
Sanchez looked between the two of us. “Fill me in, then.”
I looked to Jax, his lips were sealed.
Fine.
“It was on the news last night.” At least that part was true. “Kinsey and Jax aren’t biologically brother and sister. She’s adopted.”
“At eleven years old,” Jax finished in a hollow voice. “She was supposed to come over for dinner, I found her in her house . . . she was bleeding, she’d tripped on some glass and there was blood everywhere, her parents were gone, needles littered the floor like trash.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple slowly bobbed up and down like he was trying not to cry. “She said I looked like an angel.”
Sanchez, for once, was quiet.
“She used to call me Captain America, lame, I know, but ever since that moment it’s been me and her, my parents tried but couldn’t have any other kids and it just seemed . . . meant to be, you know?”
“Are you?” Sanchez asked him point blank.
“Am I what?” Jax didn’t look at me.
“Jealous? Are you jealous?”
Jax blew out a frustrated curse and kicked the ground, the rest of the team had already started to run back out onto the field. “I’m jealous as hell . . . because she looks at him the way she used to look at me, like he’s her hero, and all I’ve done in the past few months is mess up, protect her, piss her off, protect her, piss her off—”
“Maybe,” I interrupted, “it’s time for you to just . . . let her live.”
“Yeah.” He licked his lips. “I used to be better at this shit.”
“What? Being a decent human?” Sanchez just had to say.
“Nah, being a good brother, and then with my dad getting sick and . . .” His eyes were unfocused. “Everything else . . .” He shrugged. “I can’t lose her too.”
“You won’t,” I promised.
He didn’t look like he believed me as he put his helmet back on and walked toward the huddle.
Sanchez elbowed me. “If we had our own reality show moment that would have been killer—just imagine, violin music, soft crying in the background—money shot.” He sighed.
“Who are you?” I shoved him back.
He just laughed and said, “Grant Sanchez,” like that made more sense than any answer.
“Hey!” He grabbed my arm. “Serious moment . . . do not, and I repeat, do not fuck with him right now.” His eyes grew serious. “He has enough shit on his plate lately and if you . . . if you hurt her . . .” He rolled his eyes. “God, I feel like such a dick for even saying this, but if you hurt her, if he finds out about Vegas, if he as much as sniffs in your direction and finds out that you aren’t just replacing him for now but planning on doing it in a more permanent way . . .” He shuddered. “I know you somewhat have his permission, whatever the hell that means, but it looks to me like he’s still on the fence about you guys and that’s without him knowing what went on between you two. If you hurt her, there won’t be a far enough place for you to run where he won’t chase you down and bury the body, and I’m too young to go to jail for you, man.”
“Was that a pep talk?” I hissed.
“Yeah.” He shot me a cocky grin. “How’d I do?”
“Shitty!” I was tempted to dislocate his jaw with the back of my helmet.
“Can’t win ’em all.” He shrugged and, with a wink, ran off to the huddle. I followed slowly behind him, guilt gnawing its way through my uniform the entire way.
I still smelled her when I breathed in.
I felt her on my fingertips.
Yeah, I was in no position to judge Jax.
Because when she looked at me like that, all I wanted was to be worthy of it. And almost every single time, it felt like I did nothing but fall short.
Chapter Twenty-Three
JAX
I was in a shit mood.
Brought on by an even shittier situation.
And unable to focus on anything except for the fact that I hadn’t received a text from Harley since I basically fled my own apartment.
My throws were off in practice today.
My concentration was on a spitfire who tasted like bubblegum and had the sexiest husky laugh I’d ever heard.
I showered, grabbed my shit, and got in my car.
Rain pounded in rapid succession against the windshield, like it was just as angry, just as tormented as I felt. With a curse, I started the car and drove.
And somehow found myself at her apartment.
Dripping with rain.
In front of her door.
My feet took up at least half of the welcome mat, and there was a little sign that said “Blessings” hanging in the center of the door.
I hung my head and raised my hand, only to have the door swing open. A short elderly lady with bright white hair stared me down, her dark-brown eyes pensive, her lips pursed into a thin line.
I gulped.
“You.” Her voice was hoarse, as though she’d smoked a pack a day for thirty years.
I licked my lips. “Is Harley—”
“Here.” Harley’s grandmother shoved a box into my hands. There were at least two jerseys inside, and a football.
“What’s thi—”
“Black Sharpie’s on the table. I’m going out for some air.”
“O-kay.” I drew out the word and walked past her in search for the mysterious black Sharpie. That had to be the oddest reception I’d ever had from a fan.
“I have grandkids.” She sniffed, grabbed a light jacket and some keys, and then added, “Harley’s on her way home.”
The door slammed behind her.
“Well then.” I sighed, rubbing my hands on my jeans before popping the cap off the Sharpie and getting started. I signed my name, my signature taking up at least half of the shoulder of each jersey, then made a mental note to get Harley’s grandma more gear—especially when I noted the décor.
Bellevue Bucks wallpaper.
Harley hadn’t been kidding about her grandmother being a fan.
A Bucks coffee cup was placed next to a crossword puzzle. The steam from hot coffee still billowed over the rim, like she’d been planning on settling in for a nice afternoon, but instead I’d knocked on her door and . . . what? She decided she needed a walk in the rain?
The sound of keys had me jumping to my feet in an effort to look like I actually belonged at Harley’s dinner table. Shit, I never wanted to hide so badly in my entire life.
What the hell was I even doing there?
I just—I wanted to check on her, to apologize in person. To smell her? The hell! I was losing my damn mind.
The door swung open.
Harley placed her bag on the nearby chair and then looked up. Her mouth dropped open, and then she was walking toward me.
I braced myself for impact.
Waited for the slap.
Even closed my eyes.
But when nothing happened, I had no choice but to open them, to face the girl I’d slept with and abandoned. Who did that? Who slept with a girl they actually liked and then bailed the next day?
I did.
Jackass Jax did have a nice ring to it.
“You.” She poked my chest with her finger. God, she was like a taller version of her grandma.
“Me,” I answered.
“Why are you here?”
“Because you wouldn’t talk to me.”
“And that automatically means I want to see you? Invite you into my home? Make you soup?”
“There’s soup?” My stomach growled on command. I
was a sucker for homemade food, with all the traveling the team did. Not my fault.
“No.” She crossed her arms. “I mean, well, there’s always soup, it’s our thing, don’t ask.”
My mouth watered.
I wasn’t sure if it was because of her proximity, the way her wet hair clung to her cheeks, or the fact that I’d forgotten to eat after practice.
“I’m sorry.” Could I sound any more robotic? And stupid? “For leaving you, for . . .” I ran my hands through my wet hair. “For just . . .” I rubbed my forehead. “For all of it.”
“All of it?” she whispered.
“The bad parts.” I took a step closer to her. Our bodies were touching, chest to chest. Breathing was taking more of an effort than it should. “Not the good ones.”
“Who said there were good ones?” A challenging brow shot up from her forehead.
I smirked. “Really?”
“Really.”
“You must have a shit memory, Harley.”
“Or maybe it just wasn’t that memorable.”
I crushed my mouth to hers on instinct, wrapped my hands around her ass because I couldn’t help myself, then hoisted her onto her grandmother’s ancient dinner table and laid her down by the jerseys because I literally had no self-control when she was that close to me.
Harley’s eyes closed as I kissed down her neck and ripped at her wet clothing, rubbing my hands everywhere I could, touching every sweet part of her before she shoved me away, before she told me that it was over, that I had fucked up.
“You’re an asshole,” she muttered against my mouth before biting down on my bottom lip so hard I winced in pain. “A giant asshole.”
“I know.”
“You left me alone.” She kissed me harder then bit. Then the crazy woman grabbed the front of my pants and slid her hand inside, gripping me so tight my dick nearly went into a coma from blood loss. “Had sex with me and left me!”
“Shit.” How the hell was I getting turned on by her psychotic touch? The woman was going to kill me! Make me sexless! And yet, I moved against her hand, my lips parted, I leaned into her. “I’m sorry, so damn sorry.”
“And you’re an asshole.”
“The biggest asshole in the world,” I agreed as her touch lightened, I jerked against her, and nearly went blind.
“Okay,” she said softly.
I locked eyes with her. “Okay.”
She released me, rubbed her hands together, and shrugged. “So you want some soup?”
What?
She threw me a grin over her shoulder. “Is that a no?”
I was having trouble stringing any sort of sentence together that didn’t have to do with us getting naked on the kitchen table.
“Um . . .” I blew out a pent-up breath of frustration. “Sure, yeah, soup, soup sounds good.”
Harley burst out laughing. “I was shitting you. You passed, by the way.”
“How so?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Well, you were trying to be a gentleman when all you wanted to do was get naked in Grandma’s living room. By the way, bad call, she has cameras.”
I did a little circle.
“It’s almost too easy.” Harley kept laughing. “Come on.”
She held out her hand.
I took it.
I shouldn’t have.
She made me want things I had no business wanting.
All damn day I’d been thinking about her—not football, not my dad but her.
With a wink, she pulled me into a bedroom, shut the door behind her, then pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it onto the carpet. “Now that we’re done talking . . .”
I didn’t let her finish. I devoured her next few words, one hand tangled in her hair, the other working her jeans down her ass while she unbuttoned mine. Laughter bubbled up between us as we stumbled toward her bed.
I pulled her on top of me and sighed. “I missed you.”
She stilled. “I missed you too.”
It was all I needed to hear.
Before my mouth was on hers again.
Before I lost my sanity again.
“I’m on the pill.” She moaned. “Just . . . thought, since last time and—”
“Yeah,” I finished for her. “Not to totally ruin this moment, but is Grandma supposed to be arriving any time soon?”
“No, I don’t think—”
The sound of a door opening stunned me into silence.
I was seconds from feeling Harley around me, inches from where I wanted to be.
“Harley girl?” Grandma called. “You in your room?”
She slammed a hand against my mouth. “Yeah, Grandma, just, um, playing a board game.” She rolled her eyes as I licked her fingers.
She shivered while I tossed her onto her back, pinning her down with my body as I hesitated at her entrance.
“What game?”
I pressed into her and murmured, “Yeah, Harley, what game?”
Her eyes narrowed, “It’s, uh, Chutes and, um, Ladders?”
“Am I the chute or the ladder?” I whispered.
A whimper escaped between her lips before Grandma called back, “Forgot my phone, you kids have fun.”
Harley let out a frustrated groan.
“Better put a cover on that ladder, dear!”
Harley covered her face with her hands. “Thanks, Grandma.”
“And when I say cover, I mean condom!”
“Got it, bye!”
I wasn’t sure who was more horrified, me or Harley. But all it took was the slamming of the front door for the mood to go back to the way it was before the untimely interruption: desperate, needy.
“Huh.” I grinned. “And here all this time I thought I was more of the chute.”
She smacked me in the shoulder then pulled down on my neck, until our mouths met in another fiery kiss. “Your move first.”
One long thrust and my world was suddenly righted again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
KINSEY
Sickness had a smell. I couldn’t really describe it other than a mixture of medicine, sadness, and sterile equipment. The minute I’d walked into the house, I knew something was wrong.
All because of the smell.
It smelled like a hospital had been set up in my home. The patient, my father. And the fact that he was slowly deteriorating made me want to scream and then cry until my voice was hoarse.
Miller hadn’t said a word the entire drive.
Which was fine with me, because the last thing I wanted to do was talk about my feelings—talking about the sadness only made it feel bigger and if it was bigger, it was harder to combat, at least in my mind.
Dad was sitting in the living room, hooked up to an IV.
“Hey.” I winked and sat down on the couch. “Looking good.”
“Liar.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve got this robot contraption piece of crap hydrating me, makes my arms feel cold.”
I grabbed a blanket.
“Put that blanket on me like I’m a child and I’m going to tell your mother about the time you snuck out of your room and got drunk in the tree house.”
I gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
“Paula!” The man might be sick, but he still had his lungs.
I winced.
Miller let out a chuckle.
My dad turned his eyes to Miller. “How long, son?”
“Uhhh,” Miller gulped. “How long . . . what?”
Dad grinned and leaned back. “Oh, I see how it’s going to be, I’ll have to spell it out then. How long have you been sleeping with my daughter?”
To his credit, Miller didn’t as much as flinch. “What makes you think I’m sleeping with her?”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. “You look too happy for a man who’s going without sex.”
“A guy can’t be happy?” Miller shrugged. “What if I’m just high on life?”
“Bullshit.” Dad wiped at his nose. “You hurt her, I’ll make it my perso
nal afterlife goal to haunt your ass and send you into an early grave, you hear?”
Miller bit down on his lip and then grinned. “Yeah, well, if I hurt her, I may just give you permission to do that.”
“Permission?”
Oh no. I was just getting ready to tell Dad to stand down when Mom came flurrying in with a tray full of coffee. “I have hot scones.”
Miller had two in his mouth before I could warn him that they weren’t going to taste like they smelled.
He swallowed, chugged his coffee, and glared at the offending pastries.
“My dad’s on a sugar-free diet,” I said. “It’s supposed to help him live longer.”
“Live longer my ass.” Dad made a face at the scones. “If this was my last meal, I’d ask for a redo. Honey, why don’t you hop back in that kitchen and make some chocolate chip cookies? The kind that go gooey in the middle.”
I made a little noise in the back of my throat. That sounded amazing.
Mom put her hands on her hips. “But sugar—”
“I could go for some cookies,” Miller said, coming to my dad’s defense. “In fact, I can even help if you want?”
“Good man.” Dad winked at Miller. “I knew I liked you.”
Ah, how easily Dad switched sides when food was involved. If he wasn’t careful, Miller was going to take over Jax’s spot on the couch and be invited over for ESPN time. Yeah, my brother would probably murder his teammate before letting that happen.
Miller gave my shoulder a squeeze and followed my mom out of the room, leaving me, my dad, and the silence.
I looked away.
He grabbed my hand.
I squeezed back and fought the hot sting of tears.
“How’s the squad this year? You whipping them into shape?” While I appreciated the subject change, and the fact that he wanted the focus to be on me, I wanted to talk about him.
“Good.” I scooted closer to him then laid my head on his shoulder and let out the breath I’d been holding since walking in the front door.
Dad rubbed circles around my palm. He smelled like cologne and licorice, ten bucks said he probably had a few pieces of candy hidden in his pocket for emergency purposes. “You know”—Dad’s voice was low, it rumbled through his body, tickling my ear with its vibration—“you used to sit here for hours with me when you were little. The damn TV never even had to be on. I think . . .” He swallowed. “Well, honey, I think you just wanted to be close to someone—anyone.”