And, according to my brothers, he’ll forever be out of the question.
They’ve been warning me about him since I was twelve.Thinking back on one particular conversation still makes me laugh.
I was fourteen, which meant I’d had two solid years of Evander-induced daydreaming under my belt by that point.I must not have been hiding it as well as I thought, because one day, all five of my brothers sat me down on a barn bench and stood over me, very serious.
“Evander MacLaine is a player,” Jake said.
I nodded, scanning their faces, wondering what the big deal was.
Of course Evander was a player.Everyone around here played sports.Evander had been on varsity sports teams with Jake, Kyle, and Ryder.If Bo and Mason hadn’t still been in junior high at the time, he’d be on a team with them, too.
“You mean football?”I’d asked.
Everyone doubled over laughing and then staggered off, their howls carrying through the horse barn.Everyone but Jake, anyway, who’d either taken pity on me or drawn the short straw.He sat down on the wooden bench by my side.
“He plays the field, Pea.The field of girls.”
“Oh.”I thought about that for a moment.“With the girls soccer team?On the school practice field?”
Jake blinked at me.He tried again.“What I’m saying is that dating is just a game to the MacLaines, and girls are their playthings.That makes themplayers.And Evander the biggest player of the bunch.”
I remember shrugging and saying something along the lines of, “Makes sense.Evander could have any girl he wants.”
Jake had placed a hand on my shoulder and got very serious.“That is not true, because he can’t haveyou.Never forget that.Stay away from that dude, do you understand?”
My brothers have revisited that topic with me over the years.Once, just before I went off to nursing school in Arizona and when Evander was home on shore leave, Bo and I ran into Evander at the feed store.When we got back in the truck, Bo laid into me.
It was ridiculous.
“Steer clear of Evander?Really?”I yelled at Bo while driving us back to the ranch.“He’s a Navy SEAL headed off to yet another dangerous foreign country.I’m a recent high school graduate picking up fifty pounds of chicken feed!What’s there to steer clear of?He doesn't know I’m alive!”
Bo is a sweet guy, maybe the sweetest of all my brothers.He hadn’t expected me to lose it like that.It surprised him.He apologized.
The truth is, my brothers’ warnings were pointless when I was twelve.Pointless when I was sixteen, eighteen, and again when I was twenty-two.
Their warnings are still pointless.
Because it doesn’t matter what anyone says about Evander or how unlikely it is that he’ll ever notice me.I’ve been in love with him forever and probably always will be.
And it’s high time I did something about it.
Besides, this virginity farce is getting old.I’m the designated innocent of the Travis family.They think I’m unsullied, pure as the new-fallen snow!They’re wrong.
As if it’s any of their freaking business.
But I sure hate hearing them talk about me like I have no first-hand knowledge of the ways of the world.I’ve meant to correct them for a long while now, but at this point, it’s probably too late.
About nine years too late.
Maybe I should say something right now.
“Yo, Pea,” Jake still uses the nickname Ryder gave me when I was four.“You okay?”
“I’m fine, why?”
“Because you’re beating those eggs like they owe you money.”
My hand stills.I burst out laughing.Jake does, too.
