“No Greyson?” I ask, my voice as casual as I can muster.
“Paulina won another tennis match, so they won’t be home tonight. I’m dogsitting.” He glances over his shoulder at the golden retriever sleeping on the couch. “You look like hell, Noelle.”
I laugh—a sharp sound, more real than anything since I left the bathroom. “Thanks. Just what a girl wants to hear.”
Opening the bottle, I suck the water down, not realizing how much crying dehydrates me. I toss the empty bottle into the recycling bin for a score. I mumble, “I should have taken the softball scholarship, but I wanted to fly into the air and hope that men catch me.”
“Cheerleaders can be scary,” he says, watching me for a beat too long. “Something happen?”
There it is. The real question. I sink into the chair across from him, kick up my feet, and let my guard down for the first time today.
“Can I just... can we just hang?”
He gives a mini salute. “I’m not much for pep talks, butI’m good at Madden. Or I could make you the world’s worst sandwich.”
The tension in my shoulders eases. This is why guys make sense—straightforward comfort, no drama, just shared space. A little banter and you’ve reset everything.
“We’re not playing a football game. Do you do anything else?” Seriously. I’ve never seen him with a date or doing anything other than football. “How about Mario Kart?”
He snorts. “Only if I get to be Mario. Luigi freaks me out.”
For some reason, I find myself laughing at the thought, like all my problems are vanishing because of my brother’s best friend—Matt Stricker, older than me by more than a decade.
We head to the man cave for a little video game competition, and for a while, there’s nothing but the sound of controllers clacking, me cursing at the screen when he shells me, and him laughing like he hasn’t got a care in the world. Eventually, I forget the searing ache in my chest. It’s just graphics, noise, and friendly competition.
Eventually, the questions will come, and I won’t be able to hold back the tears. But here, in Greyson’s basement with the man who seems to understand that sometimes silence is more honest than small talk, I feel like I can breathe again.
When he beats me on the Urchin Underpass level, he slaps his hand on my leg and squeezes my knee. “Doesn’t matter the game, sweetheart. I always win.”
My whole body tingles as the pads of his fingers press into my skin. And that cocky grin is to die for. Matt has saved me several times over the past year, always being there when Brooks was flirting or dancing with other girls. And I always loved how I felt in his arms.
Our eyes linger. Too long.
TWO
MATT
Holy hell.
I shouldn’t want this. But as my palm rests on her knee, my body buzzes with this reckless urge to drag my hand up her thigh, right to the place I have no business even thinking about.
Not when her oldest brother is my boss and the other is the quarterback I’m supposed to coach. Not when she’s…what, fifteen years younger? Enough years to get me excommunicated from every locker room I’ve ever set foot in.
And yet, here we are. She’s grinning, flushed after losing to me at Mario Kart. I can’t help the cocky smile that tugs at my mouth. “Doesn’t matter the game, sweetheart. I always win.”
My hand lingers on her leg longer than it should. I squeeze her knee, and she doesn’t pull away. In fact, she looks up at me with those deer-in-the-headlights eyes, all wide and uncertain and so goddamn soft it makes my chest hurt.
I clear my throat and pull back, forcing my attention to the controller in my hand, pretending not to notice the way my body reacts to her nearness. “Rematch?” I ask, my voice lower than I mean it to be.
She lets out this little laugh—breathy, real. “You’re just asking for another win.”
I shrug. “Maybe I want to see if you can surprise me.”
She looks at me a beat longer, and something flickers behind those eyes—a shadow that’s got nothing to do with video games. She looks tired, older than she should for a girl getting ready to graduate from college. For a minute, I want to reach for her hand, smooth my palm over her knuckles just to see if the tension will ease up at all.
Instead, I ask, “You want to talk, Noelle?”
She chews on her lips like she’s working hard not to fall apart. She’s quiet for a long moment, way too quiet for Noelle O’Ryan, the girl who shouts over her brothers and fits right in with a locker room full of guys. The girl who dances like no one’s watching, free and happy. Yeah, I’ve noticed every little thing about her since I met her.
