"All except my Ricky. They can't have my cinnamon roll lover."
She'd managed to get all the bachelors on the team to sign up for the dinner—what college guy would pass on free food? But the flag football match had been a different story. Seager got involved, turning the "friendly game" into a freshmen vs upperclassmen grudge match. With a bet.
I blew out a long breath.Asshole.
I continued jogging around the field.Season's been over for a month.And I’d still received no response from Ella.Text messages asking if I could come by, met with silence. A few phone calls, sent directly to voice mail.Guess that says everything.Still, I couldn't shake it—the strange pull. It'd been there from the moment we met.
That night in the greenhouse…
Hair shining in the moonlight, hands shaking as she paced. It was like gravity. That moment, with her hazel-gold eyes glowing, the tilt of her lips when she asked me for a favor. The heady scent of wildflowers and vanilla infusing the air.
Everything had been… so vibrant, tangible. Real.
I pushed strands of hair behind her ear. Her lips curved as her fingers brushed my hand. I leaned down, settling my mouth over hers.
Didn’t know she’d ever been "Drakes’s girl" when I kissed her.
In my defense, he had so many female fuck buddies, not sure even he kept them all straight. So how the hell could I have known there was one he was supposedly "serious" about?Not serious enough to give up the rest.
Which ended up being his downfall.
“You messed with Drakes’s girl.” Lindsom scowled at me.
“You’re a fucking redshirt." Mackey caught my shoulder pads and yanked. "And you’ll go back to being a redshirt once we’re through with you.”
I broke his grip and walked away.
I turned and executed a grapevine maneuver across the field. Clouds hung low and dingy grey. A mist dripped into the air around me—stagnant and cold and thick. It matched how I felt inside.I need to find her and apologize.Even if there was no way she could fall for a guy like me.
Even if she’d been picturing the rest of her life with Drakes—charismatic, driven, a cut above college football athletes.
Even if she’d never understand why I left.
“I want you,” she whispered before her lips claimed mine.
I couldn’t shake the memory of that night. We’d been so close. I’d wantedso muchto stay; stake my claim. Show her how I felt.
But I couldn’t. Not when she needed time to heal.
Then our coach hit me where I already hurt. He’d made promises that if I “fell in line,” I could have a shot at a pro career.And finally measure up.
Frosty breaths puffed into the air. It’d been a tough year trying to fill Drakes’s shoes on the field after he went to the AFL draft. Spent most of the season being hated on by his douchebag left-behinds—who also happened to be my offensive line. The cowards didn't have the guts to fight me man-to-man; they let the opponents' defense do their dirty work in an out-of-bracket game.
It took every ounce of control I possessed not to cry out as the team's trainer set my radius back in place. He splinted my forearm and gave me the info for a Lubbock doctor who could make me a custom, 3D-printed cast.
“Something looked off about that play,” he said as he draped a sling over my neck. He wore a name tag on a Strikers-maroon collared shirt. It read: Scott Whitney. "Almost like Lindsom didn't even try to block."
“Rough game,” I replied, taking a halting breath and praying the agony would subside.
“Nothing to worry about.”
I flexed my left hand, the muscle stiff from the weeks spent in a cast. It ached to its core…still.
Bastards. And Coach let them get away with it.
Mud splish-splashed as I ran. The cry of a sandhill crane rattled overhead. I stared at the ground as it disappeared, inch by inch, beneath my cleats.
I may have been filling the gap on the team between Drakes moving on and Seager coming up, but that didn’t mean I wanted to beherconsolation prize or rebound guy. I wanted her to choose me.
