Those damn words were engraining themselves in me at this point, trying to be a tattoo.
And I wondered if that meant the universe was trying to get me to listen.
But even if I left the squad at the end of the season, if my life took me another direction… did Braden want anything more than what we had?
Did he even want this for long?
I didn’t have the nerve to ask — not when it was all hypotheticals, anyway. Right now, I was a cheerleader and he was a football player and we were breaking every rule sneaking around together.
So this was what we were at the moment.
And I needed to just chill the fuck out and be okay with it.
“Do you miss anything about Oklahoma?” I asked as he mixed a divine-smelling sauce together — something creamy and peppered with herbs.
“So much,” Braden said, a faraway smile on his lips. “The lakes. The country. The way you could drive on back roads for miles and miles. My dad used to take me to this fishing spot and we’d just hang out all day long. We were never in a rush, you know? Nowhere to be, nothing to do but wait for a bite. I loved that.” He frowned. “It was hard after Ginny got sick. We moved to Baltimore, from middle of nowhere to this big city, and Mom and Dad just had so much going on. I don’t blame them for prioritizing Ginny. We all did. But it didn’t exactly leave much room for me.”
I could see why he found it so easy to put himself on the back burner now.
He’d been trained to do it his whole life.
“Luckily, I had football,” he finished.
“It seems like you’re still close with some of your college friends,” I remarked. “I met Giana.”
He stilled at that, eyes widening. “Oh, God. What did she say? Did she talk about fucking tropes again?”
I laughed. “No, she told me where I could find you that day when you were meditating at the stadium.” I leaned back, tapping the island. “But now I kind of want to find her again and ask what the hell a trope is.”
“Trust me — you do not want to do that. Not if you don’t want an hour-long conversation that starts with tropes and ends in a place where she’s talking about why-choose and blue aliens.”
I blinked. “Oh yeah. I am definitely asking now.”
He shook his head, but a smile played at the corner of his lips. “You’d love her, honestly. You’d love the whole crew. We always try to get together around Christmas now that we live in separate states. Maybe you could join us.”
I startled. “Um… that would kind of defeat the whole sneaking around thing, wouldn’t it?”
Braden paused like he’d just realized his error. “Oh. Yeah. Of course.”
An awkward silence fell over us, just the gentle sounds of water boiling and chicken frying in the pan to keep us company.
“They are my best friends, though,” Braden said, shrugging. “I almost wonder if—”
His words were cut short by his phone ringing down the hall, and it was a very distinct ringtone — a song I hadn’t heard in years. “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder.
Braden cursed under his breath, checking everything in the kitchen with a quick sweep as if he was assessing if anything was urgent before he sprinted down the hall. He answered the phone as he was jogging back.
“Hey, sis.”
Sis.
My heart stalled in my chest, eyes widening as Braden rounded into the kitchen and flipped the chicken. He set the phone up against the edge of his backsplash so the camera was focused on him as he did so.
Hey, big brother. Nice shirt.
Braden chuckled as the automated voice came through, looking down at his bare chest.
Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s dangerous to cook without clothes on?
