Page 51 of Tangled with the Tight End

“You didn’t pay attention to me?” I ask her.

“I know. Shocker, right?” She laughs.

“Honestly, yes. I’m a little shocked. Maybe slightly offended.” I’m mostly joking.

I did have scouts visiting and an agent already by the time I was a junior in high school—thanks to my dad. But why would Winona have tracked me in high school? She was two years younger and we didn’t really cross paths. She doesn’t follow sports—obviously.

“I was born with really big arms,” I say, just to mess with her.

“Your poor mother.” She shakes her head and I can’t tell if she believes me or she’s just playing along.

“I’m kidding, Winona.”

“I know, Declan.” She says my name with a teasing note to it, but there’s warmth there.

I’ve started looking forward to the hours she’s here more than any other hours in the day. I’m a private person. I have a few close friends on the team and my family. I found out a long time ago that people aren’t always what they seem. As soon as fame enters the equation, you can never quite tell what a person’s motives are for wanting to be near you.

Winona’s an exception.

She’s fully and wholeheartedly unimpressed by me—except my biceps. She likes those. But even that isn’t usual. She’s not staring at me like I’m a piece of meat on a butcher rack. She’s curious—intrigued. Definitely not attracted.

Is that weird? Unfortunately, yes.

I don’t usually meet women who are immune to me.

It’s … refreshing. And unnerving.

I think, given time, we could even be friends.

We’d have one of those friendships you see on the Nature Channel where a hippo and a lion become besties and lay in the tall grass together. One should be the predator, the other the prey. But somehow they met at the right time and circumstances made them drop their guards and now they have this connection …

“Declan?”

“Yeah?”

“I was asking if you know how the Thunder did in their game.”

“Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about … the Nature Channel.”

“You were … ?”

“Yeah. Never mind. We won. They won. We … won.”

“I’d go with we,” she says easily. “You’re still on the team. You’re just … benched?”

“Not quite. Benched is when the coach decides you don’t go on the field to play. I’m on injured reserve.”

“What are they reserving you for?”

I chuckle. “It’s just the term they use.”

She mutters, “Of course it is.”

The doorbell rings, the palatial tones sound through the hallway, bouncing off the tall ceilings and slick floors.

“I’ll get it,” Winona offers while I snag my phone out of the box she brought me to pull up the app.

I stare at the box for a beat.