Page 132 of Hard to Score

“You saw it?”

“Bits and pieces on the airplane.” I tilt my head to the side, completely consumed by the man in front of me and all that he makes me feel.

“Just bits and pieces?”

“Enough.”

“Huh.” He purses his lips.

“How did you know I was home?”

He shrugs. “Because this is our thing. I come here after a game or you sit on my porch in lingerie, and since you weren’t there . . . here I am.”

“Our thing?”

“Yeah. We have lots of things like that,” he says.

“We do?”

He nods. “Staring at the stars, spinning the bottle, initials on hands.”

“Oh,” I murmur. “I was kind of liking the initials on the helmet thing personally, but only saps do that.”

His grin grows from ear to ear as he steps into me, hands to my cheeks, and presses his lips to mine in a toe-tingling kiss that owns every part of me. “Then call me a sap, baby, because I’m all yours.”

“Is that so?” I ask and press a kiss to his lips in between every word.

“Completely.” He runs the backs of his fingers down my cheek while his eyes hold mine. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. There’s no one else’s initials I’d wear on my helmet.”

“Sorry, Ginnie Huber.” I’m still smiling when he kisses me again.

“She didn’t stand a chance against you.”

“No one ever did. It’s always been you for me, Dreadful Drew. There’s no one else I’d rather stare at the stars with.”

“I love you, Brexton Kincade. I know it took a long time to find you, to fight for this, but there is no other way I’d want it to be.”

And this time when he kisses me, he kicks the door shut behind him, and I know he’s home.

I know we’ve found our home—in each other.

I want to scream from the rooftop and tell every teenage girl waiting awkwardly in the corner for the hot guy to notice her that sometimes it happens.

And I want to shout out loud to every grown woman who has had her heart broken over and over that they need to just believe in love.

Because it happens.

Look at Drew and me.

It really happens.

EPILOGUE 1

DREW

FORGIVENESS IS A FUNNY THING.

It’s something you say you’d give easily but when the time comes, it feels like a glob of peanut butter stuck on your tongue that you have a hard time swallowing down. But you try and try again and then eventually you’re able to get it down entirely.