Quarterback Sneak (Red Zone Rivals #3)(22)

“Is it still like that now?”

Her eyes were dark when she faced me again, but in lieu of answering, she shook her head and nodded toward the flowers we’d just planted. “What got you into this? I don’t know a single grown man who gardens, let alone one in college.”

Without hesitation, I answered, “My sister.”

I didn’t know why it came out so easily, especially when her asking about my CDs just two days prior had made me clam up. Maybe there was something about that morning, about her helping me that set me at ease.

“Well, not just my sister,” I amended, grabbing the back of my neck. “It was a family thing. My mom was the one who was good at it. She had the greenest thumb,” I said, smiling at the memory of Mom always being covered in dirt, stains on the knees of her overall jeans and grime under her nails. She used to wear this red bandana in her hair to hold it out of her face, and on Hannah’s eighth birthday, Mom got her one just like it. “But she taught me and Hannah what she could. Even Dad helped out, taking on the weeds and such.”

There was something hollow in Julep’s gaze when she said, “Sounds like you’re the All-American family.”

“We were.”

Julep arched a brow, and my mouth suddenly felt dry. I wondered if there was a possibility she actually didn’t know my story, given that it was one every sports channel loved to cover — especially as I approached the draft. If anything, she had to have heard it from the training staff, from her father.

But the longer she stared at me, confused, the more I doubted that she knew a single thing. And suddenly, it felt like I’d been stripped bare in front of her, like I was standing completely naked under her scrutinizing gaze while she waited for me to tell her about my biggest scar.

I swallowed. “Sorry, I… I just assumed you knew.”

“Knew what?” She frowned, folding her arms over her chest.

There was never an easy way to tell this story. In fact, I felt as if I’d almost become… cold with it. Detached. “My dad and sister disappeared when I was thirteen,” I explained. “And my mom took her life a year later.”

For a moment, shock colored Julep’s face, her eyes widening as her mouth parted just the slightest bit. But it happened quickly, almost so quick I wondered if I’d seen it at all before something else washed over her.

It wasn’t pity, which I was used to, or sorrow or anger, or that look I saw in some girls’ eyes when they thought, “Ah, this is it. He’s let me in. This is my way to his heart.”

No, it was… soft, subdued, and a distinct kind of sad.

Understanding.

It was the look of someone who truly understood.

“Disappeared?”

I nodded. “We had a little sailboat, and my sister… she loved to sail with Dad. They took it out one day when the forecast was clear, but…”

I shrugged, not having to finish the sentence. Julep was smart enough to figure it out.

“Your uncles,” she said, skipping over the traditional I’m sorry I was so used to hearing after revealing the truth about my past. “They took you in, didn’t they?”

I nodded. “The summer before I started high school. They moved me from Florida up here with them.”

“I thought he was your dad before you told me,” she said.

I smiled. “They look a lot alike.”

Julep bit her bottom lip, looking down at where she held my gardening gloves in her hands. Those haunted eyes that mirrored mine flashed with a ghost of her own.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head, swallowing, and still she clamped her teeth down on that bottom lip like if she let go of it, she’d tell me what was wrong.

Like it would be the end of the world if she did.

“You know loss, too, don’t you?” I asked — softly, carefully.

But not careful enough.

Julep sucked in a shallow breath like she was drowning in a memory and my question had pulled her up for her first breath. She shoved my gardening gloves into my chest.

“I have to go,” she said, words tumbling out in a rush, and then she turned and darted across the back yard.

She was through the gate before I could say another word.

OceanofPDF.com





Holden



We had a home game the Saturday after my injury.

We lost.

Not for our lack of trying, because the team was phenomenal on the field. Offense converted when they could, defense held our opponents from too many points. My backup, Blake Russo, had been kicking his ass to learn the new playbook this season just as much as I had. He had been ready to go the last two seasons just in case something like this happened, and I appreciated that he took it seriously when the time came.

They all did good.

It just wasn’t good enough.

Even though we only lost by seven, a loss was a loss, and we all felt the weight of it as we moved into the next week. Fortunately, it was the week I could actually start working on rehab, on getting my shoulder back to normal.

I hadn’t been as optimistic as Julep had been when I first got injured. Memories of my major tear and the surgery that went along with it wouldn’t let me be. But as we worked through the first bit of rehab, the stretching and isometric strengthening — I was surprised at how good I felt.