Quarterback Sneak (Red Zone Rivals #3)(29)

His mouth twitched, and he nodded.

A moment of silence passed between us, the music thumping loud from inside as a couple tumbled out through the back sliding door. They glanced at us for only a second before the guy threw his arm around the girl and led her around the dark side of the house.

“I kind of like seeing you a little disgruntled and sad.”

Holden puffed a laugh. “Gee, thanks.”

“I mean it. You’re always so… happy,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “So calm and steady and sure.”

“You know, you almost had as much disdain in your voice when you said that as when you commented on how many friends I have.”

I smiled a bit. “I don’t know… I guess I just don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?”

I swallowed. “How you can be so happy after what you told me last week… what happened to your family.”

Holden stiffened, the grip around his cup making it creak in his hands. That seemed to snap him out of wherever his mind was trying to take him, and he sniffed, draining the last of his beer before setting the cup under the bench.

“Well, the alternative is to stop living my life,” he said simply, turning to face me with those wide, endless green eyes. “And I owe it to them and to myself not to do that.”

The words were quiet, raspy around the edges as they floated over the space between us. And still, they hit me like a stampede of horses, each one trampling me even more into the hard ground.

Abby’s smile flashed in my mind, her head tilted back on a laugh. And I swore I heard the sound of it, heard the sing-song lullaby of it that everyone around her found so endearing.

I was lost in that thought when Holden nudged my knee with his. He must have noticed, must have seen it in my own eyes where those words had taken me.

I didn’t like that he could see it, what I so easily hid from others.

His brows bent together, and he leaned toward me just marginally, mouth opening like he was ready to ask me where I’d gone.

But I tore my gaze away, nodding toward the cucumbers. “Looks like you’ve got a few more ready to harvest.”

Holden watched the side of my face a moment, like he was trying to will me back to the moment he’d lost. But eventually, he followed my gaze, and out of my peripheral I saw him smile a little.

“Is that you giving me permission to garden?”

I rolled my eyes.

“These will probably be the last ones,” he commented, eyes trailing over the trellis. “It’s a good thing I have football in the fall and winter, because there’s not much to be done back here once the weather turns.”

Something washed over him then, and I realized it the moment it touched his eyes — it was worry, fear.

That he wouldn’t have football this year, either.

“You should share with your neighbors, you know,” I said. “It’s the friendly thing to do.”

“You want some cucumbers?”

“Tomatoes, too.”

He nodded, then smirked like a little kid before he said, “I’ll pick out the biggest cucumber for you. One that’s nice and thick, long…”

I rolled my eyes so hard my eyelids fluttered as I turned away from him, shaking my head.

“What?” he asked on a laugh he couldn’t contain.

“Do you ever get tired of making jokes like a twelve-year-old boy?”

“No, because it’s the only way I get a rise out of you.”

“You could try normal conversation.”

“You usually shut me down when I do.”

I turned to face him fully, shoulders back and chin tilted up. “Try me,” I said. “Tell me something real.”

“Something real?”

I nodded.

Holden’s eyes flicked between mine, his tongue swiping out to wet his bottom lip just marginally before he turned toward me just as earnestly. “Okay,” he said, and then he leaned in close, jaw set. “I haven’t been able to take my eyes off you since the moment you walked through that door tonight.”

My breath hitched.

I felt it, stuck somewhere between an inhale and an exhale, and yet I couldn’t reach for either one.

Holden didn’t waver, didn’t back down. His eyes continued searching mine, and I saw the challenge in them, the dare for me not to run. And part of me wanted to lean in. Part of me wanted to meet that challenge.

But the instinct was too strong.

I finally found an exhale, lilting it into a laugh as I broke eye contact and stood. “God, you’re so patronizing.”

I took a step toward the house, but before I could take another, Holden stood, his calloused hand slipping into the crook of my elbow and spinning me to face him. We were so close my chest met his, and I kept my gaze on the zipper of his pullover for fear of looking up, fear of meeting his gaze I felt burning down at me.

“Stop trying to laugh me off,” he said, voice reverberating through my ribcage. “And look at me when I tell you how enamorating you are.”

“That’s not a word.”

“It is now,” he argued. “And it was made for you.”

I swallowed as his knuckles found my chin and lifted it, causing my gaze to meet his. As if that touch didn’t burn already, his fingers uncurled, palm cupping my cheek. He followed the movement of his fingers as they drew a line along my jaw, traced the outline of my lips, and finally swept gently underneath my eye, as if he was trying to erase the tiredness he saw there.