Quarterback Sneak (Red Zone Rivals #3)(56)

She didn’t want to feel the pain of losing someone she loved again.

For a moment, for that brief, late-night, dream-like moment where time didn’t exist and anything was possible, I could actually see it. I could picture it all perfectly, the life where we worked out.

But my stomach bottomed out in the next breath as reality crashed in and reminded me it never could.

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” Julep whispered, and the way she looked, I felt the need to apologize.

Before I could, she kissed me, dragging her nails up into my hair and then raking them down my back.

We didn’t speak another word after that.





Julep



My sister’s birthday was something I always felt creeping in long before the day actually came.

Every year after she died, I found myself drinking more when November rolled around. I’d reach for any drug I could find, avoid all responsibilities, and spend my time with pathetic losers who were mediocre, at best, in bed.

Anything that could numb the pain.

But the truth was that nothing had been able to, no matter what I tried. There was no drug that existed, no sex good enough. Days bled into nights that led me closer and closer to a date I’d never escape, one that reminded me what had been lost.

Of what I’d done.

I could never outrun the emotions, never escape the pain of losing her. I’d drill myself with excruciating questions like: Where would she be now, if she were alive? Would she be in college? Would she be traveling Europe with only a backpack and a notebook? Would she be in love?

They’d pelt me even harder when I attempted to go out or have fun. I’d be at a concert and feel guilty that she would never have the chance. Even shopping in the grocery store would bring me to my knees sometimes, the realization that Abby couldn’t be there doing the same.

Anxiety would spiral me deep, until I was in that bizarre state of awakening that you sometimes fall into when you realize that you’re really going to die one day. Only this wasn’t about me. It was about Abby, about how I’d never see her graduate high school, or college, or grad school. It was how I’d never know if she would have been married and had kids or if she would have lived a life of adventure.

I’d robbed her of it.

And her birthday served as a reminder every fall.

I could feel the weight of my dad’s eyes on me more than ever. Even as Holden played in his first two games since his injury and led us to back-to-back blowout wins at our home stadium, my dad only barely smiled before he was watching me, wondering if I was two seconds away from going off the rails.

I wish I knew the answer.

I still felt it there, that familiar, looming depression, but it was muddied, fainter than usual.

And I knew it was because of Holden.

I didn’t have time to think about Abby or anything else, not when all my thoughts were consumed with planning the next time I could sneak into his bed or him into mine.

It’d been two weeks now since the first time we gave in at the hotel, and I was deliciously sore from fucking every chance we’d had since then. In my bed when Mary was at work, in his shower late at night, in my car parked down a dark alley, against the back wall of the stadium when we couldn’t bear even an hour of being around each other without touching…

It didn’t matter how many times, how many places, or how many ways he took me.

I was insatiable when it came to Holden Moore.

I couldn’t even remember what it had been like to be annoyed by him, couldn’t reach far enough into my soul to find the shallow shell of a girl I’d been when I’d first come onto this campus.

He’d filled me with life, even when I hadn’t asked for it.

The only sobering thought that had plagued me all week was the reminder that this was all we could have. We could have quiet nights losing ourselves in each other and quick fucks in dark closets where no one would ever find out.

But that was where we began and ended.

It didn’t matter how Holden held me after, or how the baritone of his laugh rumbled through his chest where I laid my head as he told me about his childhood. It didn’t matter that I lit up with a smile every time I saw him, a smile that had been so hard to come by before I met him, or that he made jokes about what our kids would look like one day.

We both knew, deep down, that this was it.

The biggest, most glaring issue was of course that my father had made it clear from the first time I walked into the locker room that I was off limits. He’d threatened Holden and every other teammate that their career would be over if they crossed that line.

I knew, maybe even more than Holden did, how true that was.

My father didn’t sling threats without having the balls to back them up with action.

But while to Holden and every other guy on the team, they probably just saw it as a threat from an overbearing father, I knew better. I knew the real reason he drew those uncrossable lines.

It was because at the end of the day, he didn’t trust me.

Letting me live on my own and assigning me with his quarterback’s PT was one thing. A building block in trust, perhaps. But at the base of it all, he still worried I’d get caught up with a cocky athlete and lose myself again. He worried I’d fall off track, partying, cutting class, fucking every chance I got. In his mind, he’d already imagined a thousand ways that I would meet an early death just like Abby did.