Quarterback Sneak (Red Zone Rivals #3)(65)

“When my mom…” Emotion strangled me, but I swallowed it down. “When she took her life, when she left me alone because she couldn’t handle the pain of losing my dad and Hannah, I didn’t see a point to football anymore. I didn’t see a point to anything.”

Julep squeezed where her hand rested on my forearm that held her to me.

“I was a ghost when my uncle Kevin came and got me, when he brought me here to New England. For months, I barely spoke to him, barely ate, barely showered. I didn’t try out for the football team, no matter how he begged me. But one day, when it was the perfect kind of gray fall day for playing ball, he dragged me down to the park and made me play catch with him. He told me if I would just throw the ball for an hour, he’d leave me alone.

“I was annoyed at first. I dragged my feet on the way there and I threw the ball lopsidedly like a little kid having a hissy fit. But after a while… something came back to me. I found myself breathing easier for the first time since Mom left. I felt the closest thing to joy I could manage. Uncle Kevin didn’t say a word, didn’t try to talk to me or give me any kind of therapy. But with that one simple hour in the park, he reminded me of something I’d forgotten.”

Julep angled her head a bit toward me, like she wanted to know.

“That I love life. I love my life. I love my mom, even if she hurt me by leaving. And I love my dad and my sister. I loved having the family that I had, the life that I had — even if it was ripped from me too soon. I love my uncle. I love that despite everything he had going on in his own life, it wasn’t too much for him to sacrifice a little more and do everything he could to help me. And what really hit me in that moment was that I remembered I love football. I love football. And just like pole saved you, it was the game that saved me.”

I was quiet for a long while, and Julep turned in my arms until she was facing me again. She didn’t have to say a word for me to see that she was thankful I’d shared that with her, that I’d shown that she wasn’t alone in feeling the way she did.

My throat tightened the longer I looked into her eyes, the more my fingers trailed through her silky hair. And then my heart spoke before I could consider whether it was better or not to muzzle it.

“I want to be with you.”

Julep’s bottom lip trembled, and a tear leaked out of the corner of her eye and down over the pillowcase.

“I see you, everything that you are, and I’ve never needed anything more in my life. And don’t say we can’t,” I warned her when she opened her mouth. “I know the risk. I know. But… maybe, if we can show him how good we are together, your dad will understand.”

Julep’s face lit up a little with an amused curl of her lips, the first I’d seen in twenty-four hours at least. “You don’t know my father.”

“I don’t, that’s true,” I conceded. “But I’m starting to know you. And I want to know more.”

Julep sighed.

“Please, just think ab—”

“Would you let me speak?”

She smiled a little with the question, shaking her head before she cuddled into me more.

“I want to be with you, too.”

Relief smacked into me, and I pulled her into me and kissed her while she laughed against my lips. But then she pressed her palm into my chest.

“But…”

I groaned. “No, no buts. Except this one,” I added, squeezing her ass.

She rolled her eyes. “But I want to wait until after the season to tell anyone. Especially my dad. He’s already stressed out enough as it is, and I think if we stand any chance of getting him to understand, to be okay with this… we need to wait until he’s in a better headspace. Until he’s not in Coach mode.”

I considered, chest tightening with how much I hated the thought of waiting at least another two months to claim Julep the way I really wanted to.

But she was saying yes.

She was saying she wanted me, too.

In the end, that was all that mattered to me.

“Okay,” I conceded. “With one exception.”

Julep arched a brow. “Are we in negotiations now?”

I smiled, sweeping her hair behind her ear. I let my thumb rest there against her jaw, smoothing over the bone.

“I want you to meet my uncles.”

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Julep



“Julep, you tramp!”

I barked out a laugh at the exclamation, even more so when Nathan swatted Kevin for saying it.

“Don’t be a sore loser,” Nathan said, sliding a domino from his hand across the table. He played it where I had just played the one that had elicited the insult from his husband.

“I’ll be whatever kind of loser I want to be, thank you,” Kevin said, glaring at me as he took a domino from the draw pile. He pouted a little more when he had to draw another, but on the third one, he was able to play. “And I’m more salty than sore. It’s not fair that this girl is beating us this badly her first time in our home.”

He winked at me then, and I smiled, looking down at my hand as Holden debated where to play. Soft jazz music crooned from the speaker in the kitchen. We were in the final round of a heated game of chicken foot.

It was safer for me to look at my hand than it was to look across the table at Holden. Every time I did, my ovaries nearly exploded. We’d been at his uncles’ house for almost two hours now, and his baby cousin had been in his arms nearly the entire time. She was the size of maybe two footballs, and he cradled her just the same — casually, effortlessly, as if she belonged there.