Quarterback Sneak (Red Zone Rivals #3)(73)

I scrubbed a hand over my jaw, shaking my head and biting my tongue. Clearly, it was useless to even attempt to argue.

Coach stared at me a long moment, and then said, “You’re on probation.”

Fear sliced through me like an ice pick. “What does that mean?”

“It means leave her alone, or I play Russo in the playoffs and call every scout still interested in your sorry ass and tell them your shoulder injury flared up again.”

“You can’t be fucking serious.” I gaped at him, incredulous, unable to believe what I was hearing. “If you would just let me talk—”

“I don’t have to let you do anything, including play,” he roared, his face beet red. “Try me, Moore. I dare you. I dare you to call my bluff. If I so much as see you look at my daughter, your ass will be on that bench come bowl day.”

My nose flared, and I tongued the inside of my cheek as I shook my head in disbelief.

“Let. Her. Go,” Coach finished, swiping his jacket off the back of the couch. He shrugged one arm on and then the other as he headed for the door. “Or kiss your career goodbye.”





Julep



I was living my own worst nightmare.

Mary watched me like I was a wild animal as I paced the living room, hands tearing at my hair, thumbnails chewed to the nub, eyes constantly skating to the house across the street where I knew my father was ripping Holden a new asshole.

I wished with everything that I was that he would have talked to me first.

I wished I could explain. I wished I could take the heat, take the blame for everything and spare whatever discipline he was dishing out to his quarterback right now. Because I knew it would be severe. I knew this wasn’t a crime that would go unpunished.

For either of us.

“Would you please just… sit down?” Mary pleaded. I’d put her on edge since I’d barged through the door. “Here, hit the bowl.”

She offered the glass pipe packed with marijuana to me, but I shook my head and looked across the street again. “Bad idea. Especially right now.”

“It would take the edge off.”

“It’s that edge that’ll keep me alive when he comes over here ready to fight,” I told her. Then I cursed and shook my head. “God, how could we be so stupid? We knew better. We knew he was inside. Why did we think we were so fucking sneaky that he wouldn’t see us both walk out?”

“That boy has fried your brain,” Mary mused, sparking her lighter and hitting the bowl. Smoke rolled out of her lips as she added, “I tried to tell you to stay away from that house.”

“Not helping,” I told her.

She shrugged. “I’m not trying to help. Maybe it’s a good thing this happened.”

“What the hell, Mary?”

“Look — that whole team is trouble. What did you honestly think was going to happen? Holden Moore is about to be drafted into the NFL. He’s going to have pussy coming at him from every direction.”

“He doesn’t care about that.”

“Like hell he doesn’t. He’s a man.” She laughed. “And I hate to break this to you, but before you showed up? Holden Moore had plenty of tail. He had a new girl in his bed every other week. I’m not denying that you two had fun while he was here, but did you ever stop to think that maybe you were a conquest for him?”

I stopped pacing.

“He couldn’t have you. He was told from the start that he couldn’t. But he went after you anyway, relentlessly. Who’s to say that come the end of the year, he wouldn’t just mark you off his to-do list and move on to the next in the league?”

“You don’t know anything about him if you think that is even a remote possibility.” I shook my head, even as my anxiety latched onto what she said like a life raft. Holden and I hadn’t talked about what comes next — mostly because we’d been too focused on keeping whatever we did have going on a secret. “Why do you hate them all so much, anyway? What happened with Leo?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She waved me off, and then sighed. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t know Holden, and maybe I am judging him too harshly. But I also think you have been floating on a cloud and ignoring any and all risk ever since you two stopped playing games and gave into each other. You dropped your guard completely.”

I couldn’t argue that, and before I even had the chance to process what she was saying, our front door flew open, and my father blew in like a storm.

He looked at me, slammed the door behind him, then looked at Mary.

“Nice to see you, Mr. Lee,” she muttered, and then she hopped off the couch. “I’m just gonna…” She pointed at the stairs, then gave me a sympathetic look and bolted up them.

My heart was in my throat when I looked back at my father.

He pointed to the couch, telling me to sit without verbalizing, and then he took my place pacing the living room — though he was slower, his breathing more controlled than mine. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I knew without looking that it was Holden. Everything in me burned to read the text, to see what he said, what had happened between them.

“It’s over, Julep.”

Dad’s words smacked into me. “What is?”