Quarterback Sneak (Red Zone Rivals #3)(75)

“With me, too,” I said, and then I sighed, wiping her tears with my thumbs. “Come on, let me make us some tea.”

Julep let me slide my arm around the small of her back and guide her to the kitchen. She slid into a barstool at the small island while I opened cabinets until I found a box of herbal tea. I filled her electric kettle next, and once it was on to boil, I leaned a hip against the counter and turned back to her.

“He just doesn’t know us,” I said. “He doesn’t understand. Once we get him to see that we’re good for each other, he’ll re-evaluate.”

Julep didn’t look convinced.

She stared at a dark spot on the counter, not blinking.

It was too quiet, even as the water began to bubble and boil. I turned it off once it was ready, placing tea bags in two mugs and pouring the water over them. I handed one to Julep and kept one on the other side with me.

“Give it a few minutes to steep,” I said.

Julep wrapped her hands around the mug and nodded.

I had already been thinking of what we could do, trying to come up with a plan while he’d been over here with her. I saw it the same way I saw planting and tending to a new vegetable or flower. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I also knew nothing was impossible.

“I think we should invite him to dinner,” I finally said. “Maybe next weekend, with my uncles. Nathan can cook a big meal. He’ll see I’m from a good family, that I’m not just some punk trying to get in his daughter’s pants.”

“And find out I’ve already met your uncles behind his back?” Julep shook her head. “He’d feel duped.”

“Well, I’ll ask them to pretend like it’s their first time meeting you.”

“You’ll ask them to lie?”

“It’s not like that.”

“It is.”

“My uncles won’t care. They won’t see it like that,” I said. “They adore you, and they’ll want to help.”

Julep was silent.

I blew on my tea, dunking the bag a few times. “We don’t have to move so soon, if that’s what you’re afraid of. Let’s give him some time to cool off.”

“Holden—”

“Trust me, I know he’s pissed,” I said, a flash of his red face popping into the back of my mind. “But he was just caught off guard. We all were. Emotions are high.”

“I think we should call things off.”

I stilled, hand hovering with the string of the tea bag between my fingers as my eyes crawled up to meet hers. When I saw she was serious, panic seized my chest.

“We need to call it, Holden.”

She looked impossibly tired.

“Call it,” I echoed, not as a question but as a repetition to make sure I’d heard correctly. “I don’t want to call it. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not. But we don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Not this time, there isn’t.”

My heart thumped so loudly in my ears I could barely hear my own voice over it. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe not tonight, but we will.”

“There’s nothing to figure out. I mean… maybe…” She chewed her bottom lip. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

My ears started ringing then. “Don’t say that,” I whispered.

Her face warped a little, but she looked down at her hands, doing her best to control the emotion threatening to take her under. “You’re going into the NFL. What do we really expect to happen?”

“Julep, don’t.”

“It was nice, we had fun, but—”

I rounded the island and turned her in her barstool until she was facing me, my hands braced on either side of where she sat. I leaned down, waiting until her eyes met mine.

“Nice? It was nice?”

She tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t let her.

“Do not do this,” I begged her, my jaw set, nostrils flaring. “Do not push me away.”

“I don’t see any other way.”

“I do.”

“I know what he threatened you with,” she whispered, her eyes glossing.

I clamped my mouth shut, willing myself to breathe.

“He’s not bluffing,” she continued, her voice soft and resigned. “He will bench you. He will play Russo. You will lose everything that you’ve worked your entire life for.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, that’s part of the issue, then,” she snapped back, and she shoved my arm out of her way before standing and crossing the living room, her back to me as she folded her arms.

I stood rooted in place, trying to calm myself, to think clearly and not panic.

I was failing.

“Look, we had something real, Holden,” she said, using her thumb to wipe one loan tear. “And I care about you. But that’s exactly why we have to stop. You have a future that you dreamed of long before you even knew I existed. I don’t want to ruin that for you.”

“You’re not ruining it. You’re making it better.”

Her little shoulders collapsed, and I wanted so badly to pull her into me, to hold her and force her to see things my way. But when I took a step toward her, she took a step back.