The Crush (27)

We left the football field and gathered back at the house.

Parker and Emmett turned on some game film. Cameron opened his laptop at the dining room table so he and Greer could get some work done. Mom was at the grocery store, and I got caught up on emails while Tim offered some commentary on the games being watched.

“We watching the D-line?” Tim asked.

Emmett nodded, stretching his arm over the back of the couch. His hand was inches away from me. Maybe less. My knee started bouncing.

“They beat us last because we were never able to stop the blitz,” he said. “Because our receiving core was so stacked last year, it should’ve been easier to adjust, but the offensive line couldn’t hold up.”

He paused it, leaning forward as he pointed something out to Parker. “See it there?”

My brother nodded. “He should’ve blocked the inside rusher. You probably lost three seconds in the pocket because of that.”

“I saw stars after that sack,” Emmett said with a wry smile.

He started the recording again, and I watched with my stomach in knots as Emmett got completely leveled by the defensive back. “I can’t believe he didn’t get ejected.”

Emmett gave me a quick sideways glance. “He didn’t lead with his helmet.”

Semantics, rules, blah, blah. “Still. It looked like targeting. Don’t we care about concussions anymore?”

Parker coughed. “Feeling a little protective, are we?”

I narrowed my eyes in his direction.

Emmett shifted restlessly on the couch.

There was a cushion between us, but his fingers dangled just beyond the back of my head. At one point, there was the ghost of a touch along the ends of my hair. My eyes closed, and my hand tightened up in a fist on my thigh. Emmett let out a slow breath.

“Didn’t your new owner just trade one of your offensive linemen for a higher draft pick?” Tim asked.

Parker mumbled something under his breath about listening to idiots who had no place making roster decisions.

Emmett smiled slightly, but I couldn’t read anything in it. “He did.”

I scoffed. “That was stupid. You got sacked like forty times last year. He should be adding to it, not taking anyone away.”

The moment Emmett turned toward me, satisfaction roaring in his deep blue eyes, I realized my mistake.

“Thirty-seven,” he corrected smugly. “But I didn’t realize you were watching that closely.”

Blowing out a short breath, I stood quickly from the couch. “I need to go … work. Somewhere else.”

Emmett’s low, amused chuckle followed me out of the family room.

“Smooth,” Greer said as I passed the dining room table and bolted up the stairs.





Emmett



The sound of Adaline’s feet on the steps still echoed in the room when Greer plopped onto the couch, settling onto her side where she could pin me with eyes eerily similar to her sister’s. “I feel like I should have a conversation with you, quarterback.”

Parker sighed.

Tim glanced over. “What about?”

Greer’s attention never strayed from my face. “We’re going to talk about why he’s here and what he’s going to do next.”

“He’s … he’s here to visit Parker, right?”

“It’s cute that some people in this family believe that story,” Greer said.

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought you kids would get less exhausting as you got older, but I was very, very wrong.”

“What would you like to talk about?” I asked. “Because your brother did invite me here.”

“Parker did not invite you this weekend,” Parker piped in. “Parker extended a blanket invite over a year ago, and you invited yourself, Ward.”

Tim sighed. “Should I leave the room?”

Cameron piped up from the table. “Do you want to hear about your adult children’s sex life?”

“Not even a little,” Tim said. He stood from the worn brown chair, giving a weary glance around the room. “Your mom is always gone when things like this come up.”

“She’d leave the room too,” Greer said with a grin.

Cameron stood. “Dad, I’ll come with you because I’d still like to have an appetite for dinner.”

“Can I leave too?” Parker asked.

“No,” Greer and I answered in unison.

It was fascinating because her answering grin was quick and amused, so much like Adaline’s. They were similarly built. Same hair and eyes and smile. Greer was smart and driven, undeniably beautiful. But nothing about her caused even the slightest flicker of interest.

And no matter what she was about to ask me, I wasn’t worried. All the times I’d been around Adaline in the past, it was in my world. My house. My family.

These were the people who knew her, and I could use some of that right now.

Nothing was going the way I’d planned. Not since the moment I saw her. But despite that, there was no panic welling low in my stomach, no frustrated itch to push too hard on that invisible barrier Adaline erected when we sat on the swings.

Cameron gathered his laptop and the rolled-up construction plans he’d had spread over the table. “Be nice, Greer,” he warned.