The Redo (Winslow Brothers #4) (61)

Sean flips Mitchell the middle finger behind his back and feigns a pout at Lexi. “C’mon, Lex. How you gonna do me like that? Double-covered or not, you know I got the skills, girl.”

“I think what our girl is saying here, Phillips, is that you’re going to have to get your cocky as—I mean, butt in gear today, bro,” Teeny comments, still holding Lexi on his shoulders.

Of course, my niece just shrugs, stone-faced and not affected in the least. The girl lives and breathes numbers and the kind of mathematical concepts most grown-ass adults can’t comprehend. If these fuckers weren’t ready to hear the hard truth, they shouldn’t have asked.

Quinn Bailey, the Mavs’ QB, reaches up to take Lexi off Teeny’s shoulders and squats down to converse with her face-to-face. “What do you think, Lex? Are my guys going to pull out a W today?”

“Philadelphia’s defense is going to be tough.” She taps her fingers to her chin. “They’re averaging four sacks per game, and when they played Seattle, they shut down touchdowns and only allowed two field goals. They started out the season in second to last place, and they’re coming off a three-game rally. Rallies have a statistical tendency to give an advantage.”

Quinn just grins. “So…what you’re telling me is that we need to come to play.”

She nods, and Quinn reaches out to place both hands on her shoulders.

“Don’t worry, Lex. We’ve come to play.”

The smallest hint of a smile crests her lips as Bailey stands up to face the rest of the team.

“Ain’t that right, boys?” he shouts at the top of his lungs. “We came to play!”

“Hell yeah! Fuck Philly!”

Just as my brother-in-law Wes walks in through a door on the opposite side from the one we entered, the team starts chanting “Fuck Philly” in perfect synchrony. He shakes his head on a laugh and walks over to Lex and me.

“You brought my daughter down here to listen to my idiot football players drop f-bombs?”

“This is an important part of the pregame.” Lex rolls her eyes for what feels like the one-hundredth time today, and I just shrug on a laugh as I reach out to shake Wes’s hand.

“She insisted, man. Pretty much refused to go to our seats without stopping in the locker room first. Not to mention, she said you let her do this.”

“Oh, she said that, did she?” Wes grins at Lexi. “I guess I should just be thankful you chose to come down after they’re mostly dressed.”

“You and me both.”

I glance down at Lexi, figuring she has some kind of response to that ready to fly from her lips, but I notice she’s no longer paying attention to us. Instead, her eyes are busy looking around the locker room, taking in each player as they finish getting ready for the game. I know whatever she’s doing, she’s doing it with a point, so I don’t bother interrupting.

“Where’s Winnie?” I ask Wes instead, and his smile is both exasperated and amused.

“Probably in the PT room, making sure everyone’s getting taped up exactly how she prefers.”

I smirk. “Isn’t that a physical therapist’s job?”

“You’d think since we hired one of the best physical therapists in the damn country, she’d be able to relax a little, but you know Win. She likes to keep the reins tight.”

“I trust you know this from experience?” I tease. “My sister keeping you on a short leash?”

Wes just chuckles, too far gone in love with my sister to even think twice about my jab. “She can keep me on as short of a leash as she wants.”

Back in the day, when Winnie first started dating Wes Lancaster, I was suspicious. Hell, I wasn’t easy on him at all. But she’s my baby sister, and I’d seen the bullshit she’d been put through in the past. Her relationship with Lexi’s biological dad was real fucking rocky up until a few years ago.

“You know, back in the day, Jude and Ty would’ve given you some serious shit about that comment, but now that they’re in the same sappy fucking state of love as you, I think I’m the only one left to comment.”

Wes waggles his brows. “And don’t you think it’s time to fix that, Rem?”

“He will,” Lexi chimes in, and I look down at her in surprise.

“Excuse me?”

“Your personality shows traits of being a thoughtful caretaker, especially to the females in your life. Psychologically speaking, in order for you to feel fully content, you need to find a partner who not only makes you happy but whom you feel like you can take care of. It’s a prosocial behavior that is considered a positive personality aspect by psychologists most of the time. However, it can also be considered negative if it leads to burnout, stress, and self-sabotaging coping mechanisms.”

“I’m sorry…what?” I question, just as Wes snorts.

“Lex, have you been reading your mom’s old med school textbooks?”

“Yes,” she answers matter-of-factly. “Lately, I’ve been finding human behavior and psychology incredibly stimulating.” She looks up at me and pats my arm. “Uncle Rem, most psychologists would say your biggest obstacle in finding a potential partner is that you need to find someone whom you want to take care of out of love but not obligation, and someone whom you will let take care of you, too. There needs to be a balance in relationships.”