Misadventures of a College Girl (Misadventures #9)(50)

I stroke his forearm, at a loss about what to do. “I’m so sorry.”

Tyler takes a deep, shuddering breath and gets himself under control. “To this day, I hate myself for what I put my mom through in the end. She was in horrible pain, and I didn’t ease her pain. I added to it.” He turns to look at me. He blinks and the tears pooled in his eyes course down his cheeks. “I’ll never forgive myself for the things I said. And worse, the things I didn’t say.”

I put my palm on his beautiful face. Wipe his tears. “You didn’t need to say a thing to her, Tyler. She knew.”

He looks down. “That’s what my sister always says.”

“She’s right.”

He doesn’t reply.

“No wonder you and your sister are so close.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without my sister. She’s always been the one who’s taken care of me. Certainly not my dad.”

“Why not your dad? He was grieving?”

“He couldn’t function for about a year after Mom died.” He pauses. “And then he found the thing to get him out of bed again. I got selected for this junior elites football team in Dallas, and he found his reason for being. And so did I. Every time I played, I knew I was saving my dad’s life. Plus, I could hear my mom cheering me on. It was awesome.”

“Your mom knew football?”

He nods. “Her dad was a college coach. It was in her blood. She’s the one who knew I was born to be a defensive player, not my dad. Dad always thought I should be a quarterback, but Mom said, nope, I was born to hit. One day she told me I should think about being a free safety and I was like, ‘But, Mom, the quarterback is the guy in charge.’ And she goes, ‘Honey, the free safety is the quarterback of the defense. He’s the one secretly in charge. It’s the defense that actually wins football games, despite appearances.’ And then she showed me that famous video of Atwater taking down Okoye, and I never looked back.”

“What video?”

“You know, the one where Steve Atwater puts that legendary hit on Christian Okoye?”

I look at him blankly. “I don’t think I’ve seen that one.”

“What?” He’s absolutely appalled. “Jesus Christ, Zooey, did you grow up under a rock?”

I laugh. “Yeah, with Babar.”

Tyler pulls out his phone and quickly finds the video he’s talking about—the Atwater-Okoye hit of 1990. “It’s only the greatest hit by a free safety in the history of the game,” he says. “Maybe even the greatest hit, period. Check it out.”

I look at Tyler’s phone and watch a guy in a Bronco uniform—the mystery player on Tyler’s wall, I immediately realize!—putting a monster hit on a running back for the Chiefs that instantly lays him out cold. “Ooph,” I say, grimacing. “That had to have left a mark on poor Okoye.”

Tyler tosses his phone onto the driver’s seat in front of us. “To this day, I watch that hit before every game. Usually twice.”

I stroke Tyler’s arm. “I believe with all my heart your mom watches that video along with you. And cheers you on through every down of every game.”

Tyler smiles. “I believe that, too. Same with your mom. She’s there with you every time you open your mouth and unleash that angelic voice of yours.”

Oh, God, my heart is bursting with love for Tyler in this moment. “Tyler?” I say quietly.

He looks at me expectantly.

“Thank you for this magical night.” I put my hand on my heart. “I’ll never forget it.”

Tyler pulls gently on a lock of my hair, releases it, and watches it bounce and re-coil. “Zooey, I’ll remember this night—and the way you’re looking at me right now—as long as I live.”





Chapter Thirty-One





Tyler and I are standing at the front of our Modernizing Shakespeare class, our palms pressed together. My stomach is turning somersaults. My pulse is pounding in my ears.

“O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do,” Tyler says, his blue eyes glinting from behind his mask. “They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.”

“Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake,” I reply, gazing deeply into Tyler’s blue eyes.

“Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take,” Tyler says. He cups my cheek in his free hand, leans in, and kisses me.

Oh, thank God. Tyler is smooching me precisely the way I insisted he do it. With not so much heat that everyone will know we’re having sex. But with enough heat to convey Romeo’s white-hot attraction to Juliet.

Now, just to be clear, if I were Tyler’s girlfriend, I wouldn’t mind the whole world knowing he’s been screwing me. In fact, I’d take great pleasure in everyone knowing I’m the girl who somehow managed to snag God’s Gift to Womankind for my very own. But under the present circumstances, when I’m figuring it’s fifty-fifty Tyler and I are about to become “friends and nothing more” any minute now, I have zero desire to set myself up to look like Tyler Caldwell’s fuck buddy today and pitiful cast-off tomorrow.

Tyler pulls out of our kiss and looks longingly at me. “Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.”