I Promise You: Stand-Alone College Sports Romance(75)

“Prey?” I inquire.

“Football players,” Romy announces.

Nana coos, “Such adorable animals.”

“Are you all crazy?” I exclaim on a laugh.

“We prefer original, honey. And yes, we love all nature’s creatures—until we eat them.” Nana gives me a smirk just as an ostrich peeks in her window. It’s one of the smaller ones, about five feet tall. “Hey there, handsome. You’re a young one.” She smooches at him as he gobbles at her bucket of feed. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? You are, sweet birdie, and of course, I’d never eat you—”

She yelps when he nips at one of the floral accouterments on her hat then snatches it off her head. Betty barks, body quivering as she lunges toward the window. Her nails scrape at my door and Nana hollers, pulling Betty back in the car before she goes over. Frightened by the lunge or the dog, the ostrich darts a few feet away—hat in its beak.

In her haste, Nana’s knees bump the cupholder, and Bud Light overturns and pours out on the floor. “Oh, my beer—sorry, Dillon!” She shakes her head, in a tizzy, then calls out the window, “Bring my hat back!”

“Nana! You can’t get out of the car!” Serena yells when Nana tries to open her door. Thankfully, the child safety locks keep her in.

“Romy gave me the pin for my birthday! It’s a sweet memento, and I reckon I need all of those I can get at my age…” She swallows, a despondent look on her face.

“Alexa, play ‘Crazy Train’ by Ozzy,” Romy says, watching the ostrich as it prances with the hat, waving it in the air.

Well, hell.

I look at the ostrich. He’s only a few feet away, and his friends are on the other side of the car…

“I’ll get it,” I announce as I open the door and get out.

“Dillon!” Serena cries, reaching for me as I slam it closed. “Be careful!” she calls out the window then shoves her bucket at me. “Use this to distract him!”

I am not afraid of this bird, not his teeth or the rippling muscles of his carriage. He’s just a linebacker. Divert and grab. Watch for the blitz attack.

“Easy,” I say, stretching out my hand. I rattle the food around. He swings his head at me, gives me a beady look, and walks forward.

I yelp and back against the car. He stops, his long neck pivoting from me to Nana.

“Hey, little buddy, look at the nice chunky bits of brown. Come on, don’t you want a taste?” I barely manage to say.

Of you, his eyes reply.

“He wants the hat,” Nana says with a sigh. “It’s the pink. He wants the pink.”

Romy giggles.

People in the car behind us are yelling for me to get back in the car, and I tune them out. “Hand over the hat, buddy.”

He cocks his head, coming closer. Three more steps and I can reach—

His beak releases the hat to the road as he pecks at the bucket.

“Good, good. Alright, that’s right, keep eating…”

My body tenses as I kneel and swipe the hat with sweaty hands. In a rush, I fling the door open, jump inside, and slam it.

Cheers sound in the Escalade.

“You’re my hero!” Nana says as she pulls the hat out of my hand and plops it back on her head.

“I’m envisioning a cape, maybe a bird on your chest. Bird Whisperer? Ostrich Man? No?” Serena asks me.

I turn to look at the girls, seeing Nana as she smooches on Betty, Romy with her phone, still videoing—and Serena.

She laughs, and it feels as if there’s no one in the car but us. That thread between us tightens. The world stops, then restarts.

Anxiety crawls under my skin, warning me that I’m going to screw this up.

With a deep sigh, I tear my eyes away from her and focus on the road.





“Why here?” Serena asks me as she spreads the blanket out on the ground. She sits and crosses her legs, her face upturned. She’s wearing one of my practice shirts and a pair of frayed shorts.

I sit next to her and grab her feet, slipping them out of her flip-flops. “Why do you think?” After the safari park, we escaped to her apartment and took a shower together. Then I suggested an excursion of my own.

“Mmmm, that feels good.” She leans her head back as my thumbs dig into the arch of her foot.

“This is where we met,” she says up to the darkening sky.

I tilt my head to the meadow where the students congregated in front of the band. “You were dancing to the left, over there. I stood on the sidelines and watched.”

She crawls over to me and lays her head in my lap. Our eyes cling, and we grow quiet, taking in the cool October breeze. Peace. Calm.

“What are you thinking about?”

I run my fingers through her hair. “Myles. He loved the outdoors. Boy Scout. He wanted to be a geologist.”

She touches my leather cuff. “This is his?”

I start in surprise as I glance down at the quartz embedded in the material. “No, but I bought it with him in mind.”

“You loved him very much.”

I look off into the trees. “We were total opposites. He was quiet and reserved. I was the extrovert. Once, the nanny took us to the doctor for our checkups. He goes in the waiting room, sits in the play area, and builds a castle with blocks. She never needed to reprimand him, tell him to sit down, or be polite. Me? I ran through that place like a tornado, tore down his castle, made some little girl cry, then had a pee accident in my shorts and announced it to everyone.