Page 27

CHAPTER 27

blue

“ M mmm,” Anna moaned, as her tongue traced over my bottom lip. She shoved me backward onto the couch. I made no effort to fight her. Just happily fell over and took her with me. We’d both made it through finals and we were celebrating with the world’s hottest make-out session, right there in her family’s living room with only the glow of the TV and the colored lights of their Christmas tree.

I got four whole days to spend with her. I didn’t want to waste a minute of it. Lemon, Silas, and the boys were sound asleep in their beds, down the hall. Anna and I had tried watching a movie. But we hadn’t made it five minutes before our hands were all over each other. Along with our mouths.

She tugged on my bottom lip with her teeth.

“You’re killing me,” I said against her mouth.

She giggled. “I know. It’s so fun.”

I flipped us sideways, tucking her between my chest and the back of the couch. Her leg hooked over my hip and she shoved her hands into my hair. My hands were smashed between her back and the cushions. I told myself the fact that I could very distinctly feel her ribs was normal. It had been back when she was fourteen and she’d just lost her mom. She hadn’t been this thin a month ago. Not even close. Anna was a stress starver. When life got to be too much, she lost her appetite. She was anxious about something.

“The hashtag finally died, right?” I breathed when I came up for air. I knew it had. I kept a diligent eye on her social media since she refused to delete her accounts.

“Yes. Just shut up and kiss me.” She crashed her mouth over mine.

Her back arched and she pushed closer, her chest smashed against me. My fingers kept stopping when they landed on her bra hook. Feeling it there under her shirt was complete torture. All I had to do was slip my hand under her shirt, unhook it, and…

I groaned, balling her shirt in my fists.

How was I doing this for two and a half more years? Anna still wanted to wait until she was done with her vet tech degree.

Mind over matter. As long as you’ve got a future with her, you can do anything. I knew it was true. I was the third best QB in the nation. I hadn’t earned it without grit and determination. I spread my fingers wide against her mid back, pulling her closer.

And that’s when I felt it.

I didn’t stop. Just drew her to me, kissing her intensely, telling myself it was all in my head. Her fingers crawled up under the hem of my shirt, tracing circles around my belly button, taking my mind immediately off the palpitation I’d felt against her ribs.

“Good grief, woman,” I panted.

She dove right back in, kissing me harder. She was always like this the first time we were together after being apart. And this stretch had been our longest. With practices and finals, we hadn’t been able to make a visit work for two torturous weeks. Being with her tonight was ecstasy. I slid my tongue against hers and pulled her tighter.

There. It happened again. Her heart kicked against her ribs like an angry bull. And a third time.

I broke the suction on our kiss and leaned back to look in her eyes. “What is that?”

“Hmm?” She looked annoyed that I’d stopped. She tipped forward, her soft lips, brushing mine.

“Hey.” I rolled off the couch and onto my knees. Then I swept her legs around, forcing her to sit up. I placed my hands on either side of her. “Why is your heart palpitating? How long has that been going on?”

She lifted one shoulder and chewed her lip. “A couple of weeks. It’s nothing. Just stress from school and being apart from you.” Her hands slid around my neck and she tried to pull me back onto the couch.

I dug in, not letting her. “Anna, that’s serious. You need to get it checked out.”

She smiled but her brows puckered. “I’m fine.”

I brushed a lock of hair back over her cheekbone, my eyes scouring her face. She looked gaunt. Her cheeks were hollow and there were dark circles under her eyes. “What have you eaten today?”

She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Food.”

“What food?”

She cocked her head like really ? “Pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Grilled cheese for lunch. And you were here for dinner.”

I was and I knew she’d hardly touched the steak, baked potatoes, or salad that Silas and Lemon had made. They’d fussed at her too. If breakfast and lunch had been devoured similarly, Anna was running on fumes.

I pinned her with my gaze.

She lifted her hands. “I’ll go make myself a fat ice cream sundae right now. Will that make you happy?”

“Yes. Yes, it would.” I stood and offered her a hand. “I’ll help.”

She sighed but took it. Together, we walked to the kitchen. Silas and Lemon had redone it since Anna and I had dated in high school. The whole house had been renovated and everything expanded. It was necessary with three little boys and now a baby girl on the way.

The kitchen was twice its original size. The cabinets were a creamy white and there was a nice light blue herringbone tile backsplash. The only reason I knew it was herringbone was because my mom had picked the same design for her bathroom shower we’d had built a year ago.

Anna pulled three different flavors of ice cream from the freezer, while I grabbed a pair of bowls and some spoons from the drawer. Anna placed a single scoop of cookie dough ice cream in one of the bowls. She squirted a tablespoon of chocolate sauce over it, topping it with a tiny dollop of whipped cream from the can. Then she picked it up like she was done.

I let out a sardonic laugh. “No. Put that back down,” I ordered.

She sighed like she had in the living room and handed it over. “Just make it however you want.”

So I added another scoop, twice the size of the first, and drowned it in chocolate sauce, completing it with a cup of whipped cream.

She tittered. “Seriously?”

“Yes. And you’re going to eat every bite,” I said, not laughing at all. “ Please ,” I said, gentler.

She saluted. “Yes, sir.”

I made myself a sundae twice the size of hers.

We ambled back into the living room and sat on the couch. Her knee was bent, resting on top of my thigh. For the hundredth time since we got back together, I was awed at that little touch. How many times had I wished Anna was with me? That I could reach out and touch her again? And now she was. I hoped I never quit being grateful.

We watched the movie as we ate. I shoveled that junk in like I was half-starved. I always felt that way during football season. The team dietitian would probably scold me for eating so much sugar but I was doing it in solidarity. Anna needed my example. Right now she was only taking tiny nibbles, pausing for a solid minute between each bite. After five minutes, I scraped the bottom of my bowl. Her ice cream was only a quarter of the way gone and she looked like she was going to hurl if she kept going.

I let myself scan her over. Her arms were skinny and her cheeks had lost most of their fullness. Her shoulders were poking out of her T-shirt. The three palpitations replayed in my mind. I felt like I was coming out of my skin. What was happening to my girlfriend? What wasn’t she telling me? I wasn’t sure but I knew who would have zero problems telling me their opinion on the matter.

I squeezed Anna’s bony knee. “Is it okay if I use your bathroom? I don’t want to wake your family.” Anna’s room used to be right next to Silas and Lemon’s. But when they added on, they gave her a massive suite with her own bathroom where the carport used to be.

She offered me a warm smile. “Of course.”

I lifted a brow. “That’s going to be gone when I get back, right?”

Another salute and a giggle. Her lips pulled another small bite off the end of her spoon.

I turned, cut back through the kitchen and high-tailed it for her room. As soon as I was inside, I locked the door, flipped on a lamp, and dialed Brooklyn, praying she was a night owl.

“What up, Déjà Blue?” She answered in her apathetic, flat tone.

“Ha. Ha. Amnesia is long gone. You can quit with the memory jokes.”

She clicked her tongue. “Nope. When you embarrassed Anna at that press conference I came up with a long list of nicknames to get under your skin. You think I’m wasting all that brain power? It’s going to take me years to use them all.”

I rolled my eyes and flopped onto the end of Anna’s bed. “What’s wrong with Anna?”

“Oh. You mean the whole holocaust victim look she’s got going on?”

“Yes. Is she stressed about school? Because she says she’s stressed about school but I don’t buy it. She’s always been an excellent student and she’s wicked smart. Did something happen that she’s not telling me about?” Something dropped onto my knee, making me jump. For a second I thought Anna had popped the lock and caught me. But it was just her basset hound, Huckleberry, laying his chin on my leg. He must’ve been asleep on her pillow and I hadn’t noticed. I scruffed him on the head and he snuggled in, getting comfy.

“You know, Blue’s No Clues, it’s funny how you think this has everything to do with school or food and nothing to do with you.”

I ignored the nickname. I had bigger problems than Brooklyn’s need to poke at my pride. “Lay it on me, Brook. Tell me all the ways I’m making Anna miserable.”

I swear I heard her shrug. “It’s just one really. And it’s the fact that you actually bought her little ‘I’m so excited to downgrade my entire life’s plan and give up my lifelong dream so that my famous football player boyfriend can have the life he’s always dreamed of’ charade.”

I threw my hand out, my face hot. “But she texted me and swore that she was excited about it. She used like ten exclamation points.”

“Yes. She texted you. Purposely. So you couldn’t see her face or hear her voice,” she said flatly, with a yawn at the tail end. “In actuality, she sobbed the entire time you were having that conversation. And of course she used exclamation points. She had to sell it.”

Brooklyn could’ve kneed me in my manhood and it would’ve been less of a blow. Because I had fallen for it. Completely. Or maybe I’d wanted to fall for it? Either way, I hadn’t suspected a thing.

Huckleberry’s nose nudged my hand when I stopped rubbing his head. “So you’re saying she, in fact, does not want to be a vet tech?”

“Correct. She in fact, has absolutely no desire to give up all her hopes and dreams to have an actual vet boss her around, make her clean up all the cat pee, risk her hand every time a psycho dog needs to be muzzled, and hand him all the scalpels during surgery, all while he takes home a fat paycheck and she gets paid little more than minimum wage. Especially while you run around in your tight little football pants for all the women of America to fawn over and grown men make you the center of their every conversation, as you make enough money to feed a small third-world country for a year.”

Another kick to the ego nuts. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m an idiot.”

“You really are.” She sighed. “But you’re the idiot that my best friend loves. So I’m gonna help you out. Are you ready for what I’m about to say?”

I wasn’t. Because whatever it was, it was going to hurt. Just like the rest of this conversation. “Yes. Let me have it.”

“You gotta let her go, Scarecrow.” It took a second for me to get The Wizard of Oz “If I only had a brain” reference. And two more to swallow what she was saying. “She will die on this hill trying to hold onto you. Give up everything she’s ever wanted, stay a virgin to make her family happy, and get married at the redneck age of nineteen to make you happy. She will follow you here, there, and everywhere having your babies and never getting the title of Dr. in front of her name.” She took a beat, for which I was grateful. Her words were the metaphorical equivalent to being beaten up by a street gang. Knee to the groin, kick to the gut, and a baseball bat to the head, all at the same time, repeatedly until you vomit and pass out. Or die. “Comprende, Groundhog Day?”

“But I love her?” I croaked.

“Do you?” She huffed. “Because that sounds like the opposite of love to me.”

I sat there, stunned, unable to speak. I loved Anna…

Didn’t I?

Her tongue clicked. “‘Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not boast. It isn’t proud.’ Let me jump ahead. ‘It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking ?—’”

“Okay. I get it.” I scrubbed a hand over my face, sick to my very soul. “I didn’t know you were religious. Isn’t that a scripture?”

“I went with Anna to bible school every summer. What are you gonna do, Blue?”

Just like that. Not even a pause between sentences.

I sat there for a second, Huckleberry’s drool seeping through my jeans, trying to figure out the answer Brooklyn expected from me.

“Walk away from f-football?” I spluttered.

“Wrong.”

A massive exhale released from my lungs. People would lose their minds. My dad, my coaches, Daisy Foxhorn and the rest of the UK staff. All of America. To give up football for a girl would make me a laughing stock for the rest of my life and for good reason. There were so many people counting on me.

Brooklyn continued, “Not gonna happen. Anna would never let you do that.”

My stomach relaxed a bit. Until I realized it fixed nothing. “Then what?”

“What do you think I am? A fortune teller? Your love guru? God?”

“Why didn’t you call and tell me this earlier?”

“I wanted to. Anna made me swear not to. But since you called me, all bets are off."

I went back to scratching Huck on the head, trying to calm the emotional tornado going on inside. “I never should have left in high school. It screwed everything up.”

“How would that have fixed anything? You’d still be right here in this spot. You’re destined for greatness on the football field. She’s destined for greatness in a vet’s office somewhere. Preferably Dr. Atkins’s office in Seddledowne with her name plate on the desk. You were gonna come to this crossroads regardless.”

Was this girl trying to break me? “Are you saying we aren’t meant to be?”

“Again, not God. Just Brooklyn over here. And Anna would kill me if she found out I was saying this but, you two are headed in different directions. Those are the facts and I don’t know how you’re going to reconcile it. But I need you to. Anna needs you to.” A male voice next to her whispered something incoherent. Probably Jonah. “I gotta go, Control-Alt-Delete. Good luck.”

She hung up.

I forced myself to stand. Then I walked out, feeling like I weighed a hundred pounds more than when I’d walked in. My lungs wouldn’t expand all the way and it took actual effort to roll my shoulders back and stand upright. Anna was gone from her spot on the couch. I heard clanging in the kitchen and walked in to find her putting her rinsed bowl into the dishwasher.

“Hey.” I stepped up behind her and slid my hands around her concave stomach. “Did you eat all of it?”

Her hand hooked around the back of my neck and slid into my hair. “Mhmm. Yep.” There was a slight inflection in her tone that told me she was lying.

But I didn’t have it in me to call her out on it. My arms were heavy and my lungs physically hurt. I turned her toward me and lifted the dishwasher closed behind her with my toes. Then I squared her hips with mine. Her dark eyes pulled me in and I tipped my forehead against hers.

Tell her you want to watch her realize her dreams. Tell her you love her too much to hold her back anymore. Tell her you’ll let her go, if that’s what she wants.

My mouth opened. “I…I love you,” I whispered and I hated myself. Because apparently it was a lie. At least, according to Brooklyn. If I loved her more than I loved myself I would let her live her dreams. But I couldn’t. I needed her too much.

I was so weak.

“I know. I love you too.” She pushed up and kissed me.