Page 73 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

“I didn’t say I wanted it! I just asked...what if?”

She laughed even harder. “Could you even imagine? You having the hots for your little cousin?”

“It’s not funny. And I don’t. I didn’t say anything about my feelings toward him.”

“And what are your feelings toward my brother?”

I shouldn’t have voiced my fears out loud. I ignored her as we walked toward the stadium.

But she just kept giggling.

“Sophie, I don’t have the hots for my cousin.”

“Um...false. You have the hots for both Axel and Jacob.”

“They’re not my cousins.”

“They’re practically your cousins. Who’s to say you didn’t take the leap to your blood cousin?”

“He’s 14.”

“I know, you’re totally robbing the cradle.” She was laughing so hard now that tears were starting to roll down her cheeks.

“I’m not robbing anything.”

She wiped off her cheeks. “I can’t even right now. This is too funny.”

“Focus. We need the football roster.”

“But we already know it’s my little brother texting you saucy things...”

I hit her arm. “Sophie, this an emergency.”

She wiped the rest of her tears off her cheeks. “Okay. Yes. Let’s focus. Because it definitely wasn’t RJ saying he was going to steal all your firsts.” She pressed her lips together, holding back her laughter.

Ugh. I did not want her to keep talking about this. It wasn’t that bad of a theory. But yeah, saying it out loud did make it seem ridiculous.

Sophie laughed again.

I think I knew how to make the teasing stop. “Do I need to remind you what you wanted to do to my dad the other day?”

Sophie’s eyes grew round.

“Something about being beneath his desk...”

She choked on nothing but air.

“And against his chalkboard...”

“I did not know that the new teacher was Uncle James!” She bent over and pretended to hurl.

“I won’t mention that if you don’t mention my stupid RJ theory.”

“Deal,” she said. And then she shuddered. “I’m glad we’re starting fresh on Wednesday. Hopefully we’ll know who your stalker is by then.”

I really preferred the term kiss thief over stalker. He hadn’t felt like a stalker. It had felt like he really liked me. I pressed my lips together. But I guess stalkers did like their prey.

We walked into the stadium and over to our uncle.

“Hey, Uncle Matt,” I said.

“Hey, kiddo.” For just a second, he stared at the number 10 on the sleeve of the varsity jacket I was wearing. But then he pulled me into a hug and hugged Sophie too. “What are you kids up to? Were you going to watch practice?”

“No,” Sophie said. “We actually came to ask for a favor.”

Uncle Matt raised his eyebrow. “What kind of favor?”

“We need the roster for the football team. Including everyone’s heights and phone numbers.”

“And why would you need that?”

Sophie laughed and waved her hand through the air. “Because we joined the yearbook committee and we’re responsible for getting all the football stats.”

“Oh. Okay then. What’s the email for the yearbook committee? I’ll send it over after practice.”

“Can you actually just email me right now?” asked Sophie. “We were supposed to ask days ago and we need it right now before the committee meets up in a few minutes.”

Uncle Matt narrowed his eyes at her for a moment. “Wait, I thought the two of you didn’t do any extracurriculars?”

That was true. I didn’t want to do any without Sophie. And Sophie always said she “juggled too many real balls” to need to juggle any more.

Sophie laughed. “Yeah, but we have to be in charge of our senior yearbook. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with that responsibility. I’m the only one that knows my good side.” She pointed to the left side of her face. Which looked exactly like the right side of her face.

Uncle Matt just laughed. “Okay, one sec.” He pulled out his phone and started typing on it. “You need the JV team roster too, right?”

Good lord, did we?

“Yup,” Sophie said.

I hated that for me.

Sophie’s phone pinged. “Thanks, Uncle Matt. You’re a lifesaver.”

Uncle Matt looked over her head and smiled.

I turned to see Jacob approaching. I wasn’t sure how I’d never noticed how handsome he was before.

“Hiya, Coach,” Jacob said. The two of them did some weird handshake.

I’d never seen Jacob greet Uncle Matt in any other way.

Even when Uncle Matt wasn’t his coach, Jacob had always called him that.

I knew that Uncle Matt wasn’t his real father.

But he’d helped raise Jacob ever since he was four.

And I sometimes wondered if Jacob calling him coach stung.

Jacob rarely ever talked about his real father.

At least not to me. And I wondered a lot about that too.

All I really knew was that he’d died in a terrible accident before Jacob and his mom moved to the city.

Jacob’s attention turned to us. “What are you guys doing here?”

“A top secret mission,” Sophie said.

Uncle Matt gave her a weird look, but didn’t mention the yearbook committee. Which was good. Because I didn’t really want to have to join it.

“Are you staying to watch practice?” Jacob smiled at me.

And my heart started beating funny in my chest.

“Can’t,” Sophie said. “We have a thing. Right, Scar?”

I nodded. I was much worse at lying than she was.

“I’ll catch you guys later then.” He winked at me and ran onto the field.

“Thanks, Uncle Matt,” Sophie said. “We owe you one.”

I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the rosters or the fact that he didn’t mention we’d joined the yearbook committee.

Sophie started to walk away.

“A word, kiddo,” Uncle Matt said to me before I could follow her.

Oh no . Was the lie on my face? Sometimes that happened. I forced myself not to wipe my cheeks. That definitely wouldn’t help hide the lie.

His eyes fell to the right sleeve of my jacket where Axel’s jersey number was stitched on. “Is that Axel’s varsity jacket?”

“Mhm.” I tried to say it casually, but failed.

“Are the two of you dating?”

All of my uncles acted like surrogate fathers. Didn’t they know that my one father was plenty? They were friends with him, after all. “No, not exactly.”

“Care to elaborate on that?”

“There isn’t really anything to elaborate on.

” Axel had given me his jacket last week.

And he’d also held my hand. I wanted those things to mean something.

But...it didn’t seem like they did. Axel had pretty much ignored me since Friday.

After I told him I was going to give my first kiss to someone else.

Uncle Matt smiled. “Players don’t just give their varsity jackets out for keeps unless they’re dating someone. And I don’t recall Axel ever giving his jacket to someone. Even though he’s had quite a few girlfriends.”

He didn’t need to remind me how many girlfriends Axel had had.

“Just...” his voice trailed off. “Remember all I taught you, kiddo.”

Uncle Matt had taught me a lot of things. How to play poker. And how to own a table in pool. I was pretty sure I even remembered him teaching me how to play beer pong when I was little, sans the beer. I wasn’t sure which game he was referring to here...

“You deserve the world,” he said. “And don’t you ever forget it.”

Oh. Yeah, I guess he’d told me that a lot over the years too. But for some reason, the way he said it today sounded more like a warning.

He glanced at Jacob on the field and cleared his throat. “I need to start practice. But come over for dinner sometime soon. Aunt Brooklyn has a new cupcake recipe she’s trying out and I’m sure she’d like your feedback.”

“I’ll definitely take you up on that.” Jacob’s mom made the world’s best cupcakes.

Uncle Matt blew his whistle and walked onto the field.

“What was that about?” asked Sophie when I jogged up to her.

I shrugged. “I have no idea.” I looked back over my shoulder at the field. Actually, I was worried I did know what Uncle Matt was talking about. He was warning me to stay away from Axel Stevens.

“Think your dad will let me come over so we can study these rosters together?”

I hoped so. I needed her help more than ever since we had a JV and varsity list to go through now.