Page 7

Grant

Z oe! Wait!“ I chase after her with a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure that Kenna isn’t following me.

A hand on the open door of her car, she turns toward me, looking up expectantly. I don’t really know what to do or say. Even if I am the one chasing after her this time.

“What was that about?” It comes out gruffer than I mean it to, and I know I misread the play when she shoves one hand to her hip and scowls at me, whipping her low ponytail over her shoulder.

“I think what you meant to say was thank you .”

She’s right. But I can’t form the words. Not yet, anyway. Not when I’m worried that she has some ulterior motive. I know she didn’t show up at my house to offer to help Kenna. Zoe didn’t even know about her until Kenna opened the door.

She sure didn’t bribe Dolores into getting my address so she could make me look good in front of my niece.

Though I’m pretty sure I just became middle school cool about an hour ago.

“I meant what I said. What was that about? What are you up to?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Which means you are up to something.“ Her face twists, clearly unhappy that I’m calling her on her stuff. “Is this about that thing?”

Like the flip of a switch, her features turn to total innocence. “What thing?”

I was the one with the unruly dog that morning. She was the one wearing a brown cape. I want to remind her of the situation, but just the memory of her rumpled bedhead makes me want to smile. And that feels like I’d be losing yardage.

Clearing my throat, I tip my head and try to read whatever is going on in her mind.

The problem is she’s a trained actress. A good one too.

She was robbed at the Golden Globes last year.

Not that I was watching. But I did see her movie. A couple times.

But all of that just makes it harder for me to tell if I can trust her with Kenna. With my world.

Guys like me don’t make new friends. Everyone in my circle has been with me since college. Most of them before that.

Sure, teammates come and go over the years. And I love those guys like brothers. But it’s more because we’re battle-tested. I know I can rely on them on the field, so I trust them with the rest of my life.

But Zoe Peebles is standing in front of me, and I have this odd feeling that I’m making a new friend. One willing to help me off the field in a way that I can’t help myself.

“Don’t play games with me, Zoe. I’ll win.”

“I suppose you do play games for a living.”

I nod.

With a sigh, her whole posture relaxes, her hip popping out. “Look, I’m not going to lie. I came here to ask for your help.” She flinches. “Again.” Glancing down at the toes of her pink sneakers, she crosses her arms and frowns.

I mimic her stance and dip my head for a better look into her face. But the woman is ridiculously short. Like the kind of short that makes those A-list actors barely pushing five and a half feet look tall on screen.

Okay, she’s probably five-three or four. But that’s a solid twelve inches shorter than I am. And from this angle, I can’t see a thing on her face. When she looks up at me, my gut clenches.

She’s the kind of pretty that makes men do stupid things.

And I’m pretty sure I’m about to be one of those men.

“I do need your help,” she whispers. “But I swear, my offer to Kenna has nothing to do with that. I’ll do everything I can help her prepare for that audition.”

I can’t help but believe her. And I can only pray that she’s not putting on a show for an audience of one. “Thank you.”

Silence hangs heavily between us, and when she seems certain I’m not going to say anything else, she gives me a quick nod and turns back toward her rental.

“We have a home game on Monday night, and I have Tuesday off after I watch tape.” Yep. Here comes the stupidity. “Come over around two, and I can show you a few things before Kenna gets home from school.”

Zoe whirls around so fast that her hair flairs around her shoulders, releasing a soft coconut scent that is even sweeter than the surrounding pines. Eyes wide, she takes two quick steps toward me until she’s just on the edge of reasonable personal boundaries. “Seriously?”

“I’ll let the gatehouse know you’re coming. You can stop bribing people to get to me.”

Her teeth flash in the afternoon sun, glowing almost as bright as her greenish eyes. “But what if I want to? It’s kind of fun.”

I roll my eyes, one of Kenna’s favorite moves. Then all of a sudden, Zoe throws her arms around me in a quick hug. “I promise, you won’t regret this.”

The second I open the door on Tuesday, I regret my decision.

Zoe is here. At exactly 1:59 p.m. Just like I said she should be.

But that was last week. Before yesterday’s game. We won. By a field goal. And I got sacked three times and hit countless more.

I can feel every single one of them today.

And I don’t know if I have the patience for the beaming starlet on my porch.

I can already tell that she doesn’t care about my mood.

“Ready?” Eyes bright and smile wide, she clasps her hands in front of her, swaying back and forth. I’m not sure if she planned it or not, but her purple leggings and gray shirt would have fit in perfectly with the Fourteeners fans yesterday.

Letting out a breath between tight lips, I nod. “Guess so.”

Her squinting survey is getting awfully close to seeing things I’d rather not share, so I spin and lead the way through the house.

“The team with the ball has four tries to move it ten yards,” I mumble, stretching my arm across my body and trying to loosen the stiffness in my throwing shoulder.

“Give me more credit than that.” She laughs. “I don’t watch my dad’s team, but I did grow up around the game.”

Closing one eye, I look over my shoulder. “Then what do you need me for?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.”

I stop walking, and she immediately bumps into my back, shooting sparks through me. From the contact or her words, I don’t know. “You’re just now thinking about it? After you stalked and cajoled and basically bribed me?”

“First of all, I did not bribe you—personally.” She stalks past me. “Secondly, I know how the game is played. I just don’t know how to play the game.”

“That makes no sense.” I shake my head and cross my arms.

“Yes, it does.”

The stubborn tilt of her head suggests that I may have stepped in it. But after yesterday, I’m not interested in backing down. “It absolutely does not.”

She steps closer—forget personal bubbles—and that sweet coconut smell surrounds us both. “I know the rules and goal of the game. I know how points are scored. I know the mechanics of it. I can learn any of that on the internet. None of it will set me apart at an audition.”

“And what will?” I should not have asked that question.

She licks her smooth pink lips right before a smile breaks across her mouth. “Throwing a perfect fifty-yard spiral.”

“Nope.”

As I turn away from her, she grabs at my bicep, her slender fingers finding a fresh bruise. I try not to flinch, but chicken on a biscuit, I’m sore.

“What does that mean?”

“That means that it takes years to perfect a spiral of that length. It means thousands of hours in the gym. You don’t have time for that.”

The light in her face dims, her lips pursing to the side as her gaze narrows. “What do I have time for?”

“When’s your audition?”

Pink spreads across her cheeks as she nibbles on her lower lip. “We’re still working that out.”

“You do have an audition lined up though, right?” As soon as I ask, I know the truth.

“Like I said, we’re working on it.”

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I scratch at the stubble on my chin. Once. I’m doing this just once. I’ll give her some pointers and send her on her way.

“All right, let’s figure out what you’re starting with. Ready to show me what you got?”

Pressing onto her tip-toes, she does a little dance. “Let’s do it!”

I grab a football from the hall closet and nod toward the back door on the far side of the kitchen.

Snatching the ball out of my grip with both of her hands, she chirps, “I’m going to do things you don’t even know I’m doing.”

I snort as she leads the way into the backyard, tossing the ball up and catching it awkwardly. “Sure.”

As I close the door behind us, she whistles low and long, her gaze sweeping over the yard. “Geez, man.” She’s pretty much ignoring the fenced pool off to the left in favor of the fifty-yard practice field, white hashmarks mimicking a real turf. “You must have had a killer realtor.”

I can’t hold back a smile. “Just told her I needed a big enough yard to put this in.”

“You had this put in?”

I nod.

“What if you get traded?”

I know her words aren’t meant to be cruel, but they still land like a punch to my kidney. “You heard something I should know about?” My question comes out without any of the humor I’m trying for.

She whips around, hugging the ball to her chest, her mouth hanging open. “No.” She blinks her big eyes twice before rushing on. “I didn’t mean—I don’t know any—You’re winning, right? Why would they want to—? They wouldn’t.” She takes a little gasp of air and ends with a limp, “Right?”

Right.

Except there are only a few quarterbacks in the league who never worry about being traded. I can count them on one hand. And I’m not one of them.

Not that I’m worried. But just the suggestion brings a dark cloud with it. I turnback to the field. It’s luminescent in the afternoon sun, but at night, I can light it up with the flick of a single switch on the patio. It’s not quite Friday night lights, but the raised lamps can fully illuminate the stretch of green.

I set up this practice field for just such an occasion. Okay. I couldn’t have imagined an occasion where I was teaching America’s Sweetheart how to throw a ball. I usually use it to practice throwing routes.

But it’ll work for Zoe too.

“Stand here.” I point at the white line a few steps in front of her.

She complies, trotting forward, her sneakers sinking into the lush grass. I lift my gaze up her legs, but force myself to look away before I start dwelling on all the favors they’re doing for her.

“All right, Coach. I’m ready.”

“Yeah?”

“Definitely.” She does a mock stance like she’s going to receive the snap from the center, wiggling her rear in an exaggerated pose. “Set. Hut. Hike. Hut.”

When she looks over her shoulder at me with those glowing hazel-green eyes—a mixture of my new favorite colors—I can’t fight off a smile and a shake of my head. “All right, QB. Let’s see what we’re working with. Give it a throw.”

“At the target?” She sounds both hopeful and confident, and I give her a nod.

“As far as you can.”

She shimmies her whole body, shaking her hair off her shoulders as she prances in place until she’s perpendicular to the target. Lifting the ball barely to her shoulder, she takes a big breath. Then she flings the football. It flips end over end, flopping to the ground six yards in front of her.

Whipping around to face me, she frowns, two little lines appearing between her eyebrows. “It didn’t work.”

I can’t hold back a laugh, which only makes the wrinkles spread to her nose. She stares me down, then turns back toward the ball. Then she looks back at me as though I’m the one who ruined her throw.

“Let’s try again,” I suggest as I jog to the ball. Scooping it up, I press my fingers to the laces. “Hold it like this.” With an outstretched arm, I show her how to cradle it in her palm.

“Is that all?” She grabs it with two hands, then carefully places her fingertips against the white stripe at the ball’s widest part.

This isn’t going to work. I know before she even lets go of the ball with her other hand.

As soon as she does, the ball falls to her feet.

Zoe stands there, looking down at it with knitted eyebrows and tight lips. After a long beat, she looks up at me. “But I did what you said.”

“This one’s on me.” I give her a single-shoulder shrug. “I failed to take into account the size of your hand.”

“My hand?” She holds the hand in question in front of her eyes, rotating it a few times. “I’ve never had complaints before.” And then she adds as though I’m not even here. “It even starred in a national insurance commercial.”

I bite back a chuckle as I reach out my own, pressing our palms together, extending her fingers. Then I curl my fingertips over the tops of hers.

“Oh.” The sound comes out on a breathy giggle, her eyes wide.

I don’t know if it’s the sound she just made, the way my hand dwarfs hers, or the innocent skin-to-skin contact, but something has my gut clenching on a sudden hollowness. It’s a sinking feeling that’s pulling me into something vaguely familiar. Something I haven’t felt in three seasons.

Chicken on a biscuit.

I’ve been around plenty of beautiful women. It’s hard not to in my line of work.

But I’ve only felt this level of attraction for one other woman. This level of distraction.

I quickly pull my right hand away and squeeze it into a fist at my side. With a few quick rotations of my wrist, I relish the movement of my forearm and the muscles that took almost four months to rehab.

Thinking about Tawna in the middle of a game nearly cost me everything.

I won’t let Zoe do the same.

And if I could rescind my offer, I would. The problem is—

“Zoe! You came to help me.”

Kenna’s voice rings across the lawn, and I glance over Zoe’s head to see the problem in person as she prances across the lawn.

Yeah, no matter how much space I might try to put between Zoe and me, she’s going to stick around. I might as well help her get a role that will move her out of town and out of my life.

That’s definitely the right choice.

Except for the painful twist in my gut, which disagrees. Strongly. I just can’t tell if it’s upset that I’m going to have to spend more time with her. Or that I’m looking for any excuse to permanently send her away.

I force a smile at Zoe as Kenna begins to pull her away. “We’ll pick it up another time.”

She nods and mouths a quick, “ Thank you, “ as she follows Kenna inside.

And just like that, I know exactly which fear has my gut in a panic. Both.

Chicken on a biscuit.