Page 26

26

HEIDI

I ’m not sure why I hang around.

Most days, I would be long gone by now. Emmett doesn’t have to go anywhere early tomorrow since Tuesdays are the league’s off days and he doesn’t have any early morning meetings.

Juniper is at the table doing her homework, the house is clean—even though that’s not really a job that’s expected of me—we don’t stink that much anymore, and I should have been on my way home an hour ago.

And yet I’ve been sitting on the couch, scrolling on my phone for the last sixty minutes waiting for Emmett to come back in.

To see him fill the doorway, that absent, faraway look he gets on his face when he’s trying not to think too hard about something.

When he’s just trying to block out the world.

“You good on your homework?” I ask Juni, who scratches her scalp with her pencil before nodding. “I’m going to go check on your dad, okay?”

She gives me a quick thumbs up without even looking. Although I know she understands our points about the skunks, I can still tell she’s upset.

They were cute, and if we could have kept them, I probably would have begged Emmett on my knees.

The second I open the door to the garage I’m once again hit with the most annoying divorced dad rock music imaginable. But the second thing I’m hit with is Emmett bent over the front of his car, his arms tightening something around the engine.

“Hey,” I call over the music, not trying to startle him.

The second his blue eyes meet mine, the corners of them crinkled as he scans me, I melt into a puddle on his floor. “Hey,” he responds softly.

Swallowing the ginormous lump in my throat, I walk toward him, leaning against the side of the car. I watch him as he finishes what he was doing, and once he’s satisfied with the outcome, he grabs the small hand towel from his work bench and cleans the oil and dirt from his fingers.

“You heading out?” he asks without looking up from his hands.

Without thinking, I respond, “Do you want me to?”

His eyes snap to mine, searching them in a way he’s never done before. Eventually, his jaw sets. “I don’t think so.”

I nod. “Then I think I’ll hang out for a little longer.”

I watch as he fights a small smile, hiding it by tilting his head to the side, his thumb at his lip.

I settle onto the car, stretching my legs on in front of me. “Can I ask you a question?”

“I think we both know you’ll ask even if I say no.”

I exhale, knowing I have to spit it out before I lose all my courage. “Can you explain football to me?”

Emmett throws the towel on the work bench, settling across from me with his arms over his chest.

“What are you wondering?”

I shrug. “I’m not sure honestly. I just want to go to a game and not feel stupid when something gets said and I have no idea what it means.”

“Well let’s find a place to start,” he tells me without a beat, and appreciation blooms in my chest.

I don’t want to constantly feel as though I’m defending myself, or that I’m the dumbest person in the room.

I think about what I want to ask for a second. Where I want to start and a question that will receive the least amount of judgement.

But I realize that there’s no escaping any of it. To Emmett, if he’s going to judge, he’s going to judge it all. I may as well just ask what I want and hope for the best.

“How does the scoring work? The other week you guys got a touchdown and then kicked a field goal, and then another time you guys threw the ball in and got two more points.”

Without skipping a beat, he starts explaining. “In that game, we were up by only three points before that touchdown. We only had a few minutes left in the game, and we wanted to make sure that if they got a touchdown, the only way they could have won is either they get a two-point conversion and kick a field goal, which means that they would have had to hold our offense back, get possession of the ball again, and made their way down the field, or if they didn’t get the two point conversion, they would have been screwed either way and they would have had to get another touchdown on top of the first.”

“So it’s kind of like assurance.”

“Yes.”

“But what happens if you guys didn’t make the conversion?”

He shrugs. “Then we could be in trouble because the touchdown would have only been worth six points. That means that they could have come back, gotten the touchdown, and then could have easily tied with us.”

I process the information for a second.

“What does offsides mean?” It’s a question I’ve thought of many times but have been too nervous to ask. I’ve been nervous for all of it, but especially this one for some reason.

Emmett looks around at the ground and for just a second I think that he’s laughing at me. But when he grabs a broom and lays it on the ground, curiosity takes over.

“This is the line of scrimmage,” he explains, pointing to the long broom placed in front of me.

“And that’s?—”

“It’s kind of an imaginary line, if I’m honest,” he says with a shrug. “It runs across the field and basically is aligned with where the ball is placed before the play.”

“Okay, got it.”

“So offsides is basically when a player is on the wrong side of that line of scrimmage.” He thinks for a second. “It’s usually called against defenses, when one of us crosses the line before the ball gets snapped. But once in a while an offensive player will cross into the neutral zone and the foul will be called against them.”

“And what’s the neutral zone?”

“It’s basically where the line is. It’s in front of both the offense and defense, and the area that no one can cross until the ball is snapped.”

There’s no judgement in Emmett’s voice as he explains the terms. No glint in his eye like he’s secretly making fun of me. He’s just explaining it in terms I can understand, and something about that wakes the butterflies in the pit of my stomach.

“And what do you like best about the game?”

He thinks for a second.

“I really like blocking. Specifically veer blocks because if done right, turnovers are frequent,” he pauses and smirks. “At least when we do it. Can’t talk for other teams.”

“Very humble.”

“Always.”

“What does your position do?”

Emmett’s head tilts and he looks into the distance, likely thinking about how to explain it. “I’m basically responsible for making sure everyone is lined up correctly, but I’m also responsible for stopping the offenses run and their passing game.”

“That sounds like it can be a lot.”

He shrugs. “It can but it changes every game depending on who the team is and whether they’re passers or runners. Things change for everyone, which is why we practice and study film for every team each week. But it just keeps me on my toes.”

We fall into a peaceful silence and I think about what else I may want to know. “Is there anything you like that you can’t do?”

He smiles, and it lights up the whole damn room.

“I loved chop blocks. They’re illegal for a reason and I won’t lie, I’d hate for it to happen to me, but it’s kinda fun taking someone down at the knees.”

I wince. “That sounds like it could go wrong really fast.”

“Exactly.”

“So that’s just,” I shrug, “taking someone out low?”

Emmett’s eyes drift over my body slowly, and I’m completely unprepared for the fire they leave in their wake. I wasn’t expecting it, but when his lips spread in a smirk, I’m more curious than anything.

“Want me to show you?” His eyes find mine again, glimmering with something that feels a little like chaos.

I nod, my words caught in my throat.

Pushing off of the work bench, Emmett takes a couple steps toward me, closing the distance.

“Can I touch you?” he says quietly.

“Yes.”

Emmett bends down, and in a second he has his arms are around my calf, and in an instant I’m in the air.

I screech, grabbing for his shoulders as he sends me back onto the closed bonnet of his Barracuda.

I lay there for a second, collecting myself, a smile taking over my whole face as I stare at the ceiling. “I expect in the game you’re not as gentle?” I ask with a laugh.

Emmett offers a hand and pulls me up, but I’m not sure either of us are expecting to be so close as I take it.

Because suddenly we’re chest to chest, my feet swinging in the air as Emmett stands between my legs.

He stares down at me with those god damn blue eyes that search my face intensely. “That there wasn’t technically a chop block.”

The smile is wiped from my face. “What do you mean?”

He smirks just slightly, his hands placed on either side of me on the car. “Technically what makes them illegal is that plus another defender taking the same person out around the waist. It can lead to a lot of injuries.”

“Then why did you do all of this?” I whisper, looking up at him. His throat bobs in a rough swallow.

Emmett runs his tongue along his lip before tucking it under his teeth. “I don’t know,” whispers back.

Something stirs between us. A promise, or a fleeting, passing moment, I’m not quite sure. But the second I lean forward, closing the distance between us by another inch, Emmett backs away, his eyes wild like he’s waking up from a dream.

Because there is no “we.” There’s nothing between us, and there probably will never be.

It’s a moment of clarity for me. A loud and clear lightning strike that throws me back.

I just wish this moment wasn’t quite as embarrassing.