Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Tay Marley wears many hats: bibliophile, entrepreneur, wife, mother, and featured Wattpad author. Her whirlwind journey on Wattpad began in 2017, and led to one hundred thousand dedicated followers, a five-part series, and three stand-alone books, including her breakout story, The QB Bad Boy and Me, which have amassed over forty-one million reads. She resides in New Zealand with her husband. When she isn't writing about confident women and their love interests, she's teaching her three small children how to be the leads in their own epic tales.
I dedicate this book to the readers.
I couldn’t have done it without you.
Author’s Note
If you’ve come here from Wattpad, then I’d first like to thank you for following me on this journey! You might recall Spencer and Grayson from the Wattpad version of The QB Bad Boy and Me. Of course, they are two very important characters, and they play a big part in this book as well—but their names are Gabby as Spencer and Josh as Grayson.
Chapter 1
How can an entire summer feel as if it were a mere weekend once you’re back at school and time slows down again? Three months of freedom becomes an aftertaste, washed down by the bitterness of reality. I once read a quote on Pinterest that said people paint their rooms blue because it produces a calming effect—which was why I decided to lay down in the short grass of our school field so that I could stare at the sky. Strands of my long blonde hair wisped in the light breeze, and as I inhaled the fresh air in attempt not to feel suffocated, I heard my cheer captain squawking.
“Dallas! You’ve had all summer to lay around, get up and do laps. Now!”
It was a reasonable request; I was at an afternoon practice and Emily Raeken—or evil dictator—was my captain. And the field wasn’t the best place for an afternoon snooze. I tilted my head to the side and saw dozens of white sneakers running through the green blades of grass that swayed like an ocean wave in the soft breeze.
Then and there I decided to start a petition to extend summer break for a month. Days like this shouldn’t be spent in the confines of school property. They should be spent on the road, creating memories, taking beach trips, and doing whatever else one would deem buzz worthy. Personally, dancing under the sun and stars, visiting the lake, bingeing Netflix, and watching football was my idea of a summer well spent.
“Get up, Dallas! Or you can do suicide runs for the rest of the afternoon.” Emily sounded as if she was at the end of her rope.
“One more year,” I muttered as I rolled onto my hands and knees before getting up to jog back and forth with the rest of the squad.
One more year of cheerleading. One more year at Archwood High School. One more year in Castle Rock, Colorado. One more year before I could make my way to California and finally live the way that I’d always wanted to.
I completed the drills, agility rings, mini-hurdles, drop jumps, and wall sprints, pushing myself hard because at the end of the day, while I may have detested cheerleading and all of its preppy propaganda, I didn’t do anything half-assed. If I wanted any chance of attending the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a dance career, I was stuck on the team.
Our school didn’t have a dance team, and the small studio in the middle of town only offered ballet and tap. The bitter old woman who ran the studio wouldn’t let me teach a class for contemporary. Who knew why. I think she was just stuck in her ways and didn’t want to share. And no matter how hard I’d tried to convince the school that it’d be beneficial to start a dance team, it just didn’t happen. All of the funding went toward football, cheerleading, and the academic clubs. I had to settle for cheer-leading, knowing that it’d look good on my college applications.
After a grueling practice, I toweled away the sweat beads that soaked my body and winced when I saw Emily beelining toward me. The sun bounced off her auburn hair and gave her a glowing halo. She looked like an angel of terror.
“New rule,” she said with boredom. “We wear uniforms to practice now. Don’t show up without it next time.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” I stared down at my shorts and sports bra. “We’ve always worn activewear to practice. I’ll need at least a few spare uniforms if we practice in them.”
“Buy another uniform or two,” she said flippantly.
“They’re, like, two hundred dollars,” I scoffed. “Not everyone has that kind of cash.”
“We practice in uniform,” she ordered, her hair whipping as she turned away. Telltale signs of elation beamed from her face. I swear that causing misery gave her a hard on.
I was tempted to argue but bit my tongue. That rule had never applied, and I’d bet my life that it still didn’t. Emily was intent on getting a reaction from me, and she often pressed my buttons in hopes of getting one. I think that it had a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t give a damn about her “status.” She put herself at the top of the pecking order, and I refused to get in line. Emily might have been our captain, but the cruel twist of fate was that her mother was our coach—except the woman was never around. I mean, never. She made a brief appearance at the Christmas party last year, breezing in on her Louboutins and self-importance. But otherwise, Emily was left to make all the calls. She decided who made the team and who didn’t. Which routines we did and how we did them. She decided how often we practiced, and she did hustle. Still, her routines lacked originality, and I was sick of doing the same steps in a different order all the time.
Taking a deep breath, I snatched my gym bag from the bleachers and headed to the locker rooms on the other side of the field, where the football players practiced their drills; it was their first practice of the year too.
Most of them, if not all, probably spent the entire summer here doing those drills, but apparently there was no rest for the wicked. Our team was one of the best in the state, and Coach Finn made them work hard, ensuring that they practiced almost every day.
My phone hummed inside my gym bag. Gabby. My best friend and pretty much the only person in this school I could tolerate spending an extended amount of time with.
Hey, so I know it’s only Monday, but I’m thinking of the weekend already. FaceTime me when you’re home. We’ll discuss plans!
I smiled, knowing that she’d more likely than not try and coerce me into going to a party because she believed my “connections to the popular crew” should be put to good use.
Gabby adored the social life. Even though we both flew under the radar, she still liked to let her hair down and live a little. Most of our outings were for her benefit, but I tagged along because if I didn’t, she wouldn’t have anyone else to go with.
Typing out a reply, I was visualizing how she would bounce up and down on the spot when she read the message when a distant masculine voice captured my attention.
“Heads-up!”
A football spiraled through the air, straight toward my face. Instinctively, I lifted my arms and caught the ball before it brok
e my nose, and more importantly, my pride. Because that would have been humiliating.
A well-built quarterback pulled off his helmet. “Sorry!”
He was a good forty-five feet away, but I recognized his unreal good looks immediately.
Drayton Lahey. Team quarterback. Captain of the Archwood Wolves.
His sweat-drenched light-brown locks stuck up in all directions but he still looked like a damn GQ model. As he began a light jog toward me, he clapped his hands together and held his arms out, signaling for the ball. His muscular frame was dominant and his olive skin glistened. How did he make sweat look good?
I saved the saliva that could have been running down my chin because while I didn’t know a lot about our football team’s captain, I did know that he was obnoxious, loud, and inappropriate … and that was just what I’d picked up without sharing any classes with him. This year we had economics together.
I pulled my arm back and stepped forward, throwing the ball through the air directly toward him. It was a perfect shot and he caught it with one hand. I saw the surprised expression that flashed briefly across his features. A few low whistles came from his teammates, and I heard the words “She-Hulk” come from somewhere downfield.
It was as if they couldn’t fathom that a girl could throw a ball.
I rolled my eyes, picked up my phone and gym bag from the grass, and continued toward the locker rooms. So much for flying under the radar. It was typical that something as simple as throwing a ball could attract attention. It was a testament to how underdeveloped teenage brains were.
The sky was filtered with red and orange hues by the time I left the locker room, like someone had smeared a paintbrush across the horizon to make a canvas transitioning a beautiful day into a clear night.
My good mood was quickly dampened when I saw my car in the parking lot and realized that it had a large dent in the back bumper, scratched with black paint. I ran my hand along the grooves with frustration. Whoever had done it hadn’t stuck around to swap details, and the inconsideration made me furious.
A ding on my bumper was forgivable.
A ding and ditch was not.
My car might have been a lemon—it wasn’t a fifty-thousand-dollar Jeep like what some of the kids around here drove—but it was the only one I had, and I couldn’t afford for people to crash into it and not at least pony up for the damage.
I got into the car, slamming the door with a force that displayed my frustration, then drove the five minutes home with a scowl etched on my face the entire way.
The garage door was already open, so I pulled right in and jumped out with a huff, then jogged up the narrow walk to the steep steps to our front door. As soon as I got inside, I swung the door shut and hurled my backpack into the corner of the living room.
“Nathan?!” I called for my older brother, my legal guardian, hoping that he could shed some helpful light on my current car predicament.
The small open-plan living area offered no sign of the eldest Bryan sibling, and our little two-bedroom home wasn’t big enough for my voice not to travel. He was obviously not here, so I put my frustration on the back burner, walked over to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of water, and guzzled it back, quenching my thirst.
Gone for a catch with the boys. Be back later.
I wasn’t surprised at the little note stuck to the kitchen counter; I came home to them regularly. My twenty-five-year-old brother was a junior coach at Arapahoe Community College here in Castle Rock, but in high school he’d been the star quarterback on a fast track to professional success. Unfortunately, he’d suffered a rotator cuff injury when he was sixteen. He shrugged it off as a minor setback and tried to heal through Cortisone injections and physical therapy alone, but he should have had surgery when the specialist recommended it instead of opting out because it was the middle of football season. He left it too long and sustained permanent damage to his joint. The specialist told him that he would never turn pro. Even so, Nathan could still run circles around some of the boys on our team. He’d accepted the end of his career with a gracious attitude, and enjoyed training his students.
The doorbell rang, startling me into spilling water all over myself.
“Great,” I mumbled as I headed to the front door. I swung it open and raised a brow in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Drayton Lahey stood before me in a fitted tank top and jeans. A flashback to that afternoon’s exchange crossed my mind. Maybe he’d come to recruit me for the team.
Ha, unlikely.
“Nice bra.” He nodded at the black lace that’d become visible under my white shirt, but if he thought that I was going to get flustered and panic over the fact that he could see my bra, he was dead wrong. With a bored expression, I kept my hand resting on the door.
“Are you lost?”
“Nah, I hit your car at school today.” He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and placed one between his lips as he patted his pockets in search of a lighter.
“Can you not?”
I waited for him to put the cigarette away but he didn’t. He got as far as finding his lighter before I leaned forward and plucked the death stick from his mouth then snapped it in half, ignoring the disbelief that contorted his features. You’d think a football player would know better than to smoke.
“That was you?” I asked, getting back to the fact that Drayton Lahey had hit my car.
“Yeah, sorry.” He recovered from my assault on his cancer cane, not looking apologetic in the slightest.
“How’d you know where I live?” I asked skeptically as he leaned on the doorframe with a cavalier attitude.
“I followed you.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me at school?” When he didn’t respond, I understood. “Oh, I see. You didn’t want anyone to see you talking to me.”
“What? N-o, no.” He recoiled, stammering with surprise.
“Save it. Follow me. If you haven’t taken too many balls to the head, maybe you can actually fix this.” I stepped past him and headed down the front steps toward my car.
“Actually, I was going to give you some cash,” he mumbled, jogging to catch up.
“Are you serious?” I spun on my heel and stopped in front of him. “What kind of man are you?”
I almost laughed as a wounded expression formed on his face, the blow to his masculinity clearly having an adverse effect on his bravado. I was aware that just having a penis didn’t mean he’d come out of the womb with a degree in mechanics. I just couldn’t resist the figurative kick between his legs.
“Look,” he said with a clipped tone, ignoring my jeer at his lack of skills, “it had nothing to do with people seeing me talk to you. I was waiting on my bike for whoever owned the car and then I saw you getting … really pissed off. I figured I’d save a scene at school and just come here.”
I glanced at his sleek black motorcycle out on the road. A sizeable dent on the side of it made me wince—it was worse than my car, that was for sure. I wasn’t even sure how he’d managed to accomplish such a cock-up, but I decided not to ask.
“I appreciate you coming to own up. I think it might cost around”—I narrowed my eyes as if I was internally calculating—“six, maybe seven grand.”
“Get out,” he scoffed. He pulled a black cap out of the back pocket of his jeans and slipped it on backward as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.
“You’re doing it wrong.” I pointed at his head. “The hat serves no purpose if you don’t turn it around.”
“It looks better backward.” He shrugged, and damn was he right. I was a sucker for a backward cap. “What do you care anyway. Here”—he slid his hand into his front pocket and pulled out a wad of cash—“get your car fixed.”
I was so distracted by the fact that this dude carried stacks of hundreds around with him that I didn’t notice the minivan pulling up beside the curb. I knew it was Nathan’s co-worker. He had a few kids—the sticker on the back window was a family of six little stick f
igures.
“Dallas!” my brother called as he climbed out of the backseat. He saw Drayton as he swung his backpack on and shut the car door.
“Hey, Nathan.” I smiled and slipped the money into my pocket as my brother tossed me the football he’d been cradling.
“Nathan Bryan? This is your brother?” Drayton asked excitedly. “Shit, you’re a legend. Coach still has a picture of you in his office.”
Nathan shook Drayton’s outstretched hand, his confusion morphing into pride. “You play at Archwood?”
“Quarterback,” Drayton answered as he folded his bulging arms, the muscles expanding beyond belief. His right arm was decorated with a sleeve of tattoos that had obviously been done by an extremely talented artist. They were beautiful. There was a cluster of motorcycles, faded skulls, and dead flowers. There were even a couple of hidden footballs, but they were subtle and small, and looked as if they were made out of smoke.
A road starting at his wrist ran through the art, winding up to his shoulder. At the end were the backs of a little boy and girl who were holding hands and walking into a sunset. The whole thing looked like a pencil sketch, and gave the illusion of a memory in fog and mist. I wondered what the meaning behind the sleeve was.
Don’t stare.
“That’s where you learned how to throw like that …” Drayton was talking to me, so I quickly pulled my eyes away from his biceps and tattoos.
“What do you mean?” Nathan asked.
“This afternoon at practice,” Drayton said, “she would have been wiped out, but she caught a bullet and threw it back with one hell of an arm.”
“Nice.” Nathan regarded me with pride. “She has to put up with me using her for practice most days.” He gave me a light punch in the arm and then tapped his backpack. “I bought some meat for barbecue, Dal. You’re not working at the diner tonight, right? I’ve got some cold beers in the fridge too. Want to stay …”
“Drayton, and sur—”
“No, he can’t!” I cut Drayton off before he could accept. “He’s got stuff to do.”
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