“Woah, Miller. You find Coach’s daughter lost in the parking lot?” one of the guys shouted from his table closest to the door.
Quinn wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his side, his lips at my ear. “You sure we can’t just skip this?”
“Too late now,” I whispered back before turning to where the heckler was sitting. It was the star wide receiver, who’d played his entire career with the team. He’d actually played for Daddy in college, so I recognized him immediately. “Oh, Prescott, you know what else he found in the parking lot? The football you didn’t catch all last season.”
Quinn’s body stiffened beside mine as some of the guys around the room let out a chorus of whoops at the impressive insult I’d just delivered the team’s resident super star.
I stepped out of Quinn’s grip but reached for his hand, and after lacing my fingers through his led him through the throng of people, stopping occasionally to murmur a quick hello to some of the players I knew and their wives.
“Miller.” Woods clapped him on the shoulder. “Dude, you think showing up with Coach’s daughter is gonna get you any playing time?” He was the starting quarterback and, despite some of the rumors to the contrary, was an all-around good guy. He dropped his voice. “Look, I don’t wanna be handing the ball off to Simmons. You’re the right guy for the job.” He patted Quinn’s shoulder once more.
“Don’t you worry about Daddy,” I told him. “He looks like a grizzly, but he’s nothing but a softie for his baby girl.”
“Yeah, Quinn’ll be nothing but a softie too if he spends the rest of his career on the bench.” Some of the guys standing around chuckled, and Quinn joined them.
“Nah, Georgia here likes my muscles too much for me to let them disappear.” He threw his arm around my shoulders again, and I leaned against him.
We chatted with some more of the guys from the offense, all of which took turns giving Quinn shit or offering their votes of confidence, and after about ten minutes, the tension that was written all over Quinn’s face began to fade away. I wondered if the guys would be more accepting if they knew the truth. Maybe one day, he’d be able to open up to them, to Daddy about his sister.
He’d told me a little about how he’d been treated since coming to Atlanta, and I knew that he hated the fact that they’d jumped to conclusions without giving him a chance. It was nice to stand by his side, listen to him joke around, the whole time his body never leaving mine.
I could see us doing this, spending time with his friends and their wives, getting together before and after games, cheering each other on and supporting one another. I wanted this, but more than that, I wanted Quinn. Every bit of him.
“Georgia Rose.” Daddy’s deep voice cut through the conversation. “Didn’t think I’d see you here tonight.” His glare was focused solely on the man to my left.
Quinn moved to step away from me, to give me a little bit of space, but I curled my arm around his waist and anchored him in place next to me. “Hey, Daddy! What a fantastic night this is turning out to be.”
I looked around my father to see my mother grinning behind him. I smiled back at her. “Mama! You look gorgeous. New dress?”
She stepped up beside my father and slid her hand under his large bicep. “Yes, dear. Your daddy helped me pick it out, didn’t you, Walt, dear?”
Daddy grumbled something, his eyes never leaving Quinn.
“Quinn.” Mama smiled. “It is so nice to see you tonight. Georgia told me that you two were seeing each other again. I was hoping you’d bring her as your plus one.”
Bless my sweet mother’s heart, but she’d fallen on the dagger for Quinn and me. Daddy’s head snapped to the side to peer down at his wife. “Peg, you knew they were still seeing each other? When the hell were you going to tell me that?”
“Walt, dear, I think one of your assistants is trying to flag us down. We can discuss all of this later tonight at home.” She turned on a heel and pulled at her husband’s arm, giving him no choice but to follow her wherever it was she was planning to lead him.
Just as they began to disappear into the crowd, Mama looked over her shoulder and winked at me. I blew her a kiss and then looked up at Quinn.
Relief colored his features, his shoulders slumping. “Your father is the scariest man I’ve ever met. And my father was a diesel mechanic in the war.”
I waved a hand and shook my head. “He’ll come around.”
“Your mama though.” He looked me up and down. “I see that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
I made a show of curtseying for him and grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now, let’s go dance one time before dinner.”
“I’d object, but I have a feeling that you’re going to get what you want no matter what I say.”
I pressed to my toes and gave his cheek a quick peck. “You know it.”
22
Quinn
Despite her insistence otherwise, I called the facility director and was assured that Jamie was, in fact, ready to come home. According to whomever it was that I spoke to, she’d completed their program, had done well, and had a positive outlook on the future. It was the same thing I’d heard time and time again, but I couldn’t argue with them, so Georgia and I got up early this morning to make the hour-long drive to get my sister.
Georgia sat beside me, her fingers nervously drumming her knee as she stared out the passenger side window. I reached across the console and covered her hand with mine.
“What if she doesn’t like me?” Georgia tipped her head to look in my direction. Her forehead was lined with worry, but I couldn’t help but chuckle. “It’s not funny! I’m nervous.”
I squeezed her fingers and looked back to the road. “Oh, it’s hilarious. You threw me into the lion’s den at dinner with your family a couple weeks ago, and now you’re worried that my one sister won’t like you. What is it they say? Turnabout is fair play?”
She pulled her hand from mine, and when I tried to capture it again, she crossed her arms over her chest. “This is different.”
“How?”
Her gaze travelled back to the landscape whirring by. She didn’t say anything as she worried her lower lip between her teeth. It was incredibly sexy, and if we hadn’t been headed to where we were, I would have given serious consideration to pulling over. “I just don’t know what to expect.”
That made two of us.
This wasn’t the first time I’d made this trip; it wasn’t even the fifth time. It was, however, the only time that I’d ever gone to pick my sister up from rehab and not felt like a boulder was sitting on my chest. All because the woman who was nervously picking at her nails had agreed to go with me.
I’d spent years agonizing over what I would find when I showed up to spring my sister from her latest stint. It was almost always the same. She looked tired, a little older than when she’d gone in, but she was full of hope and optimism, always apologetic and sincere.
But this trip was going to be different. I could feel it. Maybe I was the one who was full of optimism, but just knowing that Georgia was by my side helped ease the nerves that always accompanied this drive.
I took her hand in mine and brought it to my lips. “Jamie will be thrilled that she has someone other than me to talk to on the way home. I swear she will love you. And I can guarantee that she’s sitting there waiting for us, worrying if you will like her. If you’ll judge her. If you’ll look at her like she’s nothing but a problem.”
Her eyes widened. “I would never!”
“I know that. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’re here.”
I turned the truck into the drive of the prestigious facility that I’d found near our apartment. I’d tried so many different types of programs for Jamie, and none of them had made a difference. I’d finally decided that if she was going to go through the hell of detox and recovery, at least it would be in a place that wasn’t like a prison.
“Wow,” Georgia breathed
, “this is like a resort.”
I frowned. “Yeah. Best in the state. Let’s see if they’re worth what they cost.”
We’d decided that I’d go in to sign Jamie out and Georgia would wait in the truck. It had been her idea; she’d insisted that she didn’t want to interrupt our reunion, and even though I’d tried to assure her that she wouldn’t be imposing, she’d dug her heels in.
I parked and got out, making my way across the sprawling lawn of what had once been an estate to someone wealthy and made my way inside.
Jamie was sitting by the door, and before it had even had the chance to slam behind me, she was on her feet and running into my arms.
“Quinn!” she cried, her eyes filling with tears.
My own eyes began to fill, but I blinked hard and forced them back. I had to keep my shit together for her. I’d cried like a baby the first time I’d picked her up from rehab and Jamie had spent the next few weeks apologizing for everything nonstop.
“Jamie,” I mumbled as I buried my face in her neck. She felt solid in my arms, not nearly as thin as she’d become lately. Or maybe that was just my wishful thinking playing tricks on me. Either way, I squeezed her tight and refused to let go until she pulled away.
“You look good,” I told her.
She grinned. “Liar.” Peering around me she asked, “Where’s your girlfriend? I thought she was going to come with you?”
I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and together we walked to the front desk. “She’s in the truck. She insisted on letting us have a few moments of privacy. I tried to tell her that I’d had my fill of you, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Jamie elbowed me in the ribs and laughed. “Ass.”
After signing a few forms, we were on our way, the lady at the front desk smiling wide and wishing us all the best.
“Before we get in the truck, how serious is this?” Jamie asked as we stepped out into the sunshine.
I stopped and turned on the ball of my foot until I was face-to-face with my sister. Our entire lives, we’d always been told we looked exactly alike. Our eyes weren’t only the same shade of blue, but they also held the same guarded look. We’d gone through a difficult childhood together; it only made sense that we were guarded when it came to newcomers. It had been just me and Jamie for so long.
Even after college, when I’d met the guys and introduced them all to her, assuring Jamie that they could be trusted, she still held a little of herself back. It didn’t surprise me at all that this was the first question she’d asked after being released from a detox program.
I gripped her shoulders. “She refused to walk away from me, no matter how hard I pushed her. I told her everything.” I glanced over my shoulder to where Georgia was still seated in the front seat of my truck watching us. “And still, there she sits, waiting on me. And you.”
Jamie’s eyes filled again, this time the tears rolling down her cheeks. “You’re in love with her.”
Was I?
Probably.
Definitely.
“Looks like it.”
She stood on her toes to look over my shoulder and then looked back at me before scrubbing the tears away from her face. “That’s all I need to know, then.”
She pressed a quick kiss to my cheek and then stepped around me and practically skipped to the truck, pulling the passenger door open and throwing her arms around Georgia’s shoulders.
“I’m so glad to see you!” she said, Georgia’s wild hair in her face.
Georgia’s eyes crashed into mine, and I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. She wrapped her arms around my sister, and her lids fluttered shut, her pink lips curving into a smile.
I stood back, giving them a moment, and then cleared my throat. “Who’s hungry?”
Jamie pulled back and beamed at me. “I am! This place may look nice, but they do not serve good food.”
My sister climbed into the back seat of my truck, and I closed the door behind her before closing the passenger door as well. As I walked around the front of the truck, I pulled in a deep breath.
“Get it together, Miller,” I whispered to myself as I climbed into the driver’s seat.
Georgia’s hand reached for mine, and when her fingers linked with mine, I smiled at her.
Maybe this time would be different.
23
Quinn
“Come on, Miller, move your ass!” Coach Reed shouted across the practice field.
I dug my cleats into the ground and dropped my shoulders, the pads crushing into the defender’s chest. His arms wrapped around me like a python, squeezing until the ball popped out of my hands and rolled on the ground at my feet. Almost immediately, he released his hold on me and fell on top of the ball, giving me no time to even register that I’d fumbled before he was on his feet again, the pigskin held high above his head like it was a trophy.
“Fuck!” I roared, pulling my helmet off and slinging it toward the sideline.
We’d been running the same play for the last twenty minutes and every fucking time, I dropped the ball or got it stripped or knocked out of my hands. Woods, the quarterback, had been reassuring the first few times, but now he glared at me from center field. He was done with my mistakes.
Well, that made two of us.
“Get your sorry ass over here, Miller!” Coach Reed boomed.
Between meeting Georgia, my arrest, and everything that had happened with Jamie, I hadn’t stuck to my strict diet and exercise schedule the way I should have. It was painfully obvious by my lackluster performance on the first day of training camp, but we were finishing up day five and I’d turned it around and had won over some of my teammates. By mid-week, I’d found my groove and had been breaking tackles, running killer routes, and had even scored a couple of times. Today, though, it was like all the progress I’d made this week was nothing more than a dream.
I trudged over to where Coach was standing on the sideline, his broad chest heaving with each breath he sucked in.
“Why the hell can’t you hang on to that ball?” I’d barely come within ten feet of where he was before he began shouting again. The few players who had been standing nearby began to back away. Couldn’t say that I blamed them.
I’d been on the receiving end of many tongue lashings, but whatever it was Coach was about to lay on me was going to be the worst I’d ever had. His face was nearly purple, each word that flew from his mouth deepening the shade. If he kept going, he was going to have an aneurism.
“Look, Coach, I’m sorry,” I started, my hands in the air.
He shook his head. “Don’t give me any bullshit excuses. I don’t wanna hear ‘em. What I want is for you go out there and finish a single play without fucking it up! You swore you were gonna show me that you were a different player than last season, but all I see is the same fucked-up kid out there on that field.”
It was a slap in the face, and I bit the inside of my cheek. I had to keep my cool. “I know, sir. I don’t know––”
“Shut the fuck up!” he shouted, taking a step toward me. “I already told you I wasn’t interested in your excuses.”
“I wasn’t going to give you an excuse!” I snarled, the words flying from my mouth before I could do anything to keep them inside. “I mean, what the fuck is your problem with me?”
The room fell silent, any shuffling of feet or quiet whispering immediately stopped, and if there had been a mouse chewing a piece of bread in the corner, it would have sounded like a gunshot echoing in the large space.
Coach Reed’s already purple cheeks darkened even more, and with a final step, his chest bumped against mine. His voice was measured, the even syllables so low that I almost couldn’t hear them. “What the fuck is my problem with you?”
I swallowed but never looked away from the laser sharp stare that he was pinning me with. “You’ve spent the entire week riding my ass. I had a couple of bad days, but not any worse than any of the other fucking guys out here. Yet I�
�m the only motherfucker you’ve called out this entire goddamn camp. So yeah,” I spat, pressing my face into his, “what the fuck is your problem. With. Me?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see some of the other coaches beginning to take steps in our direction, ready to intervene if this moved from a shouting match to a physical one. I’d never once put my hands on someone in anger, aside from defending myself or Jamie from my father’s rages, but it happened all too often during practices.
Tensions ran high.
Coaches had a lot at stake.
Players’ egos were on the line.
But even if Coach Reed had started something, I wouldn’t have dared touch him. I wasn’t my father.
“My problem,” he shouted, spit flying from his mouth, “is that you think you can run around doing whatever you want on your time off and then walk onto my field, my team, and be given a starting position without having to earn it. I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to play, dating my daughter, but I’m not treating you any different just because she’s dumb enough to think you’re special.”
My mouth fell open. Did he really think I was using Georgia to get some sort of advantage on the team? Blood roared in my ears, my heart hammering away in my chest like it was a jackhammer trying to break through the concrete of my ribs.
“The fuck?” I screamed, jabbing my finger in his chest. “You think I’m dating your daughter so you’ll start me? Fuck that and fuck you.”
I spun on my heel. I had to get away from him, from the entire fucked-up situation before I lost the tiny shred of control I still clung to. I refused to do something that I’d never be able to take back.
I’d made it almost to the opposite sideline, my blood still boiling, when shouting behind me stopped me in my tracks.
“Coach!” someone yelled as another person shouted for a phone.
I turned, the scene before me knocking me back a step.
The Hardest Play Page 16