We stand in silence with our arms wrapped around each other for a few moments, my cheek resting on the top of Abby’s head. “Crazy that Chris and Megan are having a baby, though, isn’t it?”
She shrugs, but doesn’t say anything.
Pulling back, I look down at her to find her avoiding my gaze. “You knew?” I guess based on her evasion.
She shrugs again.
“You knew, and you didn’t tell me?” I can’t decide if I’m more impressed or disappointed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She finally looks at me, her blue eyes narrowed. “Megan told me not to. She needed to tell Chris first.”
I mull that over and decide it makes sense. “Why did she tell you before him, then?”
Yet another shrug. “She was kinda freaking out, and she needed to talk. I’m her best friend. So she told me.”
Definitely impressed. This girl could be a sphinx the way she sits on information without giving anything away. I mean, I knew that already, but I’m just glad to know she’d sit on any information I wanted her to keep quiet too. And no one would ever suspect a thing.
I pull her against my chest again, settling us back in our comfy hug. “If you find yourself pregnant and freaking out, you know I’m fully prepared to handle it, right?”
She snorts, and my eyebrows scrunch together. Does she doubt my ability to handle an unexpected pregnancy? But her next comment makes it clear that’s not the cause of her derision. “If I found out I was pregnant, one—I’d tell you right away. And two—I wouldn’t be freaking out the way Megan was because my parents aren’t ultra-judgmental assholes who cut me off for living with my boyfriend and think I’m going to hell. So … it’s not quite the same.”
“Ah,” I say, unsure exactly how to respond. But framed like that, yeah, Megan freaking out and needing someone like Abby to calm her down makes total sense.
“Should we go practice making a baby?” I ask.
Abby giggles, but steps back, her hand sliding down my arm until her fingers tangle with mine. She gives me a tug and leads us toward the bedroom. “I like practicing, even if I’m not ready for the real thing yet.”
I laugh, carefree and happy. “Good. Me either. But let’s practice making one anyway.”
EPILOGUE
Simon
The sound of the front door opening and closing reaches me in my bedroom, and Ellie’s now-familiar voice shouts, “Cal! We’re gonna be late if you don’t get your ass in gear!”
“Shut up, Ellie!” Cal yells back to his sister from the bathroom across the hall.
A moment later, my phone dings with a text, Can you go deal with her?
Shaking my head at their antics, I pull on a Marycliff Football T-shirt, make sure my joggers aren’t showing my ass crack, and head out to the living room. My family lives in town, so I’ll be staying here during the break and hanging out with them for all the usual holiday traditions while still getting my own space. I can’t think of a better way to spend the break. Cal and Ellie, on the other hand, have a four hour drive ahead of them before they get back to their parent’s house in The Dalles.
Ellie crosses her arms and cocks her hip, carrying herself with a swagger reminiscent of her older brother, even if their coloring is different. Ellie’s brown hair—a stark contrast to her brother’s dirty blond—is pulled back in a ponytail while her brown eyes rake over me in frank assessment that I still haven’t quite gotten used to from my friend’s little sister. “He sent you out to try to calm me down, didn’t he?” she demands.
I shrug and head for the kitchen. “Want some water?” I call over my shoulder.
Her snort follows me. “No, thanks. I have a cooler full of drinks and snacks.” She yells the last part, obviously for her brother’s benefit more than mine.
Any response he makes is covered by the sound of running water as I fill my glass. When I return to the living room, Ellie’s sitting on the couch, her phone in her hand.
She looks up at my entrance, her eyes sweeping over me once more. “How are you handling Coach Hanson’s forced retirement?”
Shrugging, I raise an eyebrow at the interview-like nature of the question. “Fine, I guess. Not much I can do about it.” I settle onto the loveseat adjacent to the sofa—Cal’s mom insisted we needed a matching sofa and loveseat when we moved into our little two-bedroom house—trying to negotiate the appropriate balance between being nice to my roommate’s sister and not encouraging the obvious ogling. She hasn’t spent a lot of time in our house, despite attending Marycliff as well. She’s a freshman, lives on campus in the dorms, and has her own friends. And I’m pretty sure that Cal’s made it clear that she doesn’t need to be hanging out here.
She chuckles, her grin erasing the sullen expression she’s worn since she got here. I guess she doesn’t appreciate her brother keeping her waiting. “That’s what I like about you, Simon,” she declares. “You don’t let anyone or anything get under your skin. You just handle whatever life throws your way.” She shifts her position, leaning closer to me, her hands clasped together. “Please please please help my brother learn to be more like that. He’s way too uptight for his own good, and he’s all worried and driving himself crazy about what’s going to happen next year.”
I shrug again, drinking my water, but somehow this seems to frustrate Ellie. She straightens and throws her hands in the air. “That’s it?” She mimics my shrug. “That’s all you’re going to give me? No, ‘Sure, Ellie, I’ll try,’ at least?”
“Cal is the way Cal is. I’m not sure why you think I can do anything about that.”
She lets out a loud sigh of exasperation and flops back into the corner of the couch. “Of course you can’t.” But it comes out sarcastic.
Oh, well. I really can’t. Plus, Cal’s neuroticism is what makes him a good quarterback. He runs scenarios and potential plays through his head constantly, trying to pit the best aspects of our team against our opponent in a way that brings out their weaknesses. My job is to make sure no one knocks him on his ass.
If that translates into him being a bit of a controlling worrywart in his life off the field, well … I’ll agree with Ellie that the guy needs to loosen up a bit and learn to let go of things that he can’t control, but again, there’s really not anything I can do to make him see that.
“Ellie, leave Simon alone,” Cal says, coming into the room and dragging his suitcase behind him.
She looks at him gape-mouthed and stabs a finger in the air in his direction. “You’re the one who sent him out here. How’m I supposed to leave him alone if he’s the only one paying any attention to me? If you want me to leave your roommate in peace, why don’t you be ready on time? Especially after the way you lectured me about making sure I’m here on time so we’re not late to Mom and Dad’s annual Christmas open house. Hmmm?”
I hide my smirk in my water glass, but they’re both so wrapped up in their sibling bickering, that I could probably grin openly and neither of them would notice.
“Shut up,” Cal grumbles. “I’m ready now. Stop talking about Coach Hanson, and let’s go.”
She rolls her eyes dramatically, but stands. “Music to my ears. I’ve been ready to go for a while. But since you’ve taken so long, I’m going to use the bathroom before we leave.” And she flounces out of the room.
Cal sighs and runs a hand down his face before turning to me. “Sorry, man. You know how sisters are.”
I nod. “Sure.” Except my sisters aren’t anything like Ellie. They’re still in elementary school, for one thing, so our relationship isn’t plagued by the same sort of arguing that Cal and Ellie get up to every time they’re in the same room. Despite that, it’s clear that they care about each other. Cal texts her pretty frequently to make sure she’s doing alright her first semester at college, and he’s scoped out her dates a couple of times to make sure she’s not hooking up with known douchebags. He’s protective of her, and that I understand completely.
He looks around the room, then pulls out
his phone, looks at the screen, and shoves it back in his pocket. “Hurry up!” he yells down the hall to Ellie.
“Screw you!” she yells back, the sound muffled by the closed bathroom door.
“You know,” I venture, Ellie’s question about Coach plus her suggestion that I help Cal lighten up fresh on my mind, “next year’s probably going to be fine, even with a new coach.”
Cal’s face immediately darkens, the same way it does every time Coach Hanson’s retirement and the new coach next season comes up. But I plow on, ignoring the change in his demeanor. “We met the guy. Remember? He’s been working in a Division I school for the last few years. He has more knowledge of what it takes to run a program at this level. What they did to Coach was shitty for sure, but I think for us it’ll be a good thing in the long run.”
“Where’s the loyalty, man?” Cal says, his hands going wide in a gesture equally as dramatic as his sister. I can’t say that to him, though. He’d kill me. Or at least he’d try. Considering I outweigh him by a good fifty pounds and bench press his weight on a light day, he probably wouldn’t stand much of a chance. I have to fight back a grin at the mental image of him coming at me and me holding my hand on his head to keep him back while he punches wildly like in those old cartoons. He probably wouldn’t appreciate my humor, though. Especially not now.
I shrug. “It has nothing to do with loyalty. Coach is retired. Officially as of today. We had the party. There’s nothing to be done about it. The athletics department wanted someone new. All I’m saying is, we should make the best of it and get what we can out of our final year of eligibility. Staying mad about Coach getting forced into retirement isn’t going to help anyone.”
“Well I’m thrilled for you that you can move on so fast,” Cal says. “But I’m not there yet. So excuse me if I need a bit more time to just get over it.”
I hold up my free hand in a gesture of surrender. “I’m just sayin’.”
He sighs. “I know.”
Ellie finally comes back out and picks up her purse from its spot on the floor next to the couch. “He’s got a point, you know,” she says to Cal.
“Shut up, Ellie. Let’s go.”
Ignoring her brother’s pointed gesture at the door, she turns to me and offers me a sunny smile. “Bye, Simon. Merry Christmas!” And she surprises me by wrapping her arms around my torso in an impromptu hug.
I awkwardly pat her back and mumble, “Merry Christmas,” looking over her shoulder at her brother, who’s scowling at me like I’m hitting on his sister. When she peels her body off me, I can’t help the relieved sigh that escapes, but from the way Cal’s scowl deepens, I think he may have misunderstood the sigh. Shit.
Ellie skips out the door, either oblivious or uncaring.
Cal glares at me. “Hands off my sister,” he growls.
I hold up my hands. “She hugged me, man. What was I supposed to do? Shove her away and yell, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’”
His face lightens a fraction, then he actually smiles sheepishly. “Sorry. No. Of course not. It’s just …” He shakes his head. “In high school, I constantly had to hear locker room talk about my sister, because my teammates were assholes who thought it was funny. It’s been a relief the last couple of years to be away from that. Now that she’s here …”
“Dude. Your sister is safe with me,” I reassure him. Yeah, she’s cute, and if she were anyone else who kept giving me elevator eyes and throwing herself at me, sure, I’d probably ask her out, but everyone knows you don’t date your friends’ siblings. It’s a surefire way to fuck up a friendship. And Cal and I have been tight since freshman year. He’s my roommate and my quarterback. My job is to watch his back. Not stab him in it.
He nods. “Thanks, man. Merry Christmas. See you in January.”
“Merry Christmas.”
* * *
Off Limits: Simon and Ellie end up spending time together, despite her brother’s mile wide overprotective streak. When things between them get serious, the only question is whether the secrets or Ellie’s people-pleasing tendencies will ruin everything first …
Off Limits is an all new standalone brother’s best friend romance.
Get it here!
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Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading this series! It holds a special place in my heart, and I hope it does for you too.
You can get free bonus scenes to go along with books 4-6 if you click here.
And I can hear you wondering about Simon, Cal, and Ellie, and where do they fit in with everything …
Well, they’re kicking off a new series in early 2021. Simon and Ellie’s story Off Limits is available for preorder here, and will go live on February 18, 2021. To stay up to date on future releases, click the box to get emails from me when you download your bonus scenes, or follow me on Bookbub or Amazon or somewhere so you don’t miss out on any of the new series. It’s going to be lots of fun, and if you loved these guys, I’m confident you’ll love the new batch of football players just as much.
Keep reading for an unedited sneak peek of Off Limits!
Until next time,
Jerica MacMillan
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Jerica MacMillan has been reading romance since she stumbled into the paperback section of the library as a middle schooler. And it's been an ongoing love affair ever since!
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Cataclysm
Anything You Need
Shouldn’t Want You
Everything I Want
Just For Now
Anyone But You
Songs and Sonatas Series
Double Exposition
Development
Recapitulation
Broken Chords
Counterpoint and Harmony
Overtones
Reverb
The Arrangement
Players of Marycliff University
Summer Fling
Close Quarters
Always You
Unsaid Things
Coping Skills
False Assumptions
A Very Marycliff Christmas
Sneak peek of Off Limits
Chapter One
Ellie
My flip flops slap my heels as I march down the sidewalk to my brother’s house. I know he won’t be thrilled to see me, but that’s just too freakin’ bad. It’s late. I’m tired. The library just closed, and I have nowhere else to go.
The perfect end to the perfect evening.
Fortunately, he only lives about a half a mile from campus, and even though walking alone at just after midnight on a weekend might be questionable from a safety perspective, wandering campus alone would definitely be worse. And while I could probably call my brother and have him come get me, that would give him the opportunity to argue with me about my choice of destination—namely, his house. Surprise is definitely the better tactic.
And let’s not discuss why I’ve spent most of my Friday night—the Friday of the first week of school, no less—in the library. We’ll ignore that right now. We’ll also ignore the reality of Cal’s reaction when I show up knocking on his door in the middle of the night. Not that I’m worried he’s asleep already. He won’t be. He and his roommate will probably be up playing video games. At least that’s what I assume they do on the weekends. That’s what he did in high school, anyway, and I haven’t noticed any marked changes in his interests since then.
As a distraction I start making a list of phrases that never end well.
First up is the infamous, How bad can it be? Plus its cousin, How hard can it be? Everyone knows those lead nowhere good.
Next is, Hold my beer. Often uttered by drunken idiots immediately prior to undertaking something spectacularly idiotic.
And my newest entry to the list? Let me know if you need the room. I made the mistake of saying this to my roommate last week, and she’s taking advantage of the offer already. Which is fine, or it would be, if she only needed it for a few hours like I thought. But the few hours I expected appear to be stretching into all night.
Technically, it’s not supposed to be all night. It’s just until she tells me it’s safe to return. But after five hours, I still haven’t gotten the all clear.
Autumn is … lovely, but a little eccentric. And tonight she tells me she’s doing some kind of ritual to manifest the right energy for the year or something like that. She mentioned it having to be tonight because of the moon phase and chakra alignment or something that I didn’t quite follow. I think she might’ve also mentioned needing a guy? But I might’ve misunderstood that part. When she gets excited about something, she starts talking fast and doesn’t quite realize that not everyone grew up meditating naked under the full moon and reading tarot cards.
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