Brett sat down on the bench in the locker room and focused on the far wall, the paper still clenched in his hands. The Steelheads had lost another game over the weekend, but they still had one more chance, and that was all he needed. One more game in the regular season, one more chance to prove himself, earn a spot as a starting quarterback on his own team—with a lucrative contract.
Heavy, uneven steps echoed across the empty locker room floor. Brett bent his head, pretending to text message, and prayed the guy would walk on by. No such luck. A pair of large feet framed by crutches appeared in his line of vision.
Brett rolled his eyes and glared up at Harris. “Go ahead, chew my ass and get it over with.”
Harris glanced at his own iPhone, tapped a couple times on the screen, studied it, and then met Brett’s gaze. “You sucked the first half, then the second half you settled down and played a decent game. You’re getting better, but we’re running out of time. It’s”—Harris consulted his smartphone again—“Monday, late afternoon. We need to get started on the next game with the Rams. We’ll spend tonight going over yesterday’s game, then we’ll start on the next opponent.”
Brett nodded, pushing thoughts from his mind of becoming the first NFL player under contract to be homeless.
“It’s a short week because of Christmas, so we’ll work Christmas day too.”
“Sounds good.” Brett had completely forgotten about Christmas. Like he gave a shit. To him it was just another day. Besides, he’d be absolved from guilt about not going to his family’s Christmas. Sorry, Mom; gotta work.
“Did you have plans for Christmas dinner?” Tyler frowned as if the thought just occurred to him.
“Nope, none.” Brett grinned, actually happy to avoid his family drama.
“Well, then good. You can join us. We’ll eat and get back to work.”
“Uh, I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can. My mom and aunt love cooking for huge groups.”
“But—”
“You’re going. It’s the quickest way to do our Christmas duty and get back to work. You know where Derek lives, right?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Be there at one. We eat at two. Now that that’s settled, let’s get to work.”
Settled? Harris gave orders like General Patton and never took no for an answer. Brett decided it would be better just to go. Besides, surely Estie would be there. Despite how stupid it was, Brett wanted to see her, especially on Christmas.
Brett stood, wadded up the notice, and banked a shot toward the garbage can in the locker room.
Harris snatched the balled-up paper out of thin air with one hand. “What the fuck is this? I told you not to pay attention to any of that shit they put on the internet or in the papers.” He smoothed it out and read it. Anger filled his eyes and Brett could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “Aren’t you living in Jermaine White’s house?”
Brett nodded.
“White did this on purpose. The bastard.” Tyler smashed the eviction notice into a tighter ball and did a one-handed shot into the garbage can, not even touching the rim, for a three-pointer. It just figured he was good at everything.
“Looks that way. I didn’t even know the place was for sale. He never put up a sign or said a thing about it.”
Harris’s eyes narrowed, and he rubbed his chin. “Hmmm, that’s just fucking wonderful. You got a lot of stuff to move?”
“Not really. I’m a minimalist type of guy, but I have animals. That’s going to be the problem.”
Harris waved his hand. “Not one damn bit. I know just the place. My sister has a full daylight basement, which is a mother-in-law apartment. Separate entrance, its own kitchen, bathroom, and a fenced yard for the animals.”
“Which sister?” Brett held his breath and searched his memory as to whether or not Estie had a daylight basement in her ranch house. He’d never paid much attention because it’d been dark, and he’d been too busy drooling over Harris’s sister.
“Estie.” Tyler said that one word Brett longed to hear.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Part of him thought it was an excellent idea; the rest of him didn’t get a vote.
“She loves animals and does a lot of her work at home, so she can take care of yours too. We’ll move you in next Tuesday after we win this upcoming playoff game and earn a bye for the first round of the playoffs.”
“Green Bay has to lose for that to happen.”
Harris shrugged. “Whatever. You take care of your part and let fate deal with the Packers.”
“Look, I can’t move into Estie’s basement. It’s just—”
Harris pinned him with shrewd, assessing eyes. “It’s just what?”
“Are you sure she’ll be okay with this?” Brett couldn’t tell Harris he had a raging crush on his sister and that he either took a cold shower or took care of himself every night while thinking of her. Harris would definitely castrate him.
“Positive.” Harris grinned. “Where else can you find a place that’ll take animals and rent to you month to month? Let’s face it, Gun, you make the playoffs, and you’re getting a big contract as a starter somewhere, so you don’t want to get tied up into a long-term lease. Estie’s getting married, so she doesn’t need to commit herself to a renter when she doesn’t know what the future holds.”
Brett was torn between his head and his heart and the impossible task of pleasing both. Harris made the decision for him.
There were times Estie wanted to shove her brother in a bottle, cork it, and throw it in the Pacific Ocean. Let some other poor sap deal with him. This was one of those times. The guy could be a total prick and love every minute of it. Case in point: Christmas dinner. He’d invited Brett and didn’t say one damn thing about it to Estie.
Not that Tyler would think it would matter. And it shouldn’t. But it did.
He’d also invited Zach and Kelsie and hadn’t told her about them, but Brett? Damn. Sure, it wasn’t her house or Ty’s—it belonged to their cousin Derek and his wife, Rachel. But still. Brett and Richard in the same house for an afternoon? Double damn.
Estie did her best to appear interested in every boring conversation and family drama event going on in the room and avoided Brett at all costs. The last thing she needed was someone noticing the hot glances he cast her way or the longing in her gaze as she drooled after him when he wasn’t looking.
Derek’s large family room had a bar with a full array of alcohol. Estie availed herself of a few drinks in a failed attempt to relax. Considering the way Brett and Richard shot daggers at each other, it’d be a long day. Pretty soon they’d be lifting their legs and marking their territory.
Unable to tolerate the tension any longer, she excused herself to help her mom and aunt Bonnie, Derek and Danielle’s stepmother, in the kitchen. Estie was a passable cook, better than Freddie, who’d been banned from the kitchen for life, and rightfully so. She set to work peeling potatoes, a mindless task if there ever was one, leaving her too much time to recall Brett’s blue eyes, tentative smile, and how the muscles in his arm flexed when he picked up his beer. Estie fanned herself at the thought. The man had a ripped body and was an endearing combination of purpose and shyness rolled into one.
When her mother left the room for a moment, her aunt Bonnie slid up beside her. She picked up one of the potatoes Estie had arranged in a neat line on the counter and peeled an entire potato before she spoke in a hushed voice. “Brett Gunnels is a very nice man, isn’t he?”
Estie sucked in a breath and nodded. Aunt Bonnie noticed everything.
“He has a bit of a crush on you.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” Estie peeled so hard the potato in her hand shrank to half its size.
“I think you have, and I think you’re attracted to him.” Aunt Bonnie raised her brows and looked pointedly at the poor scalped potato.
Estie eyed her aunt but didn’t even attempt to deny the truth. Growing up next door to the Ramseys, she
knew Aunt Bonnie as well as she knew her own mother. “Am I that transparent?”
Her aunt raised an eyebrow. “Do you love him?”
Estie leaned back against the counter. “Yes, I love him. It’s just—”
“Oh, hell, not this again. Estie, figure it out.” Freddie appeared from nowhere, foot tapping on the floor and arms crossed over her chest.
Estie turned her back on her sister and chopped the carrots, murdering them with her knife and ignoring her sister. Their mother came in, followed by Rachel, Kelsie, and Lavender. Just what she needed, the entire bunch of them butting in where they weren’t invited.
“What are you two fighting about now?” Trisha Harris put her hands on her hips and stared at her two daughters. Even at close to sixty, she was tall and lean, with dark hair and an almost flawless face. She looked and acted twenty years younger.
“My OCD sister here is freaking out about marriage, if you can believe that.” Freddie snorted and rolled her eyes.
Rachel stepped forward. “Maybe he’s not the right guy.”
Easy for Rachel to say. She was married to Derek, one of the nicest guys Estie knew, even if he was her cousin. Estie chopped harder, fighting back the tears. Never let them see you cry, especially not her family. They’d descend on her like a pack of rabid dogs on an orphaned fawn. Survival of the fittest was the family motto.
Freddie held court, bitching to their Mom, Rachel, and Aunt Bonnie, berating Estie’s control issues—like Freddie should talk—and how she’d be hard-pressed to find another guy pussy-whipped enough to put up with her. Lavender and Kelsie slipped out of the kitchen, not wanting any part in Freddie’s tirade.
Continuing her vegetable serial killer ways, Estie sliced into a tomato, gutting the poor thing and making a dripping mess. Mess or not, that didn’t stop her. She glanced out the window to the deck where the guys drank beer and smoked cigars. Brett leaned against the railing and off to the side, but still part of the group. Richard stood stiffly nearby, not saying word.
“I’ll set the table,” Estie volunteered, not even drawing a glance from the women. They’d moved on to picking apart the Steelheads’ new jersey design, and Estie had become the invisible middle child again. She couldn’t decide which was worse, being ignored or being pinned under a microscope. Odds were ten to one it was the pinning.
She walked into the dining room where the leaves had been added to make the table large enough to seat the royal family. Pretty soon there’d be kids at these family things. Who would be the first? Rachel and Derek? Tyler and Lavender? She couldn’t see Lavender agreeing to a child without marriage, which left Estie next in line after she married Richard. Yes, a little baby of her own to hold and care for and nurture. A smile tugged at her lips as she pictured the little boy with sandy-brown hair and pale-blue eyes.
Estie shook her head, hard. She’d just pictured Brett’s child, not Richard’s. Forget having cold feet, she’d been soaking hers in an ice bucket.
Estie glanced up as Brett came through the French doors.
He saw her and hesitated. “Hey.”
“Hi. A little hectic around here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I like it.” His soft smile testified to the truth behind the statement.
“So do I.” At least she had until her sister went off on her and shoved Estie’s faults in her face, as if she weren’t already aware of them. Brett watched her intently, and when she caught him staring, he looked away quickly.
He chuckled as they watched Tyler’s badass cat swat at the chocolate Lab. The dog cowered and tried to crawl behind the couch. Another cat lounged on the back of the couch, apparently too lazy to harass the dog. “Your family does love animals. You guys treat them like part of the family.”
“Absolutely. The dog is Simon, he’s Derek’s. The lazy cat is Charlie. Rachel has had him for years. And Coug is the orange tabby. He’s Ty’s cat. He’s evil when it comes to dogs.”
Brett walked over to Coug and scratched him under the chin. “So, you’re Tyler’s cat. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Coug opened his mouth and meowed, as if to say, “Damn right, buddy.”
Estie moved to stand beside him, loving how comfortable he was with the animals. “We think he has Ty’s foul mouth too. We don’t speak cat, but he gets his point across.”
“Like Bongo.”
“Yes, like Bongo, except he speaks English. How is our naughty parrot?”
“He’s fine.” Brett met her gaze, and for a moment Estie couldn’t breathe. A strange feeling of longing squeezed the breath from her lungs. As crazy as it was, she wanted Brett. By his hungry pale-blue eyes, he felt the same. It’d been so long since a man looked at her as if she were the hottest woman on earth. She didn’t quite know how to respond.
Tyler hobbled into the room, giving Estie a guilty start. She bent down to coax Simon out from behind the couch.
“You’ll be seeing a lot more of him and his furry kids,” Tyler said.
Estie forgot about Simon and whipped around to face her brother. “What?” She propped her hands on her hips and glared at him.
“He’s your new renter downstairs.” Tyler’s smirk irritated her. He loved being the one in the know when everyone else was in a blackout.
“Brett’s my new renter?” This could not be happening. Estie needed to find a place to trade in siblings for gentler, kinder models, because the two she had were absolute jerks. If only Tyler realized what temptation he was putting one floor down from her. She was having a hard enough time resisting Brett with the limited amount of time she saw the man. What would she do with him living downstairs?
“Uh, you didn’t know it was me?” Brett shuffled his feet, looking as embarrassed as she felt.
Tyler shrugged and waved it off as if it were no big deal. “I thought I mentioned the name.”
“You just said a teammate.”
“Oh, well, meet my teammate who’ll be living in your basement apartment for the next few months. It’s a perfect arrangement, freeing Brett up to concentrate on his game, while you take stellar care of his animals.”
“I’ll pay you,” Brett offered, obviously uncomfortable being stuck in the middle of this sibling disagreement.
“We’re moving him in next week. Unless that’s a problem.” Tyler’s sharp blue eyes dissected every nuance of their body language.
Estie turned away, knowing her brother didn’t miss a thing when he was looking. Half the time he didn’t bother to look if it didn’t concern him, but his sisters definitely concerned him. For all his selfish bullshit, Tyler cared deeply about his family and turned into an overprotective oaf when the need called for it—and often when it didn’t call for it.
“It’s not. A problem. Not at all.” Estie was in deep shit and getting sucked deeper every moment.
“Hey, everyone!” Derek yelled and rang a large brass bell to get their attention. “It’s time to eat, but I thought we’d do a toast first.”
Estie listened with one ear while her head pounded over being railroaded by her brother into accepting Brett as her renter. Without a good excuse to say no, she’d try to make the best of it. That didn’t include sleeping with her renter as a tenant perk. Brett was never home, just like her brother, the very brother who’d forgotten all about screwing with her life and was now cuddling with his girlfriend, Lavender.
Her dumb-shit brother was crazy about his girlfriend of over a year, but he refused to propose, and Estie wondered how much longer Lavender would tolerate his lack of commitment.
If only Richard would look at her with the same devotion as Tyler looked at Lavender, maybe she wouldn’t go crushing on hot quarterbacks with a love of animals.
God, her entire family had some form of major dysfunction except her mother and now-dead father. How could two such perfect parents have such screwed-up children?
Maybe they weren’t so perfect after all; maybe she never took off those childhood blinders with regard to her parents.
Since it was his house, Derek held up his wineglass for a toast, and Rachel hurried to his side, put her arms around his neck, and whispered in his ear while nuzzling his earlobe. He bent his head to listen, his eyes getting bigger and bigger. His face broke into a broad grin as he hugged her close, lifting her off the ground to kiss her soundly on the lips.
A twinge of jealousy shot through Estie. She wanted that comfortable affection for each other and utter devotion, just as much as she wanted Tyler and Lavender’s passion and fire. She shot a glance at Richard, who sat on the couch as stiff as a mannequin in a store window.
Unbidden, her gaze slipped to Brett, who was watching her. He was always watching her, as if he were waiting for something. He managed a half smile then looked away, as if embarrassed to be caught looking.
Estie focused her attention—or tried—on her cousin and Rachel.
Derek couldn’t stop smiling. In fact, he was smiling so broadly that the normally rowdy crowd had shut up, every one of them suspecting that they were about to be clued in on something big.
Estie held her own breath, not daring to speculate what that big thing might be.
“Rachel just gave me the best Christmas present ever.” Derek paused, his gaze seeking out his stepmother and father. He beamed from ear to ear. “We’re pregnant.”
A huge cheer went up around the room, followed by a standing ovation and much backslapping and hugging. Estie was so happy for them, she could hardly breathe. She was going to be an aunt. Maybe not technically, but she’d be one just the same. Shouldering her way through the family, she threw her arms around Rachel.
“I can’t wait to be Aunt Estie.”
Rachel laughed, absolute joy radiating in her eyes. “Since you live so close, we’ll be counting on you for babysitting duties.”
“Anytime. I’d be more than happy to do the honors.”
Estie glanced back at Lavender, who was wiping her eyes, while Tyler stared straight into space, not blinking or cracking a smile. Trouble in paradise for sure.
Hot Read: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 5) Page 7