Chapter One
KINSEY
Seven Months Later
Two Weeks Before Preseason
“You’re being ridiculous.” Jax, my brother, “America’s Quarterback,” and all-around Mr. Perfect with his baby-blue eyes and curly brown hair, wasn’t even looking in my direction!
I snapped my fingers in front of his face. With a sigh, he pressed pause on the TV remote and slowly looked at me. “You’re beautiful.”
“I gained ten pounds.”
He shrugged. “Where?”
“Where?” I repeated. “Where?” I was about to say it a third time when a knock sounded at the door.
“Good, Miller’s finally here.” Jax shot up from the lounge chair and answered the door while I stood immobile and nearly stopped breathing altogether.
Miller.
Freaking MILLER was here?
I hadn’t seen him since Vegas.
I had actually avoided him like the plague until I left for Europe, only to find out that he’d been dating nonstop since I’d left! Not that I’d stalked him, or paid attention to social media, including gossip sites, tweets, and stupid hashtags about his biceps. Nope, not even the ones that said he was the hottest tight end with a tight end made for sin. I especially ignored those, for obvious reasons. I’d seen that tight end up close and personal—they had no idea the type of sinning a girl would do when faced with that—and his perfect lips. I shivered then mentally strangled myself until my mental self lost all consciousness.
Hold it the hell together, Kins.
I’d been able to do it for years!
I’d been constantly surrounded by football players and good-looking men with enough muscles and money to keep any irrational human occupied.
He was just like every other stupid football player I’d ever known—I mean other than my brother. At least Jax kept it in his pants and didn’t wear his arrogance on his sleeve like a Cub Scout badge.
Miller’s badge would probably say something like “Most orgasms given by a smile.” And it’d be right.
“How was your run?” Jax asked all casual as the scent of Miller filled the air. I didn’t want to inhale, I didn’t want the memories that came with his scent, memories of our stolen kisses, the way his mouth met my every need before I even knew I had it.
“Great.” His voice was as sexy as ever, with a hint of a velvet rasp that drove me completely insane and made my legs weak right along with my self-control. My obsession with Grant Sanchez had never been this bad; that had been lust, nothing more. Which was why I’d never acted on it and was happy when he started dating Emerson, my teammate and now my friend.
I finally glanced up.
Our eyes locked. How long had he been staring at me?
I gulped.
He mimicked my movement, only for some reason it looked like his throat moved in slow motion. That damn throat, all smooth, muscular. Right. Like he had a reason to be nervous or even upset. He was a serial dater who’d basically told me to my face, mind you, after having sex with me twice, that I should flee the country and go to Europe for the summer!
Not the best way to make a girl feel secure. Add that to the fact that I’d gained ten pounds because Europeans ate a lot of bread, and I’d left the country with a broken heart mixed with the fury of a woman scorned. I was completely ready to throw myself off a cliff or at least put a paper bag over the pillowy half of my body that, since returning to the States, refused to drop the pounds I’d gained.
“So what’s up?” Miller finally snapped his attention back to my brother, and again I was invisible. “Your text said family emergency.”
All the hairs on the back of my arm stood on end. Family emergency?
Jax looked uncomfortable as he ducked his head and then ran his hands through his curly hair. “He made the practice squad.”
“He?” I parroted. “Who is he?”
“He did?” Miller clenched his hands into fists. “That’s bullshit.”
“That’s what I said.” Jax swore. “I even went to Coach and explained that he’d be bad for team morale, that the reason he couldn’t stay in the league was because he was a selfish asshole who’d rather take all the glory than throw a damn pass, but he wouldn’t listen. Coach said that his stats were good and he was cheap, and after losing a few players after the championship, we should rebuild with players that don’t cost as much as us shitheads.”
I smiled at that.
Jax, Sanchez, and Miller were three of the highest-paid players in the league. It made sense that they’d try to find good players for less money, not that they needed it since those guys won games with their eyes closed, but whatever.
“Who’s this guy you speak of?” I wondered aloud. “Because both of you seem pretty pissed about it, and neither of you is the type to get your panties”—Miller arched a brow in my direction as I finished in a hollow voice—“in a, um, twist.” Cough, slap chest, cough. Why was he here again?
“Are you getting sick?” Jax was at my side immediately.
“Nope.” I couldn’t meet Miller’s eyes for fear that I’d confess everything to my brother and get one football player murdered and another locked in a prison cell to rot. “Anyway, this guy? Who is he?”
The room was silent.
And then a tension filled the air so thick that I nearly felt like choking. Jax was looking at me with anger, and Miller—pity.
Oh no.
“No.” I stood on shaky legs. “No.”
“I tried, Kins.”
“Andy.” The ex that Jax had sent me away from, it seemed, was staying. “How has he not gotten hit by a car yet? Or been chased off the earth by angry husbands and ex-girlfriends? Been eaten by dogs? Swallowed by a whale—”
“He’s not Jonah,” Miller interrupted.
I gave him a heated glare and threw my hands in the air. “So, he’s here. Big deal. I’ll avoid him, he’ll avoid me, and all will be right in the universe. If you boys will excuse me, I’m going to go see a man about a nap.”
“She has a man in there?” Miller asked Jax.
“It’s the only kind I let her have, especially after Andy.”
“The stuffed kind?”
I was already stomping away when I heard Jax call out my name.
Gritting my teeth, I stopped and turned. “Seriously, Jax, I’m exhausted.”
Miller’s gaze raked over me like I was the only hot meal he’d seen after surviving a ten-year blizzard. I shivered and tried to hold it together, and by hold it together I mean I tried not to run in his general direction and trip against his mouth.
“You guys are going to date,” Jax announced.
Miller’s stunned expression did not give me hope that he was already in on the stupidest idea of all time ever.
“No,” we said in unison then shared a glare.
“Why would you even suggest that?” Miller’s voice was eerily calm, his blue eyes wild. “Isn’t the point to keep guys away from your sister? Me included?”
Jax sighed, “I trust you.” His eyes searched Miller’s. “You know Anderson’s bad news. Look, I’ve thought it through—”
“I won’t do it.” I crossed my arms. “Jax, you can’t just control everything around you. Stick to football. You’re good at that. And I’m a grown woman!”
“You’re twenty-two,” he pointed out in a haughty voice that sounded eerily like my father’s when I had too much eggnog at Christmas. “And I don’t want to worry about you. If he sees you with Miller, he’ll back off, especially since he wants a spot on the team. He wouldn’t jeopardize that just for a chance to—”
I gasped.
Miller slapped him in the chest.
“A chance to what?” I took a step toward both guys, itching to give them matching black eyes. “Sleep with me? Is that what you were going to say? That I’m not even worth jeopardizing his career over? Thanks, Jax, you really know how to make a girl feel good!”
“God, for the last time, you’re not fat!” Jax yelled.
Miller held his hands up as if he wasn’t sure what to do.
“And you’re dating!” Jax shoved a finger in my direction. “I trust Miller, he wouldn’t touch you! And I need to focus this year. I just—”
“Jax.” I softened my voice. “What’s this really about?”
I’d never seen my brother so stressed out. His face betrayed his thirty-two years for the first time since he’d started with the league.
“I can’t worry about one more thing.” He stared down at the ground and his body trembled before he tugged at his hair and swore.
“One more thing on top of winning?” I reached for him. “Help me understand, because you’re acting more psychotic than normal.”
Tears filled Jax’s eyes, he paled and blurted in a hushed tone, “Dad . . .” He sucked in a breath. “He has cancer.”
And just like that, my world went from bright colors to gray. “Wh-what?”
“Mom asked me not to tell you while you were in Europe. She didn’t want to worry you and—” Jax’s voice cracked.
I had grown up with a brother who never wavered.
Who never cried.
Who always gave me the impression that, just like my dad, he was sent to earth to be some kind of football superhero.
I needed strength now, because I was never that person in the family. The pillar—my pillar—was currently crumbling before my eyes, and I didn’t know how to make it better.
It felt like a bomb had just been dropped in the room.
For more reasons than one.
I searched Jax’s eyes and what I found there made me want to protect him for a change.
It wasn’t a question.
Not at all. But before I could answer Miller spoke up for us both.
“I’ll do it.” Miller’s raspy voice filled the ache in my chest enough to cue my body to breathe. “We’ll date. It’s one less thing for both of you to think about. Consider it done.”
And just like that.
I was officially dating the tight end for the Bellevue Bucks, the guy who’d slept with me then shoved me out of the flipping country, my brother’s teammate and best friend—Quinton Miller.