Imaginary face slap.

“So you’re all right with Ty doing much more with her underwear than thinking about them why? Because he’s your football buddy or something? Some sort of bros before hoes thing?”

“Watch your step,” he warned, his fists clenching in and out with such concentration I could see the tension releasing from them. “You don’t know jack crap about Emma or any of us. You got that?”

Had I been Mortal, I knew I would have been signing my death certificate if I smarted him back, but I wanted to. I was tired of the macho act and we were still in pregame warm-up. But there was something honest, something relatable, about his hardcore protection of his sister.

It reminded me of me. The way I would have been if Elisabeth—the youngest Hayward sibling who’d died with the rest of us, but hadn’t joined us in Immortality—had made it into her teenage years and boys came knocking on our front door for her. I would have murdered them where they stood, no question about it.

Emma’s brother was giving me more leniency than I would have given to someone if I was in his shoes. I sighed, reminding myself why I wasn’t a proponent of empathy in times like these.

“Hey, you’re right. I’m being a dick,” I offered, not adding on, but you’re being a bigger one. “Let’s just rewind to three minutes ago and start over. So, how ‘bout those Yankees?”

This time, when I extended my hand, he shook it. “Dallas, and those Yankees suck.”

I had to bite my cheek from saying something in defense of his insult to the titans of baseball and put us back at square nothing.

“That’s my older brother Austin next to Ty, and the one on the end is Jackson. He graduated last year, but can’t miss a single game of his baby sister’s. Especially when Ty calls us and tells us some new rich boy’s trying to get into our sister’s pants.” The killer notes in his voice were gone, although I knew one misstep by moi would bring them back in heightened quantities.

“I thought there were four older brothers who could squash me like a bug?”

Dallas smirked. “Tex’s somewhere up there in the nose bleed section,” he said, tipping his head behind us. “He and I are twins, and he wasn’t happy about drawing the seat short straw since Emma gave his ticket to you.”

Sounds like Tex and I were off to an even better start than I was with Emma’s other brothers. “Jackson? Austin? Tex? Dallas?” I listed. “What’s with all the city names?”

Dallas huffed. “My parents thought they’d be all original and name us after the places we were conceived in.”

“I’ve never heard of a city named Emma,” I said, shuffling through the memory bank.

“Nah, Emma wasn’t named for a city,” Dallas said. “By the time she came along, dad had his four strapping boys and couldn’t have cared if mom drowned their premature daughter. Dad was something of a dick,” Dallas said, his fists clenching again. “That’s why I’m so good at detecting other ones.” He looked at me in about as pointed of a way as a person could.

“Listen, I get Emma’s got a serious boyfriend and four older brothers serious about committing a first degree crime if someone like me tries to screw with her, but I can promise you I want nothing more than to be friends with her,”—yes, I knew lying was a sin, but so was lust, and I’d had my fair share of that my whole existence and I had yet to be struck down by lightning—“so you’ve got nothing to worry about with me. Scout’s honor.”

“Brother, if I thought you were a boy scout, I wouldn’t have to worry about eagle scout nerdiness working its way into my sister’s fragile, often misguided, heart.” He shot me a sideways grin as the buzzer went off. “And just so you know where Ty stands with us, if he were thinking, touching, or trying to remove Emma’s underwear, we’d happily waterboard him to death, football teammate or not. It just so happens right now he stands with us against d-bags coming on to Emma. He’s with us until he’s against us, and if he’s ever against us, he’s as good as a Scarlett boys’ punching bag. And believe me, he knows it too,” Dallas said, watching with something that looked a lot like pride as Emma took her place on the court, adjusting her knee pads into place.

Just then she looked up at the five of us staring at her with a mixture of emotions and beamed, waving before turning her attention to the opposing team as they prepared to serve.

Something that felt dangerous pitted into my stomach right then, something that felt a lot like it was all over. I’d found the girl. The girl. I still wasn’t sure if I even believed in it, but instinct didn’t give a fart about belief. It did what it wanted to.

She had a boyfriend and four brothers who wouldn’t rest until I was worm fodder if I screwed this up. Why did I have to fall for the girl who was more heavily guarded than the pope?

Ah, that’s it. I momentarily forgot the world has a vendetta against my happiness.

CHAPTER FIVE

Stanford won. Correction—Stanford annihilated.

Large thanks due to their star sophomore Emma Scarlett. Silence was something I didn’t observe unless I was hiding in wait for the enemy or sleeping—even then I snored—but for most of the game, my vocal chords got a recuperative rest.

I was awed, no other way of putting it, as I watched her on the court. Graceful, aggressive, fearless. Very little of the sweet, smiling girl was left on the court from the first buzzer to the time the last buzzer went off.

Between the five of us and our cheering that sounded like a bunch of rabid gorillas pounding their chests and stomping their feet, Emma had her own cheerleading squad of imbeciles. I caught her blushing her acknowledgment a few times during a time out, but when she was playing, she was ignorant of everything except for that ball. Her eyes stayed fixed to it like mine stayed fixed to her. And despite what most might assume, my eyes hadn’t drifted south of her face since the game had started.

Her face wasn’t classically perfect, but that’s what made it beautiful. It was unique, all her own, all I could think about. I’d surrounded myself with beautiful women for generations, so many that beauty had become nothing but the standard. Somewhere along the way, I’d discovered beauty isn’t beautiful anymore when there’s no uniqueness to it. Emma’s fuller upper lip, the freckles smattering her nose she didn’t feel the need to layer makeup over, her eyes that were too large for her face, all those “imperfections” were what made her beautiful. Unique. Different.

She reminded me of what beauty was. It wasn’t in the uniform, cookie-cutter, surgically cut, molded, and shaped to perfection bodies and faces of the women before her; it was the quirks and definitions that made her different from every other woman out there. There was no one else like her. No one all but identical to her I could find to replace her when she was gone.

That scared me. More like terrified me. I knew I should be fighting the way I was feeling; I knew I should turn and walk away now. I didn’t want to let myself get to a point with Emma like I’d gotten to with Bryn, stumbling through the days together until one morning I woke up and knew I couldn’t live without her.

Emma was Ty’s, and as much of a crusty, stinky jockstrap as he was, it wasn’t my place to kick him to the curb. That was her honor, and I didn’t want to take that joy away from her when she finally realized what a slimeball he was.

I could wait. I had nothing but time.

Here was what put the terror in terrifying though. What if, after waiting around for Emma for weeks, months, years—whatever it took—at the end of the line, she decided to walk down the aisle towards Ty? The waiting for nothing, my efforts in vain, my heart shattered. Was the possibility of losing the girl to another guy—again—worth it?

When an auburn ponytail flipped around to reveal a face that had a smile that was aimed right at me, timidly followed by glowing green eyes, I had my answer. Hell yes, it was worth it. Girls like Emma Scarlett came around once an eternity, and I wasn’t going to spend what was left of mine without her.

I purposefully arrived to class a few minutes late on Monday morning, after spending a tortured weekend thinking, dreaming, and . . . well, shamelessly fantasizing about Emma because I knew I couldn’t go another hour without being close to her. I didn’t want to take the chance if I arrived first that she might not choose the seat next to me again. I was a man who believed in carving my own fate.

When I spotted her down front and center again, no sight of Ty-guy anywhere around, I couldn’t believe my luck. I was darn close to busting loose a happy dance. She glanced over her shoulder, scanning the filled seats around her, trying to look casual about it. I was as accustomed to reading people’s tells as I was winking at women, so she didn’t fool me for a second that she wasn’t looking for someone. I knew more than likely she was looking for Ty, but I didn’t let that stop me from hoping it could have been for me.

I knew it was foolish, juvenile, and asinine. I also knew my father, along with every other Immortal, would give me a serious ass whooping for even thinking about what I was about to do. But Patrick Hayward wasn’t the kind of guy that cared about those things. Besides, the professor was late and every student save for the fox up front was too caught up in their weekend reports with each other to notice.

I went from standing in the doorway in the back to sitting in the front row in the split of a second too short for a scientific calculator to equate.

“Looking for someone?” I asked, keeping a straight face.

She spun in her seat towards me, her already large eyes even huger, seeming to take up half her face. “When did you get here?” she all but shrieked, looking me up and down.

I shrugged. “Just now.” I tried to make the way I was staring into her eyes seem less intense, but I’m sure my attempts made it that much more obvious. “So who were you looking for?” I repeated, guessing that if I mentioned anything about teleportation she’d slap a restraining order on me by this evening.

“No one.” She did a clearing shake of her head before flipping her notebook open. The rest of the student’s laptops were buzzing at the ready. “So, two consecutive days in a row of attending class? Are you sure that doesn’t break some sort of rebel boy code?” she asked, recomposed and smiling at me from the side.

“You’re speaking like you know the rules that govern our secret brotherhood,” I answered, always one for playing along. I really hoped the professor was sick, or his car battery had died, or lord, anything. I had her to myself, talking, and I didn’t want it to stop. Ever.

“I know a guy,” she said, shrugging a shoulder.

“That’s a capital crime for one of ours to include the minions of this world in on our secret ways,” I said, folding my arms over the desktop and leaning as close to her as I could.

“Yeah, you don’t need to tell me. Poor whistleblower was found dead the next day,” she said, lowering her voice and putting on a dramatic face. “It was a closed casket.”