Chapter 22: Fair Catch: Chapter 21

I stared at the birthday card from my parents, at the birthday cake on the front with candles melting down the sides. There was a fuzzy pink bear getting ready to blow them out, and in glittery script above that bear?

.

A little breath of a laugh left me as I thought about what I’d wish for, if I really knew it would come true. Maybe I’d wish to go back to the night Zeke and I crossed all the lines and not pull him back into me after I shoved him off the first time. Maybe I’d wish to go back to when I told him we could keep it casual, that I didn’t want more.

Or maybe I’d just wish for the most impossible thing of all.

For him to be mine.

For there to be some way, some place, some universe that existed where we could be together. Where it wouldn’t be a disaster for me, the only girl on the football team, to publicly date another player — worse, the player I’m with. A place where my brother wouldn’t lose his mind knowing his best friend and his had spent more time together between the sheets lately than on the field.

Everything had happened so…

.

I didn’t recognize it at first, how fast I fell, how hard I jumped without even a thought of looking back. I went from loathing Zeke one moment and wishing he had never been born to aching for him any second we weren’t together.

And maybe that’s what ate me up most.

He was still the one responsible for putting my twin brother in a wheelchair for life, and yet now, I couldn’t muster up even an ounce of myself to hate him or be disgusted by what he did.

I wanted him.

With every inch of my being, I wanted him.

“Make a wish,” I muttered, frowning. “If only it were that simple.”

I shoved the card into my desk drawer, heaving a sigh as I looked at my reflection in the mirror propped against the back of my closet door. I looked ridiculous with a floppy shrimp hat on my head, but even that couldn’t make me smile.

I’d spent the last few weeks ignoring all these feelings simmering under the surface. It’d been easier that way, to throw myself into practice, into training, into class, and ultimately, into Zeke. We had an understanding, an agreement.

Take this for what it is.

Remember what it will never be.

It was brilliant idea.

Or was it my sorry attempt to protect myself in the only way I knew how, to take the reins on the only thing I could control?

Everything I’d stuffed down popped out like confetti from a cannon as I got ready to go out with the team for Halloween.

For my birthday.

Knuckles tapped gently on the frame of my door, which was open — and had stayed that way ever since Zeke flew through it and clawed another guy off me weeks ago.

He stood there now, leaning a hip against the frame as he crossed his arms and took me in. His dark eyes crawled from the shrimp hat on my head, all the way down to the hot pink heels I was trying very hard not to wobble in, before they made their way back up.

“Shrimp on a Barbie,” I explained with a shrug, gesturing to my getup with a long sweep of my hand.

Zeke barked out a laugh, crossing the threshold into my room and sweeping me into his arms without hesitation, like it was natural, like I belonged there.

“This costume is… a problem.”

“What? Why?” I frowned, panic zipping through me as I peered down at the set. “I thought it was cute.”

“Well, that’s part of the problem,” he explained. “It cute. Adorable, honestly. And weird. And ridiculous. And, somehow…” He traced the tight, hot pink tank top that matched my heels, his finger drawing the cursive logo across my chest. “Sexy as hell.”

That finger dove a line down to my exposed navel, goosebumps breaking on the skin at his touch, which only made him smile more.

“Do you want your birthday gift now or later?”

My stomach surged with an ache so specific to Zeke that I wondered if I should make that its scientific name —

. It was a cross between wanting to fall into him, my thighs clenching with the thought of him being inside me, and my brain warring to remind me this would all end with me shattered on the floor.

“Later,” I managed on a soft voice. “The team is waiting.”

As if on cue, a loud barrage of fists rained down on our dorm door, the guys all hollering for us to stop primping and get our asses out there.

I smirked, but when I tried to pull away, Zeke held me in place. His eyes searched mine between bent brows, his jaw firm.

“You okay?”

I forced that smile wider. “Yeah. Just… I don’t know. I always get a little weird on my birthday.” I paused, then waved my hand. “Reflective or something, I don’t know.”

Zeke frowned a little more, but tried to smile. “You’re only nineteen, you know. This is no time for a mid-life crisis.”

“You’re right. This,” I said, pulling him toward the door, “is a time for drinking, and taking pictures of all our stupid costumes, and dancing.” I did a little twirl under his arm with that, but before I could peel away, he pulled me back in, pressing me up against our front door.

I lost my next breath with how he pinned me, how his thigh slipped between my knees, opening them for him.

“What about a time for kissing?”

His hands were already framing my face, tugging my hair the way he loved to, making me arch for him.

“I have lipstick on,” I whispered.

“I don’t give a fuck,” was his only answer before he kissed me, deep and long and commanding. I had no choice but to melt into him, to feel my belly burst into a hot flame of need.

When he finally pulled back, both of us a bit breathless, I bit back a laugh.

“You’re going to want to hit the bathroom before we go,” I said, tapping his pink-stained lips.

He wiped the corner of one with his thumb, smirking at the stain on the pad of it when he pulled it away. “Does this mean I can’t sneak kisses from you when no one’s looking tonight?”

I bit my lip, leaning in to whisper in his ear. “Maybe there are other places I could leave my lipstick stains… ones out of sight.”

Zeke groaned, wrapping his hands around my rib cage and pinning me to the door with another fervent kiss. But more fists banged on the outside of that door, jolting us and making Zeke sigh for a completely different reason before he finally released me.

“Two minutes,” he mouthed to me, and then he jogged over to one of the bathroom sinks.

I checked my own reflection in the camera on my phone, making sure my lipstick was fine before I opened the door and was met face to face with Leo Ramirez dressed like Forrest Gump — complete with a crazy-long wig and beard, tiny red running shorts, a pale yellow shirt, and a ping pong paddle in one hand.

“About damn time,” he said, and he didn’t hide his appreciation of my outfit as his eyes raked over me. “You won’t need that dating profile after tonight, Novo, I can assure you that.”

I laughed, but then Zeke bounded out from behind me, knocking Leo upside the head as he jogged past.

“Hey!” Leo said, fixing his wig before he ran off after Zeke, slapping his ass with the ping pong paddle.

And the night began.