Over the next few weeks, a new sort of routine emerges while I prepare for Spring Fling. I spend my days on campus, my evenings practicing with the band, and I fall into bed every night with Hendrick, exhausted but happy.
But today, Eric had a study session he couldn’t miss, so I’m back early.
“I thought I might find you out here,” I say as I walk out into the garage. Since he got the call from his agent about the Rams offering him a new contract, he’s been working out nonstop. I thought he was built before, but new muscles have emerged that I couldn’t have imagined. Couldn’t imagine, but am thoroughly enjoying.
I run my fingers along his sweaty chest, then tip my head up to kiss him.
“Is it eight already?”
“No. It’s just after six. We called it early tonight. Eric dropped me off. How long have you been out here?” Long enough that he’s lost track of time, apparently.
“A while,” he admits. “You should have texted. I could have picked you up.”
“I know, but he was driving right by the house anyway.” I wrap my arms around his waist. I don’t even care that he’s all sweaty. These long rehearsal evenings have seriously gotten in the way of spending time with him.
It took a lot of convincing to get him to agree that he didn’t need to stay at every rehearsal. And I’m glad that he’s had more free time to spend with his brothers and train for the upcoming season, but I miss him.
“Is this what you look like during the season?” I drag both palms over his pecs.
He snorts a laugh.
“Speaking of, how are you feeling about the tryout?”
“I don’t know. Weird, I guess. I’m still not sure it’s the right thing to do. It feels too late for a comeback.”
“If anyone can do it, you can. If you ask me, I think it sounds like an amazing opportunity. Plus, you’ve worked really, really hard for this. You deserve it.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
“If you’re worried about me, I can easily replace you. Though I will miss you.” I lean forward and brush my lips against his.
He chuckles softly as he kisses me back, but it lacks some of the enthusiasm I’ve come to love in his kisses.
“Your brothers will be okay too. Knox is already planning your going away party.”
He huffs a laugh. “Yeah, I bet he is.”
“What’s really going on? You’ve been quieter since you found out you were invited for this tryout. I thought you’d be more excited.”
He steps away and pulls off his wraps, tossing them onto the workbench.
I follow him. “I know you want to be here for your brothers and for me, but I think some part of you wants to be back there too. As you should. You worked hard to get where you are. It’s a big deal. I get that. So do your brothers.”
He runs a hand through his hair and then faces me. “What if I chose wrong all those years ago?”
“By following your dreams?”
“My dreams?” He shakes his head. “I don’t know if football was ever really my dream. I liked playing, don’t get me wrong, but more than anything, it was a way out. I couldn’t wait to leave Valley. This place felt like a prison after my mom died. Our dad always came in and out of our lives, but with him as the only parent, the responsibility of looking after my brothers fell on me.” His jaw flexes and his body is wound tight. “I resented it. I just wanted to be a normal high school kid.”
I take his hand and squeeze. My heart breaks for him. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to lose his mom and then not have his dad around either, but I know that he took on that role for his brothers with the same determination that he does all things.
“So when I got a full-ride scholarship to play college football, I told myself that things with Dad weren’t so bad. I’d survived it and they would too. It was hard on them when I left, but I let myself believe that in the end it was going to work out.” He pauses, but his chest still heaves with frustration and self-loathing. “I don’t know how much Dad was around in those first two years that I was gone, but during Christmas break of my sophomore year, I came home and saw just how bad things were. The house needed repairs, they were behind on bills, and Dad was nowhere to be found. When I pressed Knox, he said it’d been months since they’d seen him. Months.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat.
“Knox was barely eighteen. He wasn’t any more ready to step up than I had been, but he did because I wasn’t there. He dropped out of high school and got a job so he could keep everyone together. I saw how that impacted him. He wanted out of Valley as bad as I had, but he stayed because he was all they had.” His face twists with pain. “I went back to college after break, told my coach I wanted to enter the draft, and a few months later I was signing with the Rams. I told myself it was for them. I was going to get a big paycheck that would help keep them together and in the house where we grew up, plus pay for whatever else they needed. But I think more than that I just didn’t want to come back and get stuck here like Knox had.”
“You made the best decision you could at the time. A decision that no kid should have to make.”
“For me. I made the best decision for me. Knox resents me. Flynn barely knows me. Archer and Brogan settled for going to Valley when they could have taken scholarships somewhere else. All of them paid the price so I could have what I wanted.”
“You don’t know that. I’ve spent a lot of time with your brothers. They love you. Flynn looks up to you so much, Archer and Brogan seem pretty happy here for two guys you claim settled, and Knox . . . well, Knox is Knox. I have a feeling he’d find something to be angry about no matter what choice you’d made. You have to stop beating yourself up. You can’t change what happened.”
“I know,” he says quietly. “But I can make a better decision now.”
That he’s even considering giving up his life to come back and try to rewrite the past says more than I think he realizes. But I know Hendrick well enough that I know he isn’t going to stop punishing himself just because I tell him he’s off the hook.
“Do me a favor?”
He nods slightly.
“Go to L.A., meet with your coach or agent or whoever, try out, give it your all, and see what happens. Figure out what you want. Then talk to your brothers. Staying here and being miserable or wondering ‘what if’ isn’t the answer.”
He finally releases some of the tension he’s been holding and hugs me back. “Yeah, all right.”
I squeeze him harder. “You are a good man, Hendrick Holland.”
He doesn’t reply, but presses a kiss to the top of my head. I have a feeling I might have to repeat that sentence a few hundred times before he believes it.
“That doesn’t look like studying,” Hendrick says, pulling my attention from my phone.
I set it down on the table and glance over to where he’s sitting across the library. He isn’t looking my way, but I catch the smirk on his face.
For the past hour I’ve been going over notes and the study guide for my French midterm. And okay, fine, texting Dahlia.
“My brain hurts,” I say quietly so only he can hear me through the earpiece. The university library is packed with students doing the same thing as me. Hendrick is sitting in a chair by the stairs because he didn’t want to distract me. Studying would be a lot more fun if he were distracting me, just saying.
“Need a break? Snack? Coffee?”
“Any more caffeine and I’m going to be awake until the end of time.” I stretch. “And I promised myself I wouldn’t leave until I was positive I could get an A on this test.”
“I’m positive you’re adorable all nerdy and studious.”
“Aww, thanks. That’s the first time anyone has ever called me studious.”
He chuckles. “What do you need?”
I love how he’s always so quick to ask. Sometimes I haven’t even realized I have a problem to solve before he’s coming up with fixes. “Distract me for a few minutes.”
“I think the hundred or so other people in here might not appreciate me fucking you in the middle of the library.”
The man stares at the front doors with a bored expression as his words send tingles throughout my body.
“Aaaaand now my panties are damp.” I blow out a breath. “Maybe just a quickie in the back? I can be quiet-ish.”
He finally flicks his gaze to me and his lips curve into a knowing smile. “Liar.”
I shift in my seat. I need to move this conversation along or I’m not getting any more studying done. “What were you like in school? Did you get good grades?”
“Decent. B’s mostly. I didn’t want to be bothered with homework and studying when I could have been playing football or fucking around with my friends. I admire that about you. You work hard.”
“I wish I cared a little less sometimes,” I say. “I know that in the grand scheme of things, my grade on a French midterm isn’t going to matter. I just want to know that I can do it. Not going to regular school as a kid, I always wondered where I would have fit in. If I hadn’t been Ivy Greene, would I have been the straight-A student who stayed in every night and read ahead in class or the social butterfly who neglected her studies for boys and booze?”
His laughter is soft in my ear. “Maybe somewhere between those two, but I would have been happy to let you neglect your studies to hang out with me if you’d gone to my high school.”
“And now?”
“I have a little more restraint.”
“Too bad. I could pretend to be the eager, peppy cheerleader and you could be the broody, serious football player who needs a little extra cheer before the big game. My character on the show was a cheerleader. I look very cute in a pleated skirt.”
“I have no doubt, sweetheart.”
The endearment makes my stomach flip.
“Do you really think if I had just been another girl at your school, nerd or cheerleader or whatever, you would have still noticed me?”
Hendrick is quiet for a moment. A group of girls at the table next to me are laughing about something, holding their hands over their faces and trying to stifle their laughter so not to disturb anyone.
“The first time I saw you, you were unloading your car after the break. You had on this long, oversized black sweater that hung off one shoulder and your hair was pulled up out of your face.”
“You were out for a run. I remember. I almost tripped up the stairs watching you go by.”
He dips his chin in a small nod. “I knew what you looked like, of course. I’d done my research, but nothing prepared me for how gorgeous you were up close. Or how much I’d look forward to seeing you every day. There aren’t any scenarios in which I would have met you and not wanted you.”
“Same.” The word comes out a little breathless and my heart squeezes in my chest.
When he smiles like he is right now, all big and carefree, I don’t mind so much that I didn’t have those experiences. Whatever my life was or wasn’t before, it led me here with him. I can try on different characters like favorite dresses while I figure out exactly who I am, and yet he still seems to see through it to the very core of me.
