Page 10 of Unstoppable Love

“Shit. Hell, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t think. You were gone anyway, so I didn’t think you’d care.”

I took a breath. A second one. I did all the deep breathing techniques I’d learned to stay calm during a high-stress game, and not a single damn one of them worked.

“Isaiah, why is your sister in my house?”

“Oh. Kip proposed, she said no, and now she’s moving out.”

He said it like I just asked him about the weather. “What? You’re serious?”

“Yeah. I mean, she didn’t say no. She said she just stood there, staring at him, and Kip figured that was a no. So yeah?—”

“He kicked her out? Like on her ass?”

I was almost impressed the guy had the balls to do that. I probably would be impressed, if it wasn’t Ava he’d kicked out.

“She can’t move into her new place for a couple weeks. You were supposed to be gone. She can’t afford a hotel, and there’s no way she can commute from home. You were supposed to be gone. I didn’t think it’d matter.”

Only Isaiah would think Ava being in my home wouldn’t matter. Probably because it shouldn’t. He was friends with my family. I was friends with theirs. My little sister Meredith and Ava grew up friends. Not close, but friendly at minimum. Hell, we were all practically family at one point.

But there wasn’t anything familial I felt about Ava, which made this a damn problem.

I stared at my wood floor and rubbed the back of my neck. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

“I dunno. She was in a bind. I figured you’d help anyway, and besides, you were supposed to be gone.”

“You can’t just invite people into my home without talking to me.”

“Why not? It’s Ava.”

Precisely the problem.

A loud thump, followed by another one, echoed, and I hurried around the kitchen, toward the entryway, to find Ava at the base of the stairs, a knocked-over suitcase at her feet.

“Gotta go.”

“Is it ok?—”

Too late to ask now.

I hung up on Isaiah and slipped my phone into my pocket. “I hear you need a place to stay for a couple weeks.”

She huffed. She wasn’t amused. More sad. Possibly irritated.

“You talked to Isaiah.”

“Yeah.”

She stared out my front door. The French doors were a rich, dark wood and had glass panels that showed the driveway and the rolling, large front yard beyond. I’d gotten lucky as hell when I found this home and scooped it up before I stepped foot inside of it. I’d needed a place to move after my brother Caleb was reunited with a woman he spent a night with, a woman who gave him a son. My nephew Landon was a cool as hell little shit, but after spending one night listening to Caleb and Emily reunite, I’d needed out. I tried moving in with a teammate but quickly learned that wouldn’t work.

I was too clean. Too obsessive about it. Jamison Potter was fresh out of college, living the high life of a rookie in the NFL, and for the first time, he didn’t have to clean up after himself, so he didn’t. I’d moved out of Caleb’s house in September, and by Thanksgiving, I was in this house. Making it more of a lucky move, the house had been empty when I bought it, so we worked out a quick-close situation.

It was glorious. It sat up high on a hill, overlooking the neighborhood below out the front and the mountains in the back.

Right then, Ava was staring at the frosted glass windows in the front doors like she was debating if she could make a run for it.

As if. I wasn’t only one of the youngest starting quarterbacks in professional football, I was one of the fastest. Had more running yards than any other quarterback and more rushing touchdowns, too.

“So he told you.”

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