Page 34 of Sideline Play

“Okay…” she draws out, her attention still hung up on my interruption. Shaking it free, she asks, “What was I saying?”

“Budding homewreckers, overbearing big brother?—”

“Right, thank you. So they hung around for a bit. But once they realized how lowkey you ball boys are compared to football players—almost all of y’all perfectly content to chill at home on the couch, eating takeout, and drinking beer in your hobo attire while watching Sports Center instead of going to parties and being seen—they didn’t really stick around.

“I was surprisingly okay with it though. I was learning that I didn’t need to have an entourage of friends to be happy. That I actually liked staying in and reading, watching a movie with my brother and his friends on the team over going to a frat party or a bar that didn’t check IDs. All the things I thought I wanted to experience were just empty memories and bad decisions waiting to happen. Plus, I was coming out of Roman’s insanity with a friend. He was on the team, and they were their own friend group and living together but unlike the others, Castor didn’t see and treat me as an extension of Roman.”

Collecting her thoughts, Scarlet rolls onto her side, her face now up by mine, the both of us sharing one pillow. Mirroring her, I turn over, my fingers mapping the apple of her cheek while hers trace the path of stubble along my jaw. The open and stunning expression of her eyes returns as she stares into mine. I’m lost in her, falling under her surface, and despite the surprise of rough waters beneath such a beautifully undisturbed facade, I float. The current that swirls through her is a place I wish to learn and navigate alongside her.

Drawing the shape of my lips, her eyes drifting down and lingering with each pass, she breathes, “Remi?”

“Scar.”

“I really like you,” she innocently confesses, her cheeks heating beneath my fingers. “I just thought you should know that.”

Closing the remaining space between us, I tuck my arm under her neck, my other over her hip. Her leg easily hooks over my thigh, further drawing herself into me.

I burrow my face into her hair, kissing my way across her crown until I settle in, returning, “I really like you too, Scarlet.”

“Even though Ro will hate you when he finds out?”

“Mmm… he already knows, baby girl. So yeah, even with him wishing to put my ass in the ground, I still like you and want you. It would take a lot more than a pissed off big brother to tear me away from you. When I’m with you, things just feel…”

“Right.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Kissing the hollow of my throat, she asks, “Promise me that if we do this, you’ll show him the same grace and patience you give me. I can’t be with you otherwise. What happened, it didn’t just affect me. It destroyed Roman and completely wiped clean all the progress he made in overcoming his own trauma. I’m afraid that no matter how much time passes and how much I heal and move forward, he’ll carry the guilt of that night with him until the day he dies. So please Remington, promise me.”

I’m about to swear it to her when she untucks her head and presses a finger to my lips, silencing my words.

“Not yet, after.”

“After.”

Unhooking her leg, she wiggles about for a moment, gracelessly turning until her back is tucked against my front. “Mmm…” she hums, shimming a bit more until she’s fully wrapped up in me. “Better than I imagined.”

“Do you imagine me in bed with you a lot?” I tease.

Giving me the sauciest look over her shoulder, she coyly throws back, “More than you know, Remington.”

Fuck… she doesn’t often get the last word on me, but this time I’m rendered speechless. I don’t know if tomorrow herfilterless comments towards me and what she wants from me will recede, but for the time being, I’m going to enjoy the moments of unencumbered levity she bats my way, collecting each one and coveting it as closely as I am her vulnerability.

Sighing, she looks back out toward the mountains, the moment fading.

“So I mention Roman in all of this because if you can believe it, he actually liked the idea of Castor and me. Even encouraged me to consider something more than friendship with him.”

No, it’s not even something I can picture, let alone believe. Not with how quickly he flipped the script and his perception of me the moment I didn’t deny my attraction to Scarlet. It does, however, provide me a missing piece to a puzzle I didn’t know I was putting together. And with what she said about Roman carrying guilt over what happened, it slots into place with ease.

From the very first moment you step onto the field together, the team is your family. Like a family, you may not always get along but at the end of the day, you always have each other’s backs. And as with any group dynamic, there are those you will bond with more than others. The ones that provide a niche of acceptance beyond being a part of the collective. You don’t fuck with anyone in the family, but especially not the ones of your inner circle. And from the moment Colt brought Roman into their lives, it was clear as day that the fastest way to fuck with him was through Scar.

So while I can’t imagine a world where Roman attempted to play matchmaker between his sister and teammate, I can see where the past made him as he is now. He trusted Castor North with his sister, approved of him, supported the idea of them, and the fucker took that and slithered into her life only to gut them both.

“Things were easy with him. Like me, he was a sophomore. We had the same major, shared a lecture and lab block, andhad a class we took on opposite days with the same professor. So even without baseball, we spent a lot of time together. We partnered up for lab, studied together, and would go out to lunch together during our breaks. So when Ro mentioned Castor having a thing for me and having asked if it would be cool to see if it was returned, I was excited. He was sweet and smart; I enjoyed being around him, and my brother liked him, which was all a plus for me, so I agreed.”

Tapping my arm to let her go, Scarlet sits up, keeping her back to me. The comfortable ease of earlier is gone as she sits cross legged, her posture a little too straight, her shoulders a bit too squared. I follow suit and sit up with her but stay where I am, my gaze falling to where her fingers begin worrying the sheets.

I think this may be the hardest part of listening to her story. Her walls going up, she’s pushing me out, detaching herself from the memories of the events. I want nothing more than to pull her back into my arms, leech the growing tension from her body, reach inside her and simply remove the dark days of her past so they no longer affect her. I want to fix things for her, but I can’t. I’m helpless to change her past. The only thing I can offer now is to respect her boundaries, listen to her words, and wait for her to tell me what she needs.

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