Page 25 of Home Game

“Sure, kid,” he says, clapping the dust from his hands as he leaps from my truck. Funny, he kind of hits the ground with the authority of a superhero.

My eyes meet Peyton’s, and I convey my best silent plea.Help. She chuckles, though, and puts her arm around her dad.

“I had to help him load the truck,” she says.

Motherfuck.

“I bet you did, sweetheart,” he says, kissing the top of her head as she rises on her toes.

Another man who looks familiar comes jogging through the front door. A woman who looks a lot like Peyton, only with dark brown hair, hovers in the doorway with a toddler on her hip. She leans against the door jamb like she’s getting comfortable. They’re all loving this. Their amused smirks are a dead giveaway.

“Ohhhh, wait a second,” the new guy says, coming to a hard stop a few feet away from my pickup, his hands raised as though he just walked in on a murder scene.

“Should we be letting this guy on the property?” he says, his eyes darting from me to Reed.

This guy?

All of a sudden, I’m not in a hurry to leap down from my truck bed. At least I’m taller up here.

“Maybe we should ask Peyton that question.” Reed’s tone isn’t exactly welcoming, and the way Peyton’s head falls to one side and her eyes slit makes me wonder if they’ve had a conversation about me.

“You know what?” I suck in my top lip and stare at the void between the three people staring up at me. I shake my head,hands on my hips, and breathe out a short laugh before making direct eye contact with Reed—my one-time idol. Hell, maybe he still is, but things have gotten really weird.

My shoulders rise and fall in a kind of defeat.

“My dad worked in public service, and he had a pretty strict code of ethics he stood behind. Tip your waiter well. Call your mom often. And if you come across a woman who needs a hand, offer.” I jump down and pat my hand along the side of the bundle of lumber. “While it was tempting to see if Peyton could make this stuff fit in the back of that artifact on wheels, I’m pretty sure my dad would have kicked my ass for not offering to help. And if my gesture happened to save an old man from having to wake up early on a Friday when it’s obvious he’s planning on staying out late to watch his favorite football team’s opening game, then it seems like it’s twice as right to do.”

I hold Reed’s stare, his eyes hazed, and mouth closed in a tight line. I think a part of him wants to hate me, either because I clearly followed his daughter home or because I’m slinging the ball for his brand new rival.

He nods. Once.

“Hey, Coach Jacobs. Why don’t you help him load that in my pickup?” His eyes meet the other man’s, and I now understand why I recognize him. He’s the Coolidge assistant coach, and he spent a lot of years at former Coach Baker’s side. My freshman year, the only time my old school played Coolidge, I saw him having a chat with the refs on the sideline before the game. For the next forty-eight minutes of play, we were nailed with a record-setting twenty-seven holding calls. We lost by a six. Because the touchdown I threw at the last minute for the win was called back.For holding.

With four of us working, we have the wood loaded in Reed’s truck in less than two minutes. Reed pushes my tailgate up with some zing in his wrist, and his curt smile is obviously him beingpolite. His gaze moves to his daughter as he leaves us aloneto say our good-byes.His exact words.I’m pretty sure there was a low growl mixed in there, too.

“Is he still mad that I refused to wash his Jeep or something?” I ask as soon as he’s out of earshot. A part of me anticipates him rushing back out of the door, though, because he has super-human hearing.

“Oh, he doesn’t know about that. It wasn’t your best moment, and I didn’t want to do you dirty,” she says.

My attention snaps back to her from the still-closed front doorway.

“Do me dirty, huh?” I arch a brow.

“Ugh, not like that,” she says, and I instantly regret making an innuendo. Fuck, it’s so hard with this girl. I can’t read her. She is literally thelastgirl in this town I should be putting my energy into getting to know. But damn, if she ain’t got me stuck.

I clear my throat and drop my gaze to the ground with my hands in my pockets.

“I know what you meant,” I say, my voice low. “And I’m sorry. I was a dick. But to be fair, you didn’t tell me who you were when we met. And I have a new team full of hot-headed teenage boy-men. I needed to earn their respect.”

“And they respect you now, do they?” she fires back.

“Ouch.”

I glance up at her with wide eyes, acting as if her words cut a little deeper than they did. They grazed for sure. She doesn’t say anything to let me off the hook. And the longer the silence extends with her eyes on mine, the more I feel the power tilting completely in her favor. Hell, I may have never had any at all in this dynamic.

“I can’t tell if you like me or not, Peyton Johnson.”

She blinks a few times, rapidly, as her arms tighten across her chest, her hands half tucked into the sleeves of her hoodie.She shifts her weight, but she doesn’t back away. And she doesn’t back down.

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