Page 21 of When to Call a Blitz

10

EMMETT

Most of the time when I come home, Juni is there to greet me the second I walk through the door. When she doesn’t, there’s usually chaos happening around the house to clue me in on what’s going on.

Arriving home today to absolute silence was enough to set off every alarm in my head.

“Hello?” I ask as I set my duffle bags down on the ground.

It was a rough practice, with Cooper almost getting into a huge fight with one of our rookies on the O-line. Almost. He usually has a pretty level head, but for whatever reason he’s been an absolute mess lately.

I take a second to stand there, listening for any movement at all before I make my way through the kitchen and peek outside. I’m just about to continue my way through the house when I hear the low rumble of Heidi’s voice.

Opening the door, I peek my head out, and both Heidi and Juni’s heads whip in my direction at the sound, their eyes wide.

“Hey,” Heidi chuckles nervously, and my eyes narrow. “Glad you’re home!”

“What’s going on here?” I ask her.

Juniper rolls her eyes. “We were refilling bird feeders. Heidi was ahugehelp, dad. You should have seen her.” Juniper shrugs her little shoulders as she shoots Heidi an innocent smile.

Heidi, on the other hand, looks like she’d rather the ground swallow her whole. Her eyes are wide, her stiff smile completely forced as she stands with her arms at her sides, her shoulders slightly slumped.

She doesn’t say anything in response to my daughter, but when she looks at me, her eyes widen just slightly as if to saywe need to talk later.

My jaw clenches as I watch Juniper skip inside, a grin on her face. When she’s around the corner headed down the hall, I lean against the kitchen counter, my arms crossed over my chest as I eye the woman in front of me.

She looks flustered, with her red hair tangled and messy, the bags under her eyes more pronounced than usual. Her jeans are damp at the knees down to her shoes.

“Are you okay?” I ask first, getting that out of the way.

Heidi looks around the room, and I can see the wheels turning in her pretty little head as she debates what to tell me.

“Yeah. I think. I, well, all I’m going to say,” she takes a deep breath, her shoulders raising and dropping. “There’s a family of racoons behind the garage and Juniper knows about them.”

My eyebrow raises. “Is this something I should be concerned about?”

She chews her cheek, dropping her gaze to her dirty shoes. “I don’t think so. I mean, don’t hurt them,” she looks me in the eye to say this, and I would hope she knows I’d never. “But I also just want to make sure that Juniper stays safe with them around, you know?”

I know. And I’ve had a lot of experience now with Juniper handling wild animals. Somehow she seems to be the animalwhisperer, and she hasn’t gotten hurt. But it’s only a matter of time.

“I’ll look into it, and there won’t be any hurt racoons, alright?” I tell her. She responds with a nod, and when I push off the counter and head for the fridge, I can feel her eyes follow me.

“I have something to ask you though,” I begin as I grab a shake from the top shelf. “Can you bring Juniper to the game this weekend? Briar and the others will be there and you guys will hang out in Leo’s box. But I’d love for her to come,” I look her over, “and I’d like for you to be there too.”

Heidi’s cheeks redden as she looks away. “I think I can manage that,” she says quietly.

“Great. It’ll hopefully be a good game.”

Hopefully being the key word. We’ve been okay, and we have all the pieces to be great, but getting out on that field for the first home game is a whole other beast and I hope we can bring it when it really matters.

“I—” Heidi starts, biting her lip.

I watch as she stands where she has been this whole time, looking even more uncomfortable somehow. “You can say it,” I encourage her.

“I don’t really know a lot about football,” she admits quickly, looking embarrassed. “I haven’t been to a game in a long time and it was fun, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t really understand a lot of it.”

My head tilts. “What don’t you understand?”

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