Page 127 of Their Greatest Strength

“Ready?”I shout, the wind carrying my voice down the field.

Nate claps his hands above his head and bends his knees, ready to take off. He’s tired from practice but didn’t hesitate to take me up on my offer of doing a few more drills.

“Go!”

He starts running down the field, his pace a bit slower than usual. I’m a shit shot compared to Jax, but I still manage to send the football piercing through the air quick enough for him to start tracking it over his shoulder.

“Faster, Nate!”

The kid pumps his arms harder, tearing his cleats into the grass as he pushes himself. Blakely blows on her hands to warm them and watches her brother speed down the field yard by yard. Nate jumps into the air and catches the ball in his right hand before landing perfectly.

“Touchdown! Take it all the way!” I yell, clapping louder with every yard he passes.

“He’s really fast,” Blakely whispers, in awe.

“Crazy fast, baby. Faster than I was in high school.”

She loops her arm through mine. “You think he’ll make it?”

Nate sails into the end zone and spins, throwing the ball up into the air. He shouts something, but the wind carries it away from us.

“CFL or NFL, yeah, he’ll make it,” I say.

He swipes the ball off the ground and starts jogging toward us as Blakely claps and rests her cheek against my bicep.

“I never asked why you chose the CFL. I doubt it was because you didn’t have interest from the NFL.”

“Most of the interest I had was actually from NFL teams, but moving away from my family never would have worked for me. Playing in the Canadian league meant I could stay close.”

“You went to university, then?”

“UBC like my dad. I was a kinesiology student, but my grades were terrible. The only thing I remember is that it’s important to stretch both before and after working out.”

She laughs. “So, when Nate asks what he should do in university, I shouldn’t tell him to ask you for ideas?”

It’s clear that she doesn’t know what she just insinuated. There was no chance of me missing it. Not when I’ve beensearching for a sign for weeks that she might not want to leave after all.

“We’ve got two more years before that conversation comes up,” I muse.

“It’ll be hard to convince him to focus on anything besides football.”

“I can be pretty persuasive,” I drawl, kissing her temple.

She pinches the underside of my arm, and Nate slows his jog, closing in on us while I grunt at the sting.

“That was awesome,” he pants. “I didn’t think I was going to get there.”

Blakely rubs his sweaty hair. “We never doubted you.”

“Want to go again?” he asks me, swatting at his sister’s hand.

“You need to cool down. Overworking yourself sounds like a great idea until you run out of steam. Let’s head home.”

He frowns, holding in his argument in exchange for a tip of his chin. “Alright.”

“I’m making burgers for dinner. Does that help?” Blakely asks.

I snag his duffle bag from the grass and toss it over my shoulder before the three of us head back to the car.

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