Page 12 of Replay

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My chest tightenswith a twinge as my eyes devour her. After two long years, Emmarys is finally in front of me again. And fuck, she is as beautiful as ever. Memories of the last time we were this close don’t do her justice. She’s clearly dressed for practice in a pair of leggings that look painted on her skin and a long sleeve t-shirt that is baggy yet does nothing to hide her curves. She has no makeup on and her long hair, even in a high ponytail, still almost touches the middle of her back. I’d been obsessed with her long hair back when we dated in high school and it seems that has not changed now. She looks like a goddess. I can feel my blood heat and my fingers flex inside my pockets, where I hid them so she can’t see how she unravels me.

Slow down.I mentally chastise myself before I do or say something that sends her running for refuge in the building she’s heading toward. I just had to see her up close. I couldn’t wait any longer.

Since turning twenty-one in February, my life has been one giant roller coaster ride. Once my inheritance hit, I watched how my grandfather kept tabs on me. I kept him thinking his masterplan had worked before invoking my revenge. My first priority had been to start my surveillance on Emmarys, ensuring she was doing well here in Michigan, and that I couldn’t sway her to go somewhere else. Riggs’s friend, however, reported that my girl was flourishing here and her hockey career was phenomenal. She was also on campus with her two best friends and some of their friends from high school who also play hockey. The pictures I received of her took my breath away. In every image, she was smiling, laughing, and looked so pretty that it cemented my next order of business. I don’t care that this makes me sound like a stalker, my obsession with her already runs deep.

The next week after receiving that information, I reached out to Michigan’s football coach, and off the record, asked him what his thought would be about me joining his team. I wanted to play for him and promised a winning season, a task I fully intend to follow through on. At first he was skeptical, not that I blame him. My intentions made zero sense to anyone, and the way I was going about it was shady at best. He started singing a different tune though when I provided him notes, plays, and video content about how I can improve his team and where his current QB was failing to do his job. It also helped that I was able to slip in some other material of his current QB partaking in unsavory activities with a local girl, who was not quite of legal age. Fucking gross. I was pleased when the coach took the correct route and gave that information to the authorities. That meant he was out a QB and I was ready to step in. It also helped that I was sweetening the deal by bringing one of the NCAA’s best wide receivers, Riggs, with me. We spent the spring and summer going over the plans I sent him so that when I step on the field this fall, the team is already aware changes are being made.

During this time, my brother was able to cover for me with our mother by telling her I was exhausted from practice, or thatmy class work was more difficult this year and I needed more time at the library so I wasn’t expected for family dinners often. I felt bad avoiding her, but I knew it needed to be done. She was under my grandfather’s control until Falcon was of age, and I feared they would use my brother to keep me in line next.

Instead of studying or attending classes regularly, I was working to find the perfect housing, furnish an apartment a thousand miles away in Michigan and working with my financial advisor to ensure my money never ran out. All the while, my grandfather thought I was continuing to abide by his rules and his plan. With talks of the draft and my entry into the NFL to keep him busy, the fool was completely oblivious. I had everything planned for how I was going to rip his world apart, and show him that I didn’t need him or his money. I was going to advance on my talent alone, which is something he had been trying to take away from me by parading me around the media.

My time finally came a week before fall semester started and I had to be in Michigan for training camp. Everything was in place. My housing was secured, the contract between Michigan and myself was signed. So I called a press conference. I stood on the front steps of my grandfather’s mansion and announced to the media that I would be leaving the University of Texas immediately. I sugar coated it that the decision was hard, but that I made the best choice for my future. A reporter shouted, asking where I was heading next. Smirking, I announced that I was flying to Michigan tonight, to make sure I was there for the start of the season. I remember the way the crowd erupted but I refused anymore questions. Then I waited for my grandfather’s wrath. Even now, I still feel a thrill when I think about how it all went down.

“What did you do, you stupid boy!” my grandfather yelled, spit flying from his mouth, his eyes wide, and his skin turning red.

“Gerald, please.” My mother stood right by his side, her hand gently on his arm, and tears in her eyes. I didn’t know if she was crying because she was happy for me or if she was just worried that her cash flow might be stopping soon. My chest clenched believing it was the latter. How could a mother put money above her child’s happiness?

“You can’t honestly think I’d let you dictate my life forever? That I actually wanted any part of your plan or control over my life?” I asked him, turning to face them both, with ice in my veins. Falcon stood at my back providing quiet support. He still had another year until he would be twenty-one and in control of his own inheritance. Even though I was against it he had to stay in Texas.

“I did everything for you. You think these colleges would have even looked twice at you if you hadn't been at the best high schools? I gave you every opportunity you could have,” the old man continued to rant, his face turning from red to purple. “Is this how you are going to repay me?”

“Gerald.” My mother’s voice raised as she tugged on his arm. “You’re going too far. This is not what he would have wanted.”

“He’s dead. And his son is a good for nothing, ungrateful, bastard. How dare you walk away from your family, your legacy? You think the draft and the NFL will take you seriously now?” My grandfather moved at lightning speed, even for an older man, and I felt the crack of his backhand across my face.

My mother gasped and grabbed his arm, pulling him back, while my brother touched my arm, grounding me. Reminding me why I couldn’t escalate this situation. Emmarys. My sweet. I was this close to being with her again.

“I’ll give you that one,” I told him, my voice hardened, my fists clenched at my sides. “Because you're my grandfather and we both know one hit back from me and you won’t get up again,but also because my mother raised me better. You might have bought and paid my way into the best high schools, but you had nothing to do with the talent I was born with. The talent my father gave me. The same talent you never possessed. Your control over me ends now. Your word as law is over.”

As I turned to my mother, I felt my shoulders release their tension and my voice instantly softened. “If you need help, come to me. You don’t need him.”

The tears she’d been holding back dropped down her cheeks while she approached me, soft hands moving to cup my face. I could see the sadness reflected in her eyes. Years of pain and loneliness since she lost my father. “You look so much like him. He’d be proud of you. I’m sorry, I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t want my boys to want for anything.”

“It’s okay, Momma,” I told her and gently pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll call you when I land.” She nodded her head before walking away.

With a huff and curses my grandfather stomped out of the house to the garden in the backyard. I didn’t go after him. I refused to give any more time to the monster who made my adolescence miserable. Revenge never felt as good as it did right then. He no longer had the power or authority over me and he knew it. He couldn’t bribe me with anything after I made the announcement so publicly.

“You sure you’re ready for below freezing winters?” Falcon asked, a trance of humor in his voice.

I pulled him in for a hug and when I stepped back, the world felt right for the first time in years. “I’ll have my girl. Everything else doesn’t matter.”

And here she is. Right in front of me. My lips turn up in a small smirk at the absolute shock on her face. I know my being here isn’t news to her. The campus all but rolled out the red carpet for Riggs and me. If I had to guess it has more to do withthe fact that I haven’t reached out to her since the news broke. Or since my birthday passed. She knew when I would be free and I still hadn’t made contact with her. In my defense, I knew if I tracked her down on my birthday, I never would have been able to accomplish anything else I set out to do. I would have buried myself inside her and never left. Everything would have taken a back seat to losing myself in my girl and all her luscious curves. One glimpse and my revenge would have fallen by the wayside. I made myself hold out, until this exact moment.

Her friends glance between me and her before mumbling something and heading off inside the arena. I swear I hear Emmarys call them traitors and my smirk only grows wider. She looks like she's torn between running away with them or facing me. My feet move me closer to her, making the decision for both of us. Excitement, joy and hurt dance in my chest the closer I get to her, and the more I can see her.

Two years and she still takes my breath away. Her golden brown eyes widen now that I’m fully in front of her, our bodies just a few inches apart. I wonder what she thinks of the way I’ve changed. Surviving for two years without my heart close by was painful. Every day I felt myself getting more and more numb and instead of succumbing to the loneliness and anger, I took it out on my body. Physically, I began putting myself through a strict training regimen that I would need for the NFL. In my downtime, I used tattoos to drown out the emotional parts of me that wanted to give in, to break and just call her. For a split second, my confidence is shaken, wondering if maybe she’ll not like the way I look now. Maybe a giant, tatted, football player won’t do it for her. But then her head tilts back, her eyes keeping contact with mine, and I see the flush across her cheeks, hear the little intake of breath she releases, and I watch as her pupils expand so large that they bleed into the golden irises, making them a whiskey brown instead.

My fingers ache to run along her jawline, to snatch her hips with my hands and bring her body into mine.Baby steps. I have to remind myself to go slow. If I thought last time at her prom was a fight to get her to hear me out and explain, this time it will be a fucking battle. Her walls are up and even though her eyes are screaming that she wants me, her body is held back and she’s tense.

“I missed you, Em.”

Her eyes move back and forth between mine and her chest moves up and down rapidly. Shock fades to awe, and that awe is soon replaced by the anger I knew she would be holding back.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, her words sounding strained as she drops her gaze from mine.

“You’re here,” I remind her, and this time I do touch her. My fingers pinch her chin, forcing her head to tilt back up. Now that she’s in front of me again, I can’t not have her eyes on me.

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