Page 35 of Hometown Touchdown
But the truth is—I’m not just flustered. I’m spiraling.
This is not normal. No one should be allowed to gethotterevery time I see them. That’s not how memory works. Or hormones. Or time.
It’s like every interaction with him lately is pressing some hidden button in my body I didn’t know existed. Logical me wants to chalk it up to being neighbors. To unresolved history and nostalgia and something about that soap he always smells like. But the rest of me? The rest of me just wants to climb him like a tree.
Which is—again—not normal.
I’ve seen him with bedhead and morning stubble. I’ve seen him with his jaw clenched in frustration and with a beer in hand at a crowded bar. Tonight, I saw him fix a busted heater without so much as asking for help, like he was born to solve problems with sexy confidence and a freaking tool box.
And it did things to me. Dangerous things.
I press a hand to my cheek. I’m actually flushed. From a heater repair.
I laugh, but it doesn’t shake the nervous flutter deep in my stomach. Because I keep wondering—how much longer can I keep pretending that I don’t wanthim?
I toss the phone aside, groaning into the blanket. My face is on fire. My body is warm for all the wrong reasons. Or maybe all the right ones. There’s no flirtation between us. No lines crossed.
It’s not just the hat. Or the hands. Or the fact that Knox Dalton could probably fix an entire house with nothing but a flashlight and a dream.
It’s that he showed up when I needed him. Still. After everything. Even if it was just something a landlord would do, it still drove me crazy.
And that might be more dangerous than anything else.
Chapter seventeen
Knox
Thursdaypracticeisadisaster in slow motion. The kind of afternoon where every single thing that could go wrong does, and somehow manages to do it with flair. My receivers are running bad routes, the O-line have lazy feet, and half the defense looks like they pre-gamed with NyQuil. I’ve yelled so much my throat feels raw, and I’m two bad throws away from ripping off my hat and chucking it across the field like a man twice divorced and done with everyone’s shit.
“Williams,” I bark, clipboard smacking against my thigh, “your route tree’s not a damn suggestion. Run it again. This time like you’ve actually seen a football before.”
He jogs back into position like it’s the world’s biggest inconvenience, dragging his cleats like I’ve asked him to run wind sprints through lava. I glance up at the sky, wondering if I pissed off some cosmic force lately. Maybe I shouldn’t have skipped dinner with Mom last week.
Cam ambles over with all the urgency of a man on vacation. He surveys the chaos like it’s mildly entertaining. “They’re looking sharp,” he deadpans.
“They’re looking like a Pop Warner team on juice boxes and sleep deprivation.”
He lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “They’re seventeen. Half their brains are fried from hormone overload. You’ll get ’em back tomorrow.”
I blow the whistle and watch the offense sleepwalk through another play like they’ve just been introduced to the concept of football five minutes ago. “They better shape up,” I mutter. “Because I’m not showing up on a Friday night just to babysit.”
By the time we call it, the sun’s dipping low and my patience is circling the drain. I drive home with my jaw clenched and a headache thudding behind my left eye.
Priscilla hears me coming before I even open the door. She’s up and bounding toward me, nails skittering across the hardwood, tongue hanging out like she was ready to file a missing person report.
“Hey, girl,” I say, my voice finally softening as I kneel and let her maul me with affection. She smells like sunshine and dog food, and she’s the only creature I can count on not to disappoint me today. “You held the fort down while I was gone?”
She gives a little huff and presses her face into my chest. I take it as a yes.
After feeding her and refilling her water, I drag myself upstairs, each step a reminder of muscles I haven’t stretched in a week. My shirt’s clinging to me like a second skin, damp from hours of heat and frustration, and my legs feel like they’ve been filled with wet cement. The house is quiet, save for the occasional soft padding of Priscilla settling back down on her bed downstairs.
I strip out of my clothes and toss them into the hamper, flipping on the shower and leaning over the counter as steam curls around the mirror. I roll my neck, trying to release some of the tension camped out in my shoulders, and that’s when I hear it.
A soft sound. Barely audible over the water, but enough to give me pause. I go still, thinking maybe I imagined it. A trick of the pipes or just my brain being fried.
But then it happens again.
A low, feminine moan.
