Page 34 of One and Only

But I felt him staring at me the entire time.

Chapter6

Beckett

“Why is Parker looking at you like that?” Reyes asked, leaning in close but saying it loudly enough that everyone in the immediate vicinity could hear him.

The man in question, sitting in front of his locker as we all showered after running some drills, was glaring mightily in my direction.

I sighed. “Because he’s trying to provoke me.”

“Mysister,” Parker said. “I haven’t seen you show any interest in any woman since I’ve met you, and you have to go for my sister.”

Reyes whistled under his breath. “Got it.”

I scratched the side of my jaw. “Feeling overly protective, Parker?”

He huffed a laugh. “Not for you. I think Greer is going to eat you up and spit you out, and then I’m going to have to deal with your mopey ass. You’ll stop working as hard, and you won’t catch for shit, and we’ll lose all our games, all because my sister broke your heart.”

There’d be no breaking of anyone’s heart, not that I could explain that to Parker. I gave him a hard look. “Do I look like the kind of guy who’d stop doing my job if that happens?”

Reyes snapped a towel at Parker’s thigh, and he yelped. “Leave him alone. Maybe Coleman needed to get laid, and now he won’t be so serious all the time.”

“Mysister,” Parker reiterated, snatching at the towel. Our QB laughed, snapping at him again.

Roberts, one of the offensive linemen, ambled up, a towel around his waist and another over his neck. “Your sister is hot, Wilder. You know I got a girl, but”—he shook his head—“she’s got those legs and the dark eyes and those perfect—”

“Enough,” I growled. Something under my chest roared at the way he was talking about her. I’d never been one of those guys—who enjoyed the picking apart of a woman like her only good attributes were the physical ones—but hearing him talk about Greer that way had me clenching my fists.

Parker noticed.

He grinned, the first crack I’d seen in him since we’d met at the facility that morning. When the grin faded, he turned to Roberts. “Better watch out, Robbo, Beckett might not like you as much if you talk about his girl like that.”

She wasn’t my girl. Not really.

I was just … borrowing her for a while.

“Who says I liked him before this?” I asked.

Roberts laughed, shoving at my shoulder as he walked past. I smiled because I liked him just fine.

Reyes and Roberts started talking, and I felt Parker’s eyes on me. He tugged a shirt over his head, raking a hand through his shower-damp hair, and then pinned me with another unreadable look.

“You got something to say, then say it,” I said easily.

He shrugged, settling back into his seat so he could keep studying me. “Just trying to picture you two together,” he answered.

Something uncomfortable spiked in my stomach because this was exactly my fear.

Josie and Micah had warmed to her immediately, spending a couple of hours at my place the night before while we talked through Josie’s reservations—and how long she’d struggled with the idea of me doing this alone when I’d never not had her and Micah around for backup.

Neither of us wanted to bring a judge into the situation, and that’s what would need to happen if she decided to take Olive to London.

And it was clear that Micah would respect Josie’s decision to stay, even if he’d miss his wife for the year he was gone.

But I couldn’t deny the power of Josie being able to see Greer there in the house with me. It made a difference.

They talked at length about Olive’s bedroom, and Greer asked a lot of questions about my daughter that clearly pleased Josie. She caught my eye numerous times, just to give me a relieved smile.

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