Page 87 of Only in Your Dreams

I am so… God, I am so fucked.

I will never, ever, fall out of love with this woman. It’ll never happen.

“Clover,” I say, and my voice is so soft you can barely hear it over the music next door. “You went out to look for one?”

She softens at the shameless affection in my voice. “Of course, I did. Same spot I used to find them for you.”

That fucking ache. The most intoxicating kind of pain there is.

Melody drops the clover into my open palm. Leans in, touches a hand to my shoulder to steady herself before placing the sweetest kiss on my cheek.

“Good luck, Coach.”

Chapter 21

Melody

“So, we’ve got a monthly happy hour get-together. And if ever you don’t feel like braving these crowds, the team sets up a screen in a room off the coaches’ offices where we can watch. But I have to warn you, it tends to get even crazier than out here, with all our kids running around.”

Emily Davies—welcome wagon to the Huskies coaches’ wives and girlfriends group that apparently exists and I am now a part of—gets it all out in one single, loud string of words I can barely keep up with.

Obviously, my inability to focus would have absolutely nothing to do with the absurdly gorgeous man on the field below. Despite the clear nerves I witnessed in his office, Zac now looks so attractively competent and in control, giving out orders to his players down there. I have no idea what’s left of my panties, after almost two quarters of watching him coach this game.

I don’t even know how Emily got wind of my dating Brooks, given we’ve barely been official a couple of hours. My best guess is that Wynn was privy to Zac’s declaration back at the diner and is just as much the unofficial town crier as he was when I last lived here.

“Oh! And how could I forget,” Emily chirps. She smooths down the front of her Huskies jersey, tossing her perfectly blown out brown locks. “There’s the annual WAGs flag football game on Tuesday. Really, it’s just an excuse for the guys to use us as pawns to compete against each other, but it can be a lot of fun.”

A play on the field is whistled dead and I rip my gaze off Zac, who’s gesturing at one of the refs. “A WAGs flag football game? As in, it’s the wives and girlfriends playing?”

Emily doesn’t seem to hear me. Out on the field, Baby Clark Kent, the Huskies’ new wide receiver, manages to fake the defender. The crowd gasps in anticipation as Noah lines up a pass, makes the throw—and gets flattened to the ground by an opposing player.

I jump to my feet. “What the hell was that?” I add to the chorus of angry roars. “He wasn’t in possession!”

“Throw the fucking flag!” Emily shouts, jabbing her finger at the field.

I look down at her, impressed. She’s got a few years on me, and the kind of perfectly tamed hair I was used to seeing in Connor’s circles, but Emily wears her disdain almost as good as I do. I decide, then and there, that I like this woman.

The Huskies bench seems to be in agreement with us both. Down below, I catch sight of Zac striding across the sideline toward a ref. The brim of his hat sits low on his face, so I can’t make out his expression. But his shoulders are tense, his gait clipped, and the way he wrenches up the mouthpiece of his headset as he speaks to the ref tells me he isn’t one bit happy about what he’s hearing.

“Ah, that’s bullshit,” Emily says as play resumes without penalty, but I’m too distracted watching Zac pace up and down the sideline to muster a reply.

I forgot what it’s like to come to a Huskies game.

In a small town like Oakwood Bay, their home games command the same kind of reverence as Christmas. Other than Oakley’s—which keeps its doors open to the overflow crowd who weren’t able to snag a ticket into the stadium—the main strip shuts down early. It’s a good guarantee that every TV in town is tuned into the game, and the Huskies stadium itself becomes the chaotic home of drunk college kids and rowdy locals.

I’m not sure whether it’s because I haven’t been to one of these games in forever or because it’s the first home game of the season, but the crowd seems unusually unruly. Angry. We’re sitting a couple rows up from a group of college guys down to their underwear, painted head to toe in the Huskies’ maroon color. A decent contingent of fans from the opposing Ravens team sits across the field, countering the Huskies Howls with boos whenever something happens remotely in our favor.

Right on cue, there’s a fumbled pass on the field. A voice behind us, which had been calling for a flag only a few minutes ago, turns completely hostile.

“This is what you get for throwing a jersey on a freshman and calling him a wide receiver. They hire a washed-up townie for a head coach and think we won’t notice this team can’t win a game—”

Anger ricochets through me. “How is he washed up? He’s the youngest coach in his division.”

Emily pats my knee. “I do feel for him, too. We all do. Zac,” she clarifies when I look confused. “Don’t know how he can stand to live in this town when they all turn up their noses at him. And I hear he’s lived here since he was a kid. You’d think they’d be kinder to him.”

Yes, Emily. Exactly.

The hardest part about sitting here tonight hasn’t been the score, which I can admit is atrocious. It’s been hearing people from around town trash talk Zac like he hasn’t lived among them since he was a kid. Like his grams hadn’t been everyone’s favorite person, back then.

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