Sworn Enemies: A Small Town Enemies To Lovers Sports Romance (The Football Boys Book 3)

by Rebel Hart

  I nodded. “Oh, please tell me how this is my fault and not because you’re loony toons?”

  “If you had just stayed rivals with Quinn, none of this would have happened. I couldn’t have the world knowing that you were a couple. People want bitter rivalries, not cheesy romances. It was bad for business.” He tipped his hat. “Cheer up. A guy like you will bounce back. See you around, Zeke.”

  It took everything in my body not to put his face in the dirt. Quinn and I had made our realizations about what Wright was capable of just a hair too late. The damage was already done by then. I drove to Daniel’s house, not quite up to the task of going home yet. I used my key to let myself in, and his place was totally dark. He must not have been home from work yet. I grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and walked into the living room to wait. I tried to call Quinn, but I was already blocked. I might have expected as much. I would have blocked my number, too.

  After another thirty minutes, I heard keys in the door. “It’s open!” I called out.

  Daniel walked in and looked at me. “You do know this is my house, right?”

  “I understand now,” I replied.

  “Understand what?” Daniel asked as he walked in and shut the door behind him.

  “I understand why you would just fuck around with people because you can’t be with the one you want to be with,” I said. “I understand.”

  Daniel looked over at me, his face drenched with concern. He set his stuff down, walked into the living room, and sat on the couch. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  I finished off the beer I was working on before grabbing a second one, twisting the top off, and starting on it. “Quinn broke up with me.”

  “What? Why? You guys were great yesterday.”

  “Wright set me up again,” I replied. “He sent me some texts to prod me about a pro team and somehow linked my replies to one of her teammates that abandoned her team. She was on the opponent’s team tonight, and it completely cost them the game. Quinn thinks I slept with her just to pull it off.”

  Daniel sat in silence for a minute and then stood up. “I’m going to destroy that guy.”

  “No, Danny—”

  “What?” Daniel whipped around.

  “It won’t fix it.”

  “No, but I’ll feel better. I don’t like people messing with my brother.” I looked at him pleadingly, and he sighed before coming back to sit down. “Fine.”

  “I know it sounds crazy because we haven’t known each other that long, but I really think I was falling in love with her.” My stomach hurt at the realization that last night was the last time I’d ever hold her. “I…it hurts.”

  Daniel looked over at me. “You think that sounds crazy to me? At least you knew each other for a few weeks.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “Look, you can’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t stop looking, er, trying to get her back. There’s gotta be a way to prove to her that he set you up. Can you show her the texts?”

  “I deleted them. I didn’t want her to see that I was still poking around for a pro team when we just started dating.”

  “Why were you?” Daniel asked.

  “Because until I met her, that was all I wanted. I thought maybe I could take her with me. I don’t know.”

  “She’d never leave her team, it sounds like,” Daniel replied. “Well, maybe now she would.” He noticed my glare and held up a hand. “Sorry. Well, what about your phone company? Most of them can recover deleted texts, and if it’s on official phone company paper or whatever, she’d have to believe you.”

  I sat up. “Is that a thing?”

  “Sure. Cops do it all the time. They have a harder time because they’re trying to get someone else’s records, but you shouldn’t have any trouble getting your own. Then you just text her the picture, and bam.”

  A little bit of hope fled into me. “Wait. That could work.” I deflated again. “She blocked my number.”

  “Then I’ll send it to her, or you show up at her job or her house and show it to her. She’s crazy about you, too. She’ll probably be happy to listen if you have proof.”

  “But then Wright’s gonna go on TV and say something that totally refutes that, and he’ll have Lila backing him up. He did all this for views and money.”

  Daniel’s eyebrow raised. “What if you did the same thing?”

  “What?”

  “Play him at his own game. Go public. Get the texts and take it to the streets.”

  I looked over at him, and a smile grew on my face. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “It sucks that they lost semi-pro, and if that Wright guy is pissed, he’ll never be willing to give them another shot, but at least maybe you two can get back together.”

  I thought about that a bit, and my smile got bigger. “I think I can do something about that, too.” I stood up and ruffled his hair. “You are the best brother. I’ve got a plan, but I need to go talk to someone at my phone company first, and…do you know how to use Snapchat?”

  26

  Quinn

  One week later…

  In the entire time that I had worked at MontRec, I had been accumulating vacation time. The owner insisted upon it, even when I was still just a part-time receptionist in high school. He could afford to let hours roll over a certain amount, and I had taken maybe ten vacation days in the entire six years I’d worked there. I’d always fantasized about how I would finally just take a whole two weeks off of work, and recently, I thought it might be on some vacation with Zeke. It turned out to be in order to recover from our breakup and my loss of semi-pro status—not quite the luxurious, beachside relaxation I was hoping for.

  The front door to my apartment opened, and Alec came sliding through the door. “All right, you said you couldn’t decide between Mexican, Italian, or Chinese, so I got all three.”

  I offered him a weak smile. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  Alec had been awesome during the breakup. He’d also taken time off of work and had been waiting on me hand and foot. I typically didn’t like being doted on for any reason, but he reminded me of all the times I’d guided him through a broken heart and that, though he wasn’t hoping he’d ever have to, he was glad for an opportunity to return the favor. After some light protests that I didn’t really have the energy for, I finally gave in and let him pamper me with ice cream, fuzzy socks, and greasy takeout food.

  Today, he was especially solicitous because he knew I was supposed to have a game. The Widows hadn’t met for practice since our loss, and Cal didn’t push the issue. He said we’d come back together when we were ready, and until then, he’d be working on how to get us other opportunities.

  “It’s not like it won’t get eaten.” He set the different bags of takeout down on the kitchen counter and looked at me. “Okay. Do you want one of the three or a superstorm? I’ve got alfredo, chipotle burritos, and sweet and sour chicken, plus the fixins. Chips and salsa, breadsticks, fried rice and egg rolls.” He smiled. “The world is your oyster, so long as it exists in one of these bags.”

  “Alfredo and egg rolls,” I replied.

  “Ah, yes, the famous feast of many,” he responded jokingly. He grabbed a plate from the kitchen, loaded it up with chicken alfredo and a couple of egg rolls, and then brought it over. “Bon appetit.”

  “That’s French.”

  He rolled his eyes and poked a fork out at me. “I’ll forgive that because I’m happy to hear you joking around.”

  I was starting to dig in when my phone rang. I’d generally been avoiding everyone in the week that I was sulking, but I figured I wasn’t the only one who was sad about the missed game. I fished it out from under the blanket that was covering me and noticed it was Hollie.

  I answered it and lifted it to my ear. “Hey, Hol.”

  “Turn on your TV. Go to any news channel.”

  I set my fork down on my plate. “What?”

  “Now, hurry up. News. Go, go.”

  I grabbed the
remote and turned it to the local news station. My heart thumped when I saw Zeke’s face in a small window near the telecaster’s head.

  “Good. Bye,” Hollie said and hung up, so I dropped my phone and upped the volume on the TV.

  “Zeke’s phone provider confirmed that the messages were, in fact, fabricated, though they weren’t able to confirm who had manufactured them,” the reporter said.

  Alec walked over and looked at the TV. “What’s going on?”

  I was grateful for our television’s ability to capture all of whatever channel was on at the time, so I pressed rewind until it looked like I had reached the beginning of the story.

  “In other news, Montpelier’s semi-pro football league got even more attention today, when Zeke Matheson took to Snapchat Live to discuss the Black Widows’ shocking loss to the Colorado Sirens last Friday night.”

  The story changed to a video of Zeke talking directly to his camera, likely his phone, on a popular social media website. “I was saddened to learn that one of the Black Widows’ players, Lila Skeddit, jumped teams at the last second, leaving her team in the lurch. Plays were shared. Underhanded tactics were used. It wasn’t a fair game.”

  The video switched to our game against Colorado, with a circle drawn around Lila kneeling on my back and refusing to let me up at the beginning of the game. The reporter spoke again over the frozen image. “Experts in the sport say that the behavior of the player, confirmed as Lila Skeddit, would not ordinarily be accepted in any semi-pro or pro game and that the player should have been ejected. They posit that refs were paid to give a lesser penalty, probably by someone high in the ranks of the Idaho Athletics Board.”

  “Wright,” I muttered out loud.

  “Matheson went on to make an emotional confession that shocked fans all over the country.”

  The video of Zeke came back up. “We were really looking forward to playing the Black Widows. We’ve been working non-stop in anticipation of our rematch. We were in the stands, watching and horrified by what we saw.” His face looked anguished. “I do have to accept the role I played in all of this. Texts I sent to an official member of the Athletics Board were used to fabricate a conversation between myself and Lila. I can’t speak to the motive, but I believe it had something to do with my falling in love with the captain of the Black Widows, Quinn Dallen.”

  Goosebumps covered my skin. In love. I thought about how awful I felt for the past week, and how losing our chance at semi-pro status and breaking up with Zeke carried nearly the same weight. He was the only thing that threatened to mean more to me than football, and losing both at the same time had nearly taken me out. If I were to think about it logically, didn’t that mean that I was probably in love, myself? It didn’t take much for Zeke to wind me up, even long before we started dating. Maybe I’d been falling the whole time and just didn’t realize it.

  “He’s probably just trying to save his own ass,” Alec growled, crossing his arms.

  “Shh,” I hissed.

  “The Vipers voted last night, and we unanimously decided that we would still like to have our rematch with the Widows’ next week. We realize that their road to the semis was cut short by what happened, which is why we’re willing to wager our status. If the Black Widows are willing to play the Vipers next Friday and win, we will give our already secured semi-pro status over to them and step down.”

  I gasped. “What!”

  All Zeke had dreamed of was going pro. With the way things were going for the Vipers lately, in a season or two, he could actually get picked up. Why would he give all of that up?

  Alec flicked my forehead. “Quinn, you’re not falling for this, right? He’s betting it because he doesn’t think you can win, just like last time.”

  “Zeke’s phone provider confirmed that the messages were, in fact, fabricated, though they weren’t able to confirm who had manufactured them,” the reporter repeated. We’d caught back up to where we started. “There has been no word yet on whether the Black Widows will accept the Vipers’ request for a rematch.”

  There was a knock at the door, and Alec walked over and opened it. “No,” he barked. “Leave, and don’t come back.”

  “Please.” My body turned hot in an instant at the voice. It was Zeke. “Just let me show her the proof, and if she wants me to leave, I won’t bother her again.”

  Alec looked over his shoulder at me, and I nodded. Alec looked back out the door. “I still think you’re shady, so make it quick.”

  Alec stood aside, and Zeke walked through the door. My gut reaction was to run over to him, but I stayed put. I wasn’t yet convinced that he wasn’t just saving face, either. He had a stack of papers in his hands and walked over and sat down on the couch next to me.

  “Hi,” he said, and his voice was the saddest I’d ever heard. “I missed you.”

  “Ah-ah.” Alec snapped his fingers. “Talk. You’re on a three-minute countdown.”

  Zeke handed the papers over to me. The first of them was the official paperwork showing a string of texts. The responses I’d seen Zeke sending to Lila were listed, but the questions he was getting were totally different. The number he was responding to wasn’t Lila’s either. The documents were all on official letterheads from the company, proving that they weren’t fake. Zeke hadn’t sent Lila to Colorado.

  I continued to flip through the papers, and the next few were applications for apartments in Montpelier, dated before the game against Colorado. In one of the applications, there was a string of emails between Zeke and the complex agent. He made a joke about hoping to convince his girlfriend to move in one day. She asked if a wedding was in the future, and he said he hoped so. The relationship was still new, but he just had a feeling.

  The last of the papers were plays from Zeke’s playbooks with notes on how to be more synchronized as a team and combat the Widows’ power, Lila included. The papers were wrinkled with fading writing—at least as old as us starting our semi-pro bid. He didn’t plan on Lila being gone and was taking our rematch seriously.

  “You…” I looked up at him, tears filling my eyes. “You didn’t set us up.”

  He shook his head. “No, baby. I would never do that to you.”

  I threw my arms around him, and he hugged me back, squeezing tightly. He pulled away, but only enough to take my head between his hands and pull me in for a kiss. I felt the stack of papers leave my hand but couldn’t be bothered.

  I heard a sniffle and looked up, and Alec was crying. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

  Alec was frowning. “It’s just so nice. He really loves you! I’m sorry, Zeke.”

  Zeke chuckled. “It’s okay, buddy. Just don’t kill me, okay?”

  Alec nodded. “Okay.”

  I sat back. “God, I feel so dumb for letting him trick me again.”

  “He got us both, twice,” Zeke said, rubbing the tears from my face. “As long as you forgive me, I don’t care.”

  “Of course I forgive you, but Zeke, you can’t put your semi-pro status on the line. You could ruin your chances to go pro. I won’t let you give everything up like that.”

  “I’m not giving everything up,” Zeke replied, his eyes settling into mine with a warm expression. “I’m just changing what everything means.”

  Alec squealed. “Aw.”

  I looked up at him. “Get out.”

  His jaw dropped. “I brought you three different foods today.”

  “And I’m grateful. We will eat it after,” I replied. “Get out.”

  Alec complained but grabbed his phone and left. I stood up off the couch and pulled Zeke into my bedroom so we could get to making up, first and foremost.

  27

  Quinn

  My heart was pounding in my chest as we filed into the official opponent’s locker room in Vipers Stadium. The concrete benches, rows of lockers, high-grade tile showers, and whiteboard for going over plays were just a few of the amenities a semi-pro facility boasted. The rest of the Widows seemed simi
larly amazed as everyone wandered around the space, Cal included.

  “Holy crap,” Alec grumbled. “This is not MontRec.”

  I shook my head. “No, it is not.”

  I loved my community center. For my entire life, it was a place that meant football to me. It wasn’t just a job. It was a home. It was where I met my team, where I earned a living, and where my boss and the owner treated me like one of their own. It was a place that comforted me when I was sad, brought me joy when I was energized, and calmed me down when I was angry. Leaving it behind for a real stadium would be scary and sad, but it would be amazing, too. Maybe one day soon, I could go to MontRec as nothing more than a member of the community. Maybe I could finally lead my own class. The possibilities had electricity coursing through my blood.

  “All right, enough gawking, ladies. Get yourselves comfortable. We have a lot to go over.”

  Despite everyone wanting to continue walking around the impressive locker room to view everything it had to offer, we did, eventually, gather around Cal, sitting amongst the benches, no longer collecting grass stains on our pants during the huddle.

  Cal took a deep breath before starting. “I know we’re all probably more than a little nervous after our last game, but the amount of work we put in this week wasn’t for nothing. The Vipers are taking this game as seriously as any other game, maybe even more so. We have to match that energy. No, we have to beat it.”

  He pointed at Jansen. “You need to be more careful with your pacing. If you’re exhausted by the third like you were yesterday, we’re gonna lose. There’s nothing else to it.”

  Jansen nodded. “I know, Coach.”

  “Mala, Jazz. You guys killed it yesterday, threading the needle. I need more of that. If you can lure the Vipers away from Quinn, she can get the ball out, and as long as Jansen’s downfield, there’s nothing that can stop us.”

  “Yes, Coach,” they resounded.

  Cal looked over at me. “And you.”