by Lexi Ryan
“Think it’s Brad and Angelina?” I ask.
“This couple only has two kids,” she says. “Isn’t Brangelina up to, like, forty-three kids or something by now?”
“Bummer. I was having fantasies of visiting you and getting to know Brad.”
“Ha! I’m sure Angelina wouldn’t let any nanny that close to her husband. Back to the stepbrother, please. What if he’s a pervert or something?”
“Then I’ll chop off his dick.” I grin and take another drink. I can’t imagine sweet Becky having a pervert for a son. “He sounds like a good guy. Becky says he volunteers with Big Brothers, Big Sisters and is a straight-A student. If he’s anything like her, birds probably start singing when he walks outside.”
“So you’re saying your stepbrother is a Disney princess?”
I shrug. Maybe I should feel weird about committing to spend my summer living with some guy I’ve never met before, but I was already scrambling to find an excuse not to come back to Champagne between semesters. When Dad and Becky told me they wanted to travel around Europe for their honeymoon, I had the perfect excuse. Dad doesn’t feel comfortable with me staying at his house alone—even if I am legally an adult now—so I jumped on the opportunity to live somewhere else.
I tried to talk my dad into paying for an apartment for me in New York, but since I couldn’t secure an internship or a job more “educational” than my usual coffee shop gig, he wasn’t having it. Apparently, the idea of me living alone in New York terrifies my father more than the idea of me living in Champagne without someone keeping an eye on me.
“Either way, he’s giving me a room for the summer. I’ll get a job and keep to myself. Dad’s happy, and I’m not in Champagne. It’ll work out fine.”
“I guess.” She frowns. “I still wish I had a chance to meet this guy so I could feel better about your arrangement.”
“To hear Becky talk about him, he seems practically perfect in every way.”
“Which is he? A princess or Mary Poppins?”
“He’s a football player.” I grimace at that unfortunate fact about my new roomie.
“Now I’m picturing Mary Poppins in a football helmet.” She draws her legs onto the couch and tucks them under her. “What’s his name again?”
“Dash.” What the hell kind of a name is that, anyway? It’s as if Becky knew her son would become a football player and named him accordingly.
Willow swishes her drink in her glass, watching the slush swirl. “Dash what?”
“Dupree.”
“Have you looked him up on Facebook?”
I give her a pointed stare. “You know how I feel about social media.”
“I keep telling you to make a fake account so you can spy on people.”
I shudder. “I’ll pass.”
“Oh well. I’ll look him up later myself. Dash Dupree.” She says his name as if she’s trying to place it, and shakes her head. “I’ll have to ask Robbie if he knew him in high school.”
“Could be. They both played football at Towers, but the name doesn’t ring any bells for me.” Willow went to Champagne’s Catholic high school, so she didn’t know any of the people who tortured me at Champagne Towers. I went there less than three months before we moved to Maine, but my time there certainly made an impression.
Willow and I met last summer after Dad moved back here and she and I both had gigs at the local coffee shop. She was the very best part of being stuck in this city, and when my otherwise carefree summer ended in a shitstorm of my own making, she was there for me in a way no one else could be.
“Not all football players are assholes,” she says.
“I will agree that Robbie is an exception,” I say. Willow’s boyfriend plays ball at Baylor and is really sweet, if a little dense. I knew him during my brief stint at Champagne Towers High School, and he may not have registered my existence, but at least he never mocked my stutter by calling me “Juh-Juh-Gee-Gee” like half the other guys on the team. “Speaking of Robbie, how’s he handling your impending departure?”
She sets her drink on the coffee table and sighs. “He still hates it, but I keep telling him the summer will go fast. He’ll be busy with football, and I’ll be back soon enough.”
We talk about college and our plans for the fall, and when the pitcher of drinks is empty, she makes us another, and soon we’re giggling without reason and she’s telling me about the time she and Robbie had sex in the locker room at Baylor and she ended up with foot fungus and a bruise on her ass in the shape of a locker vent.
“It’s depressing that I’m so sexually deprived that I’m even jealous of sex that ended in foot fungus,” I tell her.
“What about that guy you were dating when I came to visit on spring break? The one with all the tattoos?”
I shake my head. “He was hot but there wasn’t much going on upstairs.” To be honest, I knew that when I started dating him, but I figured I could handle a lower IQ in exchange for hard abs and barrel-sized biceps. I know it’s clichéd, but I have a serious weakness for muscle, which probably explains my history with football players.
She arches a brow. “You are so picky. A guy doesn’t have to be a genius to treat you right.”
“Willow, one day I said something about my commander in chief, and his response was, ‘I didn’t know you were Native American.’”
“No!”
“I’ve sworn off pretty idiots, but I miss sex.”
“My poor, horny Grace.”
“That is accurate.” I take another long swallow from my drink. I’m not sure if the sugar buzz or the alcohol buzz is going to hit me first. “Actually, ‘horny’ is a terrible word. Don’t use it to describe me ever again, please.”
“No kidding, but there’s no good alternative short of calling yourself randy, and that makes me feel like I should be picking up men at the local seniors’ club.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Randy might be worse than horny. But whatever I am, I blame those books you recommended. Those books made me . . . what about thoughtful? It’s the thoughts that get us in trouble, isn’t it?”
“I prefer thirsty.” She nods, satisfied with her word choice. “You’re thirsty, and who could blame you? Maybe your stepbrother has a hot friend you could entertain yourself with this summer.”
I drain my glass and close my eyes, imagining bonfires and tattooed country boys with ripped muscles from bailing hay—or whatever they do in Indiana. Surely Dash has some good-looking friends who could entertain me. “God, it’s pathetic, but I’m kind of counting on it.”
Willow’s phone buzzes and she grabs it off the coffee table and grins as she looks at the screen. “It’s Robbie. He wants to swing by. Is that okay with you?”
I shrug. I’m all warm and fuzzy from the rum. He could bring a dozen friends with him and I probably wouldn’t care. “That’s fine with me.”
“Are you sure?”
“You guys have two days together before you leave for London. Seriously, live it up. I was thinking about crawling into bed with my book anyway. I want to read the one about the fisherman again.”
“You don’t need to go to bed. Robbie and I can be together without screwing.”
I cock my head and frown at her. “You want to tell me that you’re half drunk and your boyfriend’s coming over, and you want to sit out here and chat rather than jump his bones?”
She laughs. Willow’s laugh has to be one of the best sounds in the world, full, and real, and unapologetic. “You know me too well.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Seriously. I’ll sleep in your sister’s room.” Her older sister is out of town for the weekend, and I probably would have slept in her room anyway just to have my own bed.
“You’re the best.”
The doorbell rings, and I stand. “I need to use the restroom. I’ll talk to you two lovebirds in the morning.”
“Don’t feel like you have to turn in right away. I have another pitcher of daiquiris waiting in the freezer and a
stack of Christina Lauren novels on the kitchen island. I think the fisherman one is somewhere in there.”
“God bless you,” I call over my shoulder as I push into the bathroom. I pee forever—I really drank too much of Willow’s mostly rum concoction—and wash my hands. I hear laughter, then feet on the stairs, and the thunk of Willow’s bedroom door before I leave the bathroom. They’re wasting no time getting down to business. Good for them. At least someone’s getting lucky.
I planned on going to bed, but I like Willow’s suggestion better. Sleep never comes easily for me, so daiquiris and a yummy romance novel sound like the perfect way to pass a couple of hours.
Except there’s a broad-shouldered dude sitting on Willow’s couch, his head of shaggy hair bowed.
I groan inwardly. Muscle is my kryptonite. I’m seriously tipsy and thirsty, and I don’t need to be tempted into bad choices with some jock Robbie dragged with him to his booty call.
“Hey,” the guy says. “Sorry to invade your space like this.”
“No worries.” I say, then he looks up and my breath leaves my lungs in a rush when I see his blue eyes. Damn. It’s one thing to be thirsty and have bits and pieces below the belt zipping ideas to my brain. It’s quite another thing when my other organs get involved. Like my heart. And maybe my lungs, because breathing isn’t coming very naturally right now.
I know this guy. He wasn’t around last summer, but we went to the same high school when I was fourteen. Five years ago, before Dad moved us away from Champagne and away from my damaged reputation, and before that night, I knew that face and those stop-a-girl-in-her-tracks sweet blue eyes.
His shaggy hair was shorter then, his shoulders a little less broad, and he had smooth cheeks where tonight they’re covered in stubble. But I would know the face of Chris Montgomery anywhere. A girl doesn’t forget blue eyes like that, especially when they were the first she ever fell for. Especially when it all ended with a new life and a broken heart.
“Hey there,” he says again, looking at me this time. He grins. Holy shit, that smile. Those dimples send me back in time, and all the feelings come back in a rush. The high school crush that I didn’t dare speak of. The boy who was so far out of my league I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him. The ache I felt in my heart every time he was in the same room as me.
Chris Montgomery is fucking perfect. He’s the guy that every girl in high school swooned over. All he had to do was walk by, flash those dimples, and wink, and girls would practically knock each other over for the honor of dropping their panties first.
He’s hot. He’s smart. He’s some sort of football genius—or was back in high school. And he’s a fucking gentleman.
He was always so kind to me—genuinely kind, not like other boys who’d tease and flirt but never bother to look me in the eye. When I was surrounded by guys who couldn’t keep their eyes off my tits, Chris gave his attention to my face when he talked to me. To be fair, this only happened once, but I was fourteen and the contact required for falling in love was minimal.
I was so pathetic. Still am, apparently, because my cheeks heat and the room spins sideways. I feel like I’m fourteen again, still madly, naively in love with the boy who doesn’t know I exist.
Only now I’m not that girl anymore, and we’re alone in Willow’s living room with a storm rumbling outside.
“Sorry to bother you. I only followed Robbie in so I could grab some paper towels, but the storm’s really picked up, and I wanted to let the rain slow down before driving home.” He holds up a bloody hand. “Any chance you have a bandage I could put on this?”
I was so busy with my trip down Memory Lane that I didn’t even notice his right hand is wrapped in blood-soaked paper towels. “Oh my God! Are you okay?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks, but I want to make sure it doesn’t get infected.” He actually smiles as he says it, as if the injury isn’t even painful, despite what the bloody towels would suggest.
“I hope not.”
“My coaches are going to kill me. If they had their way, I’d walk around with my hands in a glass case any time I’m not on the field.”
“You still play football?” I’m so impressed that the words come out smoothly, without even the faintest hint of a stutter. I credit years of speech therapy. And alcohol. Even when my stutter was at its worst, a good, strong buzz made it all but nonexistent. (Let’s file that under: Things You Shouldn’t Learn At Fourteen—a pretty thick file in my case.)
“Yeah. I play at Blackhawk Hills University.” He narrows his eyes and studies me. My stomach clenches, and I wait for him to recognize me as “Juh-Juh-Gee-Gee,” or worse, “Easy Gee-Gee.” I wait for his memory of that night to drain all the kindness from his face.
Instead, his grin stays firmly in place, his dimples greeting me without hesitation.
I force a smile, but it costs me. I don’t like feeling this vulnerable, this dependent on another human’s approval.
“Are you Willow’s sister?” he asks.
He doesn’t remember me. Maybe I should be offended, but instead I’m just relieved. I guess I should thank my newly dyed black hair for his ignorance.
Yeah, or maybe you were never important enough for him to remember.
He points at me, his brow wrinkling in concentration. “Robbie told me Willow had a sister our age. Mary or—”
“Morgan,” I say.
He extends his left hand—the one that isn’t wrapped up in blood-soaked paper towels—and I take it, stupidly. “Nice to meet you, Morgan,” he says. “I’m Chris. Robbie had too much to drink, so I gave him a lift. I wouldn’t have followed him in if I realized he was going to disappear into his girlfriend’s room right away.”
I might not be the sharpest tool in the box after questionable amounts of rum, but a few things occur to me all at once.
One, Montgomery hasn’t changed. He’s still the sweet Southern gentleman with exemplary manners who looks out for his friends. Case in point: giving Robbie a ride here so he wouldn’t drive after drinking too much.
Two, despite said gentlemanly traits and a history of keeping his eyes off my assets in high school, he’s seriously struggling to keep focused on my face now. Maybe my tight, light blue tank is to blame, or the fact that it’s a little cold in here, but he’s definitely checking me out. And even after all these years, that’s fucking satisfying.
Except for—three, he doesn’t remember me. Holy shit.
Oh, and four, he thinks I’m Willow’s sister, Morgan.
“Morgan.” He narrows his eyes, as if trying to place a puzzle piece. I could help him, but I don’t. “You kind of look familiar. Did we hang with the same people or anything?”
Only one night. I shake my head. “No. We ran in different circles.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, or meet you again.” His grin is so genuine, and having those dimples directed at me feels so good I realize a fifth thing: I’d rather lie and pretend to be Morgan Myers than tell sexy Chris Montgomery who I really am. Especially when he’s looking at me as if I’d make the perfect bedtime snack.
Would you like fries with that?
I hope you enjoyed meeting Chris and Grace. Find out what happens next in Rushing In, the second book of the The Blackhawk Boys series.
Read other books by Lexi Ryan
“Say Something” by A Great Big World
“Something I Can Never Have” by Nine Inch Nails
“Rolling in the Deep” by Adele
“You Ruin Me” by The Veronicas
“When You Find Me” by Joshua Radin
“Stay” by Rihanna
“Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman
“What Now” by Rihanna
“By the Grace of God” by Katy Perry
“Grace” by Kate Havnevik
“Lay Me Down” by Sam Smith
“Dark Times” by The Weeknd, featuring Ed Sheeran
“See You Again” by Wiz Kahlifa, featuring Charlie Puth
&nb
sp; “Lay It All on Me” by Rudimental, featuring Ed Sheeran
“Jealous” by Labrinth
I love hearing from readers, so find me on my Facebook page at facebook.com/lexiryanauthor, follow me on Twitter and Instagram @writerlexiryan, shoot me an email at [email protected], or find me on my website: www.lexiryan.com
I’m so grateful to have a supportive husband who believes in me and my work, who understands why my stories mean so much to me, and who makes the sacrifices necessary when I need to work sixty hours a week to get a book done.
I’m surrounded by family who supports me every day. To my kids, Jack and Mary, thank you for making me laugh and giving me a reason to work hard. I am so proud to be your mommy. To my mom, brothers, and sisters, thank you for cheering me on—each in your own way. I’m so grateful to have been born into this crazy crew of seven kids.
This book is for my nephew Kai, whose absolute passion for football made me fall in love with the sport so many years ago. Kai, you might notice I stole some of your friends’ names randomly for the book. As the characters are obviously not based on your old friends, this is merely a nod to the bond you all formed playing ball together. That kind of friendship isn’t easy to come by, but it’s the kind I like to give my characters before I drag them through hell. I’m proud of you, kid. Even if you did try to break my nose with your mom’s cell phone when you were three.
I don’t think I’d be able to keep my sanity if it weren’t for my friends. You encourage me, you believe in me, and, when necessary, you pass the vodka. A special shout-out to Mira, whose calls save me from meltdowns and who understands that #livingthedream comes with really effing stressful moments. To Kylie and the entire CrossFit Terre Haute crew, for teaching me to love picking up heavy things, which is, incidentally, a much healthier stress management tool than ice cream. To Annie for believing in me since I was seventeen and wore the identity “writer” like a badge of honor.
