Dating the Quarterback (The Bet Duet Book 2)

by Maggie Dallen

  “I do?” I turned to her in surprise. The changes I’d been thinking of hadn’t been about me, they’d been about my world. The fact that I’d gone from being relative strangers with Conner and his mom and now thought of them as my family, or how I’d gone from having no friends to one…two if you counted Tristan.

  I didn’t count Tristan.

  He didn’t really want to be my friend, he’d just been being nice. Despite his odd ways and his standoffish demeanor with most of the kids at this school, deep down Tristan was kind. He had a good heart.

  He just didn’t let anyone close enough to see it.

  “You’re more…open, I guess,” Janice said, continuing the conversation like she didn’t know I’d been obsessing over Tristan.

  Again.

  “Open, huh?”

  She nodded. “That first day you were all huddled in on yourself. You looked scared or like you might hurl at any moment.”

  I opened my mouth and shut it. Friend or not, Janice likely didn’t need to know that I had puked my guts out before school that first day. It was only through the sheer force of will—and a bucketload of Tums—that I hadn’t retched in the girls’ bathroom every day that first week.

  But, come to think of it… I tried to think of the last time I’d felt nauseous, or the last time I’d been anxious about going to school. I tried to think of when I’d last battled the urge to run and hide.

  Huh.

  I turned to Janice with a little smile. “I guess maybe I have changed.”

  “I guess that means you’re getting used to it here,” she said with a grin.

  I nodded, but in reality, that wasn’t what had caused the change in me. I’d gone to my old school for nearly a decade and had never quite adjusted. I’d never felt like I belonged.

  But then again, at my old school I hadn’t made any real friends like Janice, or had a sibling who stood by my side and cheered me up when the guy I liked told me he just wanted to be friends.

  Come to think of it, at my old school I’d never met any guys who went out of their way to talk to me, to make me smile, and who made sure I wasn’t lost on my first day of school.

  I clamped my lips together and battled the urge to cry. I would not cry over losing something I never really had. I’d tried. I’d given it a shot and I’d failed.

  So what, you’re just going to give up?

  That was Conner’s voice in my head. He’d been surprisingly nice when I’d come home from Tristan’s house and burst into tears. He’d been supportive…but he hadn’t let me off the hook.

  What more is there to say? I’d said.

  He still hadn’t let up. Not on Saturday night when he and Rosalie forced me to watch cheesy comedies with them to cheer me up. Not on Sunday when he’d cooked me my favorite breakfast, as he’d promised. And not yesterday when he’d hovered at my side between classes and at lunch to make sure I wasn’t going to fall apart over Tristan.

  So yeah, Conner had been really nice about the breakup-that-wasn’t-really-a-breakup. But he was also irritating. Even when he wasn’t nagging me and pushing me to try again with Tristan, I could still hear his voice in my head reminding me that I shouldn’t give up so easily.

  And then, as if on cue—like maybe he’d heard the nagging voice of Conner, too—Tristan was there, walking toward me. He wasn’t wearing his football uniform and he wasn’t surrounded by his teammates, which meant…

  I looked around quickly, trying to figure out why else he might be heading this way.

  “He’s coming!” Janice’s excited hiss did nothing to calm my nerves.

  Of course he was coming. I could see that with my own eyes. What I couldn’t tell was…why? Why was he coming over here?

  Friends, I reminded myself. We were just friends. And even that was debatable.

  “Janice,” I managed through frozen lips. My limbs were trembling. Why was I trembling? It wasn’t from fear. Tristan would never hurt me.

  As he drew closer, I could feel the weight of his stare, unwavering and unflinching. His eyes met mine and held. Even from a few yards away I could feel their burn. How anyone thought him to be so laid-back was beyond me.

  The guy was intense.

  Hadn’t anyone ever made eye contact with him before?

  “Are you going to be okay?” Janice asked. It was more her death grip on my arm that had me paying attention to her—her words took longer to register.

  Was I going to be okay?

  Panic rose up in a tidal wave.

  No. No, I was so not going to be okay. I had no idea what to say—and worse, I had this horrible feeling that I’d say everything wrong. That I’d somehow make something bad into something even worse.

  Like, he wouldn’t even want to be my friend after this.

  And would that be so bad?

  There was Conner’s voice again.

  Do you really want to be his friend?

  No. Yes! Friendship was better than nothing, right?

  “Okay then,” Janice said when I still hadn’t answered. “I take it you’re good here. I’ll just, um…”

  Before I could stop her, she was sprinting away.

  Again.

  Leaving me alone and—holy crap, he was here.

  “Hey, Harley.” His voice—that was what lulled people into thinking he was so laid back. I almost believed it myself for a second there.

  I might have if his eyes hadn’t been glowing with…what? Not anger, necessarily, but some deep-seated emotions that made my skin tingle with awareness and my belly do flips like it had just decided to go pro with gymnastics.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. My hands no longer belonged to me, apparently, because they were doing something weird with the paintbrush without my say so, flipping it and toying with it, and any second now I’d accidentally splatter paint all over myself if I didn’t stop.

  I stopped, bending over carefully to set it down. When I straightened I found that his burning gaze was no longer fixed on me but on the mural. “It’s looking really good.”

  “Oh, uh…thanks.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my hoodie, along with some paint.

  Something eased a bit inside me. He’d come over to look at the mural. Awesome. Great. This was something that friends did, right?

  “That’s me?” His eyes were trained on his own image.

  “Clearly I didn’t do too great a job if you couldn’t figure that out,” I joked.

  Or at least, I tried to joke. The witticism fell flat and neither of us was smiling when he turned to face me again. “You painted me on the sidelines.”

  I blinked at him. He didn’t sound angry, but the comment was unexpected. “I didn’t—I mean, that’s not what I meant to—”

  “My mom’s worried I’m living my life on the sidelines.” His gaze met mine evenly and I had…no clue what to say to that. I was too busy loving the way he talked.

  So, that’s what I told him. “I love that you get straight to the point.”

  His lips twitched up a bit. “I’m only like this with you.”

  “Funny,” I said, shifting so I didn’t have to crane my neck to look up at him. “I’m only like this with you.”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “This nervous, this flustered, this calm, this happy, this aware, this on edge, this overwhelmed…take your pick.”

  His lips twitched again and his eyes started to crinkle. My heart tripped over itself. Had I really just said all that? Out loud?

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know the feeling.”

  He did? What did that mean? I wasn’t even sure what I’d meant. His gaze held mine and he was waiting…presumably for me to respond. Once again, I said the only thing that came to mind. “I didn’t draw you on the sidelines.”

  He arched his brows.

  “You’re an observer,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Isn’t there?”

  I shook my head. “The best artists are usually obse
rvers to some extent. Writers listen to the conversations around them, artists view the world through their own particular lens, musicians hear music in the everyday cacophony of life…” I trailed off with a shrug. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “I play football.”

  I smiled, despite the fact that my heart was hurting with this frantic pace. “Yeah, well. That doesn’t mean you don’t have the soul of an artist.”

  His brows shot up. “The soul of an artist, huh? That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “I’ve said plenty of nice things to you.” I did better with the teasing tone this time and was rewarded with a little crinkle around his eyes, although his gaze had grown distant.

  He took a deep breath and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Have you ever seen The Matrix?”

  I blinked as my brain leapt to follow this new track. “I’m sorry, is the star quarterback asking me if I’ve ever seen The Matrix?”

  His lips curved up. “A simple yes or no would suffice.”

  “Yes,” I said with a little laugh. “Yes, I’ve seen it.”

  “Back when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I felt like that guy from The Matrix.”

  I pursed my lips. “Keanu Reeves or Morpheus?”

  “Keanu Reeves’ character. The one who wakes up to find that his reality is all an illusion.”

  “I remember.” My heart ached at the thought of a younger, more innocent Tristan having the rug pulled out from under him.

  He met my gaze evenly as if waiting for me to get it.

  “I remember and I understand the feeling,” I said quietly. That was exactly how I’d felt after my mom died, although I’d been too young to relate it to a sci-fi movie. But now, in hindsight, I knew exactly what he meant—that sensation that you’d just woken up from a lovely dream and found yourself in a nightmare. The knowledge that nothing would ever be the same again. That the things that once mattered no longer did.

  He nodded. “I thought you might.” He glanced back at the mural before turning back to me. “That’s exactly how I felt, how I feel…most of the time. Especially here,” he nodded toward the school. “It’s like ever since that moment when I woke up, my priorities shifted. The things I cared about changed, but no one else around me understood.” He drew in a deep breath and I felt my stomach churning with unease.

  This was getting dangerously close to what he’d said to me outside Danny’s house. About how I was immature, how I was just like everyone else. And maybe I was… I’d always thought I was so different, but maybe deep down I was just like everybody else. And maybe…maybe that was okay.

  That last thought gave me confidence and I cleared my throat. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to get caught up in such a petty challenge with Conner, but you’ve got to understand that I’m going through my own stuff right now. I mean, being part of a new family? It’s been an adjustment. I’ve had to figure out where I fit in, and who I am in this family.”

  His lips were still parted like he’d been about to say something when I’d blurted that out. “I know,” he said. “I get it.”

  “I don’t think you do.” I straightened to my full height, which was still laughably small next to this behemoth. “I used to feel that way too, and because of that I never let people in. So, yeah, maybe I’m regressing or something, but I’m figuring it out, and I think…” I gave my head a little shake. “I think maybe I’ll be better for it in the end.”

  He surprised me with a little smile. “I agree.”

  “You do?”

  “I do.” He took a step closer and once more I was craning my neck. “I think being a part of a family, making friends, and learning to trust new people…that’s kind of key to survival, right? That’s called being human.”

  I nodded. “Right.” I exhaled loudly, oddly relieved that not only did he understand but he was able to put it into words while I was still flailing for coherent thoughts over here. The fact that he was so close definitely didn’t help.

  Then he took a step closer. “Harley, I didn’t come out here to give you a hard time about the bet.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. I came out here to apologize.”

  “Oh.”

  He squinted at me. “I’m making a mess of this.”

  I tried not to smile and pulled on the reins before hope could take a nosedive off a cliff. “Maybe you should stick to what we do best. Just…spit it out.”

  He nodded, licking his lips in an uncharacteristic show of nerves. “That very first day I met you, I knew you were different. It was like, for years I’d been living in that place…” He gestured toward the mural like that would explain it.

  It did. I knew exactly what he meant.

  “And then along came this odd little elf with baggy jeans, long braids, and thick glasses and it was like…it was like this light turned on in my life. Like I’d been watching everything around me in black-and-white and along came color.”

  My eyes widened in surprise at the words, which were so close to what I’d said to Conner, and his tone, which held more emotion than I’d ever heard coming from him.

  “I couldn’t explain it, but it felt like you got me and I got you and it was…I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head. “It was crazy.”

  I lost the battle with that smile and hope? It was soaring. There was no stopping it now.

  “For the first time I felt like I wasn’t alone on the outside,” he said.

  “You weren’t alone,” I said. “You aren’t alone.”

  “For the longest time, I kept out everyone and everything that wasn’t my family or my future,” he said. “So when I started to care about something else, about someone else…it was—”

  “Terrifying,” I interrupted.

  “Exactly.” His eyes were filled with so much warmth, I was burning up inside. “Harley, I—”

  “I lied the other day.” I blurted it out too loudly so he was blinking down at me in shock.

  Was it an eloquent moment? No. But Tristan and I didn’t do eloquence—we did honesty. And I couldn’t let him say one more beautiful, heartfelt, emotional word until I told him the truth.

  “You…you lied?” he said, his brows drawing together in confusion.

  “Yes.” I licked my lips as I summoned up all my courage. “I lied when I said I wanted to be friends.”

  His eyes flared wide and then I saw it…a flicker of joy as my words registered. I hurried on before he could stop me. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re a great guy and I’m sure you’d make an excellent friend. But I don’t want that. I don’t want just that. I want—”

  He kissed me before I could tell him what I wanted.

  But that was fine because this? This kiss was everything I wanted. His strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me close, holding me so tightly it was hard to breathe. I couldn’t have anyway because his kiss left me breathless. His lips were hot and firm and I swear he swept me right off my feet. Like, literally. He was crushing me to his chest and my feet were dangling, and this was better than any kiss scene I’d read about in any romance novel because this was real.

  It was real and it was perfect.

  When he lifted his head to gaze down at me we were both breathing heavily and I swore to myself that I would never ever forget the look in his eyes. Pure tenderness and maybe even something more. Something deeper. Something that I hoped he could read in mine as well.

  It might be too soon to name it, but my heart felt it and it felt so, so good.

  My hands were still clutching at his shoulders because my feet weren’t touching the ground. “Now what?” I asked.

  His smile was quizzical. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…” I bit my lip as I tried to figure out what I meant. “I mean, I don’t know where I fit. I know how focused you are, and I’m not your family and I’m not your future, so—”

  He cut me off with another kiss, this one short but so sw
eet it left me sighing like a ninny. If I had been on my feet, I probably would have been swooning.

  “You might not be my family,” he said, his voice so low and rumbly it made me shiver. “But I hope you’re my future.”

  His words left me breathless and aching with happiness and so moved that I couldn’t think of anything to say… I tried for levity. “Um, Tristan, did you just propose to me? I think maybe that would be moving just a little too fast…”

  His laughter was everything. So low, so warm, so…sexy. “I am proposing,” he said with a grin. “I’m proposing that you go to homecoming with me this weekend. As my date.”

  I smiled up at him. “And give Conner the satisfaction of being right?”

  He shrugged. “I think it would be worth the sacrifice. What do you say?”

  I leaned forward until my nose brushed against his, our lips so close I could feel his breath. “I would love to.”

  Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, reviews are greatly appreciated. Next up for Maggie Dallen, stay tuned for the first book in a brand new YA series co-written with Anne Marie Meyer: The Quarterback & The Ballerina

  In the meantime, keep reading for a free sample of Maggie’s standalone YA romance, Audible Love

  Audible Love

  Avery

  You know those people who say what you see is what you get? They’re lying. What you see is never what you get. At least, not in my world.

  “Cut! That’s a wrap!”

  The tense silence around me breaks into a cacophony of chaos as the off-screen crew scrambles to break down the set and stage the next scene. My co-star, Henry Nivens, turns his back on me without a word and heads off toward his dressing rooms.

  Henry plays my character’s older lover on our primetime drama, The Temptress. According to our illustrious and conceited executive producer, Josh Emmit, the title was a spin on The Tempest by Shakespeare. Super clever, right? Trust me, the only thing Shakespearean about this show is the fact that it’s still on the air. That fact alone makes The Temptress a freakin’ tragedy.

  Henry has been giving me the cold shoulder for weeks now, ever since he came on to me backstage at the Emmys and I turned him down, despite the fact that he’s a bona fide A-list celebrity while I’m just some upstart with big tits.