The Secret (Gridiron Legacy #3)

Prologue

THREE YEARS AGO

ASTON

The thing about the Stallions winning a football game at Walker University is that the campus doesn’t just go to their homes or dorms and settle in for the night. No, we party. Hard. And tonight, the party is at our house.

My twin brother and I share a house with two of our teammates, and unfortunately, our house has become the party house.

My brother and roommates don’t mind at all.

Me? I don’t love it. After the first and only time I walked in on a couple fucking in my room, I installed a padlock on my door.

And the cleanup from one of these parties is the absolute worst.

I can already tell tonight is going to be much of the same. A disaster to clean up. Don’t get me wrong; I love a good party. I’m a Griffith after all.

A few of my teammates are standing with me, recapping the game, but I can barely hear them over the bass from the speakers, vibrating through the soles of my shoes. And truthfully, my focus is entirely locked on the beauty across the room.

Evangeline Carrington.

She’s holding a red cup in her hand while gesturing with the other as she talks to a couple of girls I recognize from the Walker U broadcasting station crew.

Her media badge is still hanging around her neck, dangling over a cropped Walker University football T-shirt.

Even in this crowd of fans, friends, and teammates, she looks out of place—in the best way possible. Classy. Bright.

I’ve spent the last three months finding excuses to linger by her on the sidelines during pregame warm-ups, dropping horrible one-liners and matching her sarcastic remarks just to see the small dimple pop in her left cheek.

I’ve been waiting for the exact right time to ask her out. And after the interception I made tonight that secured our win and making their quarterback cry, tonight feels like the perfect damn time.

I set my beer down on a table and start cutting my way through the sea of moving bodies, keeping my eyes locked on Evangeline. Then a broad shoulder moves right into my line of sight.

Ace.

My identical twin brother swaggers over to her, his posture practically radiating the easy confidence he carries everywhere.

He leans into Evangeline, stepping directly into her personal space because he has no boundaries.

Then I see him flash his trademark smirk—the one that looks exactly like mine, only he uses his a little more freely—and he says something that makes the whole group of girls laugh.

Except that Evangeline doesn’t laugh like the other girls. She has a smile on her face like she’s amused, but her eyes scan the room until they meet mine.

For a split second, there’s this silent, heavy pull between us. I brace myself to keep walking, to brush past my brother and claim my spot next to her.

Before I can take another step, a girl whose name I completely blank on slides into my path, her hand holding my forearm. I know I’ve hooked up with her before, and I feel bad that I can’t remember her name.

But then Evangeline looks back at Ace. She gives him a polite smile, tilting her head as he keeps talking, watching him as his hand gestures wildly while he likely recounts some play from the game—hyping himself up, no doubt.

“Hey, Aston! Great game tonight! You were literally amazing out there. I’d love to celebrate with you.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks. I’m good, but if that changes, I’ll come find you,” I mutter, my voice on autopilot.

My eyes instinctively shoot back across the room. Evangeline is watching me again. I see her gaze on the girl’s hand on my arm, and then it drifts to my face. The subtle, easy warmth that I usually see on her face flickers with a shadow of something that looks an awful lot like disappointment.

I want to shout over the music for her not to look away, that it’s not what it looks like.

But she looks right back at Ace, now smiling and nodding at him—tuning me out, apparently.

The girl next to me is still talking, but I can’t hear a word she’s saying. My chest feels tight, and an ache is creeping in behind my ribs.

I’m a fucking idiot. I waited too long.

An hour later, the party is still raging, sweat now mixed in with the smell of alcohol in the room.

I walk into the kitchen to grab another beer from the fridge, but pause in the doorway when I see a sliver of a back and the most perfect ass I’ve ever seen.

Eva’s talking to some guy I don’t recognize, who’s holding an unopened beer in his hand, clearly drunk.

“Do you need me to open that for you?” she asks him, and it makes me smile.

He shakes his head and continues on his quest to flirt with her, I guess. He’s slurring so badly and talking loudly, but Eva patiently listens.

“I love how you don’t let facts get in the way of your opinion.” She nods.

This time, I can’t help the laugh that comes out.

She keeps going. “Okay, but tell me honestly, as an outsider, what are your thoughts on intelligence?”

The guy just keeps talking like he doesn’t understand that she’s insulting him.

I decide to step in and save her from this tool.

“Hey, Evangeline. I need to ask you something about the footage from the game tonight.”

She looks over at me and smirks, and my heart does a stupid flip.

“Yeah, for sure,” she says, then looks back at the guy. “Nice meeting you. Enjoy your beer.”

We both turn to walk away, and I place my hand on the small of her back and feel her silky skin beneath my fingers.

“Thanks for that. I could barely hang on.” She tilts her head toward me.

“Yeah, I could tell he was pretty hammered. Do you need a drink?” I move my hand from her back and walk over to the fridge.

“Sure, but I think I’ll just have a water this round. Is there any in there?”

I bend down to look and see a few bottles hiding behind a case of beer. “Yep.”

I hand one to her, then grab another beer for myself.

“Thanks,” she says, not making eye contact. “It seems like half the campus is here tonight.”

I don’t want to let her walk away from me, so I take her elbow and lead her to an empty corner of the kitchen.

“Feels like it tonight,” I say, leaning against the counter. I cross my arms, trying to look steady despite my pulse racing. “I was gonna come say hi to you tonight.”

She raises an eyebrow, a knowing smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “Were you? Because it looked like you were occupied. That girl seemed very interested in getting your attention.”

So, she was watching me.

“You can call me Eva, by the way. That’s what my friends call me,” she says, then takes a sip of water.

“Are we friends, Eva?” I smile.

“You know we are. I would say two people who talk just about every day are friends.”

“Then how come we never hang out aside from on the sideline at games and the world’s most boring English Lit lecture?”

“Gah! Seriously, Professor Jenkins could suck the life out of The Great Gatsby; he deserves an award.”

“I only passed because you’d kept me awake.”

“You only passed because I’d created the study guide for you.”

“It was impressive. I liked the color-coded annotations.”

She points a finger at me. “And you still asked me what symbolism meant ten minutes before the exam.”

“I was making conversation.”

“You were panicking.”

“Athletes don’t panic. We strategically worry.”

Her laugh fills the space between us, warm and familiar, and it hits me the same way it does whenever I’m around her. Like home.

“I guess we never really hung out,” she says, smiling softly. “We just always found each other.”

“At games.”

“In class.”

“Walking across campus.”

“Random coffee lines.”

“Exactly.”

She shrugs one shoulder. “I figured football guys had football people.”

“And I figured producer girls had … I don’t know … theater people or something.”

She smiles knowingly. “So, we’re both idiots.”

“I think that’s the first thing we’ve agreed on all night.”

Her eyes hold mine for a beat longer than they should, and the rest of the party fades into background noise.

Neither of us looks away.

“Well, I’m glad you came tonight. If not, I’d have forever wondered if Evangeline Carrington and I were as good of friends as I thought.” I take a swig of my beer. “You know, some people say men and women can’t be friends. Personally, I think that’s bullshit.”

She blinks and then scrunches her brow. “Oh, right.” She looks down at the label on her water bottle, peeling at the corner with her thumb. “Because they say one person is always hiding a crush.” Her eyes lift back to mine. “But … that’s not us?”

The inflection at the end of that line comes up like she’s asking a question.

My pulse kicks hard against my ribs.

This is it.

One honest sentence changes everything.

This is where I can take my shot with Evangeline. I can’t say, Well, actually, Eva, I’ve been harboring a sick crush on you for a long time, and seeing you naked under me would be putting every fantasy of mine to shame. So, I play it safe.

“I have plenty of girls in my life who are just friends, and I definitely don’t want to hook up with them.”

She exhales quietly. I’m not sure if it’s in relief or disappointment.

She lifts an eyebrow. Then she drops her gaze to the floor for a second before looking at me. “Actually, friend, I’m glad you came in here. I want to ask you something.”

“Go for it.”

She sets her bottle down and braces her hands against the edge of the counter. She looks me dead in the eye. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t go out with your brother?”

Yes, my brain screams. Because I want you. Because he doesn’t know you the way I do.

But the words glue themselves to the roof of my mouth.