Chapter 13
Decker
I’ve always trusted my gut.
Leaned into that deeper sense of knowing that lives just below the surface.
Used instinct and sensation and belief when calling plays on the field.
I relish control, and my position as quarterback gives me that.
It took time to adjust when Kylian was recruited to assist the offensive staff with play-calling.
Sure, we’d been best friends and he’d been helping me analyze film for years.
We talked offensive strategy nonstop, and the way he explained the statistical probability of certain plays in specific scenarios was fascinating.
But having a voice in my headset telling me what to play based on the stats instead of instinct wasn’t an easy adjustment.
Thankfully, we’ve adapted over the years, finessed our process.
Anymore, I know what he’s going to say before he even calls it.
We’ve found a rhythm, and we both lean into the security of that connection.
Josephine and me? We’re ten times more combative than Kylian and I ever were. And I’m starting to lose hope that we’ll ever find a rhythm of our own.
When I brought her out here, I knew she’d get all fiery and pissed off at me, but I can take her fire. Hell, I’ll gladly burn in her flames if it means her tenacity and spirit come back in full force.
Seeing her in the hospital… watching the trepidation that cast over her face as she looked past me and searched the room for Greedy…
I can’t fucking stand to see her like that. That’s not who she is. That’s not my girl.
I want to empower her. Lift her up.
But according to her, all I keep doing is hurting her.
It’s like I don’t know how to stop.
It’s like I don’t know anything when it comes to Josephine Meyer.
Nothing exists by halves in her world. If it isn’t laughably simple, then it’s mindbogglingly complex. She’s like Kylian in that way: Cut and dry. Black and white. Her worldview is nuanced and emotive, and yet her reactions are straightforward and distinct.
More often than not, I get it wrong with her.
But in those rare, precious moments when I get it right…
At the bow of the boat, she’s looking out across the lake, eyes set on the horizon, where the sun melts into a hazy twilight. She’s sprawled out on one of the bench seats, her hands tucked under her chin. There isn’t an ounce of tension in her shoulders right now. Her breathing is steady.
She looks peaceful. She looks beautiful.
I want to bring her peace. I want to be her safe place.
But she’s right. I keep pushing, forcing, trying to control her, as if I can bend her without concern for how I might break her in the process.
Internally, I condemn myself for fucking this up—forcing her onto the boat like this, even if it’s what I know. It’s what my dad did to me all those years ago.
“Josephine.”
She turns her head and inclines it slightly, smiling as she considers me. Her hair cascades in a waterfall over her cheek for an instant before she tucks it behind her ear and peeks up at me with those crystal blue eyes that reflect the light glimmering off the lake.
God, she’s pretty. The plush, peachy hue of her lips. The smattering of freckles across her nose. I could stare at her for days and never tire of memorizing every detail; of studying all the pieces that make up this gorgeous force of a woman.
Clearing my throat, I snap myself out of it. I open my mouth on instinct, ready to tell her to come over here. “Come” is on the tip of my tongue, but I catch myself. Before it can escape, I snap my jaw shut and change tack.
With a small shake of the head, I reset and try again. “Would you like to steer?”
A glint of mischief sparkles in her eyes—she knows I had to course correct just now.
I might get it wrong most of the time, but I’m coachable. I’ll learn. I’ll put in the work, learn all her tells. Run drills and perfect every play until I get it right.
She leaves me in suspense for a few torturous seconds, but finally, she rises, stretching her arms overhead in a way that pushes her tits out against the thin fabric of her T-shirt.
Mouth set in a straight line, I watch with even coolness, pretending to be unaffected by the way her tight little body stretches and preens. Though I can’t help but track the shape of her mouth as her lips form a silent O when she yawns.
Her spirit and no-holds-barred attitude are enough to do me in. Add in her perfect, full tits, curvy hips, and long legs, and it’s enough to send me somersaulting over the edge of desire.
Or inspire a semi in my shorts.
Ignoring the pulse of my now very interested cock, I focus on the task at hand: giving her some semblance of control.
To do that, I have to explain to her why I thought this whole “exposure therapy” situation was a good idea, and the more I study her, the more I find that I actually want to tell her. I want her to know this side of me, to understand where my instincts were formed.
When she finally approaches, she doesn’t bother waiting for instructions. Instead, she ducks under my arm, squares her shoulders and steps right up to the helm, placing her hands on mine.
“Like this?”
Sliding my hands out from under her hold, I shift back, intent on putting space between us, just in case she brushes up against my shorts and discovers something she shouldn’t.
Her delicate fingers wrap around the wheel, and she peers over her shoulder at me.
“Just like that,” I nod. “Good girl.”
Her eyes spark with a wanton heat I wasn’t expecting.
I clear my throat, determined to get through this without getting distracted.
Another breath.
An extra layer of Teflon wrapped around my heart.
And then…
“My mom died when I was twelve.”
This time when she regards me over her shoulder, her expression is full of an entirely different kind of intensity. One full of pain and compassion.
“She died out here, on the lake.”
My words are cool and collected thanks to extensive media coaching. Over the years, I’ve learned that the more I can detach my delivery from the constant ache that’s lived inside me since that night, the easier it is to convince people I’m fine.
Josephine watches me, wide-eyed, but she doesn’t speak.
She just gives me the time and space to continue when I’m ready.
There’s a willful openness to her gaze. She doesn’t shy away from the dark or the heavy.
She isn’t easily scared off. I’ve learned that over the last several weeks.
I don’t know why I thought this would be any different.
If she keeps staring at me like that, I won’t make it through any of this. Dropping my chin, I run my palms over her hands and refocus.
I pull back on the throttle, putting the boat in neutral. We drift with the current, swaying as the wind picks up slightly.
“My dad brought me out on the water the very next day,” I confess, setting my hands on hers again. “Exposure therapy, he said. He didn’t want me to fear the lake after what happened.”
Her breath hitches as she scans my face, and her hands tremble beneath mine.
“Hold the wheel steady,” I instruct. “Easy. You’ll feel if she starts to drift too far one way or the other, then you can correct it however you see fit.”
Once I’m sure she’s got it, I pull away.
But she doesn’t let me get far.
“Decker…”
She leans back, seeking my touch, and in response, I catch her hips and hold her in place.
“I’m right here,” I assure. “You’ve got this, Siren.”
Each one of my fingertips ignites with a sparkling, pulsing energy where it rests against her.
It’s the same warm, sure sensation that courses through me when I hold a football.
The confident, perfect-fit kind of hold that reminds me that I’m alive.
That I was made to do this. That I belong right here, in this moment, with her in my arms.
Clearing my throat, I rush to recite the words I’ve tormented myself with for years. Words that don’t even begin to measure up to the emotion and grief they represent.
“We were coming home at the end of a regular day. My dad was out of town, so Mom had picked me up after practice. We dropped Kendrick off at his house first, then headed to the marina. When we arrived, there were a few paps waiting, like usual.
“The media was always following her and my dad.
They were obsessed with them as a couple, but they were absolutely feral about snapping pictures of them individually.
There were… rumors… that they had been unfaithful to each other.
Tabloids and local media were offering ridiculous sums of money for photographic proof.
“It didn’t matter that she was with her kid.
Or that we were just trying to get home, to make dinner, to turn in early and call it a night.
None of it mattered to them. She wasn’t human.
She was a meal ticket. Or maybe a lottery ticket.
They were willing to gamble everything to strike it rich at her expense. ”
I take a quick breath through my nose, then forge on.
“We made it out onto the lake okay. But as we approached the dock at the mansion, my mom realized she had forgotten a few bags in the car. In all the hustle to get me away from the photographers, she had left groceries in the front seat.”
“We were so close, and I was desperate to get home and get my homework done so I could log on and play Madden with Kylian. I asked her to drop me off before she went back. I made her…I made her drop me off at home and go back to the marina alone.”
“Decker.” My name is nothing more than a choked sob.
At the sound, I snap out of the trance I drop into when reciting this story. I’m so used to feeling nothing when I tell it, but Josephine’s voice breaks through the numbness like a shot to the heart.
“You don’t have to…”
My heart drops into my stomach, and I dig my fingers into her arms at the look of horror on her face. A look that divulges an almost impossible truth. She’s never heard any of this before. How that’s possible is unfathomable. Everyone knows.
The story of Danielle Crusade’s tragic death made national headlines. My picture was plastered on every website and news outlet for months. Every season, it makes a resurgence. Decker Crusade, the phoenix risen out of tragedy, the son of the GOAT.
“Let me finish,” I whisper, fighting the agony swirling in my gut. For so long, I’ve successfully kept it buried, but the sorrow in her expression threatens to set it free.
She nods, gripping the steering wheel unnecessarily tight as her knuckles pale.
“When she turned the boat around to head back to the marina, two paps were waiting. I don’t know why they were still hanging around.
Maybe they thought she was sneaking out to participate in the illicit affair they’d created to keep the public engrossed in our family.
They were on jet skis, and they worked together to wedge her into the shallows so she’d be stuck and at their mercy. ”
They wanted to make her a sitting duck. What happened was so much worse.
“The rocky lakebed damaged the bottom of the boat, and my mom must have panicked. No one knows for sure.” Dropping my head, I close my eyes for just a moment.
“No one else was there. The boat was stuck, and the paps left her like that. Just abandoned her, even though they had to know she was in distress. The water where they pulled her out wasn’t even that deep…
Then there was a picture.” I swallow past the lump in my throat, determined to get the rest of the story out.
“One of her on the boat, with the bow clearly crushed in on one side…”
The nausea that always sets in when I think about that night roils around my stomach.
“I wasn’t paying attention to the time. Didn’t notice that she hadn’t made it back. I was too wrapped up in my game with Kylian. It wasn’t until Mrs. Lansbury found me and asked where my mom was that I realized how long she’d been gone.”
Nearly two hours had passed.
One hundred and twenty minutes.
Seventy-two hundred seconds.
She’d been dead for almost all of them.
Josephine leans back into me again, catching me so off guard I startle as she sinks into my hold. My reaction doesn’t stop her, though. She only angles in closer, trusting me to take her weight. Instinctively, I wrap my arms around her waist, then rest my chin on the top of her head.
I blow out a breath, desperate to make room for a deep inhale that’ll hopefully settle my nerves.
The sense of dread that shrouded me that night never truly dissipates—but it burns hotter when I think about the things I didn’t do and all I could have done to contribute to a different outcome.
Craning back, Josephine searches my face with those clear blue eyes. She holds my gaze, brushing her fingertips along my knuckles until I spread my hands wide on her stomach and let her interlace our hands.
“You couldn’t have saved her, Decker,” she whispers into the almost-dark night. “Even if you were there… You were a child. You couldn’t have saved her.”
It’s a nice thought. A reassuring sentiment.
But she has no way of knowing for sure.
Neither do I.
And that’s what haunts me.
The uncertainty—the lack of control. I won’t forgive myself for it anytime soon, if ever.
“How do you know I wanted to save her?” I counter.
A knowing smile paints itself across her face as she twists in my arms. Tilting her head back, she pushes up on tiptoes.
I bow low, pulled into her orbit by her gravitational force and the juxtaposing simplicity and complexity of this woman.
“Because you can’t stop trying to save me.”
She’s close enough to kiss. And damn, do I want to kiss her.
“I meant what I said,” I murmur, inching closer, breathing her in. “We need you, Josephine. I—”
A rumble of thunder reverberates in the distance, miles away.
Josephine jolts back as if she’s been struck by an actual bolt of lightning. Instantly, her body goes rigid and her shoulders creep up to her ears. With her focus still locked on me, she shudders, and tears well in her eyes.
In the span of two heartbeats, she transforms from steady and empathetic to trembling and panicked. Pain flashes across her expression as she silently pleads for a request she hasn’t yet made.
“Take me back.”
I have every intention of agreeing and am about to tell her to sit down and let me take over at the helm, but she doesn’t wait for my response.
“Decker. I need you to listen to me. This isn’t about anything but…but the storm. If you care about me at all, turn the boat around and get me back to the mansion as quickly and safely as possible.”
Though it might have surprised her, I wasn’t going to argue. I wouldn’t have even hesitated. But dammit, she still thinks that with me, all the additional justification is necessary.
“I’ve got you,” I assure her through gritted teeth. “Sit down. We’ll be back to the isle in a couple of minutes.”