Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
He scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I think I’m used to it. I have my role to play with my family, you know? My role to play in life. And for me, the aim is to be focused, to lock in and do what I need to do to provide.”
“You need to live your own life, too.”
“I know,” he admitted, but his voice was so soft. His warm golden eyes slid up to meet mine. “I’m trying. Thanks to you.”
My chest was so tight I thought my lungs would pop.
I understood that feeling he spoke of — being comfortable and yet terrified all at once.
Because I loved every second I spent with Braden. I loved his hands on me and the way he kissed me, yes, but I also loved days like today where we lost the afternoon just hanging out.
And where exactly was this going to go?
We had to keep it under wraps at least until I was off the team.
If I was being honest with myself, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to audition again next season.
Part of me did, sure, because I longed for that spotlight, for the freedom, to dance and call it a job.
But there was another part of me whispering the truth of my expiration date, and that part was already exploring what came next.
What if you taught?
Those damn words were engraining themselves in me at this point, trying to be a tattoo.
And I wondered if that meant the universe was trying to get me to listen.
But even if I left the squad at the end of the season, if my life took me another direction… did Braden want anything more than what we had?
Did he even want this for long?
I didn’t have the nerve to ask — not when it was all hypotheticals, anyway. Right now, I was a cheerleader and he was a football player and we were breaking every rule sneaking around together.
So this was what we were at the moment.
And I needed to just chill the fuck out and be okay with it.
“Do you miss anything about Oklahoma?” I asked as he mixed a divine-smelling sauce together — something creamy and peppered with herbs.
“So much,” Braden said, a faraway smile on his lips.
“The lakes. The country. The way you could drive on back roads for miles and miles. My dad used to take me to this fishing spot and we’d just hang out all day long.
We were never in a rush, you know? Nowhere to be, nothing to do but wait for a bite.
I loved that.” He frowned. “It was hard after Ginny got sick. We moved to Baltimore, from middle of nowhere to this big city, and Mom and Dad just had so much going on. I don’t blame them for prioritizing Ginny.
We all did. But it didn’t exactly leave much room for me. ”
I could see why he found it so easy to put himself on the back burner now.
He’d been trained to do it his whole life.
“Luckily, I had football,” he finished.
“It seems like you’re still close with some of your college friends,” I remarked. “I met Giana.”
He stilled at that, eyes widening. “Oh, God. What did she say? Did she talk about fucking tropes again?”
I laughed. “No, she told me where I could find you that day when you were meditating at the stadium.” I leaned back, tapping the island. “But now I kind of want to find her again and ask what the hell a trope is.”
“Trust me — you do not want to do that. Not if you don’t want an hour-long conversation that starts with tropes and ends in a place where she’s talking about why-choose and blue aliens.”
I blinked. “Oh yeah. I am definitely asking now.”
He shook his head, but a smile played at the corner of his lips. “You’d love her, honestly. You’d love the whole crew. We always try to get together around Christmas now that we live in separate states. Maybe you could join us.”
I startled. “Um… that would kind of defeat the whole sneaking around thing, wouldn’t it?”
Braden paused like he’d just realized his error. “Oh. Yeah. Of course.”
An awkward silence fell over us, just the gentle sounds of water boiling and chicken frying in the pan to keep us company.
“They are my best friends, though,” Braden said, shrugging. “I almost wonder if—”
His words were cut short by his phone ringing down the hall, and it was a very distinct ringtone — a song I hadn’t heard in years. “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder.
Braden cursed under his breath, checking everything in the kitchen with a quick sweep as if he was assessing if anything was urgent before he sprinted down the hall. He answered the phone as he was jogging back.
“Hey, sis.”
Sis.
My heart stalled in my chest, eyes widening as Braden rounded into the kitchen and flipped the chicken. He set the phone up against the edge of his backsplash so the camera was focused on him as he did so.
Hey, big brother. Nice shirt.
Braden chuckled as the automated voice came through, looking down at his bare chest.
Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s dangerous to cook without clothes on?
“I guess I like to live on the wild side sometimes.”
Who are you and what have you done with my no-fun-having, rule-following brother?
“Hey now!”
You know it’s true.
Braden smiled, and once he had everything he was cooking where he needed it, his eyes flitted to me. “One second, Sis.”
He pushed buttons on his screen that I guessed muted him and turned off the camera, and then his eyes were on me.
“Wanna meet her?”
There it was again, that stalling of my heart, that jump of butterflies in my stomach. “Do you want me to meet her?”
His smile was wide and easy, his nod instant. “Of course, I do.”
“Again, not very secretive.”
Braden shrugged. “We don’t have to say we’re more than friends. Besides, who is my family going to tell? Unless you don’t want to,” he added instantly, panic on his face.
“No, I do. I do.” I hopped up from the stool, padding over to where he was and fixing my hair a bit along the way. I was glad the camera view would only be from the belly button up and hoped none of his family would find it odd that I was wearing his shirt.
Fool.
You’re being a fool.
But I didn’t care.
Maybe it was foolish, but Braden wanted me to meet his family — the most important people in the world to him, the ones he sacrificed everything for.
It felt as big as him handing me the key to his house.
When I was next to him, Braden’s smile grew even more, and he stole a swift kiss before turning his mic and camera back on.
Ginny came into view, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe.
She looked enough like Braden that I would have known exactly who she was even if he hadn’t told me — same dark hair, same warm brown eyes, same bone structure around the mouth — but where Braden carried a kind of quiet steadiness, Ginny practically sparkled with mischief.
She sat in a sleek black power chair with a tablet mounted in front of her, one hand resting near the controls.
Her frame was slight beneath an oversized t-shirt, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid, and there was something immediately sharp and alive about her expression, like she was already three steps ahead of everyone else in the room.
The synthesized voice from her device might have been mechanical, but there was nothing flat about her. Her personality came through instantly — in the glint in her eyes, the way one brow arched, the smug little smile she wore like she already had a roast lined up and ready to go.
“Ginny, I want you to meet my friend. This is Emily,” Braden said.
Ginny paused, her eyes bouncing around the screen.
Friend, huh?
I fought back a laugh, exchanging a look with Braden before I waved at the phone. “Hi, Ginny! So nice to meet you. I’ve heard amazing things. Mostly that you love to roast your brother. We have that in common.”
He’s an easy target. Takes the fun out of it sometimes. Has he told you about his shoe collection?
“Easy, now,” Braden warned his sister.
“He didn’t have to tell me. It was spilling out of his closet the first time I came over. Man has more shoes and hats than an entire Foot Locker store,” I said.
At least he outgrew his fascination with belt buckles. That was a dark time.
“Belt buckles?” I gaped at Braden, who was turning the most adorable shade of red.
He had one that lit up like a marquee billboard. He could customize it to say whatever he wanted.
I nearly wheezed with laughter. “What did you program it to say?”
“That is for me to know, you to never find out, and you,” he said, pointing at Ginny. “To drop immediately before I hang up this call.”
Would you rather I tell her about the diamond-encrusted ones?
Ginny and I snickered as Braden shook his head. “How about you tell me about how you are instead,” Braden said.
All good here. Just playing my games and bracing for the winter. We’ve already had snow.
“You love the snow,” Braden teased.
Yeah, but it’s not as fun when you’re not here to peg with snowballs.
I chuckled, but noted the pain under Braden’s laugh. I remembered then that Ginny couldn’t throw snowballs anymore and wondered if Braden was wishing for a time when that wasn’t true.
Mom wants to talk to you. Dinner is almost ready. I just wanted to say hi. Glad I got to meet your friend.
“I’m glad I got to meet you, too,” I said.
“Bye, Sis. Love you.”
Love you.