Chapter Thirteen
ASTON
“There he is!”
Ace’s voice is a cannon blast breaking through the tension, his face in a wide grin as I reach him. He doesn’t see the way my jaw is locked so tight I could crack a tooth. He just sees his carbon copy.
He lunges forward, throwing his arms around my shoulders. “Jesus, it’s cold here. I don’t know how you do it.” He laughs.
“Acer,” I rumble, wrapping one arm around his back, lifting him slightly off the ground out of pure reflex, but my eyes are tracking the woman moving down the sideline.
She doesn’t look back. Her head is down, and a pang of guilt leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, pulling back and slamming my hand against his shoulder hard enough to make him drop his aviators. “Thought you were staying in Florida for your bye week.”
“And miss a chance to see you and Beck go head-to-head? Not a chance.” Ace’s eyes are bright with that easy energy that makes him one of the golden boys of the family.
He looks over my shoulder. “Man, this place is electric. Oh, hey, why didn’t you tell me Eva was working your sideline? I nearly lost my mind when I saw her.”
My stomach clenches. “She’s with the network, Ace. She works a lot of the prime-time games.”
“Fuck me, she looks hot,” he says, shaking his head as he slaps my chest. “Seriously, she hasn’t changed a bit. Shit, don’t mind me. I’m distracting you. Go finish your warm-up. I’ll head over to see Beck real quick, then go up to the Grants’ box and come down at the end of the game.”
“Okay,” I say, my throat dry as sand. “See you after.”
The next three hours are a blur of white noise.
I play like a man possessed, channeling the spike of adrenaline into every snap.
I throw myself at Chicago’s center until his jersey is torn to shreds.
I take a double-team block on a third and long and still manage to reach out and grab the quarterback’s ankle, pulling him down to the turf while the crowd roars.
But every time I walk to the bench, my eyes find her. She’s always on the move, completely out of reach. And every time I see her looking toward the bench, the question in her eyes is palpable.
When the final whistle blows, a 24–17 win secures our spot at the top of the division.
The locker room is vibrating, but I’m sitting at my cubby with an ice pack on my shoulder when my brother walks in alongside Liam. He has his arm slung over Ace’s, and they’re laughing about something.
Liam looks at me, a smirk on his face. “Hey, Aston. Your twin was practically hanging out of the box during that fourth-down sack.”
“I was excited. What can I say?” Ace chuckles, stepping into my space. “Good game, brother. You look almost as good as I do on the field.”
“Fuck off,” I say, a smile breaking through my exhaustion as I stand. “You staying the night or heading back to Florida?”
Ace looks at me like I’m crazy. “No way. I’m staying with you. I didn’t come all this way to turn around the same night. We need some twin time. Beers, steaks, family gossip.”
“Yeah, of course.” I force my voice to stay steady. “Let me shower, and then we can get out of here.”
My plan for tonight was to talk Eva into coming back to my place, but that’s not happening. Not that I’m not happy to see my twin, I just would have been a little more mentally prepared if he’d given me a heads-up.
Ace has already moved over to Liam’s cubby, and they’re laughing and distracted, so I grab my phone from the shelf and shoot a text off to Eva.
Aston: Change of plans. Ace will be staying at my place tonight for some brother time. I’ll make it up to you.
I set my phone face down in my locker, then I walk into the shower room.
After I shower and dress quickly, we’re on our way to my place. Ace spends the first thirty minutes replaying every defensive series as he saw it from the box, his hands waving wildly in the passenger seat of my truck. I just listen and drive.
By the time we step through my front door, it’s getting late. My house is freezing when we walk in, so I walk over to the fireplace and stack some oak until the flames catch, spreading heat into the room.
Ace walks out of the kitchen with two longneck Lone Stars and hands one to me.
“I haven’t been here for a while. I forgot how big this place is,” Ace says, leaning back against the leather couch, taking a long pull of his beer. He looks around the room and up at the high ceiling, nodding. “It’s a great place. Quiet out here too, just like you like it.”
“Yeah, I like my privacy,” I mutter, sitting across from him, stretching my tired legs out in front of me.
Ace sets his beer down on the coffee table and leans forward. His expression shifts into something that makes me uneasy.
“Hey, seriously though,” Ace says, his eyes locking on mine, his signature smile spreading across his face, “why didn’t you tell me Eva was working your games? Man … seeing her out there tonight? I’m telling you, it did something to me.”
“You were pretty upset when y’all broke up, if you remember.” I keep my face completely blank. I don’t even blink.
“Yeah, but I just can’t help thinking I saw her for a reason,” he says, shaking his head with a low laugh as he stares into the fire.
“You know, I ended things with Soleil last month. That was just too much drama. But Eva is different. She was always easy to be around. Then seeing her tonight, looking like a boss, handling her crew … fuck, she looked hot. And when I hugged her … I swear to God, Aston, I felt like the same spark was still there. I think she was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. The smile on her face …” He smiles and shakes his head.
The guilt turns in my stomach, and I feel like I might throw up. He’s my twin. My blood. We’ve shared everything since we were born, and now he’s sitting here, pretty much telling me he’s going for her.
“She was working, Ace,” I say, my voice flat. “She doesn’t like to be bothered with outside noise on the job.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not outside noise. We have history.” Ace shrugs, missing the steel in my tone. “Do you think she’s changed her number?”
Her number is the same as it was in college, but he doesn’t wait for me to reply.
“I’m gonna see if she’ll let me take her out while I’m in town.
I just think this could be a sign or something, you know?
It’s not like we ended on bad terms. We just kind of drifted, and I was getting ready for the draft and all the craziness of that.
But now I want to see if there’s something still there. ”
“Drifted, huh? I recall you being pretty torn up about the breakup.”
I take a drink of my beer, letting the cold liquid burn its way down my throat to keep from saying something that could change our family forever. I need to tell him. I should look him in the eye right now and tell him she’s mine.
But the words don’t come.
He shifts his head side to side. “I mean, yeah. It was the hardest breakup I’ve had. You know how I felt about her. But I think she did us both a favor by ending it when she did, even if I didn’t see it then. Things are different now. We’re both in our careers. I’m telling you, this could be it.”
“I think she’s pretty busy with work, Ace,” I mumble, looking back into the fire. “From what she’s said, the network keeps her on a tight schedule.”
“And how do you know that?” He tilts his head, looking at me.
“Because we’ve been friends for a long time, and since she started working my games, we’ve chatted here and there. They’ve interviewed me a lot this season, and I’ve had the chance to catch up with what she’s been doing since Walker.”
He waves me off. “Well, whatever. I can handle a schedule.” He grins, leaning back against the cushions.
He pulls out his phone, and his thumb flies across the screen.
“Okay, I texted her. Guess I’ll find out if her number is the same.
Anyway, enough about that. Let’s talk about home.
Dad says Aiden’s thinking about buying that land down by the river … ”
We spend the next hour talking the way brothers do.
We drink the Lone Stars and talk about our parents and the trouble our two younger brothers are giving them.
Like sneaking girls into The Shack—a guesthouse on our ranch that we’ve all used for partying, and I think we’ve each lost our virginity in there too.
And we talk about the holiday schedule and who will be able to make it home. It’s easy. Normal.
Ace stands and tips his empty bottle of beer toward me. “You want another?”
My phone vibrates in my pocket. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
He takes my empty and walks to the kitchen.
I pull my phone out and see a text from Eva.
Eva: Just got home. Long night tonight and I have an early morning tomorrow.
Eva: Don’t worry about it. I figured he would be there. Enjoy your twin time.
I stare at the text, my fingers tightening on the edges while I decide what I want to say. I’d really love to FaceTime with her. See her face. But I can’t.
Aston: Get some rest.
Aston: Sorry about Ace. I didn’t know he was coming.
Eva: Don’t worry about it. He said it was a surprise for you. He’s the same ol’ flirty Ace. I got a text from him asking to take me out.
Eva: Should we tell him about us?
I don’t really know what to say so I keep my reply short.
Aston: I can’t really talk about it now, but I’ll give you a call tomorrow.
I slide the phone back into my pocket just as Ace walks back into the room, handing me a fresh beer.
“Here you go. This is my last one, and then I’m gonna crash.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“What’s going on with you? You’ve been quiet since I’ve been here, and you’ve been acting weird lately.”
“Nothin’ wrong. I’m just tired.” I shrug. “Trying to stay focused to see if we can make the playoff run in the postseason.”
“I heard that. Season’s winding down, and then we’ll see where we’re all at in the next few months.” He sits back on the couch, stretching his arm out along the back.
We finish our beers, and Ace heads upstairs, his footsteps heavy on the staircase. I stand and walk over to the windows. I really am glad to see him. But beneath the surface, I keep going back to Ace telling me he thinks something might still be there between him and Eva.
A cold, hard, territorial instinct tightens in my chest. Ace is my twin, and I love him. But he’s standing in the wrong room. He thinks he can just walk back into her life because they have history. Because he thinks her story belongs to him.
But he doesn’t know the way she looks at me when the lights are low. He doesn’t know the way her hands feel tangled in my shirt, or the way she breathes my name against my mouth until we both lose control. Or the way I’m falling for her.
Yeah, I’m not gonna let this happen. I’m not going to step back—again—and let him take a shot at the only real thing I’ve ever had. This time, taking my chance with her won’t be a college memory. She’s mine.
I lean my forehead against the cold glass, my breath pluming against the pane in the dark. The guilt is eating me alive and will, at some point, demand that I pay the price. I just need to find the right time. But until then, nobody—including my twin brother—is taking her away from me.