Chapter Fourteen
Twelve years ago…
“There’s my baby,” Sloane’s mother, Sandra, cried out when Donovan walked through their home’s door for the first time since they’d dropped him off at college a few months ago. He walked straight into their mom’s open arms.
Sloane barely spared her brother a glance. The man behind him was much more interesting. Enthralling, really. She’d seen photos, of course, but she would have recognized August anywhere. It was the way he carried himself. With self-assuredness, but in no way conceited. A little shyness that could easily be misconstrued as aloofness. But she knew better, thanks to their phone calls. And he’d come home with her brother for Thanksgiving.
Her breath caught. He was better looking than she’d thought, and she’d thought a lot while scrolling through photos on Facebook. Thank God for Google Images. He wasn’t considered a star player like her brother, because he was a fullback, so his photos were a little harder to find, but she was nothing if not a determined teen girl. Where there was a will, there was most definitely a way. The photos that existed? She’d seen them all. Multiple times.
He hadn’t seen her yet, so she took the opportunity to ogle in peace. No need to pretend—to herself anyway—that that wasn’t what she was doing. His locs brushed his shoulders. She’d thought they were black, but they were actually a rich dark lustrous chocolate. They were getting longer. His hair framed his face. Drew attention to his high cheekbones and sharp slant of a nose and the sumptuous curve of his full lips. Sloane bit her lip to stop a sure-to-be- embarrassing sigh from escaping. At least her sister, Shana, was still upstairs. She’d always been able to read Sloane like her favorite book.
“You must be August,” Sandra said.
“Yes, ma’am,” August answered in a voice that was even more potent in person than over the phone.
“‘Ma’am.’ The boy has manners. I like that.” Sandra wrapped her arms around him like he was her own child.
Sloane smiled. No surprise there. Her mom was a hugger and had never met a stranger. After a slight hesitation, he returned the gesture.
Do not be jealous of your mother .
“Hey, Sloane.” Her brother had reached her side. She reluctantly tore her eyes away from his teammate and turned to Donovan. He looked more and more like their father every time she saw him. And she’d keep that thought to herself. Donovan didn’t like being reminded of that fact.
Not that she blamed him. Their relationship with their father was tempestuous at best. Their father tried, even succeeded sometimes, but when he didn’t? Before the divorce, their mother had suffered, though she’d tried to hide it, and that hurt had only manifested her children’s.
She smiled up at him. “Hey, Donny.”
He blanched and looked over his shoulder, no doubt to make sure August hadn’t heard. He hated that nickname. “Hey, cut that shit out. I told Mama not to call me that around my friends.”
She knew. “But you didn’t tell me.” A loophole she’d planned on exposing as soon as she overheard him making the request to their mom during their last phone call. How else was she going to earn her annoying younger sister badge, especially now that he was away at college most of the time?
His eyes narrowed, but he drew her into a hug anyway. Just like she knew he would. They were close, and he couldn’t stay mad at her for long.
“Good to see you too, Sloaney-Baloney,” he said just a touch too loudly. Or maybe it just sounded that way to her sensitive, mortified ears. She broke his hold and glared up at him.
Donovan smirked. Close didn’t mean he wouldn’t seek revenge at the earliest opportunity, clearly.
“Sloaney-Baloney?”
That came from behind her. From August. Oh, God. He’d heard.
She whirled and forced out a sound that could only be called a laugh based on the loosest definition of the word. A strangled, mangled cry for help was more like it. What else was she supposed to do? Acknowledge that Donovan had embarrassed her because she had the world’s biggest crush on her brother’s best friend, and admit it in front of her unsuspecting brother and mother, not to mention the aforementioned best friend? Yeah, no. None of that was about to happen.
“Yeah, it’s a childish nickname my brother knows I hate with the fire of a thousand suns.” She sounded halfway normal, which was more than she could have asked for. She would just ignore how her heart had started beating at quadruple its normal rate now that they were standing less than five feet away from each other. Probably closer to three feet. Close enough for him to transmit the world’s most potent pheromones, that was for damn sure. She was officially a horny teenage girl, and she’d never been happier.
The side of August’s mouth kicked up, like he was unused to smiling.
“Feel free to call her that whenever she annoys you.” From behind her, Donovan slapped his hands on her shoulders and squeezed.
She rolled her eyes. “Thanks.”
“Donovan,” their mother warned.
“Let me make the formal introductions, since I don’t believe helping her with her homework a few times counts. Sloane, August. August, Sloaney-Baloney. Sloane,” he corrected at their mother’s warning murmur. “Friend-roommate-teammate, meet little sister.”
Sloane’s shoulders stiffened under her brother’s hands. She hoped he didn’t notice. August hadn’t told her brother they actually talked at least once a week?
August still watched her, his expression unreadable. She didn’t know what to do. Her palms were sweaty, her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. Crushes were awful, heart-palpitating, why-do-I-do-this-to-myself things.
Finally, August held out his hand because he, apparently, had the sense to realize one of them needed to act in what was becoming an increasingly insanely awkward situation.
She forced her hand away from her side. Went absolutely still as their palms met for the first time and a glorious zap of electricity crackled up her arm and then through her body. She concentrated on the connection. On how his large hand swallowed hers, but his grip was gentle. Kind, even. Lifted her eyes to his.
His voice, that she’d only heard through the phone, rumbled in that way she’d come to anticipate. “Nice to officially meet you, Sloane.”
And she swooned. Not literally, of course, because she had enough self-preservation not to commit that cardinal sin. But in every other sense of the word, she was a goner.
Crush Level: Infinity.