7. Hendrix
HENDRIX
Legacy isn’t a number in the bank. It’s the people who live long after you’re gone.
It’s the way your name is said in rooms you once were in.
If you want a legacy, live your life with purpose and love.
—Declan Sinclair’s advice to his sons
“So . . .” Leo taps his bottle of water against mine as we sit on the edge of the sandbox watching his oldest, Izzie, take charge of Bodhi, as well as her younger sister, Lennox. Izzie is in momma-bear mode, like she’s a full-fledged adult, instead of a ten-year-old bossing around two toddlers.
Wait. Is five still considered a toddler?
Lennox might be a little over two years older than Bodhi, but she’s got her mom’s petite build and hardly looks bigger than Bodhi. Even if she’s always treated him like her very own baby doll.
“Spit it out, Leo, before you have a stroke,” I groan and reach out for Bodhi. “Izz, don’t let him eat sand.”
She looks up at me with her big brown eyes and wild curls, and I suddenly wonder if every woman in my family is fucking frightening in spite of their age. “He’s your kid, Uncle Henny.”
God give me strength.
Leo laughs at his kid as I wipe the sand from Bodhi’s giggling face. “Daddy . . .” He belly laughs and so much of the day’s stress melts away.
At least until my brother glares at me. “You want to tell me what the hell that was about today?”
“The meeting with Max?” I ask, wiping my hands on my shorts. “It was nothing. He wanted to welcome me to the team. Told me if I needed anything to let him know. Apparently, Teagan has connections and can help me find a nanny or a house.”
“Yeah, Teags is kind of the Revolution’s very own Mary Poppins. Only, don’t ever say that to her face. She might just rip your balls off.” He looks over at our kids playing and stretches out his legs. “Now, you ready to answer the question—because I know you don’t think I’m talking about Max.”
“You’re not going to drop this, are you?” Leo grins, and I wonder why I bothered. I’ve spent the past ten years not talking about this, and there isn’t any part of me that wants to start now. “Whatever, man . . . We’ve got a history.”
“A history,” he volleys back. “Explain.”
“Brother, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Catch,” Bodhi yells at us as he tosses a springy football across the sandbox and manages to smack Leo in the face.
Great timing, kid.
“How about at the beginning, jackass.”
“Remind me why I tolerate you.” I duck as the football sails by my head.
“Because I’m going to protect your ass on the ice. Now talk. Because there’s no way in hell there isn’t a story there. You and Serena Kingston looked like you were ready to either kill each other or F-U-C-K each other—”
“Daddy.” Izzie’s head pops up. “That’s a bad word.”
“Christ, Leo. She’s ten. She can spell,” I grumble.
“Sorry, sweetie. Can we not tell Mommy I said it?” he pleads with his daughter, smiling sweetly at the tiny terrorist.
She sticks her hand out, palm up. “Sure. But it’s gonna cost you.”
“Sweetie . . .” Leo sighs, and she lifts both her bushy little brows. “Fine. How about we get ice cream on the way home.”
She shakes her head. “Extra tablet time and ice cream.”
“Isobel—that’s extortion.”
Her small shoulders shrug as she perks up.
“Fine. Ice cream and extra tablet time. Just don’t tell Mommy.” She skips over to him and kisses his cheek, then holds her hands out for the football I toss her way before rejoining the two littles.
“Your kid is a little scary. You know that, right?” I ask, kind of in awe of my niece.
“Yeah. I know. At least she stopped demanding a twenty every time I cursed. She just about bankrupted me last year. Now, where were we?” He makes a production of asking. “Right, you were about to fill me in.”
“I don’t know, man. We were kids. Then we weren’t. One day, she was leaving for UNC, and then—fuck, I don’t know. She was Serena. She was the only thing I ever wanted that I knew I was never supposed to have. There’s so much history . . .”
Leo drops his chin, listening, like he’s not sure he believes what he’s hearing.
“There was always something there, but we were never in the right place . . . It was never the right time . . .” I trail off, thinking about the day we said goodbye on the beach.
The way the pale copper strands of her hair shimmered against the fading sun.
How badly I wanted her. “I thought I could stay away from her. I was wrong.”
“So you what—dated?” he pushes.
Thousands of memories assault my mind. The taste of her lips, so fucking soft. The way her cold hands felt against my face. Her head pressed against my chest as she slept. “Something like that.”
I don’t tell my brother that it was happening right under his nose.
Fuck, he was oblivious.
“Did you love her?” Leo asks because he’s Leo, and he’ll never know when to shut up. And when I don’t answer, the pain in my ass leans forward. “Brother . . . when did it end?”
“Officially?” I laugh because I’m fairly certain we started and stopped more times than I could count back then. Two kids too damn young for the way we felt, with too much pressure on us already. “Pretty sure the last time we spoke was when I told her that I was marrying Britt . . .”
“Shit, Hendrix. Did Britt know?”
My gut churns, remembering those months. The ones after Serena and I broke. The ones after Britt told me she was pregnant. About the cancer. “Britt knew everything.”
“Did Serena?”
And there’s the knockout punch.
“No.”
Serena
Olivia and I bought the house on the edge of the vineyard for this view .
. . this moment. The purple sky. The golden sun setting over the rolling hills.
The sweet smell of grapes and lavender. It was the most at peace I’d been anywhere other than the beach.
This view only coming second to the sand and the salt and the sea at golden hour.
I trace the dried four-leaf clover pressed between the pages of my journal, and my body relaxes, remembering the first time Hendrix plucked one for me.
Freshman Year In College
God, that year was a nightmare. Classes kicked my ass.
For a girl who never struggled with studying in high school, college was a whole new level of hard.
I’m not sure I slept at all in September between cramming in all-night study sessions, working with the team tutors, and practicing with my UNC team.
Thankfully, national practices didn’t happen for two more months.
But between all the work were the games, and they were incredible. Some people rewarded themselves with Tuesday night parties since most of us didn’t have Wednesday morning classes. Games were my reward. Winning was better than any party.
I was good.
Hell, I was great.
I was the best attacking center midfielder in the Atlantic Coast Conference and one of the best in Division 1 soccer.
It didn’t matter that I was also one of the youngest. I earned the respect I was given, and it was hard-earned.
But none of that left time for much else.
I texted with Liv and Saylor. I FaceTimed with Mom and Dad and got to see them at the occasional game. And then there was Hendrix . . .
We texted. Sometimes. We followed each other’s socials.
He liked to troll mine, and my teammates liked to tease me for it—because seriously, Hendrix Sinclair was as gorgeous then as he is today.
Then Kroydon University got their hockey schedule, and they were playing UNC the last week in October.
His game was 7:30 on a Friday, and mine was Thursday afternoon.
The stars had aligned.
Looking back, I’m tempted to say that weekend was the start of everything.
Of us.
But that would be a lie.
We’d begun years before.
Our game that week was one of the easier ones we’d have, and when Coach called me off the field with five minutes left to go in the second half, I wasn’t surprised.
We were up 8–1, and I’d already played every minute.
Most games I never subbed out. That was when I saw it—him.
Hendrix was leaning against the fence on the opposite side of the field, my jersey stretched over his broad chest, and the smile on his face . . . God, it was everything.
I couldn’t tell anyone what happened in those last five minutes.
I’m not sure my eyes ever made it back to the field.
They were glued to him. It didn’t matter that he was standing in a crowd of Kroydon University hockey boys.
He was all I saw. And when we won and ran out onto the field like we always did, I didn’t want to stop at my goalie. I wanted to run to him.
By the time I finally did, most of the guys were gone. Leo was standing next to him, watching my team captain as she followed me across the field. I mean, I couldn’t blame her. The Sinclair boys were gorgeous, and Leo was a few years older than Hendrix. So basically, exactly Hallie’s type.
“Looking good, Serena.” Leo threw his arm around me, but his eyes never left Hallie. “You gonna introduce me?”
Hallie moved in front of me and made her own introduction, and that was it. Leo was gone. But Hendrix was here. The sun shone down against the bright-blue sky, and his eyes matched the color, like it was there to highlight him.
“Hey.” He grinned and wrapped both arms around me in the best hug I’d ever had. His nose buried in my hair as he pulled me closer, and I circled my arms around his waist and just breathed. He smelled like the ocean and something so distinctly Hendrix, I dreaded the minute he would let go.
Until he did.
Hendrix held out a bright-green four-leaf clover.
“What’s this?” I asked, taking it from him and spinning it in my fingers.
“For luck.” His hands settled on my waist, and I didn’t care that sweat soaked my jersey and I desperately needed a shower. I was frozen in place.
“We already won,” I said softly, with a feeling wrapping around my heart like a rubber band squeezing. The moment was important. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did.
“Yeah, you did. You were awesome out there. Fierce. Badass. But the luck isn’t for you. It’s for me.”
I tilted my head and shifted, so this massive man would block the sun.
“I know we’ve only been in school two months, and I know our schedules suck, but it’s time, princess.”
The rubber band made another loop around my heart, squeezing tighter.
“You promised one day you’d say yes.”
The band snapped, and I sucked in a breath, knowing he was right. “You have to ask . . .”
“Go out with me, Serena. We’re both home for Thanksgiving in three weeks. Let me take you out then.”
I looked over Hendrix’s shoulder and saw Leo surrounded by half my team and bit down on my lower lip, grateful he couldn’t hear us.
“You know how my dad is, Superman. He’s going to be all over me that weekend.
He’ll never be okay with us dating. Not yet.
I promised him if he let me go away to school without any kind of bodyguard or security, I’d focus on soccer and school, and that would be it. ”
Hendrix’s fingers ran over the pink pre-wrap I had tied around my hair to keep the fly-aways from my ponytail out of my eyes, then angled my face up to him. “Then don’t tell him.”
I nodded as his words sank in. “We can’t tell anyone then. You know Kroydon Hills, their favorite form of payment is gossip. It spreads faster than wildfire.”
“Then we don’t tell anyone,” he agreed quickly.
“I’m serious, Hendrix. Not even your brothers.
They’re bigger gossips than most of the girls I know,” I pushed harder.
“If we do this, it can’t get out there. My dad will yank my ass back to Kroydon Hills in a heartbeat if he thinks I broke our deal, or worse, his trust.” My heart sped but not from fear. From excitement.
He looked over his shoulder at his brother, who thankfully, still wasn’t paying us any attention, then those eyes were on me again. “Not a soul. Just us.”
His thumb grazed over my lip, freeing it from my teeth, and God, I wanted to kiss it. I didn’t. I stepped back like the good little girl I was, sick to death of being good, and smiled. “Do you guys have some kind of curfew tonight?”
“Yeah. Lights out at ten.”
“That’s about four hours from now. I can be showered and out of the locker room in twenty minutes. You hungry?” I spun my clover between my fingers again. “Bring your brother and whoever else wants to come. I’m sure my team would love to meet them.”
“Where are we going?”
I smiled, knowing just the place. “Merritt’s Grill.”
And that was it. What had started with two kids drawn to each other in a way they were too young to understand changed that day. More like changed again that day. We’d change a million more times over the next ten years. But that day didn’t hurt. Not like the ones that would come later.
My phone vibrates next to me with an incoming text, and my stomach drops at the name that’s displayed.
Hendrix.
Why?
You’d think he’d have taken the hint when I never opened the last damn text.
I pull my wine glass closer and stare at my phone as it vibrates again.
Fuck. This.
I finish my Riesling, grab the phone, and open the texts before common sense kicks in and I have time to change my mind.
Hendrix
That’s twice you’ve seen me and ignored me.
Serena
Not so sure a panic attack is ignoring you. How about you pop that massive ego, Sinclair.
Hendrix
How was your lunch with Langley? I hadn’t realized you two were together.
Serena
Oh no. You don’t get to do that.
Hendrix
Do what?
Serena
Ask me questions like we’re friends.
Hendrix
Why not?
Serena
We stopped being friends when you married someone else.
Hendrix
You seem to have moved on.
Serena
Are you kidding me? Is this about Rafe? You don’t get to do that either!
Hendrix
I’m sorry. I just wanted to see if you’re okay.
Serena
Why wouldn’t I be?
Wait, don’t answer that.
I’m not doing this with you. You made your choices, and I made mine.
Hendrix
Serena . . .
Serena
Good night, Hendrix.
There. I didn’t tell him to fuck off. I didn’t cry. My hands only shook a little. Well, that’s a lie. They shook a fuck-ton. But I feel like this is progress.