“Jesus,” he said, swiping the blood from his cut lip at their first time out. They were tied fourteen to fourteen. “What about personal fouls?”
“No blood, no foul,” Wyatt said.
“There’s blood,” Parker said, jabbing a finger at his own lip, then at Dell’s bloody nose, and finally at Grif’s arm, which had blood running down it from an elbow gash.
“Nah,” Brady said, grinning. “Has to be arterial blood.”
Zoe had exactly one hour to herself in between two flights. She’d figured she’d go home and find some excuse to banter with Parker, but when she’d landed, she had a text from her brother.
Recruited Parker for football tonight, thought you’d want to know.
Hell yeah, she wanted to know. Rec league football in Sunshine meant sitting with her girlfriends on the stands, eating hot dogs and popcorn, heckling the players—and who in their right mind didn’t want to stare at a bunch of hot guys tackling each other for a couple of hours?
She got to the park during the second quarter and found she had a seat waiting for her next to Darcy and the gang, who included Dell’s wife, Jade; Dell’s brother Brady’s wife, Lilah; and two other dear friends, Holly and Kate, all of whom had a significant other on the field.
“How’s everyone’s man doing?” she asked, biting into the big, juicy hot dog that Darcy handed her.
“Great,” Darcy said. “Including yours.”
Zoe choked on her hot dog.
Darcy grinned and patted her on the back. “Yeah, and not only does Parker fill out a pair of jeans almost as good as AJ, he can run faster than anyone out there.”
“He’s not my man,” Zoe said distractedly.
“Uh-huh,” Darcy said. “Just watch.”
“He’s not.” But Zoe did just that, her eyes drawn to Parker on the field like a moth to a flame.
And holy mother of mercy, Darcy was right.
He did fill out a pair of jeans.
And he was faster than anyone else out there.
And . . . damn. She wanted him to be her man. Bad.
At the half, Parker had found his stride, but they were down twenty-one to fourteen. Dell threw long and Parker went for it with Kel breathing down his neck for an interception. Parker went airborne in the touchdown zone, Kel with him, and by the very tips of his fingers Parker angled Kel out and got the catch.
They landed hard, Parker on the bottom.
A bunch of people landed on top of them both, some cheering, some yelling denials.
Under all of it, Parker, with elbows and knees pummeling him, shoved free and sat up, revealing he still held the ball.
The crowd went nuts and he glanced over at the stands, surprised to find them filled.
“Sunshine takes its football seriously,” Kel said, offering him a hand up. “Nice catch. There won’t be a second one.”
Parker grinned and as he turned away, his gaze caught on a woman in the top row of the stands.
Zoe.
She was surrounded by other women, all of them clearly together because they each had whiteboards and had written various signs:
Go Grif!
Dell Does It Best!
Your mama plays better than you do!
The Other Team Sucks!
Brady’s game is tighter than your spandex!
Parker went brows up.
Zoe grinned and wrote on her board and then lifted it:
You’ve Got This.
Shaking his head, laughing, he joined the huddle.
“New plan,” Brady said. “We gotta get the new guy the ball. He knows what to do with it.”
Parker listened to the rest of them all agree and realized with some surprise that he was the new guy.
The rest of the game was a blur. By the end, they won by one safety—his.
Someone had beer in a cooler and they all sat around after, switching out their cleats, pulling on sweatshirts as the sun sank. Parker felt happily exhausted and realized drinking a beer as the sky slowly filled with more stars than he’d ever seen was a pretty damn nice way to start the evening.
The crowd moved off the stands, dispersing. A group of women moved in. The girlfriends and wives, Parker realized. Giving out hugs and kisses. And for one beat he felt like an outsider all over again.
And then he saw Zoe standing in front of him. She smiled. “For tradition,” she said, and as she had that very first time they’d met on her porch, she went up on tiptoe and brushed her soft, warm lips across his.
Just as quickly, she stepped back. “Going back up tonight,” she said, and gave him a finger wave. “Nice game.”
And he found himself grinning like an idiot. That was the best way to start an evening.
Parker walked out of the shower and into his bedroom, sore in a bunch of new places thanks to the game. But it was a good kind of sore and he felt more relaxed than he had in days.
And then, as he moved toward his duffel bag, pain suddenly shot up his leg from his foot. Hopping, swearing the air blue, he looked down to find he’d stepped on a small wire cat brush.
Zoe had brought it home to groom the kittens, but their resident gray hellion loved to trot it around the house.
Which made him realize the house was quiet.
Too quiet.
He looked around and found her curled up on his pillow, fast asleep. Guess Destructo had finally worn herself out. And of course she had to be on his pillow. Her brother and Oreo were on Oreo’s bed, but not her. Figured. It was him she was fond of attacking in her sleep, his ear she purred in when she decided to sleep instead of play, and him she sat on if a calm mood struck her.
He stalked over to the bed and scooped her up off his pillow. She sleepily opened her eyes and at the sight of him, her favorite new toy, she got happy.
And wild.
“Oh no,” he said. “It’s bedtime. Behave or you’ll sleep in the bathroom.” That was where she’d started out sleeping, until her offended howling at being shut off from the house-sized jungle gym had kept everyone up.
He dumped her onto Oreo’s bed. “Your turn to babysit,” he said to Oreo.
Oreo sighed.
Parker slid into bed and sighed, too. Exhausted, he started to drift off.
And . . . heard the kitten climbing her way back onto the bed. “No,” he said to the dark.
The kitten bumped her head affectionately to his chin and then tilted her face to his, staring down at him adoringly.
Shit.
He dropped her over the edge of the bed twice before giving up, letting her fall asleep where she wanted, in the crook of his neck. He grumbled about it, but he wasn’t fooling the cat and he certainly wasn’t fooling himself. He adored her right back. Just like he did the owner of this house.
The truth was he didn’t look forward to the day it was time to leave. He was going to miss this damn hellion. He was going to miss Oreo. The house. Playing football.
And most of all, being with Zoe.
Eighteen
The next morning, Parker was again at the kitchen table with his laptop while on his cell phone, through which Sharon had been chewing out his ass for the past five minutes.
He’d used the time to text two pics of Oreo being attacked by the kittens to Amory and was working on a third.
“And now, thanks to you,” Sharon went on, “I have to go to the director and—”
“Give him the proof I sent you that Carver’s got stuff on the move?” he asked, voice even.