Stealing Home: A Reverse Grumpy-Sunshine College Sports Romance (Beyond the Play Book 3)

FOUR OR SO HOURS AFTER saying goodnight to Mia, I’m still awake, staring at the ceiling, watching as a spider makes its way across the lightly textured surface. Cooper, if he saw it, wouldn’t be able to rest—he’d find a way to trap it and take it outside immediately. I don’t mind letting it hang out with me. It makes the night a little less lonely.

I should have known that if I brought Mia home, I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Sometimes, it comes easily, but all too often, my mind refuses to relax. I used to think that it was because of the nightmares—dreading them, begging my mind not to succumb to them, only to wake up with a scream in my throat—but now I’m not sure. Maybe it’s something chemical.

Regardless, I’m wide awake, with only a spider for company. Tangerine is in Izzy’s room; she trotted after Mia the moment she went to bed.

She’s down the hall, safe and fast asleep, and that ought to bring me comfort, but my mind hasn’t stopped racing since I saw her with that prick at the bar.

Logically, I know she’s allowed to do whatever the hell she wants. We aren’t dating, and we never actually did.

In that moment?

It took all my restraint not to punch his fucking face in.

The memory of his hand on her thigh, bunching the fabric, taunts me. He acted like he’d earned the right to be possessive over her. Her body language looked forced. She was putting herself into a situation where at worst, she could have ended up hurt, or at best, she would have felt shitty about herself the next day. All because she couldn’t swallow her pride and text me about the room.

Was I a passing phase for her, one that she’s not interested in repeating? Did it mean anything at all?

I know it did. I know she liked more than just the way I fucked her. At the last moment, something changed, and I have no idea what.

Sleep isn’t coming. Not tonight. I slip out of bed and pad to the bathroom. I splash cold water on my face, not that I need the wake-up.

Earlier tonight, when I’d given her my price—because she needed a price, or she wouldn’t let herself come home with me, no matter how much sense it made—she smiled. In cataloging her smiles, I’d add it to the ‘mask’ category. The boldness had surprised her and she tried to play it casual by pretending she was unaffected.

“Still thinking about that day?” she’d said.

“I know you are too.”

She didn’t try to lie again. Just nodded once, like she thought what I was asking was far, and said she’d meet me at the house.

I dry my face on a hand towel, digging my teeth into my lip.

There’s a reason why she agreed to the date, then fled like she was on fire. Something deeper than the embarrassment of Cooper bursting into my room and catching the two of us half-clothed. Something that made her toss her hair over her shoulder and say, “Enjoy watching me leave, Callahan,” as if she was trying to make an exit from all our lives at once.

When we got to the house, I shut the door behind us and turned to her. She looked around the living room—she hadn’t been to the house since that morning, after all—and something flickered on her face as she picked up Tangy, holding her close. Tangerine seemed pleased with the whole situation. Maybe she recognized some of Penny in her friend.

“Tell me,” I said. “Please, Mia.”

She stroked Tangy between the ears. “You’re not very good at bargaining.”

“What?”

“I said I would tell you, but not when. Maybe I’ll tell you a month from now. Or a year. Or ten.”

I took a step closer. “Mia—”

“Not tonight, Sebastian.”

Her tired voice, the way she used my first name, not my borrowed last name, made me stop in my tracks. I watched her disappear into my sister’s room and didn’t try knocking on the door.

I fucked up somehow, that day. I did something that made her think twice about dating me. About even letting me be in her life. As soon as I figure out what, I’m going to apologize for as long as it takes to earn her trust again.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until I see stars, then leave the bathroom quietly. There’s a light on underneath my sister’s door.

Mia doesn’t sleep with the light on, so she must be awake.

I could knock. I could beg her to tell me the reason why she fled. But I doubt I’d get the answer tonight, and I don’t want to argue.

Usually, when I can’t sleep, I cook, but I don’t want Mia to hear and come to investigate, so I opt for a nighttime run instead. I’ll take a forced nap in the morning before I head to the facility for warmups and the game. As long as I show up on time and perform reasonably well, no one suspects a thing, and that’s the way I need to keep going through the rest of the season. Whether I like it or not, by midsummer, I’ll be negotiating my first professional contract.

I slip out of the house via the back door, then set a course for the familiar, the narrow sidewalks of Moorbridge’s downtown residential neighborhood. I don’t listen to music, instead focusing on my breath, the way the soles of my sneakers slap against the pavement. Aside from the occasional streetlamp, there isn’t much light. I push myself faster, nearly sprinting through the quiet streets, startling a cat, making something else rustle underneath a shrub.

Overhead, stars. A half-moon.

Mia would know these constellations.

Slap.

She said she’d go to dinner with me.

Slap.

I thought she liked me.

Slap.

I liked her.

Slap.

I could have seen myself loving her.

Slap.

She left.

I barrel around a tight corner and skid on something—leaves, trash—and end up in the street, on my back. Tears burn my eyes as I pant, staring through the trees for a glimpse of the moon. I stay there until I hear a car coming, then scramble to my feet. I lean against a tree as I catch my breath, my fingers scrabbling on the rough bark, half-hoping I’ll have to dig splinters from underneath my fingernails. I press my bruised shoulder against the tree, leaning on it with all my weight, and relish in my hiss of pain.

Maybe I did love her. Not consciously, not completely, not in the way my brothers have given themselves to their partners—but something pretty fucking close. Maybe I mistook the way she touched me, the way she kissed me, for real affection, when it was just another mask.

It’s not the same, because nothing will ever be the same as that rainy night; nothing will come close to the horror of being left alone in the world, unexpectedly and completely, but I had her, and she left me.

The other shoe dropped, the way it always does in the end.

Mia might be in my house, sleeping in the next room—but she’s not mine. Never was, never will be.

And if I can’t find a way to win her friendship, I won’t have her in my life at all.