Page 29 of The Comeback Pact

I want to wash that uncertain expression off her face. I would kill to have Aidan’s talking skills right now. Or, hell, any of the guys’. I nod, gesturing toward the sidewalk. The good thing about Warner is that it’s relatively small. The town is pretty upscale. The streetlights are bright, and the parks and roadways are well-manicured. It’s clear that the people of Warner have pride in their city.

It’s a far cry from the trailer park I grew up in with the broken chain-link fence around our small piece of land that’s mostly dirt with the occasional weed here and there. Even better is that you don’t hear the sounds of poverty all around you. Wailing kids and screaming adults. Everyone fed up with their circumstances, yet stuck with no way out.

Except…I found a way out.

We’ve walked two blocks when Kenna finally breaks the silence. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to be mysterious, or if this is just how you are.”

I chuckle. “It’s how I am, unfortunately.”

“Yeah?” she asks as if she doesn’t quite believe me. “But you turn into a dick on the football field?”

“I let my actions on the field speak for themselves.” There are guys on the team who talk endless shit. Your Mama jokes and anything to hype themselves up. Those kinds of players get under my skin, but I never talk back. I just make sure to get a hell of a tackle on them play after play so they remember my face and they know they don’t want the Hulk coming after them next time.

“Huh,” she says, looking away.

“That surprises you?”

She grins. “Yeah, a little. I mean, you’re one of the best players on the team. You—”

I know where this is going…“Get away with everything because we’re Warner’s pride and joy?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. I hate the stereotype, and I hate even more that there’s some truth to it. “I just want to play football.”

Football means never having to go back to that trailer, and it means a life of forgetting my dad. I want to be so big he can’t touch me. I want to move my mom somewhere else and get her all set up so she’s not tempted to fall back into old habits.

Above all, I’ve just wanted some semblance of peace.

That’s what I’m focused on.

A hundred things rise to the surface to say to Kenna, but they stay inside, like I’ve chained each and every sentence up. It’s like I’m walking around with a muzzle on my face, constantly battling those inner thoughts to keep quiet.

Don’t rock the boat.

To be silent is to be safe.

Fireflies blip in and out in front of houses we walk past, and there’s a slight chill in the air. Next to me, Kenna wraps her arms around herself, so I shrug off my zippered sweatshirt and offer it to her.

“I’m fine,” she says, but I don’t take her word for it. I let her walk in front of me before I place it around her shoulders. She eyes me when I move back alongside her.

My sweatshirt dwarfs her. All I can see of the Bulldog logo is the side of its face before it gets lost in the extra folds.

“Am I changing your mind about football players?” My own, sure voice startles me.

“Are you trying to?”

I shrug. “Maybe I don’t give a fuck about the rest of the team. Maybe I’m just trying to change your mind about me.”

She eyes me. “It might be working.”

Stopping in front of her place, she rests her hand on the white picket fence. I jam my hands in my pockets and try to come up with something else to say to keep her out here longer.

“Are you ready for your first game?” she asks.

There’s nothing I’m more sure of than football. “Always.”

“I hope I’m not interfering with your own workout schedule.”

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