Page 80 of The Mistletoe Trap
Gavin rolled his eyes, and a couple of the guys snickered, but when it came down to it, Holt was right. “Shit,” he said, and his buddies nodded. “I’m in love with Julie.”
Unfortunately, Dad had been right, too, about Gavin not realizing what he had, and he was afraid he might’ve already lost her.
“You saw how upset she is, though.” Gavin glanced from face to face, desperate to find one with the answer he sought. “How do I fix it?’
Silence followed.Oh, sure. Of all the times they choose not to be loudmouthed know-it-alls, it’s now.
Holt ran a hand along his jaw. “You’d better do something. Your team is counting on you to get your shit together so we can win this upcoming game.”
Since the guy had led him to a giant revelation that affected his entire life, he bit back hisThanks, Captain Obviouscomment.
About the time Gavin’s angst reached record highs, DeAndre Smitts locked eyes with him and said, “This calls for drastic measures. I think it’s time to call in the big guns.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Gavin was fairly certain his teammates had lost their ever-loving minds. Which would probably be less disturbing if he also hadn’t lost his.
His heavy footfalls thudded against the hardwood floors as he made his way down the hallway of the office building where the staff of the Mustangs spent their workdays. He passed the meeting room with the theater-type layout where they watched film. The facilities were state of the art, and occasionally, Gavin still marveled he was part of this world.
In five days, they were playing in the Wild Card Round. Five days until they faced off against the one team that’d mopped the floor with them earlier in the season. They’d improved leaps and bounds since, but then again, so had their upcoming opponent.
The quarterback was one of the best in the league and already had a Super Bowl ring in his trophy collection. And if the Mustangs didn’t win, that’d be it for the season. No pressure or anything.
Oh, and on top of that, Gavin desperately needed his best friend.
The woman he could now admit he was madly in love with. That shitty saying about absence making the heart grow fonder? Well, any more absence and he was going to yank the wretched thing out of his chest, because he was starting to think he could play better without it.
You know, if he wouldn’t be dead and all.
Julie had relayed so many “fun facts” about the vital organ, they could fill an entire football field.
Her voice rose to torture him, and yet he savored the invasion.
Your heart beats about one hundred and fifteen thousand times a day.
It also pumps about two thousand gallons of blood a day.
That’s a lot of Gatorade,Gavin had joked, and she’d told him not to go injecting it into his veins, as if that were a real possibility. Maybe he hadn’t lost his mind—if Jules believed she needed to warn him not to do something so ridiculous, he might’ve been missing it all his life.
Considering he’d had the ideal woman under his nose for so long, the evidence to support that theory stacked up quickly.
Medical facts continued on fast-forward mode, and he realized he was now using them the way Julie did: to calm himself down.
Hearts can continue beating even when disconnected from the body.
Giraffes have lopsided hearts. Their left ventricle is thicker than the right because the left has to get the blood all the way up the long neck to reach the brain.
Oh, and want to know what’s really freaky? Most heart attacks occur on a Monday, and Christmas is the most common day of the year for a heart attack. It’s why, as much as I love the holiday, there’s a part of me that’s always a pinch nervous until the day’s over.
Despite this past Christmas not being on a Monday, his heart had definitely suffered more than it ever had. The organ he’d learned more about than he’d ever wanted to panged. He’d been the one to ruin it for Julie this year.
And that’s why I’m about to do the most over-the-top thing I’ve done in a long time.
Holt, doing his best to live up to hisGossip Girltitle, told Coach Bryant that Gavin was having trouble with his girl, and that’s why he was playing so shitty during practices.
Coach told him he should go have a chat with Lance Quaid, the man who not only owned the team but had also taken a huge chance on Gavin. It felt a lot like being sent to the principal’s office, except he didn’t have Julie by his side, which made most of their teachers—save Mrs. Trombone—go easy on them.
Expelling a long exhale, he lifted his fist and rapped on the door. A muffled “Come in” filtered through the wood, and Gavin gripped the knob. He twisted, swung open the door, and forced one foot in front of the other until he was standing across from Lance Quaid.
