Page 67 of Redemption
“Honestly—Lily was part of that decision,” I say, and MJ winces. “Not like that—it’s never been like that for Lily and me, but she told me about the pressure some of these kids are under. I— I just want to help them realize that there’s more to life than football.”
MJ’s laugh comes out as a huff.
“So you took the job to get kids to quit football?” She asks. “I’m pretty sure you’ll get fired for that.”
I roll my eyes. “No, brat, I took it because I wanted them to realize that they can love the game, but not at the expense of themselves.”
MJ frowns, studying the tips of her shoes.
“You know,” she says, “the irony of my dad pushing Langston to love football so much is that he already had a kid that did. Sure, I was never going to play football in the NFL like a boy, but he could have had a kid to love the game with him—if he had ever bothered to look.”
My heart breaks for her. Her whole life, she tried to be seen by her mom and dad, and they never did because they never took the time to look.
A question sits on the tip of my tongue. It has bothered me since her first day back in town, but I didn’t think it was my place to ask.
But right now, I think I have to.
“Why did you come back, MJ?”
Her smile is sad when she says, “Because I’m good at failing people and making the wrong choices.”
The pure dejection in that one statement makes me crumble from the inside. “That’s not true, Little Harrison.”
Her eyes snap up to mine. There’s an anger there that’s been brewing for a long time.
“Why do you even care?” She snaps. “After that night, I became the least of your problems.”
The only excuse for what I do next is a temporary loss of my sanity.
Surging forward, I stop when our faces are just inches apart. Her breath catches in her throat as her eyes track my lips when I say, “Because no matter how hard I’ve tried these past six years,there hasn’t been a day that you haven’t crossed my mind. I care, MJ. I’ve always cared.”
Then her lips are on mine, and I’m not sure if I kissed her or she kissed me, but I know this is what forever should have felt like.
Chapter 21
Hayes
I’m an idiot.
Whenever MJ is around, I lose my head.
As soon as our kiss ended, she looked at me like it was the worst thing we could have ever done. Then she ran outside and jumped in my truck. She refused to say anything to me while I drove her back to her car.
Now it’s thirty minutes later, and I can still feel MJ’s lips pressed against mine, soft and pillowy. Her gasp rings in my ears from when I ran my tongue along the seam of her lips.
Dropping my head to my steering wheel, I pray that it will knock some sense into me because the black eye she gave me clearly didn’t.
When it doesn’t work, I groan and shove open my door. I have a couple of hours until I have to be at work, and I need to get some sleep before then. But it’s going to be impossible if I can’t get MJ out of my head.
Things between us are complicated. I can’t remember a time when they haven’t been complicated, but that kiss was a wake-up call to what I’ve been missing.
I let her walk away once, but after a kiss like that, I don’t know if I can let her walk away again.
The front door of my house squeaks when I open it, and I nearly jump out of my skin when I see someone sitting on mycouch—someone who is lucky I wasn’t dressed in my uniform with a gun on my side because I might have asked questions later.
“Hi ya, Hayes,” Campbell grins as I clutch at my chest, trying not to fall over. “Kota told me he wanted some company, so I thought I would let myself in.”
Scraping my fingers through my hair, I glare at where he’s sitting, but it doesn’t faze him. The dog in question sits on the couch beside Campbell, nearly asleep. He peeks one eye open when I step closer, then shuts it again as if he can’t be bothered with his usual greeting of almost bowling me over today—at least he isn’t outside digging holes.
