Page 89 of Summer Affair
Pains in the asses or not, Clay had some of the best brothers on the planet. He couldn’t say that he’d always been there for them, he was usually too busy with work. Yet he needed them today, and, without even asking, they’d shown up.
“You know what you look like?” Owen asked.
“What?”
“You look the same way you did when you crashed dad’s Camaro. It’s thatholy shit, I screwed it up beyond repairlook.”
“There’s also a bit ofI lost her forevermixed in,” Gage said, setting his beer down and confirming Clay’s worst fear.
“Don’t take it so hard.” Josh sounded rational and calm, making Clay feel anything but.
“Been where you’re at and it hurts like hell.” Gage clapped him on the shoulder. “Being Eastons, we’re genetically predisposed to screw it up when it comes to the right girl. Good news though, when it’s the right one, you can’t screw it up beyond repair.”
“I don’t know. What if I say the wrong thing and it blows up in my face and any shot I have is gone? How do I even get her to talk to me?”
Josh leaned forward on the table. “This isn’t about talking. If you want to win her back, it’s about showing. Love is an as-is thing. It’s about taking people for exactly who they are and reassuring them that your love isn’t contingent, it’s unconditional.”
“Where do I even start?”
“Have you told her that you’re in love with her?”
Clay shook his head and his brothers laughed. “What? I just figured it out myself.”
“That could be part of the problem,” Owen said as if he were the world’s leading expert on relationships and women. As if he hadn’t been single for nearly a decade.
“Why don’t you start with that,” Gage said. “You went in blazing but, amidst all the big plans and grand gestures, you didn’t tell her the one thing that matters.”
At that moment, Clay knew exactly what mattered. The only thing that mattered. Showing Jillian that he could be the kind of man she’d want in her life. Making sure that she knew just how much she was loved—how much he loved her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Resolutions from Jillian’s Journal
Don’t settle for less than love.
Jillian didn’t know what to do.
There she stood, sweat glistening on her forehead, her stomach in knots, and no closer to an answer than she had been ten seconds ago.
“We’re going to work together,” she said confidently. “Team tough. There’s no backing down.”
Only two minutes until gametime and the Bullfrogs were already down a coach. With Clay being a no-show, it was up to her to lead the team and she refused to give up. She had twenty little players staring up at her looking for direction—a leader who could help guide them to a win.
She also had twenty dads—including Dirk who’d been a nonstop pain in her ass since arriving—trying to mansplain to her exactly how football works, which was why anyone over five feet tall was taking a timeout. She might not be an NFL superstar like the last head coach, but she’d learned a lot about the game over the summer.
She’d learned a lot about herself as well. Like, while she might have been in the right walking out on Clay, being right sometimes hurt. The kind of hurt that kept her up at night and haunted her during the day.
Clay hadn’t only moved out of the big house, he’d moved back to Seattle yesterday and out of her life. Which was what she’d wanted, until she’d been granted her wish. And while part of her had prayed that he’d show up for the game today, the other part was terrified that he wouldn’t. Because then that would mean any hope she had would be gone. And hope was one mean bitch.
After the first few days, he stopped calling or texting and she’d been too much of a chicken to make the first move. Because what happened if she made the first move only for them both to discover that there was no easy second move. Or even a hard one.
Sometimes it didn’t matter how much you wanted something if the odds were stacked against you. And the odds had been against her and Clay from the word go. But did that mean they shouldn’t even try?
“Okay, guys,” she said. “Are we ready to dominate?”
“Yes!” the boys cheered, but a few of the older ones looked skeptical.
“That’s right. We can do anything. This is about being a team. Win or lose, we’re enough just the way we are. So we’re going to go out there, support each other and our differences, and kick some serious backside!”
