At Luca’s school, I wasn’t sure they had ever bowed down to football either. Not until he got to high school. He’d been playing since he was old enough to be a Tiny-Mite. Even back then, he’d shown talent on the field, and when he was a freshman, the coach basically kissed his ass to make sure he played. The offense trembled every time they knew they would be facing Luca, and I’d seen more than one quarterback piss themselves whenever they would see him running straight at them.
By the time we got back to Malibu and Luca left me to get ready for the game, he was considerably more relaxed than he had been when he’d called me that morning. But I could tell he was getting into game mode and simply smacked a kiss on his cheek before letting him go to the locker room.
The stands were filling up, and I saw a few of my uncles already sitting in the bleachers. Seeing Shaw sitting with her parents, I called out to them as I climbed the stairs. My best friend stood when I had almost reached them and hugged me.
As she did, she pressed her lips to my ear. “Cannon almost narced on me. Now, Mom is giving me the side-eye. I’m so going to kill him when we get home.”
I leaned back to see her face. “How did it go with Jags?”
She huffed. “Guys are stupid, Vi. I’m beginning to think there isn’t a single one of them worth my time.”
“Damn straight!” Axton Cage said as he walked up behind her on his way past us. “Not a single motherfucker out there worth shit for my baby girl.”
Shaw and I grinned at each other. Uncle Ax was pretty laid-back, not nearly the worst of the overprotective fathers in our family, but he still became unhinged anytime Shaw started talking about boys.
“I’ll bring you two back drinks,” he called as he kept walking.
“Thanks, Daddy.” Shaw took my hand and tugged me over to sit beside her mom.
Aunt Dallas took one look at the dirty jersey I was wearing and rolled her eyes. “That boy might as well piss on you.”
I laughed, thankful my voice had finally come back. I would have been busted big-time if it hadn’t. Dad would want to know why I wasn’t able to talk louder than a whisper, and then he would ground me from seeing Luca for a month. “You think he hasn’t?”
She snorted, shaking her blond head. “It’s disturbing how much you enjoy his possessiveness, Vi.”
“Luca Thornton loves me so much, he can’t cope unless I’m marked by him. What should I hate about that?” I asked with a raised brow. “And don’t lie to me by saying you don’t like Uncle Axton going all caveman on you. I’ve seen you do stuff just to bring that side of him out in full force.”
“Touché,” she grumbled, and I grinned at her.
“Vi!”
I turned my head at the sound of my name. At the bottom of the steps, Lyric was standing with my brother, both my parents, and his own. I waved and then caught Mom’s eye. Even with the distance we were from each other, I saw her wink at me, and my grin grew. My dad spoiled me rotten, but it was nothing compared to how much Mom did.
Luca and Shaw were both my best friends, but so was Mom. She was also my mentor, my safe place when it seemed like the world was in complete chaos. I knew that when she said everything would be okay, it was true because she would move heaven and earth to make it so for me and my brother.
Dressed in skinny jeans and a shirt with the Malibu Academy logo on it, her hair pulled up into a ponytail, and very little makeup, Harper Stevenson looked more like a college student and not the kick-ass magazine editor she was.
The group walked up the steps toward us, and as they did, more of my family arrived. I stood, accepting hugs and kisses on the cheek from my aunts and uncles as they quickly filled the stands, leaving very little room for anyone else to sit. Uncle Drake and Aunt Lana took a seat in front of me, and I bent to kiss my uncle’s cheek.
“I’m so glad you two came tonight,” I told him.
“Wouldn’t miss this,” he said with a grim smile. “I love watching that boy tear up the field and make everyone piss themselves.”
Aunt Layla distracted me with a hug, and when she pulled back, she grasped my hands. “How has he been today?” she asked in a quiet voice. “He texted me this morning that the Alabama recruiter was going to be here tonight, but I haven’t heard anything else from him all day.”
“Don’t worry. He was a little out of sorts, but he’s good to go now.” We shared a smile, and we sat down beside Mom, who had moved to sit next to Aunt Dallas. I knew Luca’s mom was nervous for him, so I stayed beside her, and we held hands until the teams took the field. The two women who loved him most, holding on to each other.
The moment Luca ran out of the tunnel that led from the locker rooms, the crowd went wild. He grinned up at the stands, and like I was a magnet his eyes were drawn to, he found me in the middle of hundreds of others. He fisted his right hand and pressed it over his heart, telling me he loved me without words.
I did the same, returning the silent declaration.
Our interaction lasted barely a moment, but that was all either of us needed. It was part of his ritual before being able to start the game, and I wasn’t sure how we were going to continue it once he was at college, but I knew we would figure something out.
The game started, and right before halftime, we were up 14-0. The coach on the other team kept storming up and down the field whenever his offense was out there, tugging at his hair every time one of the plays he called didn’t get his team more than five or six yards.
When Luca wasn’t on the field, I looked around at everyone else. Dad and Uncle Jesse were down by the fence with my other uncles, watching quietly, but they kept glancing at the stands every few minutes, and I followed their gazes a few times. There were several guys with clipboards in their hands as they watched the game, and I realized they must be the scouts. None of them wore anything that could tell me which schools they were from, but there was one in particular whom Uncle Jesse seemed to be paying more attention to, so I figured he was from Alabama.
“I just saw the Bama scout smirking,” Aunt Emmie murmured from behind Aunt Layla. “Luca is killing it tonight, Lay.”
Halftime was called, and the teams started back into the locker rooms. I stood up as Luca turned to look for me and blew him a kiss. He pulled off his helmet and winked at me before following his teammates.
“Violet,” Mom’s voice hissed at my ear when I sat back down. “If looks could kill, you would be on life support right now.”
I turned my head, curious what she was talking about. When I saw one of the cheerleaders giving me a death glare, I frowned. Beside me, Aunt Layla groaned. “That girl is trouble,” she muttered.
I turned away from my hater. “Who is she?”
“Megan Hawthorn,” she said with a grim twist of her lips. “She has been borderline obsessed with Luca from the moment she transferred here at the end of last semester.”
“What?” I turned my gaze back to the other girl. She was taller than me by several inches, curvier too. Her blond hair was a few shades darker than mine and pulled into a chic ponytail. She obviously had some mad blending skills, or she had a professional makeup artist doing it for her. Neither would have surprised me. It wasn’t exactly cheap to go to Malibu Academy. There wasn’t a single student not from a famous family. Megan was beautiful, I wouldn’t deny that, but her eyes were cold, and I started to feel something I’d never felt before.