All Lined Up

Chapter 29 Carson

The team is as loud and excited as I’ve ever seen them. As we file onto the makeshift stage they’ve set up not far from the bonfire, they’re chanting, “Bleed red,” and jumping around, slapping each other on the shoulders. I jump when everyone around me does, so that I don’t stick out, but I’m too tired to chant.

I ran myself ragged this week, not just because it’s an important game, but because it was the only way I could find any semblance of quiet. Torres starts up an “impromptu” rap that I heard him practicing in the locker room a few days ago, but we all humor him, responding when he calls for it and cheering him on. When I get to the middle of the stage, I squeeze in next to Silas, who stands silent, smiling, but not getting caught up in the hype.

“Ready, QB?”

I nod, and he leaves me alone, thankfully.

The gathered crowd is huge, and we wave while they scream. Well, I wave while most everyone else shows off.

Coach looks amused, and he nods when our eyes catch. When all the players have filed onto the stage, he steps up to the microphone.

“Good evening, Wildcats!”

Hands raise up in the crowd like a rolling wave, curved into claws and shaking as the people yell.

Coach lifts his hands, and the crowd settles down.

“I’m not one for speeches.”

A few feet behind me Torres calls out, “Riiiiight.”

The crowd laughs and Coach whirls around like he’s searching for the culprit. Torres is the picture of innocence, and I sigh and shake my head when he grins at me.

“Fine. I’m not one for speeches that don’t involve yelling.”

I crack a smile.

“Last night, as I was watching game film, my daughter told me that mistakes make good teachers.” My chest tightens, and the cool fall air burns even sharper in my lungs. “We’ve had our fair share of mistakes this season, but these young men behind me have learned a lesson from every single one of them.” He smiles. “I can’t promise you that we won’t have more mistakes in the future. They happen, in life and in football. But a strong team, and a strong man, learns how to grow. Anybody who has watched this team from their first game can tell how much growing they’ve done. And I can guarantee you that the Hawks know it, too.” He raises up his hand in the Wildcat claw, and the crowd follows, screaming. Over them, he yells into the mic, “Tomorrow is our time to take the lessons we’ve learned and do some teaching of our own! Now, go wild!”

The crowd roars, and the band starts up the fight song. The cheerleaders and the dance team are down below us, dancing to music, and in the center of the crowd, people begin backing up as they prepare to light the tower of stacked wood.

I don’t know if my eyes are just trained to spot her or if I’m going mad and seeing her everywhere, but I catch sight of Dallas in the first row of the crowd. Stella is beside her, so maybe I’m not going crazy, but before I decide for sure, flames tear through the wood, and she disappears behind the fire and smoke.

As the team begins making their way off the stage, Coach claps me on the shoulder. “Get some rest tonight, McClain. You look tired.”

I dip my chin once. “Yes, sir.”

I think that’s it, so I turn to go, but he stops me one more time.

“Dallas is here tonight with her friend Stella.” I stiffen, wondering if he’ll order me to keep my distance. “I still want you in bed by a decent time, but if you happen to run across her, I think she’d be glad to see you.” He pats me one more time on the shoulder, and then strolls past me, leaving me to follow behind.

I’m not positive, but I think that might just count as permission.

It takes me a while to get past the crowd. Everyone is trying to talk to the players or catch their attention, and I seem to be the only one moving against the flow. By the time I get to where I thought I saw Dallas, there’s not a tall redhead in sight. I stand there for several long minutes searching. The wind has shifted, sending the smoke from the blaze into my watery eyes—probably why they moved, too. In all the thousands of people here, I know I don’t stand a chance of finding her.

Instead, I find Ryan still standing near the stage where I last saw him talking to Torres and Brookes and ask, “Hey, do you have Stella’s number?”

He lifts an eyebrow. “I do. Why?”

“Can I have it?”

He looks like he wants to argue about me answering a question with another question, but he doesn’t. He hands over his phone without a fight, and I steal the number before going off to search for a quiet place to call.

Brookes calls out, “Go get ‘em tiger!” as I leave.

Torres does a mock cheer, complete with a red and black pom-pom he must have charmed off a cheerleader. I smile, flipping them both off as I walk away.

TWO HOURS LATER when I’m supposed to be resting (Coach’s orders), I’m making potentially the worst or best decision of my life. I check my watch again. Stella promised she’d have Dallas home by eleven, and she told me which window is hers.

The lights are all off, and I just pray to God that Coach is a heavy sleeper. I don’t even want to think about what he’d do if he found me. I’d most likely be going home missing a body part or two.

I duck under the peach tree outside her window, step over the shrubbery that lines the house, and knock quietly on the glass. I don’t hear anything, so after about thirty seconds, I knock again.

“Oh my God, Stella. What did I tell you about using the—” She tears open the curtain and her jaw drops before she finishes. “—door.”

“What are you . . .”

“Can I come in?” I whisper.

Please, please don’t let Coach be a light sleeper.

She shakes off her surprise and heaves up the glass partition of her window. I grip the brick exterior of the house and push one leg through. I nearly endanger my ability to have children a few times as I try to squeeze my too-long limbs through the opening. Dallas has to keep a hold on me to make sure I don’t fall and wake the entire neighborhood, but after a mortifying minute or two, I’m in and she closes the window behind me.

She wears a pair of Rusk sweatpants in black slung low on her hips. They’re paired with a strappy white tank top, which I can’t see much of because she’s got her arms clamped over her chest. Doesn’t matter, though. With her creamy skin and soft hair and striking eyes, there’s plenty else for me to look at.

“What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t have a balcony for me to climb, but I figured this was the next best thing.”

She covers her mouth with her hand and blinks at me a few times before glancing at her closed bedroom door.

“You have got to be out of your mind.”

I grin. “A little bit.” Or at least it’s felt that way this week.

“If he catches you—”

I step closer and lay my hands on the curves of her shoulders.

“He’ll kill me and use my body as a Halloween decoration. I know.”

“I’m serious, Carson. You’re lucky that he’s taken all this so well, and it hasn’t affected your spot on the team. I don’t know if you’ll get that lucky again.”

I run a hand up from her shoulder to the hollow of her neck. Goose bumps break out over her skin, and she closes her eyes.

“Lucky was hearing you scream at that frat party. Lucky was you falling quite literally into my lap. I’ve had a lot of luck the last few months, Daredevil. And I’m just here hoping that it hasn’t run out. Besides . . . I think your dad actually gave me permission.”

“To sneak in my bedroom window, really?”

“Not for that. But he told me I should find you at the bonfire. It’s not my fault that there were an ass-ton of people there.”

“Ass-ton? Ass-ton? Really romantic . . .”

I slide my hand up from her neck to tangle in her hair and tip her head back to look at her. “You can make fun of how I talk another time. Right now, I just need you to tell me if I’ve screwed this up too badly for you to forgive me.”

She licks her lips, and I almost forget what answer I’m waiting for.

“And what exactly did you do to screw this up?”

“I let you walk away from me without a fight. I thought I was doing what was best for both of us.”

“I wasn’t going to walk away, you know. I was going to make you sneak around with me until things with Dad settled down, but I had no intention of giving you up until you all but pushed me away.”

My heart twists in its cage.

“This is why you are the smart one.”

She smiles, but she still looks almost sad.

“That thing your dad mentioned tonight about learning from mistakes. Was I that mistake?”

I resist the urge to tighten my hold on her in case I am, in case I’m too late.

“The only mistake I made was not being honest with you about what I was feeling, so let me fix that now.”

She steps into my embrace, dropping the shield of her arms and wrapping them around my waist.

“Carson McClain, you scare me like nothing has ever scared me before. You drive me crazy and make me laugh and push my buttons on purpose. You make me feel safe and smart and pretty. Sometimes I think I might actually melt when you wrap your arms around me, and right now I feel a little bit like I might die if you don’t kiss me.”

I have a thousand things I want to say in response, but I’m not about to keep her waiting for another second.

I swoop down to lay my lips against hers, and her fingers dig into my lower back as soon as our mouths touch. I cup her head, burying both my hands in the long hair that has driven me wild since the first night I saw her.

I kiss her harder, exploring her mouth like it’s the first time, and I swear she’s even sweeter than I remember.

She takes a step back, pulling me with her toward her bed. I can feel her frenzied breaths against my mouth and I whisper, “I’ve missed you.”

The back of her knees hit the mattress, and she pulls until we crash back on the bed, my body pressing down into hers. I lift myself up on my elbows while she inches her way farther up the bed. I stalk after her, caging her in with my arms and legs on either side of her.

I lean down, nipping at the skin of her jaw, and she squirms below me, stretching her arms up above her head. I continue down, teasing her neck with my tongue and growl, “I’ve missed how you taste right here.”

Her legs fall open, her knees bumping against mine, and I shift until I’m kneeling between her thighs.

I run a hand down over the curve of her breast, her nipples hard through the thin fabric of her tank top. I lean down, capturing one in my mouth while I settle my hips against hers.

“Oh God.”

I flick the tightened nub with my tongue through the fabric, and she shifts her hips up into mine, rubbing against me. I smooth a hand up her thigh, loving the curve of lean muscle as it leads up to her ass. I cup her, pulling her hips up while I press down, and she moans.

I lean back up to take her mouth. “I’ve missed hearing that noise, and I want to hear it again and again. And I will when we’re not in your father’s house.”

She shivers beneath me, and pulls her legs up tightly around my waist.

I slide my hands up to tangle with hers where they still rest above her head. I let more of my weight fall against her, until it feels like my chest is melded against hers. With our foreheads pressed together, I look into her heavy-lidded eyes, and for perhaps the first time ever, she doesn’t look wary or scared.

“I’ve missed everything about you.” I place a gentle, lingering kiss on her mouth before pulling back. I roll off her, tugging her with me so that we’re facing each other on our sides. “I don’t want to spend one second more than I have to away from you, but for now, for tonight, I need to go.”

“Wait!” She squeezes my hands tight and brings them closer to rest between us on her chest. “Can you stay? Just for a little while longer?”

I resist the urge to look at her door, to worry about how close her father is right now. Instead, I nod, and she snuggles in close, wrapping her arms around my middle.

“We’ll figure it all out, Dallas . . . how to make things work with your dad, and how to get past the things that scare you.”

She grips the back of my T-shirt, pulling me in even closer.

“The things that scare me . . . It might take some time.”

“We’ve got plenty of that. Why don’t you make a list?” I grin. “We can just check off one thing at a time.”

“A list, huh?”

“Mmhmm.”

“I do like lists.”

“That’s something that we have in common.”

She pulls her head back from my chest, and I tip my face down to meet her eyes. She says, “Honesty?”

I nod back. “Always.”

“Honestly . . . I want you more than I ever thought possible, and sometimes that makes me want to run because I don’t know how I would survive losing you. Sometimes I hold people at arm’s length, so that it’s harder for them to hurt me.”

“I’m not at arm’s length now,” I say.

“No.” She cracks a small smile. “No, from the very beginning I couldn’t resist letting you in. That’s why you terrify me so much.”

“Listen to me, Daredevil.” I smooth a hand over her cheek, then across her forehead, wanting to wipe away the worried lines there. “You asked me once what fixes me the way dance fixes you. I’m still not sure I’ve found that thing that pulls me together, but I’ve found who pulls me together. You’re the only thing that makes me feel better when I’m tired or frustrated. You’re the thing that quiets all my worries and doubts and fears. You’re it for me. So run if you’d like, but I’ll follow. You can try to hold me at arm’s length, but I’ll never stop trying to pull you close. Be scared if you must, but you’re not going to lose me. Not unless your dad comes in and finds me here, then neither of us will have a choice.”

She laughs and leans up to press her cheek against mine.

“You’ve got me awfully close to saying those three big words that we’re probably not ready for.”

“Is that so?”

“Just warning you, so when I slip up you’ll know I tried.”

She’s parroting my own words back at me from the night we met. I kiss her again before pulling myself out of her arms and back to the window. Before I make my exit and head home to rest for the night, I whisper across the room, “I look forward to that slipup.”