The Mistake

From the frustration shadowing Coach’s eyes, I can tell he senses that. “Look. John.” He speaks in a measured tone. “I understand why you didn’t opt in. I really do.”


Other than my brother, and now Garrett, Coach is the only other person who knows I didn’t enter the draft. In that first eligible year, I pretended I’d missed the deadline to declare, which led to Coach dragging me into this very office and screaming at me for forty-five minutes about what an irresponsible idiot I am and how I’m wasting my God given talents. Once he calmed down, he started muttering about calling in favors to try to make me eligible, at which point I had no choice but to tell him the truth. Well, some of the truth. I told him about my dad’s accident, but not the drinking.

Since then, he hasn’t harassed me about it—until now.

“But this is your future we’re talking about,” he finishes gruffly. “If you pass this up, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life, kid. I guarantee it.”

Yeah, no guarantee needed. I know I’ll regret it. Hell, I already regret a lot of things. But family comes first, and my word means something. To me, to Jeff. I can’t go back on it now, no matter how tempting this is.

“Thanks for letting me know, Coach. And please thank your friend for me.” I swallow a lump of despair as I slowly rise to my feet. “But my answer is no.”


“Are you sure this is what you want?”

Grace’s soft voice and timid expression make my chest ache. I don’t know why she bothered asking me that, because obviously this is the last thing I want to do. It’s what I have to do.

Although I went straight to her dorm after practice and wasted no time telling her about my talk with Coach, now I’m kinda wishing I kept it to myself. I told her about my plans for the future a few days after we started dating, but even though she hasn’t said it out loud, I know she disagrees with them.

“I didn’t want to say no,” I say roughly. “But I have to. My brother expects me to move back home the moment I graduate.”

“What about your dad? What does he expect?”

I lean my head against the stack of decorative pillows on her bed. They smell like her. Sweet and feminine, a soothing fragrance that relaxes some of the tension wedged in my chest.

“He expects us to help him run his business because he can’t do it himself. That’s what family does. You pitch in when you’re needed. You take care of each other.”

She frowns. “At the expense of your dreams?”

“If it comes down to that, yes.” This entire conversation is too dismal, so I tug her toward me. “Come on, let’s put on the movie. I need some explosions and gunfights to distract me from my misery.”

Grace grabs her laptop and gets the movie ready, but when she tries to place the computer between us, I shift it to my lap so there’s no barrier to keep her from snuggling beside me. I love holding her. And playing with her hair. And leaning in to kiss her neck whenever the urge strikes.

I haven’t been in a relationship since high school, but being with Grace is different than it was with my old girlfriends. It feels…more mature, I guess. Back then we just talked about trivial bullshit, and filled in the silences by fooling around. But Grace and I actually talk. We talk about our days and our classes, our childhoods, our futures.

Talking isn’t all we do, though. I’ve seen her almost every day since our first date, and we’ve messed around every single time. Christ, that bathroom hook-up at Beau’s party? Out of this fucking world—and she hadn’t even touched me. I’d jerked off when I was down on my knees eating her *, and sweet Jesus, I can’t remember ever coming that hard from my own hand.

But we haven’t had sex yet, and I don’t even care. It used to be all about the quick gratification for me—flirt, fuck, get out. Like a game of ball hockey back in middle school, hurriedly played between the time school let out and when my mother would call me in for supper.

With Grace, it’s like three periods of real hockey. The anticipation and excitement of the first period, the escalating buildup of the second, and then the sheer intensity of the third that results in that euphoric knowledge of having achieved something. A win, a loss, a tie. Doesn’t matter. It’s still the most powerful feeling in the world.

If I had to identify it, I’d say we’re in the second period now. The buildup. Hot hook-up sessions that leave me aching, but none of the third-period pressure to seal the deal.

Twenty minutes into the film, she turns to me suddenly. “Hey. Question.”

I click the track pad to press pause. “Hit me.”

“Am I your girlfriend?”

I give her my creepiest leer. “I don’t know, baby, do you want to be?”

Amusement dances in her brown eyes. “Well, now I don’t.”

Grinning, I lean over the edge of the bed to set the laptop on the floor, then shift around and pounce on her. She squeals as I get her on her back, my body pressed to her side as I prop up on one elbow and peer down at her.