AllFreeNovel
Share Us
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.
Jealousy.
Luca had never given me a reason to be jealous. Not once. And I was so confident in his love for me that I hadn’t really cared when other girls tried to catch his attention. It tended to be more amusing than anything else, and I knew I had more than a few enemies in the world because Luca was mine.
But right then, I felt sick with it.
Why hadn’t he told me about her?
And why the hell hadn’t I noticed her at any other game?
Then again, I might not have noticed her tonight if Mom hadn’t pointed out Megan’s obvious dislike of me.
“I’m hungry,” Shaw announced and grabbed my hand as she stood. “Let’s go get some concessions.”
I was so lost in my head, all I could do was nod as I followed her.
At the bottom of the stairs, Lyric was standing talking to a few girls, but when he saw my face, he grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me over his shoulder, ignoring the girls when they whined as he left them behind. “Where are we going?” he asked Shaw as he fell into step beside her.
“Anywhere that we don’t have to see that Megan Hawthorn girl for a few minutes,” my bestie told him.
“Ah fuck. What did she do now?” He slapped me on the ass, forcing a startled laugh from me.
“If Luca saw you right now, you would be so dead,” I told him as he set me on my feet.
He shrugged. “You’re laughing and you no longer have that lost look in your eyes, so I figure he’d get over it.” He wrapped his arms around me, hugging me against him hard. I sighed dramatically but hugged him back.
This guy looked just like his brother—minus about thirty pounds of muscle—but they were still identical in every other way. Yet I didn’t feel a single spark of attraction for him, whereas with Luca, all he had to do was smirk at me and I wanted to climb him like a tree.
But I adored Lyric. He was like another brother to me, and I knew he loved me like a sister. He was a great guy—at least he was whenever he wasn’t conspiring to cause trouble with his twin.
Shaw linked her arm through mine, and Lyric stepped up on my other side as we turned for the concession stand. “Tell me about this Megan bitch.”
Lyric shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. She tries to get close to Luca, but you know how he is. He only talks to the girls in our family, and his eyes only see you. But it seems Megan doesn’t understand the word ‘no.’ She follows him around school like a pathetic stalker, and she even tried out for the cheer squad in an attempt to get closer.” He got in line with us and then turned to face me. “You have nothing to worry about, Vi. Luca would never touch her. My brother is loyal and loves you.”
“I know that,” I told him truthfully. “But why hasn’t he told me about her?”
“Probably because he never thinks about her. She annoys him, but out of sight, out of mind. The only person who is important enough to Luca to be constantly in his head is you.”
