Page 8 of Hometown Hottie

4

CARSON

Back in the room that had been mine as a kid, I unpacked a little bit. It was pretty fucking weird, sliding clothes back into these closets when I’d once felt such a sense of finality and triumph when I’d emptied them.

I sighed, grabbed a pile of T-shirts from the suitcase open on my bed, and dumped them onto the dusty shelf. Staying in this room again was like stepping back in time. In all the years I’d been gone, Mom hadn’t touched it at all.

My maroon, navy, and dark green bedding was still on the small double bed, and posters of all my heroes—including Carson Palmer, who I’d been named for—still covered the walls. The desk was clean, but my textbooks from high school and college lined the shelf beside it.

Medals, trophies, and award certificates I’d received back then sat spotless on top of the dresser, the bookshelf, and in frames on the wall, telling me that while Mom had definitely been cleaning in here, she hadn’t even taken down the last class schedule I’d taped to the mirror senior year.

I blew out a heavy breath and sank down on the bed, kicking my feet up on the side of my suitcase and folding my arms behind my head as I stared at the ceiling. For a cool decade, I’d been living in one state or another, jumping from city to city during the season and never even thinking about slowing down.

I hadn’t put down any roots at all, not even buying a place for the off-season like most of my teammates had done. But now that I was back in Silver Springs, I wanted to do just that. Buy some property. Build a house. Get this new chapter of my life started.

But it felt really damn wrong to be lying on my bed in my mother’s house at noon on a Monday at age thirty-one. Kicking back in the middle of the day was bad enough, but add in all those other factors and it felt like the walls were about to close in on me.

Loud voices sounded from downstairs and I sat up, frowning as I tried to figure out if they belonged to who I thought they belonged to.

My bedroom door crashed open, and Vance and Ryan burst through it like a thunderstorm.

“Whoa, it’s like a time capsule,” Ryan said. “This room hasn’t changed at all.”

Vance strode in like he’d last been here yesterday, and he nodded toward me in bed. “Carson’s even getting ready to spank it. Things really haven’t changed.”

I laughed and sat up against the headboard. “Yeah, I was thinking about your mom, and I couldn’t control myself.”

“So it is just like high school.” Ryan grinned and sat down on the desk.

Vance pulled out my desk chair and sat backward on it just like he always used to. A mental image of the two of them in those exact positions in this room, but twenty years ago, popped into my head.

“No,” Vance said. “If it was like high school, he wouldn’t be thinking about my mom. He’d be thinking about your⁠—”

I tossed a rolled-up pair of socks at Vance’s head before he could mention Ryan’s sister. “Can we stop talking about jerking off? My mom is right downstairs.”

Ryan guffawed, not noticing Vance’s slip-up. Relief washed over me. I didn’t want to dredge up that old fight, especially since everyone was in a good mood.

“What were you doing, then?” Ryan asked. “Your mom said you’ve been shut in here for a while.”

I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Anyone else feel like we’ve gone back fifteen years or so?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ryan said immediately. “I’ve been feeling that way since I found out you two were home, though. Didn’t think we’d ever live in the same town again, but especially not this one.”

“How am I going to sleep on this tiny thing?” I motioned at the bed, stretching out to show them what I meant. All four limbs dangled off the mattress when I spread out.

Vance started giggling like a little girl. “You look like a turtle on its back.”

“You might want to rethink renting a place and buying some furniture you actually fit on,” Ryan said. “Or maybe sleep on the floor.”

Vance jerked his head at a calendar from the early oughts on my nightstand. “That model standing next to the motorcycle has six kids now. Poor woman has been locked in a custody battle with her rocker ex for years now.”

I sighed and turned the “babes and motorcycles” calendar facedown. “Well, thanks for ruining that for me.”

Vance nudged Ryan with his elbow. “You still got your bike? The scrambler?”

“I sure do.” Ryan smirked. “I bet I could also still kick your ass on it. Still got yours?”

Vance had to think about it before he shrugged. “Yeah, I think it might be under a cover in Mom’s garage. I’ll have to check, though. I honestly haven’t even thought to go in there.”