Red Zone: A College Sports Romance (Fall Lake Ballers, ebook 3)

Chapter One

Liam

Football was my sanctuary, my future—until I collided with my past on the sidelines.

The snap echoed through the air, and I was already running. The catch was clutch. With the ball cradled in the crook of my arm, I looped around and headed back, ready to do it all again. I toed the line as the ball snapped into Kylian’s hands, and as our QB1 dropped back into the pocket, I rocketed off. I could do this in my sleep, despite Coach’s order to run the route until it became muscle memory. I cut left and extended my arms. Kylian’s perfectly thrown spiral dropped into my hands like a gift from the heavens.

The crunch of pads colliding and shouted plays filled the practice field. Sweat dripped, muscles burned, but this was the grind I loved. Add in my closest friends, Ares and Kylian, and we created magic on the field. We’d had a stellar season. And why wouldn’t we? This was it, my senior year and only a handful of games until the championship, which we were projected to make—possibly even win.

Two more times Kyl and I executed the same drill, a hair too close to where the QB2 was running a similar one with Desmond, the second-string wide receiver. The meathead had confused the route and almost ran me over once. From the corner of my eye, I saw him barreling toward me from an overthrown pass. I sidestepped, but he cut right and clipped me anyway. I grunted. Thrown off balance, I scrambled, staying on my feet but slamming into someone on the sidelines. Twisting, I half laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Reaching down to help whoever I’d bumped into, I froze.

My vision tunneled as I stared down at the piercing blue-green eyes blinking up at me. Skye Finley. The girl who’d ghosted me. What the hell is she doing here?

“Skye?” Holy fuck—what a cruel twist of fate. My heart jumped as I gaped at the leggy brunette sprawled on the turf.

Lips downturned in a grimace, she narrowed eyes that had haunted me since freshman year—the last time we were together before she’d disappeared on me after our whirlwind two-month fling. Long-buried emotions flared to life, gnawing at me and leaving me unsettled.

Images of stolen kisses strobed through my mind, late-night study sessions that turned into staying up until dawn, losing myself in her, the laughter, and even the passionate arguments. We had an intense connection that I’d never experienced before or after, but the most memorable was the pain of her leaving, something I’d vowed never to expose myself to again.

“Hi, Liam.”

A mix of resignation and something I couldn’t identify laced her greeting. Her hand clasped mine, sending jolts of electricity pinging up my arm and across my chest like lightning.

“Cartwright!” Coach Becket shouted, stomping down the sideline until he stood next to Skye. “Watch what you’re doing, son.” He turned to her and, with a softer voice, asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yep. I’m good, Uncle Tommy. I mean, um—” She cleared her throat, gaze darting to me then the field. “Coach.” Pink tinted Skye’s cheeks as she shoved her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ears while carefully avoiding my stunned gaze.

Coach bent and retrieved the camera that I hadn’t noticed and handed it back to his niece—what the fuck? I stepped back, fighting the magnetic pull Skye had always had over me. My fingers flexed against the football I’d caught. My other hand curled into a fist as I fought against the urge to grab her hand again and pull her close. She and I, we weren’t anything. Not anymore. Another look at her panicked eyes with the pupils blown wide from shock, and I saw our destruction all over again. No way would I go back for more of that—despite how much I wanted to slide my hands into her silky hair and slant my mouth over her plump, kissable lips. No fucking way—I had a career to secure, and messing around with the coach’s niece was the kiss of death.

“Listen up, team.”

Coach’s voice broke into my inner monologue, and I felt the press of bodies as the team gathered around. He must’ve called everyone over while my greatest mistake had played through my mind, warning me what not to do.

My mantra for the past three years as a football star at Fall Lake University had been simple: no love, no complications. I hadn’t come by that motto without reason. But seeing Skye made me question everything.

I couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling lurking beneath the surface after the reality of my two closest friends, Kylian and Ares, trading in their wild ways for steady relationships. I’d sworn to avoid that path after my parents’ brutal divorce left me jaded. The clincher was freshman year—the only time I’d decided to let a girl in, resulting in devastating heartbreak.

While my two friends were blissfully happy, I knew my place—alone, one-night stands, no attachments. That was my fate, and I would stick to it.

Vow reaffirmed, I shifted back to put more space between myself and Skye. Kylian and Ares flanked me with the move.

Coach gestured to Skye, who’d drifted to his side. “I would like to introduce Skye Finley, who is interning with us for the rest of the season and handling our social media. I don’t need to remind you to be on your best behavior and to treat her with the respect she deserves.” The threat hung heavy.

Skye slipped her camera strap around her neck, pulling her long, wavy dark-brown hair from beneath it. She offered a small wave as many of the players acknowledged her.

“The next few games will make or break our season. It may seem like our spot in the playoffs is a sure thing, but complacency is where teams fall apart. That will not be us. Not only do I expect each and every one of you to do your best, fighting for a spot in the playoffs, but also remember—NFL scouts will be watching. This is your chance to shine.”

His words reaffirmed where my focus had to be as the weight of my future pressed down on me. The speech was short and impactful, then we were dismissed. I put blinders on, half listening as I trailed behind Kylian and Ares to shower and change.

The locker room buzzed with post-practice noise—teammates joking, the clatter of cleats against the floor, and the sharp pop of lockers slamming shut. I leaned against the bench, trying to focus on anything but the nagging memories clawing their way up. The familiar knot in my chest tightened, a shadow of old fights and broken promises.

“Cartwright!” Kylian’s voice snapped me back to the present. He lobbed a water bottle across the room, and I caught it without thinking. “Tell Ares he’s full of shit. I read the defense fine—he just ran the wrong route.”

Ares rolled his eyes, his jaw set. “I wasn’t off. You didn’t see the safety creeping up.”

“Both of you are wrong.” I twisted the cap off the water bottle and took a swig. “But keep arguing, and Coach will bench your asses next game.” An empty threat, but a good one. “That should settle it.”

Kylian snorted, shaking his head. “Classic Liam, dodging conflict. You’re too good at mediating.”

Mediating. Yeah, I’d been doing that since I was a kid. Back then, it wasn’t about football plays; it was about stopping my parents from tearing each other apart. I could still hear their voices echoing through the walls—my mom’s sharp tone, my dad’s booming retorts, and the silence that followed when one of them finally stormed out.

Their relationship was a War of the Roses–style dumpster fire. And it had screwed me up in ways I hated admitting. It was the reason I kept women at arm’s length, why I couldn’t let anyone get too close. Letting someone in—like Skye—was a risk I wasn’t sure I could take.

After they’d finally split, Mom took off and got herself another family. My older sister and I’d never heard from her, but we weren’t parentless. Sometimes—okay, often—I thought we would have been better off if our drunk-off-his-ass dad hadn’t volunteered to stick around.

I shoved the thought aside, gripping the water bottle tighter. “Someone has to keep you idiots in check.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kylian clapped me on the back. “Don’t think I didn’t see you zoning out just now. What’s eating you?”

“Nothing,” I lied, straightening. “Just thinking about the upcoming game.”

But it wasn’t the game. It was everything else—the past, the future, and the mess in between.

“You’re sure?” Ares’s voice softened, cutting through the haze. “If something’s up, we’ve got your back.”

I forced a grin and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m good. Focus on fixing your routes instead of worrying about me.”

The words felt hollow, but I wasn’t about to unpack my baggage in the middle of the locker room. Not with pro scouts watching, playoffs on the line, and my dreams dangling just out of reach.

I showered and changed, caught up in my head as we left the locker room soon after and made the short drive to Kylian’s off-campus condo, where Ares and I also lived. We let ourselves in. I followed Kylian, dropping my bag to the right of the door then moving aside so Ares could enter. It was quiet inside, echoing the emptiness I’d felt after seeing Skye. I glanced around the open floor plan from the decked-out kitchen to the living room with the oversized couches and large-screen TV.

“Where are the girls?” My stomach growled, and I glanced longingly at the kitchen. I’d hoped Kylian’s fiancée, Aurora, would be cooking something when we got home.

“Brielle is hanging out with her sister and convinced Aurora to go with. I think they’re shopping?” Ares shrugged, his backpack landing with a thump next to where I’d left mine.

“It’s too quiet without them here, isn’t it?” Kylian asked, voicing what was running through my mind.

 I grunted a response. Brielle, Ares’s girlfriend, might as well have moved in. She was here more often than not. I wasn’t complaining, or not really. It’d been more of an adjustment when Aurora had shacked up with Kylian, invading our space last year. But if I was being honest, I loved them filling the room with their feminine energy and laughter. It didn’t hurt that Aurora was a goddess in the kitchen. With her talents, that girl had a gold mine of a career, and we all reaped the benefits.

The other side of me was glad they weren’t home. The easy affection the couples had only accentuated my loneliness that I refused to broadcast.

I made a beeline for the fridge. Homework could wait—and so could the pending discussion with the guys about Skye—my stomach couldn’t. I swore it was eating itself with how loud it rumbled. Yanking open the door to the fridge, I peered inside. Score! Aurora had left us some sort of casserole. I pulled it out, tearing off the instructions, and instead of reheating it in the oven like the note probably said, I cut a giant piece and nuked it in the microwave. When I flipped over the sticky note, a laugh burst out of me.

“She called it?” Kylian dropped onto one of the island’s barstools.

“Yep.” I tossed him the note from Aurora addressed to me for when I disregarded her reheating instructions and instead noted how long for the microwave.

Ares grabbed two more plates, slid one to Kylian, and they both cut two equally large pieces. The microwave dinged, and I took my food out so Ares could put his in. None of us said anything as we tucked into dinner.

The silence wouldn’t last, and I was glad because I needed to vent about seeing Skye. After I shoveled the last bite, rinsed my dishes, and put them in the dishwasher, they were done with their dinner too.

I went to the living room, where I fell onto the couch then rested my elbows on my knees, head cradled in my hands. Skye. My body ached from fighting the need to pull her into my arms despite the initial shock. After all this time, why does she still have the power to bring me to my knees? “What the fuck?” I groaned. “She’s Coach’s niece?”

“Did you know?” Kylian grabbed an apple from the bowl on the island then sat on the opposite couch.

I jerked upright and glared. “You’re kidding, right?” My head rested back against the cushion, and I marveled at the sheer insanity of the situation. “If I’d known her connections—”

“Please.” Ares snorted then fell onto the couch and faced me, his arm stretched over the back of it. “It was freshman year, and you were unleashed. No one could have rationalized with you over consequences.” He shrugged. “It wouldn’t have mattered then because Coach Becket wasn’t our coach until sophomore year.”

I paused in defending myself. Even I couldn’t disagree with what I was like as a freshman. And though he wasn’t our coach then, he was now. “But”—I swiped my hand down, chopping through the bullshit—“now that I know, it makes things easier.”

“Does it?” Ares’s brows climbed his forehead.

“You were pretty gone for her,” Kylian chimed in with another truth bomb I didn’t want verbalized.

But he wasn’t wrong. The fallout from our fling had resulted in sleepless nights of missing her laugh, the feel of her beneath me, the vision of a future I’d never thought I would have—and that was only after being with her for two months. I’d fallen for her, hard and fast. Love at first sight? I’d never believed in it—until she happened. “She cut ties. She made her point crystal clear.” She didn’t want me the way I had wanted her.

“Why was that?” Kylian asked the question I’d never been able to answer.

“You never told us why she broke things off,” Ares pushed.

“It didn’t make sense.” That last conversation played in my head as it had all those years ago.

My mind tripped back to freshman year, when Coach came down on me for a shitty practice.

“Listen up, Cartwright,” Coach Macintyre had said. “You’re distracted and gonna fuck this up. Is the NFL your goal, or isn’t it?”

“Yes, Coach.” My stomach churned with worry. I had a scholarship to play football at a D1 university and a firm goal to make it professionally—which meant I had to make the scouts notice me during the games. If he benched me for screwing up in practice like I did that day, I could kiss my dreams goodbye.

“It’s a girl, isn’t it?”

I winced when images of what Skye and I had done all night long—resulting in my lack of sleep and several fumbles on the field today—flooded my mind. I didn’t need to confirm anything to Coach. He saw it on my face.

“Girls are dream killers, Cartwright.”

“We’re just casual.” I rubbed my chest as I said it, trying to downplay how much she consumed my thoughts.

“That girl is in your head. If you’re distracted by ‘casual,’ you won’t have a future.”

Body sore from a brutal football practice and Coach’s words replaying in my head, I’d exited the athletic building to find Skye waiting for me. My gaze crawled over her long legs, lingering on her curves to her gorgeous eyes and plump lips. I wanted to bury my hands in her dark, wavy hair. She was the only girl who had ever held my attention. With long strides, I closed the distance between us, my hand going to her hip and the other sinking in her thick hair to pull her close.

She slapped her hand against my chest and pushed. “Hey, we need to talk.”

Halfway to her lips, I froze at the phrase no guy wanted to hear. Her mouth turned up in a shaky smile as she backed up a step, and I leaned against the side of the building. The bricks were warm from the afternoon sun.

The memory was like quicksand, and I extracted myself from it as best I could. “It didn’t make sense. She’d asked me an impossible question.”

“Which was?” Kylian prompted.

“She wanted to know if we had a future together. It was totally out of the blue. Of course, I told her no.” Coach’s lecture had been fresh in my head when she’d asked me—and the conversation about girls being dream killers was too similar to what my dad would have said, which was a mindfuck in itself. “My goal was, and always had been, a career in the NFL. Nothing would change that.”

“And she didn’t elaborate? Was she talking marriage or just an exclusive relationship? Or did she have something against your NFL goals?” Ares scrubbed his hand over the stubble on his jaw. “Some girls don’t want a life with a professional athlete because of all the bullshit from other women, late hours, or the travel.”

I shook my head. “No. That doesn’t make sense. We weren’t at a point where the future was relevant because we’d only been together a couple of months. And she even proved that point when she said something crazy like, ‘Well, it was fun while it lasted. See you around.’”

“You didn’t try to stop her?” Kylian leaned forward.

I scowled, my fists clenching all over again. “It was a goodbye. I saw it in her eyes. Then that fuckhead Calvin walked by and made some smart-ass comment.”

“That was the fight? It was right after you talked to Skye?” Ares’s gaze locked onto the scar that ran along my left cheekbone from that day.

“Yep. That was when it happened.”

Calvin had run his mouth about Skye dumping me for someone better, and his cousin Mav’s name had come up. I’d lost it. Things were already heated. Mav wasn’t far and intervened. Things went from bad to worse. Mav tried to break us up. Calvin grabbed Mav’s hockey stick and wacked me in the face, resulting in my scar. And the kicker was, I saw Mav later with his arm around Skye.

Silence hung heavy between the three of us until Kylian broke it. “Maybe it’s for the best. Unless her being around changes something for you.”

“She changes nothing,” I snapped. I couldn’t let her. She’d turned my world upside down. I had too much riding on the year for her to mess with my head again. Still… “Why the hell is she here after all this time?”

“She probably never left.” Kylian kicked his feet onto the coffee table. “We’re at a D1 school with fifty thousand students, and she’s a different major than any of us. It’s not surprising you never ran into her when she didn’t want you to anymore.”

“And now she does?” I scowled. “Don’t sugarcoat it for me, QB1.”

Kylian rolled his eyes. “I get it. This sucks. After she ditched and blocked you, the last thing you expected was for her to invade our turf.”

“Yes, that.” I was screwed. “How can I concentrate with her there during practices, games, and who the hell knows what else?”

“You do your job.” Kylian’s game face snapped into place, and he leveled me with the same high intensity that got us to perform our best on the field and win. “You’re a legend in the stadium. You have nothing to worry about. Don’t let her get in your head. Just focus on the game.”

Neither stated the obvious—I’d probably dodged a bullet freshman year. But even though I hadn’t known who she was connected to then, she’d taken a wrecking ball to my life. She’d left me, and after, I couldn’t stop imagining her everywhere and nowhere. And now, she was the social media liaison for our team. It was time for truth, and if my roommates wouldn’t drop it, I would.

“She’s here. She’s the coach’s niece, and she’s impossible to ignore.” But even as I said it, I knew the deal—it wasn’t a game I could walk away from. Skye Finley had already changed the rules. I’m so screwed.

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