Chapter 5

Damon

I’ve faced ninety-thousand screaming fans. I’ve hit game-winning home runs in bottom-of-the-ninth pressure cookers. I stood inches from pitchers who looked like they wanted to end me with a fastball to the rib-cage.

None of that, none of it- compared to sitting on Evan Collins’ stupid lumpy couch in a hoodie that didn’t belong to me, waiting for his little sister to come out of the shower so we could “talk.”

Which, in this context, sounded a lot like “so she can tell me off and/or end my entire bloodline.”

I tapped my thumb against the mug I was pretending to sip from, still replaying the moment she walked into the living room like a damn twist in a Netflix plot. Hair messy, hoodie too big, socks mismatched, completely disarmed and completely her. And then the look she gave me when our eyes met. Like I’d betrayed her, even though I hadn’t done a damn thing. Not intentionally, anyway.

“You look like you just found out your childhood crush is your boss,” Evan said, flopping onto the couch beside me and tossing me a protein bar I didn’t ask for.

“I feel like I just walked into a minefield blindfolded,” I muttered.

He chuckled. “You know, you could’ve mentioned you were hung up on by a nurse. I would’ve connected the dots.”

“Yeah, because that’s casual. ‘Hey, man, I think I caught feelings for a woman who threatened to sedate me for being annoying.’ Not exactly fantasy football talk.”

“Except you did catch feelings.”

I didn’t answer. Mostly because he was right, and that pissed me off.

He leaned in. “So. Are you going to tell me what happened, or should I just assume it’s your usual ‘I made a joke and forgot to be emotionally available afterward’ routine?”

I glared at him. “I didn’t mess this up. At least, I don’t think I did.”

He gave me a skeptical look. “Then why do you look like you’re waiting to be exiled?”

“Because she walked in, saw me, and looked like I had a bad dream that followed her home.”

“She’s hard to read,” Evan agreed. “Always has been.”

That part I already knew. Alicia had that stoic nurse expression down to an art, she could be bleeding from the neck and still have a calm voice and a ‘this is fine’ attitude. But beneath all that control? There was heat. Fire. The kind that could either warm you up… or burn you alive.

I wasn’t sure which one I was standing in.

The bathroom door creaked, and we both instinctively turned our heads. Alicia stepped out, wrapped in a towel with another over her head like a turban. She caught us staring and immediately turned back around with a dry.

“Two minutes. Stop acting like you’ve never seen a woman shower before.”

Evan looked mildly traumatized. “For the record, I had never once wanted to witness my sister exist in any towel-related scenario. Kill me now.”

“I wasn’t looking!” I defended.

“Don’t defend it. Just scrub your brain.”

By the time she came out again, she was dressed in a worn pair of jeans and a tank top, hair damp and curling at the ends, and she looked… real. No makeup. No attitude. Just Alicia. And somehow, that made everything inside me sit up and pay attention like it was the bottom of the ninth again.

She didn’t sit. She stood near the edge of the coffee table, arms crossed, like she was trying to decide if I was worth breathing the same air.

“Talk,” she said.

I took a breath. “Okay. So. Here’s the thing. I didn’t know you were Evan’s sister.”

“Obviously.”

“And I didn’t know I’d ever see you again, which, full disclosure, kind of bummed me out.”

She blinked. Once. “Why?”

“Because you’re smart. And sharp. And not even remotely impressed by me, which is new and slightly traumatic.”

Her lips twitched. But she didn’t speak.

“So yeah, I was shocked. I didn’t walk into this house expecting to find the woman who stuck a thermometer in my ear while threatening to file a noise complaint.”

She folded her arms tighter. “And Sabrina?”

Ah. There it was. The real question. The one buried beneath the snark and the sarcasm. I rubbed my hands together.

“Sabrina… was a mistake. A repetitive one. But a mistake. I haven’t spoken to her since the hospital. She showed up uninvited.”

“And what was she to you?”

“A very bad habit.”

“And what am I?” she asked softly. Almost too softly.

I looked up. Met her eyes. “Someone I actually want to figure out. Without the games. Without the headlines. Just… you.”

She inhaled, slowly and unsure.

And I could see it in her, how badly she wanted to believe me. But also how badly she didn’t want to be that girl. The one who fell too fast, forgave too easily. The one who fell for a famous guy with commitment issues and a thousand-dollar smile.

But I wasn’t playing anymore. I’d done the whole player routine. I’d lived the highlight reel. This? She? She was something else.

“I didn’t think I’d like you,” she said after a moment.

“Most people don’t.”

“You’re arrogant.”

“Painfully.”

“You flirt with anything that breathes.”

“Only when I’m trying to hide something.”

She tilted her head. “And what are you hiding now?”

“That I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the moment you told me to take off my shirt and then insulted my pain tolerance.”

She actually laughed at that. It was quiet. Cautious. But it was real.

“So,” I said, standing up slowly. “If I promise not to get concussed again… can I maybe take you out sometime?”

“To where? An ER?”

“I was thinking of something classier. Like urgent care.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re insufferable.”

“And yet…”

She paused. Then whispered, “And yet.”

I smiled.

Evan, who had somehow reappeared at the kitchen door with a bowl of cereal, shouted, “No kissing while I’m in the house!”

We both turned to glare at him.

But as Alicia looked back at me, something in her softened.

And for the first time in a very long time… I felt like I wasn’t running anymore.

I was home.