Defending Taylor (Hundred Oaks #7) (21 page)

When I was growing up, kids at school made fun of me. As a result, I’ve spent most of my life working really, really hard in order to prove myself. Relaxing and fun always came second to hard work. Work, work, work! At twenty years old, I got my first real job working full-time for the U.S. Department of State. Simultaneously I was taking a full load of college courses at night. I spent what little free time I had with friends or trying to write poetry.

After I graduated college, I continued working at the State Department, only I began working overtime. I thought that in order to get ahead, I needed to “pay my dues” and to me that meant working twelve-hour days. I did that for years. In my free time, I kept writing. For some work projects, twelve-hour days became fifteen-hour days and long months living in hotels away from home. It was not a life. But I felt I had to push myself to the limit in order to get ahead professionally.

When I got married, I finally took a regular eight-to-five job. In my spare time, I went back to my writing and poetry. For years, I’ve continued to write for hours a night. One day a couple years ago, I realized I didn’t have much of a life. I had few friends outside of work and the publishing world. No social life. My health wasn’t the best because I didn’t have time to go running. I was too busy working! Now I’ve made a point to schedule time to go to the gym. I make plans with friends and neighbors for drinks and dinner. I accept invitations, when in the past I would’ve declined. And most important, I make time to read the books I want to read, i.e. romance novels.

With
Defending Taylor
, I want to show readers that working hard is important—I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t worked hard, but living life is important too. I hope you live, live, live.

As always, I am so appreciative of my first readers who helped me shape this book: Julie Romeis Sanders, Sarah Cloots, Trish Doller, Andrea Soule, Christy Maier, Tiffany Smith, Michelle Kampmeier, Andrea Lepley, and Jen Fisher.

A very special thanks to Arturo Carrillo of George Washington University in Washington, DC, for telling me all about GW and letting me get an inside peek at the college admissions process! (And to Jim Core for introducing me to Arturo.) Arlington County Soccer in Arlington, Virginia, allowed me to visit practices and ask questions of their great players.

Thank you to Annette Pollert-Morgan, my amazing editor who challenges me and helps me enhance my stories. I’m grateful to everybody at Sourcebooks for their encouragement and for giving me this great writing career. Thanks to Sara Megibow and everyone at KT Literary and Nelson Literary Agency.

To my Washington, DC, writer friends: I love that you always believe in me: Jessica Spotswood, Robin Talley, Lindsay Smith, and Caroline Richmond. I want to give One More Page Books of Arlington, Virginia, a shout-out—thanks for all your support over the years!

I couldn’t do anything without the support and love of my husband, Don.

Finally, I would be nowhere without my amazing readers! I love receiving your emails, Tweets, and messages on Facebook, Instagram, Wattpad, and Goodreads. You rock!

For years, readers have been asking me to write a sequel to
Catching Jordan
. My answer is always the same: to write a sequel, I’d have to create some drama, and I don’t want to create any trouble for Jordan and Sam Henry because they are happy now!

Over the years, I’ve tried to sprinkle bits and pieces of their lives into my other books rather than write a full-length book. While I’ve given hints about what they’re up to, I wanted to leave how Jordan and Henry’s lives unfolded mostly open to the reader’s imagination. Besides, Jordan and Henry always find a way to shoehorn themselves into my books—because that’s what they do.

Then I wrote
Defending Taylor
, and they never appeared! I felt bad about that, so I decided to write you guys a special bonus story about Jordan and Henry.

Hope you enjoy. Thank you again for all your support.

Best,

Miranda

TOUCHDOWN

MIRANDA KENNEALLY

Jordan Now

Henry wakes me up by kissing my neck.

My eyes blink open to the sun pouring in between the curtains.

It’s been raining, sleeting, and snowing for a month straight. But not today. It’s the first sunny day in forever, which means Henry and I can finally go outside and toss around a football.

But not until he finishes waking me up. He crawls on top of me, pressing his warm body to mine. This is a total surprise, and I’m loving it.

Of the two of us, I’m always awake first, usually to go for a run before work. Henry has never been a morning person, and I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten a job where he can work nights and sleep all day like a vampire.

As he nibbles on my neck, a thought comes to mind.

“Are you part vampire?” I ask.

He drops his face into the crook of my neck, laughing. “Can’t we just do it for once without having some strange conversation?”

I stroke my fingertips over his back and lift his T-shirt off over his head. “Who said you’re getting any?”

“Me. I’m one of those vampires who can control other people’s minds.” He playfully pins me down by my wrists and touches his forehead to mine. “In fact, I’m using mind control on you right now. Do me, Woods. Do me.”

Wow, vampires give good wake-up calls.

• • •

Jordan Now

Other reasons why today is a great day?

We have no plans.

Normally on Saturdays, Henry has to go watch college games or visit schools. As a scout for the Titans, he spends a lot of time driving around Tennessee and neighboring states to talk to college coaches. It’s a perfect job for him. He loves talking to people. He loves stats. And most of all, he loves football.

I’m usually busy on Saturdays too, coaching the Hundred Oaks football team, but the boys are only lifting weights right now. We won’t start spring practices until March.

Henry and I sit together at the kitchen table to eat breakfast. He reads the sports sections of the
Tennessean
and the Atlanta Journal as he eats two bowls of cereal. He keeps clanging his spoon against the side of the bowl. It’s distracting as I’m trying to write in my poetry journal.

“Would you stop that?” I ask, setting my pen down so I can pinch his thigh playfully.

His purposely drops his spoon into the bowl, making an even louder clanging noise. I shake my head at him with a small smile. We’re one of those couples who sit on the same side of the table. He leans over and kisses me deeply, Cheerio breath and all.

“What do you want to do today?” I ask.

“I need to run over to my parents’ place for a bit. Mom wants me to fix her ceiling fan.”

“Exciting.”

We smile at each other. Yeah, fixing a fan is pretty boring, but we both love our lives. We’ve been living together for almost two years now.

“
Living in sin
,” our mothers say, while our dads grunt and pretend not to hear, even though they don’t approve of us living together either. Even so, our families are very close-knit. His parents treat me like a daughter, and my dad loves watching games on TV with Henry. Mom yells at him to get his feet off the coffee table just like with my brother.

I’m ready to take the next step in our relationship. I
might
have asked him to marry me a couple of times, but he’s a traditionalist.

Whenever I’ve mentioned it, he says, “Would you hold your horses?” and kisses the daylights out of me.

I’m pretty sure Henry’s saving up to buy me a ring, which I don’t need, but it’s a source of pride for him. I won’t question that.

I can wait however long he needs, because he’s all I want.

And to think, I almost lost him forever.

• • •

Jordan Then

We went to separate colleges, four hours apart from each other. Me to Purdue, him to Michigan. In the off-season, we saw each other a lot more than when we were playing football, but it was never enough. In high school, we were together all the time. I rarely went a day without seeing him, touching him in some way.

By the time our junior year of college rolled around, we saw each other less and less. One time we went two whole months only seeing each other over Skype. I missed him, but also felt disconnected from his life. What did he talk about over lunch with his friends? He told me he never missed Tuesday night karaoke at the student sports bar, but I never could go with him. I wanted to see why he loved it so much. Maybe sing a duet.

And I noticed that a particular girl’s name kept coming up in our conversations. Zoe.

Zoe, Zoe, Zoe.

Finally one weekend, I decided to surprise Henry. I had big plans that we’d lock ourselves in his room for two days straight while I’d kiss him everywhere.

But when I got Michigan, he was in his dorm room with Zoe. The door was wide open, and they were sitting on his bed together.

“Henry,” I said, startling him. His mouth fell open. He jumped to his feet, surrounded me in a huge hug, and kissed my lips and cheeks and my lips again. Once he kissed me thoroughly, he introduced me to Zoe.

They hadn’t been fooling around or anything, but it stunned me seeing him with another girl.

I could tell she wanted him: she had been laughing really loud when I first arrived. When he politely asked her to leave, so we could catch up, she slammed her books in her tote bag and went ahead and slammed the door too.

“Who is she?” I asked as I flopped down on his bed.

“We’re in the same psychology class,” he explained.

I trusted him, so I left it at that and proceeded with my plan to kiss him all over.

One night about a week later, after I’d gone back to school, Henry called me. We rarely did that. We either talked on video chat or texted.

“Jordan,” he said in a thick, strange voice.

“What?” I could tell he was choked up. “What’s wrong? Is somebody hurt?” For a second I worried one of his parents had been in a car wreck, or something had happened to his little sisters, who he loved more than anything.

“Zoe kissed me,” he blurted.

I tried to sit down on my bed but missed and fell to the floor. “And?”

“I stopped her.”

“Good.”
Now tell her to get lost
, I thought, along with some other choice words that girls should never call other girls.

“But I didn’t want to stop her,” he whispers.

My heart died right then. “
What?
”

He sniffled. “I’m sorry.”

I had a million thoughts in my head and couldn’t process them while he was crying. “I need to go.”

“Woods, wait!”

But I’d already hung up and curled into a ball.

• • •

Henry Now

At my parents’ house, I find my sister Maya sitting on the couch holding her guitar. But she’s not playing it. She’s making out with her boyfriend. Only these two would kiss with a guitar wedged between them like a third wheel.

Part of me wants to yell “Boo!” but instead I glare down at Jesse and clear my throat. He lurches away from her. Jesse’s pretty tall—about six feet, but I’m six-four and have a hundred pounds on him—all muscle. The blood rushes out of his face, turning it snow white with a sea of freckles.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“You’re interrupting us. That’s what’s going on,” Maya snaps, brushing her hair out of her face.

Jesse smirks at her brashness.

“Does Dad know what you’re up to?” I ask.

Maya shrugs. “He’s in the garage. And you’d better not tell on us or I’ll let Mom know that you and Jordan were the ones who broke her picture frame.”

“Shit,” I say.

My sister is evil. But she learned from the best:
me
.

Still, I can’t let her tell Mom that Jordan and I were horsing around in the living room, wrestling, when we accidentally broke the pearl picture frame her grandmother gave her as a little girl.

“I glued it back together,” I protest.

“It’s still broken,” Maya says in a singsong voice and scooches closer to Jesse. “Sooner or later Mom’s gonna notice that a pearl is missing.”

One of them rolled across the floor and disappeared. Jordan and I searched everywhere for it, including the abyss that is under the couch. I’m convinced a dust bunny ate it.

In response to Maya totally one-upping me, Jesse wraps an arm around her waist and settles in for the long haul. I wish I had lasers for eyes so I could set him on fire. With my eyes. That’s a big brother’s job.

“Why are you here?” Maya complains, leaning into her boyfriend. She clearly wants to get back to it. So I sit down in the recliner across from them and make myself comfortable. She rolls her eyes.

“Somebody has to keep an eye on you,” I say.

“We could always go to Jesse’s place. He lives by himself and we’d be. All. Alone.” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“Fine, fine,” I say, getting to my feet. I didn’t come over here to torture my little sister anyway. I came to see my mom. The ceiling fan excuse was a total lie. As if anyone would ask me to fix a ceiling fan. I can barely make toast for myself.

I find Mom in her room sitting in bed against a pile of pillows. She loves spending Saturday afternoons with the crossword puzzle and a cup of coffee.

“Hey, baby,” she says, and I dutifully kiss her cheek. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to pick it up.”

Mom squeals, jumps up—knocking her crossword to the floor—and hugs me, swaying us back and forth.

“Mom,” I whine. “I didn’t want to make a big deal about this.”

“I’m not.”

“I know
you’re
not. But the rest of the family will—”

As I’m saying this, my two little sisters, my sister’s boyfriend, and my father all come rushing into the room to find out why Mom’s squealed, and once Mom explains, my sisters tackle me in a hug.

• • •

Jordan Then

I hung up on Henry.

I’ve never done that before. Then again, he’d never kissed someone else since we’d started dating.

Another girl kissed my boyfriend.

Or
my boyfriend kissed another girl
?

Another girl kissed my boyfriend
, I decided. It wasn’t his fault. Henry stopped it. He was honest about it.

But. He. Was.
Mine.

Later that night, after I’d had time to cry and sort out my thoughts, I called him back.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” I choked out, on the verge of another round of tears.

“But it’s so hard. I miss you every day. I just want to be with you.”

“Me too. But we play football for different teams.”

I loved my school. I loved my football team. I didn’t get all that much playing time as quarterback, but I did occasionally, and I loved the opportunity. Henry was an awesome wide receiver and got plenty of playing time for Michigan. I was proud of him, but deep down I resented that the only difference between us as football players was that he was a boy and I was a girl.

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I love you, but I’m frustrated.”

I couldn’t tell if he meant sexually frustrated or emotionally frustrated. There’s a big difference. I hoped he meant emotionally. Sure, I wanted him physically, but even more than that, I missed falling asleep in his arms and watching TV curled up on the couch with him.

“I’m frustrated too,” I said. “We’ll get to see each other more at the end of the season.”

“We still have one more goddamned year of this,” he complained. “And then who knows where we’ll be. I wish you were here.”

“I go to school
here
.”

“And I have to play football here.”

Yeah, Henry got more playing time than I did, and he relied on his athletic scholarship while my parents had plenty of money, but I wasn’t about to give up football and transfer schools for him. For any guy. And on some level, that’s what I felt like he was asking me to do. He’d never come straight out and say that, but I knew he wanted me to be with him. Whatever it took.

Plus, while I was sure Zoe had kissed
him
, Henry put himself in a situation where it could happen. I thought of the number of guys at college who’d talked to me over the past three years. Any time they showed interest, I gave them a tight smile and vamoosed into the sunset.

Henry was hanging out with this girl in his room. She’d obviously felt comfortable enough to kiss him. He clearly had reservations about continuing our long-distance relationship that increasingly felt like a house built on sand. We loved each other, but not enough to make it work? Did that mean we weren’t meant to be?

“Henry,” I said. “Maybe we need some time apart.”

• • •

Henry Then

I never should’ve agreed to take time off from Jordan.

That’s what she wanted. She said she needed some space to see if we were really “meant to be.”

I should have climbed in my truck and driven through the night to be with her because I already knew we were meant to be.

Instead I hung up the phone, feeling relieved because I wasn’t carrying the weight of Zoe’s kiss.

The relief lasted two seconds.

Part of me wanted the out: I felt lonely and frustrated and was sick of sleeping alone at night. Jordan was so far away and cute girls were around all the time in classes and the dining hall. I missed being part of a couple.

But I loved Jordan. I wanted to be with her.

I called her back. She didn’t pick up.

I emailed, texted, mailed a card. She didn’t respond.

I tried to video chat her. She blocked me.

When she said we needed time apart, Jordan said, “I’ve only had one other boyfriend. I’ve been with you for four years. I need to know that we are right for each other. I need some time to get to know myself.”

I already knew myself. I’d known myself for years. I was the guy who loved Jordan Woods. And now she was dumping me.

For good reason
, I reminded myself. I let someone else kiss me. I don’t know why I did, other than I felt trapped. But I felt even more trapped without Jordan.

If Jordan needed time to make sure I was the one, I could give her that.