The Wrong Quarterback (The Wrong Player, #1)

by C.R. Jane

How could life continue on when Ben wasn’t here? The world hadn’t stopped like mine had. It just kept moving, indifferent to the gaping hole his absence had left.

Grief is like that, I guess. You think the world should stop, should fall apart with you, but it doesn’t. It keeps going. And you’re left standing in the middle of it, feeling hollow, watching everything move on like the person you loved wasn’t the very center of it all.

The Davis family had a curse. Or at least they liked to think that they did. Our male family members tended to be one look and that’s all kind of people. When they found “the one,” that was it. I hadn’t believed that it was true—it couldn’t be true. Holy shit.

I’d always been a pro at patience in my life. Knowing that if I worked hard, eventually I would get what I wanted. It had worked for football, and I’d make sure it worked with Casey as well. And I was quite sure that the payoff for this particular patience would be the most rewarding thing I’d earned in my life thus far.

Every little thing about her was under my skin, from that shy smile to the way her eyes told me everything she was feeling. Fuck. I couldn’t think of anything else that mattered anymore. Everything I did was a means to an end to make her happy, to help build this thing I wanted more than anything else. Every step I took was light, charged, like I had a live wire running through me. I wanted to text her already, just to keep some connection going, as if being with her for hours today wasn’t enough.

This had been my second trial. Fuck.

knew it

I gently grabbed her chin and made her look at me. “Don’t go alone. I’m never too busy for you. You don’t get this yet, but you’re my number one priority. There’s nothing more important than making you happy. Nothing.”

“So when you, a person who literally outshines everything and everyone, tries to tell me that you see me, or that I’m important…or any of the other crazy things that keep coming out of your mouth…it’s hard for me to believe. The sun was never meant to be with the stars.” I snorted then, and she looked at me, shocked. “The sun is a star, baby. Not to cut you off. A bunch of those stars are in fact brighter than the sun…they’re just farther away. We’re both stars, Casey.”

I was also becoming more and more convinced that…I liked this. I actually liked this twisted game of control. To see the depths he’d go to keep me.

I opened my mouth to argue, until I realized I had that confusing, warm feeling inside me again. The idea that he was so obsessed with me that he wanted to watch me when he was out of the house was…hot. Psycho, but hot. Fuck. I needed a therapist.

“This win…” He paused, almost like he was gathering the right words. “It’s for someone special. My soulmate’s brother, Ben Larsen. A man I never got to meet, but wish I had. I respect him immensely, and I know he’s watching out for her and us, wherever he is.”