With Every Heartbeat(162)

“I love you so, so much,” I babbled as I bawled, hugging my notebook hard.

He chuckled softly. “I was just going to say that to you.” Tugging me into his lap, he wrapped his large, warm arms around me. “Do you know how happy I am that you came into my life? It feels as if I didn’t really start living until you.”

I shook my head, confused. “But I…”

He kissed me, shutting me up. “I know there’s a lot going against us right now, but I don’t care. As long as you’re at my side, willing to accept me, I’m willing to work through anything.”

Love exploded inside me. “Then so am I.”

His grin lit up his dimple. “That’s all I need to hear. We can handle this, Zoey. You and I.”





I stood in the stands of ESU’s football stadium for Quinn’s divisional championship game and shouted with the rest of the roaring fans as Ten caught a pass from Noel and went in for a touchdown, tying the score up with our opponents.

“We’re going to win, we’re going to win, we’re going to win!” Caroline chanted, nearly squeezing my arm off as she jumped up and down beside me, screaming her excitement as well.

There was still nearly four minutes left in the game. Anything could happen. But yeah, I had a feeling we were going to win.

“Go, Ellamore,” I called. Our voices were flooded out by the other seven thousand fans yelling around us, but we didn’t care. It only made us scream louder.

“Wait? Why is Noel staying on the field?” a confused Aspen said from the other side of Caroline. “Shouldn’t the kicker be coming out for the one-point field goal?”

“Oh, shit,” a tense Mason muttered from behind us. “They’re going for the two-point conversion.”

“Is that bad?” Reese asked, clutching his arm as if she thought it had to be bad.

“Not bad. Just riskier,” Pick answered her, rubbing his hands up and down Eva’s shoulders like some kind of good-luck charm.

I glanced around at our group and just grinned, feeling elated and hopeful. It was nice being here with them. Since moving in with Ten and Quinn and openly dating Quinn, they’d accepted me with no qualms at all, even though they all knew who my sister was and what she’d done. For the first time in my life, I was genuinely liked and welcomed as one of them. I had friends.

Next to me, Asher leaned close and murmured into my ear, “What’s a two-point conversion again?”

I laughed and started to point out the different players and explain it to him, but Noel had already snapped the ball and the play had begun. Forgetting my explanation, I watched as he hand-passed the pigskin to Quinn, and Quinn dove into a pile of defenders. I held my breath, waiting with seven thousand other people to see if he’d crossed the line for the two extra points.

When a referee swiped out his hands, indicating the points were no good, Caroline clutched her face and wailed, “No!”

On the other side of Aspen, her two younger brothers hollered their disappointment just as loudly.

“It’s okay,” I reassured them. “It’s okay. We’re still tied.”

We still had time on the clock to make more points, even if it was time for the other team to take possession of the ball. We could just keep them from scoring and then go into overtime to win.

But we still had three and a half minutes left, so I wasn’t worried. A lot could happen in three and a half minutes.

All the players, except one, stood and trotted off the field to switch teams.

“Someone’s hurt,” Eva announced. “Who’s hurt?”

We could tell it was one of our players by the color of the jersey. I immediately scanned the field for Quinn’s number. When I spotted him next to Ten, I blew out a relieved breath...until a frantic Aspen asked, “Where’s Noel? I don’t see Noel anywhere.”

“He’s the one who’s hurt,” Caroline uttered, suddenly pale.

I grabbed her hand and she squeezed back.

Aspen gasped and immediately covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.”

Reese and Eva rubbed her shoulders supportively from behind while Noel’s brother’s pointed when Noel bent his knee and the coaches helped him sit upright.

“Oh, thank God,” Aspen breathed out.

But I could tell Noel wasn’t completely fine. His legs could work because he stood up and everyone clapped as he hobbled to the sidelines, but he carried his shoulder all wrong.

For the next couple of plays, the ESU defense held the other team back, but not enough to keep them from scoring a field goal, putting us three points behind. All the while, Quinn and Ten—who were strictly offensive players—huddled around Noel, where he sat on a bench and had trainers working all around him.