Chasing Football Dreams (Diner Girl #2)

Chapter Thirteen

“D id she say what she wanted?”

Duncan invited the team over after the game for a barbeque. Eliza and I took a walk towards the lake, wanting to get away from the noise. It worried me that her mother called her after all these years after they told her she was a mistake.

“She wants to meet for coffee,” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

“You find her timing odd,”

Eliza nodded, focusing her gaze on the stars. “I agreed to meet her but only if you are allowed to come along,”

“She was probably not impressed,”

Eliza shrugged her shoulders. “She has no choice. No, Zoey. No meeting,”

“Are you sure that you want to do this, though?” I don’t trust this.

Eliza shook her head. “But you know how I am with the suspense of not going and not finding out what she wanted,”

“Yeah. You won’t be able to let it go if you don’t find out what she wants,” She was going to pick at it until the wound became fungus.

“You know me way too well,” She dropped her gaze, meeting mine. “But what about you? What are you going to do about your parents snooping around at the orphanage?”

Having them show up there out of the blue shocked me. I was afraid for a moment that they were there because they found out that I am their daughter. I was disappointed when weren’t there for me. At one stage that fear turned into hope. “I don’t what I am going to do when they find out. A part of me wants it to be a natural occurrence while the impatient side of me wants to tell them. It’s me. I’m your daughter. I have been alive for the last sixteen years,”

“Who thought our year could turn out like this? Twelve months ago, we were living day to day, keeping our heads down and wishing upon stars,” She noted. “Here we are underneath the same stars, our lives taking a completely different turn. All this time you had a 6,3ft football player crushing on you and I was being too delusional to see that I opened my legs too easy for everyone,”

“I don’t know how I am going to react if somehow we find out that the orphanage is involved in my kidnapping,” I admitted, staring at the lake.

“We will make sure that no other child goes through what happened to you,”

“How? We are just two girls with wild imaginations?”

She smiled at me. “You are the quarterback for the boys Varsity football team. You have been invited out to your favorite sports channel for an interview. Our imaginations might be wild but it’s only fair since we were forced to believe that the world is too big,”

“We will do what we always do. We will figure it out,”

I watched her strip out of her clothes until she was only standing in her underwear. “Eliza, what are you doing?” I asked, looking around.

“I am going to take a dip in the lake and you are going to join me,”

She walked away before I could form words and watched her dive into the lake. She resurfaced, letting out a scream. “Come on, Zoey! We promised to live our lives to the fullest,”

Ah, dammit. I striped out of my shirt and slipped down my shorts. I inhaled a deep breath before jogging towards the lake and cannonballing into the lake.

Eliza cheered and shrieked as the splash of water hit her as I hit the surface. “It feels good, doesn’t it?” She asked, floating on her back and kicking her feet.

“Yeah, until the boys find us,” I didn’t feel comfortable flashing my teammates.

“You act like we are naked,” She snorted.

I rolled my eyes, falling backward, and drifted on my back taking in the clear skies above us. “Coach Shane thinks I am good enough to be drafted for the NFL,”

“But you are,” She answered.

“The major leagues are different to University,”

“Zoey, stop. I already know where this is going,” Eliza scolded, sinking her legs back into the water.

“For years you doubted yourself and hid away from following your dreams. It took you this long to finally see your worth. It will be the NFL’s biggest loss not to draft you,”

“I wasn’t going to quit. I was just thinking that a year ago I never thought I would get a chance to live out my dream,” I smiled, feeling the butterflies in my stomach. “Today, I am thinking about who the first team I will be rejecting when I get drafted by the Atlanta Falcons,”

She chuckled, throwing her head back and lifting her hand in the air. “That’s my girl!”

I slapped palms with her, chuckling when she talked about meeting celebrities when she would have access to the VIP box. She was already daydreaming about my job while she forgot about her success.

“What are you two doing?” I looked at the lawn, finding Duncan standing with her clothes in his hands.

“Swimming. What does it look like?” Eliza cheekily remarked kicking her feet.

We looked to our side when we heard footsteps thundering across the dock. We screamed when Andrew jumped into the water, followed by the rest. I dived under the water swimming back to shore. Finding Dunca waiting for me with an arched eyebrow and arms crossed in front of his chest as his dark eyes took me in. “Are you going to lecture me?”

He smiled. “No, why would I want to lecture you when you’re having fun?”

I raised my shoulders. “You just looked mad,”

He chuckled, dropping his arms to his side. “I will never be mad at you for having fun with your best friend,” He closed the space and I expected to find him kissing me but instead he fooled me and threw me over his shoulder.

I laughed when he jogged into the water and fell in, taking us both under. I resurfaced with Duncan finding his way towards me, snaking his arms around me and pulling me into him.

“I absolutely love your house. It’s got a lake. A perfect view. A porch where you can hold parties with your friends,” I watched our friends splashing each other over his shoulder and a smile tugged my lips.

“Then move in with me,” His offer made me freeze up.

I looked at him. I don’t know if I was ready for such a big step. All my life I have been looking for a place to fit into and spending time here with him. It felt like I found a piece of that serenity. I didn’t want to fear the future but neither did I want something to go wrong and I land flat on my ass.

“It’s too sudden,” Duncan noted when I didn’t immediately answer.

I pulled slightly back to stare him in the eyes. “No, I love living here with you. You’ve given me something that I’ve never had. You’ve given me a home. A place where I can be at comfort. I’ve been fighting for survival from four years old and you giving me the keys to a place where I can be all of that,” I kissed him showing how much I adored him, and rested my forehead against his.

“I would love to move in with you but I still want options,”

Duncan nodded his head at me.

I wasn’t planning on running away or leaving. I just want something to fall back on if life happens. I don’t want to believe it will. I love Duncan with all my heart and I know I would like to spend the rest of my life with him. There is no doubt in my mind.

“You know you don’t have to explain anything to me, Zoey. I get you more than you know. You can stay here for as long as you want. You can have your backup plan but I will do my utter best that you will never need it,”

“I know you will,” I kissed him again and screamed when we got tackled by the team.

Duncan got dunked while I was fighting for my life. We spent the next few minutes swimming around making jokes and laughing at the silliest things.

Duncan headed to the house to get some towels for me and Eliza. He even brought me one of his shirts, shielding me when I got out of the water. He wrapped the towel tightly around me, catching my arms next to my sides, and kissed me.

“I have to tell you something,” I muttered against his lips.

He looked at me trying to figure out what was going on in my head. “You can tell me anything,”

“Uhm, ESPN wants to do an interview with me,”

“Zoey, that’s amazing,” He sounded truly happy for me.

“Yeah, uhm. I told them that I wouldn’t do it without my team,” I looked into his eyes, seeing that conflict there.

“They want to do an interview with you,”

I shrugged. “I know but if you think about it. I couldn’t have done this season without my team. I got this position because of you and the team members believing in me. Every one of you deserves as much praise as I do,”

“You let a girl on the team. That was a big risk but yet, you accepted the consequences,”

He cupped my cheek in his palm. “I saw skill. I didn’t care about your gender,”

“You are a good man, Duncan Jones,” I stepped onto my toes and found his lips for the hundredth time. “And I love you for it,”