The Wrong Quarterback (The Wrong Player #1)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

CASEY

Gray and I will be there in ten.

M aria was telling me something about a girl at school, but I was having trouble focusing on what she was saying because of the text my brother, Ben, had just sent me.

Gray Andrews. The object of every daydream I’d had since the moment he’d come through our front door four years ago. Ben’s best friend. Assistant captain of the school’s basketball team last year. Two years older than me.

Completely out of my league.

I self-consciously ran my fingers through my hair, wishing I was wearing something cuter than cut-off jean shorts and an old t-shirt.

“Did you hear what I just said?” Maria huffed as we stepped out of the theater, the warm evening air a welcome contrast to the chilliness inside. I really needed to remember to bring a sweatshirt—or better yet, a blanket—next time. The sidewalk outside the movies was crowded with people milling around, talking and laughing. I recognized a few people from class. Maria immediately started waving at them, but I ducked my head and stood there awkwardly, hugging my phone to my chest, waiting for Ben and Gray to show up.

While my brother had been the most popular guy in his grade…I was the exact opposite. A quiet nerd who preferred to stay in the shadows and who played the piano for fun.

Just another reason that Gray was always going to be nothing but a daydream to me.

“OMG, Caleb’s over there,” Maria hissed, hitting me in the arm to get my attention. “Hi, Caleb!” she yelled in a weird, high-pitched voice.

Grumbling as I rubbed the sore spot, I kept my eyes on the road next to the theater, not particularly caring if Caleb was here or not. He may have been one of the cool kids in our grade, but he was nothing compared to Gray.

I was saved from Maria pushing me into an awkward conversation by the familiar headlights of Ben’s Jeep pulling up to the curb. He was sitting in the passenger seat, which means he’d been drinking at the party they’d been at. And he looked pissed.

Ben was my favorite person in the whole world, but he was so annoying to deal with when he was mad.

I scowled, my stomach twisting; it wasn’t like I wanted to call him, but Mama was stuck at work late, and there was no other option.

This was going to be fun. Gray was probably pissed too—and that only made it worse.

I swung open the back door of the Jeep, and Ben didn’t even wait for me to get in before he started.

“Seriously, Casey?” His voice came out sharp, cutting through the air. “You couldn’t get a ride from anyone else? You had to call me?”

I waved goodbye to Maria, who immediately joined another group of girls, and slid into the backseat with a sigh. “You know Mama’s working late…and I don’t know anyone else here well enough to ask them for a ride. You were literally my only option.”

Ben groaned as I slammed the door and buckled my seatbelt. “What are you going to do next year when I’m gone?”

I frowned, not wanting to think about that. Ben and Gray would both be going to the University of Tennessee in the fall, and I didn’t like the idea of being in a silent house with nobody but Mama for company. Ben might be annoyed with me right now, but he was my best friend—somehow not minding all the things that made me weird and drove Mama crazy.

Gray glanced at me in the rearview mirror, his lips twitching into a small grin. “Hey, Case,” he said, his voice casual, as if Ben wasn’t pitching a fit in the seat next to him. His blond hair caught the last of the evening light, turning the strands almost golden, like the sun had dipped down just to brush against him. It always seemed effortless with him—his hair, his smile, the way he moved through life without a care.

I managed a small wave, trying to ignore the way my heart fluttered at the sound of his voice. “Hey.”

Ben wasn’t done yet, though. “I had to leave the best party of the summer because you didn’t plan ahead. Again. Whitney was all over me.”

I grimaced at that. Whitney was gross, and it was in Ben’s best interest to stay far, far away from her. He wasn’t wrong though about the other part. Ben was constantly needing to save me. I was so socially awkward that I felt weird asking people for rides. “I’m sorry,” I muttered.

“Yeah, sure,” he grumbled, crossing his arms and leaning back in his seat. But his voice had lost its edge. He never could stay mad at me for long.

“She probably saved you from being a baby daddy at eighteen, though, bro,” Gray commented, shooting me another quick look in the rearview mirror and giving me a wink, mouthing, “Grump” before he pulled the Jeep away from the curb when Ben scoffed at what he’d said.

And just like that, the butterflies were back.

Winking should be illegal. Or maybe just for him. I was quite sure that a wink from any other guy wouldn’t have quite the same effect on me. I could feel my face heat up as I shifted uncomfortably in the backseat, hoping neither of them noticed that my face resembled a tomato at the moment.

Gray turned up the music, tapping his fingers against the wheel, and I let myself relax into the familiar comfort I always felt when it was just the three of us. When I was with people at school, I was always on my toes, trying not to do anything that would push me further down the social pyramid, but with Ben and Gray, I didn’t need to pretend so much. They already knew I was a dork and still tolerated my presence.

For a while, the drive was smooth, and the night was quiet outside the car. I could almost forget how annoyed Ben was. Almost.

“Maybe we can just go back,” Ben muttered from the front seat, turning to look at me. “You wouldn’t completely hate that, right?”

Before I could answer, headlights flooded the road in front of us, blinding, too close. “Fuck!” Gray cursed, jerking the steering wheel hard to the left. The tires screamed, and the Jeep veered off the road. I felt the drop in my stomach as we flew down the embankment, the trees rushing toward us in a blur.

“Hold on!” Gray shouted, his voice panicked.

The impact hit like a punch to the gut. The front of the car crumpled against a tree; the sound of metal crunching so loud it drowned out everything else. My head snapped forward, and pain exploded behind my eyes. The airbags slammed into Ben and Gray, but in the back, all I felt was the glass shattering against my skin.

Everything slowed. The world became a blur of noise, of pain. My head throbbed, and my right hand…I looked down at it, how blood was dripping onto my legs from a deep cut…was that my bone I could see? The metallic smell of the gash filled my nose, and I blinked, trying to get my bearings.

“Casey!” Gray’s voice cut through the haze. I blinked again, focusing on him as he twisted in his seat, panic etched into every line of his face. “Are you okay?”

I tried to nod, but my head swam. “I…I think so,” I whispered, the words slurred, like my mouth wasn’t working right.

Gray’s eyes flicked from me to Ben, and suddenly everything shifted. His expression changed, terror flashing in his eyes. He leaned over, shaking Ben’s shoulder. “Ben! Ben, man, wake up!”

Ben didn’t move.

Gray’s voice broke, his hands trembling as he shook him harder. “Come on, Ben! Wake up!”

I couldn’t breathe. My body felt heavy, and I tried to call out to them, but the world was spinning too fast. I watched Gray, his face desperate, his voice fading as everything around me blurred into darkness.

When I was five years old, I’d fallen into the lake behind our house. I remember sinking below the murky depths and a sense of calmness washing over my skin. The water was warm, and it felt like it was almost calling for me. For a second, I hadn’t even tried to get back to the surface. I’d just stared out at the darkness.

It was only when my oxygen had totally disappeared that I’d begun to struggle, kicking my legs violently as I tried to get to the surface.

Ben had been the one to save me and pull me out of the lake before I could drown.

Waking up felt like trying to swim through that thick, dark water again. Everything was heavy, pulling me down, my body refusing to cooperate. I blinked, but my eyes wouldn’t focus. The light was too bright, stabbing through my head like a knife. The steady beeping of machines filled the air, but it all felt distant, like I was hearing it from underwater.

I tried to move, but even the smallest shift sent pain shooting through me. My hand…my head…everything hurt. I forced my eyes open, slowly, the world coming into focus in pieces. A white ceiling. Harsh fluorescent lights.

Where was I?

Something bumped my leg, and my gaze darted down to a figure slumped over me on the bed. Mama. Her eyes were closed, but her lips were moving, like she was talking in her sleep.

Only, I couldn’t hear her clearly because sound was still coming in all garbled and messed up. I blinked a few more times, and more details came into focus in the room. The hospital. That’s where I was. There was an IV pump next to me, and my left hand was bandaged.

I stared at Mama again. She looked pale, like she hadn’t slept in days, her hair tangled, dark circles smudged under her eyes. Her hands were clutched to her chest, so tight her knuckles were white.

And I could finally understand what she was saying. “Ben.” Over and over again she was saying my brother’s name.

I glanced around the room again, looking for him. Was he in the hospital, too?

I tried to speak, to call out to her, but my throat felt raw, like sandpaper had scraped it clean. The word wouldn’t come, caught somewhere between the pain and the fog in my head. I swallowed, forcing it out, a weak croak.

“M—Mama.”

It took a minute, but the sound of my voice eventually cut through her sleep. She opened her bloodshot eyes, and the second she saw I was awake, her face crumpled. A sob broke from her lips, and she leaned forward, grabbing my hand. Tears streamed down her face as she clung to me, her whole body shaking with the force of it.

“Casey,” she gasped, her voice barely holding together. “Oh, Casey…”

I blinked, still groggy, my mind fuzzy, trying to piece together why she was so upset. Was my hand really that messed up? How long had I been here?

And then it hit me. The car and the headlights and the crash…Gray shouting…and Ben…

Ben.

My heart twisted, and I lurched up, my arm yanking at the IV and sending sharp pain shooting down my arm as the IV stand clattered against the floor and blood ran down my arm, staining the white sheets I was laying on.

A beeping sound that was more of a wail filled the air as the machines all seemed to go off at once.

“Mama…where’s Ben?” I asked, my voice shaky, slurred with confusion. “Is he…is he okay?”

Her sobs got louder, her whole body trembling. She looked at me, her lip quivering, and the silence that stretched between us felt like a million lifetimes. My throat tightened as dread curled in my stomach.

She couldn’t say it.

But she didn’t have to.

The words came out broken, barely a whisper. “He’s gone, Casey. Ben’s gone.”

The world shattered.

And I knew I’d never be the same again.

The back door screeched as it swung shut behind me, the metal grinding in that familiar, sharp way that made me wince when it went too long without some oil. It didn’t usually sound like that. Ben had been the one to oil the hinges after Daddy died, making sure the house didn’t fall apart on us girls. But now…it had been a week since we’d put Ben in the ground, and it was already screeching.

I stepped out onto the porch, the warm southern night wrapping around me like a heavy blanket, thick with humidity. The air smelled of magnolia and honeysuckle, the same way it always did this time of year, but it felt different now. Everything did.

Crickets chirped, a soft hum rising and falling in the stillness. A light breeze stirred the trees, rustling the leaves, but even that felt wrong. The night was too alive, too full of sound. 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.

I sat down on the porch steps, my fingers trailing across the weathered wood. I could still see him, clear as day, sitting here with me. Laughing. Telling me I worried too much, making me feel better after some kid made fun of me at school, protecting me when Mama became a little too hard to handle…

The warm air felt stifling, the sound of the crickets suddenly unbearable. It felt like a betrayal—for the world to just keep moving on. The stars still hung in the sky, the wind still whispered through the trees, the door still screeched on its rusty hinges. It was all the same, but so, so different. And Ben wasn’t here to fix it. He wasn’t here to make it all okay.

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 ache of missing him was sharp, and I was sure it was a wound that would never heal. It hit me then what the sound of the screech was—it was the sound of grief. Of losing someone who was supposed to always be there, like a part of the air you breathe, a part of the ground you stand on.

A hitched sob burst from my lips, and I covered my mouth, not wanting Mama to come out and demand I come back inside to talk to the guests she had over for the reception in Ben’s honor.

I jumped from the steps and started across the lawn, running toward the dock that stretched out on the placid, dark lake. The faint sounds of voices drifted from the house behind me, my mother inside, shaking hands, accepting condolences. But I couldn’t be in there anymore. Not with all those people telling me how sorry they were.

Sorry didn’t get me anywhere—it certainly didn’t get Ben back.

Slowing when I got to the weathered wood of the dock, I took my time walking down it until I reached the edge. I sat down with a clunk, my legs dangling over the water, the cool wood rough against my skin. A pebble caught my eye, and I picked it up, turning it over in my hand, the smooth surface somehow grounding me. I tried to throw it, to watch it skip across the water like Ben had shown me a million times, but my hand started to shake, like it had since I’d woken up in that hospital bed. The pebble slipped from my fingers, falling uselessly into the water with a soft plop.

My chest tightened as I stared out at the dark water, a tear slipping down my face. It felt wrong to think about what else I’d lost that night.

The ability to play the piano.

The doctors weren’t sure that the nerves in my hand would ever get better. It felt stupid to cry about that, though. Even if it was something Ben was so proud of me over. He’d always been convinced that I was going to be a big star some day, and he’d see me perform on the stage in front of a huge crowd. Staring down at my hand and the scar that still marred my skin, I tried to clench it, my nails digging into my palm for just a second before I lost control of my fingers and my hand opened up again.

Ben’s absence already felt like a sharp knife in my mind. Maybe it was fitting that I had a physical reminder to remind me of that night as well.

Footsteps sounded behind me, soft and careful. I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Gray. He sat down beside me without saying a word, the dock creaking under his weight. I side-eyed him, noting how he’d undone his tie and how it was hanging loosely down his shirt. He still had a black eye from the airbag going off in his face, a cut that sliced through his right eyebrow, and his shoulders were slumped, the same despair hovering in the air around him that I was sure was a permanent fixture around me now.

We didn’t talk, not at first. The silence stretched out between us, broken only by the gentle lapping of the lake against the shore and those infernal crickets that never stopped.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Gray sighed, his voice low and quiet. “It’s going to be weird going to school without him.”

I swallowed hard, my throat burning with unshed tears.

He shook his head, staring out at the water. “I don’t even know how to do it. We had it all planned, you know? The dorms, the games…everything.”

It was hard to breathe. I could hear the grief in his voice, the way it pulled him down, the same way it was pulling me. Ben wasn’t just my brother—he was Gray’s best friend. And now, he was gone, leaving this gaping hole in both our lives.

A sudden wave of panic washed over me, sharp and unforgiving. My heart started to race, my chest tightening so fast I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt like I was drowning again, like everything was too much, pressing down on me until I couldn’t think straight.

“Casey? You okay?” Gray’s voice broke through the haze, concerned now, as he shifted closer to me.

I shook my head, trying to suck in air, but my throat was too tight, my lungs too constricted. “I…I can’t…” The words wouldn’t come, stuck in my throat as the panic clawed at my chest.

Gray’s hand was on my shoulder, steady and warm, grounding me in the storm. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m here, Casey. Right here.”

“I can’t…breathe,” I gasped, my hands shaking uncontrollably.

Gray’s hand slid down my arm, his touch gentle but firm, like he was trying to pull me back from the edge. “Casey,” he said frantically.

And then he kissed me.

I froze, my mind going blank. His lips were warm, soft against mine, and for a moment, everything around me stopped—the panic, the fear, the overwhelming sense of loss. It was like being jolted out of a nightmare, waking up suddenly to find everything still.

He’d never looked at me like that before, like I was something more than Ben’s little sister. And yet, here he was, kissing me. It shocked me so completely; it snapped me out of the spiral I was in, yanking me back into the present.

Before I could second-guess myself, I kissed him back. My heart pounded, not from the panic anymore but from something else, something raw and unexpected. For the briefest moment, everything felt…right. His hand cupped the side of my face, gentle but sure, and I leaned into the kiss, letting myself get lost in it, in him.

When he finally pulled back, his blue eyes searched mine. I blinked, still shaken, still trying to catch my breath as he pushed up from the dock and stared down at me.

“I’ll wait for you to get older. But in the meantime, you don’t have to worry about being alone, okay? I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

His words hung in the air between us, heavy and strange, and I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t even know what I was feeling anymore. I watched him as he walked away, giving me one last, long look once he’d gotten to the shore.

“I’ll see you, Casey,” he called out, giving me a sad wave before he turned and walked back across the lawn.

As soon as he was out of sight, I turned back to the water, staring at it as I listened to the crickets and I felt the warm breeze, and I heard the sound of the screen door screeching as he went back into the house.

Standing up, I slipped off my black dress, and I dove into the dark, murky depths.

Sinking down, down, down into the silence. I let myself sit there for a moment before I finally kicked back up to the surface.

Knowing there wasn’t anyone around who was going to save me anymore.