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PROLOGUE
Zane
Twelve years ago
“Think fast!” The football flies at my face, but I catch it before it bounces off my nose.
I level my gaze on my youngest brother Hendrix, who recently turned eighteen. “Don’t do that.”
His blue eyes sparkle, and a grin splits his cheeks. “Or what?”
“I’d hate to have to kick your ass on Thanksgiving day right here in front of those girls.”
A pair of teenage girls have stopped walking to watch us, and he gives them a wink and a wave. “Happy Thanksgiving, ladies!”
The girls laugh and wave, and I suspect they know him from school, where he’s both a senior and the starting running back on the football team. To be fair, everyone knows my brothers and me in this small town, and any time we start playing, people stop to watch.
“Don’t taunt the kicker, dumbass.” My other youngerbrother Garrett grabs him around the shoulders, attempting a headlock. “What makes you think they’re looking at you? You’re so ugly, the doctor slapped the wrong end.”
Hendrix does a quick twist, escaping our oversized brother’s grip. “Get off me, Sasquatch. You’re so ugly, the cat ran away.”
“The cat did run away.”
“That’s why!”
“Lame.” Garrett shakes his head as Dylan, our baby sister jumps onto his back, which is quite a feat, considering she’s an entire foot shorter than he is.
“I’m on Grizz’s team!” she calls out, riding piggy-back out to the waterfront park a few blocks from our house.
It’s the first time we’ve all been together for the holiday in a few years. Our oldest brother Jack is in Texas now, making a name for himself as the starting quarterback for the Mustangs. Garrett is building his reputation in Tuscaloosa, and I’m headed to Baltimore as the starting kicker.
It might also be the last time we’re together for a while, since Hendrix got an offer from the University of Southern California and Dylan has auditioned for the American Ballet Company in New York. We’re all just waiting for that acceptance letter in the mail.
Our parents would be proud, and thinking of them looking down on us makes me nostalgic for the days when they’d be here watching us, Mom playfully scolding and laughing.
We lost them almost four years ago, and I always feel it during the big holidays.
“Hendrix, go long!” Jack shouts.
He takes off like a gazelle, and Garrett stands beside me, watching with Dylan on his back.
“He runs the way you dance.” I glance at our baby sister.
Her dark hair is in a high ponytail and her amber eyes sparkle with happiness. She’s always happy when we’re all together. Losing our parents hit us hard, but I know Dylan lost the most when we buried our mom.
Dylan was Mom’s favorite, but ultimately, we all spoiled our only sister. After four failed attempts, Mom finally got her wish of having a little girl, but with Hendrix only eighteen months old, she was pretty overwhelmed.
She handed Dylan to me in the hospital, and it was all hands on deck.
I’d never seen a baby with such big, dark eyes. She was so little, and her expression was so serious. I didn’t know what to do. Mom told me to read to her, and as time passed, it became our thing.
Dylan would sit on my lap and listen so intently. We started with a book about pooping, because Mom said it would help her learn to go potty, then we graduated to books about dancing mice.
When she was four, Dylan announced she was going to be a ballerina just like Angelina, and she started ballet. She was quiet like me, but she worked long and hard to make her dream a reality—just like Jack and Garrett and Hendrix.
I wasn’t like them. I didn’t sleep with my head on a football as my pillow. I didn’t watch every single game all weekend long. I liked the game, but I liked other things, too.
Still, when Dad told me to be a kicker, I said okay. Looking back, I realize Mom probably played a hand in that directive.
