Songs For Cricket Read online

  songs for

  cricket

  EverAfter Romance

  A division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1004

  New York, New York 10016

  www.EverAfterRomance.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Terri E. Laine

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First EverAfter Romance edition February 2019.

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63576-463-5

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-63576-503-8

  LSIDB/1902

  To my daughters and son—fight for your dreams

  and never give up.

  “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent

  about things that matter.”

  —Anonymous

  songs for

  cricket

  1

  finley

  For as long as I can remember, it’s always been August, Cooper, Shepard, and me. So it was fitting that we all ended up at the same university, in the same small, sleepy town.

  Being the only girl in the group, I was always jockeying for position. I wasn’t surprised when August took off for the door. As de facto leader, he had to be the first person inside, thus able to pick from the choice of rooms in the massive townhouse that would be our home for the next four years.

  Built leaner, I made a run for it and quickly reached the door first only to realize I hadn’t taken my key out. I was roughly shoved aside by my asshat brother. He’d rarely treated me like a fragile girl, which I appreciated.

  “I’ve got this,” August announced, using his extended key to unlock the door.

  I turned around to see my other brother, Cooper, hanging back as usual. He rarely fought, usually letting August and me have at it.

  But it was Shepard whom my eyes landed on. He stood looking amused next to Cooper. All the boys were considered hot if you trusted the female population at our former high school. However, I didn’t share DNA with only one of them.

  Shepard Connelly, aka August’s best friend, had grown taller and broader over this summer. Gorgeous was just one of the words used to describe the dark haired boy that had starred in many fantasies of mine. As if predestined, my focus drifted down to his lips just above his chiseled jawline. When that mouth of his sprouted a wicked grin, I caught myself and shifted my gaze up to find his summer blue eyes trained on me.

  Then his smile twisted into a smirk, and I spun around to hide the growing bonfires in my cheeks. I did it just in time for August to push open the door and make a mad dash for the stairs off to the right.

  Cool air blew out of the house colliding with the Oklahoma heat in the height of summer. But it was the inferno created by Shep’s gaze that needed taming. I took a step inside and shivered from the sudden change in temperature. I came up short when I saw a cute guy sitting in a wheelchair. He sat there on the side of the island in the kitchen about ten feet in front of me looking more comfortable in his skin than I felt.

  Cooper stepped up beside me, and Shepard stopped at my back. Flames like a lit fuse heated my back like a caress over my skin. Shepard hadn’t touched me, but his presence was as familiar as my dreams of him. Oh, how I’d longed for him to close the gap between us and touch me like I’d heard he’d touched girls in our old high school, but it was time to give up that pipe dream.

  “Hi, Finn. It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” I said to the wheelchair bound boy who shared a name similar to mine. “I’m Finley.”

  On instinct, I moved in for a hug and then stopped myself, remembering that not everyone welcomed touch. That was a lesson I’d learned the hard way this past year when I’d met my older brother Ash for the first time. I switched gears to reach out a hand realizing too late, in this situation, it was yet another faux pas, considering Finn’s limitations. But I’d already committed to the action.

  When he slowly lifted a hand to me, I stopped dead not sure who was more surprised. It turned out to be me because he turned his greeting into a polite wave.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you as well,” he said with a disarming dimpled smile.

  My feet came unglued, and I leaned forward to shake his hand. The strength in his grip surprised me. Not because of his disability but he’d been paralyzed from the neck down at the tender age of five due to a car accident. Doctors hadn’t been sure he’d walk again. And there he was waving at us then gripping my hand.

  It shouldn’t have been shocking. His parents had more money than God and had sent him to England to undergo experimental stem-cell treatment to help heal his spinal cord injury. Apparently, it was working. Fifteen years later he was back in the states, not as a student but as a professor. Years of studying had earned him a degree while we were still in high school.

  “So the rooms are there,” he pointed. “Have your pick. I think Sawyer left sticky notes on the doors.”

  Sawyer was his older brother and Ash’s best friend. They’d graduated last year. Due to that chance meeting and negotiations with our parents, we were the next occupants of this townhouse near our university.

  Finn’s family owned the place and now he was like our resident advisor. He was the main reason our parents had agreed to this arrangement rather than us staying in the freshman dorms.

  “All of the rooms are of similar size, one no better than the other.”

  His grin suggested he was amused by August’s exuberance.

  “Thanks,” I said and went for the stairs.

  Shep and Coop stayed behind and introduced themselves.

  I wasn’t surprised to find all the doors at the top open. August clearly had given each room a once-over. I stood there in the middle of the hall and eyed each one, agreeing with Finn. They were pretty much the same. August had just exited one on the left when Shepard made it upstairs and snagged the room on the right.

  “Mine,” Shep announced.

  August’s eyes flashed. “Fine. I’ll take Sawyer’s room.”

  Shep turned and plucked the sticky note from the door that proclaimed which of the four roommates from the previous year occupied that room. “Kelley,” Shep declared.

  From what I’d learned of Kelley and the obstacles he’d overcome, it was probably fate that Shep ended up with that room.

  Cooper walked up, ignoring all of us, and headed directly to the back room on the right. He didn’t glance at the note there, just closed the door behind him.

  We all looked at each other and busted out laughing. It was unlikely we’d see Cooper for the rest of the day unless August coaxed him out.

  “How do we know you didn’t switch these notes around?” I asked my brother.

  The corners of his mouth lifted as did his shoulders. “You don’t.”

  I rolled my eyes and conceded the win to him. “Whatever.”

  What did it matter what room I had? I’d argued in favor of the townhouse until Dad agreed. Then I’d argued to stay in the dorms for at least one semester for some independence and lost.

  “That leaves you,” Shep said, indicating the door across from his.

  I tried not to think about what it could mean to have him
this close without our parents down the hall. I was the daring sort, but I wasn’t sure I had it in me to make a move or tell him how I felt.

  I turned and snagged the sticky note. “Chance.”

  I didn’t know a lot about Chance, but again, fate was matchmaking. I saw this year as my time to take some chances.

  “Don’t argue,” August said.

  I turned my attention back to my brother.

  “I wasn’t going to argue,” I said to the air because August had already shut himself inside his room leaving me alone with Shepard.

  Shep gave me that concerned brotherly look he always did, which made it even more unlikely he’d ever see me as anything more. “I’ll trade if you want.”

  Disappointment fueled the slow turn of my head side to side. “It’s cool. I’m fine here. No biggie.”

  After giving him a final half smile, I walked in my room and shut the door between me and my crush. I leaned my back against it wanting to sag to the floor. My disappointment didn’t stem from being stuck with the last room, but because I wanted Shep to look at me like he did other girls and not a sister. Though, I valued our friendship. We’d spent many nights over the years talking about stuff I wasn’t sure he’d told my brother.

  I glanced down at my nonexistent chest. Besides being his best friend’s sister, I couldn’t have been the object of his desires with my shapeless twig like body. Mom tried to call me slender or even willowy to make me sound pretty. But the truth was, if not for my hair and face, I resembled a boy.

  Shepard’s taste in girls had been limited to those with big boobs, plastic smiles, and wore cheerleading outfits.

  That had never been me. Growing up around boys, my skills in sports had excelled, and I’d played soccer and sometimes basketball.

  When I heard the last door close, I frowned. Why had it taken so long for Shep to go in his room? I shook my head to myself. He probably checked out the bathroom I’d spied at the end of the hall. What other reason would he have had to stand in the hallway alone?

  Not allowing myself to think about it, I pulled out my phone to call my parents and let them know we’d arrived.

  2

  shepard

  There had been a moment I’d let pass, and I was already regretting it. Finley had stood there looking slightly flushed, resembling a pink rose. I narrowed my eyes. Pink rose? What the fuck? That summed it up, didn’t it? Whenever I was around her, I got tongue-tied and memories of stupid poems we studied in English classes swirled in my head.

  Stupidly, I moved moments too late. Good thing August hadn’t been there. He might have figured out the only secret I’d ever hidden from him. I wanted his sister, beneath me, beside me, because I’d claimed her as mine even if it was only in my head.

  I one armed my door closed with my duffle still hanging from my shoulder and braced myself there as if waiting for impact. I set the guitar bag to the other side against the wall. The truth was, we were here without parents and their rules. Though we’d kept most guys away from Finley with threats of lost limbs, school would begin soon, and she would be out of our control.

  There was no way August and I could keep the guys from noticing her. My chance was slipping away. And wasn’t that ironic. She was in Chance’s room as if fated to push me into action.

  My door flew open, and a blur tackled me to the bed. My bag landed on the floor somewhere as I fought off August.

  “Get off me, man,” I said, shoving him to the side.

  He laughed until he was red in the face. I lay there staring first at the ceiling, then out the large windows that faced the street and then out the other two on the side.

  “Can you fucking believe it?” he asked. “We are on our own.”

  I covered my face with my hands and said, “Not exactly. If you hadn’t acted like an asshole, you would have noticed Finn. You know, the guy who owns the place.”

  “Shit!” He sat up. “I was trying to beat Bea.”

  Finley’s legal name was Beatrice Finley Farrow. She was the second born of the triplets. Their father, in a moment of genius according to him, named his firstborn son August after himself and decided to name his second born Beatrice to follow the alphabet and his third Cooper. Their mother hadn’t liked Beatrice and had argued for Finley. She won the battle but lost the war. Finley had become her middle name.

  “You know she doesn’t like it when you call her Bea.”

  He shrugged. “What are big brothers for?”

  I didn’t argue that they were only minutes apart. I couldn’t say anything that would make him suspicious about my intentions toward the only female Farrow sibling.

  “You should go introduce yourself to Finn.”

  “I will, and then we’re going to the cookout at the Omega house.”

  Omega Psi Beta or Theta, I wasn’t sure of its full Greek name, was the only Omega on campus. It was called Omega and was the fraternity most football players joined.

  I closed my eyes. “Dude, we just got here, and practice starts tomorrow.”

  The three-hour-plus ride had been long enough. I just wanted to chill.

  “Exactly, which is why we should party today. We can rest when we’re dead. Sawyer said we could be gods. Now’s our time.”

  August looked up to Sawyer like a god. Apparently, he’d ruled the university the last four years.

  “You just have pussy on the brain.”

  He knocked me on the chest. “Don’t you?”

  I had his sister on the brain and finally getting my mouth on hers.

  He shoved me, and I laughed. “Fine. I do.”

  “So this is our chance to have our pick,” he said.

  “Is Finley going?” The question just popped out.

  His face scrunched up, and he glanced at his hand. “I hope not. My knuckles still haven’t healed from that party last weekend.”

  That was common practice for us, kicking someone’s ass for talking to his sister. But if he hadn’t, I would have hit the guy who’d been staring at Finley’s ass as she danced lost in the music. But looking alone hadn’t been what’d done it. It had been when he wildly pointed at her and mimed pumping his hips that earned him a broken jaw.

  “Yeah, but maybe taking her would be good. We could get the word out early that she’s off-limits,” I suggested.

  Really, I just wanted to be with her.

  August chuckled. “She’ll kill us if she finds out.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I don’t feel like babysitting her today.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  When his eyes narrowed, I wondered if I’d sounded too interested, but his jaw finally relaxed, and he shrugged.

  “Your loss. There are sure to be plenty of babes there.”

  “What about Cooper?”

  I thought about it. “He’s going. He needs to get out. I’m pretty sure he’s still a virgin.”

  Since he brought it up, I seized on the opportunity.

  “Do you think Finley is?”

  He laid back. “If she isn’t, I don’t want to know who the unlucky bastard is. I’d end up with a murder charge.”

  I tried to laugh it off as I held in a grimace. “You can’t expect her to stay that way the rest of her life.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t expect, I know for god damn sure until she marries some asshole, no one better touch her that way.”

  He sat up and got to his feet. “Let’s not talk about that. I’m going to speak to Finn.”

  “And Finley?”

  His stare was cool. “What’s this sudden interest in my sister?”

  Shit, I’d taken it too far.

  I folded my hands behind my head. “Nothing. I didn’t know if you were going to tell her or if you wanted me too.”

  He studied me for a second too long. He was going to call me on my bullshit. I felt sweat form around my collar.

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll tell her on my way
down.”

  I shrugged, and he finally turned and left my room. I closed my eyes. That had been close. Maybe the party was a good idea. That conversation was further confirmation that Finley was and would forever be off-limits. If I could hook up with someone else, it might take my mind off the only girl I’d ever truly wanted.

  Just as I started to unpack my duffle, my phone rang.

  “Shepard,” the soft feminine voice said.

  “Mom,” I answered and sat on the edge of my bed.

  “You made it.”

  I immediately felt guilty about not calling her when I arrived.

  “We just got here not too long ago,” I said.

  She sighed wistfully into the phone. “I’m so proud of you. I always wanted to go to college.”

  Mom grew up dirt poor as the saying goes. She’d been working as a waitress when she met my dad. He’d promised her the world and gave her ashes instead.

  “And you’ll go one day. I promise.”

  Playing football wasn’t my dream job. It paid my tuition. But if the league was the only door open to me at the end of my four years, I’d sign my name in blood to pay my mother back for all she had done for me.

  “You know I love you for that. But this is your life, not mine. I want you to be happy.”

  She’d sacrificed so much for me already. When my dad went to prison, Mom had paid the price. We were forced from the only home I’d ever known. After a year in public schools on the wrong side of town, Mom begged the Farrows to let me move in with them, so I could go to better schools. She didn’t like who I’d become to protect myself.

  “I want you to be happy, too,” I said.

  So quietly I almost didn’t hear her, she said, “I am happy.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed her. We didn’t talk much longer, she had to go to her second job. After we hung up, I glanced around the sparse room and my meager belongings trying to imagine a different life.

  It didn’t take long to unpack my stuff into the chest of drawers nestled between the two front windows.

  We’d all decided to ship the bulk of our belongings, and they would arrive in the next few days. It didn’t matter. I didn’t have much either way. I plopped back on the bed and tried not to think about what Finley would wear to a cookout.