One Night with a Quarterback by Jeanette Murray Page A

self-satisfied grin. As she pocketed them, she realized she’d been given a key to the pool house and a storage shed . . . but not the main house.
    Come knock on the door.
    She’d been wrong. The last barrier to a relationship with her father wasn’t the frilly iron gate out front.
    It was Tabitha.
    â€œMrs. Jordan?”
    Cassie shrieked a little at the disembodied voice overtaking the pool house. She spun around, but nobody was there.
    Tabitha smiled slightly and walked to an intercom by the front door. “The pool house is also wired to our in-house system. That’s our housekeeper, Rose.” She pressed a button and said, “Yes, Rose?”
    â€œMrs. Jordan, you have a phone call from the Eyes on Family Society.”
    â€œOh, all right, I’ll be there momentarily. Please ask them to hold.” She took her finger off the button and turned. “I’m sorry, but I really have to get that.”
    â€œOf course. Thanks for showing me around and . . . stuff,” she finished lamely.
God, this was awkward
. She stood, waiting for Tabitha to walk out. But the woman just stared at her a moment, then took a step forward and wrapped her arms around Cassie in a stiff hug. Not one of those soothing motherly hugs you wanted to sink into and stay in for the comfort. But more like the hug of someone who didn’t want to get too close. Cassie stood there, frozen to the floor, as Tabitha pulled back and put on a smile that looked like it hurt.
    â€œWelcome.” And with that one word, Tabitha gracefully floated out the front door, closing it softly behind her.
    * * *
    Trey knocked briefly on the back door to Stephen’s house, then tried the doorknob. It was unlocked, as usual—the dumbass—but he’d expected that. As often as he’d warned his friend to lock his damn doors, the ability to get in without breaking a window was a blessing.
    After stopping off in the kitchen for two bottles of water—and a sigh of disgust at the amount of liquor and beer in the fridge—he wandered the house until he found Stephen snoring loud enough to wake the dead in his bed. Still fully dressed, his face pressed into the pillow so hard it was a wonder he could breathe, Stephen had one knee under his stomach. Taking aim, Trey launched a rocket that hit his target.
    The rocket being the water bottle. The target being Stephen’s up-ended ass.
    â€œFuck me!” Stephen rolled hard enough to fall out of bed, landing with a thump. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then glanced around warily until his bloodshot eyes landed on Trey. “Jesus, never mind. Don’t fuck me. Just get out.”
    â€œHead hurt?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œGood.” Trey picked up the water bottle, uncapped it and handed it to his friend. After a few swallows, the chalky white pallor started to fade on Stephen’s face. “You deserved that.”
    â€œMaybe. What for?”
    Trey closed his eyes for a moment, then slid down the wall by the bed until he was sitting next to his hung over friend. “What for . . .” he muttered. “You made an ass out of yourself. Again. You can’t keep doing this shit, and you know it. What’s the matter with you?”
    Stephen took another sip of water before handing the bottle back to be capped. Then he scrubbed his hands over his face, as if trying to wake himself up more. “Dunno.”
    â€œThat’s a five-year-old’s answer. Try being a big boy.”
    â€œI don’t know,” Stephen said, enunciating each word clearly. “I never mean to do this. I just . . . maybe I suck at anticipating how hard the liquor will hit me.”
    â€œMaybe you should stop drinking the liquor entirely.”
    Stephen shot him a disbelieving look. “That’s a joke, right?”
    The fact that it wasn’t, and his subsequent disappointment in his friend’s answer,