Winning the Right Brother. Abigail Strom

      “On a school night?” Holly said suspiciously as the two of them spread the comforter over the bed. “To do what, exactly?”

      “Oh, the usual teenage stuff. Drink some beer, do some drugs, die in a spectacular car accident they’ll take pictures of for next year’s driver’s ed class—”

      “Just keep talking, kid. Making jokes about your tragic death is definitely the way to talk me into your little excursion. Which you still haven’t explained, by the way.”

      “It’s Coach’s idea. Tomorrow’s the first game of the season, which you probably forgot all about, and he wants me and the other quarterbacks to come by his house for an hour or two to go over the playbook. Make sure we’re all on the same page.”

      Holly sighed. “Homework?”

      “Done.”

      “Transportation?”

      “Coach will pick us up around seven and drop us off no later than nine, like I said.”

      Holly’s heart skipped a beat. “Here? Alex is coming here?”

      “Yes. If it’s all right with the most understanding mom in the whole entire—”

      Holly threw up her hands in surrender. “Fine, yes, you can go. All I ask is that you set the table for dinner and take the lasagna out of the oven in ten minutes.”

      She was rewarded with a huge smile.

      “Deal!” Will said.

      “And don’t forget to take out the trash!” Holly called after him as he headed out the door.

      “No problem!” Will called back over his shoulder. He pounded down the stairs and into the kitchen, singing the Weston Wildcat fight song at the top of his lungs.

      Upstairs it was suddenly quiet. For a minute Holly just stood in the middle of her room, staring at nothing. Then she moved over to the dresser and studied her reflection in the mirror that hung above it.

      She hadn’t seen Alex for years … not since high school, when she’d dated his stepbrother, Brian. Will’s father. Brian the golden boy, with his good grades and good looks and bright future.

      Then there was Alex: a year younger and everything Brian wasn’t. A natural athlete and a star on the football team but wild, rebellious, always in trouble with his teachers and his coaches for mouthing off, breaking rules, flouting authority.

      He’d sported a punk look back then: his hair bleached and spiked, his clothes always black—black jeans, black jacket, black combat boots. He’d played guitar and sung in a garage band, she remembered.

      Where Brian was safety, Alex was danger. Where Brian was predictable, Alex was volatile. In the simple world of high school where there were good girls and bad girls, the former dreamed about Brian and the latter dreamed about Alex.

      Although Holly’s status as a good girl was universally acknowledged, one of her best friends was Brenda, a self-proclaimed bad girl who would talk about Alex by the hour.

      “Holly, he’s sex on wheels. Those arms—that butt—how can you not notice?”

      Holly would blush at Brenda’s graphic language and shrug her shoulders. “Not my type, I guess. And, anyway, I’m dating his—”

      “Stepbrother, yeah, I know. Brian the Boring. I will definitely be your bridesmaid, though—as long as Alex is one of the ushers. So when are you and Brian getting married? After his graduation or yours?”

      Holly came slowly back to the present, smiling ruefully at her reflection in the mirror. Memories of the starry-eyed girl she’d been receded, leaving her looking at the thirty-four-year-old woman she’d become.

      “Mom! Dinner!”

      Holly snapped out of her reverie. “All right, Will! I’ll be there in a minute!”

      Her life had Will in it, and that was what mattered. There was no reason to fear a reminder of the past.

      Still, seeing Alex again would be … strange.

      She thought briefly about changing into something more—something less—something different. But—

      “No,” she said out loud. She wouldn’t go to any trouble for a man who, as a boy, had never made a secret of despising her. Especially since the feeling had been mutual. With a resolute nod at her reflection, Holly left the bedroom and went downstairs.

      Dinner with Will was fun, as meals in their house usually were, whether it included a group of friends or just the two of them. Under the influence of gooey cheese and laughing conversation, Holly felt herself relaxing.

      This was nothing. A quick hello to someone she hadn’t seen in years and would, hopefully, never see again. Thirty seconds and it would all be over.

      This was nothing.

      Right, Alex said to himself. Nothing. That’s why he’d been standing outside the damn door for five minutes like some kind of idiot.

      He turned away for a moment, resting his elbows on the porch railing and looking out at the front yard, where shadows chased moonlight through the trees.

      Why was he making such a big deal out of this? He and Holly had never been friends. If anything, they’d been enemies. She was everything he’d hated in high school: uptight, conventional, all about rules and fitting in. The few times he’d tried to tell her there was more to life than playing it safe, she’d looked at him as if he was crazy.

      Not to mention the fact that she’d dated his moron of a stepbrother all through school. That alone would have been enough to earn his dislike.

      Fifteen years had gone by since then. And now, by some ridiculous twist of fate, he was standing outside Holly’s front door, waiting to pick up her son. Brian’s son.

      Alex revised that in his head. Will wasn’t just Holly’s son or Brian’s son; he was his own person, too. A terrific kid. A rare kid. The kind of kid a coach or teacher would always be grateful for and always remember.

      His face softened as he thought about boys he’d worked with in the past, the boys he was working with now. They were all great kids in their own way. He had faith in all of them, even the ones no one else believed in.

      He’d been a kid like that once.

      Alex shook his head sharply. Enough with the trip down memory lane. Tomorrow night was the first game of the season and Will Stanton was his backup quarterback, not to mention next year’s starter if he fulfilled even a fraction of his promise. And Holly Stanton was just another parent.

      He set his jaw, strode up to the door, and rang the bell.

      “Coach is here,” Will said, pushing back his chair.

      All of Holly’s calm evaporated. She had intended to go to the door with Will, where she would greet Alex with polite indifference. Instead she slipped into the dark living room, her heart beating ridiculously fast, so she could see the front hallway without being seen.

      Before she could get a grip on her poise, Will was opening the door, and in the next second Alex McKenna stepped over the threshold.

      Holly’s breath caught in her throat. Just like in the old days, Alex seemed larger than life—and not just because of his size. His presence had always made everything else around him a little dimmer, a little duller, and fifteen years hadn’t changed that.

      On the surface, though, a lot of things had changed.

      His hair was no longer bleached and spiked, for one thing. It was light brown, and cut fairly short. There was no safety pin in his left ear, no metal studs anywhere at all, and no black clothing. He wore a pair of khaki pants and a forest green button-down shirt.

      The haircut and clothes together would normally come attached to a good boy. The kind you could safely