Defender (Seattle Sharks 9)

“With better equipment.”

“It’s not good enough. Not yet, at least.” I took a deep breath and went for it. “That’s something I’m hoping to help change.”

“You what?” He pivoted to face me.

“I know, it sounds crazy, but Harper is developing a new helmet insert. It will be customizable for players based on how they actually take impacts, and the foam changes colors as impacts are sustained. We’d know if our helmets degenerate way before an expiration.”

“As great as that all sounds, where exactly are you coming in on this?”

“I’m gathering her impact data.” I held my brother’s stare, knowing the storm would be coming in 3...2...1.

“How exactly are you gathering this data?” His voice dropped low.

“I let her put sensors in my helmet—”

“You what?” he shouted.

“They’re super thin and measure the hits, plus act as an impromptu EEG. She can literally see any brain damage done in real time.”

“You let her fuck with your helmet?”

Oh yeah, he was pissed.

“I’d say it was more of a modification,” I argued. “But yes.”

“Un-fucking-believable. You know that can fuck your contract if you’re ever discovered, right? You’re tampering with equipment.”

“Yes. I know.”

“God, is the pussy really good enough for you to risk your brain?”

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that Mom would be pissed if we showed up with black eyes.

“You get to say that once,” I seethed. “Because I know the shit you went through. I know what Lila did to you. But Harper is not Lila. Hell, I don’t think any woman is like that Venus flytrap you almost married.”

His eyes narrowed. “Yeah, Lila just faked a pregnancy to get my ring on her finger as I was about to hit it big. She only wanted my money. This chick wants your life.”

“Harper wants to save lives.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, okay, she just doesn’t give a fuck about yours? You can’t tamper with safety equipment, Nathan! That helmet is the only thing between you and Nicholas!”

“Too far,” I growled.

“Not far enough,” he countered. “You think I want to be the one to call Mom? Or to be the one Mom has to call when it’s time to bury you? How fucking selfish can you be?”

“Selfish?” I backed up so I didn’t follow through on my first impulse to punch the shit out of him. “I’m trying to make sure that other kids like our brother don’t die their freshman year in college. I’m trying to save you!”

“I’m beyond saving,” he whispered so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.

“Nixon—”

“Don’t. Jesus, this chick is using you, and you don’t even see it.” He shook his head. “Didn’t I suffer enough for both of us? Didn’t you learn something by watching what went down with Lila?”

“Harper. Isn’t. Like. That.” I ground out each word.

“They’re all like that. At least when you make as much money as we do. We always have something they want. Fame. Money. Dick. Access. It’s all the same.”

“Damn, Nixon. I know she did you dirty, but one day you’re going to have to stop judging every woman by the shit standard Lila set.”

His gaze turned hard as the ice on Nicholas’s grave. “Right, because when you get fucked over by a girl you’ve been dating for three years, that makes you want to trust the ones you’ve known for five minutes.”

I hated that girl, not just for what she’d done to him, for what she’d put him through, but for what she’d turned him into.

It was terrifying to see the permanent damage one heartbreak could inflict.

“Let’s just go home.” I threw the olive branch because it wasn’t getting any better, and I knew it.

His lips flattened, but he nodded before walking the few steps to Nicholas’s grave and putting his hand on the stone for a quiet moment.

Nicholas’s death was a tragedy. One of those hits you can’t see coming, and never recover from. It was a perfect storm—one I was trying like hell to prevent from ever happening again. But as much as I missed my brother, I knew I wasn’t responsible for his death.

Nixon never felt the same. He blamed himself for every toss of the football in Nicholas’s direction. Every game where Nick saw him as the hero. Every time he’d told him how great division one football was.

Maybe if I’d played football, I’d have felt that same burden. Maybe if I’d been born twenty minutes before Nixon, the weight of responsibility would have fallen on my shoulders, instead.

Nixon left, heading to the truck so I could have a minute with our baby brother.

The marble was cold under my hand as I rested my bare fingers on the stone. “There’s not a day I don’t miss you, Nick. I know he thinks I’m being reckless, but I’m just trying to make it safer for the others like you. Losing you has to mean something, right?”