Floored - Karla Sorensen Page 0,15

I watched Lewis look down at the bottles on the bar cart. "You drinking my whiskey, you prick?"

"Sod off. It was already open."

He laughed. "I can't believe you actually drank during the season."

"I hardly finished either," I said, quite defensively too. "Less than half a beer and probably two sips of your whiskey."

Lewis shook his head.

"You're here early," I said.

His gaze snapped from the bottles. "Yeah. When Carl told me my big brother not only visited without being guilted into it but also slept here, I decided it warranted investigation."

My eyes rolled without any conscious decision on my part. "I don't have to be guilted into visiting."

"Don't you?" Lewis tapped his chin. "Yes, I vaguely remember that one time six years ago."

The truth of it pricked, just a little.

"It's not like you hop over to Shepperton much either, little brother." I wiped a hand down my face. "I'm pretty busy during the season, you know."

"Everyone's busy in their own way, Jude," he said evenly. "I worked all day on bookkeeping for the pub, then had to drive out to Mum and Dad's to help."

"With what?" Guilt, just as he'd said, had me asking.

"They got some new creep feeding pens that needed set up. Two of his workers are sick, so he needed an extra set of hands with that and measuring the lambs."

All the things we'd had to help with as boys, all the things I'd hated to do. "I tried to send them a check last year, told him to hire more people so they didn't have to work as hard."

"Some people like working hard on their own land," Lewis answered. "Not everything can be handled with a check, big brother."

"So I gathered when he mailed it back to me," I said with a wry smile.

My brother finally cracked a grin. "Feel free to toss any money you please at the pub. We need to replace the booths. Can't have cracks in the seats if your sainted arse is going to grace them now."

"I need to get to work," I said. "If you're quite finished."

He sighed. "Even a night spent shagging doesn't relax you, brother."

"It wasn't a night spent shagging," I muttered. "We just ... fell asleep afterward."

Lewis hooted with glee. "Imagine the paps running with that headline. Shepperton footballer gets a good night of beauty sleep." He shook his head.

I shoved at him. "That's not all I did, you prat."

Making my brother laugh was a small moment when I had to recognize why I'd stopped at The Red Lion the night before. Why I'd fallen so easily into bed with Lia. Everything in my life that was wrapped up in my job wasn't simple anymore. Not after a decade of being exactly that.

The nature of my relationship with my parents—that was to say, fairly nonexistent—meant I couldn't show up at the farm where Lewis and I had been raised and offer to help them with something like my brother had done the night before.

But I could stop and see my little brother to share a beer and a laugh.

And in his absence, Lia had offered me a delectable alternative, something to reignite that burn behind my chest, the one that used to fuel me on the pitch.

Lewis held the door open for me. "Hungry? I could see if Maggie'd make some eggs."

"I'm starved. Breakfast would be smart before I go in to talk to Conworth."

He looked over his shoulder. "Ugly match on Saturday."

"Yeah." One-nil against Crystal Palace in a complete and utter slogfest. That was partially why I was sore today, not simply from Lia with the big blue eyes.

Lewis grunted. "Need to do better than that. They're gonna bench your arse for the new French kid. He's bloody fast, isn't he?"

My smile was tight. "I'm aware, Lewis. But thank you for the reminder."

My mobile buzzed, and a text from my manager flashed across the screen, followed by a few I'd missed the evening before.

Conworth: Before you work out, meet me in my office for a chat. You need to do better this weekend.

Everyone in my life wanted me to do better. Do more.

My manager wanted me to be faster.

My brother simply wanted me to try.

A small corner of white caught my attention, a warped image of serviette appearing behind the bottle of amber liquid on the bar cart. I walked over, smiling when I saw feminine handwriting across the surface.

"Brilliant," I whispered, tucking it into my pocket.

My life wasn't without a heavy load of complications, but just