The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback (Astra and Zayne) novel Chapter 206

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The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

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Moving boxes occupied half the living room now. Most had sensible labels-BOOKS, KITCHEN, CLOTHES-while one simply said KEEP, evidence that I’d eventually given up pretending I had an organized system.

Mylife was disappearing into cardboard again.

The last time I’d packed to leave a country, I’d been eighteen and crying too hard to see half of what went into my suitcase.

This time, nobody was sending me anywhere. The decision was mine, and there was no one left in Auckland I couldn’t bear to leave behind.

That should have made it easier.

I reheated leftover pasta and ate at the kitchen counter while clearing the last of my work emails. The Sinclair contract remained near the top of my inbox.

Senior Business Intelligence Analyst.

Better salary. Better opportunities. A relocation package generous enough to make turning it down feel ridiculous.

For weeks, I’d repeated those reasons whenever anyone asked why I was willing to move halfway around the world for a job

They were good reasons.

Maybe the truth was simply that Auckland had stopped feeling like home after Mom died.

After dinner, I changed into an oversized shirt and shorts, tied my hair back, and returned to the boxes.

Most of Mom’s belongings had been packed months ago. What remained were the things I’d kept postponing because deciding whether to keep them felt too much like deciding what pieces of her I could live without.

I crouched beside the final box and lifted the lid.

Her favorite scarf lay across the top, covering photographs, old documents, earrings, birthday cards, and one of the notebooks she’d carried everywhere during her better years.

My fingers brushed the scarf.

“Not tonight.”

I lowered the lid, but something caught against the side and prevented it from closing properly.

With a sigh, I reached inside to move whatever was blocking it.

My fingers closed around a black gift bag.

Everything else disappeared for a second.

I knew that bag.

Even after ten years.

I pulled it free and settled onto the floor before looking inside.

An old dark-blue sketchbook rested at the bottom, silver stars scattered across its cover.

Jason.

God.

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The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

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I’d packed it with Mom’s belongings when I moved apartments after university and hadn’t thought about it since.

pening the cover dislodged a silver bookmark.

For all the pages you haven’t filled yet.

My thumb passed over the engraving, and eighteen suddenly didn’t feel nearly as far away as it had five minutes ago. Then something slipped from between the pages and landed facedown against my thigh.

I knew what it was before turning it over.

For several seconds, I considered leaving it there.

That would have been the sensible thing to do.

But twenty-eight-year-old me wasn’t much better at sensible decisions than eighteen-year-old me had been.

I picked it up.

Bunny ears. Devil horns. Stupid faces crammed inside a tiny photo booth.

And Zane.

Four pictures filled the strip. The first three were silly enough that the corners of my mouth almost moved. The fourth picture held me a little longer.

His hand curved against my face while he kissed me, my eyes closed and my entire body angled toward him.

Strange.

I remembered that night. I remembered the carnival, the lake, the lights above us and how convinced I’d been that leaving him would be one of the hardest things I’d ever survive.

At eighteen, it had felt impossible.

At twenty-eight, it belonged to someone I barely recognized.

I’d gone ten years without seeing Zane.

Not in person or online. Not even accidentally whenever I could prevent it. I knew which names not to type into search bars. which articles to scroll past, and how quickly to change the channel when ASHTON appeared beneath a business headline.

In the beginning, avoiding him had been necessary.

Eventually, it became habit.

I looked at the photograph again.

I wondered what had become of him sometimes. Whether he’d gotten everything he’d wanted. Whether football had lasted. Whether he’d eventually taken over his father’s company despite how much he’d once hated the idea.

Normal questions about someone who had once been important to me.

Nothing more.

Zane Ashton belonged to a part of my life that had ended a decade ago.

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