The Virgin’s Bucket List Episode 6

📖 The Story Continues

Mike Johnson stopped at the top of the stairs, taking in his daughter and the half-dressed athlete beside her. Lindsay prepared for outrage, but her father merely looked relieved. “Wayne,” he said, then added that the two of them appeared to have met and were getting along just fine.

The casual greeting made Lindsay’s anger flare. Her father knew exactly who Wayne was and had expected him to be there. “That’s not the point, Dad,” she said. “Didn’t you think you should tell me a stranger was going to live in our house?”

Mike apologized, but his attention kept sliding toward Wayne as if checking that his prized recruit remained unharmed. He repeated that Wayne’s scholarship did not cover boarding and claimed he had no choice but to take him in. Lindsay knew that phrase; Mike used it whenever football made a decision for the entire family.

She demanded to know why Wayne had been put in her bedroom. Wayne looked genuinely sheepish and admitted the mistake was his. He had gone through the wrong door and had not known the first room on the left belonged to Lindsay.

Mike accepted the explanation immediately. He directed Wayne toward the correct guest room and wished him a good night with all the warmth he had not offered Lindsay on her birthday. Wayne thanked his coach, gave Lindsay an unreadable glance, and retreated with his clothes.

Once the door closed behind him, Mike told Lindsay they needed to talk. The familiar coaching tone entered his voice, turning their hallway into another practice field. She folded her arms, already certain that whatever came next would be about Wayne rather than her.

Mike described Wayne as a star player and emphasized how hard he had worked to recruit him. With Wayne on the roster, Maple Hill could reach a level the team had never achieved. His excitement made clear that the young man upstairs was not simply a student but the center of Mike’s ambitions.

“I hope you can leave him alone and not distract him,” Mike said. The warning struck Lindsay harder than if he had accused her of something specific. He had entered after finding Wayne nearly naked outside her room, yet he assumed his daughter would be the danger.

“Me? Distract him?” Lindsay repeated. All evening she had wanted someone to remember that it was her eighteenth birthday, ask whether she was happy, or notice that she was struggling. Her father had come home and used his first private conversation with her to protect an athlete’s concentration.

Mike insisted he was only trying to avoid complications during an important season. Lindsay heard the unspoken judgment beneath it: Wayne’s future mattered, while her feelings were an inconvenience. Even her imagined romance could apparently damage something more valuable.

“It’s my birthday,” she reminded him. Her voice cracked despite her effort to keep it controlled. Mike’s face changed as though the date had only just returned to him, confirming everything she feared.

Years of buried resentment surged to the surface. She accused him of caring only about football, of being so consumed by the team that he had failed to be present when her mother was dying. The old grief gave every word an edge sharp enough to wound them both.

Mike recoiled, but Lindsay could not stop. She had spent years hoping loss would change him and force him to see the daughters still standing in front of him. Instead, he had filled the empty spaces with more practices, recruits, and games.

“I should never have thought you were going to change,” she said. Mike tried to answer, but no explanation could return the missed hospital hours or repair another forgotten birthday. Lindsay refused to let him turn the conversation into a lecture.

She promised she would not distract his star player. The words tasted bitter, especially after Wayne had seemed like the answer to Alyssa’s dare. Whatever she wanted, she would not give Mike another reason to blame her for his team’s problems.

Lindsay went into her bedroom and closed the door. The rumpled sheets still held the shape of Wayne’s body, transforming her humiliation into an unwanted reminder of how close possibility had come. She pulled the blanket free and told herself she wanted nothing to do with him.

Across the hallway, Wayne had heard more of the argument than either Johnson realized. He stood motionless in the guest room, troubled by Lindsay’s anger and by the grief beneath it. The girl he remembered had once been fearless, generous, and impossible to forget.

Through the narrowing gap before Lindsay’s door closed, Wayne caught one last glimpse of her face. There had been no recognition in her eyes when he said his name. Alone in the unfamiliar room, he voiced the question that had followed him since their meeting: “Does she not remember me?”