The Brotherly Shove

11. Breaker

CHAPTER 11

brEAKER

Three Months Later

Energy Stadium

Knoxville, Tennessee

I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself.

Those three words have echoed in my skull for months.

94 days.

2256 hours.

135,360 seconds.

It's been three lonely, painful months since I ripped my own heart out of my chest and chucked it into an industrial strength garbage disposal.

Three months of listening to that one song Lennon mentioned to Harlow over and over just to feel the stab of pain in my stomach every time Taylor sings that one particular 'platonic' line.

Three months since I said horrible, awful, unforgivable things to the kindest, softest, sweetest man I've ever met in my life.

Three months since I made him cry by himself in a fucking janitor's closet.

I replay that moment in my head over and over, when Lennon walked away from, his eyes glistening in pain. Every time I picture it, I want to go back in time and punch myself for how long it took me to go after him. In reality, it couldn't have been more than a few seconds, but standing there with my feet glued to the floor while he ran away for me felt like an eternity. By the time I caught up to him, he was already on the other side of the door, and his pained cries hit me like a knife to the heart.

No, it was worse than that. Standing outside of that closet, listening to the pain I inflicted on Lennon was death by a thousand cuts. And for what?

I hear his impossibly small voice in my head again and again, every time he looks at me.

"I don't know what I did wrong."

"Nothing, honey. You did nothing wrong. I'm just the dickhead who is in love with you even though I know I'll never get to have you, and I obviously cannot handle it. It's all my fault."

That's what I should have said. Anything would have been better than how I acted that day. I will never forgive myself for hurting Lennon.

I wouldn't blame him if he never forgives me either.

We're well into the season now, and as promised, I've gotten plenty of play time, usually if the Woodies are so far ahead that there's no risk of us losing, or when we're losing so bad there's no point in risking Kasper on a lost cause. We've had a healthy mix of both in the last few weeks.

Either way, I've only been on the field with the second and third string, making it that much easier for Lennon to keep his distance from me. It physically hurts me to watch him, whether at practice or during a game or on the team plane. That useless slab of muscle beating under the 13 of my jersey aches with every breath. Lennon is all easy going smiles and joyous laughs, the same as he always has been. The only difference is not one of those beautiful smiles is ever directed at me.

Good. I don't fucking deserve them. I watch him now as the offense runs onto the field, ready for the tenth drive of the second half. We're in Knoxville, Tennessee today, playing our one and only Thursday night game of the season. We're seconds from the two minute warning, and the guys haven't scored since the second quarter. The Redwoods ended up great field position after the punt, so they're starting this drive from our 40 yard line. From what I can hear from the coaches on the sidelines, they're setting up for a passing play. They're gonna try to lob the ball down the field and seal this drive in one play, I can tell. If it were me, I'd focus on the run game. We're already so close to field goal territory, and three points would tie the game up. It's a much safer bet than hoping for a touchdown, but what do I know? I'm on the bench.

Lennon does a hip thrust/fist bump combo thing with Kasper after they break the huddle, and even from here, I can feel the warmth of his smile. It makes my heart ache painfully in my chest.

Here I am, my first season in the NFL, living the dream I've wanted since I was old enough to hold a football, and I'm fucking miserable. Miserable and alone, all because I lashed out like a caged animal at the one person I care about more than anything.

The offense lines up, and from their formation, I know I'm right about the play they're about to run. Lennon has the ball positioned, and the play clock winds down. He holds off on the snap, hoping to draw the other team offsides, I'm sure, but they hold steady. With one second left, he snaps the ball into Kasper's waiting hands. The quarterback backs up and scans down field. He spots a man down on the right side of the field around Knoxville's twenty-five yard line and sends the ball flying through the air and directly into the wide receiver's hands. The receiver is immediately pushed out of bounds, but not before securing the first down. I stand to cheer, but my eyes are drawn to the handful Redwoods medical team members jogging out to the field.

I look out, and sure enough, Kasper is down on the turf, his left leg twisted at an ungodly angle underneath him.

"What the fuck?!' I shout as I push my way over to one of the coaching assistants and watch the replay of the tackle on his tablet. Just as the football was flying out from Kasper's hand, a Knoxville defensive lineman came barreling into him, throwing him to the ground with all the force that a three hundred pound athlete can muster. Flags are flown everywhere, but no one on the sidelines is celebrating the fifteen yards we'll gain for the roughing the passer call. It might put us in field goal range, but who the fuck cares about that when one of our own is down?

A medical timeout is called, and I hold my breath as the med team tries to get Kasper to stand. A minute passes, then another, but he's still on the ground. Something is definitely broken. From the look of it, my money is on a one-two tibia fibula punch. My stomach bottoms out when the dreaded white cart is driven out onto the field and the quarterback is loaded on to it. I'm frozen in place when someone, somewhere shoves a helmet into my hands, and Coach Elliot is pushing me towards the field.

"Just run the ball, Lawson. And for fuck's sake, don't get hurt." He yells after me as I pull the helmet over my head in a daze.

It's not the first time I've hit the turf this year, but it is the first time it counts.

It's also the first time Lennon will be forced to speak to me in months, even if he only speaks in play calls.

I force my nerves down as far as they will go as I approach the huddle. This moment is bigger than me. Who knows how bad Kasper's injury is? The very least thing I can do is try to squeak out a win for him tonight.

The speakers in my helmet crackle, and I hear Coach's voice calling for a double-slant run pass option. Lennon and I confirm it with a call of the play code, a repetitive string of 'key left, thirty six one, smash and track sneak'. Absolute nonsense, but every Redwood on the field knows what it means.

We line up, the ball is snapped, I fake a throw and pass it to Smith, the running back on my right. He pushes forward.

Four yards. Second down.

The officials signal the two minute warning.

For thirty seconds, Coach Elliot rattles off instructions in my ear.

Hold the line, don't let up. Run the mother fucking plays I mother fucking tell you to run.

The play clock is back in action, and the voice in my helmet makes the same call again. We line back up. We need to try to play the clock to our advantage, running it down so that if Knoxville gets the ball back, they don't have enough time to make a move, but also taking advantage of the time we do have so that we have a chance at scoring.

I do as I'm told. I run the mother fucking play Coach Elliot mother fucking tells me to run.

Snap. Fake. Handoff.

This time, Smith goes nowhere. We don't lose any yardage, but we gain nothing. The clock continues to tick down.

Third down. Six yards from the goal line.

Coach calls for a different RPO, one that has me handing the ball to the left while the offense tries to push a door open for the running back to sneak through to the end zone.

Snap. Pass. Smith ducks his head ands runs.

He makes it three yards before he's swallowed up in a tackle.

The clock ticks down. Thirty seven seconds.

Whistles blow. Coach calls a timeout. I hear 'send in the field goal unit' in my helmet.

"Wait!" Lennon yells, grabbing me by the arm and running towards Coach on the sideline. I'm too focused on the feeling of Lennon's hand on my arm to process what the hell is going on right now. We reach Coach and the staff, and Lennon is shaking his head violently.

"Don't send in the field goal unit. We can do this, Breaker and I. The shove play from college, remember B?" he looks at me and I gape back at him.

"We've never practiced that play, Griffith. I'm not risking the game on some gimmick you two came up with when you were kids. We'll kick the ball and hopefully tie this thing up. We can give ourselves a shot at a win in overtime." Coach says, holding his game card over his mouth.

I gotta say, I agree with Coach on this one. The shove was a successful move for Lennon and I in the past, but with one yard to the line of scrimmage, not three. Going for it on a fourth down with seconds left in the game feels like a death sentence.

"Trust me, Coach. We got this. I played in Knoxville last year, remember? I know those guys, I know how to push them. I can draw them offsides. They'll get the penalty, we'll move half the distance to the goal, and then all the guys have to do is push us after Breaker jumps on my back. It has never failed us." Lennon sounds so confident, and Coach looks to me.

"Can you do it, Lawson?" he asks.

I meet Lennon's eyes, his wide, proud, gorgeous blue eyes, and I feel that undeniable chemistry that flowed through us whenever we played together. For the first time in I don't know how long, I'm looking at Lennon and seeing something other than hurt in his eyes. I have to have faith in that, don't I?

"We can do it, Coach. Trust us." I tell him. Our timeout is running down, so Coach only has a second to consider us before he gives us a small nod.

"If we lose, it's your asses on the line," he calls after us as we jog back to the field and bring the guys into the field. Lennon jumps right into action, quickly explaining the plan.

"We're gonna line up as close to each other as possible. Focus on Garrett, the defensive guard. He's jumpy. If we provoke him, we can get him off sides in no time. Then after we move up and I snap the ball, Breaker will jump on my back and I'll duck under the defense. Your job is to push us. Get a handful of ass and shove us into the endzone, got it?"

We break and take our positions. Just like Lennon predicted, Garrett is the first of three Knoxville defenders to jump off sides. It took only a fraction of movement on our side to get him to jump, not nearly enough to have the penalty called on us first. The flag is thrown and we move up a yard and a half. I can feel my heartbeat in my skull, and the sounds of the stadium blur into a dull roar as I wait for Lennon to snap me the football.

I feel the rubber hit my fingers, and like muscle memory, I tuck it close to my chest in my left hand before I jump on Lennon's back, wrapping my right forearm around his neck. I have full control of the ball as it's sandwiched between my chest and Lennon's back. I feel the weight of half a dozen men on top of me and the hands of my teammates pushing at my back side as we surge forward. It might be one second or it might be ten lifetimes before Lennon goes all the way down and whistles are blown. Slowly but surely, people get up and off of me and I can finally lift my head and look around. The turf below us isn't green.

Nope, not green at all. It's Knoxville Crushers orange.

We're in the end zone.

We fucking did it.

I roll off of Lennon and allow my teammates to help us up. I check the scoreboard to be sure, and yup, we fucking got the six points. I turn and find Lennon has thrown his helmet off and is coming at me with his arms outstretched. My smile is so wide I'm afraid I might split my cheeks open with the force of it as I jump into his bear hug. He wraps one hand around my waist and use the other to reach up and pull my helmet off. Once it hits the ground, he presses his lips to the top of my head.

He's kissing me. Lennon Griffith is kissing my head on national television, in front of millions of people.

And just like that, the weight on my chest feels heavier than the metric ton of men I just had on top of me. I can't freaking breathe.

I close my eyes and try to memorize the feel of lips as he plants kiss after kiss after fucking kiss into the sweaty mess of hair on my head. My stomach bottoms out and tears threaten to spill from my eyes. Tears of joy or pain, I couldn't tell you. All I know is that Lennon's arms are around me, his mouth is on me, and I don't deserve it. I don't deserve his kindness. I'm not worthy of it.

I don't even realize that Lennon is still carrying me until he drops me to the bench on the sideline, where I am immediately met with a cooler full of Gatorade being dumped on my head.

On the field, our kicker scores the extra point. The punt team comes out, but it's pointless. Knoxville only has three seconds before it's all over.

Lennon and I just scored the winning touchdown in our first game playing together in the pros. Even with how supremely awful I've made things between us, this moment is something that nothing and no one can take away from us.

"We're back, baby!" he yelps, shaking my shoulders. "I told you we could fucking do it. We're unstoppable, B. We gotta celebrate. Let's hit a bar after press. Drinks on me, man."

"I can't," I say as I shake my head, and his face drops immediately. I quickly backtrack.

"Not because I don't want to, Len. I really can't. I've got a flight to Philly in a few hours. It's Ma's birthday this weekend so I got special permission to skip the team plane ride tomorrow morning," I tell him. Even if I wasn't leaving, I don't know if I'd be able to keep my shit together enough to spend time with Lennon. I'm riddled with too much guilt over the way I left things between us still.

"Ah," he says, still not looking any happier. "Tell her happy birthday for me, yeah?"

"I will," I say as Lennon walks away from me, and we go back to cohabitating on this team together while pretending that the other doesn't exist.