The Heartbreak Blitz (Warner University Bulldogs #4)

Chapter 1

1

Cade

H elmet in my hands, I jump up and down, knees hitting my chest, cleats sinking and releasing from the grass with my pre-game ritual. Twist to the left, then to the right, then stare up out of the open arena to the glittering stars above.

For you, Brady.

I press my lips to my fist, then point into the air. Stadium lights rain down like next level spotlights. A rush of adrenaline surges through me. To my right, the band blasts out the Warner Bulldog fight song as our kicker starts his run, slow at first, then picking up speed until his foot connects with the ball, sending it end over end through the air.

A breath fills my lungs.

The crowd reaches a crescendo when the returner catches it—only to get taken out a few steps later by Breezy, the fastest special teams player we have.

Instead of the cheer reaching new heights, the crowd silences.

Breezy jumps up, walking backward while staring at the opposing player still lying on the ground.

My heart speeds off, stomach falling like I’m on a runaway track.

An old memory rips its way into my brain. Trembling with the weight of overwhelming grief, my knees buckle. Seven years, and yet certain moments make it feel like yesterday.

I walk out onto the field with weighted steps until the downed player jumps to his feet, flipping the ball to the referee who’s marking his spot.

One deep, calming breath later, I slip back to the sidelines in reverse like the whole thing never happened, but in my head, a different scenario plays out.

The time someone never got up.

I see it like an imprint on my brain, as if someone pushed play on a recorded TV show I’m all too familiar with.

Me, returning to the huddle, cursing Reid because I was wide open. Looking for him in the throng of jerseys to tell him I’m out there playing. I’m ready. Throw to me, for fuck’s sake. Then finally finding him and almost simultaneously hearing the confused murmur in the crowd.

“Hey,” a voice called out with no return response.

“Hey,” he said again, more forcefully.

Turning, I saw a guy in gray leaning over Brady’s white jersey. Immediately, I changed direction, thinking the asshole better get out of my best friend’s face before I take his ass out.

But then he backed up. “Oh, shit…”

A knot of apprehension formed in my stomach. I pushed past him.

Brady’s limp, pale body was sprawled out on the field, the twenty-yard line on either side of his helmet.

“Dude,” I knelt next to him, “you okay?”

I waited for his lips to curl into a laugh and jump to his feet like nothing happened but that didn’t come.

“B.” I placed my hand over his chest pad.

Reid moved into view on the other side, anxious eyes assessing.

In the coming days, I’d wonder why we didn’t ask for a doctor right away. He was unconscious, still. Instead, we tried to wake him, like he’d fallen asleep on the nights we were camped out in Reid’s backyard after we’d vowed to stay up until the next morning.

“Man, come on,” Reid pressed.

We were na?ve. All of us.

Annoyed and confused instead of frightened. I remember thinking he should sit the next play out if he was hit that hard. The thought that he’d have to sit the rest of his life out wasn’t on my radar. Brady, forever on the sidelines…

It was too unbelievable to be true.

Next, Coaches moved us out of the way, the sound of worried whispers escalated, and then finally, someone shouted for an ambulance. Brady’s parents rushed onto the field. Briar, doe eyes looking on, stood back on the brown running track, Jules’s hand in hers.

Even then, I thought it wasn’t serious. Maybe a concussion. Maybe he’d been knocked out, but he’d come to.

The paramedics placed him on a stretcher and wheeled him away. The retreating ambulance wail echoed around the Spartan stadium, putting a sad punctuation on what was usually a joyous occasion. The game stopped. The people in the crowd dispersed, red-rimmed and blindsided.

It wasn’t until my parents took me to the hospital and his parents came out of a room sobbing that I realized how serious it was. Reality had slapped me in the face with the force of a freight train at two hundred miles per hour.

I was never going to see my best friend again.

The complete and utter agony of his mom’s cries echoed through the halls. A woman I’d only ever known to be nice, sweet, and loving fell to her knees and had to be whisked off to a room herself.

The numb sort of pain that people who’ve only felt real loss will know the feeling of?—

“Yo, you in this with me?” Aidan asks.

Like being transported to a different dimension, my surroundings return in a nanosecond. It’s third and twenty-five. The crowd rallies with a warrior cry when our defense gets another stop.

“Windbreaker,” I state, confirming the play he told me he wanted to start with when we were getting ready in the locker room. Twenty yard, in route.

He grins, eyes sparking with competition.

His look makes me self-conscious. Sad, even.

I used to want to win so much more. When it was Reid, Brady, and me, we were unstoppable. We’d tell one another our big dreams. Speak them into existence.

Go to a good college. Get drafted. Play professionally.

But a bit of that drive died when Brady did. The remainder nearly disintegrated when Reid got drafted last year and Lex graduated. Reid’s now playing in the league with a breakout rookie season. Lex is off finding himself, all while I’m still here.

Nothing is the same.

It’s not that my current teammates aren’t all awesome, it’s me. I’m different. Scattered. Lost. Like life is happening to me instead of me taking the reins.

Our D gets the stop on a fourth down on our forty. Aidan starts to run onto the field, and like a robot, I follow after, pulling my helmet over my head as if I’m a soldier going into battle.

Standing at the line of scrimmage, the guy across from me smiles and begins to talk shit. I ignore him. I’m probably the best shit-talker on the team, but I can’t get into it. So, instead of telling him I enjoyed being balls-deep in his mom last night, I run my route, cleats eating up the yard lines until I’m slicing inside. I peer over my shoulder for the ball, and there it is, sailing toward me. With QB1’s precision throw, I barely have to put my hands out before it falls into them.

I take off, eyes on the field ahead of me. I cut outside, dodging a player, then cut farther out when another one lunges for me. Shit . I’m blocked outside. I race toward the sideline to eke out every last yard I can when someone shoves me out of bounds. My feet scramble to stay under me, but I end up corralling through the air, straight for a black-haired girl in an oversized sweatshirt who’s staring out at the field like a zombie.

A short, panicked noise leaves my throat, and the moment she sees me barreling toward her, her eyes round.

I try to throw myself out of the way but clip her shoulder instead. We both go down in a heap of limbs, her arms windmilling to the sides of her. The ground comes up too quickly, and I grunt on impact, sliding over the grass on my shoulder pad before coming to a stop a few feet from her.

Ah shit. I jump up and move toward her. I know from experience that getting hit when you’re not wearing pads and someone else is can hurt like a bitch. “Are you okay?” I ask, which comes out muffled before I pull out my mouth guard and wedge it in my face mask.

Like Brady, she lies there, but she blinks before I panic.

Transferring the football to my other hand, I reach out with my right to help her up. “I’m so sorry.”

“Farmer!” Coach barks. “We need you for the next play.”

Ignoring him, I wrap my fingers around the girl’s forearm while she lifts. Before I know it, she scrambles to her feet and shucks my hand away. “Watch where you’re going,” she spits.

“I’m r-really sorry,” I stutter out. “I couldn’t keep my feet underneath me…”

A few other players approach us, and she peers around like a cornered kitten.

“FARMER!”

The girl jumps, and something about the fear in her eyes draws me closer. She has perfect bow-tie lips, stick-straight black hair past her shoulders, and a wicked glint in her eyes when she sneers. “Pretty sure you’re supposed to tackle people who are actually playing.”

A hand falls on my shoulder, spinning me around. “Making friends, I see. By the way, the game’s that way.”

I try to turn back toward her, but Breezy shoves me out onto the field. I toss the ball to the ref, where he’s waiting at the sidelines to mark the placement, and then spin. The girl is marching away, a grass stain covering the rear of her sweatshirt while blades of green stick out from her hair. She hooks a right around the rear of the bench, unnoticed by everyone else, but not by me. Jaw tight, she looks like she could cut glass with her teeth.

“Who is that girl?”

“Never seen her before,” Aidan responds. “Listen, you good?”

His answer surprises me, and I realize I’m already back in the huddle. He moves into my line of sight, and I nod, still tracking the girl across the sidelines. “I hit her.”

West Brooks turns to peer in the same direction. “Is she hurt?”

“I don’t know. She just told me to look where I’m going.”

He smirks. “If she can yell at you, she’s probably fine.”

I shrug noncommittally. Though that’s probably true, it doesn’t make me feel any better. It’s not like I could’ve helped running into her. She should’ve been paying attention and jumped out of the way when she saw me coming. Why wasn’t she watching the game? Everyone else is. We’re the Bulldogs. We’ve only lost one game all year.

Booker runs onto the field, securing his helmet. Our recent transfer stops next to me and smirks. “Bet even you couldn’t get that girl to sleep with you,” he states with a chuckle before biting down on his mouth guard.

I give him a too-wide smile, but a pit of shame pinches my stomach.

“Focus is on the ball game,” Aidan states like an exasperated professor, returning all of our attention to him. “Casablanca three. Wide right.”

We all clap our hands and run to our play positions. Our center snaps the ball on Aidan’s call, and the last few minutes erase from my brain when the game starts up again. Autopilot clicks on, and I go through the motions, playing hard, celebrating our touchdowns, but football doesn’t fill me like it used to. The thrill of the game is slipping through my fingers like sand in an hourglass.

But running into that girl? That was different. New. She yelled at me.

And I kind of liked it.