Chapter 30
thirty
Cash
My stomach threatens to revolt as I stride into the stadium on Saturday and hope to hell I’m as ready as I feel for the day ahead of me.
Headphones cover my ears, streaming the pump-up playlist I’ve been listening to before football games for years, but the high-energy, bass-heavy beats are only emphasizing the sick, drank-too-much-coffee sensation that’s been building since the stadium came into sight.
I should have asked Georgia to make me a classical playlist. The involuntary smile that takes over my lips vanishes as uncertainty and regret roll through me.
I turn the music up higher. Can’t go there right now.
After four long days consisting of interviews, meetings with teams, medical tests, weigh-ins, and measurements, it’s my on-field day, the part of the Combine I and the other three hundred guys here have been training for for months, the day we perform drills and skill tests while scouts, coaches, and fans watch our every move.
The next few hours are torture—long stretches of nerve-racked rest interrupted by fast and furious drills.
As a wide receiver, Cam is participating in drills today too, so I get to watch him when I’m not called for a drill of my own.
It’s fun watching one of my best friends compete for a draft position, but only a smidge less anxiety-inducing than competing myself.
The fan-favorite test—the 40-yard dash—doesn’t take place until late in the afternoon. Either I don’t have any energy left for fear or I’m just damn confident, but by the time I take my place to start the drill, my nerves have evaporated, and what’s left behind is pure power and energy.
The speed clock reads 4.42 when I finish, putting me in the top half of my group, and pride ripples through me.
As I walk it off, my gaze scans the fan section, and I don’t even try to kid myself that I’m not looking for Georgia.
There’s no reason she’d be here, but it’s not impossible she’d have hopped in her car and made the three-hour drive for the most important day of the Combine.
But of course she’s not here. There are too many people in the stands for me to go one by one, but I know she’s not among them, and I know it’s my fault. Disappointment, bitter and jagged, swells inside me.
Georgia’s the entire reason I’m even here today, the reason I’m finally excited for my future instead of resigned to it.
She deserves to be here. She wanted to be here.
And maybe if it’d been Maisy asking her directly to sit it out, she’d have ignored the request and shown up.
But I’m the one who asked her, and she respected it.
Pride and all those post-sprint good feelings are suddenly a distant memory.
After a quick late-night dinner, I find a spot in the hotel lobby to call Georgia.
She answers halfway through the first ring, but her voice is too sweet as she asks about my performance and tells me she caught what she could of the drills on TV.
I can hear how hard she’s trying to be positive, and that hurts even more than if she were cold and distant.
She skirts my questions about the party prep she’s been working on, and much too soon, we’re hanging up.
In my room, I flip off the light and close my eyes, hoping sleep will take pity on my exhausted body and arrive soon.
But thoughts of Georgia immediately unspool from my brain too quickly to stop.
I must be the only guy at the Combine more stressed about the women in his life than about his performance.
It can’t go on like this. I need my girlfriend and my sister to get along, and I was sure I had that. The weekend Georgia came home with us, she fit so perfectly into the family that I knew it was right between us, and with a little time, I think we can all get back there again.
Maisy will come around. And while Georgia might be covering up her hurt, her sweetness is genuine.
Maybe it was wrong of me to tell her not to come, but I was doing what I thought was best for everyone in the moment, and she understands that.
That’s why she’s my girl. She gets me. She loves me even through my stupider moments.
One way or another, the girls will make up soon, and I won’t be stuck in the middle anymore.
And in the meantime, I have a plan to make it all up to Georgia when I get back.