Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DREW
“What’s your deal today?” Tyler asks as we jog off the field after I dropped what should have been an easy catch that ended our drive on fourth down. It’s my third dropped pass of the day, and we’re down six with less than thirteen minutes left in a game we’re probably going to lose because of me.
Lazy.
So fucking lazy.
Can’t even catch the damn ball.
“Sorry,” I mutter, yanking my helmet off and keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the grass to try to banish my dad’s voice from my head and avoid the disappointed looks of the fans, shoving down thoughts of the way I’ll be excoriated in the Pittsburgh press tomorrow, article upon article discussing whether I’m washed up.
A drag on the team. Nothing I haven’t believed myself a hundred times in the last few months.
I’ve had the thought so often I even accidentally texted it to Caitlin, and I’ve thought about that a hundred times too. “I should have caught that pass.”
As we approach the sideline, I see Tyler shake his head, grabbing my arm and pulling me to a spot at the edge of the bench the cameras are less likely to reach.
He grips one of my shoulders and waits to talk until I’m looking at him.
“Fuck the pass,” he says, with an intensity that’s rare for the most cheerful quarterback in the league.
“I’m not worried about the game. I’m worried about you.
You’re not yourself today. Is everything okay? ”
I toss my helmet onto the bench and grip the back of my neck, blowing out a breath and trying to order my chaotic thoughts.
A mixture of anger and unease roils in my gut, and my arms feel like they weigh a thousand pounds.
For four quarters, my head hasn’t been in the game but rather back in the locker room, on the phone sitting on my locker shelf and the four messages I read just before we took the field.
Dad
I miss you, son.
I’ve been working hard to get my life together, and a big part of that is talking to you.
I have so much to tell you. So much to explain.
Can I see you? Please. Anywhere you want, whenever works for you.
I can’t decide which bothers me more—that he’s texting me at all or that there’s a small part of me that wants to tell him yes.
“Hey, you okay, Drew?” Cam jogs up to us, instinctively situating his body in a way that would shield me from view if any cameras were to catch us, and I am deeply, pathetically grateful for his thoughtfulness.
He dips his head to catch my eyes. “You’ve barely said three words the whole game, and Ty threw the last pass right at your chest. The only way you miss that catch is if your head is somewhere else. ”
I don’t know whether it’s the texts or the shitty game or the fact that the two men who are the closest thing I’ve ever had to brothers are looking at me with concern, but I’m talking before my brain even registers the words.
“My dad texted me before the game and it fucked with my head.” The urge to grab the words and shove them back into my mouth is strong, but there’s also an undeniable sort of relief at finally saying the scary thing out loud.
“You have a dad? Shit, sorry,” Tyler mutters, shaking his head. “Sophie’s always telling me I should think before I open my mouth. This is probably one of the times I should take that advice.”
Cam rolls his eyes. “You should always take her advice. Soph is a million times smarter than you.” Turning to me, he squeezes my shoulder over my pads. “What he meant to say was, you’ve never mentioned your dad before. Do you talk to him often?”
Cam’s voice holds no judgment, only curiosity.
I wouldn’t blame him for judgment. He’s been my best friend for eighteen years and I’ve never mentioned a parent before.
But Cam isn’t that guy. Despite the roar of the crowd and the people milling around, Cam watches me like he’s happy to wait until I’m ready to respond, and I wonder for the millionth time how it’s possible someone like me found a friend like him, and what would happen to us if I walked away from the game.
Despite it all, sometimes walking away sounds way more appealing than staying.
Especially on days like today.
I shake my head. “I haven’t talked to him in years. A lot of years. There are reasons why but…” I trail off, not sure how to finish that sentence.
“It’s okay,” Tyler says, squeezing my other shoulder. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to. If you’re not ready.”
Raking a hand through my hair, I look back and forth between my friends. “We don’t…have a good relationship. Any relationship actually. He texts me sometimes. I never respond, but it fucks with my head.”
It’s not a lot, but I hope it’s enough for now.
When Cam nods, eyes full of understanding, I know it is. “We’re here if you need us. You’ll tell us if you do?”
I nod, swallowing down the lump that forms in my throat. “I will,” I manage, wondering if that’s true.
“Look at us.” Tyler swings one arm around me and the other around Cam. “Doing some serious sideline bonding like the besties we are.”
I huff a laugh, Tyler’s bit of comic relief easing the ache in my chest, and when I look over at him, I know that’s exactly what he intended.
For a guy who’s mostly puppy dog, it’s easy to forget he’s also brilliant and weirdly intuitive.
“I wish this game would fucking end so we can get off the field and do our bonding in the locker room.”
“Same,” Cam says, glancing over at the clock. “I can’t wait to see my kids and get my arms around my girl.”
“Where is she anyway?” I ask. As the team’s sports psychologist, Maddy spends most games on the sidelines watching us play, but I haven’t seen her since right before we took the field.
Cam shrugs. “She wanted to watch from the stands with the girls. Said it was the first time all six of them have been at a game together in a while.”
“Oh yeah!” Tyler says with a smile. “I totally forgot Soph told me Cait was coming. They were all excited because Cait never comes to games.”
When Tyler says Caitlin’s name, every thought of dropped passes and my asshole dad disappears and butterflies swarm my stomach as my head whips up to the stands.
“Cait’s here?” I ask, my eyes scanning the crowd for the girl with the golden-brown hair and stormy eyes who hasn’t been far from my mind in weeks.
I haven’t seen her since that day at her house two weeks ago, but we’ve been texting almost every day.
All the messages feel like they’re leading somewhere that, despite my fucked-up brain and general distrust of everyone and everything, I really want to go.
I’ve spent my sleepless nights strategizing the best way to see her again, and it looks like the universe just tossed me my chance.
Or maybe it’s Caitlin who tossed me my chance.
Do you ever come to football games?
Sports don’t really do it for me. I haven’t been to a game in years.
Hey, Drew?
Yeah, Catie?
I think I might like you too.
My brain is a runaway train, wondering if maybe she came to the game because of me. Because she wanted to see me as much as I’ve been wanting to see her.
This day is looking all the way up.
“Oh my god,” Tyler says, his voice low and a little incredulous. “Like, oh my fucking god.”
“What?” I ask absently, my gaze still roving the stands in search of the girl occupying all my thoughts.
“I knew I wasn’t imagining it. You like Cait.”
His words snap me back to reality, and I turn only to find him grinning at me like a lunatic. “What? No, I don’t.” The protest sounds halfhearted because it is.
I do like her. I want her.
Even though I shouldn’t. Even though I don’t really have anything to give.
In the shortest time, she’s tattooed herself all over my battered heart and maybe—just maybe—she can be the one who helps it heal.
Tyler snorts. “Tell it to someone who believes you. You said you fucked up with her and that’s why she was mean to you at Jack’s bar last winter.
Whenever we’re all together, she looks at you like she hates you and you look at her with regret, and I thought you just felt bad about whatever you did to piss her off, but that’s not it at all.
When I said her name just now, you got this sappy, loved-up look I didn’t realize your face could even make.
It’s not regret I’ve been seeing. It’s fucking longing, dude.
You’ve never liked anyone before, but you literally like her. ”
When I glance over at Cam, the knowing smile gives him away.
“She told you?” I ask under my breath. I was pretty sure Maddy would tell him at least a little of what I told her that night at their house, but he never brought it up, so I thought maybe I was wrong.
I don’t hate Cam knowing, it turns out. Tyler either.
Even if I’ll probably fuck the whole thing up, the outside chance I won’t is enough to make me want to try.
Cam’s smile turns smug. “My girl tells me everything.”
“And I need you to tell me everything because I hate not knowing shit.” Tyler bounces on his toes with excitement. “Also, I can totally help. I got Sophie to fall in love with me. I can definitely get Cait to fall in love with you.”
I snort, even as I get a little thrill at the word love.
Am I someone who could fall in love? Am I a person someone else could fall in love with?
“You didn’t have to do anything. Sophie was in love with you for more than three years before you so much as thought about her as more than a friend.
I don’t think you’re the authority on making women fall in love with you. ”
Tyler just grins at me. “I think that makes me the authority. Because she was in love with me before I even had to do one single thing differently. All I had to do was be myself. Besides, none of that matters because I love her and she loves me and I get to marry her and be with her forever.” He turns and scans the stands then stops, literally beaming, his eyes shooting hearts and rainbows over the heads of the crowd.
I follow his gaze to a row of seats right above the fifteen-yard line, and there she is.
Her presence punches me in the chest, my breath backing up in my lungs, eyes glued to her like she’s the only person I see.
And almost like Caitlin can feel me looking, her head turns, gray eyes clashing with mine.
Her lips tip up in a small smile, one hand smoothing over her Renegades hoodie and the other running over her ponytail almost like she’s checking to see that it’s all in place, and when her cheeks turn just the lightest shade of pink, somehow, I know.
She came here for me.
I’m hit with the swift and sudden realization that in the almost two decades I’ve been playing football seriously—first in college and now here—Caitlin is the first person who has ever come to one of my games just for me.
The significance of that is more than my overwhelmed brain can process, so I set it aside and settle for looking at her, her presence in the stadium settling my chaotic brain, and suddenly, it’s like none of it matters.
Not my dad’s texts or the dropped passes or the mental gymnastics of whether this game is still for me.
Not the worry that walking away from football means I’ll lose the things and people most important to me and whether that’s a chance I’m willing to take.
Because Caitlin Parker is in the stadium and she’s here for me, and that feels like my own little miracle.
With my eyes on hers, something unnamable passes between us, and my mood lifts as I grin. And then, without a thought as to who might see and what happens next, I toss her a wink. When her face goes from pink to red, my chest feels light as air.
“So, I’m guessing there’s a whole lot more to the story than you told Maddy,” Cam murmurs, and I can feel his eyes on the side of my face. Watching.
“It’s…complicated,” I say, my eyes still locked on Caitlin’s.
I can see him smile out of the corner of my eye.
“It’s always complicated, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
What do you want? For a minute, ignore the complications and all the reasons you think it’s not right or it might not work and everything else in your head telling you not to try.
When you strip it all away, what do you want? ”
For a second, I let myself think about that reality.
Where I don’t have a fucked up past and a sort-of sister I would really like to get to know and a dad trying to edge his way back into my life when I would prefer to banish him forever.
Where I’m not battered and broken and my insides match my outsides and everyone I care about stays.
And I realize without all that, there’s only one answer.
“Caitlin,” I say, my eyes never leaving hers, the crowd seeming to disappear until there is only her and me. Us. “I want her.”
And no words have ever been truer than those.