Chapter 1 #2
Cameron did at least know enough to keep his distance until the end of the third quarter.
Aidan had driven the offense down the field and scored a touchdown to extend the lead to fourteen, so the missed field goal had disappeared out of everyone’s mind—except his own.
They’d gone out and kicked the extra point and it had gone in, ball straight down the center of the uprights, their kicking team working like clockwork. Like they’d never missed at all.
But Dawson remembered.
It was a hard kernel of unpleasantness, a rock in his shoe. Impossible to forget, even though Dawson knew he had to forget it.
Maybe he wasn’t the only one, if the way Cameron came up to him after he’d kicked off to the Miami receiving team was proof.
“Hey,” Cameron said.
Dawson wanted to tell him that he was attempting casual and it wasn’t working, the anxiousness was written all over his young, open face.
“You haven’t gotten much work in today,” Dawson said.
Because he knew what Cameron wanted to talk about, but he really, really, really didn’t want to discuss what had gone wrong.
He’d already be thinking about it, and there was no way Marty wouldn’t force them to go over every second of the play on Tuesday, over and over again until Dawson wanted to scream about it.
“Best work in the world, when your team moves the ball well enough they don’t need you to punt much,” Cameron joked. But there was still that tightness around his eyes. Dawson couldn’t miss it.
“Yeah,” Dawson agreed.
“I just wanted to say—again—that I don’t know what happened, but it won’t happen again.”
He sounded very confident. Sure of himself.
It was a common trick special teams guys liked to use. Fake it til you make it. Fake it til you believe it. Fake it til it’s true.
“Sure,” Dawson said, even though there was a loud, insistent part of him that wanted to yell that the stupid trick didn’t always work. It hadn’t worked for him last year, anyway.
At first his head hadn’t been quite on straight.
Then it had rolled right off his body. Dawson had become a train wreck of a person, no matter how he tried to visualize differently.
Cameron huffed out a frustrated noise. “Don’t brush me off like that, Daws.”
Dawson hadn’t ever suggested Cameron start calling him that. He’d just done it. Like it was expected. Like it was okay.
It was bitter and stupid and sulky that it wasn’t, so Dawson hadn’t corrected him.
“I’m not brushing you off,” Dawson claimed, but he was.
They both knew he was.
Even worse, Marty knew it, and Marty was going to have his ass for it.
“You are, and it’s not cool. I don’t know why we missed that kick—”
Dawson gave up holding it in and rolled his eyes. “I missed that kick, rook.”
“I know, but—”
“No,” Dawson said, making it clear he wasn’t going to argue about it. “I missed it. You got the ball down and positioned right.”
Cameron really looked like he wanted to keep arguing.
There was even a part of Dawson that wanted him to. But while Cameron and Joey were both integral members of the team, the only one who really mattered—the guy taking the actual kick—was Dawson.
The physical side of their job wasn’t all that challenging—at least compared to the skill level required of Aidan or Nate or Mo—but the mental focus required was unique and challenging.
So many people thought if they were only athletic enough, they could kick field goals or punt decently, and sure they could.
But could they do it when it mattered most?
Could they do it a hundred times, flawlessly, the exact same way?
Could they do it when the pressure was at its most demanding, when winning the game was on the line?
The game ended. The Thunder won by fourteen, and Dawson kicked another extra point, but wasn’t called onto the field for another field goal attempt.
He told himself he was happy about that as he climbed the steps onto the jet that was taking them back to Toronto, but there was a part of him inside that burned with the injustice of not getting another try. A part that had wanted to redeem himself.
He flopped down in the same seat he’d grabbed on the first flight to a preseason game, towards the back, but away from the guys who played cards, because that wasn’t usually his scene, but he didn’t want the absolute tomb-like atmosphere of the front of the plane either.
A second later, Marty dropped down next to him, big wad of his omnipresent bubble gum tucked into his cheek like a squirrel with a nut.
Dawson shot him a look.
“Hey, man,” Marty said casually.
He had a feeling he was in for another lecture, and he wasn’t particularly looking forward to it.
“What is it?” Dawson asked. Asking without saying, I thought I’d get another thirty-six hours to lick my wounds before you started dissecting them?
“We need to talk about Cam,” Marty said, not bothering with any friendly preamble.
The plane was filling in. He could see Cameron up front, in the quiet section, because from what Dawson had noticed, he liked to watch something on his tablet during flights, earbuds firmly in place.
At least Marty hadn’t dragged him back here—or dragged Dawson to the front.
“Here I thought you wanted to talk about that kick,” Dawson said.
Marty, twice his age and with a lifetime of NFL experience in special teams, looked unamused. “Daws, you remember your first Pro Bowl?”
“Kind of hard to forget it,” Dawson grumbled. He was old, but not that old.
“First time we met,” Marty said. “You know what my first impression was?”
Dawson tipped his head back against his seat. “I know you’re going to tell me.”
“Young kid. Raw. But fucking talented. If he could only get out of his own way. And then you did, and kept doing it.”
“I’ve heard this story before and I know how it ends.”
“Yeah, you think you do. You think it ends with your last season, with you going off the rails. But it doesn’t have to end that way.”
“This sounds suspiciously like the pep talk you gave me when you convinced me to sign with the Thunder,” Dawson retorted without much heat. Marty was kind of a pain—but he liked him. Had always liked him, from the first time they’d met, at that Pro Bowl.
When Baltimore had released him, Marty was the only special teams coordinator who’d come to him.
His agent had spent the weeks post-release—post-firing, Dawson had thought of it—making agonized noises about how they were going to have to make the rounds, make Dawson look confident and good again, that he was probably going to have to win a kicking competition in camp. Something he hadn’t done in ten years.
But then Marty had shown up with his inspirational speech, like he actually believed, despite all evidence to the contrary, that there was still something special in Dawson. Like he still deserved to be pitched to, instead of being forced to pitch himself.
“It’s not the same thing at all,” Marty dismissed. “We’re not really talking about you. Though you’re in a dramatic enough snit you probably think everything is about you.”
Dawson squeezed his eyes shut. Willed himself to be anywhere else.
“God, take it easy on me, old man,” Dawson ground out.
“No,” Marty said unrepentantly.
Dawson ground his teeth together. “Fine. Fine. Who are we talking about?”
“Cam, of course. You need to work with him.”
“We are. We’re on the field together every practice. You’re there. You see it.” Marty directed it, more like, though Dawson had been in the NFL long enough that he probably could’ve orchestrated their practices himself.
“Yeah, sure, on the field, yeah. Could get your timing down a bit better. Get more familiar with each other. That comes with time. You know what else helps with that?”
Dawson knew what was coming. He just didn’t have to like it. “No.”
“Yeah, you do—”
“Yeah, I do. What I mean is, no, I don’t wanna become his best bud or his rookie comfort blankie.”
Marty elbowed him hard as the plane started to taxi. “You’ve become kind of an asshole. That kid I met at the Pro Bowl ten years ago would be disappointed in you, Daws.”
“Can we go back and tell that rookie not to get married, either?” Dawson didn’t bother to hide his bitterness.
Didn’t think he should, at this point. He was bitter, and frankly, he deserved to be.
He’d gotten fucked over. Literally. Figuratively.
Every single freaking way you could get fucked over, he’d endured.
“You and Brynn were happy, once.”
“Were we though? Or was she just happy that I was good and getting better? She liked the prestige and the money. Liked being a WAG.”
“Daws,” Marty warned.
“Easier to pretend that it was always shit,” Dawson muttered by way of explanation. “Easier than thinking of how it got fucked.”
Marty patted him awkwardly on the arm. “It’s gonna be okay. I know it doesn’t seem that way now, but it will be.”
“Thanks,” Dawson said dryly.
“But I mean it,” Marty said, his voice going serious, “you’re gonna have to do something about this. I’ve talked to Cam, and he says you’re nice enough—which I’m sure is a fucking lie—”
“Ouch,” Dawson interrupted.
“Real talk, you’ve been a grumpy asshole since you showed up in Toronto,” Marty said.
“If I am, it’s ’cause I deserve to fucking be.”
“Maybe, yeah. You’ve been through it, Daws. Here’s the thing. I know Cam’s been trying, but you’re being difficult. I don’t know why.”
“You don’t know why?” Dawson huffed out a breath.
Marty winced. “Okay, I know why.”
The captain announced over the PA system that they’d reached their cruising altitude and they’d be in Toronto in a little under three hours. Three hours for Marty to badger him to death about the rookie.
Dawson didn’t say anything, with the hope that maybe Marty, not the biggest talker in the world, would give up.
But he seemed intent on making his point because he kept going.
“Sure, you’re a little pissed off. A lot pissed off, maybe.
At Brynn, sure. At her daddy, no question.
At Baltimore, for not having more faith in you as a player.
But I’m telling you, none of that’s Cam’s fault.
He’s just trying to do his job, best as he can, and you’re making it hard on him. Hard on yourself, too, to be honest.”
“Did you practice that?” Dawson asked flatly.
Marty grinned at him. “How was it?”
“Eh,” Dawson said. “Middling. Could use some work on the delivery.”
“Come on, man. You know what you need to do. You just need to do it.”
It wasn’t that easy, and Marty probably knew it, but this was as much of a pep talk as Marty was apt to make. Frankly it was more than Dawson had even expected.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
Marty’s expression was full of frustrated resignation. “Do more than think about it.”
Dawson could’ve offered more excuses, but they all sounded painfully transparent even to him, and it was more than a little embarrassing how much he’d already exposed all his wounds—some of them still bleeding sluggishly, refusing to close.
“Alright,” Dawson said and hoped that he wouldn’t make himself a liar.