CHAPTER TWENTY
Lucas
The party is exactly what you’d expect.
Party? More like a team bonding barbeque at Rodney Cook, the Rebels’ center’s, spacious house.
Too much food. Not enough shade. Coolers and fridges packed with beer I’m not touching. And someone’s playlist that’s cycling between country, hip-hop, and whatever the hell counts as “throwback” these days.
I’m perched on the edge of the pool in a rare spot in the shade. I swish my feet back and forth in the water as I listen to a couple of linemen argue about whether a hot dog is a sandwich.
And I’m not exactly sure what that says about the intelligence level of athletes.
“It is one,” Mason says confidently.
“Says the man who’s downed about six of them in ten minutes,” Connor says, clearly not missing any meals himself. “Regardless, it’s still a hot dog. Not a sandwich.”
“That’s not an argument though. It has two pieces of bread on either side. It—”
“So does a hamburger and we don’t consider a hamburger a sandwich.” Connor lifts his eyebrows like he just delivered the coup de grace.
To save my brain cells from dying a slow death from this conversation, I decide to prove how ridiculous they sound. “You’re both wrong. A hot dog is a taco.”
They both whip their heads my way and stare at me like I just insulted their mothers.
I just shake my head and laugh. “It’s not as serious as you guys are making it.”
They mutter how I don’t understand, and then I welcome the fact that they decide to go get a beer and have the disagreement elsewhere.
“Crazy, the two of us being here,” a voice to my right says, followed by a groan as Mark Jensen, one of our linebackers, drops into a lounge chair.
“It is. Completely. But that’s how the league works.”
“Either that or we’re just two old fuckers who are still convinced we’re young.” He laughs. “And by the way my knees creak, I’m beginning to not believe that lie.”
“No shit. What’s it been? Ten years?” I ask.
He squints and his fingers move like he’s counting. “Yeah, ten.”
“Jesus, where has the time gone?”
“Right?” He shakes his head. “It feels like yesterday we were freezing our asses off in the Chicago cold.”
“No fucking thank you. Not ever again. If we think our bones are groaning now, can you imagine what they’d feel like playing in that shit every day?”
“God, no. Luckily you got traded and won your Super Bowl,” he says.
“And you, what? Stayed for two more years and then went to Phoenix?” I ask and he nods. “From one weather extreme to another.”
“Yeah, but it’s a dry heat,” he jokes. “Not like this muggy shit we have here.”
He’s not wrong.
The seasons we played together make up some of my favorite years. Strong teamwork that pushed every single one of us to live up to our potential. Helped me get to where I am today . . . well, before the shoulder injury.
“We’ve done well for ourselves, haven’t we, Mark?” Fortunate to still be playing at thirty-four.
He lifts his bottle of beer to me. “We have indeed. Let’s hope we get to do the same here.”
“Hopefully.”
“Us two old fuckers showing these young kids how it’s done.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Someone does a cannonball into the pool and soaks half the deck.
“Give a warning next time,” I say, pushing myself up and pulling my phone out of the newly soaked deck and hold it up. “Cell phones.”
“Yeah, yeah. Like you can’t afford to buy a million of them,” someone shouts out.
Laughter rolls through the group as I lift my middle finger in their direction.
When I look around, I notice Cole has moved across from me. He’s leaned back on an elbow, sunglasses on, and a drink in hand. He’s quieter than usual today. Still rough around the edges but definitely not looking for a fight as seems to be his usual MO.
Progress.
It’s easier than I expected here, as no one treats me like a legend. They don’t treat me like dead weight either. I’m beginning to feel like everyone else—just another guy trying to make a roster spot.
A linebacker tries to put a beer in my hand.
I shake my head. “I’m good. Thanks though.”
“C’mon, Hale. One won’t kill you,” Dominic says from where he sits on a raft shaped like a frog in the pool.
“Nah. I don’t take chances with anything that might make me throw like shit tomorrow,” I say.
That gets a laugh and a nod of understanding—or is it respect?
Cole tilts his head. “You really don’t drink during the season?” he asks.
“On a very rare occasion.”
“Huh.” He considers that. “Guess that explains the arm.”
Was that a compliment? I believe it was, but I play it off. “And the lack of a social life,” I joke.
He smirks. “Fair.”
We lapse into a comfortable silence, where it doesn’t feel like anyone is sizing up anyone else.
“So,” a tight end says, leaning back in his chair. “What’s it like?”
“What’s that?” I ask, but I know what he’s asking. It’s the subject that always comes up when I’m sitting around rookies.
“The Super Bowl,” he says.
A few heads turn, and I don’t miss the way Cole stills.
I shrug, wanting to be the voice of experience but not the one of arrogance. “It’s loud.”
That earns a chuckle.
“And incredible.” I shake my head as I think back.
“It’s just like any other game and no other game you’ve ever played.
There are so many distractions off the field that you have to work hard to concentrate and remain on it.
But it’s over fast.” I pause as more guys step in to hear.
“And then you spend the rest of your career chasing the feeling.”
“So, what’s the secret?” someone asks.
I glance around the group, at guys who might be rookies, backups. At guys who might be cut in September.
“The guys you surround yourself with. Everyone has talent, so that’s a given, but it’s the bond you form that matters.
It’s the pulling for the team instead of your own records or stats.
It’s not taking your spot for granted because there are so many others waiting to fill it if we fail.
” I chuckle. Self-fulfilling much? “It’s also a collective desire to do it for the man standing beside you on the field.
” I can see silent nods, and it encourages me to go a step further.
“I say that’s what we do this season, what we make of ourselves.
A team who fights to win for one another. ”
I can see in their expressions and reactions that my comment lands right where it needs to. That it sticks and is fodder for thought.
Cole nods once, like he didn’t expect me to give that answer—but the look he gives me says he respects it.
The conversation shifts. Food. Trash talk. Our first preseason game this weekend. And the more people drink, the more freely people talk.
“Yo, Hale.”
“What’s up?” I ask, turning to find Jackson Wheller walking toward where I’m now sitting with a plate so full of food, I’m wondering how it hasn’t buckled.
“You got a woman back home?” he asks.
I don’t answer right away when the answer is a no-brainer.
Because for some reason, the first thing that flashes through my mind isn’t the house I sold in Los Angeles or the friendships—and hookups—that I walked away from to come here.
Rather, it’s a thrown-back head laughing at a cactus pinata. It’s a hallway with a door across from mine. It’s the warm smile of a woman who hasn’t met me for our morning runs for a few days.
I shake my head. “Nope.”
“Oof,” he says. “Single. Rich. Good-looking. All that in a new city?” He whistles. “Dangerous.”
“Or peaceful,” I counter.
He barks out a laugh. “Liar.”
“Perhaps.”
“No wonder you throw the ball like you’re pissed all the time. The man needs some pussy to relax him,” he shouts and cheers go up all around us.
The man needs some pussy.
Crass as it may be, the comment sticks with me as I pull into the apartment complex parking lot and shut off the engine.
If only it were that simple.
My gaze drifts up to the familiar window across the way. The light is on. What are you doing, Em, because it sure as shit feels like you’re avoiding me.
An unwelcome awareness hits me.
She’s your “in” to get to play, Lucas. The one with the final say.
Your neighbor.
A line you can’t afford to blur—not when everything you’re here for depends on keeping your head straight and your reputation intact.
And yet . . .
I grip the steering wheel hard, taking my frustration out on it, before finally getting out of the truck.
Whatever this thing is—this knot in my gut and the reason why I glance at her door every time before I open mine—needs to stop.