CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Lucas
Fuck.
Talk about a practice. My legs are rubbery, my shoulder has had heat and ice rotating on it for the past thirty minutes, and my lungs feel like they’re going to implode.
Nobody likes conditioning days.
Nobody except for the freaks who really love to run and, while I do it as an occupational chore, it has nothing on the conditioning we were put through today.
It’s no wonder I cut through the side entrance of the facility to have a shorter distance to go toward my truck.
“Holy shit—Hale?”
I turn and am shocked to see Derrick Allen standing there.
Wide receiver. Slot guy. Ring-chaser. Super Bowl winner with me and the Cougars.
“Motherfucker,” he says, grin wide and distinct laugh floating through the air. He looks . . . good. A little thicker around the middle, his dreads are a little longer, and his face is far more relaxed.
“Allen,” I say, grinning before I can stop myself. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He steps in and crushes me in a hug like seven years hasn’t passed at all. “Consulting gig. Plus my sister moved out to Dallas a few years ago, so I’ll head over and see her next.”
“Look at you.” I clap him on the shoulder. “Still traveling on someone else’s dime.”
“Damn right.” He looks me up and down. “You still on that no beer before the season bullshit?”
“Trying to make the team,” I say.
“Lucas Hale not making the team? Dude, you’re a lock.”
“Tell that to my shoulder,” I say and chuckle.
He studies me for a beat, then waves a hand. “Come on. This is a special occasion. One beer. You at least owe me that.”
I give him a dubious expression but within ten minutes we’re sitting in a bar a few blocks away from the stadium. The air-conditioning is cold, the noise is low, and the patrons don’t give a fuck that two football players are sitting near the window.
When I told Emery that some teams and teammates just become a part of you, Derrick Allen and our Super Bowl-winning team was the main one I was talking about.
They are my family just as much as Brendan is.
We talk when time permits, but it always feels like no time has ever passed.
Seeing him here, in this place where despite what it may look like, I’m still finding my footing, is just what I needed.
“So, cheers are in order,” he says tapping his bottle against mine.
“Cheers,” I say. “For?”
“Kristen and I are having our first in eight weeks. I’m going to be a dad.”
I blink. “You’re kidding.”
“Nah, man. For years I said no way in hell am I having a kid, but Christ, Hale, it’s . . . I’m so excited.” He barks out a laugh. “Terrified too. Probably more than the excited part but I’ll figure my shit out.”
“Congrats, brother.” And I so mean it.
“Yeah, well, putting together a crib has nothing on memorizing a playbook. Do you know how many pieces are in those damn things?”
“My brother said the same thing.” I take another sip and savor the taste. A hard practice, a hot day, and a cold beer. Why do I not drink during preseason? “You still going to do this team consulting, traveling gig when the baby comes?”
“Yeah. Have to. I’ll figure it out.”
“Can’t stay away from the game, huh?”
He toggles his head from side to side, eyes slowly meeting mine.
“It’s a calculated choice. There’s an addiction to this football life, man.
The roar of the crowd and the need to perform under the lights.
Like, we might not all admit it, but we lived so long with it feeding our egos that when it’s not there, you don’t quite know how to live without it. ”
I know exactly what he means. Way too fucking much.
I struggle to swallow my beer over the lump in my throat and the fear lodged there. The fear that says his words resonate.
“I’m sure you’re right,” I finally manage to say after a few seconds, but the way his eyes hold mine says he might be trying to send a message I’m not ready to listen to.
“C’mon, man. You’ve got to be thinking about it.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, did Brendan send you here?” I ask.
“Your brother?” His brow furrows as he barks out a laugh. “Why would he—”
“Never mind.” I wave a hand at him. “Forget about it.”
“Uh-huh,” he says in a way that tells me my comment has only served to pique his interest.
“You’re thinking about Manring, aren’t you?”
Manring.
The name hits harder than a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound lineman.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “How can I not?”
Manring. Our star running back who broke record after record. He was invincible. A man who had every goddamn thing in the palm of his hand—a gorgeous family, an incredible career, endorsement deals that any of us would have died for—but when a failing body ended his career, he fucking lost it all.
And not because his wife and kids or his endorsements demanded he be that star, but because he needed it. In his mind, it’s what defined him as a man.
He lost all purpose. He became an angry, directionless man who lashed out at everyone who tried to help him. At those of us—his brothers—who tried to intervene. He lost everything that could have given him purpose for the decades going forward. Wife, kids . . . friendships. Health.
It’s why I’m terrified. I fear that. And I don’t even have a fucking family.
“It scares you, doesn’t it?” When I don’t answer he responds for me. “It did me too, man, but you can be fulfilled off the field. I mean, Kristen had to help me with that at first, but maybe it’s time to think about what comes next for you too?”
I go to argue but know it’ll fall flat. He’s been there.
He understands. “If I think about after, isn’t it jinxing me?
Like, I want at least one more year. I want .
. . fuck if I know what I want anymore.” I scrub a hand through my hair and stare out the window at the people daring the heat outside.
“I get it. I do. And thinking about it ain’t jinxing shit.”
“I saw him a few months back. It was rough,” I say. Manring was a man who was on top of the world but he’s now . . . hollow.
“Just promise me you’ll think about it,” he says. “It doesn’t hurt to have a plan.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“I’m serious.”
“I am too. You have my word.”
We fall quiet, both lost in our thoughts. “You still talk to Sharon?” he asks, referring to Manring’s wife.
“Yeah. I’m on the first of the month.”
“I’m the tenth and Fraber calls her on the twentieth.” He shrugs, but we both know how hard those phone calls are, checking in on Manring’s wife and kids because he isn’t always there for them. Trying to be good teammates because . . . because we’re family.
“Good. Cool. He’ll come around at some point,” I say. It’s way easier to make an excuse for our friend and to think this is temporary despite it having been years.
“Yeah. I’m sure he will,” he murmurs.
But as the night wears on and we part ways, what Derrick said weighs on my mind.
“It scares you, doesn’t it? It did me too, man, but you can be fulfilled off the field. I mean, Kristen had to help me with that at first, but maybe it’s time to think about what comes next for you too?”
What comes next?
Derrick’s not wrong. It’s something I need to figure out—just as soon as I get over the fear that paralyzed me from thinking about it thus far.
Who am I outside of football?