5. Breaker
CHAPTER 5
brEAKER
Now
Redwoods Practice Facility
Jake McRyan leads me through the training facility, past the weight room and cafeteria and into an elevator.
"Any chance you can tell me where we're going?" I ask him. As offensive coordinator, Jake's job is to design our offensive plays and work with the headcoach and quarterback to execute them during the game.
Basically, he is my god and I am but a lowly peasant that must worship at his altar.
Jake takes his good old time answering my question. He didn't say anything when he pulled me off the field, and I didn't want to ruffle the feathers of one of my new bosses by asking question, but I'm sort of shaking in my boots here.
"We're headed up to the administrative suites. There's some people up there who want to speak with you. Don't worry, it's nothing bad." The elevator door dings open and he pats my back.
"Probably," he mutters as he exits the elevator.
I stand there for a moment, stunned and scared shitless. I slip out just before the elevator doors start to close and follow him down the hall. We turn a corner and are met by a dude a full half foot taller than me in a slick black suit, holding the hand of a beautiful woman with long, flowing, curly brown hair. It takes me a second to recognize the new Redwoods team owner in my confused and slightly terrified haze, but there he is. He's much bigger in person and way more intimidating in that suit than he looks teaching fitness classes on the screen of my Spin Sync bike at home. I recognize the woman at his side as his wife, both because she's almost always in the front row of the man's live spin classes but also because she's one of my favorite authors and I follow her social media religiously. He holds his free hand out to me and I try to covertly wipe my sweaty palm on the side of my shorts before I take his.
"Breaker Lawson, it's nice to meet you," he says, his voice deep and booming. You can totally tell he was once a CEO of a Fortune 100 company. The power practically drips off of him, flooding the room like molasses threatening to swallow me up.
I nod and break the tight handshake with fear coursing through my veins. Not because James Adler looks particularly scary — he's more domineering than anything — but because there is nothing more daunting than standing in the presence of a man who could buy and sell you in the blink of an eye. I look down and notice two tiny humans. Kidlets, as Lennon often refers to the kids who used to come to our college practices with their parents. They're decked out in bright red San Francisco Redwoods jerseys that hang down to their knees and both are staring up at me. I can only assume these two belong to James since they're wrapped around his calves. I knew he had twins, but whenever they're pictured on social media, there's an emoji placed over their faces.
I kneel to the kids bouncing at their mother's feet, and say “Hey littles. I'm Breaker. And who might you two be?”
The twins are spitting images of their parents, both rocking their dad’s bright blue eyes and their mom’s button nose. The boy pushes his shaggy hair out of his face and gives me a toothy smile.
“I’m Efan!” he squeaks, and holds out a sticky hand for me to shake. I'm pretty sure he meant to say 'Ethan', but the toothy slip up is so damn adorable. His sister is a little quieter as she says, “I’m Taylor”.
“It’s nice to meet you both. Are you excited to watch some football guys practice today?”
“YES!” They both scream, and I do mean scream at the top of their tiny lungs, for an extended period of time, in my face. I offer up my hands and they each give me tiny high fives.
“Who’s your favorite player?” I ask, winking like I want them to say my name.
“Jason Kelce!” They answer in unison, name dropping the old player from Philadelphia who retired recently. I grab my chest dramatically.
“What?! Haven't you seen my game tapes? You were supposed to say I’m your favorite player!” I whine, and they giggle. Obviously I know that these tots have no idea who I am, and I gotta admit, the kids have taste. Kelce is the best center the NFL has ever seen, in my humble opinion.
Although, if Lennon asks, I totally said he's the best in the league. Definitely him.
“Hey,” I say in a whisper loud enough for their parents to hear, but low enough that the kids think I’m telling them a secret. “Can you tell me your mom’s name? I want to make sure I make a good impression when I introduce myself.”
I already know her name, obviously. Georgie Adler writes some of the best romantic comedies I've ever read, but I figure flattering the kids and making them feel included might score me some brownie points with their parents.
The twins beam up at their mom and yell out “SWEET GIRL!”
Mrs. Adler’s face goes as redder than her bright lipstick as her husband laughs and places a kiss on the top of her head.
“Silly rabbits, that’s not my name,” she says, pulling herself together enough to pat each of the kid’s heads.
“But that’s what Daddy always calls you,” Taylor says. I didn't think it was possible, but Mrs. Adler's face goes even redder. I stand and offer my hand to her.
“It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Adler,” I say as she grips my hand in a shake tighter than that of her husband's. I'm instantly impressed and intimidated.
“Call me Georgie, please.”
Phew. No pressure there. I'm just casually on a first name basis with the fuck-hot new team owner’s fuck-hot wife.
It should be illegal for two such beautiful people to exist in close proximity like this.
“Georgie, then,” I continue, nodding like an idiot. “I'm a big fan of your work. I'm obviously a football man, but your hockey romance series? It had me wanting to lace up my old skates and hit the ice. It's an honor to meet you. All of you. You’ve got a gorgeous family.”
“We did okay,” James says, simultaneously giving his wife an adoring look as he ruffles the hair of the boy trying to crawl up his leg.
“MR. brEAKER,” the kid shrieks, catapulting himself off his dad’s calf. “Guess what?”
“What?” I ask, enthusiastically as I squat back down to eye level with him. Fuck yeah, they want to talk to me. They think I’m cool. I’m so good with kids.
"We got two kittens!" He holds up two fingers and his sister shakes like a bobblehead on a dashboard.
"Two kittens?" I gasp, pretending like this is the coolest news in the world because I suppose to them, it is. Personally, I'm more of a dog person, but I'm not about to debate golden retrievers versus tabbies with a couple of loud four year olds.
"They're twins like us. They have white hair and black dots like a cow!" Taylor exclaims, and I make an impressed face.
"And Mr. Breaker, guess what else?" The shaggy haired boy says, poking my leg as if my attention had slipped away from him for a moment.
"What?!" I ask with even more excitement in my voice.
“Daddy put a baby in Mommy’s butt!” Little Ethan exclaims while bouncing up and down.
“WITH HIS PENIS!” Taylor yells, and I freeze in place, my knees locking out and thighs aching from this squatting position. I have no idea how to respond to that.
Yeah, maybe I’m not so good with the kids after all.
I look up, and poor Georgie Adler is burying her still-tomato-red face into her chuckling husband’s arm.
“What my charming children are trying to say,” James says, pulling his blushing wife even tighter to his side, “Is that they’ve recently found out that they are getting a new baby sibling, and they’re very excited. And also, clearly," he gestures between himself and Georgie, who is determined not to look at me, "our attempts at age-appropriate sex education are going really fucking well.” He punctuates the last sentence with a dramatic roll of his eyes.
“SWEAR JAR!” the twins scream, pointing up at their dad as he moves to place a palm on each of their heads and subtly shakes them.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says under his breath, “I’ll Venmo you, you little gremlins.”
Georgie, to her credit, gains her composure quickly and wrangles the kidlets as I stand back up.
“Bunny rabbits, do you want to get a hot dog while daddy has his meeting?” she asks the rascals, emphasizing the ‘hot dog’ in a way that makes them sound so exciting, a cadence only a good mom enticing children with something incredibly ordinary can achieve.
“HOT DOGS! HOT DOGS!” The tots start to chant as they skip off, Georgie Adler’s lips skimming her husbands as they head off in the other direction. I wait for James to turn his attention back to me, but instead, his gaze follows his wife and kids, eyes settling on the general area of his wife's ass before he shakes his head and looks at me.
“I—” he starts, and then shakes his head again. “You know what? No. I was about to apologize, but I’m not sorry. The day my wife doesn’t garner my full attention when she's in the room with me is the day I know I'm dead." He continues to watch as Georgie and his kids disappear down the hall, only bringing his gaze back up when he can no longer see them. "You two ready?" he asks, placing a hand on McRyan's shoulder. I'd actually forgotten the OC was standing there.
"We’ve got some important things to discuss, Lawson. If you don’t mind.” He gestures to his left, the hallway that holds the administration offices. I swallow hard and head in that direction while echoes of the twins and their hot dog chant fade into the background.
James opens the door to an office, that I assume belongs to him, considering the half unpacked boxes and knick knacks strewn about. The only things that look like they’re in the right place are a laptop and the framed photo strip of him and Georgie making faces and kissing on a photobooth on his desk.
There are five seats opposite the one behind the desk that James sit in, and three of them are already filled. In here with us is the team's head coach, Dan Elliot, our starting quarterback, Luke Cannon, and the second string QB, Tyree Kasper.
James gestures for me to sit and I do, taking the free seat between Kasper and where McRyan plopped down at the end of the row.
“Alright gentleman, I'd prefer to make this quick, if we can. I have a wife and kids I promised to spend the day with.” Adler says as he leans back and crosses one leg over the other. Coach Elliot stands and leans against the edge of the desk, staring me down.
I take a deep breath.
"Breaker, when you signed your contract back in the spring, there was an NDA included in the paperwork, do you remember that?" Coach asks, and I nod.
"Yes, I remember signing it," I say. My agent mentioned that signing an NDA when signing with a team wasn't all that common, but that it does happen, and I didn't care. Mr. Irrelevant wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"We'd like you to keep that NDA in mind when we tell you what we need to tell you," McRyan says from beside me, and my stomach flips. Why do I suddenly feel like I'm in some sort of Western meets The Godfather meets Remember The Titans sort of situation?
"Can we stop beating around the bush like I'm not sitting right here?" Cannon booms, pounding a fist on the arm of his chair. The sound echoes throughout the mostly empty room and makes me jump.
"Lawson," he says, turning to look at me. "I'm assuming you saw the NFC Divisional game this past January?"
I nod. "Of course I did."
"Do you remember the sack I took near the end of the third?" Luke asks, and I nod again. Of course, I remember. That hit took him out for the rest of the game. It probably cost the team their ticket to the Big Game. Not that Tyree Kasper didn't do a good enough job stepping up in Cannon's absence, but that kind of blow to moral can cause even the best teams to choke. Coach Elliot picks up where Cannon left off.
"He tore his LCL. He had surgery back in the spring but the physical therapy…" Coach trails off.
"The recovery isn't going how I want it to. My knee is absolutely fucked. I'm not going to be able to start this year. I don't know if I'll be able to play this season at all. Maybe ever again," Luke says, his pointer finger tapping anxiously on the injured knee in question.
Shit. He looks absolutely dejected. Coming back from an injury is never fun. Trying to come back from an injury, knowing your career is on the line but your body is fighting you tooth and nail along the way? It's gotta be goddamn devastating.
"We've managed to keep this all hidden from the press, for now," James speaks up from behind his desk. "What with my buying the team after last season and some of the rearranging going on on the defensive coaching staff, we've thought it best to keep this on the down low. Give Luke here the time he needs to get his body going in peace. Clearly, he's going to have to go on the injured reserve list, but we'd like to continue to downplay the extent of the injury for as long as possible."
"I understand," I say, "But why are you telling me this now? If Cannon is going on the injury reserve list, I would've found out eventually." I'm just very confused. I feel for Luke, and what he's going through, but I just don't get what it has to do with me.
"Lawson, I know you just got here, but we're going to need you to seriously step up." McRyan says as he lifts and stands next to Elliot. "Without a roadmap to Cannon's recovery, we need to play it safe with Kasper here, keep him as healthy as possible throughout the season."
"Right…" I draw out, the puzzle pieces slowly clicking together in my mind. "So what you're saying is…"
"What we're saying is that we know you probably thought you'd be spending the majority of the season with your ass warming the bench. Last round draft pick, third string quarterback, that's what's to be expected. But that's not what's going to happen this year for you. We're going to need you on that field with the team, helping to hold us up. We're going to need you giving it all during this training camp. Every practice, every workout, every scrimmage, you need to be out there giving it your best, showing us that you can lead a team to victory. What the five of us need to know right now," Adler says, and I can feel all five sets of eyes searing into my skin, "Are you up for the challenge?"
I bite my lip, considering what they're asking. It's not that outlandish. Players make the first string and start games right out of college all the time. Showing up and showing out during practice is what I'm supposed to be doing. Throw in actually getting some field time during the season? It's a dream scenario. And they want to know if I'm up for the challenge?
Well, I'll tell you what. If I learned one thing from the hours Lennon and I have spent binge watching The Office, it's that there is only one appropriate answer to that question.
"Absolutely, I am."