16. Ryan
SIXTEEN
Ryan
“That was rough.”
I’m not sure who said it, but I grunt in response, stepping forward into the spray of the shower. The cold water feels like heaven on my sore muscles, and I hang my head, letting it roll over my shoulders and cascade down my back. Fuck me running sideways. Practice today was a bitch.
Coach Wolfe reamed our asses from the second he saw us until he sent us to the showers. We spent the last two hours doing suicides, burpees, bear crawls, and crab walks before running a few sloppy plays.
Three of the linemen puked. One of the rookies nearly passed out.
I haven’t had an ass chewing like that since college.
I get it, he’s pissed, but so are the rest of us. No one feels good after a loss, especially one as spectacular as the one yesterday.
We were doing well early in the game—riding high after our first touchdown—and managed to hold them back from their end zone for the rest of the first quarter. When we hit the field at the start of the second, we thought we had the game in the bag. We were cocky, arrogant, and stopped playing as a team. Then we let them gain twelve yards. Another two. Then four. Before I knew it, they had a touchdown of their own, and the game was tied.
We completely fell apart after that and practically handed them the win. They scored twice more, and we tucked our tails between our legs and went back to the hotel to lick our wounds.
Some of the guys went down to the hotel bar to nurse the loss in a pitcher of beer while I stayed up all night, clenching my phone and wishing I had someone to call. Wishing I had someone to give me some solace, a sense of peace, when everything feels like it’s going wrong.
A week ago I’d have been with the guys, drinking, laughing, trying to forget my epic fuckups from the game. Now that I have Oliver and June in my life, I wanted them. I wanted to sit with Oliver while he talked through another movie. I wanted June to help me tuck him into bed. And Lord help me, I wanted to talk to June until either one of us fell asleep or the sun came up.
But I couldn’t. I was a little over five hundred miles away, and June wasn’t mine to find comfort in. I wanted to, though, fuck me, I wanted to.
“Looking a little slow out there, Devlin. Old age starting to set in?” Isaac Hughes, the second-string tight end, settles in next to me with a haughty laugh that sends me immediately on edge.
Dammit, I’d love nothing more than to tell him to fuck off, to rise to his level of petty, but it’s not worth it. He’s not worth losing my cool and potentially my first-string position. If we keep playing like we did yesterday, it’s in jeopardy anyway. I was slow and he fucking wasn’t. The prick.
So, yeah, as much as I’d love to knock a few of his teeth out, I won’t. I’ll play nice. I’ll do the right thing and try like hell not to make things worse for myself.
Instead, I grit my teeth, balling my hands into fists against the shower wall, and swallow down the insult loaded on my tongue.
“Thought you might be protecting your left side. Pulled your hamstring again?” He’s gloating— asshole —and yeah, maybe I did pull my hamstring at practice today, but I won’t be admitting it to him.
That secret lies between me and my maker.
“Get the fuck out of here, Eye-Sack. No one needs to hear your big-ass mouth. Even with a pulled hammy, Devlin is still better than your punk ass.”
Okay, so that secret lies between Gunner and me. And apparently now Isaac. Perfect. I’m sure he won’t mention it in front of Coach at practice tomorrow. It’s not like we have our opening game coming up on Thursday.
Oh, wait, we do.
With a growl I push away from the wall as Gunner pushes Hughes down the line and takes his place. He glances around us, which doesn’t look suspicious at all, and leans toward me, lowering his voice. “You okay, man?”
I stare at him, blinking a few times before I answer. “Are you talking to me or my penis? You’re awfully close.”
He shakes his head, huffing a laugh, but does give me a little space. Dude has no sense of personal boundaries sometimes. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, fucker.”
“It’s no big deal. I’ll be good as new by Thursday.” I even shake my leg around for good measure. Don’t need my quarterback worrying about me. He’s my best friend, but he’s also one of the four team captains around here.
Gunner, however, doesn’t seem amused. His eyes narrow and he crosses his arms. I don’t even get a smirk. “Not talking about the leg.”
“Well, I’m not talking about anything else.”
He cocks his head, assessing me, and I turn, soaping myself up. “Really? We’re not going to talk about the kid you just found out about last week? The same three-year-old and his mom who are currently living in your apartment. Don’t think I didn’t notice your new Insta profile. Seems like an interesting development.”
“I haven’t actually posted anything yet. And you have one.” Which isn’t a lie, although I don’t think he actually runs his own account. “Nick wants me to be more open about my life. He thinks it will help build me a fandom.”
“Well, the airplane selfie you put as your profile picture sure won me over.” He puts his fingers together in the shape of a heart, and now it’s my turn not to be amused.
“Fuck off.”
“Someone is evading the subject.”
“Someone is annoying and doesn’t realize I want to be left alone.”
“Yeah, okay. Let me pretend to believe that for a minute.” Fucker puts a finger on his chin and literally taps it. Who does that? Maybe I need to rethink this friendship. “Nope. Can’t do it. I’m going to call bullshit. You did nothing but talk about this girl for months after you dipped it in her and now you don’t want to talk about it? I thought this chick had bubblegum nipples and a vagina that spit out money.”
“Bubblegum? What are you, five?” I try to keep a straight face, but my damn lip twitches. I definitely need to be rethinking this friendship. “And it wasn’t months. It was a few days at most.”
It was months, but I don’t really feel like that detail is relevant.
“Months, Ryan. I thought you were going to hunt her down, kidnap her, and break her legs so she couldn’t run away.”
“I think the commissioner and my sponsors would have a problem with me kidnapping women. Probably Coach Wolfe too.”
Gunner shrugs, squirting an extra-large dollop of shampoo in his palm and lathering it in his hair. He takes his time rinsing it out, and I follow suit, thinking we’re going to get some well-deserved quiet time.
“Don’t think I’m dropping this. I will follow you home.”
Dammit.
“Hey, Bronson,” Vaughn Westgate calls out from the back of the shower. “Is that your dick or did you drop a Tic Tac in your curlies?”
Theo doesn’t miss a beat, shouting back, “Why do you think your mom’s breath always smells so minty fresh?”
I chuckle, glad for the distraction, but Gunner is still standing there. Waiting. “It’s a surprisingly normal feeling, having them there. I don’t know how to explain it. Oli is great. I can’t wait to do more stuff together. He’s smart as hell too. Must get that from his mother.”
“And what about June?”
“What do you want me to say? What I may or may not want doesn’t matter. My contract is up at the end of the season, and you know what that’s like. We haven’t made the playoffs in years, and the owners are getting antsy. That means trades. I don’t want to go anywhere, man. I can’t lose focus.”
He nods, turning off the shower, and pats my shoulder. “I get it. Sucks, though.”
And he’s off, leaving me with so many thoughts spiraling around in my brain. Sucks doesn’t even begin to describe the half of it. If only things were different. If only I was different.
But I’m not.
I’m a broken man, and any chances I had at a happy ending died with my wife. These feelings for June are temporary, a fleeting emotion because she’s in my house and birthed my child. I’ve had to swallow down all my anger, my heartbreak, the bone-crushing grief that weighs me down. I can fight this. I have to.
What I told Gunner was the truth. I can’t lose focus, which means I can’t lose control.