Chapter 31
Landon
Iwalk into training camp, fully prepared for football life to take over. My breakthrough with Rori last weekend, followed by some incredible nights together, only helps my mood and optimism. I feel ready to take on the world. Or at least, take on camp.
We won’t start contact drills this week. Instead, the first three days are focused on meetings—yes, more meetings—along with increasingly intensive workouts and position drills.
For the experienced linebackers, the fundamentals of movement and tackling drills come back almost immediately—our muscle memory is wired in. But Manny and our second-year linebacker get to hear a lot of yapping from the rest of us on how to tweak what they’re doing.
At night, I FaceTime Rori from my hotel room.
She’s still at the cottage this week, and I’m only ninety minutes away, but no visitors are allowed at camp.
It’s basically like when she’s been on the road.
Not ideal, but something we’ve gotten used to at least. Sort of.
After being able to hold her in my arms almost every night the week before, I miss it.
“So wait, have you put on the new episode?” she asks while we FaceTime on the third night. “Christina and her dog, Buffy, are going out with Lawrence and his dog, Butch. Buffy and Butch, I’m dying. They definitely need to get together, if only for their bad dog names.”
“Um, I think Butch is an awesome dog name,” I say, acting like I’m offended.
“Okay, you officially don’t get to pick the dog's name if we ever get one together.” She laughs.
“Hmmm, I can live with that, as long as I have veto rights at least.”
“Deal,” she says.
Which gives me an idea. “In return, show me what you’re wearing to bed, so I can think about it when we hang up.”
She smiles and shifts the camera down. “Think about it, huh? Let me show you this little sleep set I just got.”
The camera reveals her in a tiny cotton top with bows on the straps, and similarly tiny cotton shorts that barely cover an inch of thigh.
“I know you like bows,” she says suggestively. “But I bet you’ll like this even more.”
I watch as her hand sneaks inside her shorts.
We never get to that new episode.
My press obligations start on the fourth day.
Molly, the PR assistant, stops me before I walk into the press conference room. “We told them no personal questions, like your people asked. I’ll get involved if the reporters don’t follow that direction.”
I nod. “Thanks, Molly.”
The first few questions are standard. Local and national sports reporters tend to be the only journalists present in these training camp conferences.
They know the drill—ask us about football topics and we’ll happily throw them some charming quotes that don’t contain any real news, but check a box for their reports.
The fifth question comes from a woman towards the back whom I don’t recognize.
“Hi Landon, Maryanne Tolly from WBTE, new at the station. I have a source who has told me that you had a pregnancy scare with the influencer Trinity Skittles. Care to comment?”
I stand still. What the fuck? This is something I had not mentally prepped myself for. Pull it together, Landon.
Molly jumps in as promised, giving me time to recover. “Football questions only, please.”
“Who’s your source?” I ask the reporter. Molly shoots me a “shut up” glare, but I’m too pissed to control my need to know the answer.
“I cannot comment on that,” the reporter responds.
“Well, no comment from me either,” I say, regaining my composure. The rest of the questions from the room are back on football, but I’m thrown. I haven’t even thought about the Trinity situation since I’d told Rori in June.
Shit. Rori. How is she going to react if this goes public?
I muddle through the rest of the press conference before Molly accompanies me off the podium. As soon as we’re in the private hallway, my phone rings. My press rep, Jim, is calling.
“Talk to me, Jim,” I say as I keep walking down the hall towards the player offices and locker rooms.
“I’ve got Aiden on the phone too. It’s not great, Landon,” Jim says.
“It looks like one of Trinity’s friends might have spilled about your part in her pregnancy.
Not that you’re the father, but that she thought you might be originally.
It doesn’t change the outcome, of course—you’re not the dad—but it will muck your name around in the gossip pages for a bit. ”
“Has it actually gone public yet?” I ask.
“Not yet,” Aiden says. “But sometime today, it will.” As I listen to his answer, the team’s Head of PR, Lara, is walking down the hallway, Molly following close behind.
“My office, Landon. Now please,” Lara says, pointing in that direction.
“Okay, I’m on with Jim and Aiden,” I mention.
She nods, saying, “Even better. We can coordinate.”
For the next ten minutes, they work together to find the specific talking points both the team and I’ll use as this goes public.
Landon and Trinity had a brief relationship last year.
Landon is not the father of her baby.
They parted on good terms, and Landon wishes her all the best.
I’ll say those words if need be, but hopefully Jim can handle most of the responses in my name.
In the meantime, all I can think about is Rori.
I don’t want her to hear that this has gone public first from a social media post or gossip page.
But I’m already late for our daily defensive player meeting, and then I’m due on the field for a two-hour practice.
No time to have a real conversation with her, if she’s even available.
I do the only thing I can think of.
LANDON: Baby, whatever crap you hear online today, please know my people are on it. I’ll explain when we can talk. Can I call you at 6ish?
I stare at my phone for a few seconds, but no response comes. She may be practicing right now. I turn my attention back to Lara as she addresses both Jim and Aiden.
“Okay, I think that all works. Hopefully this story will vanish quickly from the headlines. Let me get Landon back where he’s supposed to be.”
She dismisses me quickly after they hang up, and I head out to the hallway, peeking at my phone. Still no response from Rori.
None comes when I’m in the player meeting either, and I’ve got to leave my phone in the locker when I go out to practice.
After a half-assed run through of some new formations with the guys, I come back inside. I check my phone quickly and I see she’s finally texted.
RORI: ???
RORI: I see it all now. I’ll be free at 6 PM.
In addition to her response, I’ve gotten an email from Jim that includes some links to the now public story—including a response from Trinity that has over half a million views already.
Jim tries to be reassuring. “Trinity has only nice things to say about you in her video, and all the articles are confirming that you’re not the father. I think this will move through the media cycle in just a few days.”
Only I know that isn’t the real problem. I can’t help but hang my head. I hope I haven’t screwed everything up with Rori.
It was one thing when the Trinity situation was a private issue from before we were together. It’s another thing when we’re supposed to make an explosive public announcement that we’re dating in a matter of weeks.
Especially with Rori, who hates the gossip side of public scrutiny.
Fuck.
I walk into my assigned hotel room at 5:45 PM. The complimentary player dinner is open now at the hotel restaurant, but that is not my priority, so I eat a protein bar quickly to hold myself over. Six o’clock cannot come soon enough.
She picks up right away when I call.
“Hey, Landon.” Her voice is soft but neutral in tone.
“Hey, how was your day?” I say, rubbing my hand down my face.
“It was okay,” she responds, her tone still unreadable. “Sounds like yours was a bit rough.”
I chuckle without feeling it. “You could say that. Look, Rori, I feel terrible. If I’d known it was going to go public, I would have given you more warning. I thought it wasn’t ever going to get out.”
“I know you didn’t mean for it to happen,” Rori says, her voice a little softer. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine on all the media stuff. Talking points are written, and my team knows how to handle this kind of story. I don’t really care what people say about me. It was you I was worried about. Us. And what the headlines would mean for us.”
“I mean, I’ve known about this, and I trust you,” Rori says. Thank god I told her when I did. “I’m sure it’s not fun to have this story out there.”
“No, it’s not,” I respond, though I’m really thinking more about her than myself. “So you saw some of the online stuff?”
“Yeah,” Rori says, a hint of hurt bleeding into her voice. “Maggie sent me like a million videos about it.”
“Shit. Shit, I’m sorry, Rori.” I grimace at the thought of her having to go through all those texts. I can only imagine what Maggie found online.
I don’t know what else to say at this point. Half of me wants to jump in a car and show up in Tampa so I can hold her until I know she’s genuinely fine.
There’s a two-second pause and I hear her sigh.
“It’s okay, Landon, truly,” she says. ”I hate to bring this up, but it’s really bad timing. The gala, your season kickoff, the U.S. Open—this story could still be hanging around then.”
“Yeah,” I acknowledge, feeling sick in my gut. “It could.”
The line is quiet for a few seconds.
“I think we probably need to hit pause on the public announcement until this plays out. It’s not really anything to do with the Trinity situation specifically,” Rori says, her voice neutral again, like she’s trying to control her tone.
“I just don’t want anything taking away from what we’re trying to accomplish the next few weeks career-wise. ”
“What do you mean by that?” I ask. My knuckles turn white as I squeeze the arm of the chair I’m sitting in.
“I don’t even know exactly what I mean,” Rori admits with a weak laugh. “Let me talk to Taylor about it, once I’m in the right headspace.”
I shut my eyes. This sucks, but I understand.
“Okay,” I say, blowing out my breath, trying to relieve the tension in my chest.
“Landon, we’re still alright, really,” Rori says, like she’s waking up to my reaction to her words now that she’s said her piece. “This is just about whether or not we’re going public.”
The reassurance does help. “Okay,” I repeat, with a little more confidence.
“I’ll talk to Taylor. We’ll figure out a new plan if we need to.”
At least there’s a chance of a new plan, then. “I hate that you have to deal with this at all, Rori.”
“I know,” Rori says, a little warmth back in her voice.
Her tone further reassures me. Maybe we can move past this without dwelling on it too much. Fuck, I hope so. “Can I call you tonight after dinner? Maybe we can stream that movie you wanted to watch.”
“Yes, that would be good,” she says, her voice staying warmer.
We end up streaming the movie together, me from my hotel bed and her from her couch, FaceTiming together the whole time.
She hadn’t spoken to Taylor yet, except by text. They were going to talk the next day, after seeing how the story evolved in the press.
The next night, she reports that Taylor suggests a wait and see attitude.
“With everything coming up, she agrees that holding off on going public might be for the best. But we can see what happens.”
I don’t push back, not wanting to ask Rori to do something that she’s uncomfortable with.
Within seventy-two hours, my connection to Trinity has largely faded from the online stories about her pregnancy.
But when I have my short window to see Rori on Sunday for a few hours, she doesn’t bring up the topic of coming to the gala, of going public.
And neither do I. I’m scared to hear her answer. That it might be the opposite of what I want it to be.
Is going public off the table in her mind indefinitely? If so, how can we truly be together if we are stuck as a secret?
Even with those questions swirling around my head, I don’t want to ask her where her mind is at.
Where I was once fearful of opening my heart to someone, now I’m frightened of losing her. Pushing her faster than she is ready for could do just that.
So when I drive back to camp that night, our future is still in limbo. Unclear.