Chapter 11 – RHETT
RHETT
Day fucking two and I fuck up. I wasn’t watching the field. I was watching her with that guy. Watching his arm around her shoulder and how they smiled at each other. How they laughed, and he touched her and stole the baby from her arms to her protest.
I was watching all of it.
Instead of watching the field.
I was jealous like a goddamn high school kid. I wanted to break that guy’s hands because he could touch her, and I couldn’t. I don’t even know him.
And because of that, a player got hurt.
I saw it out of the corner of my eye a split second before it happened.
If I had been doing what I was supposed to, it wouldn’t have happened.
Our star cornerback, Noa Colsen, was all over Avery, the receiver.
A rookie. It was a position Colsen played in college before he came to the NFL, and his first coach on another team decided he’d be a better corner than receiver.
Colsen was playing a little too hard and a little too close for no pads.
He gave the rookie no breathing room. He was letting him know that he was bigger, faster, and better.
I blew the whistle to end the play, to let the ball fall dead.
The rookie stopped. Colsen didn’t. He went up, intercepted the ball, and came down on the kid’s foot.
With all his weight.
Intentional? Maybe. I don’t know. Could have been a fuck-up moment of showboating. The egos of football players are bigger than my dick and filled with enough hot air to cause an environmental disaster.
But it wouldn’t have happened. Colsen wouldn’t have been that close if I were doing my job instead of tracking the girl.
Trainers and our resident doctor run toward the kid while I get right up in Colson’s face. I’m pissed, and he’s going to feel it.
“What the fuck were you doing?”
“My job,” he barks arrogantly, his dark eyes hard on my face. “The kid is light.”
“Except today isn’t hard, and you know it.
It’s running routes. It’s mechanics. It’s fundamentals.
It’s fucking peewee football until next week.
What it’s not is the fucking regular season, and that kid is not an opponent on another team.
You do shit like that again, and I’ll cut or bench your ass.
I don’t give a fuck about your contract. ”
His nostrils flare, but smartly, he keeps his mouth shut.
I storm away from him and over to the kid, who now has his shoe off and already a nasty contusion on the top center of his right foot.
“What’s the verdict?” I ask, my voice measured as I address the training staff, who are all crouched around him.
“He needs an X-ray,” Quinn answers, annoyance in her tone that I’m ignoring her, but I’m not ignoring her.
I’m acutely aware of her.
That’s the problem.
She’s on one knee with the kid’s foot balanced on the other and held in her hands.
She’s in a basic white T-shirt with her practice’s name on it and light shorts with her pale, mile-long legs on display.
Her dark red hair is on top of her head in a neat ponytail, and her sunglasses are perched in the middle of her cute, freckled nose with a peek of her narrowed green eyes above the top of the frames.
“I don’t think it’s broken though,” she finishes, reassuring Avery.
“Then why does he need an X-ray?”
Her venom comes charging back. “Because there could be a small hairline fracture, and since I’m not Wonder Woman, I can’t see the bones in his feet without one.”
My lips almost twitch. Almost. No one speaks to me that way, and never on the field.
“Then get it done, Doctor.” I pat the kid’s shoulder. “You’ll be okay, Avery.”
“Thanks, Coach.” Avery is a talented kid. He also has manners for days and doesn’t say boo to anyone. That’s going to have to change if he wants to make it in this league.
The training staff gets him up and holds him up, acting as crutches so he doesn’t have to put any weight on his foot.
They walk him off the field to a cart on the sidelines since today we’re at the small, outdoor practice field and the facilities aren’t that close and certainly not walkable for him.
I release a tense breath, rub the back of my neck that’s hot from the sun and sticky with sweat, then get our asses back to practice.
I work them hard for another twenty minutes, running drills and sprints until they’re exhausted and dripping with sweat.
I show no mercy because they need to know that’s how it’s going to be this season for them.
Eventually, I blow the whistle again, this time not as hard.
“Nice work today,” I call out to a few players on things they need to improve on and praise a few others. “Go shower. We’ll be back at it tomorrow.”
The players head off the field toward the main building and the locker rooms there, and I follow behind, talking with the position coaches along with my defensive and offensive coordinators.
We go through it all on our walk, even if we’ll be discussing it more in depth sitting at a large table in an air-conditioned room after we’ve all showered.
But first, I make a pit stop in the trainers’ area.
Avery is sitting up, watching as the trainer slides on a foot sleeve, but there’s a boot sitting on the table beside him. He looks crestfallen, his brows pinched together and his posture stiff. Quinn is on a rolling stool with her back to me as she does something on a tablet.
I head over to Avery and drop my hand on his shoulder. His big, brown eyes draw up to me. “Doc says it’s broken.”
“It’s a tiny hairline fracture of the fourth metatarsal,” Quinn concurs in doctor language.
She stands and goes to the other side of him.
“Honestly, most people might not even get an X-ray for it or know they have it other than some discomfort. It’ll fully heal in about four weeks.
I don’t even think you’ll feel it so much with running as you will with pushing off. ”
“Which is essential to his position. How long before he can be back on the field?” I ask, keeping my tone even.
I need to talk to her. I need to tell her about Russel. But I’m also not particularly anxious to be alone with her either. I don’t like that a woman I had the best sex of my life with, whom I’ve thought about and fantasized about and spent hours and hours texting with, belonged to my son.
The first woman to spark something in me is the one I can never touch again.
“I’d say two to three months, and probably on the lower end of that number with training. The new bone tissue will be fragile, and the surrounding muscles, tendons, and ligaments need time to recover as well. But since it’s such a minor injury, I do think you’ll be back in a couple of months.”
The kid curses. “Sorry, ma’am. I mean, Doctor.”
Quinn laughs and waves him away. “Don’t be sorry. It does suck, but if it helps, this really is the smallest fracture you could have. I see way worse than that all the time. Because it’s so small, and you have the best care with your trainers, you’ll be back and in top form before midseason.”
I smack the kid’s shoulder. “You’re going to have every play in the playbook running through your head so much you’ll dream about them.”
Avery smiles up at me, his white teeth gleaming against his dark skin. “No doubt, Coach.”
“Good stuff. Let’s get you booted up, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I leave the room and let the medical and training staff do their job, and go up to my office.
I shower off a bad day and spend the next three hours with my coaching staff.
By the time I leave, I’m beat, and the idea of going home to my townhouse and to all the boxes I still have yet to unpack isn’t ideal.
It’s ironic. Being alone and even lonely never bothered me so much before. Then I spent my evenings texting with a bright, funny, sarcastic, beautiful woman, and now everything without that feels colorless and bland.
I unlock my front door and step inside to look around. It’s a beautiful place in a great neighborhood. Considering I bought it without seeing it in person, I got lucky. It’s full of classic Boston architecture and charm with modern upgrades.
I toss my keys on the entry table, lock everything up, and head into the kitchen to reheat leftover Chinese food and finish up with the kitchen. There are only three boxes left in here, so it shouldn’t be too bad.
“Alexa, play Tim McGraw radio.”
Her annoying AI prep schoolgirl voice comes through the speaker, and a minute later, music fills my kitchen. I eat and unpack and organize and do everything I can not to pick up my phone. Or think about Quinn. I hate how hard up I am. It’s just disappointment though. And loneliness.
I considered her mine. My girl. My girlfriend.
But once she learned my age—the other bullshit aside—that likely would have sent her running. I’m a man in my mid-forties, and she’s in her late twenties. I’m at the midlife health screens and colonoscopy stage, and she’s barely out of college, living her best single-girl life.
Only… Quinn felt different. Older. More mature. Maybe that comes with being an Olympic athlete and graduating high school so early.
My food dings in the microwave, and I pull out the steaming bowl, letting it cool for a minute and giving in to temptation far too quickly for my liking.
I type Quinn Reyes Olympics into my search engine, and dozens of articles and videos pop up. I still can’t get over that she won gold. Wow.
There’s a video of her gold medal run, and I hit play.
“Alexa, stop.” The music cuts off, and the announcers’ voices come through my phone’s speaker, talking about what a young and talented kid she is.
How she’s the second youngest competitor in the sport, but her preliminary qualifying run or whatever scored her high enough marks to put her in first place for this final run.
Quinn covered in light blue—her favorite color and mine—snow pants, a white snow jacket, large goggles, and a helmet is at the starting point. Then she takes off, going down, then up through the halfpipe. The announcers are going nuts.
“The score she needs to beat tonight is an eighty-four, and I think she can do it, Carl.”
“I agree, Megan. She’s been fearless in these games.”
“Yes, and here she goes.”
“Look at all the airlift she’s getting with that backside 720.”
“Wow, Carl, a double cork, and she lands it. Amazing.”
“Megan, she wanted to knock this out of the park on run number one, and I think she just did that.”
She pumps her fist in the air after she finishes her run, and her parents and brothers are there, hugging her.
They talk briefly about how Asher is a professional football player, but it’s all Quinn.
The clip flips over to her on the podium with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen mixed with tears in her eyes.
I lock my phone and rub a weary hand across my forehead before I turn the music back on and pick up my chopsticks to shovel chicken and noodles into my mouth. I can’t text her. I can’t do it. Any communication is a bad idea and will only sink me further.
Seeing that video didn’t help. As if I didn’t already know it, she’s incredible. So smart and talented.
But she’ll never be mine. Not again.
The sooner I accept that, the better for everyone.
Even if it’s the last thing I want.