Change the Play (Nashville Rampage #5)

Prologue

Foster

There’s a fist gripping my heart. The squeeze causes an ache that’s been there longer than I can remember. Its presence is familiar, yet still unwelcome. Today, however, that ache is for something altogether different. It’s not from the tragedies of my past. It’s for the hope of my future.

Sitting next to me on my right is my high school football coach.

Coach Nathan Pruitt and his wife, Hope, stepped up for me in a big way my sophomore year of high school.

They took me in when I had nowhere else to go, and they saved me from, well, life.

I’ll never be able to repay them for all that they’ve done for me.

Coach and his wife are the reason we’re here today.

Sure, I put in the work, but they guided me.

Gave me a safe place to lay my head at night, food in my belly, as much as I could eat, and they pushed me to be better.

To make better grades, to want more for myself.

They guided me at a time when I was walking my way through the darkness.

To my left is my long-time girlfriend, Violet. She and I met in our freshman year of college at the University of Cincinnati. We both chose to stay close to home for school. We hit it off immediately, and we both fell hard and fast.

My friends, my teammates, they’ve given me shit more times than I can count for being in a serious relationship in college, but I ignore them, letting their words roll off my shoulders.

Violet is the first person outside of Coach and his wife who has ever stayed.

My life has been a long line of family who’d forget me and walk away.

Not Violet.

She’s been with me every step of the way during this process.

She’s also the reason my leg keeps bouncing like it’s trying to release all the fear and hope I’m carrying at once.

Her presence steadies me, even when my body can’t quite keep still, because what she doesn’t know is that I have a ring in my pocket.

Today marks the day my future changes. Our future changes, and I want her by my side. I need her by my side. She’s been there for all of it. Every practice, every game, every pep rally, and every workout session. Violet is my future, and today, we take the first step toward that.

At least, I hope we do.

We’ve been together for four years, and we’ve talked about the next steps. I don’t think she’s going to say no when I drop to one knee, but there’s always that chance, hence the leg bouncing like I’m thirteen again, trying to hide a crush.

Coach places his hand on my shoulder as my phone rings. We’re sitting in their living room, where we’ve been waiting for the call.

“Hello,” I answer.

“Foster Vaughn, this is Coach Warner from the Nashville Rampage. Welcome to the Rampage family, son,” he says.

Tears well in my eyes, and that same bout of emotion clogs my throat.

It’s happening. It’s really happening. This has always been my dream.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from, and this dream felt too far away.

Too out of reach, but here I am, living it in color.

“Thank you, sir,” I manage to croak. Violet leans in close, and I take comfort that she’s here with me.

I’m not doing this alone. Only in recent years have I had a steady presence that I could rely on.

Coach Pruitt and his wife gave me that, and when I met Violet, another piece of my pain, more cracks around my heart were filled in by her constant presence and unwavering support.

“We’ll see you soon,” he says, and I nod, even though he can’t see me.

“Yes, sir.” Ending the call, I turn to Coach and grin.

“Nashville,” I rasp and swallow back a sob.

Coach stands and pulls me into a hug, then steps back, allowing his wife to do the same.

Once they’ve released me, I turn to Violet, who stands and opens her arms. I lean into her embrace, burying my face in her neck.

The TV is blaring as the announcer begins speaking. “In the first round of the professional league draft, with the fifth pick, the Nashville Rampage selects Foster Vaughn, University of Cincinnati.”

The room erupts with cheers, and all I can do is hold on to Violet. She’s my calm in the storm. The light in the darkness that’s surrounded me for years.

The ring is burning in my pocket, but it’s not time yet. I don’t want an audience. I want the moment to be ours, and ours alone.

I’m pulled away from Violet by my friends and college teammates, who are here to help me celebrate. Nathan and Hope’s living room is packed, and everyone is here to celebrate me and this accomplishment.

Foster Vaughn: Professional athlete.

Officially on the Nashville Rampage roster.

Fuck yes!

There are a lot of hugs, handshakes, congratulations, and even more food. Hope really went all out, and now, maybe with my signing bonus and my salary, I can repay the Pruitts for everything they’ve done for me.

Hours later, once the guests have gone home and the mess has been cleaned up, I’m sitting out on the back patio with Violet in my lap. I’ve been waiting for there to be a moment when it’s just the two of us, and this is it.

I had planned to get on one knee, but she’s on my lap, snuggled up to my chest, and I like her here.

I like her close, so instead of dropping to one knee, I pull the ring out of my pocket, along with my phone, so she’s not suspicious.

I glance at my phone, not really seeing the screen at all, and drop it onto the lounger next to us. The ring is gripped lightly in my palm.

“I love you,” I tell her.

Her reply is soft, almost a whisper. “I love you, too.”

“Thank you for being here with me today.”

“You know I want to support you,” she says, placing her hands over mine that are wrapped around her waist.

“I want that every day, Vi. Every day of forever.” Unclasping my hand, I hold my sweaty palm out to her with the ring. “Marry me, Violet. Come with me to Nashville. Let’s build the life we’ve both always dreamed of.” I kiss her cheek, waiting for her answer.

The one that never comes.

The silence is deafening.

Finally, she moves off my lap to sit next to me on the lounger, facing me. She closes my fist around the ring, and my heart sinks to my toes. “I can’t marry you, Foster.”

Am I having a heart attack? I’m too young for that, right?

“What?” I rasp. I don’t understand. We’ve talked about this—our future, what we want out of life.

“I got into Johns Hopkins. Their program is intense, and their selection process is brutal. I didn’t think I’d get in, but I did, and I accepted. I’m moving to Maryland, Foster.”

“Maryland?”

She nods. “Yeah, it’s my dream school.”

“We had plans.”

She lifts her shoulders in a slight, helpless shrug.

“Plans change, Foster. I love you—God, I do—and I’m so proud of you.

But I have dreams I need to chase, and I can’t chase them in Nashville.

I don’t want to be known as the wife of a professional athlete.

I want to be known for being an incredible doctor. ”

“Why can’t you be both? You were going to be both,” I say, the words catching as I try to make sense of what’s unraveling in front of me.

Silence settles between us—heavy, stretching, impossible to ignore. “I don’t want both, Foster. I know this isn’t what we planned, or what you ever expected, but I don’t want the life you’re about to step into. I’m sorry. I can’t marry you.”

I can’t marry you.

I can’t marry you.

I can’t marry you.

Her words loop through my head like a broken record, each repetition cutting deeper. I thought Violet was my forever—we planned for it, talked about every detail—so hearing this now knocks the ground out from under me.

“We can work it out,” I tell her, grasping for something solid. “You can go to Maryland, finish school, and we’ll figure the rest out. We always do.”

“Foster…” She exhales my name like an apology.

“I don’t want to work it out. This is goodbye for us.

” She leans in and presses a soft kiss to my cheek, and I hate how desperately I want to turn my head and catch her lips with mine.

Hate that I gave her my heart after it had already been shattered so many times.

I wasn’t sure it could ever be rebuilt, and now she’s breaking it all over again.

“So that’s it?” I whisper. “All the plans we made were just empty words? Promises with no weight, already broken before we even spoke them?”

“I never wanted to hurt you, Foster.”

I let out a short, bitter, humorless laugh. “Well, you did.” Heat flares in my chest, masking the ache with piercing pain. Anger mixed with the familiar sting of being left behind swirls in my gut. Violet is just one more person I trusted with my heart, only for her to crush it under her heel.

“Foster—” she begins, but I cut her off.

“Go. Just go, Violet.” My fist tightens instinctively, the ring biting into my palm—a cruel reminder of everything I thought we were building. The life I pictured, the future I thought we shared, all of it going up in smoke in a matter of minutes.

“I love you,” she whispers.

“Go!” I roar. The word tears out of me. How can she stand there and say she loves me while she’s breaking my heart? How can she refuse to marry me and still claim those words?

Tonight, I learned a fool’s lesson. From this day forward, my heart will remain on lockdown. The pain isn’t worth it. I’m moving to Nashville, and I’m going to make something of my life. I don’t need Violet or her empty promises.

It’s time to change the play.