Chapter 34
Duffy
“Get up, kid, we’re going to the game.”
“No,” I said, refusing to open my eyes.
“Come on—I’m not repeating myself. Get your ass outa bed.”
“Dad,” I said through gritted teeth, pushing back my hair and sitting up in bed. “It’s too cold and I’m not going to the game.”
“Yeah, you are, and no questions about it,” he barked, sounding like the man who’d woken me up every day in high school by snapping open my shades and yelling. “I’m sick of going with your brothers—they always go to the wrong beer stand. You’re comin’.”
I dragged my hands through my hair. “You can’t make me go to a football game, especially when we got four inches of snow last night.”
“For God’s sake, Duff—how goddamn soft are you now? My youngest is my diehard; it’s what I always tell everyone,” Dad said. “Who gives a crap about snow or that idiot you dated? The team is bigger than that bastard.”
“I just prefer to watch from home—”
“And I prefer not to have this fucking tube in my nose,” he interrupted. “You keep telling me to be an adult and deal with it—well, it’s your turn.”
“Football and oxygen are not the same things,” I said.
“No shit, Sherlock,” he said. “Come on. Go take a shower. You’ve been pouting the entire week and it’s time to nut up.”
“Lovely,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Well, we aren’t sitting in any suites, old man.”
“I’d spit before I’d sit with his friends again,” he said, tilting his head and giving me a look so…understanding that it made me want to cry. “But the Distefanos love the Coyotes, so we turn out.”
“Yeah,” I agreed begrudgingly. “We do.”
I got up and trudged to the shower, ultimately deciding my dad was right.
The Coyotes were more important than just a guy I dated, even if that guy was the star tight end of said team, so I needed to get back to normal life.
Besides, now that my dad didn’t have the distraction of Connor Cunningham being his daughter’s boyfriend, the least I could do was give him a good game, right?
We went hours early because that’s what we did, pulling into our parking spot and walking over to the area where his buddies had their grills lined up, sausages and hamburgers and hot dogs sizzling though it wasn’t even noon yet.
It was freezing, even with my long johns and scarf and gloves, so I chugged my first Bloody Mary, thirsty for some warmth.
“Hey, lookee here, it’s the celebrity girlfriend,” Ricky said with a grin. He was one of my dad’s best friends, an honorary uncle.
“She’s not the girlfriend anymore,” my dad said tersely.
“Good riddance to stinky trash, then,” he said with a shrug. “He wasn’t good enough for you, anyway.”
“I don’t think that’s the expression,” I said with a laugh, loving him for acting like there was any scenario where I’d controlled the end of that relationship, when it was obvious to the world that he’d been way out of my league.
“Well, it should be,” he said. “Grab a hot dog, Duffer.”
Eventually my brothers showed up, and I was grateful they didn’t say anything to me at all about Connor.
We talked about the game and that was kind of it.
I pounded beers with them, keeping up at their breakneck pace, but even a buzz couldn’t take away the lead in my stomach when we finally walked into the stadium and took our seats.
The team was out on the field warming up, and I couldn’t stop thinking about watching warmups from the suite, thinking I belonged there when the entire thing had been a stunt.
Knock it off, I told myself. I was fine before him and I’ll be fine now.
But before I could give it another second of thought, the teams lined up for kickoff.
Game time.
I put my phone away and grabbed my beer, hating the way Connor ruined Coyotes football for me. I didn’t feel the same way about it anymore. But despite everything, I was still worried for Connor. Even though he didn’t necessarily deserve it, I was worried about him having a good game.
But we were down the entire first half.
Our defense couldn’t seem to stop them, and our offense couldn’t make anything happen, either. We went into the second half down six-zip and I didn’t have a good feeling about it. It felt like our game to lose.
But as soon as halftime ended, we received the ball and actually started to make progress down the field. Finally we were converting downs and taking care of the ball.
But then everything changed when Connor went up to catch a pass and got slammed in between two defenders. He went down hard, and fuck—he didn’t pop right back up.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, staring down at the field.
“Oh shit,” my dad said, and we were all on our feet. They replayed the hit and the crowd groaned in unison at the impact, but my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest.
“Get up, get up, get up,” I muttered, shaking out my hands and trying to will him to be okay. I let out a breath when he finally climbed to his feet, but he looked unsteady as the trainers led him off the field.
Connor Cunningham, the giant tight end, the strongest man I’d ever met, stumbled as they took him to one of the sideline tents.
“Oh my God, I have to go,” I said, voice tremoring with fear as I jumped to my feet.
“Go where?” my dad said.
“I don’t know, I have to get down there and make sure he’s okay,” I said, ducking under the railing.
I just started running down the stadium steps without a plan, my eyes trained on the spot where he was, but I was forced to stop when Carly Coyote, the new mascot, was standing on the stairs dancing, effectively blocking my way.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to push past her.
Maybe the costume was too thick for her to hear me or she didn’t care what I said, but she just kept dancing.
“Excuse me!” I yelled again, trying to squeeze by.
But she was clearly in the zone, doing a windmill move with her arms, and accidentally smacked me when I tried to pass.
“Excuse me!” I yelled more urgently, still in a panic over Connor, and I gave her a little nudge in an effort to maneuver around her huge, furry body.
But then—oh no. I watched in slow motion as Carly lost her balance and fell down.
Flat on her back.
No freaking way.
“Someone help her up!” I yelled, knowing I should help her, but I didn’t have time.
I needed to reach Connor.
I kept running down toward the field, even though I knew they wouldn’t let me anywhere near the sidelines. I ran and ran, my eyes on that sideline injury tent, my only goal being to get closer to where he was.
When I got to the bottom row, I ran all the way around to the other side. People were in my way and slowing me down, but I wasn’t stopping. I couldn’t. I yelled and pushed past everyone, knowing I was being rude but just needing to get to Connor.
Needing to see if he was okay.
Please be okay.
When I got as close to his sideline as I could, I put my hands around my mouth and tried to get someone’s attention, someone who knew how he was doing.
“Teeders!” I yelled. “Josh Reed!”
I kept saying their names, trying to get them to look my way. I saw people watching me like I was nuts but I didn’t care.
“Connor!” I screamed. “Connor Cunningham!”
I felt somebody grab my arm.
“What?” I snapped, turning around, expecting to see security ready to haul me away.
But it was Erin Andrews.
Holy shit, the Erin Andrews. As in, world-famous sports reporter Erin Andrews.
“Aren’t you Duffy Distefano?”
“Y-yes,” I said, my heart still racing as I wondered how it was possible that she knew my name. “Do you know how he’s doing?”
Erin didn’t need to ask who the “he” was that I was referring to. “As far as I know, they’re checking him over to make sure he’s okay, but the guess is that he’ll be back out there for the next drive.”
“Oh, thank God,” I said, almost light-headed with relief.
“Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions during the time-out?” she asked.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment, but she’d been nice enough to give me an update on Connor’s prognosis, so I could at least give her that.
“Sure,” I said. “But make it quick.”
“For sure,” she said with a smile. She turned to the cameraman a few feet away from us. “Hi, I’m here with Duffy Distefano. I’m sure most of us remember her from the Coyote Carl incident, but, well…we just caught another mascot incident on-camera. This time it was with Carly, Carl’s replacement.”
“Oh my God, that was a total accident,” I blurted out defensively, shaking my head. “I swear to God I didn’t mean to knock her down and I yelled for that guy to see if she was okay and—”
“No, no—she’s fine,” Erin interrupted, smiling. “But our cameraman caught a really impressive display of speed that’s causing some speculation about you and your relationship with Connor Cunningham.”
“What?” I had no idea what she was referring to.
“Let’s watch, shall we?”
“Um…okay…?”
She touched her earpiece and said, “Coach Cowher’s in the studio, and he’s interested in hearing what kind of training you’ve undergone for that kind of rush.”
“I’m sorry, I have no idea what you mean,” I said.
“Here’s the replay.”
She held out a tablet, and I watched a video of myself running down the stadium stairs.
“We all saw Connor get hurt,” Erin said, “and then you proceeded to run across the entire stadium in under a minute’s time to get closer to the sidelines.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling my face get warm. “I’m not sure if I should be embarrassed or proud of my time.”
“Does this mean you’re still officially a couple?” Erin asked, leaning closer.
“Hang on, I have to watch this play,” I said, turning my attention away from her tablet and toward the field as the teams lined up.
The ball was snapped and Josh ran with it, gaining only two yards before being tackled.
“Sorry, go ahead,” I said with a sigh, turning my attention back to Erin.
“Are you and Connor together, Duffy?”
“Um, definitely not,” I admitted, wondering why it hurt so much to say that out loud when I thought I’d come to terms with it. “We were until a week ago, but things didn’t work out, as everyone saw, and I—”
“You’re considering forgiving him, though, Duff, right?” my dad interrupted, popping up beside me, wearing a bizarrely huge—and fake—grin. I narrowed my eyes at him in suspicion. “Even after the lover’s spat, you’re probably going to stay together.”
“What are you doing?” I whispered as I leaned toward him, wondering where the hell he’d even come from.
“Say it,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
“No,” I said through gritted teeth, clueless as to what the man was up to. Maybe he’d had more beer than I’d thought. “I’m definitely not going to—”
“Because first and foremost, you are a Coyote diehard,” he interrupted, looking at me intently with wide eyes that threatened to pop out of their sockets.
“And you’d never consider jinxing a good season with romantic bullshit.
You two kids are going to power through this for the good of Coyote Nation. ”
“Are you insane?” I whispered again, and then my dad yanked me toward him and pulled me in for a weird hug.
“Nope, and neither are you,” he whispered, turning a little so Erin and the cameraman couldn’t hear him. “Just imagine how much the entire city will hate you for jinxing the first good season we’ve had in a decade.”
I pulled back, looked at my dad, who was eyeballing me emphatically, and holy shit—I realized what he was doing.
He was protecting me from another Carl situation.
I pulled away from him and cleared my throat. I said to Erin, while smiling into the camera, “It’s true that Connor and I are going through something right now, but my way-too-invested dad is probably not wrong about the odds of me forgiving him.”