Chapter 3
Notes
So, I planned on writing this chapter last week.
Or the week before… But life happened. And by life happened, I mean I got really busy at work.
There are whispers that we might be lacking in the job security department soon, so I’m a little stressed.
It’s fine. It’ll ALL be fine. I’m just going to distract myself with Rowan and Milo’s antics.
Also, we’re not going off the Scorpions’ actual season for anything other than schedule, because I am not trying to make this take a whole football season to write a story.
We’ll see how that actually works out.
Rowan
The sound of Coach Cal’s whistle ending the last practice before our first game was too loud.
It had been a shitty practice. I’d missed tackles. I’d started running the wrong play during one of our scrimmages. I’d slipped and fell at one point, letting the tight end slip right past me and score. If it were any indication of how the first game would go in two days, we were screwed.
It wasn’t just me that had a shitty practice either.
Liam had overthrown several balls. Jonesy had missed a few easy catches that had been thrown his way.
Milo had forgotten to brake and ended up running into a player on the sidelines.
It had resulted in a dominoes effect of several players falling.
He’d ended up getting dressed down by Coach Lohan for causing two special teams players to get hurt.
There was a chance they’d be starting the season on the injured list. Even our kicker had a bad practice.
I was in a shit mood when I made my way back to the locker room. It seemed like most people were.
Except Milo Tobitt.
He was bouncing around like he hadn’t personally taken two members of the team out of commission.
He kept saying things like “bad rehearsal, good opening night” and “we’ve had worse practices!
” I couldn’t imagine how the team could have had a worse practice, and I doubted that rules of the theater applied to football.
I couldn’t wait to get out of the locker room, to get away from our running back bouncing around spouting trite cliches in an attempt to boost team morale.
I didn’t think team morale needed boosting, honestly.
I thought we maybe needed to sit in that bad practice for a while, turn it over in our minds, and figure out how to fix it before the game on Sunday. I know that I needed to do that.
There was no way I could make my Scorpion debut playing the way I had during that practice.
Their fan base would never let me live it down.
I would be booed out of Stinger Stadium, and I wouldn’t be surprised.
The fans would want to pack me back up and send me to the Foxes, except they’d traded me away.
I had never been so grateful to leave a practice facility in my life.
It turned out that sitting in the suck wasn’t helping.
Every time I thought about the terrible practice, my heart started pounding.
In the middle of the night, I found myself looking for plane tickets back to Fayetteville.
I wondered what the team would say if I just didn’t show up on Sunday.
I wondered what Troy and Raina would say if I showed up on their doorstep instead.
I actually had an idea of what they’d do. My sister would turn my ass around, put me back in the car, and have me on a plane before anyone even noticed I was gone.
The mental image of my sister’s face made me smile.
I missed her. I missed Troy. Maybe that was the source of my nerves.
This would be the first game without one or both of them sitting in the stands since I’d joined the ALF.
Unless they traveled, they wouldn’t see me play at all this season.
The Scorpions didn’t play the Foxes in the regular season, and after practicing with the team for a few weeks, I knew we had a snowflake’s chance in hell of making it to the Championship game.
I didn’t even think we had a chance to make it to the playoffs. Not if our games were like our practice today.
I was still thinking about the terrible practice and wallowing in my nerves the next day.
There was just over twenty-four hours until my Scorpions debut, and I needed to figure out a way to stop stressing.
I tried reading a book. I tried watching movies and TV shows.
I tried cleaning my apartment, but I didn’t have enough belongings to make a real mess of it. Nothing was working.
In the end, I found myself back down in the condo’s gym.
I climbed onto the treadmill and started to run.
After a few minutes, my worries and anxieties began to dull around the edges.
My thoughts softened and quieted. The burn in my legs superseded the knot in my stomach.
Nothing existed beyond the sound of my feet hitting the running pad and the sound of my breathing.
It was as close to a zen state as I could reach.
And then it crashed around me. Not because of anything I did, but because of the sound of the door to the building’s gym opening and the upbeat tenor of Milo’s voice calling out my name.
Damn it.
He bounced onto the treadmill next to me and began hitting buttons. “I didn’t think you’d be down here today,” he chirped as he began to move. “You seemed kind of down after practice.”
No shit. I didn’t get how he wasn’t down, given the fact that he’d knocked down two of our teammates. I opted not to say that.
“And again, no music? Are your headphones still not charged?”
I heaved a heavy sigh and turned to look at him.
He looked unaffected by the speed of his machine.
His breathing was even. I looked down at his speed and saw that he was starting only slightly lower than the speed I had worked myself up to.
And he was still chattering on and on, asking me questions and then answering them for himself, like my part in this conversation was optional.
It was starting to get under my skin.
“Do you ever stop talking?” I asked him after what felt like an eternity of his chatter, cutting him off mid-sentence.
I regretted it immediately. His ever-present smile faded away and those colorless eyes of his darkened.
His brow furrowed. The hurt look on his face almost felt wrong, and I realized that this was the first time in the two weeks I’d been a Scorpion that I’d seen him looking anything other than cheerful.
But he did stop talking for a few moments.
When he spoke again, his voice was a little more somber.
“I forget,” he started, pressing buttons on his treadmill to increase the speed and incline, “that not everyone likes to talk when they work out. I just…” His lips pressed together in a thin line.
“I just thought that maybe you were lonely. I haven’t seen you talking to many guys in the locker room yet, and I kind of thought that maybe you needed someone to talk to. Especially after today’s practice.”
His words settled over me like a heavy weight and regret soon followed.
He’d been trying to be nice, and I’d been an asshole.
He might have been annoying, but his heart was clearly in the right place.
I slowed down the speed on my machine. “I appreciate it,” I told him.
“Just not much of a chatter. Especially on the treadmill. And really not wanting to talk about today’s practice. ”
“Do you want to talk about the game? Because the Wichita Tigers are no match for us. You know that, right? We beat them pretty regularly.”
“Think I’m going to cool down and then head back upstairs. Take a shower, try to unwind and get some sleep before the game.”
I didn’t want to risk being an asshole to him again, and my nerves were still frayed from today’s practice.
The calm I’d found on the treadmill had been shattered, and the nerves had returned.
I didn’t need to risk taking it out on Milo, especially when I now knew that his annoying chatter was nothing more than an attempt to make me feel welcome on my new team.
I set my machine to cool down.
“Do you want to ride in together tomorrow morning? You don’t have a car yet, right?”
“I don’t,” I told him. I’d been depending on ride shares to and from the practice facility.
I knew I would need to get a car sooner rather than later.
I kept putting it off, mainly because I had always hated car shopping.
Maybe I’d just get online, find a car I didn’t hate on a dealership website, and order it for delivery. “What time do you leave?”
“Around ten. We’re supposed to be there by noon, but I like to get there early.
I have this whole routine and ritual that I have to go through in the weight room to warm up, and if I don’t do it…
” He trailed off, his cheeks flushing. I wondered if it was exertion or embarrassment. “I’m talking too much again, aren’t I?”
I hated myself for making him feel bad about being kind. “Knock on my door before you go?” My machine slowed to a stop and I climbed off. “Not sure if I’ll be ready, but if I am, I’ll ride with you.”
That million-watt smile of his reappeared on his face, and I felt a strange warmth in my gut. It looked much more natural on his face than that frown had.
I didn’t end up catching a ride to Stinger Stadium with Milo the next morning.
The nerves had returned in full force, and I’d chosen not to be ready when he knocked on the door.
Given the way I’d reacted to his chatterbox ways the day before, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to be locked in a small car with him right then.
I knew how tenuous the energy of a locker room could be before a game, and I didn’t want my bad attitude to ruin the vibes.