Chapter 5
Notes
I didn’t get fired! Thank you to everyone who messaged me to check in.
I got a small promotion, but that does mean that my updates may come slower.
Which I’m sure you noticed since it’s been a few weeks since the last time I posted.
Sorry about that, but I will get better.
Life has just been an absolute bitch. But hey, life’s a bitch and then you die, or however that ancient cliche goes.
But you’re not here to listen to me whine, bitch, and moan about life. You’re here to watch Rowan and Milo fall in love.
Rowan
Don’t get me wrong. I liked the guys on the Scorpions, but I wasn’t sure I liked being on the team that much.
We were four weeks into the season, and we hadn’t won a single game.
The talking heads at SEN loved to point out the fact that we were one of only two teams in the ALF who hadn’t won a single game this season.
They analyzed the tape. They pointed out the reasons they thought that we weren’t winning.
They blamed it on Liam and Jonesy and Milo and Wendell West. They blamed it on me.
They blamed it on Tyriq Fell for getting hurt.
They blamed it on the rest of the defense.
They blamed it on the coaching staff and ownership.
Everyone had an opinion as to who was to blame, but none of it mattered.
No matter how hard we practiced, we just couldn’t seem to bring it home.
Our game against the Nashville Trojans had been an embarrassment.
We’d only scored two field goals. Our next game, a home battle against the New York Knights had been close, but they’d had a two-point conversion right at the two-minute warning that put them in the lead.
We’d not been able to come back from it.
And the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves fell somewhere in between.
Meanwhile, my old team was one of three teams to still be undefeated four weeks into the season.
I knew it wasn’t right to wish I was still there, but I did.
And it was affecting my attitude toward my new team.
I looked at them, I watched them trying their best, and all I could think about was the fact that it wasn’t good enough.
The Foxes would probably make the playoffs, and at the rate we were going, we’d be lucky to win five games all season. I wasn’t in the best mood.
It wasn’t just the team that had my proverbial hackles raised.
Tucson was too hot. The air was too dry.
I still didn’t have a car, and even though Milo had suggested I get decorations for my condo, I still hadn’t.
The only piece of decoration I had was in the bedroom: the game ball from my first game.
It sat on my dresser, waiting for me to eventually buy a display stand.
If I were at my house in Fayetteville, it would’ve already been on display.
I had a room dedicated to the trophies and medals I’d earned in my years playing football.
Now they were all boxed up in a storage unit across the country, waiting for me to send for them.
I couldn’t get out of my head. It was like the days leading up to the first game all over again.
Nothing stopped my thoughts from spiraling.
Not working out. Not music or reading or watching mindless television shows.
Even running wasn’t taking my mind off things.
Troy and Raina called me out on it during our weekly video call, after I could barely focus on what my niece was telling me about her day at school.
That wasn’t like me. I’d always been very good at listening when my niblings told me about whatever was on their minds.
It was Milo, in the end, who came up with the solution to my bad mood.
“You should talk to Jonesy,” he suggested after practice in the elevator up to our floor.
The elevator dinged and we stepped out. I paused in the hallway. “Why would I talk to Jonesy?”
“Remember what I said about him being a football genius?” I nodded, recalling the conversation on my couch the day he’d gotten locked out.
“Well, he might have some insight on the Bears and how they play. I know he talks to Coach Cal about some of the tape before games. He might have an idea about who you’ll be defending.
Then you can watch some more of the tape. ”
“You think that’ll help?”
Milo shrugged and pulled his keys from the pocket of his Scorpion branded sweats. “Couldn’t hurt. Might make you feel better.” He didn’t elaborate before he ducked into his condo.
I kept thinking about Milo’s advice all through the next practice. My eyes kept wandering over to Jonesy between drills and practices. Was Milo right about him? Could he have some kind of insight that could change the tides? I needed a win.
The team needed a win.
It was that fact alone that had me waiting for him outside of the locker room instead of rushing out and ordering a ride share the way I had after the last few practices.
Jonesy was one of the last people to leave the locker room, and by pure luck, he wasn’t with Liam for once.
I knew it was only because Coach Cal had dragged Liam away for press—the joys of being the starting quarterback—but I was choosing to take it as a positive sign.
I stepped out from where I’d been leaning against the wall and fell into step beside him. “Hey Jonesy.”
Jonesy turned and smiled at me, his honey brown eyes sparkling. “Rangecroft,” he greeted. His voice was as friendly as his face, and I could suddenly understand why he and Milo were the team’s social media darlings. “What can I do ya for?”
“Tobitt said you’re the man to talk to about insight to how the other team plays?”
There was no disguising the excitement in his voice, even as his eyes immediately focused on the conversation at hand. “What do you want to know?”
What did I want to know? How to beat them?
But that was something the whole team wanted to know, and the only answer to that was to score more points.
“You’ve watched their tape, right?” I questioned.
He looked at me like I was an idiot for asking the most obvious question known to mankind.
I would take that as an answer. I carded my fingers through my hair nervously.
“Do you have any advice? Anything I could do to give us a better shot at winning?”
He thought for a moment and pulled out his phone. He hit a few buttons and then stopped, dragging his eyes back up to me. “Do you have plans right now?”
“No?”
“Good. You mind if I come over?” Once I gave the approval, he texted Liam to let him know where he was going and dragged me out to the parking lot.
Thirty minutes later, we were on my couch with film playing on my large screen television.
He held the remote, and every few minutes, he would pause the tape and point out small details.
I didn’t see how he saw some of the things he did.
He noticed the way a player held his shoulders or the way he shifted his feet before he moved.
He pointed out the average time the quarterback held the ball in the pocket.
He put a lot of focus on their running back.
“You think I’m going to be lined up against him?”
“A few times, yes. You’ll be against their tight end too, but I don’t have much on him.
He’s a rookie, and I haven’t gotten a good read on him.
Other than the fact that he’s got a killer strong arm but he’s weak in sticky coverage.
That’s better for the corners, not you.” He fast forwarded to show me what he was talking about with the tight end.
I saw it immediately. He really was some kind of football genius.
He rewound back to the running back. “He plays like Milo.”
I saw it once he said it. He had a lot of the same moves, making him hard to tackle. “Shit.”
“No, not shit,” Jonesy corrected as he tapped one of his light brown fingers against the remote. “Shit is for when things are hopeless. He plays a lot like Milo. He’s got some of the same tells as Milo, too. It’s in his hips.”
“In his hips?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. He hit a few buttons on the remote to slow down the tape and hit play.
“Watch the way his hips move before he does. He tries to keep his shoulders straight so no one can see his route before he takes off, but he angles his hips. Moves his toes just slightly too, but harder to see that behind two layers of football players.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to see his hips through that?” I questioned.
Jonesy shrugged. “Good point. Watch his eyes. He looks the other way. Milo does that shit, too. They went to the same university, so I’m wondering if that was something they were taught there. Misdirection or whatever.”
I laughed, and he paused and rewound again. We spent the next two hours watching video, and by the time Liam called to bitch at him for being out so late, I had a good idea of what I needed to do.
“Stay after with me.” The words were directed at Milo just as we entered the tunnel back into the locker room.
“What?”
“I talked to Jonesy, like you suggested,” I told him. “He suggested I work with you. Coach Cal didn’t put us together, so stay after with me.”
“Let me check with Coach.”
Twenty minutes later, we were in the inside field. Coach Cal didn’t want us outside on the turf without anyone there. He also warned us against full tackle because we had a flight the next day, and in his words, he would have my guts for garters if I broke our running back.
“What exactly did Jonesy say we should be practicing?” Milo asked as he lined up across from me.
“Figuring out your routes and cutting them off. Pretty sure tackling is part of it, but I don’t want to piss off Coach.”
Milo’s lips curved up into a smile. “If you can catch me, you can tackle me,” he told me. There was a cocky glint to his gray eyes, “but you won’t catch me.”
“Wanna bet?”
“No, because gambling is only fun if the other person has a chance.”
Milo extended his back leg behind him, and I got into the starting position.
I kept my eyes trained on Milo, studying the point of his toes and the angle of his hips.
I looked up at his eyes. I didn’t see anything Jonesy had pointed out while I faced him, and I was so involved with watching him that I missed the moment he took off.
That half-second delay was enough for him to sprint past me. I couldn’t catch up with him.
He slowed a few yards past me and turned back with a smile on his face.
“Again,” I demanded.
We went again and again. He kept running past me, and I kept failing to notice the signs Jonesy was pointing out. I was starting to think our teammate had some kind of superhuman sight or attention to detail, something I would never be able to replicate.
It was time to relax. I was losing sight of the forest for the trees.
“Last one,” Milo called out. “I promised Aunt Ethel I’d take her to dinner tonight, and I still need to pack.”
I nodded and took my place. I drew in a deep breath and slowly lifted my head.
My eyes met his, and I saw it. His eyes darted to the left, and there was the subtlest shift of his hips toward the right.
I saw the twitch in his thigh, and I moved at the same time he did.
I didn’t stop to think. I just went for the tackle.
My body collided with his behind the line of scrimmage, and we crashed on to the faux turf.
I felt a puff of warm breath on my neck as the air was pushed from his lungs.
My body settled on top of his. When I looked down, he was smiling.
His face was transformed by his smile. His eyes sparkled, and his entire face lit up under the flush of exertion that colored his cheeks.
His nearly colorless blonde hair was darkened with sweat, and for a moment, I was mesmerized by him.
Then I came to my senses and rolled off him, landing on my back.
“Didn’t think you were going to get me,” he panted. His head fell to the side to face me, and my eyes were drawn back to him like they were magnetized. “You’re a lot faster than I thought you were.”
“You weren’t going full speed, were you?”
“No.” He didn’t sound the least bit ashamed of himself.
We were practicing. I hadn’t tackled him at full force, and he hadn’t run past me at his top speed.
It might have been different in a full team practice or if we’d been wearing pads, but this close to a game?
Neither one of us could afford the injury.
I wondered if I could catch him if he’d gone full speed.
I bit my tongue to stop myself from challenging him to a race, just to see.
Something told me I wouldn’t stand a chance.
He made a living off running, and while I’d had a damn good time at the combine, I wasn’t a running back.
Besides, I had at least a hundred pounds on him.
Even if it was muscle, that kind of shit slowed you down.
We laid there catching our breath for a few moments before Milo kicked his feet and rolled into a sitting position.
“I gotta go. Promised Aunt Ethel.” He stood up and offered his hand down to me.
I let him help tug me up into a standing position.
“You want a ride back or are you going to call for another ride share? You know you’re wasting a ton of money on that, right?
You should at least rent a car. It has to be cheaper. ”
I shook my head. He’d let me know his opinions on the fact that I’d been there for over a month and still didn’t have a vehicle of my own on more than one occasion.
It wasn’t as annoying as it had been when he’d first started because I’d got to know him a little better over the past few weeks.
I’d heard him offer his unsolicited opinions and advice to everyone on the team on more than one occasion, and I’d come to learn that he was just the kind of guy who had an opinion and voiced it without thinking.
It didn’t mean that I necessarily liked the constant nagging about not having a car, but he did have a point.
I did spend a lot of money on ride shares.
I couldn’t do anything about that now. Maybe next week on a day we didn’t have practice, or maybe I’d finally go online and find some car to lease that could be delivered after we got back from Portland.
But I could accept his offer of a ride, so I did.
Notes
There’s just something homoerotic about tackling, okay?
I swear if I had some big, hot, sweaty man tackling me to the ground, I would fall in love with him.
Obviously, I had to include some sexually charged tackling in the story.
(Before we get to the actually sexually charged tackling which IS coming. I pinkie promise. Just be patient.)