Chapter 12
Joss
Cora and I arrive at the stadium several hours early, at 10 a.m., like Gabe advised. There’s already a massive line of cars to get in, so I see he was right. “They’re here to tailgate,” Cora explains. “They’ll all get drunk in the parking lot, have a good party, save themselves money at concessions.”
“It’s a little early to drink, isn’t it?”
Although truth be told, I could go for something to take the edge off right now. I only got a quick goodnight from Gabe last night. He was apologetic about not being able to stop by the shop as he’d done a couple other days this week, and not that I expected him to, but now I’m wishing I’d gotten a chance to see him once more. Or even a quick chat with him today. He calms me.
Cora and I are stuck in traffic for half an hour, the roads surrounding the stadium on all four sides in gridlock, but eventually we see a sign for Lot P. Cora passes my ID to the man at the gate and, just like Gabe promised, is handed two tickets.
The road leads to a valet and on to a VIP tailgate area. Instead of sitting in camping chairs, drinking beers out of coolers while people scream and carry on and blow their horns, we’re offered complimentary mixed drinks and an assortment of charcuterie and tapas catered by local fine dining. There are several giant TVs showing pre-game stuff as well as a gaming area where a bunch of people are playing video game football. There’s something for fantasy football, a fancy playground for kids, even a DJ. As for the people tailgating here, I get the impression that it’s a mix of people like us — people with some connection to the team, be it personal or professional — and fans who paid a lot of money for the privilege.
I’m enjoying myself as we stroll around, taking it all in, but I start to get this feeling that I’m being watched. There are too many people around for me to pinpoint who it is, and Cora is a well-known fashion designer, so it could be someone watching her. Even so, the moment she gets drawn into a sales pitch from one of the vendors, I run to the bar, just to see if I’m still getting that feeling.
It sticks with me. I’ve sucked down half my second mimosa by the time I scurry back to Cora, who thrusts a bag at me.
“What’s this?” I hand her my drink, which she finishes as I open the bag and pull out the ruby red polyester shirt folded up inside. The slippery material unfolds on its own, revealing the saffron accents at the sleeves and around the white writing. A giant 72 with SHAUNESSY on the yoke.
It’s Gabe’s jersey.
While Blaise’s last name and number are far and away the most popular, I’ve seen a half dozen people with Gabe’s already. Still, this feels like a big deal.
“Go on, put it on,” Cora coaxes.
“I feel like I should have done team color make-up now. And not this skirt.” I gesture to my frumpy, floor-dusting patchwork skirt, which seemed easy and casual this morning but looks crazy against the sea of jeans and leggings. “Whose did you get?” I ask, nodding to the bag she’s still holding.
“Okay, so I didn’t want to get Sinclair because everyone’s wearing Sinclair, and I thought it’d be weird if I also got Shaunessy. Like, people are going to think we’re having three-ways or something.”
I blanch, wishing the jersey was Gabe’s size so I could bury myself inside it. People heard that. Two nearby fans in unnamed jerseys and beer hats look right at us, and one nods his stupid hat at me as the other waggles his eyebrow.
“I ended up getting a Briggs jersey.”
“He was your kill,” I remind her. She said she’d bang Blaise and kill Merrick. “And rightfully so. I told you how disgusting his girlfriend is, right?”
“Yeah, but he was Tilly’s bang. I can give it to her. I’m in Tokyo in December. You’ll need someone to go to games with you. And Tilly could use some action.”
I do my best not to recoil, but good grief. Last time Tilly got some action, she ended up pregnant. She’s not even going to fit into that jersey much longer. There’s a baby bump incoming.
Not that baby bumps aren’t welcome here, of course. Lin Huang’s wife, Wren, looked about ready to give birth at the gala, and I’ve already seen her a couple times since we got here. She’s been in a group of women who all look vaguely familiar, so I’m guessing that’s the wives and girlfriends gang. She’s hard to miss with her dancer’s build, miles of silky black hair, warm olive skin, and long, visually striking face, but all the women are stunning.
And I am broken. I’ve stitched myself back together, but it’s like a ripped shirt. Patch it up all you want, but the tear is still there, and it’s only ever going to be weak, no matter how well it’s patched.
I give up and put the jersey on, and that’s when I hear, from behind me, “Oh my goodness, it is her!”
That kind of excitement I hear out of the feminine voice, the sort of soft, awed reverence, can’t be for me. Cora’s got a fan base who goes nuts for her. She’s iconic in her corner of the world.
But then I hear, “Fuck yeah, it’s her. Stop pussy-footing and give it to her already.”
I look over my shoulder and see a dozen women, all roughly my age, the youngest college aged while the oldest might be in her 40s. They’re all wearing Gabe’s jersey, and they all have halos on their heads and angel wings in the team’s colors drawn on their cheeks. Two hold bags of cookies; one has an extra halo in her hand. It’s secured to a headband. Next to her is Tara, Blaise’s date from the gala.
She’s not wearing a halo. She’s wearing deely-bobbers, one of those headbands that have little trinkets attached to them by springs so they dance around like antennae, and on her cheek, under her winged eyeliner, is a small, expertly-drawn flame. Because she’s one of Blaise’s Firebugs. The other women must be Gabriel’s Angels.
She gives the Angel with the extra halo a gentle shove forward along with a small wave, a wiggle of the fingers like no one can know she’s waving at me. I don’t wave back, for fear of breaking some unspoken rule, but I grin at her and take a mental note to have her mom pass my number on to her. I’m thinking I made need some help from her to navigate this new world.
The Angel, a petite brunette in her thirties with a nervous smile and giant eyes, thrusts the halo at me. “I’m Rachel,” she blurts out. “You’re one of us now. Whether you like it or not.”
The squeak she makes after announcing that tells me she probably didn’t mean to say it in such a threatening way, so I take the halo from her and ask, “Because of the jersey?” It seems like a low bar for a fan club, although maybe not in VIP and with Gabe’s jersey. Again, there aren’t a lot of us sporting 72.
She shakes her head and, with another glance back at the other girls, who mostly seem to be having a good laugh at this one’s torment but still give her supportive thumbs-ups, leans close. “What was it like kissing Gabe? Is he soft and squishy? It looked like the sweetest kiss ever! What did you say to him that made him kiss you like that? Are you two for-real dating now?”
The questions fly out of her mouth before I get a chance to process them all, then it’s my turn to look thoroughly terrorized. There was media coverage from the Kick-Off Gala. The ladies in my Tuesday night paper-piecing class told me about it. I made an announcement that yes, I was seeing one of the Juggernauts, but that wouldn’t affect my classes, and that stopped the conversation. I have no idea what the picture was that this girl saw, but it was no doubt some trauma — since the Gala was a total disaster — so I lie with,“Oh, I told him I’d make him a quilt so he’d stop bidding on the one that was being auctioned.”
“That’s so much better than cookies,” one Angel grumbles, while another looks at her bag of cookies and pouts.
“Did you make those for him?” I ask her.
The girl, one of the youngest ones, still in braces and with a blemished face although she’s got a hard seltzer in her hand, nods sullenly.
“I can make sure he gets them after the game if you want. What’s your name?”
She lights up like I told her I’m going to bring her whole body to him. “Really? Tell him those are from Desi. Tell him they’re his special recipe! I added extra pecans because I know how much he likes them in his chocolate chip cookies.”
“He does?” I look around at the other haloed women, and they’re all nodding. Most of them are happy I’m talking with them, but I can tell a few are miffed at me and would rather I not exist. Gabe made it sound like the Angels were a bunch of sweet old ladies who randomly chose him as the guy to root for, but I’m thinking that’s not the case after all, and they’d be every bit as excited to go on a date — and more — with him as Tara and the Firebugs are for Blaise.
“He’s new to me,” I confide in Desi. “I really like him, but I don’t know much about him. Maybe you and the other Angels can help me with that?” Can’t bake to save my life so I’m not sure how far I’ll get on cookie advice, but I’ll take what I can get.
“His favorite color is pink, and he always tells the other players they did a good job when he helps them up, even if they’re on the other team,” Desi rattles off as she takes the halo out of my hands to plop it on my head.
Tara slips around me to link arms with Cora and pass her a set of deely-boppers. “I know you’re rocking the Menace jersey, but let me tell you about the Firebugs. Trust when I say you’re gonna wanna gag over the fluffy bunny nonsense coming from the Angels.”
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! Fucking run, bitch!” Cora screams at the top of her lungs.
I glance back at Mel Cohen with an apologetic grimace. When Cora agreed to come to the game with me, I wasn’t expecting her to get so worked up. I didn’t even know until we got here that she’s a football fan. I guess it’s her family’s secret shame, that although they say they’re all about cricket and field hockey — “proper Indian sports,” her brother even told me once — they all watch football when no one is around.
I’m trying to enjoy it, and honestly? I probably would in a different scenario. There’s so much energy and tension. I thought it would feel slow since I knew it was done in plays that needed a reset after each one. Instead, the crowd is so animated and the score volleys so dramatically that I barely notice the downtime. What I do notice, and what ruins the excitement for me, is the way Gabe gets hit in every single play.
So, while Cora is screaming and calling the running back a bitch, I’m watching Gabe to make sure he gets back up.
“That’s it, bitch!” Cora screams, her voice raw, as Drew Cohen is knocked off the field by one of the defensive linemen from the Patriots.
I shoot Drew’s wife another apology, but she waves it off. “He’s a bitch. He’ll be whining up a storm tonight because the grocery store was out of the dairy-free butter pecan ice cream. And he did good. He got that first down. He looks great today.” She says it so proudly, like a three-hundred-pound wrecking ball didn’t just slam into him.
“And look, he’s fine,” Cora says. At first, I’m thinking she’s talking about Drew, but then she squeezes my hand back — oh Lord, I was squeezing too hard again — and points to Gabe.
“He was just taking a break,” Wren agrees from my other side. She’s got one hand on her heavy, protruding belly, and the way she breathes makes me concerned she’s already in labor, but it could be simple excitement.
I’ve done my best not to stare at her belly, but there’s a difference between knowing Tilly is pregnant andseeingWren’s pregnancy. In my line of work, I see pregnant women frequently, usually when their quilt-minded friends bring them along to pick out fabrics for baby blankets. I try not to let it bother me, but there’s that constant tickle of how that could be me. Thatwasme; I should have a five-year-old now, turning six sometime in the winter.
I don’t know how to talk to Gabe about this. I don’t want to look like a psycho by making it a problem that I want kids and he doesn’t when we didn’t even know each other three weeks ago, but he’s been emphatic that he’s dead serious about us.
“They do that sometimes if they know the clock’s stopped,” Wren adds as she continues rubbing that belly. “Lin says they’re being lazy, and I usually agree with him just to appease him, but come on. Lin’s on the field for like forty-five seconds of—where the fuck was the offsides?” she suddenly erupts, as does everyone around us.
Penalties are a common thing, I’ve learned. Mostly what’s gotten everyone upset is holding and false start, but when Cora explained the false start thing to me, she went ahead and explained offsides, too. I now know that when Gabe is on the field, he’s the one who starts the clock. No one is allowed to move before him. I’m confused about his job in general — like, I don’t get why he’s the one starting with the ball when the only thing he does is toss it between his legs to Blaise — but it’s kind of cool that he has that power.
And if anyone moves before him, that team loses five yards. Wren’s been clear about that being an extremely big deal.
The rest of it? I don’t get it. I get soccer and basketball and hockey. Get the thing in the net. Baseball? Hit the ball and run to the safe spot before the ball gets there. Got it. But this? These downs and the scoring system and all the resets? I think I’m going to need a tutorial.
Hopefully Gabe isn’t offended when I ask him for that.
“You know, I thought I hated football until last year,” Wren says with a laugh once that offsidesiscalled. “I was a dancer growing up, so I had to perform at football games, but I never watched the game. Couldn’t stand cheerleaders — sorry, Keira.”
My throat catches when Evan Allore’s wife turns toward us. I’ve seen her a lot today, prowling the sidelines in a smart suit in the Juggernaut ruby color. She works with the cheerleaders who are stationed at the four corners of the field, one pod directly in front of where we sit next to the tunnel. Cora and I are in the fourth row, but since she was down on the field and it felt like a whole other world between the seats and the field, I thought I’d fly under the radar.
Five minutes ago, she appeared in the second row to pass off a diaper bag to the blue-haired girl who’s had her hands full wrangling four kids, two of which are babies in giant noise-cancelling headphones. I’ve watched Keira nearly leave three times now before getting sucked back in to snuggling with the ruby-and-saffron-tutued baby.
Now she’s glaring right at me despite responding to Wren.“Nah, you’re good. I hated cheerleaders, too, even after I became one. But then I realized they’re mostly good, unlikesomepeople.”
She and the blue-haired girl have a quick exchange before the entire group packs up and leaves their seats. Keira casts one last venomous glare at me as they pass by, and the rest of the ladies surrounding us watch, stunned.
“What the heck was that about?” Mel bursts out once they’ve vanished, and then everyone’s talking at once, but no one seems to know it’s because of me. Why would it be? I’m new. And since this is the Jugs’ second year, these women probably all moved here last year.
“Maybe we should go,” I whisper to Cora.
Wren grabs my shoulder to hold me in place. “Absolutely not! Tomorrow I’ve got a lunch date with Keira and Cadence — that’s the other lady, the one with the blue hair, Morales’s girl — and I’ll talk some sense into her. You shouldn’t be blamed for what someone else did.”
“You know who I am?”
“Yeah, I live up in Salem. It was a pretty big deal there, too. Some of the, ahh—”
“Victims?” I supply for her. In the beginning, when I had lawyers, they insisted I usepatients, but I never understood how that was a better word. It just reminded me that my husband’s victims trusted him to care for them properly.
“Yeah. Some were from Salem. But that’s not why I didn’t talk to you at the gala! I wasn’t even sure it was you. You look a lot different from your old pictures.”
I nod. “I gained a bunch of weight.”
Wren looks horrified and backpedals with, “I just meant the make-up and the hair.”
Cora gives me a hard shove. “You talk like thirty pounds is a natural disaster. Can we just watch the game? This is the good part.”
“Is it? I don’t know if I can handle the stress of this.” My heart’s been pounding the entire time, if not because of Gabe’s constant hits then because of the score that’s bounced back and forth the entire game. The Juggernauts are losing right now, but they were winning a couple minutes ago, and there was already so little time on the clock that it seemed impossible the score would flip. One good pass, though, one slip of the Patriots’ wide receiver past our defense, and they got their touchdown with only forty-five seconds on the clock.
That’s since dwindled to nineteen seconds. One more play, maybe two. I feel sick watching this. Is everyone going to be in a terrible mood tonight? Will Gabe still want me to come over?
Do I want to come over? What if everyone else there is friends with Allore or Morales? I don’t want to mess things up with the team or worse, get Gabe in trouble.
“It’s the adrenaline,” Mel says, “and the wins feel amazing for it. And if they lose, I’ll give Drew a blow job in the parking lot, and that’ll make him feel better. So you gotta look at it that way.”
Despite the mess I made of Gabe’s seat last weekend, I don’t think I’m at the blowies-in-the-parking-lot phase of our relationship, but I’ve got this bag of cookies.
The boys get themselves back in position as the play clock ticks down. Gabe waits until almost the very last second — literally two seconds left — before passing the ball off to Blaise, setting the play in motion.
He spreads his arms wide, taking on two of the Patriots’ defensive linemen, freeing up another offensive lineman to shoot off to the side. Blaise takes several steps back as he scans the field, looking for his target.
Mel screams as Drew takes down a defensive player, but that knocks him out of position to take the ball.
I’m watching the middle of the field, stressing about Gabe, especially when one of his targets breaks free and charges for Blaise, still holding the ball. I barely notice the streak of deep red dashing toward the end zone with two white shirts chasing as best as they can.
Blaise fires the ball off just as the guy that slipped past Gabe slams into him. My heart flutters. I’m worried he’s not getting back up.
Cora starts shrieking, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” and it’s enough for me to look to the other end of the field.
Merrick has the ball, and he is running for his life, hugging the sideline so if the men chasing him get to him, he’ll be knocked out of bounds and stop the clock.
That clock is ticking, though. I don’t know if they’ll have enough time for another play.
One of the Pats leaps through the air, attempting to knock him down. They manage to get an ankle, and Cora lets out a weak gasp, only to scream, “Yeah!” as Merrick slips past and keeps running. The other Pat has to jump over his teammate, but it’s too late for them.
The crowd goes wild as Merrick sprints into the end zone and spikes the ball.
They won.
Holy crap.
They won.
Our whole section is filled with family members cheering and hugging and crying. I’m not there, but not because I don’t feel what they’re feeling. Or, I don’t know if I am, but I’m so overwhelmed that I’m stuck in my spot. From our position at the end zone, by the tunnel, I can see almost the entire stadium, tens of thousands of people, sharing this same experience with us, all feeling this same sensation of triumph, like together we’ve gone through some harrowing battle and we’ve all won together. Like we’re a part of this thing they’re doing on the field.
There are so many of us in the stands, but it’s really the eleven men on the field. They did this, and now they’re being swapped out for the men who will make sure that Huang can get that extra point. Tens of thousands of people are cheering for them. Who knows how many people are watching at home? It’s incredible.
I look over to Cora, and I swear she has hearts in her eyes. I’m not sure who they’re for, but I’m thinking next time she’s here, she’s going to be rocking some deely-bobbers or a halo. I’m doubting it’ll be the devil horns that Merrick’s Menace girls wear, but the thought of that has me laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she asks.
“Nothing. Everything? I don’t know if I like football, but my goodness, that was . . . that was something. I feel like I’m gonna need yoga to get through the next game.”
“But you’re gonna be at the next game?” Wren asks as she waves down to the field, where Huang has just kicked that extra point and has paused to tap his face guard and wave back.
I think he just blew her a kiss. That’s pretty much the sweetest thing ever.
“Yeah, if he invites me.”
“Oh, he’s gonna invite you.”
“Why do you say that?” Yes, I absolutely think he’ll invite me, but I didn’t think the feelings between us were so obvious.
“He did ruin the Kick-Off Gala because Emily Hess said he couldn’t date you.”
I shake my head, confused. “No, that was Blaise. He attacked Gabe out of nowhere. It was nuts. Yelled something crazy about a barbecue and threw a punch.”
Wren laughs at that even as she takes my hand for the very final play. Donnie Thompson, the punter, kicks the ball into Pats territory. “Barbecue Express. It was a play they did last year that was a total mess but worked because the Raiders were too confused to figure out where the ball was going, but it’s one of those things that can’t be done often because everyone covered it so heavily and prepared for it after that.”
One of the Pats catches the ball and starts running.
“That’s what their little gang — Blaise, Merrick, and Gabe — say to each other if they need a distraction. But Blaise always goes too far with it.”
The Pats runner is tackled at their 45. Game over.
“Gabe did that for you. Lin saw him mouth it to Merrick before Merrick called Selene a . . . whatever he called her. Gabe’s going to fight for you.”
“He’ll burn the world for you,” Mel says with way too much glee for how horrific that statement is.
So why does it feel so warm and happy in my belly?