Chapter 17
Nate had known this game would be tough. The team had all mentally circled it on the schedule from the preseason. Before the preseason, even.
The Riptide were historically a tough opponent and a great time. Even flying across the country and the inherent difficulties of that didn’t mean they wouldn’t bring a knock-down, brutal, semi-dirty fight.
Nate hadn’t been wrong.
Both offenses had been locked down by the opposing defenses for much of the game. Dean and the Riptide defensive line had terrorized Aidan all game long. He’d barely had a second to throw before his linemen were being overwhelmed.
But Aidan was gritty and tough, and Nate had watched from the sideline, deep into the fourth quarter, the score still so close at six to three, as Aidan led the Thunder down the field and with a beautiful quick little slant to Trevor had put the Thunder up three, with four minutes left.
“Sorry I couldn’t drag out the clock any more,” Aidan said to him, as they’d watched Dawson and the kicking team run out to make it four.
“You did your best. Eight-minute drive and you got the TD,” Nate said, slapping Aidan on the back. “You did your job. Let us do ours.”
Sterling had the defense huddle up and made it clear nobody was getting behind anybody.
Their one job was to make sure they took away any ability to get a long play, and to make that happen, the Thunder defense couldn’t take a risk.
Couldn’t play as instinctually as they normally would.
They were running this drive totally by the book.
The Riptide had a great quarterback too and an even better receiver and a coach who was willing to go for it on fourth down.
When Sterling was done issuing instructions, Nate turned to Jordan. “You good, man?” he asked.
Jordan wouldn’t be directly responsible for covering the biggest threat—wide receiver and insane playmaker Chase Riley.
He might be a year or two past his prime, but he was as wily as ever, with a still-dangerous burst of speed.
But even though Jordan wasn’t a cornerback or a safety, he’d be covering the middle of the field.
If someone was going to slip containment, it was going to be Jordan’s responsibility to track them down. Stop them. By any means necessary.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Jordan retorted, tone edgy like he thought Nate was questioning his readiness. Nate wasn’t, but he needed to make sure Jordan understood.
In a lot of ways, Nate had tried to be a shield over Jordan.
Protecting him from the way the team and the media and the fans could come down on new guys—guys still trying to find their way in the challenging and unsettling landscape of the NFL—but if he fucked this drive up, fucked this game up, Nate wouldn’t be able to. Not anymore.
Wouldn’t even be sure he wanted to.
“You’re sure?”
“You questioning me, Big Dog?” Jordan demanded.
But Nate wouldn’t be swayed. He had to make sure.
Maybe they had a winning record. Maybe they’d only lost three games so far this season, but this was a good team.
A team that was practically guaranteed to be in the playoffs.
A team they’d need to be able to beat if they had any chance of going all the way, the way Nate so desperately wanted to.
“No, but I’m making sure you know your place,” Nate said.
The moment he said it, he knew it was wrong.
Knew instinctively, even before Jordan flinched, that he’d phrased it wrong. He wanted to take it back, to explain better what he’d meant—that it wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jordan, but that it was part of his job to make sure that Jordan knew to do his.
But before he could explain and make it right, Sterling was gesturing their group onto the field. It was time.
Usually, it was easier for Nate to empty petty frustrations and distractions from his mind.
Easy to lock in and focus on the next play.
But he felt a little slip of unease wiggle through him, no matter how he tried to clear it.
Taking his position, he leaned over and listened carefully for the snap count.
When Phillips, the Riptide center, snapped the ball, Nate pushed off and immediately saw the quarterback—Sam Crawford, 2x Super Bowl champ and 3x league MVP—drop back and wind his arm up for the throw.
Nate collided with the right tackle, bouncing off him in a calculated move, and then spun around his bigger body, evading his attempts to grab him for a second time.
The tight end came in, trying to get him, and he wasn’t a match for Nate, not with a full head of steam and all his strength behind him, but it didn’t matter, because he provided just enough time for Crawford to throw the pass.
Nate’s head whipped around, eyes tracking the ball as it spiraled through the air, and for a single, heart-stopping second, he thought the tight end, sliding out of his position right in the middle of the field, where Jordan was supposed to fucking be, was going to catch it.
But at the last moment, Jordan appeared, leaping up and batting it away.
The stadium erupted, and the corner of Nate’s mind that had been buzzing with the anxiety that Jordan might fuck this up, relaxed.
Especially when on the next down, Nate hit the gap a little quicker than he had the first time and flushed Crawford out of the pocket before he could even have a chance to toss the ball downfield.
It wasn’t a sack, but Crawford still threw the ball away, out of the hands of any receivers. Especially receivers named Chase Riley.
Third down, Crawford tossed a quick slant to the Riptide’s running back, but Jordan was there again, tackling him before he could get the first down.
It was fourth and six.
“Keep it up,” Sterling exhorted them in the huddle. “We’ve got this.”
Nate felt the last bit of tension leave him.
He hadn’t been entirely sure if they did have this—how many game winning drives had Sam Crawford led this team on?
Too many for Nate to remember and at least a handful had been in the playoffs.
One to win the Super Bowl. It was stupid and dangerous to count the Riptide out, not until the last seconds ticked off the clock.
But they had this in the bag.
Jordan was playing great. The defense was a well-oiled machine.
On fourth down, Nate expected they’d slot that tight end to block again, hoping to give Crawford a few extra precious seconds to throw, and he was right.
Nate spun around the right tackle and got delayed just long enough in a block by the tight end, clearing him as Crawford threw the ball deep.
Not deep.
Deep-ish.
In the soft spot of the coverage. Exactly where Jordan had been covering. Or where Jordan should have been covering, if he’d been in the correct position.
He was not in the correct position.
Instead, he was all the way over on the other side of the field. Too far to catch or even chase down Riley when he crossed over, caught the ball mid-stride, and took it for another twenty-five yards.
Sterling was the guy who finally brought Riley down.
He shot Jordan a look but didn’t say anything before they huddled up again, briefly, before the next play, the clock ticking down, which meant that they barely had a chance to catch their breath before the Riptide offense was getting into position for their next play.
Clearly they didn’t want to just be in field goal range—because they were nearly already there—and they were still pushing.
They wanted to win the game.
Nate was determined that it wouldn’t happen. But as one play slipped into the next, he realized that it might not matter how much he didn’t want it to happen.
The Riptide were inexorably pushing towards the goal line. Closer with every play. Time didn’t even look to be that much of a factor.
He pushed the last of his energy into the final two plays, trying to get to Crawford and get the sack.
But at the last second, Crawford stepped around him and tossed a short little screen to the running back, who dove over the line.
There were still forty seconds, but that was asking too much of the offense, and the game ended less than five minutes later.
Jordan was alone on the bench, towel over his head, and Nate considered going over to him. Reassuring him that he hadn’t fucked up, even though that would’ve been a lie.
Aidan and Levi joined him on the way into the tunnel. “Tough breaks, man,” Aidan said.
Nate had gotten out of the habit of apologizing for when the defense let the offense down, but it was so hard not to do it now, especially when it was their fault they’d now notched their third loss.
“Yeah,” Nate just agreed. It sucked. Maybe they were still on top of the division and still had a nice lock on the number one seed for the playoffs, but now the Riptide—a powerhouse in the AFC too—owned a tiebreaker over them. Never a good feeling.
“Don’t let him beat himself up too much, okay?” Levi said quietly, and Nate could only nod and hope that Jordan would actually let him do that.
Nate hadn’t been entirely sure about the whole situation when Ramsey had broached the idea of having a double date dinner post-game with Brody and Dean.
“The Riptide isn’t even heading back to California,” Ramsey had explained when Nate had wondered how that might work, considering that teams usually expected their players, especially star defensive ends, to travel with the team right after the game.
“They play Buffalo next week, in Buffalo, so they’re just staying on the east coast. They can just take a different flight, meet the team in New York. ”