JAKE
“First game returning as the Buccaneers quarterback, you score the winning touchdown and then receive a declaration of love. You’ve had quite the day. Tell us how you’re feeling right now,” Elizabeth Baskins asks.
Ryan steps in from the side, takes my helmet right out of my hand, and replaces it with a black Buccaneers hat. He bumps my shoulder on the way past. Then slaps it once for good measure.
I put the hat on and glance over at Mo. She’s still there. Standing a few yards away despite being in the middle of all this noise, the flashing cameras and red jerseys.
She smiles and gives me a shy wave.
I answer without taking my eyes off her. “Elizabeth, one I’m ready to do again in two weeks.” Then I nod toward Mo. “And one I’m ready to do again every day for the rest of my life.”
“We’ll let you get started. Thanks, Jake.”
“Thanks, Elizabeth.”
The second they’re done, I’m moving. I jog back to Mo and catch her around the waist before she can say a word. She laughs, breathless and bright, and I lift her clean off the ground.
Her hands land on my shoulders as I spin her around.
“You just won the game,” she says, smiling at me like she still can’t quite believe it.
“You just told me you love me in a stadium full of people,” I say. “I’d argue you had the bigger moment.”
“I don’t know. You did have cannons.”
“I thought that was my heart thumping.”
I kiss her, quick and hard because anything longer and I’m not making it to the locker room. Her fingers slide into the hair at the nape of my neck, and every bit of me wants to rip these pads off.
I make myself pull back.
Barely.
“I’ve got to shower and get Hank,” I say. “Then we can head home for a few days.”
One eyebrow lifts. “Home, huh?”
“Yeah. Home.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
“Hey, Jake.”
I turn before she even finishes my name, already smiling because I know exactly what she’s going to say.
“Can I have your hat?”
That’s not what I thought she was going to say.
I put a hand on the brim. “What’s the magic word?”
She narrows her eyes. “Please.”
“Nope.”
She folds her arms. “Rude.”
“Try again.”
“I love you.”
“That’s the one.” I take the hat off and hand it over immediately.
She pulls it onto her head, then makes a face. “It’s sweaty.”
I lean in and lower my voice. “Just wait until later.” Then I wink.
She tries her best not to laugh.
She makes it maybe two seconds.
I back away before I do something irresponsible on national television and start jogging toward the tunnel.
The crowd along the rail is reaching out, yelling my name, shoving hats and footballs and phones in my direction. I stop because they showed up. Because I know what it means to come back and find people still waiting.
I sign what I can. Slap hands. Point at a kid in a number eleven jersey who looks like he might pass out.
Then I jog into the tunnel, and the noise changes.
Outside, it was a roar. In here, it’s concrete echo. Men coming down from adrenaline with nowhere for it to go.
The locker room doors swing open. And the place is amped. Guys are jumping up and down while Thunderstruck blasts, which feels on the nose, but nobody in this room has ever been accused of subtlety after a win.
Before I can get two steps inside, Wayne hops into me.
“QB IN DA HOUSE.” He wraps me up around the middle, lifts me, and throws me over his shoulder.
“Wayne.”
The whole room is yelling now. Towels snapping. Somebody dumps a bottle of water over my head.
Ryan steps in front of me the second Wayne finally sets me down, and presses the game ball into my chest. I take it. Grip the leather. It feels natural in my hand.
“Hella win, Jake.”
“Gonna feel it tomorrow,” I say.
Ryan laughs. “I was talking about the girl, not the game.”
I laugh and pull him into a hug. He hugs back hard, one slap between my shoulder blades.
“About damn time,” he mutters near my ear.
“Hell yeah it is,” I say.
Wayne has climbed onto a bench and is using a rolled-up towel like a microphone.
Ryan leans toward me. “Do we have to stop him, or can we let nature take its course?”
Wayne drops down from the bench and throws an arm around my shoulders. He is entirely too sweaty to be this affectionate.
He squints at me. “You look smug.”
“I’m happy.”
“Same thing with better posture.”
Wayne spots my game ball, grabs my wrist, and hauls my arm into the air like he’s presenting a heavyweight champion. “Speech.”
“No.”
“Just one.”
“I already did a speech. It was called a post-game interview.”
“That doesn’t count. There weren’t enough curse words.”
Then he gets that look that never leads anywhere good.
“Okay. Then we celebrate with choreography.”
“No.”
He’s already backing up. “Ryan. Formation.”
Ryan doesn’t move.
He turns toward the center of the locker room and starts some kind of dance that appears to involve chest pops, a hip circle, and one move I’m pretty sure he stole from a Jazzercise workout video from the 1980s.
The entire room loses it.
I laugh so hard I have to brace a hand on a locker.
Ryan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Every day with him feels like a dare.”
“That’s because it is.”
Wayne does a spin, nearly wipes out on a puddle, catches himself on a bench, then points like that was part of it.
“Did you see that recovery?” he shouts.
“Ten out of ten,” I deadpan.
Ryan bumps my arm. “You heading out tonight?”
“Yeah. Taking Emory back to Blue Crab Bay for a few days.”
Wayne hollers from thirty feet away. “Great. We’re hitching a ride.”
I look at him. Then at Ryan. Then back at him.
“No.”
“Yes.” He does some kinda skip, hop, bounce over to us. “I need to see my people.”
“Your people?”
He puts a hand to his chest like I’ve offended him deeply. “They are mine, and I am theirs. They made it official.”
I look at Ryan. “What the hell does that mean?”
Ryan scratches at the tape on his wrist. “He’s been busy on the town group chat again.”
“Correction. The underground chat. The distinction matters.” Wayne says. “And Gladys made me an honorary citizen in her text last night. Until I can make it official.”
“You were texting with Gladys Kravitz?”
“Age cannot cage chemistry, Jake.”
Ryan actually chokes on a laugh at that.
I point between them. “You’re coming to keep him out of trouble, yes?”
Ryan shrugs. “Sure.”
“That was not convincing.”
“It’s the best I’ve got.”
I shake my head and start tugging at my shoulder pads. “I’m heading to the shower. Y’all do whatever you need to do that doesn’t involve getting arrested or interviewed.”
“That really limits my options,” Wayne says.
“Ryan, can you keep an eye out for Hank’s nanny?”
“You got it.”
I get one shoulder pad unclipped before Wayne stops me again.
“Wait.” He studies my face, and there’s no performance in it. No volume. Just Wayne, underneath all the nonsense.
“You okay?” he asks.
I know what he means.
I glance down at the game ball in my hand. Then toward the field where Mo is waiting for me.
I think of her saying I love you with tears in her eyes and no hesitation left in her anywhere.
“Yeah,” I say, and it comes easy. “Yeah. I’m better than okay.”
Wayne nods once like that answer mattered to him more than he planned to let on.
Then, because he can’t hold a real emotion in his hands for more than three seconds, he points at me and says, “Great. Now hurry up and shower. We’ve got a jet plane waiting.”
A roll of athletic tape flies in the air, heading straight toward his forehead. He grabs it out of the air and shouts, “Jealousy is ugly, gentlemen.”
I hand Ryan the game ball long enough to yank off my gear and start toward the showers.
Behind me, Wayne yells, “Make it quick, Wheeler. Love is waiting, and also I’m starving.”
I don’t bother turning around.
I’m grinning too hard.