Pop Stars and Playbooks
Chapter 1 Griffin
Griffin
It’s a common misconception that professional athletes are too tough for the likes of an Aria Wilder concert—or pop music in general—but Griffin Hayes, tight end on the Chicago Wardens, is the perfect rebuttal to any such claim.
He could’ve gotten the luxury box seats the team has first dibs on, but Griffin wanted floor seats.
Closer is better for seeing his celebrity crush perform for the first time.
“Want anything from concessions?” Elliott calls over the thumping bass of the opening act.
Griffin turns to look, and his best friend gestures with his thumb toward the stairs he’s about to take. Elliott’s girlfriend, Cassandra, hovers at his side, tapping her foot as she eyes her watch.
“But Aria’s about to come on,” Griffin says.
Elliott grins. “I’ll be fine if I miss a song or two.”
Griffin shrugs. “I’m good, man, but thanks.
” The water beside him is the only thing available for purchase that’s approved for his in-season diet.
His personal trainer would have his head if he ordered one of those icy beers or the bag of buttery popcorn that were both calling his name.
Soon enough, at the end of the season, he’ll indulge.
“Can you grab me a Diet Coke, please, hon?” Cassandra asks Elliott. “I’m going to hang with Griff. I don’t want to miss her entrance.”
Elliott nods once and takes off up the stairs in bounds toward the concession stand.
Griffin turns back to the stage, the lights flashing, the band growing sweaty and red nearing the end of their set, and he sways gently to the music.
His teammates had poked fun in the locker room earlier, calling him the third wheel to Elliott and Cassandra’s date, but there’s no amount of ribbing that would keep Griffin from this concert.
He might have a healthy crush on Aria, but it’s also nice to momentarily leave behind his role as professional football league tight end hero and the heavy pressure to perform and win.
To get lost in the music born of another person’s creativity.
He’s often wondered what it would be like to be a musician.
The one conclusion he can draw is that it’s worlds away from playing football—the one thing he knows. The thing at the very center of him.
Griffin has always been a football player, for so long and so intensely that he has to wonder if he came out of the womb and immediately caught a football thrown his way.
In a family of overachievers it only seemed natural that he’d cling to the thing he was good at, and in all fairness, it has brought him great success.
The opening act finishes their set, and Griffin claps along with the cheering crowd.
In the quiet that follows, the lull before Aria takes the stage, Griffin can’t help but wonder what else there is to him besides the sport.
If he’d measure up without football. Sure, he’s at the height of his career, but every athlete knows football doesn’t last forever.
Griffin got a hefty dose of that reality when he suffered an ACL injury five years ago.
Fortunately, he rehabbed the injury and returned in full strength.
Well, “full strength” if he doesn’t count the fact that his knee has started to act up occasionally.
Without football, who is Griffin Hayes? It’s something he’ll have to figure out eventually.
Suddenly the lights cut to dark, the crowd erupts, and Aria’s voice echoes through the arena, an alternative melody playing alongside her most famous lyrics.
“Girl meets boy,
Boy meets girl,
Hearts aflutter,
Forever love.”
The crowd screams—all 250 pounds of Griffin Hayes included—and fireworks explode across the stage in neon pink and purple. A shadowed figure in a power pose, a fist toward the sky, chest held high, lowers from the ceiling, and the crowd chants, “Aria! Aria! Aria!”
Spotlights flick to the backup dancers who rise onto the stage on hidden platforms from below just as Aria’s feet meet the stage from her aerial descent, and she immediately launches into her megahit, the one she teased, “Girl Meets Boy.”
Griffin loses himself in the music, dancing and singing, clapping to the beat. His eyes never stray far from Aria’s mesmerizing figure on the stage. He is entranced.
Elliott steps back to glance around Cassandra’s position between them and throws him a look.
Griffin raises his palms and shoulders as if to say, “What?”
Elliott laughs to himself and shakes his head.
Sure, the guys in the locker room will give him a hard time when Elliott, a running back also on the Wardens, recounts the story after practice tomorrow, but Griffin doesn’t mind.
It won’t come as a surprise to any of them.
Griffin’s always been the guy who turns down the celebrity party invites, the one who likes to cook for himself rather than head to the latest hot restaurant where all the other celebrity types hang out.
He’s the one who will stay longer to make sure every kid gets a signature from him postgame.
Revealing the depth of his true Aria Wilder fandom won’t come as a surprise. Though for now, he’d like to keep his secret crush under wraps. That would be another level of teasing from the guys he’d rather avoid.
Griffin nods his head as Aria transitions into a lively hit about girls running the world, even mouthing a few words here and there.
Cassandra beside him is dancing, arms in the air, belting out lyrics, and Elliott stands beside her with his arms crossed and body still, but moving his head almost imperceptibly.
Cassandra is a model, and she and Elliott have been together for two years now.
The press calls them “The Beautiful Couple”—a topic that’s already been covered to a great extent in the locker room.
Next comes the opening melody for Aria Wilder’s “Glass Heart,” and the stage lights all come to center where Aria stands confidently, feet planted as she holds the microphone out and belts the notes powerfully into it, her words flowing to her adoring crowd.
Griffin is close enough to see the power in Aria’s face, to feel the impact of the lyrics and song, and it’s all he needs to release the weight of life’s expectations and worries that he carries with him.
He forgets that he has a professional team who banks on him, fans who expect him to win.
He forgets his worries about being enough without the game.
He forgets that his knee needed extra icing after last weekend’s game.
Griffin closes his eyes and pulls his hands to his wide, muscular chest. At six foot four, he’s easily two heads taller than most of the crowd, but he lets go of his inhibitions. The breakup anthem lands with him—that familiar feeling of not being enough—and he sings along, loud and unapologetic.
He opens his eyes and Cassandra—and even Elliott—let out whoops and applause in his direction.
Griffin smiles ear to ear. He lifts his hands up, even pumping them in the air gently as he sings along about heartbreak and finding true love.
He sways and nods his head, not wanting the song to end—it’s such an escape to lose himself in the rhythm.
He forgets that he’s not alone, that he’s surrounded by the public.
But as the beat slows, the notes returning to a final iteration of the main melody, he comes slowly back down to earth.
He smiles to himself as he lets his hands drop to his sides and opens his eyes.
To his surprise, a few concertgoers have made their way to the aisle, their phones now trained not on Aria but on him. The young women giggle conspiratorially, and all Griffin can do is smile, wave, and shrug.
“You know what that means, dude?” Elliott drags his eyes pointedly to the women who have cut their recordings and since gathered into a clump to review whatever is on the screen.
Griffin lets out a breath and nods. “Fingers crossed it’s a big news day.”
Cassandra drops a hand on Griffin’s shoulder. “Hate to break it to you, Griff, but a big, burly football player like you singing your heart out to Aria Wilder can rise to the top of any news cycle nowadays.”
As the next chart topper kicks off, Griffin turns back to the stage.
This time he’s more measured in his enthusiasm, no-nonsense claps or head bobs.
Stuff the guys on the team would do if they were here with their girlfriends.
Still, he’s no dummy. He knows it’ll only be a matter of hours—or minutes—before that footage is somewhere online.