Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
Lucian
When You Can’t Get It Together .
. . Try Harder
The handoff’s clean.
My cut isn’t.
I feel it the moment my cleat bites into the turf—half a beat off.
Just enough to throw everything out of sync, as if I’m running drills in someone else’s damn body.
My shoulder dips, my legs follow, but it’s robotic.
Stiff. Like muscle memory has gone on strike and the only thing left is blind effort.
Still, I break the line.
It’s not pretty.
It’s not precise.
But I make it to the second level before a rookie linebacker accidentally bumps into me and manages a fortunate tap on my hip.
“Again,” Coach hollers.
“Backfield reset.”
I exhale through my nose and circle back toward the huddle, blinking against the glare spilling across the field.
Everything is sunburnt and loud.
My shirt clings to my spine, my helmet is hot enough to cook eggs inside, and I’m ninety percent certain my kneecaps are threatening to disown me.
Cam slaps my helmet as I jog up next to him.
“You look like you just remembered you left the stove on,” he says.
“Mid-snap.”
“I did,” I mutter, crouching to retie my cleat.
“Was it, ‘Hey, I’m a professional running back and not some guy fantasizing about tits during cone drills’?”
I glance up.
“Technically, I was thinking about her legs.”
Cam grins.
“So, you admit it.”
I don’t answer.
Just straighten and roll out my shoulders, trying to shake off the image haunting my skull since Tuesday morning.
Olivia stepping out of the shower.
Her hair dripping down her back, skin flushed from the steam.
Wrapped in my towel like it’s her birthright.
Like she lives there.
Which—okay—she kind of does.
Temporarily. For now.
It’s not a big deal.
Except it is.
We’re not discussing how she leaves her toothbrush beside mine as if it belongs there.
We’re definitely not addressing the way my chest does a weird sinking-lifting sensation when she mutters my name before coffee, accusing me of finishing the oat milk as if I committed a war crime.
We’re not discussing how I’m becoming a man who notices which side of the bed she prefers.
The rookie lines up offside again.
Coach shouts. I don’t flinch.
We run it again.
This time I bounce outside, dodge the corner, then cut inside on the second cone like I’m trying to outrun the fact that I miss her.
Which is pathetic.
I do footwork drills, cone to cone, pivoting on instincts that were once as reliable as gravity.
They feel rusty now.
My mind’s not where it should be.
It’s in my damn kitchen, watching Olivia sitting on the kitchen island, eat peanut butter off a spoon in my hoodie with her socked feet on my counter like she owns it.
We run red-zone routes.
I sweep around the edge on a fake and sprint into a short route, twist, and reach for the pass.
Catch. Secure. Drop to the turf.
Coach blows the whistle.
“Again.”
By the time we hit blocking drills, my arms are jelly and my thighs are on fire.
Cam holds the pad while I slam into him again and again like I’m punishing myself for something I haven’t said out loud.
“Your form’s off,” Cam grunts.
“Your face is off.”
“Ah, there he is.” He smirks.
“Welcome back to the field, Loverboy.”
Coach waves us off for water.
“Crawford, you’re tight.”
“Not in a good way,” Cam adds.
“Appreciate that,” I mutter.
We walk toward the water station.
I chug half a bottle in one go, my hands smudged with turf and sweat.
My brain? Not tired.
Just distracted. It’s too fucking full of Olivia.
Her laugh. Her snark.
The way she tilts her head when I say something absurd and pretends not to be amused.
She sent me a photo yesterday—Sarah passed out in a laundry basket like the most dramatic Victorian heiress to ever grace a plastic throne.
Olivia captioned it: New throne.
May need to extend the living room.
I laughed so hard I choked on my lunch.
Cam elbows me. “You know what your problem is?”
“Oh please, enlighten me.”
“You’re in love.”
I squint at him.
I mean, I am and she knows it but we’re not ready to tell the world.
So I say, “You’ve got heatstroke.”
“No, I’m observant. You’re playing like a man emotionally compromised by bath towels and reruns of Gilmore Girls .”
“It was The Big Bang Theory . And she made me watch one episode.”
“And you finished the whole season. Admit it.”
“I will physically end this conversation.”
He snorts.
“You need to text her and ask her for a picture of her tits to see if that will keep you focused.”
“I don’t need to?—”
“If she doesn’t text back,” Cam interrupts, “you turn into a sad divorcee staring at the driveway with a glass of whiskey and Sarah McLachlan playing in the background.”
“That was one time.”
“Bro, you were watching Steel Magnolias .”
“It’s a classic.”
“You cried.”
“I got something in my eye.”
He just raises a brow.
“Sure. Let’s go with that.”
I flip him off.
He laughs like he won.
And maybe he did. Because yeah—I miss her.
Miss the scent she leaves on my pillow.
Miss the heat of her thigh brushing mine under the breakfast table.
Miss how she looks at me when she thinks I’m not paying attention—like she’s trying to memorize me, piece by piece.
Cam jogs ahead for another drill.
I stay back, staring at the turf like it holds answers.
What’s wrong with me?
I’m doing everything right—drills, film, double workouts, chugging protein shakes the color of regret.
But it’s not clicking.
I’m distracted. I’m off.
I’m?—
Down bad.
And if I don’t get her voice in my ear soon, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind.