4. The Third-Down Lie
The Third-Down Lie
Nolan
The trainer’s thumb dug into the back of my throwing shoulder, and the ache sharpened until I had to flatten my palm against the treatment table.
“Turn your arm in,” he said. “Tell me where it catches.”
I moved it the way he wanted. The pull started high, then bit near the end of the motion. “Right there. Don’t go any farther.”
He eased off before working the same spot again with the heel of his hand.
The smell of menthol and muscle rub hung in the otherwise empty room.
Friday was supposed to be the one day nobody owned me.
No full practice. No media availability.
No cameras. Instead, I had spent the afternoon getting my shoulder worked over because last Sunday had left half my body pissed off at me.
“That’s better than it was after the game,” he said.
“That’s a very low bar.”
He fought a smile. “You quarterbacks are all dramatic when nobody’s filming.”
“Put a defensive end on your back for three hours and then say that.”
He shifted my arm again. The table paper dragged under my elbow. I stared at the row of cabinets across from me and counted down the minutes until I could leave.
Home had been sitting in the back of my mind all afternoon.
Not the house itself, with its empty rooms and furniture Reid’s designer had picked because it photographed well.
Piper. A quiet kitchen. Food that didn’t come in a team container.
Maybe enough time to sit across from my wife without somebody texting me about engagement numbers.
We hadn’t resolved the argument from the night before. I knew that much.
I also knew I was tired of hearing about Sloane every time Reid pushed another campaign obligation into my schedule. Piper hated the photo. I understood that. What I didn’t understand was why one stupid image had become proof that I was somehow failing at my marriage.
The trainer gave my shoulder one last press, then stepped back. “Sit up.”
I pushed myself upright and grabbed the clean T-shirt folded beside me.
“Easy with that arm,” he said. “I just spent an hour getting it to settle down.”
“I’m moving slow. I just want out of this building.”
“Home and ice. That’s the plan.”
“Home sounds perfect.”
The shirt went over my head without trouble, but threading my throwing arm through the sleeve made me stop halfway. I adjusted the fabric and finished dressing without forcing the joint. The ache stayed put, annoying but familiar.
The trainer watched me adjust the hem. “That inflammation is going down, Nolan. But you need to stay off the shoulder for the next twenty-four hours.”
“No lifting?”
“No lifting. No extra throwing. No trying to convince yourself that a recovery session counts as rest.”
I gave him a look. “You take all the fun out of being an athlete.”
“That’s what you pay me for.”
I laughed, then rolled my shoulder once and regretted it. “Thanks, Doc. I appreciate you coming in on the off day. I’m dead on my feet, so I’m heading straight to my car and disappearing.”
“Good. Go sleep. We’ll tape you before Saturday walkthroughs.”
I slid off the table and planted both feet on the floor. For once, nobody waited outside the room with a microphone. No sponsor rep stood in the hall. No digital team wanted ten more minutes of content.
That alone made Friday feel like a gift.
Piper had every right to still be irritated when I got home.
I could take a little attitude. I could apologize for being dismissive, order dinner if she hadn’t made anything, and sit down with her without checking my phone every thirty seconds.
It was a simple fix, and the relief almost made me smile.
I left the rest of my gear where it was and headed for the door.
For once, I was done for the day, and I was going home.
The players’ lot had emptied out by the time I reached my SUV.
Cool air moved across the asphalt, carrying the faint smell of cut grass from the practice fields behind the facility.
My shoulder still ached from the trainer’s work, but the keys were already in my hand, and home was one door handle away.
I had almost reached it when Reid stepped around the front of the SUV.
“What are you doing here?”
“Saving you from disappearing before I could catch you.”
“I’m not disappearing. I’m going home.”
He slapped the roof beside the driver’s door before I could open it. The impact cracked across the quiet lot. I stopped with the key fob pressed into my palm and looked past him toward the exit.
“Move your hand,” I said. “I’m leaving.”
“Change of plans, son. The apparel CEO just touched down, and I need you at a VIP dinner with Sloane tonight to lock in the final crossover numbers.”
I stared at him. “No.”
Reid’s eyebrows rose.
That single expression had worked on me since I was sixteen. It meant I had surprised him, and not in a way he enjoyed.
“It’s my day off,” I said. “The trainer just told me to stay off the shoulder for twenty-four hours.”
“You’re eating dinner with a CEO, Nolan. Nobody’s asking you to throw fifty passes.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“Then tell me what the point is.”
The question annoyed me because he already knew.
Reid knew my schedule better than I did.
He knew how many mornings started before sunrise, how many nights ended with film study, how many sponsor appearances he had stacked around practice because apparently playing quarterback wasn’t enough anymore.
“I promised Piper I’d be home tonight.”
“Then you’ll go home after dinner.”
“I told her I was done for the day.”
“You were. Now something came up.”
I looked at my SUV again. All I had to do was open the door.
“Handle it without me.”
“The CEO flew here to see you, not me.”
“Then he picked a bad day.”
Reid took his hand off the roof, but he didn’t step aside. “This is the signature collection we’ve been working toward for years. One hundred million dollars, Nolan. Global distribution. Your name outside football.”
“I already have a job.”
“And your career has an expiration date.”
There it was. Reid could turn anything into a countdown clock. One bad season. One shoulder injury. One younger quarterback waiting behind me. He had spent years teaching me that every opportunity had to be seized before somebody else took it.
I rolled the keys between my fingers. “Dad, I just want to go home. It’s my one day off, I promised Piper I’d be there for dinner, and the trainer told me to rest.”
“Piper knows how this league works.”
“She knows how much this campaign has already eaten into our time.”
“And she has a house most people could never dream of living in because you made sacrifices.”
The answer hit a nerve.
“This isn’t about the house.”
“No, it’s about you forgetting what it took to get here.”
Reid stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“I didn’t pull you out of the mud and build you into QB1 so you could walk away from the biggest endorsement of your life to eat chicken at home.
Give me one hour. Shake the CEO’s hand, sit beside Sloane, make him believe this campaign matters to you, and then you can go back to your wife. ”
It was the same leverage he always used.
Every private coach Reid had found. Every camp he had driven me to. Every meeting he had forced his way into before anyone knew my name. He had built his life around getting me here, and whenever I pushed back, he used those years against me.
I hated that it still worked.
“One hour.”
“That’s all I need.”
“And then I’m going home.”
“Of course.”
I looked once more at the driver’s door. Piper would be annoyed, but one sponsor dinner wasn’t worth turning into another fight. Reid would close the deal, the CEO would fly back to New York, and maybe my father would finally stop shoving campaign obligations into every spare corner of my week.
I convinced myself it made sense.
I pocketed my keys and followed my father toward his car.
It waited two rows over from mine, engine running. I opened the passenger door and lowered myself into the seat, careful not to jar my shoulder against the doorframe. Before I could pull the door shut, the open lot reminded me of the plan I had abandoned five minutes earlier.
Piper expected me home.
“You coming, or are you planning to stare at your car all night?” Reid asked from behind the wheel.
“I’m coming. Give me a second.”
“We’re already late.”
“Then stop talking and let me text Piper.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket. Her message thread sat near the top of the screen, the last few exchanges still tense from the night before. I rested the phone against my thigh and started typing.
Dad needs me at a sponsor dinner—
I hesitated.
That was the truth, but it was also guaranteed to start the same argument we had barely finished.
Piper already thought Sloane had crossed a line in the rehab room.
Telling her I was spending my only free evening sitting through another campaign obligation with Sloane would turn one irritating dinner into hours of explanations.
I erased the sentence.
Reid glanced over. “Tell her you got held up.”
“I know how to text my wife.”
“Then make it quick.”
“That was the plan before you showed up.”
He faced forward again, tapping two fingers against the steering wheel while the engine idled. I should have put the phone away and told him to wait. Instead, I opened the keyboard again.
Football made more sense.
Piper understood football. Coaches changed plans. Install meetings ran long. Film sessions swallowed evenings without warning. She had spent three years living around those interruptions, and none of them required me to explain why a supermodel would be sitting across the table from me.
I typed the message.
Babe, I’m so sorry, but the OC asked me to stay late to look at the third-down install for Sunday. I’m trapped in the film room tonight, but I’ll make it up to you before the flight.
I re-read the lie.