PROLOGUE
Present Day
“Did you just say the Kansas City Titans?”
Tessa sat across from her boss with her mouth hung open in shock. This was the last thing she would have ever expected to hear from him. When she gleefully accepted the job as one of the lead journalists at the New York Times, she never thought any of her assignments would involve sports.
“Yes. It’s a pretty hefty assignment, but it’s the most important one we’ve had in a while. And I think you’re the only journalist good enough to cover it.”
“Wait, cover what, exactly?” she asked, clasping her sweaty hands together.
“The team,” he said matter of factly. “They’re hot off a Superbowl win and the team is on fire. There hasn’t been this kind of buzz around a team since New England under Brody.”
“I have no idea what any of that means,” she responded in a dry tone. Her boss knew her well – how could he even think for one second she was the right person for this assignment?
“It means they’re making sports history and that we need to cover it. And whoever covers this assignment, which I hope is you, will undoubtedly become a huge name in the journalism world. You’ll also get paid very well. But it’s going to be a big challenge.”
“What is so challenging about it? Do I have to actually learn about...sports?” She tried to hide her disdain, she really did.
“Well not only that but I’ll need you to relocate to Kansas City.”
“No fucking way,” Tessa said crossing her arms. “I have worked way too damn hard to get into the New York journalism scene, I’m not moving to fucking Kansas.”
“Smith, hear me out please,” her boss said, placing his strong hands on his desk. “This will likely only be for about 5 months. It is highly believed that they will make it to the Super Bowl again this year, which would mean your assignment would be over in February.”
“And would start when?”
“Next week,” he said hesitantly, expecting the exact reaction he got from Tessa.
“What?!”
“Listen to me! We have a beautiful apartment in a very safe part of the city all worked out and paid for you. You can come back here for the holidays or whatever else you may need.”
Tessa leaned forward and put her head in her hands, feeling her head starting to spin.
“I thought I was going to be interviewing the president or something. When you called me in here to talk about the biggest assignment of my career, I had no idea that you would be asking me to move to Kansas to follow around a football team.”
“Tessa, get out of your goddamn head for two seconds and take a risk. You can’t be the top journalist in the world by only taking safe assignments.”
She sat back and crossed her arms and leaned her head back in exasperation.
“Can you give me 24 hours to think about it?”
Her boss sighed in frustration but eventually nodded his head.
“Yes. But if you don’t give me an answer, I will give the assignment to Amy, and trust me, you’ll regret it for the rest of your career.”
What Tessa did not tell her boss was that the Kansas City Titans held a much deeper significance to her than he was aware of.
It held some of her deepest secrets and traumas, as well as some of the happiest and most meaningful times of her life.
She never imagined she would be confronted with her past so forcefully, but maybe this was the universe’s way of pushing her towards this very open and unhealed wound.
Later that night Tessa sat on her couch in the small one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.
She sat by her small window, overlooking the city through the foggy and rainy late September night.
She had been obsessing over this all day and still did not have a definitive answer on whether she was willing to do this or not.
She took a deep breath and reached for her phone and decided to call someone that she was once very close to but had not spoken to in a while.
Once upon a time they were best friends during Tessa’s senior year in college at Texas Tech.
Tessa had only spent two years at the University, but they quickly formed a bond that she knew wouldn’t be broken even though time and space had slipped away from both of them.
She picked up her phone with a shaky hand and scrolled to the name she hadn’t seen for so long.
“Tessa?!” She picked up immediately, with a bright and cheerful voice, just as Tessa knew she would.
“Hey, Brin,” Tessa said into the phone, her voice steady and warm, already feeling comforted speaking to her old friend.
“Oh my God I was just thinking about you the other day! I miss you! What’s up?”
“I miss you too,” she said sincerely before getting to the real reason for the phone call - “Hey so I’m working for the New York Times now and -”
“Yes, I heard! That is so cool! Is it everything you always hoped it would be?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty great,” Tessa said with a laugh, “They’re offering me this really prestigious assignment that I’m kind of nervous about and um...well, they want me to cover a story on the Titans...”
“No way!” Brinley screamed enthusiastically. “Tessa my husband is the quarterback -”
“I know,” she said with a laugh, “That’s why I’m calling you girl.”
“Wait so are you going to come to a game and interview Phillip? You remember Phillip, right?”
“Of course I do,” she said with another laugh.
They had only met once or twice during their senior year, but she remembered him well.
“So that’s the kicker. They want the team to be like, followed throughout the whole season.
So, I would be following them and interviewing them and writing a whole series on them for however many months the season is, hoping it ends with a Super Bowl game. ”
“Wait that’s like, 5 or 6 months. Are you going to move here?”
“That’s the part I’m struggling with,” Tessa said, knowing it was a big fat lie. Her biggest struggle was a completely different issue, or more specifically - person, that Brinley knew nothing about, and that Tessa had no intention of telling her.
“Oh, girl come on! I promise it’s way more fun here than you’d think! And you have me! I’ll show you around and make sure you feel comfortable. And hey who knows, maybe you’ll end up liking one of the players,” she said with a laugh.
Tessa felt her heart sink.
And therein was the big issue with this whole thing.
Tristan Kelly.
Tessa and Tristan had known each other briefly in college during their sophomore years at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
What happened between them in the quick time their lives had crashed into each other was nothing short of intense and life changing.
There wasn’t a day that had gone by that she didn’t think about him at least once.
But the way things ended between them was volatile and unresolved.
They hadn’t spoken in 10 years, and it made Tessa sick to her stomach to think about standing in front of him and having to interview him as if their extremely tumultuous and complicated lover affair never happened.
Would it be awkward? Would he refuse to speak to her? Would she even be able to speak in front of him?
Her head was suddenly swirling with question after question, and she felt like the ground beneath her was disappearing.
“Tessa, it will be great,” Brinley said, bringing her attention back to reality.
“Yeah, okay,” Tessa breathed heavily into the phone, “Thanks Brin. I knew it would make me feel better to call you.”
After catching up for a few more minutes Tessa hung up the phone and tumbled back against her bed.
Her body felt heavy, her eyes stung with tears.
What were the chances any of this could be happening?
Out of all the invisible strings that could have led her back to someone or something, why did it have to be him?