“Sounds good to me.” I stared at both of them with eyes just as cold as theirs .
Applewhite sighed. “We’ve got a problem on the team .”
“Yeah, guys are passing out left and right because they’re out of shape, it’s one-hundred twenty degrees out there, and rookies don’t know their routes,” I snarled. “What’s the status on the new indoor practice field ?”
“Luke, we’re not here to talk about facility expansion. I’m not talking about the other guys. I’m talking about you .”
I sat there in my towel, waiting to hear what league infraction I had collected this time. Because it wasn’t the first time they had drug me in here with threats about my behavior. I’d gotten the speech fifty times to stop drinking. To stop picking up women. To stop speeding. To stop using my celebrity status to get favors. The thing was I didn’t give a shit. I lived my life the way I wanted and as long as I gave them results every Sunday, they could fuck off .
Mr. McCade cleared his throat before reaching into his suit pocket and retrieving a photograph. “Do you know this young lady?” He slid it across the coffee table .
I picked it up. Pretty girl, but I’d never seen her before. “Nope.” I tossed it on the pile of sports magazines covering the flimsy white wood table .
“That’s not what she claims. She accosted me this morning outside of my home. It was a surprise, especially to my wife .”
If McCade wanted me to feel sorry for him, he didn’t know what it was like living with paparazzi. I couldn’t buy gas without reporters asking for a statement. No sympathy here .
“So?”
“So,” Coach intervened. “She claims you got her pregnant .”
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TURN OVER
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Turn Over
C opyright © 2016 by Violet Paige
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One
Luke
S ometimes people are wrong. They’re wrong about what the score will be at the end of the game. They’re wrong about what route to run. They’re wrong about who they can trust. And fuck it, they’re wrong about people. Wrong about love. I used to be one of those people. Cynical. Egotistical. Selfish. But all it takes is one second. One split second of your life when you think you’ll lose everything. And suddenly it comes into focus. Faster than I take a snap. Faster than I read the defense. I can see all of it. I can see it being ripped away. In a split second all of it can be ruined. There could be a life where she doesn’t exist. Where the mistakes push her away .
They are wrong about me. And the thing about me is I love to prove people wrong .
* * *
I t was hot as shit on the practice field. The September sun beat down on everyone. It didn’t discriminate between million dollar players or the trainers who took home fifty thousand a year. It was brutal and unrelenting, reminding all of us what it meant to play football in Texas .
Ownership promised we would have an indoor facility soon with air conditioning, but that didn’t do a damn bit of good when my linemen were cramping up on the field and I could barely see from the sting of sweat rolling in my eyes .
I gripped the ball between my fingers, digging into the leather with my nails while the sideline crew ran out to squirt water in the players’ mouths. I didn’t see what good an ounce of water was going to do in this heat, but I waited anyway .
Our rookie tight end, James, walked up to me. “What did you think of that last play ?”
“I think it sucked.” I held my helmet under my arm and squirted water on the back of my neck .
I could see him huffing as hard as the rest of the team and he was twenty-two—the youngest guy out here .