“Nothing.”
I dropped the ball and ran over to the guy. “If you have a problem with how I’m running practice today, maybe you don’t need to show up. Can’t really tell you’re here anyway.”
The receiver stood. “I said it was nothing.”
The other guys had huddled around us.
“Then shut the fuck up and catch the ball when I throw it.”
I turned, but my anger was still back where I’d left him. I didn’t need some new traded tight end, mouthing off. There was only one person who set the rules around here. And they were making a spectacle of my team. No wonder people were betting against us.
“Wyatt, why don’t we take five?” Coach called. “Everyone’s looking worn out. It’s hot.”
He had finally looked up from his clipboard long enough to realize there was a real problem out here. If we didn’t have things straight on the field who in the hell cared who his third defensive coach was.
“After this play.” Sure I was hot. But we were inside. It wasn’t like we were out in the heat like some teams. It was the entire reason we had indoor training facilities.
I ignored him and walked back to the huddle.
“Let’s try this again,” I announced.
I counted off the snap before stepping back to pass it.
I searched the field for what I wanted to see, but no one was open. Our corner backs were doing a better job than our offense. I cursed under my breath.
“Hell.” I let the ball soar through the air. Someone better catch that shit.
It hit one of the guys in the chest. Not the receiver who was supposed to run the route. Just a lucky bastard who saw where I was headed with the pass.
I threw my helmet to the ground and walked past the coaching staff.
“Wyatt, come on.”
I waved them off and headed for the locker rooms.
It didn’t matter. There was no excuse for it. None. It was bullshit and they knew it.
This wasn’t the summer season anymore. Didn’t they see that? Summer was fucking over. In more ways than I could explain to them.
No more late night cruises. No more fishing with Cole. No boats that needed work. No dancing on the docks. No sex on the porch with a fucking sex siren. No. That was all over. It had been.
Fall was here and the sooner we all accepted that, the sooner we could leave the summer behind us.
30
Sierra
It had been a month since I drove off the island. An entire month had passed. I stared at the city below me in disbelief. Drinking coffee in a high-rise building didn’t feel the same as it had when I watching the boats from the porch at Aunt Lindy’s. I sighed, knowing that below me was chaos. Noise. Frenetic energy.
I didn’t know how the eight years I had spent here suddenly seemed like a foreign memory. Something I almost didn’t recognize. It was supposed to be the other way around.
I heard my phone vibrating from the kitchen counter. I hopped up to answer it. “Sierra Emory.”
“Sierra, get your ass into the station. There were two hit and runs today in the same neighborhood. Dallas PD thinks it might be a serial case,” the anxious assignment editor barked on the other end.
I looked down at my running shorts and the tank top that I was wearing.
“Ray, it’s going to be at least an hour before I can make it in. Besides, why aren’t you sending out one of the beat reporters?”