All Lined Up (Rusk University 1)

Instead, he just sees a waste of time and money for a career he doesn’t think I’ll ever have. I know, logically, I know that he’s just worried about me, and this is how it manifests, but that doesn’t stop the part of me that hopes and dreams from hating him a little.

As I’m coming up closer to Dad, he asks, “Are you tired, McClain?”

“No, sir,” the guy barks back.

“You look tired.”

“No, sir.”

“Tired men drop the football. Tired men make mistakes. Are you tired?”

“No, sir!”

“Then do it again. Keep going until I say stop.”

Even I feel sorry for the dude. He’s done everything Dad asked, and done it well enough to actually impress my father (not an easy feat), and still he won’t let up. But that’s an aspect to my father’s personality with which I am intimately familiar.

“Geez, Dad. If this is how you like to spend your birthday, maybe we should skip dinner and you could just yell at people as they walk by. Maybe chase some mailmen. Chew on a bone or two.”

Dad whirls around, and he has his football expression on—eyebrows pulled low and close together, jaw clenched, eyes even beadier than normal. He looks at me for a few long moments before I see him begin to shake off his practice persona.

With a frown, he steps up beside me and places a kiss on my forehead that’s a not-so-distant cousin to a head butt.

“Am I running late?” he asks.

“Only a little.”

He nods and then blows the whistle, ending the players’ agony. I shoot his last punching bag, number twelve, a quick smile, and he drops the ball.

It just slips right out of his hand, bounces twice, and then rolls a few feet away.

Luckily, Dad’s attention is elsewhere, or his brain might actually implode due to anger. I raise my eyebrows and glance toward the ground, and number twelve picks the thing up so fast you’d think his life depended on it. Which, honestly, it kinda does.

I walk back and out of the way as the players jog over to circle around Dad. There are so many of them that I have to resist the urge to run to avoid getting swallowed up in the crowd. They take a knee, and I lean against the wall nearby.

I feel eyes on me, too many eyes, but it takes only a clearing of my Dad’s throat to redraw all of their focus. I fidget, crossing my legs and studying my toes.

Dad starts in on his wrap-up, his familiar rumbling voice carrying across the field with very little effort.

“You’re getting stronger,” he begins. “Quicker. Better.” I can see the team collectively straighten up under his praise. “But it’s not enough.”

Dad is inhumanly good at that—building you up just to knock you down a peg or two.

“How many games did you win last year?”

No one answers for several long seconds, then Dad turns on Levi, who is kneeling right next to him, facing in my direction.

“How many games did your team win, Abrams?”

Levi’s jaw goes stone hard, and a little warmth of pleasure uncurls in my belly to see him so agitated.

“Three, sir.”

“Three,” my dad repeats. Then, a little quieter, he says the number a second time. It’s the second time that makes a few players drop their heads. Not Levi, though. He’s staring at Dad in an angry way that makes me dislike him even more. As if I needed another reason.

“You are better than three,” my dad says. “You were last year too, but there’s a gap between your potential and your playing. Every second you push yourself on this field, every weight you strain to lift, every time you sit down to study plays or film, we’re closing that gap. But we will only completely close that gap as a team. I can’t will it closed, and a team isn’t meant to be carried by one or two individuals. If even one of you doesn’t pull your weight, it won’t work.” Dad paused and looked around the circle of players. “Don’t be the gap on this team. Be the person who fills it.”

I know Dad’s talking about sports and training and all that stuff I don’t care about, but I can’t help but hear his words through the filter of our lives. There is a gap in our house. Maybe it’s the mom I never knew. Maybe it’s the words we never say. Or maybe it’s both of us. Maybe there’s a gap in each of us so big that we can’t get past it to fill the one between us. Maybe we’ll never fill it.

Well, isn’t that just depressing?

You know you’re growing up when you start to see more inevitabilities than possibilities.

Looking for a distraction, I scan the circle of players as Dad keeps talking. My eyes sweep over Silas, who looks at me with a carefully blank expression. I don’t let myself jerk my eyes away like I want to, and instead I keep looking past him like he’s any other player. I pull my gaze along, but I’m not really seeing much until . . .

I freeze.

Slowly, I let my gaze backtrack to find another pair of eyes on me.

Not Silas. Not Levi.

Carson.

His hair is dark with sweat and sticking up as though he’d run his hands through it. He’s kneeling, his body directed toward my father, but his eyes are fixed on me. His jaw clenches tight, and his blue eyes look like steel from here. His knuckles are curled tightly around the face mask on his helmet, and I can see the way he’s pushing down on the helmet, bearing it into the ground.

He’s angry.

And I feel all my earlier hope for the future, all my determination, just melt away. The gap in me stretches so big in that moment, flowing out from between my ribs and pushing up through my pores, that I forget to feel angry, too.

For a moment anyway.

Dad dismisses the team, and Carson stands. Then the fury rolls in like a storm, filling the empty with emotions too raw to put a name to. I don’t wait for Dad. I don’t wait for anything.

I turn and start walking off the field, wishing I could stomp my feet hard enough to make the earth shake as much as my hands. There is thunder in my chest, and I know a scream won’t release it. Not this time.

It’s stupid. So stupid.

He’s just a guy I spent one night with.

I should not be this upset.

I should not . . . I should not have been stupid enough to let him mean anything more than that. I mean, Jesus, the guy even ignored me all weekend! So why do I feel like my ribs are trying to curl in on themselves?

Stupid. I’m chanting the word in my head as I grind my teeth and escape out of the complex and into my little maroon sedan. I turn the key in the ignition, releasing a small sob only when I know the roar of the engine will cover it.