I shut my eyes tight, trying to block everything out, but my pads feel tight. Tighter than normal. Constricting.
“Stand by!” a cameraman yells, lens pointed in our direction.
So much noise. The roar of the crowd, the music, the drumming of hands against the stadium seats—I used to love it, but lately I feel like running the opposite way. I can’t figure out why. Something just feels off, and wrong, and I’m sweating even though it’s only thirty degrees out.
I shake my head.
Jamal turns toward me and yells over the excessive noise, “You good, man? You look off.”
My heart is beating in my ears. I feel like I’m going to pass out, but I know I can’t. I have to stay on my feet. There’s no time for whatever this feeling is creeping over me. I don’t get nervous. I help get our team to Super Bowls, not pass out in the tunnel before a game. But maybe I can just sit down on the floor real quick and take a breather?
“Yeah, I’m good,” I lie because Jamal can’t know that I feel like I’m inside a tornado. He depends on me. They all do. Everyone does.
Trying to gain some sort of composure before we have to run out, I shut my eyes again and think of Bree. I see her wide smile and I hear her bubbling laugh. I tell myself that in roughly five hours, I’ll be flying home and I’d bet my entire fortune she will be there waiting. She’ll throw her arms around my waist and squeeze. It’ll be quiet there.
My chest loosens a little.
“Okay, everyone get ready!” the cameraman yells again. The announcer comes over the speaker telling the jam-packed stadium we’re about to take the field. The crowd sounds like an intense rainstorm slamming down on a tin roof. It’s drowning me. Right now, the only thought grounding me is Bree. What would she say to me if she were here right now? It would be something perfect. She always says the perfect thing.
“Thre
e, two, one! Go, go, go!”
We run out of the tunnel, through the heavy fog and directly into the chaos. The only way I keep myself from pulling a Forest Gump and running all the way home is to picture Bree: nose scrunched, tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth with a big thumbs-up just like she did the very first time I took the field in Daren’s place four years ago. I choose to hear her as a whisper in my ear instead of listening to the roar of the crowd. You can do it, Nathan.
Bree
* * *
Are you kidding me right now?! Only gigantically tall people keep their 9x13 baking dishes in the very tip top of their cupboards. Nathan had his apartment renovated a year ago to fit his vertically blessed stature, which means taller-than-average countertops and cabinetry that touches the heavens. We get it, Nathan, you’re tall!
Clearly, he didn’t factor in his best friend breaking into his apartment and baking brownies for him while he’s flying home from winning a playoff game! Yep, they won, but it was a tight one. I don’t think I have any fingernails left. The score wasn’t the only thing keeping me on edge though. Nathan seemed really off during the first quarter. He finally settled in and threw four touchdowns, but still, he didn’t quite seem like himself.
I watched the game from his couch and screamed so loud through most of it that I won’t be surprised if he tells me he could hear me at the stadium. There was one play where he got sacked, a really hard hit on a fourth down, and I held my breath until I saw him stand up and walk unassisted to the bench. Other than that moment, he played a solid game. I doubt anyone else was able to notice the difference in him, but I did. Any time the camera zoomed in on his face, I could see something lurking in his eyes that made me nervous. It was more than his usual focused look—he looked sad. Or maybe it was tired? Or worried?
I don’t know, but I’m making him brownies to celebrate and cheer him up. He won’t want to eat them because of his nutritional regimen, but I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to remind him that there is life and fun and sweet things outside of football and broccoli.
Honestly, I used to be just like him. I would do whatever it took to be the best, to perform my best. I didn’t realize how burnt out I was until I had to take a year-long healing break, only doing basic physical therapy to regain use of my knee after surgery. Not until I was forced to rest and seek out new ways to entertain myself in life was I able to see how I hadn’t actually been enjoying ballet anymore. I had become a task-oriented robot that was obsessed with making it to the next level, no matter the cost.
Now, I try to not take life too seriously. I believe in working hard but taking breaks. Resting. Goofing off and eating yummy carbs occasionally. Yeah, they almost always go to my hips, but I choose to believe it only makes them more squeezable.
The oven beeps, telling me it’s preheated, and the batter is mixed and waiting patiently on the counter. All I need now is that pretty little glass dish sitting wayyyyyy up there. Hey, God, it’s me, Bree—do you mind handing me that 9x13 baking dish right there by you?
It’s fine. I’ll just climb up there like all of us short people learned to do when we stopped growing at the age of twelve. I hook my heel up on the counter then use every muscle in my body to hoist myself up there. Turns out, this was easier when I was twelve. I didn’t snap, crackle, and pop as much back then.
I’m up here just about to grab the dish when I hear the front door open and close.
“NO!” I yell dramatically while quickly moving the smaller glass dishes out of the one I need, hoping I can scramble down with my loot before Nathan can see me up here and make fun of me.
I’m not fast enough.
He turns the corner and I peer at him over my shoulder, arms above my head, fingers clutching the baking dish. He’s wearing black Nike joggers and a matching hoodie. A Sharks flat-billed hat sits backward on his fine, gorgeous head. Nathan always dresses in the finest tailored suits to arrive at games, but he goes for comfort on the flights home. And believe me, comfort looks good on him. There’s something about a man not trying at all but still exuding confidence and strength that is undeniably sexy. It’s in the way he casually drops his duffle bag in the middle of the floor. Tosses his keys onto the marble countertop with a lazy flick of his wrist. Looks up at me and tilts his head as his eyes drop to the small sliver of my exposed torso where my shirt has ridden up.
Oh geez, I’m feeling hotter than a widowed duchess in a bodice-ripping historical romance.
He lifts a brow and grins. “Hi. Whatcha doing up there?”
“Just some sightseeing.”