Winning Pass - A Football Romance (4 page)

I
f I knew
I could get away with throwing my phone across the goddamn room without it shattering into a million little pieces, I'd be doing it right about now.

Taking Kevon's advice seemed smart at first, until I got another call—this time from Coach T—about how I should've been there for the charity event. Something about there only being five of the ten players that were 'voluntarily' signed up to go, who actually showed up. Obviously, I was not one of them, and since Maine has donned me a 'star player,' I need to shine.

See? This is the bullshit I try my hardest to avoid. All this celebrity, sponsored, ass-kissing crap that has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the money. All I want to do is play football, but ever since I went pro, there's been the added responsibility of becoming a role model, an advocate, and a fucking celebrity. When you overhear a group of so-called fans talking shit about you selling out, it gets old really quickly.

I've got Maine breathing down my neck, and Coach ready to kick my ass, and my dad's constant eye watching over my every move. God help me if he finds out about last night. I get why some people go crazy after they become famous. It's easier than staying sane.

Trying to calm my nerves, I pinch the bridge of my nose and rub the spots over my sinuses that always ache when I'm stressing out. I haven't read the newspaper in a while, so I pick it up from the table where Romina left it and take a seat, spreading it out to read. I focus intently on the headlines in bold first, just like I learned, and let the problematic letters slowly unscramble themselves.

"Knock-knock, motherfucker."

I sigh, immediately putting the paper back down. "Don't you have a house to live in?"

Kevon pulls up a chair beside me, the legs of it scraping across the floor. "Shit, I'm about to have two houses to live in. But that ain't the point. I'm here on some serious, official-dicial . . ." his voice trails off when he looks down at the paper and then back up at me.
Here we go again
. "What is this, 1975? Who the hell reads newspapers any more?"

The truth is that I read the newspaper because it helps me keep my dyslexia in check, but Kevon doesn’t need to know that. No one does.

He pulls out his phone and slides the screen on, pointing to the apps. "They invented the internet so you wouldn't have to bother with that shit no more."

"You're the exact opposite of literally every old person I know. They can't stand 'new-fangled' technology, and you can't stand anything that's older than your brand new iPhone."

"Ain't nothin' wrong with old technology, Wit. I'm just concerned about the environment, that's all. Cutting down trees, ruining the fragile ecosystems. Anyway, you're distracting me."

I snort. "
I'm
distracting
you
?”

"Yeah, man, so let me get to it."

I spread my arms wide, waiting for him to
get to it
.

Kevon leans back in the chair, folding his arms across his broad chest. Dude does more bench presses than Jebediah Moss, our number one linebacker. "I don't know. You might not be ready for this yet."

Jesus Christ. "Are you going to tell me whatever it is, or what? Because I got shit to do."

I say this, of course, sitting in my pajama pants, with the newspaper in my hand, but . . . semantics.

Kevon just shrugs at me, looking down at the freshly cleaned table—thanks, Romina—and then up at me again, this time with a legitimately serious expression. It's a goddamn miracle.

"So I went to that charity event earlier. The one you were supposed to go to, you know? Maybe I was wrong, man. Maybe you shoulda went after all. Because I ran into somebody that well . . . she was looking for you."

It's a simple statement. Sure, there are probably plenty of women looking for me—for one reason or another. Genuine fans, hot women looking to get laid and paid, not to mention the errant gold-digger here and there. It's just that I never care, and I’m going to say so myself, but something stops me. The tone of his voice shuts me right up and I get the feeling like maybe I should just keep quiet.

"I remember you tellin’ me a while back about this girl, this girl that you were mad crushing on when you were a kid. That sappy-ass love story and shit. You remember what I said?"

I laugh, because I sure as hell do. "
This ain't some mushy-ass chick flick, Witter. Grow some big, hairy balls and get the fuck over yourself with that shit.
Or something to that effect."

He nods, scratching his chin. "True words. Except you must be living some kind of crazy fairytale life, ‘cause I just ran into her at the charity fundraiser."

I look down at the table at the way my hands are splayed out as though I’m bracing myself. I know I probably look dramatic as hell, but those weren't exactly the words I had been expecting to hear. "You ran into her?"

"Yup, or actually, she ran into
me
. She's kind of . . . clumsy."

I didn't think it was possible for my heart to retract further into my chest, but it does. Clumsy? Then it might actually be Paige, because clumsy was putting it lightly when we were kids.

"So she was tryna look you up. I thought I maybe could help, and I told her that I would text her your address so y'all can have a nice little chat."

"A chat? What are you . . .? How am I . . .? Goddammit, Kevon! You could've at least warned me first!"

Kevon hops up from his seat and claps me on the shoulder. "Warn you? Hell no—I know you, man. You get all freaky about shit like this, always overthinkin' and everything. Maybe this time, you won't have enough time to be doing all that mess and you can just go with it. Be in the moment and all that."

I take in a deep breath, wondering how hard I can punch him in his face without breaking his nose. "What the hell am I supposed to do? You have no idea what you just did! No fucking idea."

He waves me off, already walking away. "See, there you go again. Don't you worry about it. If it gets weird, make up an excuse so you can bail."

I put my head in my hand, shaking it slowly. "How the hell am I going to bail if she's coming to
my
house? Did you ever think about that?"

Kevon throws up his hands when he turns back around. "Then don't bail. I don't see why you would, anyway. She's fine as hell, man, and you’d better hit that or I will. Just sayin'."

Now, I've known Kevon for a few years, which has given him the opportunity to say a lot of ridiculous shit that aggravates the hell out of me. But nothing, and I mean
nothing
has ever gotten under my skin more than what he just said about her. "Let's get one thing straight. You're not
hitting
anything, all right? Hands off. You don't touch her, you don't look at her, you don't make any kind of stupid obscene gestures behind her back—none of it."

Kevon holds his hands up in surrender, apologizing before giving me one more ridiculous wink as he leaves, and I'm left sitting there wondering how I can possibly prepare myself for seeing her again.

Paige Sullivan. Paige
fucking
Sullivan. I wish I knew how to feel about randomly seeing her, but I don't. Being caught off guard like this usually gives me anxiety enough as it is, but this goes off the charts. I’m all about knowing where to be at exactly the right moment and what to do if that moment is slightly off. But this is different.

And then that old familiar feeling starts tangling itself back up inside me, all those stupid questions and all that hurt that I tried push away. Paige and I were supposed to be something more than just friends—call me a dumb kid for thinking that, but it was the truth. After that summer, I was supposed to get a letter from her every week. I got one, and when I wrote her back telling her everything about Texas and how much I missed life back in North Carolina . . . that was it. I never heard back from her after that.

It took a long time, but I finally convinced myself how childish it was to be pining away for Paige like that when I would never see her again. I figured that one out, even though I was only twelve at the time. All the other guys my age worried about one thing and one thing only.

Football. And since that's exactly what my father expected, well, I just kind of aimed my focus that way too. And now look at me. I don't know what to expect from this impromptu meeting with Paige, but I don't know how far she's going to get with me, whatever it is she wants.

I may have been able to let her in back when I was kid, but now . . . I'm not so sure I want to.

T
o say
that I'm pacing around in my hotel room is an understatement. More like I'm storming through the place, the room whipping past me as I go. I pick up my purse, then toss it on the bed. I check the mirror one last time, but as soon as I walk away, something tells me to double-check, even triple-check. And I slide my finger across my phone's home screen so many times that I'm pretty sure my finger will become attached.

I’m not even sure why exactly I can't calm down, because after all, it’s just a simple text. I highly doubt Kevon will call based on interaction with guys our age.

I try to shake off my nerves, literally shaking my hands out in front of my face, jumping from side to side and hiking my legs up, before letting out a long, deep breath. There's no way I'm going to go meet with Elijah this freaked out. God knows the kind of weird shit that would come out of my mouth.

'Oh, um, I like your pants.'
Then run away. Or
'Your face looks really good.'
Then also run away. These are both legitimate things I have said to two different guys, and without fail, I get the same look. You know the
look
.

I'm sitting here on the edge of the bed, holding my phone and looking off into the bathroom across from me when my phone finally vibrates in my hands, scaring the shit out of me. I quickly slide the screen over, not bothering to look at the name or number.

At the top of the screen, it reads
Kevon Williams
, which makes me giggle a little. Because come to think about it, how many people would freak out if they knew I had this guy's number in my phone? After doing some light research, a.k.a. social media stalking, I was able to find out that both Kevon and Elijah play wide receivers for the Longhorns, and apparently, they’re pretty good friends. Not to mention the fact that Kevon seems to be a real player . . . both on and off the field. Numerous pictures of him with beautiful women were scattered across the Internet. I can't say I'm surprised, though, but I can say that I'm secretly pleased as punch that there weren't many pictures of Elijah that popped up. Maybe that's super selfish of me, but I know that deep down, it would probably sting if I had found pictures of him like that.

The text is simply a phone number followed by an address in San Antonio, but there are those little dots telling me that Kevon is still writing me something. A moment later, there's a smiley face followed by what looks like an eggplant and some drops of water followed by, ‘
Get it, girl
.’

"Oh, God," I mumble to myself when I realize what exactly he’s getting at. It’s sort of like my thoughts of Elijah in this big bubble, and that big bubble consists of all the sweet and funny memories I had with him when we were just kids. Now, around the outside of that bubble are all these other thoughts that are definitely
not
sweet or funny. Image after image of Elijah in action showed up in my research, and it was really hard to try to equate that person with the boy I knew. Because the person I saw online was an insanely hot 6’4” god among men. I wasn't sure why he had never gotten married or even had a serious enough girlfriend to make it into the news, but then again, who am I to judge? I’m not exactly living the married life myself, much less the taken life. And he’s probably really busy with playing football, anyway. Those guys have to work out so damn much, from what I've heard, that it doesn't really leave them with much time for life.

Because I have a feeling that it's not anything like him being gay, which would be absolutely heartbreaking and soul crushing for
me
, but I would accept it, obviously. Maybe he just never met the right person.

Now come more of those thoughts that are busy trying so hard to burst that bubble. I have to click away after a few of the photo shoots of him and some of the other players at the beach throwing a football around. Elijah was shirtless and wearing a pair of really low-slung swimming trunks that outlined pretty much everything. Let's just say the boy definitely grew into the man. The big man, in fact.

But no, no. I don't even want to think about that, at least, not yet. I can't go making a fool of myself and then end up giving myself hope here.

Because while Elijah grew into this insanely hot man, I, on the other hand, am a different story.

Sure, most people don't really see me as ugly or anything now, but it wasn’t exactly the same when Elijah knew me. I was a scrawny little thing, with rust-colored hair that was always disheveled and with big red-framed glasses and freckles all over. Not to mention, I had a bad habit of wearing the same clothes a few days in a row. Things were hard for me and my family when we were kids, and although Stacey managed to get the good looks back then with her long cornsilk-colored hair and cream-colored complexion without a single freckle, she was seen as the neighborhood beauty and I was the ugly little sister. Mama always told me that was silly because I was gorgeous, looking just like her own mother, but I didn't know my grandma, and Mama looked pretty similar to Stacey. I was the odd one out.

What was probably worse than all that, though, was when I started hitting puberty and ended up turning into this giant freak. It was like I grew half a foot overnight, with hips like a real woman and the breasts to go with them too. It was hard to keep up with everything, being the klutz that I've always been and trying to navigate the waters of middle school without my only real friend. It made middle school and high school a living hell.

And now . . . well into adulthood, and I'm still struggling with these same issues. I became depressed, and of course, that led to the freshman fifteen and then some. It’s still a constant struggle to maintain my weight, but I'm not as hard on myself as I used to be. I see too many women dealing with these problems like I do, and it makes me hurt, which is part of the reason I went to school for physical therapy, hoping that maybe I could help change those facets of society.

But this is Elijah. And no matter what I tell myself, I know that in the end, I'm going to care what he thinks of me, whether I like it or not. If he turned out to be a total asshole and makes me feel like shit about how I look for whatever reason, it's really going to affect me, but if he's the same guy underneath everything that I knew before, then he wouldn’t do that. All I can do is bank on that idea because the alternative is just too hard to think about.

Maybe I shouldn't be rehashing the past because there's a reason it's in the past. But I never did get the closure I wanted with him, and maybe now, I'll be able to. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

I don't want to think about the way Elijah's washboard abs trickle down to this stunning, V-shaped, um,
lower half
. And his smile, the one that I dreamed of every night for so long. I still haven't seen it in any of the photos. So I’ll have to try to do my best in person.

I sigh to myself, drumming my fingers on the table beside me. I guess it doesn't really matter what happens because after everything, I miss him even still, and I just want to make sure he's okay. We were friends—best of friends, in fact—after all.

And since I know that the anniversary of his mother's death is coming up very soon, it would be the least I could do to give him my condolences. Because his mom was fucking awesome, and I miss her still, only having known her for less than a year.

I check my hair one last time, glad to see that while the heat in Texas is pretty intense, at least it's not as humid as being in North Carolina, so the frizz is tamed at the moment. I look up the local Uber company on the app and put in Elijah’s address. Well, here goes nothing.