Page 78 of The Right Player
Hike!
I took off again, this time running a curl route that had me juking the defensive player on my tail before I made a dash back toward the center field. Gerald launched the ball, and once again, it was a perfect pass.
A perfect pass that I missed.
The ball slipped through my fingers like my gloves were coated in butter, and I growled, picking up the ball and launching it back down field before I thought better of it. It was bad enough to be having an off day, but to show out like that would only add fuel to the fire.
“Kumaka,” coach called, and he nodded to the bench, letting me know without a single word that I needed to sit out and cool off.
Gerald tapped my shoulder pads as I ran past. “It’s all good, bro. Shake it off.”
I flopped down on the bench, ripping my helmet off and letting it fall between my cleats on the ground. Someone handed me a Gatorade bottle with water, and I squirted some in my mouth, swishing it around before I spat it out and then took a real drink.
The longer I sat there, the more my muscles cooled and my breath evened out, the more disappointed I was with myself.
I was completely falling apart.
It was Thursday, four days since the night everything blew to hell.
And I hadn’t heard from Belle.
Not once.
I wished I could say it didn’t affect me. I wished I could say I’d been focused on football, on the upcoming away pre-season game against the Giants. I wished I could say I’d been able to focus on anything other than the fact that I’d lost the best woman I’d ever had.
But all of that would be a lie.
I’d been helpless since I walked out of her door that night.
I’d gone home to find my family still there, surprised to see me them I wouldn’t be back until the morning. When I told them what happened, they all consoled me, and having them there was a temporary relief for the burn.
But they left the next day, going back to Hawai’i, and once I was alone, it all sank in.
Monday’s practice wasn’t too bad. We mostly watched tapes and talked about plays that went wrong and ran drills. Tuesday was an off day, and yesterday, I’d managed to keep my shit together.
But today, I was a dumpster fire.
Coach called practice about a half hour later, and I kneeled around him along with the rest of the team, listening numbly as he explained what he’d seen, what was working, what could work better.
And he didn’t forget to remind us how important this next game was, to show what we had before the decision on who would be cut was made.
Gerald tried to talk to me after, but I waved him off, jogging into the locker room for a quick shower and change before I hopped in my car and fled the training facility.
As soon as I was out of the parking lot, I dialed Colby.
“Well, if it isn’t the future star wide receiver for Da Bears,” he greeted, making a deep, funny voice when he said the team name.
“Trust me, if I keep playing the way I did in practice today, I’d be lucky to even make it to the official cut date before they booted me.”
“Wait, what? You had a killer game Sunday,” Colby said, and I heard him tell someone in the background that he’d be right back. I assumed it was Cheyenne. “What happened?”
I sighed, hitting my blinker with more force than necessary as I waited at the light. “I fucked up and lost the best thing to ever happen to me, and now I can’t focus on anything but that.”
There was a short pause before Colby let out a sigh of his own. “She found out.”
“She was at the fucking game.”
“What?” Colby whistled. “Jesus, man. I thought you said she hated football.”
“She does,” I affirmed. “But her best friend is a huge Bears fan. She has season tickets and her fiancé couldn’t go to the first pre-season game. So…”
“So she took her best friend.”
“Yup.” The word popped on my lips, and I shook my head, stomach bottoming out like it had done all week whenever I thought about how Belle must have felt, sitting there with Gemma when she realized it was me on that field in front of her. “I went to her right after the game. I explained everything, man, but she didn’t want to hear it.”
“I mean, can you blame her?”
“No,” I said quickly. “But I guess the bigger part of me didn’t think it would be this big of a deal. I thought once I explained, she’d understand, and we’d work through it… together.” I swallowed. “But she just gave up. The first sign of trouble, and she wanted out.”
