Page 7 of Home Game

That was why I was going to get their signature claw tattoo alongside the others on my back. And why I wasn’t going to let anyone talk shit about my new friend and teammate Kace. I wasn’t gay, but I’d always hated homophobes. Who the hell cared if a guy wanted other guys, anyway?

I white-knuckled my way through the rest of the tattoo. Afterward, Zeke showed me what it looked like in the mirror. A fierce Ferals claw, just above the long-stem rose for my mom and my grandpop’s initials.

“You’re the best, Zeke,” I said after the session was over. “Got to get back home for this renovation meeting, otherwise I’d ask if you wanted lunch.”

“You’re redoing your new place?”

I nodded. “First nice place I’ve ever bought. I want to make it my own. The house has fuckingkillerbones, but it was an old rich guy’s third vacation home, and he really didn’t take good care of the place. When it’s all done, I’ll invite you to the housewarming party, don’t even worry.”

“Hey,” Zeke said, patting my back. “Try to stay out of the headlines, okay?”

“I don’t change myself for anyone, and I don’t hold back,” I said. “But I never fight just to fight. People who really know mealwaysknow that.”

“That’s why we love you,” Zeke said. “I’ll be watching the games!”

A few minutes later, I was back in my Bronco and taking off up toward the mountain. All around me, I could just see the leaves starting to change from green to yellow, and the air that blew in from the open windows was… cold.

Fuckingcold. Already. It made my heart ache.

I hated fall.

The worst fucking season.

I knew that as a pro football player, I should have loved the start of a season. But what I loved wasfootball, not fall.

Fall reminded me of school. The start of a school year was always like an omen from hell, for me. Back when I was a kid and teenager, school meant dealing with the kids who treated me like dirt, and eventually, the fights I’d always get in when they made fun of me endlessly.

Trailer Trashwas just one of the nicknames I’d had. It stuck around even when Mom got us an apartment instead of the old trailer, because by then, it’s what the whole school knew me by.

Even now, as an adult, fall just meant that summer—the best season—was over. Fewer cookouts, fewer parties. Theonlygood thing about fall was football, actually. What I’d dedicated my life to. I loved my mom first, football second. Just about everything else I could take or leave.

The Bronco’s engine roared as I climbed the mountain roads up and out of Denver toward the edge of Jade River, where I’d purchased my home.

It still felt strange calling it my own. I wasn’t joking when I’d told Zeke it was the first place that really felt likemine. I’d been pro for years now, and logically I had known I had tons of money even in my first year being pro.

But the idea of having money—realmoney—hadn’t even sunk in until this year, when the Ferals had signed me.

Somewhere inside me was a little kid that still felt like trailer trash.

And until this year, I’d still lived in an apartment. A nice enough one, but still. I didn’t know how to process that I was rich, and the only things I’d done with my money until now were buying the Bronco and always making sure my mom was taken care of.

And I still hated rich pricks. Like the old guy who’d owned my house before me and apparently didn’t even give a damn to take care of it properly.

I finally pulled up along my driveway, glancing over toward my neighbor’s house along the way.

Hewas probably the kind of rich prick I hated. I hadn’t met him yet, but I’d seen his stupid red Porsche driving down his driveway at different times of day, and his stupider red Ferrari on the weekends.

Goddamn flashy cars.

Hell, I still felt weird about driving my nice Bronco, even though it wasn’t anything compared to a Ferrari.

“Hello, boys,” I said out the window as I pulled up in front of my house and saw Nathan and Shawn from the Fixer Brothers, already waiting out front. “Sorry I’m a little late. Grabbed a tattoo down in Denver. Wait, Oreo, how are you already out? Rascal.”

“Her name’s Oreo?” Shawn asked, crouching low to pet my little mutt dog. “She’s been playful here out front since we got here.”

I hopped out of the Bronco, nodding as I walked over the gravel toward the house. “The wooden fence in the backyard is just one of many things the previous owner didn’t take care of,” I said. “Oreo keeps managing to escape, but luckily she never runs more than twenty steps away in any direction. Get over here, you munchkin.”

Oreo bounded over toward me and I scooped her up, covering her soft hair in little kisses.

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