Page 7 of Near Miss

I was happy to do it. I grew up outside of Toronto. It’s where I’m from. It’s where my family lives. Canada has some of the best sports fans in the world. But something the general world seems to not understand about Canadians—we don’t forget.

I went from someone everyone loved and wanted to put on their billboards and to sign their jerseys and to kiss their babies because I was going to keep smashing records and keep smiling, to someone who literally had a fucking Timbit thrown at them from a moving car last week.

“Davis, you’re done. Coach wants you upstairs.”

I glance over at the open doorway. Darren stands there, clipboard under his arm and his hat folded between his hands.

“Sure, thanks.” I nod, sitting back on my heels and grabbing my towel to scrub some of the sweat off my face.

“I’ll see you Wednesday. Hit the gym tomorrow, but don’t kill your legs. I want range from your kicks.”

“Got it,” I answer, and he taps his clipboard like that might drive his point home more before turning and disappearing down the hallway. I spend more time with Darren than anyone. His whole job as the special teams coordinator is to develop people like me.

I rarely talk to Coach Taylor one-to-one during the week.

I’ve been avoiding talking to him as much as possible since training camp started, and I certainly haven’t darkened the door to his office. It’s my fault there isn’t a shiny gold championship trophy sitting behind him on the empty mantle.

The sight of my name, spelled out in block lettering along with the number nineteen, stretching across the side of my bag, feels like something I wish I could avoid, too. Like it’s something to be proud of—that I’m so special and so important and so full of generational talent, people should know who I am just by a stupid gym bag I carry around. It has the opposite effect. I hate myself, and I’m really not proud at all when I pick it up on the way out of the studio.

There’s a photo of me in the main concourse that stretches the entire wall I’m also pretty intent on ignoring, so I duck down a set of stairs at the end of the hallway instead and head to the executive offices.

It means taking the stairs instead of the elevator when my legs are already dead, but the stadium is well and truly alive now that preseason is about to start. The stores are putting out the new stock, the restaurants are opening, the staff are all back to work.

I’ve generally made it a point to be nice to everyone who works here, at least before the stadium is crawling with fans. I stop by and get coffee before or after practice instead of making my own because I think they deserve to be recognized, too. There’re all sorts of things that keep a franchise going that have nothing to do with the players on the field.

But I doubt they want to see me, and I don’t want to see them.

My footsteps echo on the concrete stairs against the empty stairwell, and sunlight beats in through the glass windows. The whole stadium has this crazy view of the city—there isn’t a single part of the building that doesn’t give you an angle of the Toronto skyline.

It was strategic construction when the expansion was just a whisper floating around in the ether. There wasn’t a place that could house enough seats, and the league had concerns about the proximity to Buffalo impacting another fanbase.

And some architect came up with this idea to go higher with the seats instead of stretching them out. It’s probably a feat of engineering, because it hardly looks taller than other teams’ stadiums, and it’s great at blocking the wind.

It made me more effective, until it didn’t.

I stop when I get to the sixth floor—the painted white lettering on the polished cherry door seems more threatening than it should. Taking my hat off, I try to smooth down my hair, but it’s useless because it gets even curlier when it’s sweaty.

The hallway is empty, and most office doors are closed—a small mercy. The sound of my footsteps dies on the padded carpet, and I stop when I reach the only open door.

The shiny, gold plate that reads “Coach Taylor” still looks brand-new, and from this angle, I can see the mostly empty mahogany shelves that line his office. We’re a new team, so maybe it’s unfair for me and the rest of the general population to put the responsibility for that on my shoulders, but winning a championship in the first decade of a franchise when we’re the only one in the country is something everyone really, really wanted.

I raise my fist and knock, letting that stupid fucking grin fall into place so it looks like I’m still being a team player. “You wanted to see me?”

He doesn’t look away from the screen mounted to the wall, but I can see his eyes flit to me in between tracking the routes he’s watching. He gestures to the chair across from him, and I say nothing when I drop down in it.

“You’re out there practicing field goals with your headphones in.” His voice is clipped, and he tips his head, watching a successful pass before scribbling on his clipboard.

“I’m trying to concentrate.”

Apparently, I can’t even do that right.

He finally looks away and takes a measured exhale before leaning back in his chair. “One of the things that made you the best wasn’t the fact that there’s usually more accuracy in your kicks than a nuclear homing beacon. It wasn’t the power behind them. It was the fact that you worked with the other guys. You were friends. It didn’t matter that you had separate practices. Worked on separate drills. You ran routes with anyone who wanted to try something out or practice in off-hours even though you shouldn’t have risked your legs like that. You’ve let every backup quarterback we’ve ever had pass to you until their fingers bled. Christ, you had half of them in there on the reformers with you every week.”

And I let them down so colossally some of them didn’t speak to me the entire offseason.

I don’t say it out loud, but the words hang between us.

Coach Taylor appraises me, and it’s sort of like being looked at by your grandfather, like he’s got generations of wisdom on me, not just the seven years older he is. “You could have made that kick. I’ve seen you make that kick in practice.”

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