Page 26 of Good Guy Gabe

I’m trying to enjoy it, and honestly? I probably would in a different scenario. There’s so much energy and tension. I thought it would feel slow since I knew it was done in plays that needed a reset after each one. Instead, the crowd is so animated and the score volleys so dramatically that I barely notice the downtime. What I do notice, and what ruins the excitement for me, is the way Gabe gets hit in every single play.

So, while Cora is screaming and calling the running back a bitch, I’m watching Gabe to make sure he gets back up.

“That’s it, bitch!” Cora screams, her voice raw, as Drew Cohen is knocked off the field by one of the defensive linemen from the Patriots.

I shoot Drew’s wife another apology, but she waves it off. “He’s a bitch. He’ll be whining up a storm tonight because the grocery store was out of the dairy-free butter pecan ice cream. And he did good. He got that first down. He looks great today.” She says it so proudly, like a three-hundred-pound wrecking ball didn’t just slam into him.

“And look, he’s fine,” Cora says. At first, I’m thinking she’s talking about Drew, but then she squeezes my hand back — oh Lord, I was squeezing too hard again — and points to Gabe.

“He was just taking a break,” Wren agrees from my other side. She’s got one hand on her heavy, protruding belly, and the way she breathes makes me concerned she’s already in labor, but it could be simple excitement.

I’ve done my best not to stare at her belly, but there’s a difference between knowing Tilly is pregnant andseeingWren’s pregnancy. In my line of work, I see pregnant women frequently, usually when their quilt-minded friends bring them along to pick out fabrics for baby blankets. I try not to let it bother me, but there’s that constant tickle of how that could be me. Thatwasme; I should have a five-year-old now, turning six sometime in the winter.

I don’t know how to talk to Gabe about this. I don’t want to look like a psycho by making it a problem that I want kids and he doesn’t when we didn’t even know each other three weeks ago, but he’s been emphatic that he’s dead serious about us.

“They do that sometimes if they know the clock’s stopped,” Wren adds as she continues rubbing that belly. “Lin says they’re being lazy, and I usually agree with him just to appease him, but come on. Lin’s on the field for like forty-five seconds of—where the fuck was the offsides?” she suddenly erupts, as does everyone around us.

Penalties are a common thing, I’ve learned. Mostly what’s gotten everyone upset is holding and false start, but when Cora explained the false start thing to me, she went ahead and explained offsides, too. I now know that when Gabe is on the field, he’s the one who starts the clock. No one is allowed to move before him. I’m confused about his job in general — like, I don’t get why he’s the one starting with the ball when the only thing he does is toss it between his legs to Blaise — but it’s kind of cool that he has that power.

And if anyone moves before him, that team loses five yards. Wren’s been clear about that being an extremely big deal.

The rest of it? I don’t get it. I get soccer and basketball and hockey. Get the thing in the net. Baseball? Hit the ball and runto the safe spot before the ball gets there. Got it. But this? These downs and the scoring system and all the resets? I think I’m going to need a tutorial.

Hopefully Gabe isn’t offended when I ask him for that.

“You know, I thought I hated football until last year,” Wren says with a laugh once that offsidesiscalled. “I was a dancer growing up, so I had to perform at football games, but I never watched the game. Couldn’t stand cheerleaders — sorry, Keira.”

My throat catches when Evan Allore’s wife turns toward us. I’ve seen her a lot today, prowling the sidelines in a smart suit in the Juggernaut ruby color. She works with the cheerleaders who are stationed at the four corners of the field, one pod directly in front of where we sit next to the tunnel. Cora and I are in the fourth row, but since she was down on the field and it felt like a whole other world between the seats and the field, I thought I’d fly under the radar.

Five minutes ago, she appeared in the second row to pass off a diaper bag to the blue-haired girl who’s had her hands full wrangling four kids, two of which are babies in giant noise-cancelling headphones. I’ve watched Keira nearly leave three times now before getting sucked back in to snuggling with the ruby-and-saffron-tutued baby.

Now she’s glaring right at me despite responding to Wren.“Nah, you’re good. I hated cheerleaders, too, even after I became one. But then I realized they’re mostly good, unlikesomepeople.”

She and the blue-haired girl have a quick exchange before the entire group packs up and leaves their seats. Keira casts one last venomous glare at me as they pass by, and the rest of the ladies surrounding us watch, stunned.

“What the heck was that about?” Mel bursts out once they’ve vanished, and then everyone’s talking at once, but no one seems to know it’s because of me. Why would it be? I’m new. And since this is the Jugs’ second year, these women probably all moved here last year.

“Maybe we should go,” I whisper to Cora.

Wren grabs my shoulder to hold me in place. “Absolutely not! Tomorrow I’ve got a lunch date with Keira and Cadence — that’s the other lady, the one with the blue hair, Morales’s girl — and I’ll talk some sense into her. You shouldn’t be blamed for what someone else did.”

“You know who I am?”

“Yeah, I live up in Salem. It was a pretty big deal there, too. Some of the, ahh—”

“Victims?” I supply for her. In the beginning, when I had lawyers, they insisted I usepatients, but I never understood how that was a better word. It just reminded me that my husband’s victims trusted him to care for them properly.

“Yeah. Some were from Salem. But that’s not why I didn’t talk to you at the gala! I wasn’t even sure it was you. You look a lot different from your old pictures.”

I nod. “I gained a bunch of weight.”

Wren looks horrified and backpedals with, “I just meant the make-up and the hair.”

Cora gives me a hard shove. “You talk like thirty pounds is a natural disaster. Can we just watch the game? This is the good part.”

“Is it? I don’t know if I can handle the stress of this.” My heart’s been pounding the entire time, if not because of Gabe’sconstant hits then because of the score that’s bounced back and forth the entire game. The Juggernauts are losing right now, but they were winning a couple minutes ago, and there was already so little time on the clock that it seemed impossible the score would flip. One good pass, though, one slip of the Patriots’ wide receiver past our defense, and they got their touchdown with only forty-five seconds on the clock.

That’s since dwindled to nineteen seconds. One more play, maybe two. I feel sick watching this. Is everyone going to be in a terrible mood tonight? Will Gabe still want me to come over?

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