Page 37 of Only Between Us

“—heart,” I finish with a smile. “And I wanted to get a feel for it myself.”

He chuckles, shaking his head as he pulls into the parking lot of my apartment building. By the time I’ve hopped out, I find Brooks awkwardly hovering by the hood, a little pink in the cheeks.

I think he’d been trying to open the door for me again.

He shoves his hands into his pockets. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’m good.” I lift my helmet from his back seat. “You don’t have to drive me.”

“So you keep saying.” With an irritated tick at his jaw—which I’m starting to hope he reserves just for me—he jerks his chin at the car. “I’m keeping the helmet as collateral. Put it back where you found it and I’ll see you tomorrow, Pip.”

Chapter12Brooks

“Fucking crushed it.”

With hands propped on his hips and unmistakable pride on his face, Parker watches me approach from the collection of orange markers I’ve been weaving through for the past twenty minutes.

I did crush it. My footwork feels so close to what it was when I last played. I’m appropriately winded, sweating no more than I should. I don’t feel the churn of vomit in my stomach. I’m in the best shape I’ve been in years, certainly after the damage I did over the course of that six-month bender.

Parker tosses me my water and we sit on the long bench on the Huskies field. “Your time is only down by one-point-three seconds from where you were when you played. It’s impressive.”

I nod, swiping the sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm. “Thanks, man.”

We eye a couple of guys tossing a football a few yards away. I recognize one of them as a tight end I used to coach on the Huskies. He wasn’t drafted this year, so he’s probably putting in the time to up his chances for next year. The other guy is middle-aged, with thinning gray hair. Probably his trainer.

My skin starts to itch. Knee bounces. Because I don’t have anext year. This unlikely comeback is a one-time chance, and if the league—the Rebels—decide I’m not fit to return this season, I’ll be written off faster than my ass can move through those orange markers. No one will bother with me a year from now.

And what then?

I go back to a job that made me ache with envy and loss? I keep living here, just me and Pete on the outskirts of town?

Am I supposed to learn to exist with this empty pit inside me?

A few yards down the sideline, the older man who’d been training the Huskies player jogs up to the stands where a redhead I presume is his wife waits for him. They chat for a moment before she slyly reaches around and pinches his ass.

Something in my chest pulls hard, leaving behind an ache so bad I stutter around my sip of water.

Envy. I’m so painfully jealous of this couple, copping a feel of each other, that I rub at my chest as though to scrub away the feeling. It’s the playfulness that gets me. The way they’ve probably been together for decades and still flirt like a pair of shameless teenagers.

I hate that I’ve become that guy. I hate that I can’t look at a woman without trying to pinpoint the way she’ll inevitably fuck me over. Being one half of an aging, dirty couple has never felt less attainable.

Which is why this comeback has to work. At least then I’ll have my career again.

I rub my face with my hands. “You think you can do an extra training session this weekend?”

Parker looks up from his phone. “What part of me telling you you’re nailing your drills says you need an extra session?”

“I need to be at my old stats, not near them.”

“You also need rest. You need to look after your body before itflips you the finger mid-game one day and shuts down after everything you’ve put it through.” Parker leans his elbows on his knees. “I know how much it means to you to play again. But you need to be smart about it.”

“Is that a no on the extra session?”

Parker’s head dips, and he stares at the field under his feet. “If I say no, will you just go rogue at your gym at home?”

“Probably.”

“You’re an idiot.” He shakes his head. “I’ll meet you here on Saturday if you skip your morning run.”

---