Page 4 of Score to Settle
“Get your hands off my lady, Sullivan.”
It would take zero effort to flatten this guy, but in a blink I see the story blowing up my socials. The backlash coming my way. A year ago, I wouldn’t have cared, but I’m trying real hard to keep a low profile. Besides, I’m still sore from the cheerleaders thing last year no one will let me forget. So I hold my hands up in the universal sign for peace and give my best apologetic smile—the one even Mama softens at. “Just doing as your lady asked,” I say.
His reply is a growl. “Well, don’t. I know all about you and your ways.”
The comment stings a touch but I say nothing as the man leads his girlfriend to an electric-blue Dodge, leaving in a roar of exhaust. It’s a beauty, but no good for my wide shoulders and six-foot-four height. I sign a few more posters before hopping in my truck, and with a final wave, one more wink, I’m gone.
My phone buzzes with another message. If I was late leaving the locker room, I’m in real trouble now. And yet as I pass the sign for the exit that would take me into the city, I brieflyconsider stopping by The Hay Barn on the way home. A cold beer and banter with Flic at her bar sounds pretty appealing. But then a full-body wax would sound like a dream compared to what’s waiting for me at the ranch.
TheSports Magazinefeature was Mama’s idea. A way to keep the Stormhawks management and Coach Allen happy. I’m playing for my dream team. My home team. It doesn’t get better than this, and yet I’m fucking it up. She’s worried about my career. We both are.
I know she’s looking at Dylan. His words from the hospital bed after he busted his knee last year haunt her as much as they do me.If all I have is football, and I don’t have that anymore, then what’s left?I’m being unfair. If anyone can shake an injury that bad, it’s Dylan.
I get that I need to do better. Change my reputation. I am. Or I’m trying to. It would help if the gossip sites gave me half a chance. But theSports Magazinefeature and a reporter jammed up my ass for five weeks—that’s something I could seriously do without.
This is our one bye week—the only week in the season we don’t have a game—and all I want is some peace and quiet. Walking Buck in the hills, some time at home at my family’s ranch, halfway between Denver and Idaho Springs—surrounded by ranch land and state park and the distant Rockies.
I used to have an apartment in the city. I’ve lost count of the parties and fun I had there, but when Dylan tore his ACL and moved home to Mama and the ranch last year, I gave up the apartment and did the same. It was supposed to be temporary. A way to keep Dylan company and keep a low profile after the story broke about the cheerleaders in my truck. But over a year later, I’m still there. The truth is, I like being home. I like remembering my dad training the horses for the rodeo in the paddock by the barn and how perfect our lives were before hedied and Mama sold the horses. I get it. Running the ranch with three unruly boys wasn’t easy, even with Dad around. He died when I was ten and I still miss him, but I miss the horses too. A ranch without animals just doesn’t feel right.
I keep telling myself I’ll get my own place in the city again, but when I’m away with the team most weekends and for pre-season, Oakwood Ranch is the only place I want to come home to.
Dylan will be on my back this weekend like always. Mama too, although at least she’ll be feeding me at the same time. I wish Chase was visiting. I haven’t seen my little brother much this season. He’s a quarterback for the Kansas City Trailblazers—our biggest division rivals—and even though he could get away with murder in Mama’s eyes, I miss him. I make a mental note to give him a call tomorrow.
I resist the pull of The Hay Barn. A long, hot shower in my own bathroom and five minutes for some self-care would go a long way to easing the tension in my body. I’m playing again on Thanksgiving, away to LA Wildhorns. They’re bottom of the AFC West and it’s a game we should win, but I’ve been playing long enough to know there’s no such thing as an easy victory. It’s my favorite time of year—this stretch from Thanksgiving to New Year when the pressure mounts with every game but there’s still everything to play for.
Five minutes on the road and I pass the electric-blue Dodge. It’s pulled to the side, the man-bun boyfriend even angrier as he kicks at a flat. I think about flipping him the finger and driving on, but it’s not my style. So I ignore my buzzing phone and pull over to help. Twenty minutes later, a hug from the not-so-angry boyfriend and another from Kelly, I’m back in my truck. Based on how eager Kelly was to slip me her digits on the back of a Starbucks receipt, I don’t think she and the boyfriend will last the rest of the season.
I chuckle to myself and drop the receipt in the door to throw away later. Even Kelly and her lace bra and her cowboy boots can’t take away my yearning to be home now. I hit the gas and leave the city behind. In the mirrors, the setting sun is hitting the glass high-rises in the city, but ahead it’s all wide-open space.
Another turn and the peaks come into view. Low at first. Craggy dark ridges pushing up from the land, glowing orange in the setting sun. Beyond them, far in the distance, is James Peak and the other snowcapped mountains of the Rockies. I turn left on a dirt track and a few minutes later the ranch house—a sprawling property with a large red barn and rolling green paddocks—comes into view. Through the rich green spruce trees is a crystal-clear lake we swim in during the summer. There’s not another ranch or building for miles. All that surrounds us is land and the foothills leading up to the mountains.
Like always, I feel the familiar pang of sadness when I see the empty paddocks.One day, I tell myself. One day, when football is over, I’ll fill them with horses and pick up where my dad left off, breeding and training horses for the rodeo.
The horses were always Dad’s joy. Mama’s was football. A year after she sold the horses, she turned the back paddocks into a football field with goal postsand gridlines. Dylan, Chase, and I were out there every hour we weren’t at school. Dawn until dusk in the summers, before girls came along anyway. We still play together on the Fourth of July when Mama cooks a turkey and declares it our own Thanksgiving, seeing how we’re always with our teams, playing football, on the real holiday.
I kill the engine and open my truck door, filling my lungs with air that smells of my childhood—spruce and pine and dewy grass. My feet hit the dirt driveway and just for a moment I feel all the tension in my body unravel.
Then my three-year-old yellow Labrador retriever, Buck, is charging out the back door to greet me, ears flapping in thewind, tongue hanging out. I bend down and run my hands over his yellow coat, catching the stench of his seriously bad breath.
“You’re gross, Bucky.” I laugh and he barks his agreement, dancing around my legs as I head to the open back door.
The house has changed over the years. I always think of it as having grown with us. A kitchen extension on the back and another bedroom and bathroom above it when we got too big to share. When I’m in the city, I think of getting an apartment there again. But when I’m at the ranch, I think of building my own house on the edge of the land. Getting those horses I always dream about. I think my dad would like that. A connection to a man I wish I’d known better, wish I’d had more time with. People liked to tell me as a kid that time heals all wounds, but they were wrong. I might’ve learned to navigate my life without my dad, but it sure as hell doesn’t hurt any less that he’s not here to see it. That I don’t have a chance to make him proud.
Becoming ranchers like Dad is something Dylan and I used to talk about doing together when we’re too old to keep chasing our dreams. When I’m on the field and the ball is in my hands and I’m flying toward the end zone, feeling invincible, those horses seem far in the future. But on days like today, it doesn’t seem so distant.
The kitchen smells of chili as I step inside. A woman I don’t recognize is sitting at the end of the bench, a purple notebook already open on the long table that stretches the width of the kitchen. This must be the reporter. I knew she’d be here, but I still find myself taken aback. She isn’t what I expected. Buck scampers over to her and flops beside her pointed-toe stilettos.Traitor.
My gaze snags on those shoes. Patent black, high, and sexy as hell. Then my eyes travel up her body, along a pair of tanned long legs, a cute ass wrapped in a tight pencil skirt, and a silk blouse just tight enough to hint at the kind of breasts that make a man weak at the knees. I keep going. Her hair is as sleek as the rest of her and rich brown, the exact color of chestnuts. Full lips, cute button nose, big Bambi eyes. But her gaze on me is cold. Why does it feel like she already hates me and we haven’t even started yet? Her eyes are screaming “don’t even try,” and that suits me just fine.
Mama is by the stove, stirring a pot. She might be the fiercest person I know, but she’s also tiny. She’s barely reached my bicep since I was a teen. Not that her height ever stopped her giving me a grilling when she thought I deserved it.One of these days, Jake, your carefree attitude is going to land you in the sort of trouble I won’t be able to get you out of.It’s a variation on the talk she’s given me for the best part of fifteen years. Only now do I wonder if we’ve finally reached that point. My stomach knots.I’m still living the dream, I remind myself. I just have to keep it that way.
“Just in time,” Mama says as I kiss her cheek. She’s pissed I’m late alright, but she knows to give me a minute.
“Sorry, Mama,” I say in her ear.
She nods before waving a spoon toward the table. “Jake, this is Harper Cassidy, the reporter fromSports Magazine.”
“I guess Kevin wasn’t available,” I say loud enough for Harper to hear as I steal a chunk of fresh bread, still warm from the oven. Mama shoots me a hard glare and I mouth another sorry. It was a dick comment, but Harper’s unflinching dagger gaze makes my balls want to leap up into my body, and I wanted to even the playing field.
