Page 53 of Who's Playing You
The Love Machine:
Yeah. And I live in Texas. I have to fit in.
The Holy One:
Poser. By the way, velvet for sure.
The Love Machine:
Fuck off. Where the hell is Diva? He’s been awfully quiet lately.
The Holy One:
Guess he thinks he’s better than us because he’s in NYC.
The Love Machine:
Who’s the poser, now? C’mon Nick. Are you gonna leave us hanging? Not cool, bro.
Ilooked down at my phone as the text messages rolled in, one after another, in quick succession. These two would continue to go at it for another hour like this.
I didn’t have time, or the heart, to answer them right now. Leaving yet another thread on “read” from them.
I looked over the locker room. The Rage’s locker room. In New York.
Fuck.
I missed my friends.
And my betrayal was really starting to eat away at me. Like, deep down. I tried to console my conscience over the fact that they seemed to be thriving. They were jelling with their teams and seemed to be really liking their new teams and cities. I mean, that had to count for something - right?
That’s what I told myself at least.
That this was for the best. That this all worked out like this for a reason. And in the end, that this would all come together perfectly and we’d all laugh over this. One day.
Far away from this day.
And maybe I was also feeling a little salty and jealous. Jealous over the fact that both of them were immediatelywelcomed to their respective teams with open arms. All the guys were so excited to have them and my two friends were just eating it up every day. And I suppose my jealousy originated from the blow to my ego - the blow to The Diva’s ego - when I wasn’t welcomed here with open arms and a damn parade, like I had low key expected. And my brothers’ welcome? It had been everything short of the parade. I mean, good for them, they deserved that, but… I was - am - The motherfuckingDiva!
So while my friends were living it up and basking in their new teams’ adoration… me on the other hand?
I looked around the almost-full locker room one more time. My teammates were milling around in various states of undress, getting ready for practice.
I had already been here for going on two hours and had already finished stretching and doing some low impact strengthening exercises. Not that any of my teammates were aware of that.
They were all mingling, talking about their lives, families, booty calls, and joking around. I was still an outsider though. And sure, I took responsibility for some of that, for the fact that I hadn’t made much of an effort with them after the initial frosty reception.
But in the last few weeks, I’d shut up the haters and the skeptics. Like I knew I would. One by painstakingly one.
When my new receivers caught throw after beautiful throw, exactly where I told them to be to catch it, like clockwork, a handful of the guys weren’t giving me as much of a cold shoulder. Likewise, my linemen had changed their tune. In all fairness, they were the first to do so.
In the first few weeks of practice, I guess I’d somewhat broken through the ice with my first line of defense. The huge walls that protected me, they were kind of indifferent towards me at the very beginning. But after getting to know me, whenthey saw that I listened more than I spoke, which was completely at odds with The Diva personality that they were expecting, they softened towards me a bit. They quickly realized that I was all business, and seeing that I wasn’t letting any of the pomp or circumstance of the noise around The Diva impact my game… well, that also helped.
What really sealed the deal was once we started running drills together, and they felt my support and appreciation for them, they softened even further. When they realized that I looked to them for direction at times, well that was like the final brick broke for them, and their attitudes began to totally shift.
I can’t say that the rest of the team followed their lead all too quickly though. But my linemen weren’t used to impacting a quarterback as much as they found that they impacted me. I was a creature of adaptation: I would adapt to my surroundings and what I saw happening, in this case, on the field. And when it came to my first line of defense, if any part of their wall broke, I had to pivot. And so I kept a close eye on them, their body language - their tells, strengths and weaknesses.
They thought it strange when I’d notice if they took a hard hit, when I noticed before anyone else that Terrance Brown was injured during practice two weeks ago. Terrance hadn’t even realized the full scope of his injury by the time I was at his side, kneeling next to him on the ground, calling for a medic. He had looked up at me in surprise. I guess they weren’t used to their QB’s giving a shit about them.
