Page 79 of Fair Catch
And yet casual was the last thing I felt about what we were.
“Zeke! Zeke!”
A microphone was shoved in my face, the lights from the stadium blinding as a camera lens popped up right behind it. One of my favorite female reporters from NBC Sports smiled up at me, yelling as loud as she could so I could hear her over the crowd.
“You had a monster return to kick off the game. Take us back to that moment. Do you feel like it set you up for this win?”
“Ah, definitely,” I answered, sniffing against the cold. “It gave us that starting momentum that really charged our first half. But honestly, it was our defense that stepped up the most tonight, and of course our offense with this last drive down the field for the win. All in all, it was a team effort tonight and I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
She smiled. “Absolutely. It was amazing to watch. And how about Riley Novo? The Eagles kicker really struggled against the brutal wind tonight, but she managed to stay calm and get those extra points for the team. How crucial were those?”
My eyes drifted to where Riley was surrounded by her own gaggle of reporters, her eyes bright and animated as she answered their questions. As if she felt me staring, her gaze snapped to mine, and everything around us disappeared.
It was slow motion, the breath that slipped from her red, wind-burned lips. Those lips curled into the slightest smile, her cheeks a rosy pink, hair damp and messy where it fell around her shoulder pads before the wind swept it back and behind her.
My heart lurched in my chest so fiercely I reached up to cover it with my hand before hooking my fingers on the top of my shoulder pads under my jersey, a casual stance I often took that I hoped would mask the obvious effect of that girl on me.
A blink, and Riley was looking at the camera again, and time resumed its regular pace.
“There are no words for how crucial those kicks were, and how crucial Novo is to this team,” I said, somehow managing to tear my eyes off Riley and meet the stare of the reporter. “We wouldn’t have made it this far without her.”
“And you two went to high school together, right? Childhood friends? What does it mean to play on the same team together?”
I swallowed down another lurch of my heart. “It means everything,” I answered honestly.
Something washed over the reporter’s face, and she glanced at the camera before leaning in to probe. I knew I needed to keep talking, to make a joke or call attention to another player before she and the rest of the sports world looked too much into what I’d said.
But I didn’t get the chance before I was damn near tackled from behind, Leo jumping on my back and throwing one hand up in the air like he was readying a lasso.
The reporter only laughed, gearing a few questions at Leo before she dismissed us both, and we all trotted off toward the visitors’ locker room for the game debriefing.
“What a frenzy,” Riley said to me when we were jogging down the hall, her hair blowing back behind her. “I can’t wait to see the AP rankings after this weekend.”
I wanted to chime in, wanted to have something witty or smart or even stupid to say, but I could only smile back at her as I realized in that very moment something that I could no longer deny.
I didn’t want casual.
I never did.
And I had to tell her — even if it meant losing it all.
Riley
One good thing about being the only girl on an all-male college football team?
I got my own hotel room when we traveled.
It’d been a nice break from Zeke in the beginning of the season, but now? I loved it even more because it meant an easy way to be alone with him at an away game.
We’d both felt it in the locker room, that need to be together, which I knew was what spawned him to decline the invite to go out with the guys after the game. I’d declined, too, blaming a non-existent test that I needed to study for. But the team was so high on our win that they didn’t press either of us too long, all of them desperate to go out in Charleston and celebrate.
Zeke had snuck into my room as soon as his roommate left, and we ordered a pizza to split between the two of us.
“You know, I fully expected the brutal weather conditions in New England,” I said, peeling a pepperoni off my slice and popping it in my mouth. We were both perched on my bed, the pizza box between us, me sitting cross-legged and Zeke lounging against the headboard. “But in South Carolina? Isn’t it supposed to be warm here?”
