Page 7 of Fair Catch
I’d admit that when I pictured my future college career, I hoped and prayed that somehow, me and her brother Gavin would make it to the same university. Hell, I even joked that we’d end up on the same team in the NFL, too.
Never in a million years would I have imagined Riley in his place.
And not because she couldn’t be there, or because we didn’t try to convince her even as kids that she should play football. But because she’d always insisted she couldn’t play because she was a girl, that soccer was her equivalent — even though Gav and I both knew that was bullshit.
She loved football, plain and simple. Always had.
But even still, I knew she wasn’t here for herself.
She was here for her brother.
My chest ached as a flash of the accident assaulted me.
The smoke, the smell of metal and blood, the ringing of my ears, Gavin’s face twisted in pain…
All of it was just as fresh in my memory as what I had for breakfast. The guilt that had plagued me since then was dulled now, but it still pulsed under my skin, a constant reminder that it was my fault his dreams were obliterated.
He never saw it that way, of course, because Gavin Novo was maybe the best human being to ever exist. When he got his diagnosis — that he was paralyzed from the waist down — he turned away from devastation and focused on how he could make the most of his situation and inspire others to do the same.
It wasn’t like he didn’t have his moments of grief, especially when he first moved back home and had to acclimate to his new life. He got angry. He threw shit and cried and screamed at me, at himself, at God and the universe, too.
But he always leveled out, always came back to what he grasped onto more than anything: gratitude.
That was just who he was, who he’d always been, and I marveled at his mindset. Because I knew had it been me in that chair, I would have given up.
I wouldn’t be here.
And that was just one example of how he was a better man than I would ever be.
When Gavin told me what he’d asked of Riley, for her to play football in his honor, I thought it was a coping mechanism, a way for the two of them to grapple with the new reality we’d all found ourselves in.
But Riley didn’t make that promise with the intention of just appeasing her brother.
She made a promise she would die before breaking.
I watched her defeat every odd over the last two years, going from a central midfielder on our girls’ soccer team to the starting kicker for our football team in one summer. And I didn’t care what anyone said — she didn’t get that position because of what happened to Gavin, or because she was a girl in a world trying to make up for a fucked-up patriarchal system.
She earned it.
She was the best kicker I’d ever played with.
It was hard enough to keep my cool when the guys we went to high school with gave her shit, but already, I knew college would be an entirely different game. Most of these guys were more mature, and they showed her respect. But there were still many who doubted her, who didn’t want her here.
And worse — there were just as many who wanted to fuck her.
Those were the bastards who made my blood boil most, the ones who didn’t think I noticed in summer training when they’d bite their knuckles when she walked by them on her way from the showers, or when they’d make crude gestures behind her back and high-five each other like they actually had a chance with her.
That, at least, I knew I didn’t have to worry about. Because just like me, Riley was focused on one thing and one thing only.
Football.
Still, she had it cut out for her being in a collegiate, male-dominated sport. It wouldn’t be easy — and the fact that she had only gotten hotter over the last couple of years unfortunately didn’t help her.
Her long, thick, chestnut hair was the kind every man wanted to get his hands tangled in, and she had a natural, almost masculine beauty about her, a beauty that she — thankfully — never highlighted with makeup. But she didn’t have to. She glowed, like a summer sun, bright and magnetic and impossible to ignore.
I didn’t care if she hated me. In fact, I was glad she did.
It made it easier to keep my focus on protecting her and off the temptation to claim her for my own.
Coach spat through his teeth, nodding as he looked around at each of the players. “I know I don’t have to tell any of you this, but we’re a team on the precipice.”
