Page 105 of Nothing Less Than Everything

TATUM

“Bryant!” Coach Tyson shouted from the doorway. The locker room went silent. “My office. Now.”

Gideon looked at me and raised a questioning eyebrow. From the other side of the room, Theo gave me a what the fuck look.

Game fourteen was two days away. It was crunch time. The most important part of the season was upon us, and there wasn’t a minute to spare. If we weren’t in practice, we were working out. If we weren’t working out, we were watching film. If we weren’t watching film, we were studying the playbook. If we weren’t studying the playbook, we were eating and sleeping. There were no distractions, no excuses.

Nothing mattered except the next four games. There were no days off. No mental breaks.

I tried to keep things in perspective. Yes, I was a professional athlete. Yes, I played a game for a living. But the facilities were my office. This was my workplace. I needed mental balance like any other nine-to-fiver. I went to work, and when I clocked out, I tried to leave work behind.

But not on Week14. There was only football.

The other guys had pictures of their loved ones in their cubicles—a constant reminder of why they put their bodies through hell every week. I looked at the paint chip that was still stuck to the back of my locker with medical tape. #1 Pick.

I may not have been able to have her gorgeous face smiling at me, but for now—until we figured shit out—it was enough.

She was my why.

“Be right there,” I called back as I grabbed a clean shirt and yanked it on.

“The hell does Tyson want?” Gideon asked under his breath.

“Dunno.” I looked over my shoulder.

No one seemed to be paying us any mind, except for Seth. He was watching me like a hawk while he pretended to towel off his head.

“Has he said anything to you?”

Gid shook his head. “Not a word.”

I shoved my feet into a pair of slides that a sponsor sent me and made sure the rest of my gear was out of the way before pocketing my phone and pounding the Red Cock mural on my way out.

Hanging a left down a brightly lit hallway, I passed a room full of cubicles where reporters clacked away on their computers, racing to meet their deadlines. One of the equipment manager’s lackeys bolted down the hall carrying a red jersey with 50 on the back. Stephen probably needed his uniform tailored again.

I turned another corner, jogged up the stairs, and entered the wing that housed the coaches’ offices. After rapping my knuckles on the door beneath the placard that read Offensive Coordinator, Derek Tyson, I took a breath and let it out. I had nothing to worry about. He was probably just giving me a heads up that they’d started talks with Sam to renegotiate my contract for next season. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to football yet. After talking it over with Wren, then the boys, I’d told Sam I wanted another year with the Reds if she could make it happen. Another year close to Wren—or at least as close as I could be.

She hadn’t made her decision about New York yet, but Wren would be a fool if she didn’t take it. She was built for greater things than standing on someone else’s sideline. New York was the logical next step for her.

“Come in,” Coach hollered.

Coach Tyson sat behind his desk. The playbook was open on his left. Beside it, his tablet was illuminated. A half-eaten burger was discarded to the right, along with three empty coffee mugs. A sports channel was muted on the television that was mounted on the wall. The stack of potential draft pick files sitting on the corner of the desk told me that the general manager had swung by for a chat about the possibilities of what will go down in April.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Have a seat.” Not a hint of emotion flashed across his face. Nothing gave away whether this was a positive or negative conversation.

I obliged and squeezed my frame into the narrow chair that definitely wasn’t picked out with football players in mind. Given that Coach used the other chair to house stacks of binders, I doubted he was the one who picked them out.

“How was bye week?” he asked casually as he looked at the playbook.

If Coach wanted to small talk when I could have been taking a fucking nap, I was going to be pissed.

“Good. Went out of town. Got some down time.”

“Heard you and Carmichael went down to the Caribbean.” Coach peeled his eyes from the playbook and finally looked at me.

“Yeah.” It wasn’t a secret among the team. Everyone knew I went to Antigua with Gideon and Heidi. They just didn’t know I had my girlfriend with me. “Gid and I got a workout in every day.”

---