Page 109 of Tight End

I started to text him to wish him good luck, but then deleted it. Anger flooded into my blood stream, cold and hot at the same time.

He doesn’t care about my career, so why should I care about his?

The Tennessee Titans stadium was a huge open-air stadium. The seats in the lower bowl and upper deck were blue, while the middle section seats were orange, giving the stadium the appearance of a huge blue-and-orange Oreo. The game-time temperature was fifty-nine and sunny, which felt like Hawaii after what we dealt with in Buffalo last week.

Me and the girls did our warm-ups before the game. Isabella then gathered everyone together. “We’re going to use a six-seven-six-seven formation today,” she announced, carefully keeping her eyes away from me. “A-row will be Patti, Kayla, Marisa…”

When she was done listing the slots, my name hadn’t been called. That’s when I realized what was going on. She had forced me to come all this way and was now making me ride the bench.

She stared at me, a smile curling on her lips. Waiting for me to ask. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction, so I sat on the bench and pretended like I was happy to be there. Like it didn’t bother me.

The Stallions got out to an early lead with two quick touchdowns and an interception, putting them ahead 21 - 0. Brody wasn’t part of any of the big plays; his backup, Andrew Stark, was taking a lot of the snaps.

In spite of everything, my heart went out to Brody as I watched him struggle. I wanted to give in. To sacrifice my own place on the cheer team—and at Utah—to help him. To put his needs above my own. Some of the greatest romantic gestures in history involved immense personal sacrifice.

But I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t who I was as a person. If I became just a girl who was with a football player and didn’t have any aspirations or a career of her own, why would Brody want me?

The Nashville crowd stayed loud and formidable though, and the Titans slowly crawled back into the game. It was 21 - 7 at halftime, and on the first drive of the third quarter, they methodically moved down the field to score another. After trading a pair of field goals, the Titans made a deep pass that soared over all the Stallions defenders’ heads to tie the game, 24 - 24.

With one minute left, the Stallions had the ball. The Titans were stalling for time, trying to make a defensive stop so the game could go into overtime. It was third and long for the Stallions, who were still about fifteen yards out of field goal range.

The crowd noise rose to a crescendo as the teams lined up for the play. The entire stadium was on its feet, so I stood up too. Both teams took their places, and then went still. The calm before the storm.

Brody was one of them, I saw.

All at once, the players flashed into motion. Linemen slammed into each other, battling for position. Receivers lunged out along their routes. Brody juked, then broke into a sprint out toward the sideline.

Dallas’s pass was perfect. Brody caught it, turned, and spun out of the tackling arms of the defender, then sprinted downfield into field goal range—and more.

I jumped up and down and screamed, “YES!”

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