by Kira Ward
Rough Play
A Football Romance
Kira Ward
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
The End
Copyright © 2017 by Kira Ward
All rights reserved.
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Chapter One
Cricket
I sit the pitcher of beer in the center of the table, my eyes on the television as the last preseason game of the year plays down the final five minutes on the clock. Football is a way of life for my father, a high school football coach, so of course I keep up with what his favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys, are up to. If I don’t, Sunday dinners are a little awkward. My team isn’t doing well at the moment, but like my father always says, a losing preseason often means a winning regular season. If that’s true, the Cowboys will take it all the way to the Super Bowl this year.
A collective groan rises around me as the running back fumbles a pass.
I sigh as I settle back in my seat. “I can just hear my dad. He’s probably yelling at the television right now.”
“Mine, too. Maybe we should get our dads together so they can moan and groan with a partner.”
I smile, turning from the television to focus on my friend and co-worker, Amelia. “I think my dad likes yelling at the television alone. I’ve offered to take him to Hooter’s so he can watch with other fans, but he won’t go. Says it’s a cliché.”
“It is a cliché. But I say it’s not such a bad thing to embrace clichés when they have a purpose.”
“I agree.”
I pour us both a refresher of the beer and sip at mine, reminding myself that I shouldn’t drink more than this last mug. I have class early tomorrow morning and I don’t want to face the day with a headache.
“So, I missed your birthday last week,” Amelia says.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Another collective groan goes up in the room. I look up just in time to catch the last second of a soda commercial featuring the quarterback from the New York Giants, one of the Cowboys’ biggest rivals. He held the can up for the camera and smiled one of those thousand-watt smiles that all these athletes seem to have. Especially him.
“He’s gorgeous!” Amelia sighs near my ear.
“He’s a conceited jackass.” I glance at her. “You know what he did the last time the Giants played the Cowboys? He spit on the nose tackle at the end of a play and got away with it! Ridiculous!”
“I thought all the players were always doing stuff like that.”
“They are. But this guy flaunts it like he’s above the rules.”
“He’s still cute.”
I groan. I want to deny her opinion, but I can’t. Magnus Fuller—even his damn name is conceited!—is cute. In fact, he’s probably one of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen. He’s super tall, well over six foot, with broad shoulders and muscles on muscle. He has dark hair that he keeps fairly short despite the trend toward long hair in the NFL these days and dark, smoldering eyes that seem to sparkle in the limelight. And his skin has this sort of permanent tan that must come from his Italian—I’m assuming—heritage. It’s a combination that’s not just hot, but incredibly erotic.
Not that I pay that much attention.
“Have you ever seen one of his interviews?” I shudder. “You’d change your mind in the first thirty seconds.”
Amelia shrugs. “Anyway, I missed your birthday last week.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say again. “Birthdays aren’t that big of a deal anymore.”
“Yeah, well, I feel bad. So I got you something.”
She slides a sealed card onto the table in front of me. Thinking it’s got a gift card or something similar inside, I pick it up and smile at her.
“Thanks, Ames.”
“Open it.”
“You really didn’t have to do anything.”
“Just open it, Cricket.”
I giggle a little. I’m a pretty normal twenty-something…I like getting gifts. I run my finger under the flap and tear the envelope open, trying to hold the card closed as I read the front of it. It’s some silly thing, one of those that jokes about getting older. But I forget to read the inside because when I open it, a couple of tickets fall out.
Tickets to a Dallas Cowboys football game.
My mouth drops open and I just stare at the them. It takes a minute to realize that they’re for the season opener set to kick off in less than two weeks.
“Oh my God!” I stare at her. “You didn’t!”
“I really didn’t forget. They just got hung up in the mail and I didn’t want to tell you until they were here.”
I throw my arms around her neck and squeal. She laughs, rocking with me so hard that we almost fall out of our chairs. I knew she was up to something when she asked me out tonight, but I never would have guessed this was it. I’m so happy I can’t catch my breath.
“A real Cowboys game! My dad is going to have a stroke when he finds out!”
“You can take him.”
“Of course not. I want to take you.”
She smiles hugely. “You’ll have to explain everything to me.”
“No problem.” I nudge her with my shoulder. “You’ve been here long enough. It’s time you learn about football. In Texas, it’s a way of life.”
She giggles. “Yeah, I guess so.”
I’m still floating on a cloud the next morning when I arrive at school. I find my dad inside his office in the school gym, staring at a play diagram.
“I can’t figure out how to get these kids to execute this play properly.” He sits back and runs his hands over his face. “I miss the seniors.”
“You say that every fall. And every fall you manage to pull out a winning season.”
“Yeah, well, we haven’t had an undefeated season in ten years. The superintendent—“
“Forget the superintendent. She wouldn’t know a touchdown from a field goal.”
Daddy laughs, holding out his hand to me. I walk around the desk and take it, leaning back against the front of the desk to study the weariness on his face.
“You work too hard.”
“Now you sound like your mother.”
“Great minds think alike.”
He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses it lightly. “You rushed home in a hurry last night.”
“I had a date with Amelia.�
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“The drama teacher?”
I nod. “And look what she gave me for my birthday.” I pull the tickets out of my back pocket and dance them in front of his face. He grabs them and studies the writing, his eyes growing wider and wider as he does.
“Are you kidding me?” His eyes jump to my face. “Do you know how much these tickets cost?”
“She says she got a discount through some website. I don’t know.”
He shakes his head. “The two of you must be better friends than I thought. Is there something I should know?”
I slap his shoulder and snatch the tickets back out of his hand. “She’s just a friend. And we’ve worked closely these last few years, trying to keep the drama department from falling apart.”
“That’s going to be impossible this year. I’m surprised they even kept her position with all the budget cuts.”
“Yeah. The principal pretty much told her that she’d have to make do with what little is useable in the prop room. But all that stuff is older than I am, I think.”
“It’s too bad. Next thing you know, they’ll cut the music and art departments.”
“At least you know they’ll never cut the football budget.”
He shrugs. “Speaking of which, I should probably get to work.” He stands, stretching a little as he does. “Call your mother. Apologize for not staying for cake last night. She made apple brown betty just for you.”
“I will.”
I kiss his check and head off to my classroom, already thinking of all the things I need to do to get ready for the day. I teach an advanced literature class to the juniors and seniors, kids who would rather be reading bad fan fiction on the internet than classics like Jane Eyre and To Kill a Mockingbird. Just last week, I read a quote from Great Expectations and not only did none of the students recognize the very well-known quote, they didn’t seem to know that Charles Dickens had written anything other than ‘that book with Scrooge in it’. I have quite a few obstacles of my own to surpass this year.
Chapter Two
Cricket
“I can’t believe we’re really here!”
I grab Amelia’s hand and tug her through the front courtyard outside of ATT Stadium in downtown Dallas. There’s a huge crowd, warm bodies pushing against us as we try to filter through the glass doors. I want to pause and take it all in—the beauty of the architecture of the fairly new stadium, the glass and steel beams above me and the excitement of the people around me—but I might get crushed if I do that. Amelia pushes forward, her eyes scanning the signs, trying to figure out where we should go to find our seats. It’s confusing, this massive place, but there are plenty of handsome—and pretty—ushers standing around willing to help.
When we finally find our seats, I’m stunned by how close to the field we are. There’s just thirty, forty feet between us and the edge of the field.
“Amelia! These seats are unbelievable!”
“They are. I wasn’t sure where they were…you know I don’t know much about football.”
“These’re perfect! The fifty-yard line? And this close? You couldn’t have done better.”
Amelia beams like a child who’s just gotten the ultimate compliment from her favorite parent. I hug her loosely even as my eyes continue to scan that stadium. I’ve seen this place a dozen times on the television, watching Sunday afternoon games with my dad. But this? Actually being here, seeing the names of the football players who inspired my dad to go into coaching on the ring of honor, is almost overwhelming. I can’t take it all in quick enough, my eyes darting from place to place, this sense of awe filling me that is almost spiritual.
The players are on the field, tossing balls, getting warmed up. I find myself picking out familiar faces. I think I recognize Tony Romo and Jason Witten. And Brandon Carr. My heart pounds as I realize just how close we are. If Romo were to toss a ball in our direction, I’d probably be able to catch it without putting too much effort into it.
Amazing!
A few players from the other team are there, warming up, too. Magnus Fuller is tossing a ball to Odell Beckham, Jr. How ironic that the first game I see in person is one in which the Cowboys play the New York Giants? It’s almost poetic in a way.
I find myself watching Fuller, watching the way his body moves when he tosses the ball. He’s in shorts and a t-shirt, all his muscles on clear display. And he’s wearing logos from half a dozen companies on his body—his shirt, his socks, his shoes, his sweatbands—making it pretty clear that he plays the game as much for the endorsement deals as anything else.
It makes me a little sick, really. An example of how commercial everything has gotten, even sports.
“Isn’t that—“ Amelia begins to say.
“Our team players are over there,” I say, pointing to where Romo and the others are standing, having some sort of intense conversation. “That’s all you should be paying attention to.”
“Of course.” She glances at me, but she doesn’t say anything else.
We settle in after a while, a soda and a bag of popcorn in our laps as the field clears and the mega screen comes on. Romo’s face appears on the screen, several stories tall, that awkward grin of his making some of the people seated around us whistle or scream out their enthusiasm. But then Fuller’s face fills the screen as a comparison of their stats is also displayed. I expect groans, but there are quite a few screams from women in the stadium who, like Amelia, find him irresistibly handsome.
I shake my head.
“What?” Amelia asks. “Don’t you think he’s cute?”
“He’s handsome,” I reluctantly concede, “but, like I said, he’s something of an ass.”
“Yeah?”
“Just wait until they show one of his interviews.”
Sure enough, a little bit later, they show an interview Magnus Fuller did after a game last season. He stares down the reporter, a dark concentration on his face as the reporter asks him about a long pass he threw that was intercepted by a defensive player.
“My receiver wasn’t where he was supposed to be,” Fuller said, conceit just dripping from his words. “If he’d been where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there, the pass wouldn’t have been intercepted. That’s on the receiver, not me.”
“See,” I say, leaning close to Amelia. “He sounds like one of my students, blaming everyone but himself for his mistake.”
Amelia nods. “I suppose. But most of these professional athletes are kind of conceited, aren’t they? Getting paid the big bucks—“
“Yeah, well, he doesn’t respect the game.”
She gives me a sort of long, sideways look, but then she just nods.
The noise level in the stadium rises. It’s close to time for kick off. I grab Amelia’s hand and squeeze it.
“I can’t tell you how much I love this! Before we get too caught up, I just want to say thank you again and again.”
She just smiles. “Don’t worry. I’m going to depend on you an awful lot this year in trying to keep the drama department up and running, so you’ll pay me back tenfold in sweat and tears.”
“I’m all yours.”
The teams come out on the field a few minutes later. I jump to my feet and clap until my hands are red and then I clap some more. Football is my father’s passion. I watch it—and keep tabs on the Cowboys—for that reason. But I’m not a fanatical fan. It doesn’t ruin my week if the Cowboys lose. But this? This is probably one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done. I can only imagine what it would be like for someone like my dad for whom football is a way of life.
As I watch Romo take the field with the rest of the team captains for the coin flip, I promise myself that before too much time passes, I’ll come back and bring my dad.
The Cowboys win the toss. They chose to receive.
The kicker gives it his best shot, but the Cowboys’ receiver manages to take the ball to the forty-yard line before the Redskin defenders get him down. What a great start!
“Is that good?” Amelia asks.
“Excellent.”
We’re on our feet more often than we sit, screaming ourselves hoarse as the Cowboys manage to get themselves near the end zone three times during the first quarter. Unfortunately, they end up with only two field goals despite all that effort. The Giants, however, manage a touchdown even though they only make it to the end zone one time.
The Cowboys score almost the second the whistle blows to announce the beginning of the second quarter. Now they’re ahead. Amelia and I stand to dance with the mascot as he makes the rounds, laughing at each other because of the awkwardness of our movements. But then the Giants get the ball and Magnus Fuller rockets the ball down into the across the field from his own twenty, pegging his receiver right in the center of his chest. The receiver manages to avoid four of the Cowboys defensive tackles and takes the ball all the way in for a touchdown.
Now the Giants are ahead.
It goes back and forth like that ‘til halftime. The teams leave the field with the Cowboys ahead by six. Amelia and I go to wait in the incredibly long lines for the bathroom, barely making it back to our seats in time for the beginning of the third quarter. I’m so hoarse, I can barely get the attention of the vendor selling sodas as he passes right behind us. But it’s the most fun I’ve had in a very long time.
Again, I promise myself that I’ll somehow come back and bring my dad. I can only imagine how much he’d enjoy this experience.
The teams take the field again. The mega screen shows a close up of Magnus Fuller’s face. I almost laugh, he looks so frustrated as he talks to the offensive coordinator. But I hear women around me making mooning sounds—you know, low whistles and soft groans—because of the hard cut of his jaw and the smoldering look in his eyes. All I see is sweat causing his hair to stick to his forehead and a five o’clock shadow obscuring the dimple in the center of his square chin.
I catch Amelia staring up at the screen, a soft smile on her lips.
“Stop!” I lean close so she can hear me over the noise of the crowd. “He’s the enemy, remember?”
