The Single Dad - A Standalone Romance (A Single Dad Firefighter Romance)

by Claire Adams

  As the game started, it was difficult for me to try and piece together just what the problem was; the teams had both taken the field full of energy and looking confident in themselves. But from the first play, I was shocked at how disorganized our team was. Zack went down in a tackle right away. I watched in concern, but he got up onto his feet and shouted something, and then they were onto the next play. The other team seemed to sense something different in our team; they took advantage, rapidly getting their first touchdown early in the first quarter and then managing somehow to keep our offensive line at bay through most of the rest of the period. I shook my head, and I wasn’t alone; the people in the stands next to me were murmuring amongst themselves between plays, wondering out loud what was wrong with Zack.

  Someone said that they thought the pressure must be getting to him, but I didn’t think it was likely; after all, the team they were up against had lost several games. If Zack was going to crack under pressure, it would have been the previous game, where we had been up against our greatest competition for the top spot. But it was hard not to argue that something was clearly wrong; we were down by two touchdowns heading into the second quarter, and didn’t manage to even the score by halftime. Zack’s plays were all over the place—he was getting instructions from the coach, but I couldn’t imagine that he was doing what he was told, at least not exactly. The other team became more and more confident of their possibility for a win, driving us back again and again, defending their end of the field more aggressively than I could have imagined.

  I watched the halftime show with my mind full of questions. What was going on? Our team was much better than this, and a win was almost a foregone conclusion going into the game. How could we still be lagging behind by a touchdown going into the second half? I had taken notes throughout the first part of the game, but even with my notations on the different plays I could see, I couldn’t understand just how it was that Zack was consistently missing his passes, or being tackled before he could make the handoff. He was obviously distracted—he didn’t have his entire brain on the game. But surely, I thought, that couldn’t be the only thing going on? It was just as much the other members of the team that would be to blame, wouldn’t it? Maybe they were overconfident, and Zack was distracted.

  The team tried to rally in the second half, but it was an uphill battle. A wave of relief moved across the stands when we finally managed to close the gap at the bottom of the third quarter, getting a miraculous touchdown when the other team’s defense left a gap—pure chance. I was shaking my head, grabbing pictures where I could, trying to understand what was going on in front of me. It was as unlike the previous two games I’d gone to as anything could possibly be, and I dreaded having to interview the coach if we lost—he would be pissed, I knew.

  My heart was in my throat throughout the fourth quarter. Both teams—ours and the other team—were playing their hearts out, trying to break the tie. The clock continued its downward count, and it seemed as though it might go into overtime—the disorganization of the first half was still present, but not as glaring, and it seemed like the team was trying to just keep Zack from being tackled long enough to get a pass. The line of scrimmage moved from one end of the field to the other, back and forth; it was exciting but dreadful at the same time, and I knew that by the time I got back to my dorm—even if everything else went the right way for the rest of the night—I would be exhausted from the stress of the game. There was a near moment when Zack went down, thrown to the ground by an overzealous offensive lineman, when he laid there for a long time after the whistle was blown. My heart pounded in my chest—what if he was injured? It wouldn’t just mean the loss of the game. In my mind I chanted at him to get up, get up, get up. I couldn’t stand the thought of him being seriously injured, even if I had cut him out of my life for the duration of the season.

  But then he got to his feet and shook it off, and I sighed with relief. Everyone in the stands was screaming, shouting, cheering, trying to get the team to a final touchdown by any means they possibly could. Of course, it would be exciting if the game went into overtime—but if we could get a definitive win before the clock ran out, that would be much better. I was clenching my fists as the end of regulation time came closer and closer, rocking on the balls of my feet, staying quiet but wishing I could make myself scream and shout to get rid of the nervous energy that filled me.

  With only a couple of minutes left on the clock, the final play of the game started. Zack handed off the ball successfully just before being tackled—and the player he’d handed it to managed to dodge and evade, spinning away from the group that had gone straight for the QB and exploding into a desperate full-pelt run. I stared at the field, without even the presence of mind to take the pictures I knew would be the most dramatic of the game, as the clock came to the last minute of regulation time. Everyone was silent—all the screaming and shouting down to nothing, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife—until the instant right after the player got to the touchdown line, with just seconds to spare. After a brief sigh of relief, everyone in the stands on our side erupted in an enormous, shrieking, shouting cheer.

  I sank down onto my seat with relief, closing my eyes and breathing as slowly as I could. At the very last, we’d managed to eke out a win—that would make it easier to interview the coach in a few minutes, once everyone was done with the post-game celebration and started to clear the stadium. Zack was uninjured, and the team would go on to Nationals. The cheering went on and on; I looked up to see that the team was cavorting about the sidelines, congratulating themselves on the narrow victory they had managed to eke out in the very last moments of the game. A few of the players grabbed up cheerleaders and got kisses or hugs from them—or simply lifted them up into the air. I smiled to myself; I could easily understand their excitement.

  After several moments, though, people in the stands realized that there were better things to do. It was chilly out and there were parties to go to, other celebrations with free or at least cheap liquor. As the people started to slowly trickle out of the stands, the band played on, the players kept to the field, and I tried to decide if it was worth the risk of confronting Zack to get my interview without missing the coach. I was sure that in spite of the team’s apparent desire to keep jumping, running, and shouting, they’d be corralled into the locker room soon—and the coach would follow, to congratulate them and to critique their performance. I needed to get out onto the field before Coach Bullden left. I looked around and spotted Zack talking to some of the other members of his team; I hoped that if I could just slip out onto the field and pull the head coach aside, he might not even notice me at all.

  I took my pass out of my purse and took a deep breath, moving in the opposite direction of the steady flow of students and fans who were heading to the exits. I got down to the field level and showed my pass quickly to the security guard standing there and he nodded, giving me a little smile.

  “You were here last game, too; I remember cute faces like yours.”

  I smiled in return but felt more than a little strange at that compliment from the source. I dashed out onto the field. Bullden was calling out to the players to finish up their celebration and start heading in.

  “You have plenty of parties to choose from, guys—get yourselves cleaned up so you can get out of here.”

  I slowed down as I got closer, determinedly not looking for Zack. If I spotted him, he might feel my gaze and look in my direction. Of course, even without looking at him, he managed to see me.

  “Evie!” I heard my name in his voice and determinedly looked anywhere but the direction it had come from. “Evie! Do you need another prime quote? C’mon, Evie, I won’t even make you go on a date with me for it this time!”

  I squared my shoulders and tried my best to ignore the calls.

  “Coach Bullden,” I said, moving quickly to intercept him as he turned to head for the locker rooms. “Do you have a few minutes? I’m from the campus newspaper—I
was hoping I could ask you a few questions about tonight’s game.”

  The coach stopped and gave me a quick, polite smile. “You spoke with Zack last game, didn’t you? That was a fine article. I don’t mind at all.”

  He turned towards the stragglers—and following his gaze, even though I knew better, I saw Zack among them, watching me intently. He ran up, stopping a few feet away from me, staring at me with so much hope in his eyes that I felt my heart lurch.

  “Does she need another interview, coach? I’ve got lots to say about the game.” Zack was talking to Bullden but he was looking at me, and I felt my cheeks getting hotter and hotter. I kept my lips pressed together to keep from saying anything at all to him.

  “Nah, Zack—you did well enough last time, but this lovely lady wants to talk to the man in charge. Hit the showers.” The coach gestured for me to walk with him to the bench, and I sat down next to him. He was an older guy—it seemed like there were no young head coaches in college football—in a windbreaker spattered with our school colors, with good-quality embroidery on the sleeves and the lapel showing the school’s mascot. In the corner of my eye I saw Zack reluctantly heading back to the lockers and put my mind firmly back on the task at hand: getting good quotes out of the head coach for my feature article about the game and about him.

  “Thanks for agreeing to the interview—after a game like that you must be exhausted,” I said, smiling politely as I took my recorder and my notebook out of my bag.

  Bullden grinned. “You’re right about that,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “Are you a fan of football, young lady?”

  I shrugged. “Please, call me Evelyn. I watched a lot of football in high school; one of my boyfriends was on our school’s team.” I somehow suppressed the blush that threatened to give me away at the thought of Zack. “I would have been a pretty terrible girlfriend if I didn’t go, you know. So I appreciate the game.”

  “Probably got your fill of training routines too,” the coach said with another smile.

  “Oh yes, definitely.” I laughed and set down the recorder between us. “Now I need to get your agreement that it’s okay for me to record. I want to make sure that everything that ends up in the article is exactly what you said, exactly how you said it.”

  “Good to see a responsible journalist. Of course I’ll give my consent.” I hit the button to start the recording and the coach cleared his throat. “This is Head Coach Charlie Bullden, consenting to be recorded by Evelyn here, so that she can write another great article about the team. That okay?”

  I grinned. “More than okay, Sir,” I said, opening my notebook.

  “Please, just call me Coach. I get too used to it from the players—even my own kids call me Coach.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Coach. Now, this was a rough game—why do you think that was? The odds for a shut out for our team were really high.”

  “Well, of course you never fully know what you’re going to be up against when you play another team. You can prepare for weeks, and look at their games—their style of play, you understand—and then when you get to the actual game, they might have changed everything up during their practices.” I nodded. “In this case, we were as ready for State as we could possibly be, but they were ready for us too—they knew about the few weaknesses the team has, and more power to them for exploiting them.”

  I consulted my notes. “It’s unusual for our team to lag behind at the half, isn’t it? What did you see going on there on the field to explain it?” I licked my lips, looking up from my notebook.

  The coach smiled wryly. “We had good plays; I think there was just some miscommunication. Between me and Zack or between Zack and the other players—it happens. There was a lot of pressure this game, even if we weren’t playing rivals. The last game of the season is always tough—everyone gives it all they have.” The coach paused a moment to reflect. “Especially if a team’s going up against one like ours—where we’ve won almost our whole season—they have something to prove. They may not have the record, but they knocked the top team down a peg.”

  “I was thinking that when the other team came out,” I said with a smile. “They looked hungry for it. They looked like they at least wanted to go down having scored some points on us.”

  The coach laughed. “You’re a shrewd woman. Of course, we had those issues in the first half, and we struggled in the third quarter, but we all came together in the fourth.”

  “Do you think it was more an issue with offense or defense?”

  The coach picked a piece of lint off of his chinos. “I think our defense was doing all they could. There was some scramble-up with the offense. Timing was off. Guess I’ll have to focus on that in the next couple of practices leading into the nationals.”

  I found myself becoming more and more at ease with the coach the more questions I asked—it helped that he praised my thorough research on his strategies and the other team’s coach. In the back of my mind, however, the whole time I was getting the information I wanted and needed to write the best possible article about the game, I kept thinking about Zack. I had hoped to avoid him; but of course, he had seen me—and he would have to have noticed the way I ignored him. It was too obvious. I felt a minor irritation at the fact that he had shouted across the field to me—in effect creating another spectacle of himself even after he had told me he wouldn’t do that. But then, I thought, I had sort of goaded him into it by ignoring his texts and calls and the note on my door. I hadn’t given him any reason for my sudden break-off of contact.

  I finished up the interview as quickly as I could, thanking the coach profusely for giving me so much to work with. “I look forward to your article, Evelyn,” Coach Bullden said, shaking my hand firmly and professionally. I smiled up into his weather-beaten face and said I’d email him the finished article before I submitted it to my editor.

  I left the stadium, shivering against the chill in the air. It was a long walk across the campus to the dorms, but I didn’t mind it. I had a lot to think about; in the back of my mind I could still see Zack’s face—hopeful, excited—as he’d called out to me, asking if I needed to interview him again. I closed my eyes and swallowed against the lump in my throat. It wasn’t fair—it wasn’t nice—but I knew I had made the only choice I could in the situation.

  I managed to get the article done just as quickly as the first I had written for the newspaper; I sent it to Coach Bullden to get his approval—I hadn’t embelished anything, or tried anything fancy at all. The story of the game was compelling on its own, and I was glad that I had done my research to learn about passing game and running game, strategy and tactics; it fleshed out what there was to say about the game itself and the reasons that it had so nearly gone poorly for us. The coach replied to my email quickly, thanking me for doing such a thorough job and for getting his quotes precise.

  You have a bright future in front of you as a journalist, Evelyn. Keep your wonderful manners and obvious passion for getting it right, and I think you’ll have all your subjects eating out of your hand.

  I turned it into Lisa, and she looked over it while I was in the office with her. “This is fantastic, Evelyn!” she said as she finished it. “You really captured the drama of the game, the complexities of what was going on—and I like that you put in the different theories the people in the crowd had for why the team was struggling, alongside the coach’s explanation.” She scrolled through the pictures I had included, nodding a few times. “We’ve got a lot to work with. I’m glad Grant signed you on. You’re working out really well!”

  I couldn’t help but beam at the praise—after all, as the newest member of the staff, I had the most to prove. As long as I could keep Lisa happy, keep the people I was interviewing happy, and most importantly, keep my grades up, it would be a very good addition to my resume.

  Once the assignment was over, though, I still found it hard to keep myself focused. Zack didn’t try to call or text me again after the game and I was almost surp
rised—though why should I be, when I had ignored him so obviously. I must have thought that he would try harder to win me back. But that was ridiculous—stuff out of a bad romantic comedy. Zack had gotten my message; even if he had gotten a stronger message than I had intended. He was obviously already moving on.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After a few days, Jess cornered me in the dorm room while I sat in front of the TV, studying History and half-watching an episode of Bones. “Something is up with you,” she said, sitting down in a chair nearby without preamble. “Spill it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, shrugging and pulling my History textbook closer to me. There were so many battles to remember—so many dates in the Civil War—that I despaired of ever keeping them all straight in my head for the final. I highlighted something that was totally irrelevant, shaken slightly by Jess’ opening.

  “Oh come off it already, Evie. Anyone who knows you even a little bit could tell you’re off your feed. What’s wrong? Did you get a C on something?”

  I smiled slightly, pushing my hair away from my face and setting my textbook aside. It was clear that Jess wasn’t going to leave me alone until she got an answer to her question.

  “No, I haven’t gotten any bad grades,” I said, looking at the TV rather than at her. “I will hopefully have an A in everything except Stats, and I’m more than happy to scrounge a B in that infernal class.”

  Jess laughed. “Okay, so then what is it? Because every time I see you you’ve got this gloomy look on your face like someone is holding your puppy ransom.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I just…okay. Fine. So here’s the thing.” I took a deep breath. “I haven’t been seeing Zack for a while. A couple of weeks. It’s no big deal or anything, but it sort of has me… confused, I guess?”