“Ty?” She touched his shoulder, and he flinched. “Ty, are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t sound okay. In fact, he sounded like a man who’d lost his best friend. Her gaze followed his. He stared at the same picture of the helicopter pilot he’d been fixated on a few weeks ago.
“Who is this man?” She scrutinized the photo. The same intense, deep blue eyes as Tyler’s looked back at her. The chiseled good looks, strong jaw, proud mouth, and dark hair were all mirrored in Tyler’s face. A relative. A very close relative. She wrapped her fingers around his bicep. “He means something to you.”
“My father.” His feeble attempt to keep his voice flat and emotionless didn’t succeed in masking the pain.
“Your father?”
“Yeah, I miss him.” His troubled gaze met hers, pain written clearly on his face. She didn’t see an overconfident jock. She saw a confused, vulnerable little boy. Someone battling his demons and trying hard to make sense of life, just like her.
In that one moment, Tyler wound his way around her heart, and she’d never be the same. “You look a lot like him.” She slid her arm around his waist and held him close to her. He laid his cheek on top of her head.
“Thank you, but that’s where the resemblance ends. I’m no hero, but he was.”
“Your father was a hero. That’s a fact. But in your own way, you’re a hero, too.” She couldn’t believe her own words, yet she meant them.
He pulled away and shook his head. “What have I ever done? I’m just a dumb jock, a football player.” His upper lip turned up in a sneer of self-loathing.
Lavender reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. He stared straight ahead. “Ty, you’re not just a dumb, jock football player. First of all, you’re not dumb. Second, you bring a lot of joy to people following the team. You’ve given us regional pride, brought the area together. Perfect strangers stand in line at a grocery store and talk about the Steelheads. Third, you do a lot of good for the community.”
Tyler snapped his head downward to glare at her. “Who told you that?”
“Your cousin.”
“He’s full of shit. I’m no hero. To anyone. I’m just a guy gifted with athletic talent. I get paid well to do what I do. Now my dad, he was a hero. He got shot down and managed to stay one step ahead of the enemy and get to safety. He carried his injured buddy on his back and saved his life. That’s a hero. Then Ryan, the kid was dying of cancer, but he was stronger than any of us right to the end. Upbeat, positive, a true fighter.”
“There are different kinds of heroes, Ty.” The revelation dawned on her like the fog lifting on Rosario Strait. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You thought a second Super Bowl win would prove your worth to yourself, but it didn’t change things in your mind, did it?”
“You have no idea how much I hate all the attention showered on me. I don’t deserve it.” He pulled away from her and stared out a window, his face carved in stone.
Lavender absorbed his words and realized how little she really knew Tyler Harris. In fact, how little anyone knew him. “You? You’re an attention slut.”
He looked at her sadly, as if he expected her, of all people, to see the truth. “Not really. It’s all a front. I don’t deserve any of this. The money. The fame. None of it. I’m a fake. A failure.”
Cocky Tyler Harris—a failure? How could he possibly think such a thing? “You’re not a failure. You’re a good guy just doing the best you can.” Her heart fell at his feet over the admission. He’d opened up, let her in, something she suspected didn’t come easily, if ever, to him, which moved their relationship beyond casual sex and scared the crap out of her.
“I’m an ass, remember?” He looked at her then. One corner of his mouth twitched in a sad smile.
Encouraged by his attempt at humor, she dared to say more. “You pretend to be an ass so you never have to measure up or be held to the high standards you’ve set for yourself.”
“Is that what you really think, Dr. El?” He straightened the crease on an American flag folded into a triangle on the table.
“That’s really why you’re here, isn’t it? You’re hiding because you’ve somehow minimized all your successes and feel unworthy. You don’t know where to go from the top.”
“You know what they say. Once you’re on top, the only way to go is down.”
“Tyler, how many men in this entire world get to be Super Bowl winning quarterbacks?”
“Uh, twenty-nine or so.”
“You’ve managed to do something very few men have ever done, and you did it twice. You did it because you don’t give up. You believed in yourself and your team. That first year, you carried them on your back, made them play beyond their ability. You did it. Your leadership qualities and your strength of will did it.”
“And you know this how?” His blue eyes searched hers, stripping away layer after layer.
Lavender squirmed a little. “I’m a closet Steelheads fan. But let’s not go there now.” She didn’t want this to be about her. It needed to be about Tyler. “I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished, and I’m sure your father is, too. And Ryan. Whether you led your troops on the battlefield or the football field, you have a chance to do some real good in this world. You have the power to make a difference, to influence others. Use it wisely, then you can be proud of yourself.”
“You think it’s that easy?”
She nodded. “I think it could be. You need to be the real you, instead of this asshole image you’ve adopted, because it’s not working for you anymore.”
He smiled and put his arm around her, hugging her close. “My dad and Ryan would’ve loved you. You ground me.”
“Thank you.”
Lavender looked away to hide the tears in her eyes.
Chapter 21—Third-Down Conversion
Tyler stood on the practice field waiting for the no-pads scrimmage to start. He should be listening to the offensive coordinator’s instructions. Instead, he stood off to one side. He stifled a yawn and tried to look engaged. Behind him, Lavender sat in the small set of bleachers. Thanks to his big-mouthed cousin, the guys knew about his chaperone and gave him no end of grief in the locker room. Assholes, all of them.
Even worse, her presence distracted him from his job, one more piece of evidence pointing toward his waning interest in the game. In the not-too-distant past, a woman would’ve never registered on his radar when he had football on his mind. Unfortunately, football wasn’t on his mind. Lavender was, along with tonight’s airplane ride. He shifted his stance as his cock rose to the task. Down, boy. Not yet.
A small group from the local press corps crowded nearby. They’d jostled for his attention all morning. He’d been a no-show at every press conference since the Super Bowl, and they wanted answers he wasn’t willing to give. Earlier he’d snarled at them, and they’d backed off somewhat. He doubted for long.
Damn, but he was in a crappy mood. Murphy made it all the crappier. The defense gathered around the jerk like he was the fucking god of football. Especially the young guys, they ate up his every word. Their hero worship of the interloper didn’t sit well with Tyler. As long as Zach Murphy wore a Steelheads jersey, team unity was shot to shit. Somehow, he’d find a way to get the guy traded or cut before the first regular-season game. He’d show the front office Murphy didn’t have it anymore. The guy’s ancient joints couldn’t withstand the rigors of another season. You couldn’t win on heart alone. Tyler frowned, uncomfortable with his own thoughts. Obviously, you could win without heart, as evidenced by his own uninspired play last season, but he doubted there’d be a repeat if he didn’t get his game back.
“Harris! Get your head out of your ass.” The offensive coordinator slapped his clipboard against his thigh. “Are you ready?”
With a sheepish shrug of one shoulder, Tyler swallowed and faced his pissed-off coach. “Uh, could you run through that one more time?”
“For the love of… What the hell is it
with you?” Exasperated and obviously nearing the end of his patience, Coach Carter slammed his clipboard to the ground, a trait he’d picked up from the head coach over the years.
Tyler clamped his jaw and kept his mouth shut. No excuses, he was guilty as charged for letting his attention wander. His offensive line grumbled comments questioning whether certain parts of his anatomy were male or female. His receivers stood to one side, arms crossed over their chests, disgusted they’d have to suffer through a lecture by the coaching staff courtesy of their quarterback. Several feet away, Murphy watched the exchange with more than a casual interest. His defense gathered around him, glaring at Tyler with defiance, something they never had the guts to do pre-Murphy.
Hubert Jackson, the Steelheads’ fiery, young head coach, stalked over to add his two cents. Wonderful. Just wonderful. Tyler braced himself for an old-fashioned ass-chewing, one of HughJack’s signature traits, along with clipboard throwing. His coach wasted no time stepping into Tyler’s personal space, not intimidated by the quarterback’s height advantage.
“What the fuck is up with you, Harris? Get your head in the game. I know it’s just a scrimmage, and maybe you think you’re too fucking good to be bothered. Maybe you’d rather get your nails painted or get your hair highlighted or some other pansy-assed thing. We’re here to play football. The only person impressed with your past accomplishments is you. I’m about today and tomorrow. We compete every day, every hour, every minute. Either you’re with us 100 percent or get your sorry ass off this field.”
The old Tyler would’ve lit into his coach and given it right back to him. This Tyler took it and said nothing. HughJack stared him down. Tyler stared back, willing the smallest emotion from showing in his face. The accusing eyes of several dozen teammates burned into his back. Tyler looked away first. He shoved his helmet on his head and turned toward the field. Wrong move. HughJack snatched his facemask and wrenched Tyler’s head around. He swore he heard something snap, most likely a vertebra.
His coach lowered his voice until only Tyler and Coach Carter could hear. “I’m watching you, Harris. I don’t give a fuck if you’re the best quarterback in this league, if you don’t leave it all out on the field, I don’t want you. I let it go last season, figured you’d work it out on your own, while the rest of the team picked up the slack. Not this year.” HughJack pointed toward Murphy. “We signed Zach to give this team some dedicated leadership, the type we used to get from you.” HughJack jerked on Tyler’s facemask a final time for good measure then stomped off.
Anger flowed through Tyler’s bloodstream, but anger at himself. He turned on his teammates.
“What the fuck are you guys staring at? Get to work,” he bellowed, giving them a glimpse of the old Tyler.
The guys shuffled their feet and kept their distance, their expressions ranging from sympathy to annoyance. Turning his back on them, Tyler bent his head over the offensive coordinator’s clipboard and studied the plays.
A few minutes later, he stood behind center. The offense avoided his gaze, while the defense’s contempt shone in their eyes. Murphy’s blatant disrespect and the coach’s dressing down undermined the team’s confidence in their quarterback, not to mention the rampant speculation by the sports media as to his mental state. His leadership role was in serious jeopardy. When it came down to it, he had no one to blame but himself.
Determined to prove them wrong, Tyler took the snap and stepped back into the pocket. He ran through his options but didn’t see one open man. The next second, he was slammed to the ground with the wind knocked out of him. As soon as he filled his lungs with oxygen, Tyler shot to his feet.
Murphy grinned at him. “Sorry, man, I couldn’t stop fast enough.”
“You fucking asshole. You did that on purpose.” Tyler stood toe-to-toe with the jerk. The chuckles of his teammates infuriated Tyler all the more.
Murphy shrugged one shoulder. He knew as well as anyone this was a no-tackle scrimmage. “Just like old times, huh? Aren’t you glad I’m on your team now? I won’t be knocking you on your sorry ass during real games.”
“I don’t want you on my team, asshole. You’re washed up.”
“What does that say about you, since I knocked your ass clear to I-5, and I’m not done.” After delivering his final words like a slap in the face, Murphy laughed and strutted back to his tight group of defensive players.
Teeth clenched, Tyler called the next play. He took a quick step back. Derek sprinted across the middle heading for exactly the right spot, an easy first down. Tyler hesitated a split second too long. Realizing his mistake, he hurled the ball at his cousin. The ball was too high and way off to the left, and Derek dove for it at the same time as Murphy. Their helmets slammed into each other. Both men were slow getting up.
Derek rolled his head around then rubbed the back of his neck. Breathing hard, he stalked back to the huddle and turned on his cousin in a rare moment of temper. “You fucking idiot. That’s the kind of throw you complete in your sleep.”
Wide-eyed, the rest of the offense stared at the best friends. Tyler flicked his gaze to HughJack, who hadn’t missed a thing. His coach balled his fists and glared at him. It was going to be a damn long practice.
Murphy laid him out two more times during the scrimmage. He fumbled once, and Murphy recovered. HughJack and his coaching staff never said a word to Murphy about his overzealous sacking of their quarterback.
Meanwhile, Tyler did nothing to prove Murphy was too old to play. His passes fell to the ground, overthrown and underthrown with an inaccuracy uncharacteristic of him. When he finally managed to throw a few on target, his receivers dropped every one of them. To add insult to injury, Murphy intercepted the last pass of the day and ran it back for a touchdown. The guy zipped all over the field like a one-man wrecking crew. HughJack paced the sidelines and barked orders, slamming his clipboard to the ground several times. Not a good sign.
The torture finally ended. Head down, Tyler pushed past the rabid media and into the locker room. His teammates stayed clear, even his cousin. Murphy gloated from his corner, enjoying every minute, as he recounted the day’s events loud enough for everyone to hear.
After his shower, Tyler sat on the bench in front of his locker and laced his shoes. When the usual locker room ribbing and jaw-jacking faded to silence, he glanced up.
HughJack strode across the room, heading straight for him. With a sigh, Tyler waited for his next ass-chewing.
His coach looked him up and down, as if he’d never seen him before. “You were forcing it out there, not making wise decisions, and you let Murphy get to you. Pollard takes the snaps tomorrow in scrimmage. Maybe he can make something happen.” HughJack spoke with a quiet intensity, which scared the crap out of Tyler more the man’s trademark temper tantrums.
* * * * *
Lavender followed Tyler to the back of the floatplane. He squeezed into the back window seat. She took the one next to him, the sole passengers on the eleven-p.m. flight to the San Juan Islands. The pilot settled into the cockpit separated from them by a doorless bulkhead and a few rows of empty passenger seats.
The pilot donned a pair of earphones and set about his job. A few seconds later, they taxied across the water on Lake Union then built up speed for a takeoff. In no time, the plane was airborne. Below them, the lights of Seattle illuminated the night sky through the haze of rain.
Shoulders slumped, Tyler stared outside. He’d wallowed in self-pity all evening. They’d eaten a tense dinner at a seafood restaurant on the water. Tyler spoke little and ate even less. Lavender attempted conversation a few times, but the man only grunted in response. Eventually she lapsed into silence and let him brood.
But now she’d endured enough of his silent treatment. Smacking sense into him didn’t seem the right thing to do. Seeing his cocky façade ripped away to expose vulnerability brought out an inexplicable tenderness in her.
“Tyler, please don’t take your day out on me.” She reached for his h
and and held it. He wrapped his fingers tightly around hers in response, almost as if she were his lifeline.
A muscle worked in his jaw. “I’m sorry. It was one shitty practice.”
“I know. I was there.” She lowered her voice and stroked his palm with her thumb.
“HughJack and Murphy made me look like a rookie. I played like crap.”
“Then find a way to make it better. You’re not a quitter.” He wouldn’t get sympathy from her. That wasn’t what he needed.
He turned toward her, confusion rather than anger in his troubled blue eyes. “I never was before. Now it’s all on me. I’m losing the team. Murphy is leading the mutiny, but I gave him the ammunition.”
Lavender held his face in her hands, searching his eyes for some sign of the man she knew he was. “Get them back. Be the guy you know you can be. Be a fighter.”
“I’m trying. The harder I try, the worse it gets, the further I get from where I used to be.” He broke his gaze away from her and stared back out the window. His jaw tensed, his body tightened into an unyielding knot of despair.
“You’re trying too hard. You need to relax, let it flow, rediscover the joy you once had for the game.” She ran a hand down his arm. The muscles bunched, hard as concrete. “Take a deep breath. Find your zone.”
“If only it was that fucking easy. It’s the zone that eludes me.” He rested his head on her shoulder, seemingly oblivious to his use of the forbidden word. “I’m tense and tight. I’m forcing throws, not seeing open receivers, not using my instincts. I made it through last season on technical skills alone.”
“Your technical skills are the best in the league.”
“Technique won’t be enough. Not this season.” Frustration forced his voice into a tight rumble in his chest.
Snap Decision Page 20
