by Serena Bell
Or blame the weather. By the time Iona walked out of the conference room, things had settled down a bunch, but maybe the barometer was still unsettled.
Something was unsettled.
I owe Coach Cross an apology for abusing his hospitality by tossing and turning on his already broke-ass coach, not to mention the unspeakable acts I imagined while doing it.
I didn’t sully the upholstery, of course. I’m too civilized for that.
On Tuesday, I came in to McElroy and worked out. Hard. I thought it might help with the sleep situation. Or that being in my own bed in my new place would help. Or that time passing would help. But honestly, none of those things are helping. I can’t sleep, and it’s my own goddamn fault, because any fantasy I could have had about Iona turns out to be nothing compared to how she was in my arms. The way she arched and wriggled and writhed, the noises she made, how fucking into it she was.
And then, to make everything even weirder, it’s been so goddamned normal. Literally like nothing happened. Like I imagined Monday night. She does her job and I do mine. When she has to touch me, it’s professional. When she has to talk to me, her voice is unruffled. She doesn’t give me special attention. She doesn’t treat me any different from before.
At first it feels bad, because I’m waiting to get chewed out or maybe even released, but Tuesday passes, then Wednesday and Thursday, and nothing happens. She doesn’t give me a lecture, like, that can never happen again, and apparently she doesn’t rat me out because here we both still are, and it’s Friday afternoon, and we’re pretending everything is normal.
But then once or twice, I catch her looking at me when she thinks no one will notice. Our eyes meet and say, Yeah, it happened, and then we both look away.
We have this secret no one else knows.
It feels—I don’t even know how to say it.
It feels—good.
It makes me understand how cheating happens. I’m not condoning it, I’m definitely not saying I’d ever do it, I’m just saying, I get how it can happen. Because you stick a toe over the line with someone—maybe just go too far with the flirting, a dangerous touch, a just-kiss—and then, suddenly, you share something with them you didn’t before. The sense of wonder. The sense of shame.
The two of you are in something together.
And you want to go deeper. Even if you know that’s the worst, craziest idea you’ve ever had.
“Do me a favor,” Coach Thomas says. “Do it again but switch places.”
“What’s the point of that?” O asks.
I have the same question, but I don’t ask it. Because I’m in this with her. I’m willing to go wherever she wants me to go, to see what happens.
On the field, that is.
I guess you could say she’s won me over.
The only thing that makes me sad is that I’d love to tell Mack about her. I think Mack would like her.
To O, Iona says, “Just roll with it, O. I want to see what happens.”
She’s good with him. She asks him instead of telling.
Weird, how she knew from the beginning that I wanted to be told and O wanted to be asked.
She knows how to get inside us. That’s what makes her such a good coach.
That’s what makes me want so bad to get inside her.
So we switch places and execute the scheme, and it’s kind of crazy what happens inside my head. It’s like because I’m being forced to use the other side of my brain, I suddenly see things from a whole different perspective. I’m hyper-aware of the left side of my body and O on my right. It’s like she asked us to execute the scheme looking in a mirror or something.
Then she makes us do it again, in our regular positions, and we kill it. We’re quick and tight and we bring the runner down in seconds flat. It’s that hyper-consciousness that does it. I know exactly where O’s going to be and how to be the perfect foil to him.
We high-five each other afterward, and then Iona.
Coach Thomas.
It feels so fucking normal.
Chapter 22
Iona
“Can I convince you to drink with me again tonight?” Julia asks.
“Promise you won’t ask any journalist questions.”
“Promise. Only friend questions. Strictly off the record.”
“You’re on.”
We’re standing a little way apart from where the line and the backers are practicing a four-man rush. Brandon Haight is technically the fourth, but Cross wants Ty to have the option to step in, to shake things up.
I like the way my guys look, Ty in particular. His focus has been laser-sharp these last few weeks, his play crisp. He’s stopped making mistakes and he’s stopped hesitating. After our bye week, we won another game, bringing us to 5–6.
I’m proud of what I’ve done so far. On the field, that is.
And then there’s off the field, and that night two and a half weeks ago…
I want to bury my face in my hands, just thinking about it.
Since that night, I’ve tried to pretend nothing happened. To put one foot in front of the other. Avoid temptation. Get on with my life and trust that if there is justice in the world, the whole thing will fade into the background without further ado.
It works 99.9 percent of the time. But that point one? It’s killer. That’s the one time this week Ty gave me a look that seemed to say, “You can pretend all you want, but it happened and you know it happened and you know you fucking loved it.”
I’m not sure how that man puts so many words into a single look, but he’s apparently quite gifted in that regard.
Still, despite that one meeting of the eyes—and minds—things are pretty much business.
This could be okay.
The fact that all I can think about is the feel of Ty’s mouth on mine, the squeeze and release of his biceps under my grip, his hands on my waist, under my shirt—
As long as it stays in my head, it can’t hurt anyone, can it?
I turn away from this rhetorical question before I can think too hard about it, and try to bring my own splintered focus back to the play.
The pressure shifts ever so slightly, signaling that someone else has come into the practice bubble, and I look up to see our assistant athletic trainer ushering a familiar-looking man to the sideline. Maybe a new assistant coach? He doesn’t have the look. There’s a hyper-fitness to almost every new assistant coach, because most of them are painfully young, and a lot of them are former players. This guy is probably in his late twenties, early thirties, with dreads and some extra weight on his frame. He’s watching the practice, though, with a coach’s intensity.
I follow his gaze and realize he’s watching Ty.
And then I look back at him again and realize why he looks so familiar.
He looks like Ty.
I look over at Ty. He’s trotting back to the line—it’s his turn to be the fourth man. For the first time in a while, the direction he’s facing puts the sideline in his view, and I see it—the moment when he catches sight of the stranger.
Not a stranger to Ty. Not by a long shot.
Ty’s body goes stiff, and shock registers on his face.
My own body tenses in sympathy, and that’s the moment when I know.
This—what happened between us—is not okay. And my conviction that it’s possible to move on from it as if it never happened is just a lie I’m telling myself.
On the next play, Ty jumps off sides.
Ty
“Ty!”
I let the bubble door close in Derek’s face—sadly, more of a swish than a slam.
I’m in far better shape than he is, but it’s not like there’s much of anywhere for me to go; he catches up to me just inside the locker room.
I won’t meet his eyes now, but I got a chance to look at him, just briefly, when I jogged past him on the sidelines of the practice bubble, trying to make my escape. His hair is in short, fat dreads and where he used to be leaner than me—the one
of us who had to eat nonstop to keep up his weight for football—he’s bulky, almost heavy.
I felt a weird twinge, looking at him. He was a kid the last time we had a real conversation, my big brother, but now he’s a stranger.
His choice.
“Ty, hey, please. Just give me a minute.”
The self-righteous anger and the sense that I’m being juvenile are at war in me. For a second, I think of giving in. Hearing him out. But O butts in right then.
“Who are you?” he demands.
“Derek Williams,” he says, and I see his hand extended in my peripheral vision. “I’m Ty’s brother.”
You can feel the silence that follows that pronouncement, and I don’t dare look up to see the curiosity on my other teammates’ faces. It’s possible I’ve never mentioned I have a brother.
Maybe because for all intents and purposes, I don’t have a brother.
O doesn’t take the bait—he doesn’t grasp Derek’s hand or follow the curiosity he must feel. O is the nearest thing I’ve got to a brother these days, and there’s something weird about the two of them standing close enough to touch.
“He doesn’t seem like he wants to talk to you, dude. You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“Ty,” says Derek, and I feel a sharp sense of déjà vu, like we’re being tossed back to the last time he pleaded with me to hear him out. And the old anger rises in me.
“Get out of here, Derek,” I say. “I meant what I said.”
What I said was, If you leave, stay away.
It’s not the first time he’s done this: showed up. And in a lot of ways, I’m not surprised. Last week was Thanksgiving. Holidays—well, I’ve gotten a lot of texts and emails, and a few of these surprise visits from Derek the day after or the week after Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or his birthday, or my birthday. It’s hard not to think about our childhood on those days; I do it, too. Last week, as I ate overdone turkey with a bunch of the guys at Zach’s place—Coach let us out of practice a couple hours early for the traditional PFL mini-holiday—I could remember just one Thanksgiving when we were all there, even Dad. And then I pushed it out of my head and shoved a huge bite of turkey-stuffing-mashed potato-cranberry in my face.
“Ty, it’s time to let it go.”
My rage tightens. I know O can see the anger in my body. He knows me way more than well enough. The other guys, too—Haight and some of the linemen—who’ve remained silent but nearby, like they’re letting me know they’re here if I need them.
It’s a lot of pounds of reinforcements, and it’s strangely comforting.
“Do you need us to help you find your car?” O asks politely, but there’s an edge of threat in it. I know O well enough to know he wouldn’t hurt Derek, but I hear the shift in Derek’s breathing that signals fear. I feel—for a split second—a tiny bit sorry for him. Then the anger is back.
You had your chance, Derek.
“I’ve got something to say I think you’ll want to hear,” Derek says.
“You’re wrong about that,” I say.
“Door’s this way, dude,” O says mildly, and there’s a scuffle as he grabs Derek’s arm, and Derek—you gotta give the guy some credit for balls—yanks himself out of O’s grasp.
But his balls aren’t so huge he’s going to stick around when all the guys are starting to close ranks, moving just a little closer in to where I’m standing.
“Look—I didn’t want to tell you like this—didn’t want to just blurt it out—”
“Then fucking don’t,” O says.
“—but you’re not giving me much of a choice, and I think you need to know. I’m opening a Believe Big chapter here. In Seattle. I’m going to be moving here. I thought you’d at least like to know.”
“I couldn’t give less of a shit,” I say, even though I’m shaken. Just a little. It was comfortable, having the whole fucking country between us, knowing we’d never just run into each other. Now I could pass him in an aisle at the grocery store or sit down to dinner at the same restaurant.
I don’t like it, but there’s no fucking way I’m letting him see that it unsettles me. “You could have emailed me if that’s all you’re here to say.”
“I did email,” he says.
Right. I’ve got my email filters set up to delete all his emails unread. And his number blocked on my phone.
“You think this is my idea of a good time, showing up unannounced and dropping this in your lap?”
I shrug. To show him it doesn’t matter to me if he’s in Newark or Seattle, three thousand miles away or in my backyard, because I don’t give a crap either way.
“I didn’t mean this to be an ambush. I wanted—”
There’s pain in his voice and I know the other guys hear it. They draw back, just a little, giving us room.
But that crack in his facade doesn’t affect me. Not when I remember how this all got started.
I grab my duffle, hoist it over my shoulder, and turn away from him.
“I thought there was a chance you might be ready to try again,” he says.
“Dream the fuck on,” I say.
And then he saves me having to storm out by walking away first.
Chapter 23
Iona
Something’s wrong with Ty.
You can see it in every inch of him as we review the game film.
It’s the guy, I know it is. His father, his brother, whoever it is, the mystery man who showed up at practice on Thursday. (I blame Coach Thrayne for being lenient about letting family members and friends walk in on practices; in SF no one was allowed on the field, ever.) After the off-sides, Ty never really pulled himself back together, and when the horn sounded to signal the end of practice, he booked it out of there. The mystery man watched him go, then took off after him.
I wanted to follow Ty. I wanted to follow them both, to see what the hell was going on and why it had unsettled Ty so badly, but I was still fresh off promising myself to stay away from being alone with him.
Friday he was fine in practice, so that shored up my resolve. It was none of my business, especially if it wasn’t interfering with his play. His personal life had to stay none of my concern or…
Or…
I let down my guard a quarter inch, let myself think about confronting him, alone, talking to him about what was going on with him. About the intimacy of that kind of conversation. And instantly, my mind was flooded with images. Of comforting him with my arms around him. My body heated, fast.
So, right? His personal life had to stay none of my concern.
Only then on Sunday Ty played like shit, and—not coincidentally in my opinion—we lost for the first time since I’ve been in Seattle.
It was like he was moving in slow motion. Through something sticky and viscous.
Even then, I might have left things alone, counted on Coach Thrayne or Coach Cross to give him a man-to-man sit-down talking-to. But then today, Monday, Cross cued up the film and he’s raking Ty over the coals and—
It’s like Ty isn’t even really here. He watches himself on film with dead eyes and no spark of interest.
I’ve seen Ty watch film of himself so many times now, and he always does it with a kind of critical light in his eyes, leaning forward, taking it in. Constantly wanting to improve.
So alive, even if he is angry or frustrated or confused.
This afternoon he just looks like he’s watching, I don’t know, the shopping channel. While drinking himself into a whiskey stupor. And he looks like that’s exactly what he’s been doing for several days now.
Lost. Defeated.
Not the emotions you want to see on the face of the guy who’s the de facto leader of your defense.
I tell myself any half-decent coach faced with this situation would pin down a player—alone—and say, What the hell is going on?
After the film review, I track him to the ice tub. He’s submerged up to his neck.
“Doing penance?”
He barely glances at me. “Go away.”
I sit on the ledge beside the tub. “What’s going on, Ty?”
“My knee’s sore.”
“Anything we need to be worried about?”
He shakes his head.
“Full-body ice water immersion for a sore knee, huh?”
He ignores me.
“Ty. What’s going on?”
He blows out a breath. For a moment I think he’s not planning to answer me. Then he says, “I sucked yesterday.”
“True dat. You know that’s not what I’m asking.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He still won’t look at me, and I have the sudden outrageous urge to peel off my clothes and climb into the tub with him. That would make him look at me.
My nipples get hard at the thought. I tell myself it’s the anticipation of the ice cold.
“I wasn’t giving you a choice. I need to know what’s going on. I’m your coach, and it’s affecting your play.”
He’s gripping the edge of the pool so hard it must hurt, his gorgeous shoulders tight with tension and pebbled with goosebumps.
“All you need to know as my coach is that it won’t happen again, all right? You don’t get to start mucking around in my mind just because we spent a few minutes moaning into each others’ mouths three weeks ago.”
Oh, God. Heat flares through my whole body. It burns straight through the lie I’ve been telling myself ever since that kiss, that I’m happy that we’re both so good at pretending nothing happened. That this is the way I want things to be: safe, clean, and hermetically sealed.
“This has nothing to do with that.”
It has to be true. I have to be able to walk away from what happened unscathed and uncorrupted, or—
I don’t know what.
“No?” he asks, his voice barbed. “You ask O what’s going on in his personal life when he plays bad?”
“No. But I’ve also never seen O’s personal life walk onto the field and fuck him up.”
It’s the first time either of us has mentioned the mystery man from Thursday’s practice, and he draws a ragged breath.
