And by God, one of them would be me.
I was the first to admit that I was a slacker about everything but football. Except recently, I’d come to realize that perhaps my slacker ways extended to athletics as well. I wasn’t half as disciplined as Wyatt, and for the first time, I wondered what I could have been if I were. Maybe I relied too heavily on my size and natural talent. Those two things could only take me so far.
I forced myself to focus on the beat of the music. The last thing I needed was to psych myself out before a game. It wasn’t like me to be insecure. If anything, I was usually overconfident. Maybe that was the problem—I’d used up all my confidence.
Fuck.
Jake yanked out my right earbud. “Dude, calm the fuck down.”
“I’m calm.”
“Bullshit. What’s going on?”
I shrugged my jersey over my head. “Nothing. I’m cool.” I tucked my earbud back into my ear.
Jake pulled it back out. “Seriously, man. Are you okay?”
Scowling, I had to stop myself before I told him to fuck off. I rolled my shoulders. “Just nerves.”
He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Believe me, I understand. But you got this. I got this, and you got this. You feel me?”
“Yeah.” I moved to put my earbud back in then paused. “Thanks.”
Jake nodded then went back to getting ready.
A few games ago when I was talking him off the ledge, I never would have guessed our positions would be reversed. I didn’t know what had gotten into me. While the team as a whole hadn’t been playing the best, my stats were solid. But what if solid isn’t good enough?
Coach Coyle ambled in, like he was on the way to a pig pickin’ instead of coaching a nationally televised game. After our first pregame pep talk, he had given up on them altogether. Instead, he would come into the locker room and simply ask, “Y’all ready?”
When he did that this time, I didn’t join in the chorus of hell yeahs that the other guys called out. But it didn’t matter because it was game time. I shoved my earbuds into my locker and lined up next to Wyatt so I could carry one of the flags on the run out of the tunnel. All business, he jerked his chin up at me. The guy was a fucking machine. I’d never seen him rattled, not even when the offensive line was falling apart around him. I didn’t get it because he had so much on the line.
I tended to live my life like I had nothing left to lose, which was why not much bothered me. But for the first time, I felt like I did have a lot to lose, and it scared the hell out of me.
CHAPTER 18
Becca
I GRIPPED RACHEL’S arm and leaned in so that no one could hear me. “Did I do something to piss off Ashley? She’s been glaring at me.”
Rachel glanced at the tween then chuckled. “She has a crush on Carson.”
“Oh.” Well, dang. There wasn’t much I could do about that. Awkward.
“Aw, don’t worry.” Rachel patted my arm. “This is actually good. Maybe now she’ll realize she’s twelve and not twenty. She’s a bit of a handful.”
I smirked. “You know, I might have been about twelve when I first developed a crush on Carson.”
Rachel rotated her glass in her hand so that the ice swirled. “That crush seems to have stuck.”
She has no idea. I glanced over at Carson, who was manning the grill with Jake. Since the game had been on Thursday this week, the guys had a rare weekend free. The weather was gorgeous, so Jake and Rachel had invited us over for a cookout. The more time I spent with them, the more I liked them. Carson had good taste in friends if I did say so myself.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That crush definitely stuck.”
“I’m going to say to you exactly what I plan to say to Carson because I’m petty like that.” Rachel cocked her head. “I told you so.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I guess you did. Are you always right?”
She held her hand out and wiggled it. “Like ninety percent of the time.”
“Only ninety? My percentage is around ninety-five.”
“Try teaching elementary school. Just when you think you have the kids figured out, they go and do something crazy.” She paused. “It’s actually not as bad as I thought it would be. I still don’t want to teach long term, but if I have to do it for a year or two while I get my counselor certification, it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever. What about you? Have you thought about what you’re doing after graduation?”
“I want to develop medical devices,” I said. “It’s all I ever wanted to do.”
“It sounds like there’s a story behind that.”
“There is. It’s kind of sad, though.”
“I’m curious if you’re willing to share.”
“My uncle was a soldier who got injured in the Middle East,” I explained. “He lost his leg and his arm, and he never got used to the prosthetics. He fell into depression and had PTSD on top of it. He ended up committing suicide when I was nine.”
Rachel shot me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. That is sad.”
“He was my dad’s younger brother, and he never lived near us, so I didn’t know him well. But he was so fun when he came to visit. He had a zest for life that was sucked out of him after he got injured. Maybe if he could have adjusted to the prosthetics, he wouldn’t have been so depressed.” I kicked at the grass with the toe of my sneaker. “It’s kind of a silly thought.”
Rachel shook her head. “It’s not.”
“My brother is a soldier now. It scares the hell out of me.” Laughing hollowly, I rubbed my forehead. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be such a downer.”
“I asked. Roman, right? I think I met him at Bleakers that one night, though my memory is kind of hazy. I was pretty drunk.”
I chuckled. “I remember.”
“Hey, babe!” Jake called over. “Do you want cheese on your burger?”
Rachel shrugged. “Sure.” She turned to me. “I’m going to head inside to get everything out.”
“Do you need help?”
“No, I got it. You can hang out with the guys.”
I wandered toward the grill, grateful Ashley went with Rachel. It was stupid to feel guilty, but I could sympathize with having a crush on Carson. Been there, done that.
Carson wrapped his arm around me from behind, holding me against him as he continued his conversation with Jake. “Coyle’s not doing a bad job,” he said. “He’s just not Gurgin.”
Using a spatula, Jake lifted a burger to check under it. “No one is.”
“Where do you think we’d be if Gurgin hadn’t retired?”
Jake unwrapped a piece of cheese. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“Come on. Yes, you have.”
“No, man, I really haven’t. Gurgin is gone, so there’s no point getting caught up in the what-ifs. I try not to waste energy on things I can’t change.”
Carson grinned down at me. “We’ve got fucking Buddha over here.”
Jake laughed. “Whatever. Carson said no cheese for you.”
“That’s right,” I confirmed. One of the perks of being with Carson was that he already knew all my preferences. The few things left to be discovered involved us being naked. Not that I’m complaining.