Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 115577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
He was on the sidelines as our defense took the field, his helmet off for the moment. His hair was already damp from warmups, the eye black smeared under his eyes doing something for me that I couldn’t quite name.
Look at me, I begged again.
And then my prayer was answered.
Braden blinked, and as if it was in slow motion, he angled his head toward where the dancers were, like he was trying to talk himself out of his next move.
But his eyes swept from the turf up to where we stood, and in a flash, those honey eyes found me.
The stadium disappeared.
Sixty-eight-thousand people, the music, the announcer booming through the speakers — all of it dimmed to static in the background as that gaze locked onto mine.
There it was again — that exposed wire.
Only this time, I didn’t pull back fast enough to stop the damage.
I felt my nerves frying, my muscles seizing, saliva pooling in my mouth.
The heat from that distant gaze alone was enough to make me feel stripped bare. My pulse stumbled, my stomach flipping like I’d just stepped off a ledge.
Now I found myself wishing I was stripped bare — preferably by him. I wondered if he’d strip himself first, or if he’d let me have the pleasure. Honestly, I hoped for the latter. I longed to peel that sweaty uniform off him slowly, to feel the jersey slick against my wrists as I slid my hands under the hem and pushed it up and over his head.
Like he could read my thoughts, Braden’s face reddened, his throat tightening around his next swallow.
Then he tore his gaze away, the sound of the stadium rushing back to me as my senses tried to right themselves.
He didn’t look at me the rest of the game.
And for some reason, the roar of the crowd didn’t hit quite the same after that.
Braden
“Great game, Lock.”
The voice came behind the pounding of a hand on my chest, and I almost didn’t register the smiling face the voice belonged to. It was Victor Clemens, our wide receiver coach, a broad-shouldered man in his late fifties who beamed at me as he passed.
It was a fleeting comment, one said with goodwill, and yet it left my stomach sour.
Had it been a great game?
We’d won. It had been a close game. I supposed those two facts alone meant it was a great game.
But had I played a great game?
I wasn’t sure I knew the answer. I was tallying it all up in my head, the good versus the bad, and just when the scale would tip one way, I’d recall something that slid it back the other.
Five catches.
Seventy-two yards.
One touchdown.
On paper, that looked good. Hell, most receivers in this league would take a stat line like that and call it a solid day.
But paper didn’t show everything.
Paper didn’t show the slant in the second quarter where I’d had a full step on the corner and hesitated just long enough for him to close the window. Our quarterback, Geno Alberson, had still squeezed the ball in there, but it could’ve been twenty yards instead of eight if I’d trusted the route and exploded out of the break.
Paper didn’t show the third down late in the third quarter when the safety rolled over the top and I’d cut my route half a yard shallow. Geno had looked for me exactly where I should’ve been.
Half a yard.
That was the difference between a conversion and a punt.
And I’d had a drop. It wasn’t a brutal one that made the worst of the week highlight reels by any means, but the ball had touched both of my hands, and somehow I’d let it fall.
The touchdown held the scale down the most for the good side of things. It had been a clean route — a double move that left the corner biting hard enough that I almost felt bad for the guy as I broke toward the pylon. Geno dropped it right over my shoulder and I’d pulled it in effortlessly.
But one touchdown didn’t mean shit if the rest of your tape looked sloppy.
I adjusted the strap of my duffle on my shoulder as I walked, jaw tight.
Great game, Lock.
Maybe.
But was it great enough to earn me a second contract?
Great didn’t guarantee I’d still have a locker in this building two years from now. Great didn’t mean my family never had to worry again — that I’d never have to worry again.
I needed excellent. I needed astounding. I needed perfect.
Something inside me squirmed under that pressure, not because it wasn’t used to the weight, but because it was trying to gently remind me that I put too much on myself. That’s what my therapist had said — you don’t have to be responsible for all of it.
But that therapist didn’t have to watch my dad pull at his hair under the low light of our kitchen as he tried to figure out how to make ends meet. That therapist didn’t know the sound of my mother’s cries. And he sure as shit didn’t know what it was like to love my sister the way I did, to want to give her the best of everything and be willing to stop at nothing to do just that or die trying.