Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“See you later, Hunter King.”
“See you later, Lucas Blake.”
Lucas walks away first, and I only make it a few steps in the opposite direction before I’m twisting back around…but he’s already gone.
CHAPTER SIX
Hunter
It’s the first game of the regular season, and we’re playing in Dallas.
I love beating any team, but I love beating Dallas even more. The Pulse have a long-standing rivalry with Dallas that goes back to the seventies and a brutal game that went into double overtime, when the Dallas defense took out the Pulse quarterback in a dirty hit. The ball had already left his hand when he was taken down from the side, unable to see it coming. The Pulse wide receiver made what should have been an impossible catch in the end zone, and the Pulse quarterback left the game with a broken leg and missed the rest of the season.
There’s been bad blood between us ever since. That one game made two teams, two fanbases, and future players hate each other on principle, and I’ve always thrived in that environment—when I have something to prove, when the win is so much fucking sweeter.
It’s exactly what I need to take my mind off seeing Lucas a couple of weeks back. I don’t know why I can’t get it out of my head. It was like I’d stepped into another universe, if only for a few hours. Like for a while, I was able to forget Ellis died and the weight that’s been in my chest ever since. I could forget who I was too. Because on that roof, I didn’t have to be perfect. I didn’t have to be the best football player or boyfriend. Logically, I know I haven’t owed anyone anything, that the fallacy comes from deep within me, but that doesn’t change how it makes me feel. And now that I’m back in the real world, my brain does what it does best and holds those moments of freedom against me.
“You runnin’ for a hundred tonight?” Oakley, our starting cornerback, asks as we make our way into the locker room at Dallas’s stadium. I’m closest with Oak on the team. He’s a good guy. He’s been with his girlfriend since he was a teenager, even though they haven’t gotten married. They had a daughter when he was sixteen, but he still managed to play college football and make it professionally.
I don’t spend as much time with him as I used to. It’s the same with my best friend, Desmond, who plays for Kansas City. When I go out now, it’s with people I don’t have an emotional connection with, like I don’t want to strengthen any bonds because that’s how you get hurt.
“Are you trying to jinx me?” I playfully shove him, the two of us wrestling around, knocking into other players and the wall before pulling apart. I haven’t joked around with Oakley like this in a while. We’re both wearing big smiles, my breathing having picked up a bit, reminding me how much I miss this, how much I need it, even though it doesn’t feel the same as it used to. Even though sometimes it hurts me just as much as I love it.
“You got this.” He ruffles my hair, then gives me a look, his penetrating stare trying to find something, which makes my back stiffen.
I know what this is, what he’s looking for—he’s trying to see which Hunter is at the game tonight: the one I used to be, or the one who can’t get his shit together. “Fuck off, Oak.”
He laughs, not realizing I’m serious, not realizing I see what he’s doing, which honestly, I would be doing too if I were him. How the fuck could anyone not be? We depend on each other, we need each other, because it’s hard to fucking win when one of your teammates is stuck in the past.
I school my features, then head to my cubby to start getting ready. I do my best to block out Oakley not trusting me and my night with Lucas, but from the first kickoff, I know everything is fucked. On our first play, the second the quarterback hands the ball off to me, there’s no question I’m screwed. I lose two yards on our first dive play, and it doesn’t get better from there.
On our third down, with twenty yards to go, I make a sweep to the right, exploding the second the ball is snapped. I’m fucking fast, quick, and able to maneuver around the defense to get into position. But this time, I can’t get open, can’t shake the motherfucking safety, so our QB can’t get me the ball, making the pass to our wide receiver, who, thank fuck manages to get a touchdown. I do not, in fact, get over a hundred yards like Oakley teased about, ending the night with only twenty-two on nine carries, but we win the game by a field goal.