First Down: A Fake Dating College Sports Romance (Beyond the Play)
First Down: Chapter 42

“LAST QUESTION, JAMES,” the reporter says. She leans in a bit, a grimace on her face. “Again, sorry for the loss. I was wondering, have you spoken to your father yet? I’m sure he was here tonight.”

When I used to imagine my future, I only thought of football. I thought of the routine I’d have. The long practices. The Sunday games. The grind, day in and day out, in pursuit of a Super Bowl win. When I was twelve, just starting to realize how I could one day have what my father had, I snuck into his office, where he kept his two—although soon it would be three—Super Bowl rings in a case on the desk. I took them out and put one on each hand, admiring the weight.

I loved football before then, but it wasn’t until that moment that I knew what I wanted for my career. Anything less than the NFL became unacceptable to me. I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps. We’ve always been in this together, working toward the same goal. When he saw me with those rings on my fingers, he understood.

I look to the back of the room, where my dad is standing. He came in during the press conference, and since the moment I noticed him, I haven’t been able to focus. I haven’t gotten into the situation with Darryl to the reporters; Coach Gomez’s official story about the loss is that we simply fell short at the last moment, but I know that my dad isn’t going to buy that. He knows me, he knows I should have made that throw. He’ll want answers.

But I want answers too. What the hell did he say to Bex? Before she left, she mentioned my father. He had something to do with her leaving, and I need to replace out what, exactly, he said to her.

“Yes,” I say, looking at him instead of the reporter. “He came to the game.”

“Have you gotten a chance to talk about the loss?”

“Not yet.” I sit back, trying for a smile and failing. My lip hurts like hell, even with the ice pack I used on it before the press conference started. “I’m sure we’ll break it down, though. He talks about all my games with me, win or lose. It helps me improve.”

“I’m sure he’s still very proud of you,” the reporter says sincerely.

The press conference wraps up, and I’m free to go back to the hotel. I could call a cab and go back on my own, but I wait for my dad to come replace me. We’re going to talk eventually, so it may as well be now.

When he replaces me, he just nods. He wore a suit to the game, like usual, so he’s still in a tie and jacket, looking as unruffled as when he dropped by before the game to wish me good luck. “I have a car waiting.”

I follow him, duffel bag slung over my shoulder. “Where is everyone?”

“They went back earlier.” He glances over at me. “No point in staying.”

“Right.”

Out on a side street, a black SUV is waiting. I go in first, throwing the duffel into the back, and tense up as my father slides in beside me. I know how he looks when he’s pissed, and even in the dark of the car past midnight, the set of his jaw isn’t promising.

But when the car starts moving, he’s silent.

“Dad?” I expected him to have a lot to say, so the silence is nerve-wracking.

He looks over at me. The streetlamps outside make it so his face is bathed in yellow light. “Explain what happened.”

I run my tongue over my busted lip, wincing slightly from the sting. “I threw high.”

“Why?”

“The receiver hurt Bex. He’s her ex, the one I told you about.”

He breathes in sharply, his nostrils flaring. “How?”

“He—fuck, he forced her into a kiss. And then bragged about it while calling her a slut.” I look down at my hands. “I found out during halftime.”

“So you lost the fucking game? On purpose?”

“He terrified her.”

“And what does that have to do with the game?”

“Everything,” I grind out. “I didn’t give a shit about the game when she was hurting.”

He looks out the window. “You know I had a terrible rookie season.”

“Yeah.”

“So, I came into my second year determined to do better. I wanted to win, to prove I deserved to be there as a starting quarterback. But the third week of the season, your mother got into a car accident. T-boned at an intersection.”

I’m so taken aback by his words that it takes me a moment to respond. “How come I don’t know this?”

He looks back at me, working his jaw. “It happened so long ago, before you were born. I suppose we don’t think about it much anymore. But it was a bad accident, and she needed a lot of support in the aftermath. Spent a couple weeks in the hospital. All I wanted to do was be by her side, helping her however I could.”

“Of course.”

“And I didn’t do that.”

“Dad,” I say. “What—”

“The best thing I could do, then, was my job,” he says, stopping me mid-sentence. “If I was focused on doing well, I was helping build the future we were going to have when she got better. I was building stability for her. Wealth. The team was paying me a hell of a lot of money, and I had a responsibility to them as well as her. The game isn’t everything, but it’s the key to your future.” He huffs out a breath. “I thought you understood what you needed to do. I’m sorry he hurt her, and I hope she’s okay, but James, look at yourself. Losing your head again over a girl.”

I swallow hard. “She’s not just a girl. You know how I feel about her.”

“I do. And you ought to have handled this issue off the field, after, instead of bringing it into the game. When you’re being paid millions of dollars to perform, you can’t just shut that off, no matter what’s going on in your personal life. What did you accomplish, besides making the guy hate you forever and lose the game for your teammates?”

His words feel like a strike to the face, and it hurts worse than Darryl’s actual punches or my conversation with Coach Gomez. “You said something to her.”

“Excuse me?”

“We talked after the game, and she mentioned you. What did you tell her?”

He sighs. “I reminded her that you have this tendency and told her not to create a situation where you’d choose her to the detriment of everything else.”

“She thought she had to keep this from me because of you.”

“Clearly she didn’t,” he says dryly.

“Only because I overheard him bragging about it and went to replace her!” I make a fist, hitting my thigh. “What the hell, Dad? You can’t go behind my back like that!”

“And clearly the better thing would have been for you to replace out about it later.”

The car slows as we approach the hotel. As soon as it stops, I jump out, grabbing my duffel before the driver can and hurrying inside. My brothers are in the lobby, clearly waiting for me because they look up as soon as the doors slide open.

“Is she gone?” I ask.

“She left a little while ago,” Seb says. He has a concerned look on his face that makes my stomach somersault.

“What happened with you two?” asks Cooper.

I press my lips together. “Fuck.”

Dad walks through the doors. He looks a lot more tired than I realized earlier. Older, too, than how I usually see him. When he sees the three of us standing together, he walks over. His hand settles on my shoulder, squeezing, and I feel my eyes burning, so I look down at the floor.

“The point is, your mother didn’t want me there,” he says. “If I’d tried to blow off a game to be with her, she’d have told me to get lost and go play. Her sister took care of her when I couldn’t be there. She understood that I had responsibilities I couldn’t ignore, even where my wife was concerned. She knew that we had to arrange our lives around the sport as long as I played it, and not everyone can handle that. I loved her for it then, and I love her for it now.”

“Um,” Cooper says, “what’s going on?”

I ignore him, shaking Dad’s hand off my shoulder. “Is that what you told Bex?”

“Not in as many words.”

“But you told her that she has to shut herself away for me.”

“Not shut herself away,” he says. “I just told her the reality. It takes a lot of compromise, son, making something like this work. I wanted to make sure she knew.”

I raise my eyes to meet his. “You didn’t have the right.”

“Someone had to know, because clearly you forget.”

“No. Screw that.” I clench my jaw, trying to swallow down the pain in my tone. “You knew how I feel about her, and you put that in jeopardy. You had no goddamn right to do that. If I lose her because of this, I’m never forgiving you.”

“If you lose her because of this, she wasn’t meant to be yours in the first place.”

“Jesus, Dad,” Coop says.

“Richard,” says Seb.

If there’s one thing I’m not about to do, it’s start crying in front of my father and brothers. I turn on my heel and stride to the elevator, pulling my phone out of my pocket. I call Bex, but the phone goes straight to voicemail. I try again and get the same result.

After the third time, I throw the phone against the elevator doors.