Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Good,” Coach said. “You just let me know if you need anything extra. PT, massage. I want you in top form, want to see you take Sanders’ record.” I’d idolized Deion Sanders as a kid. Watching replays of him on the field had been like watching lightning strike. Over his career, he’d had fifty-three interceptions, and nine of those he’d returned for touchdowns. I was at five, and I had every intention of at least matching him.
“I’m on it, I promise. I want it, too.”
“Just know I plan on keeping you around until you say ‘when,’ Whitt. So stay on top of your game, and we’re good.” He winked at me and nodded me toward the locker room. “Go sleep the rest of the day. Give that hip some more time to heal.”
“Yessir.”
I didn’t sleep, though. As soon as I was home, I called Tucker. We talked almost every damn day. “You alone?” I asked when he answered.
“Yep.” The drawl in his voice sounded relaxed, which I loved hearing. More so when it was right next to me, but I’d take this as second best. “I’m sprawled on the couch. I hung out with Andre some today, and now I’m beat.”
I flopped onto mine after grabbing ice packs from my freezer to put on my hip. “Me too. Coach asked me about my hip. I told him it was fine.”
Tucker laughed. “Fucking liar.”
“Fuck off, it’s not that bad.”
“You get that special shit Houston uses?”
“FedEx says it’ll arrive tomorrow, Dad. Settle down,” I said, trying to sound irritated even though I was smiling. Cullen had mentioned some specially compounded shit that Houston used for his knee injury, and Tucker had found the source and ordered some for me immediately after he’d seen the game. Though I wouldn’t admit it, I’d fucking loved him for it, too.
“What else did Coach say?”
“That he’s going to tear us new assholes on Tuesday. And then we’re going to the Super Bowl.”
Tucker laughed. “We’ll see.”
“Bet. Hey, you want to FaceTime for a sec?”
“Why? Want to see me naked, baby? Miss me?”
“I absolutely do,” I said, not even bothering to hide it. The sleepiness in his voice had the unintended side effect of making me hard, remembering the last time we’d been together.
It already felt too long.
“Then you get naked, too.”
I clicked over to FaceTime and set the phone down to shuck my clothes, probably breaking speed records as I did. Fuck my hip. This would probably cure it, anyway.
18
TUCKER
I’d never felt this kind of excitement ping-ponging through my body before. I was always stoked to play football, of course. I lived and breathed that shit and had since I was a kid. Another well-known fact about me was that I thrived off competing; it made my heart beat faster and my blood flow quicker. The thought of playing against my man? Yeah, that was some next-level shit.
This was different from our games with the Royals last season. At first, Patrick and I were just fucking. We hadn’t admitted there was something real there until the night they took us out of the playoffs, so this added a whole new layer. It was the best kind of high, all of my favorite things wrapped into one except…well, except that I couldn’t show I was even more eager than usual to play them. I couldn’t share the why of it with anyone. I couldn’t publicly celebrate with him afterward, no matter who won, because no matter how much I wanted to beat them—and I really did—there wasn’t a universe where I couldn’t be happy for Patrick either. That I didn’t think he deserved it. That I didn’t know he had fought for football his whole life on his own and didn’t have a family to celebrate his successes.
I tried to wipe those thoughts from my head as I finished the drive to the stadium. There was a football game to focus on, but instead, I was remembering the last time I was with Patrick a couple of months ago in Tahoe and how different our phone calls and FaceTimes were now. It was getting harder for him—the secret and the distance—and the truth was, it was getting harder for me too. I tried more to play it off like it didn’t matter, to joke with him and try to make him smile, but every time I saw Ramsey and G together, I wished that could be us.
It was ridiculous, and if I weren’t so damned crazy about him, I would walk away.
I killed the engine in my SUV when I arrived. I got out just in time to see Ramsey and Garrett pull up together, because that was a thing they got to do—drive to work in the same vehicle. Play together. Live together. The whole damn world got to know who they were to each other, and I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t jealous about that.