Law #3: Don't Fall for the Athlete: Sweet Second Chance Romance (Laws of Love) by Agnes Canestri (black books to read txt) 📗

or the high-pressure stakes involved. OTAs might not be training camp yet, but all practice games are filmed. We review these recordings post-practice, and our coaches use the clues on the tapes to pinpoint which newbie has potential and which veteran is getting to his limit.

I’m concerned with this latter aspect.

I peer down at my gloved hands and feel the tendons between each finger stretch and throb. Yeah, my body isn’t the same as it once was. Old nicks, bangs, bumps, and bruises all sort of mesh together in my tissues. I’ve sucked out plenty of marrow from my career, but I’m not done yet.

I can’t be done. I might not be as fast as I used to be, but I’m still quick enough. And I’m ready to prove it.

I make a fist, and it tamps down the mild discomfort in my hands. Better.

A referee comes to the ball’s spot.

Soon, the whistle signaling the last play cuts through the air.

Typically, my entire brain switches off at this familiar shrill sound, and I become one with the gridiron. It’s absolutely vital for any player, but even more so for a quarterback, to be 110% in the game. No idling is permitted when you want to win.

This time, however, I fail to empty my mind. It remains a jostling zoo, in which my worry about approaching the age of doom plays peek-a-boo with entirely foolish considerations about my father’s call.

“Wyatt, watch out!” my teammate, Leo, screams.

I catch the ball, but just in time. One second later and it would’ve slipped through my fingers.

Darn it! I need to stop this mayhem.

There’s no point in worrying whether the coaches think I’m getting too old. I just need to show them I’ve still got it in me. Similarly, I have no business thinking about my father. And even less about his motivation to emerge on this precise day after years of silence. He’s not part of my life anymore, and I don’t care about him.

Coaxing my thoughts into submission delays my throw. I lose precious time, and as a consequence, I need to hurry when passing on the ball.

I don’t take the time to properly plant my foot. I just perform an all-arm launch which, surprise-surprise, turns out inaccurate and weak.

What an idiot.

I know that a good throw comes from a solid base. It’s a chain reaction, beginning with a drive off of the back foot, squaring the hips and chest toward where you’re throwing, shifting the weight toward the front foot, and then following through with your arm.

So why didn’t I frigging do this?

Given the short time remaining in our game, I don’t get a chance to make up for my mistake. We end up losing by two points.

A sour taste, like the aftermath of the horrible bender I never had, spreads in my mouth as the end-of-game whistle sounds.

Most of the players head to the locker room to catch a shower before the tape session starts. Once that finishes, our true summer vacation, three weeks without collective training, will start.

Still, I can’t feel joy about this freedom as I stroll to collect my bag.

Why couldn’t I just keep my head leveled? Why?

It’s not the missed victory that bothers me, so much as the fact that I behaved like a rookie. And now I’ll have to watch this idiotic blooper on TV with the coaches—probably in slow motion too, just to add to the embarrassment.

I’m almost at the bench when a phrase hits my ears. “Wyatt’s outlived his fame, I’m tellin’ ya.”

I jerk up and my eyes dart toward the sound.

The originator of this nasty remark is Rodriguez, a wide receiver, a few years younger than me. He used to play for the Wolves before joining our team last year. He’s talking to Leo.

I don’t particularly like Rodriguez.

I didn’t appreciate his foul mouth, giant ego, and arrogant smirk even before he signed with us, but after having played one season together, my dislike of his curse-laden tirades against anyone showing the slightest weakness—strictly behind that person’s back, of course—had grown even more.

Still, I don’t like to have tensions in my team with anyone, so my normal approach to his icky character is to stay out of his way as much as possible.

But not today. 

Oh, no. Today he’s got me in just the right mood. If he wants to trash-talk my performance, he’ll have to do it to my face.

I approach him from behind and pat his shoulder. “You’ve got a problem, Rodriguez?”

He pivots around and flinches when he sees me, but he recomposes his features immediately when he notices Leo staring at him.

“No problem, bud,” Rodriguez says with a deprecating smirk. “I was just wondering about your happy feet. Did you gain them with aimed practice, or were you born this way?”

Bile rises in my throat.

Rodriguez’s provocation isn’t completely unfounded. I’m not a QB with improper footwork who shuffles his feet around in the pocket, and I never was, but today I didn’t play my best. I’d let my brain get distracted by futile contemplations.

I shrug. I won’t give this dumb, swaggering peacock of a man the pleasure of seeing his comment hit me. “Everyone can have a bad day. Today was mine.”

Rodriguez isn’t satisfied with my humble reaction. I can tell by the slight quivering of his lower lip and the irritated brush of a palm on his jersey.

“Well, my guess is you were born that way,” he says in a slow drawl.

“Guess what you want,” I murmur and turn to show that, from my side, the conversation is over.

There’s a hiss behind my back, a mixture of a sullen child’s and a tickled bull’s attitude. Then, in a mocking tone, “I bet your pa thought a quarterback was a refund, and that’s why he accepted you into his house. Hahaha!”

I freeze mid-movement.

An emotion, so hot I can barely grasp how it doesn’t burn through my ribcage, licks my bones and spreads to my limbs.

I try to suppress it, but I can’t. It’s too boiling, too