Til Kingdom Comeby Coldplay
“Taylor! Hustle your ass, boy. This ain’t your college practice, where they carried you onto the field and fed you fucking cream puffs. This is real life, boy. Move it!”
Gritting my teeth, I picked up the pace, ignoring the sweat pouring down my face and into my eyes. I’d been in this place before. It was the same schtick, different venue. The first day of high school, our coach had warned us that we weren’t in junior high anymore, playing midget football. The first day of practice at Carolina, our offensive line coach had jeered about whipping us ‘high school Friday night lights starlets’ into shape for therealgame. And now, struggling to get through the first official month of practice and training camp at the University of Virginia with the Richmond Rebels, it was the same tired song.
Clearly none of these coaches had an adequate respect for their counterparts at the level below them. I wondered, in my heat-fucked brain, if they all had a meeting every month where they came up with new and wonderful ways to torture us mentally and physically.
When they finally let us leave the field, I dragged my ass toward the locker room, wishing like hell I’d been drafted by a team in the north, where surely pre-season practice must be at least a little cooler. A little less humid. I thought about some of my Carolina teammates who’d gone with teams in New England and in the upper-Midwest and were currently doing this same thing about five hundred miles north of me. I made the decision not to text them until the snow started to fly up there. Right now, they definitely had the advantage.
“Not bad out there today, Taylor.” Gideon Maynard, the quarterback, paused as he passed by on the way to his own locker. “If you ever want to get together with Len Olson and me for some extra work on pass completions, let me know. It only makes us all stronger when I trust that I can depend on my receivers.”
“Thanks. I’ll definitely do that.” I was a little in awe. Gideon was a young QB, but he was damn good—and he came from a football legacy. I’d worked with a bunch of different quarterbacks over the years, and I knew it was in my best interest to cultivate a healthy relationship with him, for the good of the team. I’d heard scuttlebutt that Maynard could be a bit standoffish and hard to know, so I really appreciated him reaching out to me. I made a mental note to take him up on his offer.
“You doing okay, Taylor?” Corey Iverson clapped me on the shoulders so that my pads dug into my skin. “Killer out there today. I figured you’d be used to it, being a Carolina boy. The guys from Wisconsin and New England are the ones we worry about the most.”
I lifted the pads over my head. “I’m not from Carolina originally, though. I just spent the last four years there. I grew up in South Jersey, which isn’t that different from Virginia.”
“Huh.” Iverson was a true son of the state; he’d been born and raised in Roanoke, gone to school at Virginia State and had been playing left tackle for the Rebels for three years now. Our teammates liked to tease him about bleeding Virginia blue. “I’ve never been to that part of Jersey, only up north, when we play New York. It didn’t seem much like Virginia to me.”
“The southern part of the state is different. Lots of farms and small towns.” An unexpected wave of homesickness rolled over me. I’d been down here since May, and aside from my trip home with Sarah for the Fourth, I hadn’t been back to Eatonboro. My mom and dad had visited me twice; my mother had had a blast decorating the townhouse I’d bought outside the city. Even my brother Danny had come down for a weekend, to ‘see what kind of trouble his little brother was getting into.’
Still, I was surprised about how much I missed home. God knew I’d spent more time away from Jersey than in it over the past four years. But maybe it was the idea that everything was changing. I knew that back at home, Nate was steadily losing ground, getting closer to the end every day, or so my mother had confided. She didn’t say much about Quinn, but I could imagine how rough her life must’ve been. There wasn’t anything I could do to help her, nothing I could do to change how things were, so it was probably better for me to be out of the way.
At least, that was what I told myself on a daily basis.
“Well, maybe I’ll have to check it out one of these days.” Corey sat down on the bench in front of his locker. “You could give me a tour.”
I forced a smile. “Sure. Maybe when we play in Philadelphia, you could come over and have dinner with my family and me. Eatonboro’s only about twenty minutes across the river.”
“Hey, cool. Could I bring my wife?” Iverson untied his cleat and eased it off his foot. His unwavering devotion to Ellie, the girl he’d been with since they were in junior high, was a running joke on the team, although there was more respect than derision there. Every guy on the Rebels loved Ellie, with her ready smile and her willingness to open up their home to any player who needed a hot meal or just some company.
“Of course. My mom would love that. I’m the youngest of three boys, and any time I bring a female into the house, I’m the favorite kid.”
Corey stood up and began stripping off his practice gear. “I get that, man. Five boys in my family. I’m pretty sure my mom loves Ellie best. She calls her the daughter she kept trying to have and finally got through marriage.” He grabbed a towel from the hook in his locker. “No girlfriend for you? You know, my wife is a master matchmaker. She’s got lots of single friends. Nice girls, too. Not just jock junkies.”
I shook my head. “No girlfriend, but not really looking, either. It’s, uh, complicated.” Explaining to a teammate that the woman I loved had married our mutual best friend a few months back and that I was living in some kind of weird limbo right now was more than I could handle at the moment.
He frowned, and then his face cleared. “Oh. Ah, okay. Well, Ellie knows a lot of eligible guys, too. And you know Lorganson? Second string safety? I think he’s single now, too.”
“Uh, that’s really nice of you.” I reached for my own towel. “But it’s not the dudes I’m into, actually. I like girls. I like them a lot. Just right now, there’s one who’s really fucked with my head, so I’m steering clear for the time being.”
“Got it, brother.” He nodded, compassion in his eyes. “If you ever need a place to hang, or someone to talk to ... I’m around. And Ellie’s real good at being a listening ear and giving a chick’s perspective. So ... just remember that.”
“Thanks.” I stood staring into the darkness of my locker until Corey had headed off to the showers, whistling as he went.
I was about to follow—at a respectable distance, of course—when I heard the sound of my phone vibrating on the shelf where I’d left it before practice. Picking it up, I frowned at the screen.
Nate.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a text from him. When we were in college, we’d communicated through Quinn, mostly, although I remembered him sending me some quick congratulations messages after games. Touching his name, I scanned the words.
Nate:Are you going to be in NJ anytime soon? Need to talk with you when you can.
It was an odd request, and coming on the heels of my brooding over home, it hit me hard. Normally, the answer would’ve been a fast and definite no, but there was a small break in the schedule coming up, giving us some rare free time Friday afternoon into Saturday morning.
Leo:No plans but can probably do an overnight this weekend if it’s urgent. What’s up?
I can call you.
