“What?”
“And that was only because one of my best friends was dating the star quarterback at the time.”
“Who?”
“My friend Kaylee. She has a thing for athletes, and they love her in return.”
I shake my head, amused. “No, who was the star quarterback your friend dated?”
“Oh.” Iris giggles again before telling me the guy’s name.
“I think I remember him,” I say. “Vaguely, anyway.” The guy wasn’t a “star,” as Iris just now called him. In fact, he was mediocre at best. But I guess everything’s relative when you’re a guy who’s won the Heisman. I dig deep into the recesses of my mind. “As I recall, he did an okay job for UCLA, but he sucked ass at the NFL Combine, so his stock plummeted after that.”
“What’s the NFL Combine?”
“It’s a yearly event where scouts from each team come to evaluate eligible college players for the upcoming draft. Players are judged based on a variety of different criteria—speed, running routes, throwing, tackling, et cetera. Whatever’s relevant to their particular position. After that, all the teams decide who they want to try to draft a few weeks later.”
Iris’s eyes light up. “I think our quarterback got drafted!”
I can’t help grinning at her exuberance. “He did, yeah. In the sixth round, I believe.”
“Is that good?”
“I mean, statistically, it’s amazing for a player to get drafted at all.” I briefly think about my own brother, Luca, going in the sixth round during his year in the draft, and how relieved he was to make it at all. “But it’s the last possible round of the draft,” I add, “so in that sense, it’s not great. It’s not fatal to a guy having a successful career. Not at all. But it’s also not an early vote of confidence, you know?”
Iris looks genuinely interested. “Did UCLA’s quarterback do pretty well after he got drafted?”
I shake my head. “Sorry, no. I’m pretty sure he got cut before playing a single down in a regular season game. He might be on a practice squad somewhere at this point, if he’s lucky, but I doubt it.”
“Shoot. I’m so sad his big dreams didn’t come true. When I was at that game—”
“Thatonegame.”
“Yes, during which I drank beer and didn’t understand a single thing happening on the field.”
“You’re a monster.”
She snickers. “During thatonegame, everyone around me kept saying our quarterback was going to be a superstar in the NFL one day.”
“That’s a tall order. It’s insanely hard to get drafted at all. Even harder to nab a spot on a roster, let alone a starting spot. Even if a guy gets that far, it’s hard to keep a spot for too long, because there’s always someone younger, faster, and hungrier breathing down your neck. If not that, then injuries can be a major factor, so you really never know who’s going to be successful and for how long.” Luca pops into my head again. Man, my brother’s hung in there, admirably, through all the ups and downs the League has thrown at him over the past five years.
“Wow, that all sounds really stressful,” Iris says.
You have no idea.
Iris takes a sip of her drink. “I can’t believe you remember so much stuff about UCLA’s quarterback without needing to look it up. Do you follow UCLA football for some reason, or are you this knowledgeable about every college team?”
Panic flashes inside me. I need to be much more careful here if I want to preserve my anonymity with Iris. Clearly, I’m being way too obvious. “I follow college and pro football, pretty religiously, and I’m totally obsessed with the draft every year. My whole family has always loved the game—I’ve got two brothers and lots of friends who also played in college—so I’m kind of a football junkie.” Shit. I shouldn’t have mentioned my two brothers. Does Chad Roman have two brothers?
“My brother is obsessed with football, too,” Iris says breezily.“He watches every Seagulls game on TV and attends every game at his school.”
“Where does he go?”
“University of Washington. He’s in his last year there.”
“They’ve got a great football program there. Especially lately, they’ve been killing it.”
“That’s what Atlas keeps telling me.” She snorts. “All. The. Freaking. Time.” Iris rolls her eyes. “Whenever his Huskies play my Bruins, my brother talks so much smack, you’d think he was one of the players on the field.”
