“Goodbye, Preston.”
Pausing the game, I walked out onto the balcony and looked up at the October sky. The lights of Lexington kept the stars at bay. Holding tightly to the railing, I thought about Preston’s call. I didn’t want to talk to Preston. It was Fin I wanted.
I couldn’t deny it any longer.
Back inside, I picked up my phone and tried.
I typed a text message.
“HI.I AM SORRY. NOT ABOUT THE GIRLS IN TENNESSEE. I’M SORRY I NEVER TOLD YOU WHO I WAS, WHO DAD WAS. I REMEMBERED WHAT YOU SAID HAPPENED IN THE TENNESSEE LOCKER ROOM. EVERY WORD.”
Tears prickledthe back of my eyes as my finger hovered over the send arrow.
Twenty-year-old me was afraid to push it. She’d done it before.
Swallowing, I looked up, seeing my reflection in the window. I wasn’t twenty years old. Fin could choose not to respond, but I wasn’t going to miss out on a future due to my own stubbornness.
I hit send.
CHAPTER 31
Fin
Istared up at the front of the building on West Vine. The Vine Club bar was where Zane and I had drinks a few weeks ago. When some of the players wanted to get together tonight, I recommended this place. The reason for the suggestion was that I hoped the same thing would happen as what happened after the Broncos game. I hoped for the chance to run into Vee, to talk to her outside of Maker’s Mark or Crystal Light. It had been three weeks since I fucked everything up with her.
Every time I saw her, I remembered the way she looked out on her balcony. I saw the tears and pain in her eyes. The things I said about my parents wereneedless and spiteful. The Vee I knew wouldn’t have done anything like I accused her of.
What do they say?
Hindsight is twenty-twenty.
For a few minutes during our argument, I wasn’t Griffin Graham, the NFL veteran quarterback. I was the twenty-two-year-old Fin who was hurt and angry. Shit, Troy was only a year older than I was when Vee and I were together. I called him a kid; the same description applied to me at that age.
What I wanted was a chance to speak with her—without the kid from fourteen years ago doing the talking. She didn’t have to accept an apology, but I wanted her to hear it. Just because I didn’t deserve the chance to talk to her again didn’t mean I didn’t want it. Today during the fourth quarter, I found myself watching her instead of the game.
She was a vision, standing farther down the sideline.
Vee said that at University of Kentucky she wanted to be Vee without being Reid Hubbard’s daughter or the Coopers’ heiress. Would I have treated her differently if I’d have known her association?
That question was the one that kept me awake at night because in hindsight, I think she was right. I would have been starstruck. Because watching her passion and intensity this season on the sidelines fucking made me starstruck.
Vee Hubbard was everything she tried not to be. She was Reid Hubbard’s daughter and the heiress to the Coopers. Her fervor for the team and the players was on display as she intently watched every play. The way she called each player by name endeared her to the team and coaches. Vee lived and breathed for the Coopers. I was the only one who had the privilege of knowing just Vee, the water girl on Kentucky’s sidelines, and I fucked it all up—again.
As I stepped inside and made my way toward the Vine Club bar, Troy waved. He and Jamir and Dijon, two of our running backs, were sitting at a high-top table beyond the archway.
“Over here,” he called.
For a Sunday evening, the Vine Club was packed. Coopers jerseys and amber shirts were at nearly every table.
“Glad you got us a table,” I said as I stood by the fourth chair. The one they left for me had me facing into the bar, not out to the common area where I saw Vee a few weeks ago. I considered asking someone to change seats, but I couldn’t come up with a good excuse. Instead, I settled in the chair provided.
Unlike the fans around us, the four of us were dressed for a night on the town. After regularly seeing these guys in jerseys and covered with sweat, the refined editions were a nice change of pace.
Dijon spoke, his voice carrying through all thebackground noise. “I made reservations down the street at the steakhouse for eight o’clock. I’m pretty sure after today, I could eat an entire cow.”
A server made her way over to the table. “Can I get you a drink?” she asked me.
“I’ll have a Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale.”
