Me
Goodnight, Maddy. I couldn’t stop myself if I tried.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CAM
“Come on,” Coach yells, stalking up and down the sideline and chewing his gum so aggressively I’d be shocked if he doesn’t crack a molar as Cleveland’s rookie running back crosses into the end zone, having slid through a hole in our defensive line so big you could see it from space.
Swaying side to side to stay warm in the unseasonably frigid November air, I cross my arms over my chest and look up at the score. After that touchdown, we’re down three with three minutes left in the game. I’m surprised it’s even that close considering how shitty we’ve been playing today. The only consolation is that Cleveland is playing just as bad.
After thirteen years in the NFL, I know some games are just like this. It’s freezing cold and windy, the sky the steel gray that is synonymous with Pittsburgh in the winter. We changed the clocks last night, so at four p.m. it’s already dusk. We’re sluggish and out of sync and frustrated because of it. It’s not our day, so we just have to get through the next three minutes and regroup for next week.
Without me realizing it, my eyes drift to the left. To Maddy.It’s like I know where she is without consciously knowing, my body and mind constantly aware of her. Of where she is and what she’s doing. Like she’s a part of me, and I of her.
I like that thought. A lot.
Right now, she’s surveying the sidelines in that focused way of hers, looking for anyone who might need her. She’s wearing a short black winter jacket and a black beanie with the Renegades logo on it. Her bright hair is in two braids that fall over the shoulders of her jacket, and when she turns to look at me the way she often does when I’m already looking at her—like she can feel my eyes on her—she gives me a little grin that makes me feel like I could lift a damn car.
Fuck, I’m so gone for her.
“Jesus fucking Christ, this game needs to be over already.” Drew sidles up next to me, helmet in hand, as Cleveland sets up for the extra point.
“No shit.” I turn back to the field and watch as the football sails straight through the uprights. “Three minutes feels like a goddamn eternity.”
“Now gentlemen, that doesn’t sound like the kind of can-do attitude we need to finish this game strong.”
Drew and I turn in unison to see Maddy standing there, smirking at us. I would like to say I’ve gotten used to her being a fixture on the sidelines of our games, especially since, today notwithstanding, the team has never played better or more cohesively in all the years I’ve been here than we have since she started working with us, but the truth is, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to her being anywhere near me. My pull to her is too strong for that.
“I would have expected better from a couple of veterans,” she says, handing us each a water bottle, her eyes landing on me.
I squirt the sports drink into my mouth, my eyes never leaving hers. When I swallow slowly, that flush I love crawls up her face. To anyone else, it just looks like she’s cold, but I know better.
I’d be lying if I said this secret thing between us hasn’t been sexy as hell in the few weeks since Halloween. The long glances across the training room, texts at all hours of the day and night, kisses stolen in dark corners of the practice facility and, a couple of memorable times, a random empty office we discovered on the bottom floor of the stadium. We haven’t been on a date or had a repeat of our night in the hotel, and we haven’t talked much about what happens next or how we’re going to find our way to the other side of the subterfuge. How to navigate her job and my kids and all the different complicated pieces of us.
For the time being, we exist in an in-between. Together but not. All in but undefined. In a space that belongs to us and us alone. And I like it. A lot. I like anything that involves her and me because in my deepest depths, I know that she is the missing piece of me. But with every passing day, the tension between us builds. The air crackles, and there’s a heaviness to it. Like an electric charge, just waiting for its ignition.
When it finally lights up, we’re going to level the damn building.
“Are we ready to win this?” Tyler’s cheerful voice breaks our spell, and all three of us turn as he comes bounding over, radiating puppy-dog energy as he grins and slaps his helmet over his head as Cleveland’s field goal unit makes its way off the field, and the TV timeout coordinator signals for a commercial break.
“Now there’s the attitude I’m looking for,” Maddy says with a smile.
“These assholes giving you trouble Mads?” Tyler tosses a friendly arm around her shoulders as he bounces on his toes, practically vibrating with that familiar game day energy of his that saysLet me out there.
“Who are you calling an asshole, little Ty Ty?” Drew asks with a smirk.
I chuckle as Tyler’s face turns mutinous at the nickname Drew adopted after that day on the field with the kids. Tyler hates it, and he hasn’t figured out yet that the more he protests,the more it eggs Drew on. When Maddy laughs and looks at me, rolling her eyes playfully, I know she has, and sharing this quiet little joke with her has my chest warming.
“Nah,” she says, ducking out from under Tyler’s arm and eyeing Drew and me. “I can handle a couple of lazy veterans who’ve decided to give up on a game before it’s even over.”
“No fucking way,” Drew says, his face turning stony as he glares across the field at the Cleveland sideline. His spine straightens, and every muscle in his body grows taunt, like he’s bracing to burst out onto the field and kick some ass. Drew has a near pathological aversion to being called lazy—nothing activates his competitive edge faster. In four years of college football and thirteen years in the NFL, I’ve never been able to figure out why, but it seems like Maddy has him accurately pegged.
I raise an eyebrow at her, impressed as fuck, but she just smiles and shrugs like it’s no big deal that she kicks so much ass at her job.
God, I fucking like her. I more than like her. I need her with an intensity that borders on mania. That thing I said about liking the in between? The secret looks and swift touches and stolen kisses in the dark? It’s true but also not because I’m ready for more. So, so much more.
Everything.
