Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Touchdown.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I let the ball drop as momentum carries me for another couple of yards before I slow down, bending with my hands on my knees, sucking in a couple of deep breaths as my brain tries to catch up to what just happened. The entire stadium erupts, the noise so intense the ground shakes, and Tyler and Drew crash into me on either side.
“WHAT A FUCKING BOSS!” Tyler screams, jumping up and down with an arm around my shoulders.
“Didn’t even know you knew how to run,” Drew says with a smirk before he grabs my shoulders and presses his helmet to mine, his eyes intense behind his facemask.
“I don’t,” I manage, feeling deeply emotional now that I have oxygen going to my brain again. It’s my first career touchdown, and because of the position I play, it’ll very likely be the only one I ever score. My throat tightens and my eyes burn, and it’s agood fucking thing the clock ran out as I crossed into the end zone and the touchdown gave us the lead, making the extra point unnecessary, because my feet are glued to the grass.
As I stare down at the ground, trying to get my spiraling emotions under control, I’m not thinking of stats or records or what the announcers must be saying right now or my career that is, more than likely, almost at its end. Instead, as the fans roar and the stadium shakes and the field swarms with post-game media, it’s three names that play in my brain on repeat.
Riley.
Ethan.
Maddy.
“Look up,” Drew says quietly. At first I think he’s telling me to look at the fans, who are still celebrating like we just won the Super Bowl instead of a regular season November game where we played like shit and probably would have lost if not for a tipped pass, a lucky catch, and the fact that I managed to run eighty yards without dying.
But that’s not it.
Because when I look up, standing in front of me is a beaming Maddy, her green eyes sparkling under the stadium lights and a grin splitting her face. She’s so beautiful it makes my chest ache, and I have to clench my hands into fists to keep myself from reaching out for her.
“Here he is!” she says, and for the first time I realize she’s holding up her phone, which she hands to me.
Our fingers brush when I take it, and the electric shock zings up my arm.
“Holy shit, Dad!” Riley’s voice snaps me out of it, and I turn my attention to Maddy’s phone, my throat tightening when I see both my kids grinning at me through the screen. I glance up at Maddy, her eyes full of understanding, and I have to swallow hard to keep my roiling emotions from bubbling over.
I told her earlier that my kids didn’t come to the game today.I’ve been playing for a long time, and I always let them decide when they want to come and when they don’t. They always send me my pre-game picture, and it’s never a big deal for them not to come, except today something unexpected happened that was a very big deal and somehow, Maddy understood that I would want to talk to them and see their faces more than I want almost anything else.
She understands me, and I had no idea how badly I needed to be understood.
Phone in hand, I look back up at her. She gives me a soft smile, and I know that I don’t have to say any words because somehow, she just knows. And in that loud stadium, with people everywhere and cameras circling and my two best friends looking on, my heart, which had been tucked away safely in my chest for a decade, is utterly and irrevocably lost to Maddy Wright.
“Dad!” At Ethan’s voice, I turn my attention to my very excited kids. Five minutes later, I hang up, promising to call later, then turn to find five microphones being shoved in my face, eager reporters ready to talk to the offensive lineman who made the unlikely game-winning touchdown.
By the time I finish talking to them, the crowd on the field has thinned out a little, and I head over to where Tyler and Drew are standing with Maddy, Brian, and my coach.
“Maybe you should have been a wide receiver,” Coach says with a rare smile, slapping my shoulder. “That was a hell of a run.”
“Not fucking likely,” I return with a laugh, handing Maddy back her phone and letting my fingers linger on hers for a beat.
She takes it and shoves it into the pocket of her jacket, sliding an inch away from me to put some space between us. I immediately reclaim that inch, dropping my hand to my side and grazing the back of it over hers. She jolts and whips her hand away, her eyes flashing and narrowing before sliding over to Brian, as if to sayNot here. But I just scored the winning touchdownand I’m feeling dangerous, so I do it again, this time briefly linking our pinkies, smiling when I feel hers tighten around mine for a brief second before she lets go, and I turn my attention back to the group.
“That was a one-time thing.”
“A really beautiful thing,” Brian says with a grin. “A thing that is definitely going to be top billing on every single week ten highlight reel. Way to fucking go, Cam.”
