It was Cooper fucking Callahan, dressed in a quarter-zip hoodie, grey sweatpants, and a backwards Cobras hat. A tad shorter in person than he appeared on TV and still a tad taller than Nico himself.
Nico felt Cooper’s glare through his sunglasses, as if he was a peasant.
“I’m your biggest fan,” Nico said, and uh, that was a half-truth.
“Thanks,” Cooper said flatly, apparently jaded from too many compliments in his life.
That’ll never be me,Nico thought as he smiled at his elder. “Is this our meet-cute?”
“I don’t know what that is and I’m too afraid to ask.”
The man clearly didn’t read much.
“Good luck with the headache,” Cooper said as he grinned and walked away.
Nico angled his body against the corner and watched as Cooper Callahan entered Coach White’s office at the end of the hall, closing the door behind him.
Nico stood alone with his thoughts,That man needs to get laid,
I need to get laid.
And then he watched the door a moment longer, and for what fucking reason?
On his way out of the facility, Nico dropped into the locker room where the team was in various states of undress after the post-practice showering ritual.
He took a good look at his game-day jersey hanging in his stall, the number 11 stitched in red over white fabric. It was the only jersey hanging in the locker room as the rest of the team was packed and ready to head out in the morning. He took a seat in front of his jersey and waited for the others to notice him.
The quarterback was the star of the team. The guy the rest of the team doesn’t work without. The guy who should be noticed, but sometimes Nico felt invisible. Thus was the curse of being drafted onto a team where the legendary quarterback entered a very early retirement.
“Yo, Rook,” Matteo Reyes shouted from across the room, tucking in the corner of a black towel around his waist. “What’s with the sour face?”
Matteo was tall, conventionally handsome, and suave. Aladies man on the streets and an absolute maniac on the field. He was the closest thing Nico had to a friend on the team.
“Turn that frown upside down,” Matteo said as he approached, taking a seat beside him.
Nico turned to him and flashed a smile—a smile his mother once warned would break the hearts of a million girls. “Cheese.”
Matteo leaned over, brushing his shoulder against Nico’s. He nodded towards Jensen Fuller, the thirty-seven year old backup quarterback who looked rougher than his years with grey stubble for a beard. “Who do you think is going to break a bone first this weekend? Fuller or Schneider?”
Nico dropped his head with a laugh. The Portland Pioneers had a notably great defense, but the offense was missing firepower as it leaned on an aging quarterback.
“Can you imagine if the game aired in prime-time? They’d be calling it the Uncle Bowl for years to come.”
Jensen pulled a sweater over his head and stepped to the gossiping boys. “Don’t forget I have a championship under my belt from my days in Seattle.” He elbowed Matteo. “Meanwhile, you’re out here dropping slant passes.”
Matteo grumbled under his breath.
Nico raised a fist to bump Jensen’s. “Good luck out there on Sunday, but not too much luck. Don’t want to be out of a job.”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”Jensen shook his head. “This is my last season. I only stuck around for the payday when it became clear Callahan was never coming back. Now they got you, so it’s time for some other sorryarse to come in next year to take the reins every time you decide to headbutt a brute.”
Jensen slung his bag over his shoulder and left, tossing a peace sign over his shoulder on the way out.
Nico and Matteo were the last out of the locker room, and when they exited the front doors of the training facility, the sun was already setting.
Nico flipped the sunglasses to the top of his head. “I ran into Cooper Callahan upstairs.”
“No shit? The sonofabitch couldn’t even come say hi?”
