After yet another terrible game on my part, Coach corners me in the locker room. “You need to get your fucking shit together. You’re playing like it’s fucking peewee out there.”
“I know, Coach. I’ll do better.”
“Show me,” he commands before storming off, and I throw my helmet at the wall.
“Fuck!”
With the trade deadline looming a little more than a month away, there’s been talk. Of course, my name is everywhere. But with Rovie’s lingering injury, they might want to trade him forfresh legs. That doesn’t mean they’d keep me, but I’ve been trying—and failing lately—to show them I am a key player. That I can step up. I have before when he was out, and I’m well acquainted with our type of play.
But it’s all about money and who they could get to put us into the best position for play-offs.
And I can’t really stop them from making any decision. No matter how naively I believed that to be true.
“What’s going on?” Sheffy asks, his gear already halfway stripped off, and I slump onto the bench.
“I don’t know, man. My head’s all over the place.”
“Still haven’t talked to Jo?”
I shake my head, and Cubby butts in. “What happened?”
“We broke up…I think.”
“What do you mean, you think?”
“Just what I fucking said! I think we broke up.”
Cubby holds up his hands in innocence. “Just tryna help. Don’t have to bite my head off, eh?”
But my outburst has caught the attention of Davey and Bombay, who asks, “This have anything to do with that trip you took the other day?”
I swipe my hands over my sweat-slicked hair. “Jo’s great-grandmother died, and I went to be there for her, but we got into an argument. With her family.”
Davey props his foot up on the bench. “You can’t fight with the in-laws. It never works out well.”
“What if they treat Jo like shit? What do you expect me to do then?”
“Fight for her honor,” JP says from his spot across from me, although his accent makes it sound like it’s some kind of poetic justice instead of the shitshow that took place.
“I did, and she ran away. Literally ran out of her house, and then her dad kicked me out because I called him an asshole. Among other things.”
Bombay winces. “How do you come back from that?”
“I have no idea. We eventually talked, but she said she needed time.” I set my elbows on my knees. “She doesn’t think we belong together. Never thought anyone would believe it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bombay asks, completely naked and dick swinging.
“We’ve been faking it this whole time.” I don’t realize what I said until the locker room goes silent.
“You faked what?” someone shouts from the other end, blinking me back into reality, and I glance over to Sheffy for help. He only nods, a silent direction to tell the truth.
So I toss a towel at Bombay. “Cover up. I can’t talk about this while your dick’s hanging out.”
He wraps it around his waist then motions for me to go on, so I take a deep breath and explain, “Jo and I aren’t really engaged. I barely knew her before I knocked her out, but she needed help to get her family off her back and I needed the front office to believe I wasn’t spreading STIs around the greater Philadelphia area, so we agreed to pretend for a few months.”
Some of my teammates laugh, some curse, some call me a dumb fucking idiot.
But it’s Cubby who says, “I thought you loved her. Like, legit loved her.”
