Page 130 of Love, Literature, and the Linebacker

The final stroke should feel like victory. Instead, it feels like a door is closing somewhere behind me.

Ray stands and offers his hand. “Welcome to the Redwood Larks.”

I shake his hand, even as something inside me resists. And I can’t tell if I’m fighting the contract or the path that led me here.

“Dinner?” Ray adds. “My treat.”

“Sure,” I say.

***

The restaurant is just as polished as Ray’s office—glass, low lighting, white tablecloths, the kind of place that makes reservations feel mandatory. Ray calls it perfect for discussing the big picture.

We sit by the window. Jazz hums softly in the background. Ray looks perfectly at home. I don’t.

“You’ve got big shoes to fill,” Ray says, lifting his glass. “But I have no doubt you’ll rise to it.”

“Thanks,” I reply, reaching for the breadbasket mostly to have something to do with my hands. “It’s just… a lot to take in.”

“That’s normal,” he says. “You worked your whole life for this. Now it’s real.”

I nod, but my thoughts drift anyway, to Lucy’s smile, the warmth of her lips, the way our ending came too fast, too sharp.

I stare into my water glass, hoping clarity might be waiting there.

Ray watches me for a moment, then speaks again. “You’re stepping into a new chapter, Dylan. New city. New career. Bigger world.”

I swallow. None of it feels right without her.

“Something on your mind?” he asks.

I look up, surprised by the directness. “Yeah,” I admit. And before I can think, I blurt out, “Lucy was important to me. It feels weird doing this without her.”

Ray considers me carefully. “Relationships are complicated,” he says. “This world changes things. Distance, schedules, expectations. Sometimes relationships adapt to it, sometimes they don’t.”

His words hit clean and logical.

That doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I want to nod. I want to agree. But everything inside me pushes back hard against his words. There’s this persistent, aching conviction that Lucy isn’t just someone I got close to. She was the first person who made me believe there was more to my life than football. More than drills and schedules and seasons that bleed into each other. She saw me—really saw me—when I didn’t know how to look beyond the field myself.

And I know that if she were sitting here now, she’d be telling me not to get swept up in Ray’s polished confidence. She’d tell me to listen to the part of myself that already knows the truth.

“The league changes the shape of your life,” Ray says. “Distance, travel, constant evaluation. Relationships either adapt or they don’t.”

“Lucy never held me back.”

“Then maybe the question isn’t whether she belongs in this life. It’s whether both of you are willing to build around it.”

I fall silent after that, eyes dropping to my plate as Ray pivots the conversation back to football—training plans, expectations, strategy. I nod where I’m supposed to, but I’m barely there. My thoughts keep circling back to Lucy. She was never just a phase or a convenience. She was home in a way no stadium ever has been.

When dinner finally ends, Ray claps a firm hand on my back. “Stay focused, Dylan. Everything else will fall into place.”

I force another nod, even though the words feel empty.

Outside, my phone buzzes in my pocket. Gemma’s name lights up the screen. I hesitate—she’s never been one to sugarcoat anything—but I answer anyway.

“Hey, Gem.”