Page 149 of The Backup Plan

And I realize something that scares the hell out of me.

I don’t know how to do this. I’ve been with women, dated them, but not like this. Not the kind of dating where you look forward to seeing the person every day, where your stomach flips when you do, and where someone is willing to put themselves on the line for you.

It’s real. It’s incredible. It’s foreign.

Yeah, I don’t know how to do this, but I know I want to learn.

Her line tugs suddenly.

“Lucas!” she gasps. “Lucas.” She flails her free arm as if I’m not two feet away and can’t see her already. “I think I caught something.”

I grin. “Told you. You’re a natural.”

She glances over at me, love and happiness in her eyes. “No, this is all you, Hale. You’re the perfect coach,” she says as she begins reeling in her first fish.

I cheer her on, feeling surprisingly confident that the future doesn’t feel like a threat anymore.

It feels like a lake at dusk, a woman laughing beside me, and hope.

“No, this is all you, Hale. You’re the perfect coach.”

Is coaching the way forward for me?

“Not all players can be coaches, but I have a feeling you’d be great at it.”

Maybe, just maybe, this is where everything after football begins.

Emery

The scans for Nixon are up on my screen, his knee frozen mid-slice in shades of gray and white that have long ago stopped looking like art. Now they tell a story, providing facts. Truth.

I scroll slowly. Methodically. ACL intact. Meniscus clean. Some wear—normal, expected, manageable. The kind of knee that tells a story of use, not disaster.

I tap my pen on my desk as I study them. The knock on my door is as expected as the man standing there.

“Doc?” Coach leans against the frame, arms crossed, posture easy but commanding. He always looks like a man who’s weighing outcomes.

“You want to know if Nixon is good to go for Sunday? I was just reviewing the scans.”

“And what’s your honest take?” he asks, and the word honest lands heavier than it should. “What do they tell you?”

I glance back at the scans. At the knee that tells me exactly what it is and nothing more.

“He’s stable,” I say. “No structural damage. No indicators that would keep him off the field right now.”

Coach hums. “What about down the road?”

There it is.

“Down the road?” I ask, my thoughts stumbling out of control.

He shrugs. “Yeah. You know, long-term. I know you don’t have a crystal ball in that machine, but is there anything in there that might be a risk for us as the season wears on? We’re counting on your outlook, Doc.”

He says the last sentence with a chuckle, as if he doesn’t really mean it, but I feel the implication. He’s right. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I do have years of training that can assist in occasional forecasting. Like in Lucas’s case.

My office suddenly feels smaller. More claustrophobic.

“It’s playing perfectly well—hitting marks, getting the job done. I shouldn’t be held back because of what might happen in the future.”