Page 169 of The Backup Plan

“Start a foundation to help kids learn football who can’t afford it. Start coaching a high school team—it’s fucking Texas, so there are a thousand of them. Have your agent put feelers out to see if any front offices have job openings for scouts or player development roles. Or I don’t know, decide you want to start a company building fucking igloos. It doesn’t matter what, it just matters that you do.”

“Igloos? In Texas?” I say but smile.

“Of course, you pick that to comment on.” He groans. “I get that right now you’re hurting. That you feel like life has ripped something important from you. The bright side is that all those years, all that hard work, has left you fucking loaded. You don’t have to work if you don’t want to. And if you do, it can be whatever you want because it’s not because you need the money. It’s because you want to.”

“Bren—”

“There are so many people out there who have to work three jobs just to keep a roof over their family’s heads. Be thankful that’s not you. Be thankful you can take time to rehabilitate before you have to consider returning to work.”

I twist my lips and watch the horizon. He’s right. This fucking hurts for a dozen different reasons, and yet . . . he’s made some pretty valid points. He’s also helped me see a much broader picture. So many hardworking Americans don’t have the time or money to simply focus on rehabilitating from injuries. I have both.

“Thank you,” I murmur.

“For?”

“Putting me in my place. Forcing me to take my head out of the sand and see options. For being here.”

Brendan reaches over and ruffles my hair like I used to do to him when we were kids—after bad games, scraped knees, and broken hearts.

It makes my chest ache in a way I don’t have words for.

“It’ll all work out,” he says, sure and steady. “I promise you, it’ll all work out.”

I swallow and nod once.

I don’t know what working out looks like anymore.

But for the first time since everything fell apart, I let myself believe—just a little—that maybe it exists.

Lucas

The sling bites into the strap around my neck. You’d think that from the number of times I’ve had to wear one in my life while my shoulder is healing, I’d have a built-up tolerance, but no.

It’s like my body prefers to give me a constant reminder that my shoulder is fucked. That the weight pulling down on it is so much more than an injury just repaired but is now a new life I need to figure out how to navigate.

The Lone Star practice facility looks the same as it did months ago when I first walked in here but feels very different. Back then it was a beacon of opportunity. Now it’s a reflection looking back at me that I can’t avoid or escape.

When I push open the doors and head down the hall, the place hums the way it always does—voices talking and bodies moving with purpose. But the second I turn down the second to final hallway outside the meeting rooms, something feels off.

Too quiet.

Then someone claps.

Once.

Twice.

Seconds before I turn into the final hallway, the quiet erupts with applause and celebratory sounds.

And then, there they are. Guys line both sides of the space—linemen, receivers, defensive backs, special teams—faces split into grins, hands raised, voices loud and unapologetic.

“Let’s go, Hale!”

“Legendary!”

“Thanks for your leadership!”

I blink, stunned, as someone fist bumps me, and the next one high-fives me.