Page 172 of The Backup Plan

They want me to remain a part of this team.

I glance at Emery.

She’s holding herself together with pure willpower—professional smile in place—but a silent tear slips down and over her cheek.

And suddenly I understand.

Football wasn’t the most important thing I’ve ever done.

She is.

Cole’s words from the hallway echo in my head.

This won’t be the last time.

I exhale. He also put in a good word for me. He’ll never admit it, but those words told me he did.

“Yes,” I say. The word comes out rough, but certain. “I’d love to stay on. I want to help make this team what I know it can be.”

Coach grins. “We’d be idiots to let you walk away completely.”

Grant nods. “We’ll get HR started on the transition. In the meantime, we have a meeting with the team in thirty. We’ll let them know of the changes and make it official.”

I chuckle, disbelief still buzzing through me. “You were that sure I’d say yes?”

Grant smiles. “You don’t stop being a leader just because you stop throwing the ball.”

I lean back in my chair, overwhelmed. I’m honestly shocked . . . and yet thankful, just as equally.

“But this opportunity keeps you in this game you know and love. And it matters.”

“You’ve proven yourself time and again. Your reads. Your instincts. That doesn’t disappear just because your shoulder gave out.”

This isn’t goodbye to an incredible career. It’s a pivot. And I’m here for it.

And as I meet Emery’s eyes across the table—love, pride, and relief tangle together—I realize something else too.

I’m the luckiest goddamn son of a bitch on the face of the earth.

Emery

I don’t go to the team meeting.

I tell myself it’s because I have charts to update and protocols to finalize and a proposal deadline breathing down my neck—but the truth is simpler than that.

I’ve been preparing myself for days—hell, weeks—about having to ruin Lucas and all he’s ever worked for with my final diagnosis.

And then, I didn’t have to give it. He gave me a look, like he finally got it, like it finally hit him what was being asked of me, and he didn’t make me have to say the words.

He didn’t make the end of his career land on my shoulders, on my diagnosis.

And now, my body is slowly coming down from the emotion of what I thought I’d have to do. What Coach and Grant offered Lucas in turn.

My head’s spinning and I just needed some time to myself. Besides, if I go in there, if I watch the announcement and see the emotion on Lucas’s face and hear the excitement from the guys—everyone will know I had—have—so much more than just my professional skin in this game.

So I don’t go to the meeting.

I stay in my office while the rest of the facility funnels into the conference room down the hall. I hear it anyway—the muted rise and fall of voices through the walls, the scrape of chairs, the cheer that goes up when they announce Lucas’s new role, the low hum of anticipation that seems to buzz through the entire building.