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When we’re back in the huddle, Juju makes eye contact with me. “You want this win tonight, don’t you?” he asks.

“Fuck yes.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He gives us a play made for me before we break and head back to the line of scrimmage.

I manage to tune out the crowd, don’t hear anything but my team, anything except Juju calling out the cadence. Coach Blake doesn’t matter here. The fact that this is my old team doesn’t matter either. There are guys here I was close with, guys I consider friends, and others I didn’t get along with at all.

None of that matters here. The only thing that does is football.

The second I can, I’m pushing off my feet, running as fast as I can. One thing we always lacked in KC is a good cornerback, and Miner can’t keep up with me, no matter how hard he tries.

I turn back exactly when I should, looking back at Juju while still moving my feet. His arm comes back, the football flying through the air and landing in my arms at just the right time, and I’m off, weaving around defenders and pushing for the end zone.

A few seconds later, a body collides with me from the side—fucking hard. He practically grabs me, taking my legs out from under me and making a spark of pain pierce my side, before basically throwing me to the ground.

I hear the ref’s whistle go off, the flag on the play, and O’Neal called for unnecessary roughness.

I grab my side, rolling around on the field for a second, trying to breathe through the pain.

My teammates head over, trying to help me up.

“Jesus, man. You good?” Juju asks.

“That was a fucked-up hit.” This from Bradshaw.

Yeah, it was a fucked-up hit, and I’m zero percent surprised.

I meet my teammates’ eyes, ignoring the pain, more determined than ever. “These motherfuckers are ours.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Oakley

We win our first preseason game in Texas. I checked my messages on the app before my game and didn’t hear from GameOn057 about how his first day at his new job went, but I sent him a message again telling him good luck and that he’s got it.

Our game tonight was close, but we won by a field goal.

We’re on the bus, heading back to the private hangar where we’ll get our flight back to L.A., Hunter sitting in the seat beside me. I’m too nervous to risk pulling up the queer hookup app to see if I got a message from GameOn057, and it’s killing me. I want to hear about his day, even if I can’t share specifics about mine.

So instead, I find myself checking the scores of the other games tonight. The Inferno were at home, and even while I tell myself I don’t care about how they did—or more specifically, how Desmond did—I clearly do.

I would never admit it to him, but he’s the toughest wide receiver I’ve ever played against. That’s something I would have had no problem admitting to teenage Desmond, but adult Desmond is a different story.

The first time we saw each other in college after everything had gone down, I expected…hell, I don’t know what I expected. Not the needling I received. Maybe that’s not the right word. He’s never shown me criticism; it’s just different from what it was.

But can I really blame him? I’m sure he hadn’t planned on waking up the day after we spent a night kissing for me to tell him I was getting back together with my ex. The whole situation is a clusterfuck and probably wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t miss what we had, even if we only had it for a short amount of time.

I find the score of the game and see that the Inferno won. I don’t know exactly what Desmond’s relationship is with his old coach and team, but considering Hunter is his best friend and Coach Blake did him dirty, I wouldn’t imagine it’s very good. If there’s one thing I still know about Des—other than how annoying and how sexy he is—it’s that he’s a good friend. Especially to Hunter.

“Those assholes went hard for him,” Hunter says, and like an idiot, I scramble with my phone, nearly dropping it before setting it face down on my thigh.

That wasn’t obvious at all. I could have been checking the score of all the games for all Hunter knew. It’s not as if he would take one look at the Inferno highlights on my screen and know… Shit. There’s nothing for him to know. Not anymore. “What happened?” I ask, trying to be nonchalant when I’m sure I’m acting pretty fucking chalant.

“Took him down hard the first hit and went for him harder than they should—especially in a preseason game—every time he was in.”

“Fuck.” It’s wild to me that Coach Blake is still in the league, that the man still has the prestige he does, but in the world of sports, no one seems to give a fuck about being a good person. “He would tell them to do that?” I ask.