Third and Long: A Sports Romance (31 page)

The day I cut him out of my life was the day dating and football went out the door together. Work keeps me busy enough that I never really think about dating. Football on the other hand is regrettably unavoidable when you work in a sports bar.

“I don’t pay attention to the schedule. How was I supposed to know New England was playing?” I ask.

“Maybe when every single local boy packed his ass in here hours ago?”

There is only one thing that makes Sunday nights at Coach’s Roadhouse worse than when Dallas plays. It’s when New England plays. No one in this bar gives a flying fuck about anyone on that team except for their star tight end: Tyler Hightower. He’s a celebrity, party boy, wild child, and an Adonis of an athlete that I personally happen to hate. This is a grudge that goes all the way back to high school mind you. See, Tyler’s a local, or he was.

My eyes scan the screen, and I watch in absolute terror as, on national TV, Tyler Hightower both catches a 20-yard pass and rushes all the way down the field for a touchdown. A deafening roar bursts forth in the bar. I can’t even hear myself think. After the replay, the roars and cheers go up again, and I busy myself filling beer and wing orders, hoping that the inevitable doesn’t happen, and then it does.

“Beers on me! A round for everyone!” a cowboy at the bar announces to every single fucking person. He throws down his credit card, and I practically shit my pants.

Did I mention that I hate football?

I look up to the screen and see the camera zoom in on Tyler’s lantern-jawed, sweating, smiling face. I remember our days in high school together and shudder. He was just like Clint: a big, loud athlete that got whatever he wanted regardless of how it affected other people. I can’t believe I used to be attracted to guys like that.

Maybe I shouldn’t judge a guy that I haven’t seen for years, but as the drink orders pile up all because he had to be good at a stupid game, I don’t really have time to worry about it.

It’s going to be a long night.

CHAPTER TWO

TYLER

Sunday Night

November

Foxborough, Massachusetts

The hometown crowd is so fucking pumped up. Every muscle in my body is tense and ready to go. I flex my 18 inch biceps to intimidate everyone in the damn stadium.

We’ve got one last shot at winning the game. We can’t tie: either we score and win, or we don’t and lose, and we never lose at home. I know that Connor is counting on me. I set my position on the line, and make it look like I’m going to throw a block for the running back. It doesn’t matter if they fall for it or not. The truth of the matter is that not one of those pussy mother fuckers from New York can block me.

Connor calls out an audible, but it’s a fake out, and only I know it. Our running back Ronnie fully expects a block. That’s how he’s going to sell it. My fingers dig into the dirt. I feed off the energy of the crowd. I am going to make this touchdown. It’s third down, and we have 80 yards to go. That doesn’t matter. Nothing can stop me. I’m Tyler Fucking Hightower.

“Hike!” Connor calls out, shrill over the roaring crowd and the cold night air.

Chaos descends on the field. I blow right past the guy that every single person on the field thinks I’m going to be blocking. I hear Ronnie get creamed behind me. I’ll buy him a beer at the club tonight. I cut across the middle of the field, and my eyes go not to Connor, but to where I know the ball is going to be. That’s what I call trust.

There it fucking is. Once again Connor MacGrady, New England’s MVP quarterback, puts the ball right in my hands in the middle of the field. I don’t even look up field until the pigskin is safely in my bread basket, my pythons gripping it close and tight.

When I turn upfield, I see three defenders in my way. They can’t stop me. I charge right through them.

“Fuck out of here,” I grunt, pushing all three of them off of me, throwing in a little spin move for the highlight reels tonight. I’m gonna go home and watch a replay of that all night long. I’ll take a cheerleader home with me, or maybe a fan girl. We’ll watch it over and over while she gushes on my cock. The second I see open field, I know it is going to be a great night, a legendary night.

New York’s safety runs sidelong at me. He intends to t-bone me, knock the ball away. I’m running at top speed, but at 6’6’’, 260 pounds, a big boy like me can only run so fast. Devante Jones, the safety, is a big guy. He’s coming right at me. Tyler Fucking Hightower doesn’t let down his quarterback or his team or his town.

I run straight and fast, and my side eye judges when Devante is about to spear me. The very second he launches, I high step, and stiff arm him. My big hand sticks right into his helmet and drops him to the cold, hard turf. The crowd goes absolutely batshit fucking crazy because I’m in the clear.

This is going to be a two-woman night after a move like that. I thought the spin move would be the highlight. Then that stiff arm happened.

70 yards.

75 yards

79 yards.

Goal line.

Somehow the intense passionate screaming of the greatest fans in the world grows louder and even more deafening. I run up to the wall beyond the goal posts, leap up and give the game winning ball to an 8-year-old little girl. That’s going to be on the front page tomorrow, and that picture is going to get me so much fucking pussy. Everyone wants a piece of me.

I run this town.

The rest of the team piles on me in the end zone. I look up at the score board. We are in the lead and there is no time left. The point after is a formality. Game over.

The trainers hustle us all back to the locker room. Shower up, meet the press, tell them what I was feeling, then we’ll be off to the club. We’re gonna get drunk tonight. Just once I want to tell the reporters what I was really thinking when I make those game winning touchdowns. That I’m thinking about women and beer: my two favorite things in the world.

“Bro, you fucking rule,” Connor says to me on the way back to the locker room.

“That was some fucking pass bro,” I say, wrapping my arm around his shoulder. Connor is the heart and soul of this team, but I’m his weapon. Without me he’d have to throw to some 2nd-string fools. Good guys, but they aren’t making an 80-yard play like that.

We hit the showers. That play is going to go down in the record books as one of my best. I can’t wait to talk to the press about it. I love losing myself in the game. Nothing matters but my performance on the field.

When I get out of the shower, my agent is standing there. She’s only here because I got her tickets. Valerie Moreno has better things to do then watch sweaty men pound it out on the turf.

“Hey Val. You look like you just got off a dick,” I say. We have a love-hate relationship. I love when she makes me more money. I hate when she makes me do community shit. I love Boston, but it’s not my home. It’s temporary. This league is fickle, and one day they’ll trade me, so I try not to get too attached. Home is a luxury other people can afford.

I was born and raised in Decatur, Texas where the only thing that matters is football. I had my reasons for leaving, and I am never going back. They wouldn’t be able to handle me back there anyway. I’m prime time now.

“Nice to see you too asshole,” Val says. I’ve made her a lot of money. For an agent, she’s a total fucking babe and single to boot. There’s no way she’d ever let me take her out. Not with my reputation. The gossip rags always ask when I’m going to settle down, and I always say the same thing: why bother marrying a Boston girl when next year I could be in San Francisco?

“What’s up?”

She looks so dour and serious. That’s unusual for Val. Normally she’s perky and pretty even when she’s busting my balls.

“Come on over here,” she says, bringing me into the private locker room office.

When she shuts the door behind me, I realize that something is wrong. My first thought is my mom. Even though I left her back in Decatur, I’m still such a momma’s boy. I look right at my agent with the blankest damn look preparing for the worst.

“It’s Coach, Ty,” Val says, her eyes downcast. Val has no problem with confrontation of any sort. Her hesitation now comes from something else.

There’s only one person in the world that gets called Coach, and its not my pro coach. That’s Coach Garrett. If I ever call someone Coach, then it’s my high school coach from Decatur: Coach Fenton. The greatest man I’ve ever known, and the reason that I made it to the pros.

“He passed tonight,” Val says.

I choke up. I haven’t cried in years. I actually have to fight back the tears in my eyes. Val’s sweet and doesn’t call me a pussy or anything.

“The funeral’s in three days,” Val says.

“Get me on a plane tomorrow,” I say.

Val nods and leaves me to myself in the office.

Damn. Coach Fenton. My mentor. The guy who took me under his wing when my own dad couldn’t care enough to be around.

As close as I was to Coach, when I got my college scholarship, I kissed my mom and my hometown goodbye. I always felt that I was destined for bigger and better things. After college, I landed in New England on the best team in the country. They made me the star of the show. Even though Boston isn’t home, I’m beloved, famous, and I can have any girl that I want.

Football has the highest highs and the lowest lows. Whatever party plans I had tonight will have to wait because Decatur is calling me back. There’s a good fucking reason why I never wanted to go back. You could say that I have daddy issues, or absent daddy issues to be more exact.

I have to go home again. Coach Fenton would have done the same for me.

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Caitlyn Maxwell grew up in one of those Podunk Texas towns that seem to live and breathe football. At her first opportunity, she took off to study English Literature in California. There she met her husband and for years they've been bouncing around the west coast before finally making a home in Arizona. As they say, you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl. Caitlyn finds herself unable to resist thinking back on that quiet Texas town and all the love stories it contained.

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