Avery refilled the shelf on autopilot. She, her dad, and her brother had barely made it through the past year. Without football as the glue, she couldn’t imagine what would happen to them. Both Avery and her brother would be off to college next year, and then what would Dad have? Avery pictured him sitting alone in their house. In her imagination, the bright magnolia walls were gray, the blue carpet dark. Her dad in his recliner, eyes glazed as he watched Sports Center, dirty plates and beer cans around him.
Since her mother died, Avery felt like the family was hanging on by a thread. Everything was. One stiff gust would blow them back to the day her mom had died. A family barely talking, barely functioning. She couldn’t stand that. She didn’t know if they would survive another death in the family. And that’s what Dad losing his job would feel like.
Okay. She took a breath, pulled her shoulders back, and kicked the empty box down the aisle back to the counter so she could flatten it for the trash. She put her planner carefully on the counter again and sat back on her stool as if nothing had happened. After a second, she jumped off it again and just plain tore into the box. In seconds, it was less “flattened for the Dumpster” and more “torn to shreds by a savage monster.” She hid the remnants in the stack of neatly folded boxes and took another deep breath. She sat back down and pulled her planner onto her knees.
She’d started using a planner at her father’s request, after their family therapist had suggested that they might help keep moving her forward after her mom had died. The pages were tangible evidence that she had a future. That her life was still in place. Everything up until she graduated from college had been laid out. Her father said it kept her on track, but she liked her planners because they made sure there were no surprises. She hated surprises. They sucked.
The planner always had all the answers. There was a whole section for her “pros and cons” lists, but there were absolutely zero pros to her dad being fired and all the cons. She flipped through the pages to her motivational statement page then to her stickers. This was clearly not a problem that a “you go, gurl!” sticker could fix. She closed it again and stared at the cover, feeling vaguely betrayed that it couldn’t help her or comfort her like it usually did.
She peered blindly through the window out to the crossroads. What she wouldn’t give for that boy to come back and help her. To tell her everything would be okay.
There was no doubt she’d have to tell her father about what she’d heard. Right? But how? How did you tell your father that the good people of Hillside thought he was doing a crap job and that he would be fired if the team didn’t get to the playoffs? How did you go against an important sponsor with a replacement coach in the wings?
She had no ideas, and she was running out of time.
Chapter Two
All Lucas had to do was catch the ball.
It should have been too easy. He’d read the QB’s play; he’d be in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time to snatch the ball from the air and bolt for the end zone. Simple. It was just a ball. Just a freaking ball. Nothing special about it, like the thousands—no, hundreds of thousands—of balls he’d caught every day since he’d hit middle school. He’d done this every day of the past four years and twice a day during the summer. Just see the ball, get his hands on the ball, and then run with the ball. Easy.
But right then, it seemed like the whole getting-the-ball-in-his-hands thing was well below his skill set.
What the hell?
The other guys looked at him weird, and Colin—the quarterback and, of course, the head coach’s son—started throwing him embarrassingly easy balls until he was virtually lobbing underhand. Lucas fumbled every single one.
He looked down at his hands in disbelief. He’d literally told Coach he was a decent player, deliberately understating his skill and experience. He’d even planned how to downplay his skills. And now—against all odds—that he’d been given a chance to play on the team, he couldn’t even catch the ball.
Seriously. What the hell was wrong with him?
Growing up, he’d always been the best player on already-great teams. He broke the high school record for receiving when he was a freshman. Hell, even when he was twelve, colleges had come around checking him out. He went along with it—he knew now—because deep inside he’d always thought that if he played college football, maybe his dad would come back. Maybe he’d come back and tell Lucas that he was proud of him. Maybe he’d stay.
And then he’d realized how stupid he was, given that by then he barely remembered what his father looked like. And when he began to play just for the love of the game, he got better and better. His whole identity was wrapped up in the Friday night lights.
By fifteen, he had narrowed the college teams down to three. The colleges weren’t allowed to actively pressure him or even contact him. But he still got birthday cards from famous coaches who were regularly interviewed on ESPN. And really old college players would stop by and watch him play. It started off small. An alumnus of MFU had come by with a set of weights, so he could train at home. It had been a gift, just because this guy “saw himself” in Lucas.
He and his mom had been blissfully ignorant about the rules of gifts from prospective colleges. But by the time he had a MacBook Pro in his bedroom and a decent car outside on the driveway, he figured something wasn’t quite right. But his mom seemed happy for the first time in nearly ten years, so he didn’t ask questions. He had a fully paid-up membership at the fancy gym in town, his mom got anonymous gift cards in the mail, and he could pay for every movie or meal he took Melissa, Julie, and all the other girls who now vied for his attention out for.
And then the college that had spent the most money on him—not directly, of course, but through old players or businesses that old players worked for now—told him to make up his mind so they could start preparing for his arrival. Told him that getting a team player tattoo—that they’d pay for, of course—would seal the deal for them. They didn’t put it like that. More like he’d belong to something important. They told him about the time Jim Wilkie—their offensive linebacker who went on to have a fifteen-year NFL career—had gotten his tattoo. It was fun. It was about loyalty to his new family—his new team. It was about being assigned a jersey number. It was about the commitment he was ready to take.
He wanted to be loyal. He got the tattoo, but before it had even healed, the world came crashing down. The college was busted for “paying” a high school student to join and had to pay a fine, which one local news report said had already been budgeted for in their football program. Lucas had been banned from playing in high school ever again, and his mother was strongly encouraged to move them away from Henderson, probably so the school district could pretend the whole thing had never happened. When she refused, the local hospital fired her and made it clear she’d never find a job in the county again.
And here he was.
In Hillside, unable to catch a freaking ball.
Maybe the universe was telling him to quit football altogether.
He looked down at the bright green grass that grew on the field in blatant defiance of the Hillside’s dusty landscape and then at the white concrete, covered bleachers with the Hammer’s motto “Keep Fighting” on a huge banner. It was cool and all but nothing compared to the stadium at his old school. He should be knocking it out of the park here.
Maybe Coach could help.
Coach was talking to the offensive line, and Colin at the other end of the field. He was tall and broad in the shoulders. What position had he played before he’d become a coach? Maybe a running back or a fullback. Colin and his father both had the same dark blond hair, so much so that when they put their heads together, you couldn’t see where Colin’s head started and his father’s finished.
What would it have been like to have a father that loved football as much as he did? Who’d have been there for all his games, who’d h
ave been able to give him advice? Would he even be in this shit show if his father had been like Colin’s?
But he hadn’t. And here he was sucking so hard he didn’t even recognize himself. He needed help. From someone. Anyone. A tiny part of him—the seven year old still inside him—wanted to cry like he had when his father first left.
He took a deep breath and shook his head. He really didn’t want to ask Coach for help. He didn’t want to appear needy or unsure or just an idiot. But he really couldn’t keep sucking this badly without being rejected outright. And being benched would kill him. Coach had forty players who he’d known for years that he could help. Why would he spend time on Lucas?
At the end of practice, however, he didn’t even need to ask.
“Black. You’re with me,” Coach said as he walked with them toward the locker room.
Shit. Was he being dropped? After a few fumbles? Actually, it’d been more than a few. And it wasn’t as if he even had a legit place on the team yet. He clenched his fists. Wasn’t this what had got him into trouble before? Getting ahead of himself?
“Sir?”
“Get changed. I’m taking you home. Talk to your parents.”
“My mother is working the late shift at the hospital, sir. There’ll be no one there.”
Coach obviously knew enough not to enquire after his father, as much good as it’d do. He was a ghost. “Fine. You can come home and have dinner with us.”
Everything in him wanted to beg off, but Coach just wasn’t the sort of guy you argued with, no matter if the subject was the weather, football, or dinner. In the few short weeks he’d been at this school, he knew that much.
By the time he’d got changed, Colin and Coach were standing by a silver Toyota waiting for him. Colin was doing something on his phone, and Coach had his eye on the door waiting for Lucas to make an appearance. Up close, Colin had a slightly squarer jaw than his dad and wider eyes. But other than that, uncannily similar.
Coach didn’t say anything, but the raised eyebrow was pretty clear. You spend more time getting changed than a girl going to prom. Fair enough. But he literally had to wait until everyone had gone before taking his shirt off. He couldn’t let anyone see the stupid tattoo he’d gotten without them asking questions. What kind of dick got a college football player tattoo before he’d even got to college? Him. That’s who.
Colin called shotgun, so Lucas got in the back.
There was silence in the car until Colin turned on the radio. The announcer was talking about Dollinger College’s football team. Swear to God, Colin lived, breathed, and bled football. Lucas leaned forward a tiny bit, not wanting to ask him to turn it up. He’d never heard of Dollinger College. Sounded like their football program was just important enough. Not enough that people had heard of the college, but important enough that its alumni attended games.
Maybe he could get into a school like that…
He took a breath. Nope. The only way he could get into any school was by concentrating on his schoolwork. And it was all a little late to prioritize academics when his whole life before had been about perfecting his football game.
The best he could do was to graduate and get a job. Football was just a means to calm his brain. To feel comfortable in his skin. Football was, and always had been, his touchstone. The place he could go and excel. Lucas Westman was football. But he’d lost that when he became Lucas Black.
He pressed his lips together to strangle the need to shout or punch something. He didn’t even have his touchstone anymore. If he didn’t have football, who the hell was he?
Coach pulled up outside Hardy’s Hardware, and a girl jumped in, nearly on top of him.
She had one leg in the car by the time she realized that she was about to sit on his lap. Her surprise, and his, stunned them into inaction for a second, her bare leg on his as she looked at him with deer-in-the-headlights shock. After a few long seconds, he got his shit together, scooted out from under her, and moved over as far as he could. Her eyes narrowed in the dim light as she recognized him.
“Avery, Lucas Black. Lucas, Avery, my twin,” Colin said so hurriedly that the words tumbled over one another.
What sweet hell…?
The girl who’d talked to him earlier. The only girl who’d really talked to him since he’d moved to Hillside.
“Hey,” he said as she slid into the seat. It came out in a half-hoarse, half-eight-year-old’s voice. Ah shit. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey.”
She tipped her head to one side and stared at him for a second then gave him a half smile that barely even reached her lips. She settled back into her seat. “Hey,” she begrudged him. She switched on the seat light and opened a spiral-bound book on her lap.
He couldn’t stop looking at her. Her hair swung over her face and touched her lap as she looked at her book. Her skin was…
Stop it.
He quickly averted his eyes and looked out of his window. But he didn’t look at the town passing by in the dusk—he watched her reflection in the glass. She slipped in her ear buds, effectively tuning out everyone without taking her eyes off her book.
The only time she looked up was to check their speed displayed in big numbers on the yellow speed camera. It said forty-three as they drove by, and he swore she smiled. Maybe that was her lucky number? Or maybe she wasn’t checking their speed at all. Maybe she was watching him the same way he’d been watching her—in the reflection. He looked away really fast.
They pulled into a quiet neighborhood, one he hadn’t been to before. The road was wide, and old-fashioned lampposts cast a weird glimmering light over tiny parts of the sidewalks. Must be nice to live in a place that the streetlights were just for show.
The bright lights in the neighborhood he’d just moved to kept the drug dealers at bay—mostly, anyway. On his street, all the bedrooms were at the back of houses. No one wanted to get pegged in a drive-by while they were sleeping. He bet there was no chance of that here.
They stopped in front of a large red brick house, and everyone except Coach got out. Lucas followed Colin. The garage door slid open slowly to reveal a gleaming red car—an old one—in one of the spaces. Lucas watched as Coach slowly drove his Toyota so that the passenger side almost touched the wall, leaving him plenty of room to get out without dinging the red car.
Lucas stood there in the cast-off light from the garage. This was the moment in a movie where he would say, “Wow, Coach. Is that a 1943 Studebaker Corvette Ford with a three in the back, double muffler, a thousand horses, and wide-boy trim?” and then instantly be accepted as a part of the family, even when he started dating Avery. Except he knew nothing about cars, so stringing together a bunch of words that might possibly be related to cars—or very probably wasn’t—would not work for him.
Wait. Dating Avery? Dude. Get your head back in the game.
Instead, he followed them into the house. Avery was flicking on light switches as she passed, making the house so bright it could have been a film set. Colin switched half of them off again as he passed.
He looked back at Lucas. “She’s scared of the dark.”
“Am not,” came her voice from the kitchen.
“She is,” he whispered this time before barging through the kitchen door that swung back at Lucas as he followed. He just managed to prevent it from smashing him in the face, which he was grateful for. Nothing like walking right into a door to cement the image of a capable athlete.
He sighed inwardly. He’d never been this anxious about anything in his life. Not even when his dad had given instructions to the seven-year-old Lucas that he “be the man of the house and look after your mother” as he had walked out of the front door with a bulging suitcase that bore stickers and tags from trips Lucas and his mother had never been invited on.
Lucas had to make the team. He’d gotten an extremely lucky break by even being a
llowed to practice, so he needed to prove himself if he had any shot of staying. He couldn’t bear disappointing his mother. He couldn’t let her keep working the shitty shifts so they could stay in their shitty apartment, in their shitty neighborhood, for nothing. He couldn’t keep fucking dropping the ball. Or being in the wrong place when the ball was thrown to him. A couple more practices like the one he’d had today and Colin would never throw to him again. No one would. Not kids on the beach. Not even dogs would bring him balls. No one.
“Hey, dude,” Colin said, thrusting plates at him. “You eat, you help.” He nodded through a different swing door. “Don’t drop anything.”
Lucas swallowed his reaction to the dig, took the plates, and set them around the table. He moved slowly, taking in the photos and trophies that seemed to prop up the walls. There were pictures of a blond girl—presumably Avery—and her mother, pictures of Colin and his face-cracking smile, holding pennants and trophies that seemed to grow in size as he did. He was thinking about the stark difference between his dining room and theirs when Avery came in. Alone.
He opened his mouth to say something, but even his girl-mojo had apparently left him. She passed him going back into the kitchen.
“Flies,” she said.
He frowned and then caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the sideboard. He literally had his mouth open. He closed his mouth and stared at himself for a second.
So, let’s count. He’d lost his place at college, lost all his football ability, lost his ability to speak to girls, lost his car—okay, just its wheels, but still—lost his home, lost his friends, lost his iPhone, lost his Macbook Pro, and his mom had lost her job.
He may as well be a completely different person. It was as if some total loser had jumped in his body and made it his. Except he was the loser. His mom called it “hubris.” Maybe that should be the tattoo he used to cover up the college one.
The Love Playbook Page 2