Third and Long: A Sports Romance

by Caitlyn Maxwell

  Then the questions come. An onslaught.

  “Logan, did you ever think you were going to lose this game?” one guy asks.

  “Actually yeah, going into half-time, it wasn’t looking good. They’re a very good team. LSU. Very good,” I say, my eyes lingering on Tamber’s gorgeous mocha hair and cute smile. I want nothing more than for her to get up and shake that cute little ass at me and lead me back to her bedroom. I’m so jacked up on adrenaline right now, I feel like I’d tear her in two, and she’d love every minute of it.

  “So what made you throw that ball? Most analysts will say you were crazy to throw that. I mean your team was on their own twenty yard line. Conventional wisdom would say you play it safe and punt,” another reporter says.

  “My completion rate was a hundred percent in the fourth quarter,” I say.

  “Sure, but twenty yards? You would have been right to play it safe,” the reporter repeats his question.

  You mean why did I go for it on third and long?” I ask. I look at Tamber and smile. She smiles back.

  “Right. Seems risky,” the reporter says.

  “It worked. Didn’t it?”

  The whole room laughs. It did work. We won. I threw the riskiest pass of my career on third and long and it paid off. Everything that Tamber said to me after the third quarter reminded me who I am, and why they used to call me the number one draft pick.

  I’m not at the mercy of my father. I’m not a stooge of the paparazzi. I’m the future husband of Tamber Long.

  “Given what they say about your character are you still declaring for the draft?” another reporter asks.

  “I don’t have any other choice,” Logan says.

  “Sorry I’m not sure what you mean?” the guy asks, furiously writing down everything that I say.

  “Well my dad just disowned me, so…”

  “Are you saying you’re not inheriting billions anymore?” he asks.

  “That’s what it seems like. I’m playing for my life out here.”

  “Is this related to those character concerns the media is talking about?” the reporter asks.

  I have to laugh. What a coward. I decide to call him on it.

  “You mean that you’re talking about? You’re a member of the media aren’t you?” I ask.

  He looks baffled.

  “But let me answer your question. My father disinherited me because he doesn’t want me to play football. He wants to make all of my life choices for me.”

  “Can you tell us anything about that scuffle on the field? Does Logan Oliver have women fighting over him?” the first reporter asks.

  “Yes was that New York socialite Katerina Prescott on the field?” another reporter adds.

  “That’s who my father wants me to marry yes,” I say.

  “And you don’t? How can that be?” A bunch of reporters start talking amongst themselves. They’re all thirsty for a girl like Katerina, but there’s only one woman for me.

  “I don’t want to marry her. Someone else has already stolen my heart,” I say.

  “And who would that be?” a reporter asks.

  “Tamber Long. Right there,” I say pointing to her. She blushes like crazy. “The love of my life. Come on up here babe.”

  An uproar goes through the room as the reporters try to be the first to break this news on their phones. Security starts to crowd around Tamber, and I tell them to bring her up here. Fortunately they allow it.

  She takes the stage and grabs my hand, sitting down next to me. I can feel the nervous, anxious energy flowing through body, but when I wrap my arm around her, she seems to calm down. I ask her if she’d like to say anything.

  “Hey listen up everyone,” she says. I realize in that moment that she’s probably been bottling up this speech for a while now, waiting for her chance to set the record straight.

  “My name is Tamber Long and I am proudly marrying this man. He is a good man, and none of that shit you all write about him is true. So get your facts straight,” she says, flashing her ring at the photographers.

  “Damn right,” Logan says. She starts to stand up and I follow her, wrapping her in my arms.

  “For the past four weeks, we’ve been dating despite what other rumors you’ve heard. There has been no other woman. My man is true and honorable and loyal to me. His future wife. And stop calling them character concerns. My man is passionate. End of story,” I say looking right at the sideline reporters.

  “Your girl is fucking crazy,” I hear a voice say.

  Tamber and I turn around to see who said it. It’s Cam.

  “You like ‘em crazy,” I say.

  “That I do,” Cam says taking the stage with us.

  I stop the interview there and grab my woman. I hold Tamber about the waist, twirl her around in my arms and kiss her more deeply than I’ve ever kissed a woman in front of dozens of photographers and their flashing cameras.

  Put that on your gossip blogs. Assholes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Epilogue: Tamber

  I wish I wasn’t pregnant because I could really use a drink. It’s warm in Miami. The perfect place for the draft. I’m thrilled to be having Logan’s child, but I won’t lie, I’d like to be down on the beach sipping pina coladas with Gwen. Instead Gwen and I are in the guest suite at the convention center. Dozens of other family members are up here too for other players. Logan and Cam are down waiting in the green room since they could get drafted at any time.

  In the months since Logan beat LSU, his projected draft stock has gone up and down all over the place. They didn’t make it to the national championship in the end, but the team played their heart out in their bowl game and won it easily.

  My phone buzzes. It’s Professor Castle. I start typing back a message with a big dumb smile on my face.

  “Holy shit,” Gwen says trying to grab my phone.

  This time I’m ready for her, and I dodge out of the way.

  “Your man is about to be drafted and you’re on the phone?”

  “It’s Professor Castle. He’s lined up a guy to help me program the app, and there are some investors interested,” I say.

  “Oh shit Party-Kit, really?”

  “Yeah. Looks like I might be in charge of my own company,” I say.

  “Well I’ll be damned. You earned it. I’ll be thinking about you in dental residency,” she mutters.

  Then the music starts playing to indicate the pro football commissioner is about to take the stage.

  “Oh shit here we go,” Gwen says. Her biggest dream is that Logan and Cam go one and two. She’s a dreamer.

  The commissioner opens and envelope and smiles. “With the first pick in the 2016 draft, Washington selects Arnold Kellerman.”

  “Arnold Kellerman? Who the fuck is that?” Gwen asks.

  “Alabama’s quarterback,” I say.

  “But Logan beat his ass! This is bullshit!”

  I’m more worried for my man. His life’s dream was to go first although he had tempered those expectations over the past few months. Now I’m starting to worry that he won’t go at all. Funny how our brains work.

  After an agonizing wait, the commissioner takes the microphone again. “Wish the second overall pick in the 2016 draft, Chicago selects Logan Oliver III.”

  I freeze. I can’t move. Gwen does all the jumping up an down for me which I couldn’t do anyway seeing as how I’m three months pregnant. Gwen wraps her arms around me, and that’s when it finally seems real.

  “I’m going to Chicago!” I scream, realizing that there’s a camera on me.

  “Chicago!” Gwen screams.

  It’s not Texas but it will do. I could be a big city girl. Our baby born in the big city. I never have to go back to Eden again.

  I watch as Logan walks across the stage, proud and tall. He shakes the commissioner’s hand, who puts a Chicago hat on his head and a jersey in his hands. Logan mugs for the camera, soaking in position attention for a change.

  No
w nothing matters. His dad has already to soften on his asshole posturing anyway. The moment Logan told his mom that I was pregnant everything started to change. Jessica has surely been nagging Logan the Second every single day to swallow his pride and understand that his son’s dreams come first.

  Logan returns to back to the green room, and we wait to hear Cam’s name.

  “He said that if he goes first round, he’s going to propose to me,” Gwen whispers.

  “Bullshit,” I say.

  She’s all smiles. After fifteen more selections, Gwen’s smile turns into a frown. Then the commissioners retakes the stage for seventeenth round.

  “With the seventeenth overall pick in the 2016 draft, Dallas selects Cameron Phelps!”

  Gwen’s mouth drops open. She doesn’t get up and yell and scream and dance. She simply turns to me and says, “You get to move to Chicago and I get to move next door? You bitch.”

  “Hey look at it this way: when we come to visit for the holidays, you’ll be our first stop, Aunt Gwen,” I say patting my growing belly.

  “Well,” Gwen says, looking at Cam take his hat and jersey, “I guess I’m getting married too.”

  I pick up my water and Gwen picks up her soda.

  “Here’s to friends forever?” I ask.

  “Damn right girl.”

  We clink our glasses together and on the screen, Logan hugs Cam as his friend returns to the green room. There’s my man. The love of my life. The father of my child. My quarterback. My distraction.

  Thank you for reading Third and Long! I hope you enjoyed it. If you could be so kind as to leave a review on Amazon, I would greatly appreciate it! Reviews are so, so important to indie authors like myself. All feedback is much appreciated.

  Sincerely,

  Caitlyn Maxwell

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  Enjoy the first two chapters of Caitlyn Maxwell’s debut novel For Love or the Game available now on Kindle Unlimited.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ASHLEIGH

  Sunday Night

  November

  Decatur, Texas

  All the back bar and kitchen prep in the world can’t prepare Coach’s Roadhouse for football on a Sunday night. I’ve got three beers pouring, a blender making margaritas, a broken pint glass on the floor, and five barbecue wing orders that I’m sending back to my chef, who I pray to God is not on a smoke break.

  “Ash, where are those Buds? These boys are thirsty!” I hear my best friend and needy coworker Iris yell from the other side of the bar.

  A thirsty cheer goes up from the table she’s waiting on. Either they’re cheering for the game or the fact that she’s giving me the business about their beers.

  “Hey little lady, how about those wings?” I hear a guy right behind me say as I finish the pour. I can feel his eyes all over me, checking out my butt in my tight jeans. That’s typical for a crowd like this. You get used to it.

  “On their way up right now, pal,” I yell over my shoulder, pinning my entire tip on the possibility that Miguel, my chef, has his shit together for once.

  I grab the three Buds between my two hands, wishing that I had a third, and walk them down the bar to Iris.

  “Thanks, babe,” she says as I load them onto her tray. My sister-in-arms in this war zone makes a kissy face at me and picks up the tray.

  The margarita blender dings. The customers waiting for them waste no time in pointing that out to me when three more drink orders come in from another waitress. I want to scream. There’s a lot of reasons that I hate football, and Sunday night is definitely one of them.

  The floor is a mix of slippery and sticky. Fortunately, I wore my best boots tonight. They’re my combat boots because serving nearly 200 thirsty cowboys and cowgirls on a Sunday night at Coach’s Roadhouse absolutely is a war.

  They say love is war, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. I swore off men when my last boyfriend turned out to be a world-class asshole. My war is tending bar, and I’m the general.

  “Miguel, where the hell are those wings?” I yell back to the kitchen while I pour the margaritas. He gives me a look that says: hold your fucking horses. Then mercifully he loads five baskets of honey-barbecue wings onto his arms and carries them up to the order window.

  I grab them and hand two baskets to the hungry guy at the bar and take the rest over to the server station, so Iris and the other ladies can grab them. Normally Coach Fenton is around to run orders between the kitchen and the bar. He owns the place, but he’s not around tonight. It’s probably the first Sunday night football game that he’s ever missed.

  Lately he hasn’t been doing too well. He’s an older guy, been around a long time, the heart and soul of Decatur, Texas. He opened the Roadhouse years before I started high school, and he gave me my first and only job after I graduated.

  Back then I started as a hostess. Now I’m the bartender. Whether I was greeting them at the door or serving them beers, every guy that comes in here has to take a chance and hit on me. Shame I’m not interested in love anymore.

  “Hey babe, how about a pitcher of Bud and two glasses?” a young cowboy yells after I come around from dropping off the wing baskets.

  “Comin’ right up honey,” I say with a big smile. Bigger smile, bigger tip. My tight tank top and push up bra probably has something to do with that too.

  I set a pitcher under the tap and start the pour. The cowboy that ordered leans over the bar to stare at me. Iris cruises by the bar and slams down five more wing orders. I take a deep breath and send them on back to Miguel. Looking over my shoulder, I see Manny, our big Samoan bouncer, toss a drunk asshole out even as another group of guys and gals walk in.

  It never ends on a November Sunday night at Coach’s Roadhouse. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is my home.

  The beer spills over the rim of the pitcher, so I close the tap, and hand it to the handsome cowboy leaning over the bar. Since I have to lean over to grab two clean pint glasses, I catch the cowboy checking out my breasts.

  “How about your number too, babe?” he says boldly.

  I smile and say, “Sorry honey, I don’t date customers.”

  The truth is that I don’t date anyone, but I leave that part out.

  “You should reconsider,” he says frowning. In the face of rejection he throws down a ten dollar tip anyway. That’s typical. I’m kind of infamous for being hard to get around here. The guys know what to expect, yet they try every time.

  A cheer goes up in the back of the Roadhouse. Some newbie tried to ride the electronic bull and fell off. Probably a girl on her 21st birthday. Everyone else is smart enough to stay off that death trap.

  Even more people come through the front door and even more people put in orders for wings and beer. Of all the nights for Coach Fenton to call in sick, he chose Sunday night in the middle of the football season. After working here for so many years, I’m like a daughter to him. I’ll give him hell when he gets better.

  This is actually an unusual amount of business. My eye catches Iris walking by, so I call my dark-haired, tattooed friend over. She dips between two guys, adjusting the tie that’s holding her curly black hair in a ponytail.

  “Sup babe?” she asks, sweating from the heat of all the people packed into the bar. We’re gonna make a mint tonight, but no doubt we’re way past fire code. No matter how cold it gets outside, it’s always hot and sweaty in the Roadhouse on a busy night.

  “I realize its a Sunday night, but what the fuck? Where are all these peop
le coming from?”

  “Are you dense?” she asks.

  I shrug. I really don’t know what’s she’s talking about.

  “The game, Ash,” she says pointing to the big screen over the bar.

  “Like I give a shit about football,” I say looking up behind me. “Oh, shit.”

  “You didn’t know? You work for Coach Fucking Fenton!” Iris asks. She’s incredulous that I could be so dense about America’s most popular sport especially when I live in Decatur, the high school football capitol of the world. Not to mention the fact that I work for the coach of that high school.

  The real reason that I avoid the sport like the plague is that I have a not-so-great history with its players. In my early 20s, when I actually had an interest in dating, I fell hard for a Dallas player. A wide receiver named Clint Rowland. The asshole broke my heart. He was a sexy, cocky, arrogant jackass, and I thought I loved him. It turned out that he was using me for sex. He made all kinds of promises that he would never keep. I haven’t dated since.

  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.