Hard to Score

by K. Bromberg

  The stands explode in cheers when Hobbs fails to get the first down. Victory is so close they can taste it.

  And it makes me sick to my stomach.

  I turn my back to the game, unable to watch for one more second.

  “Hey, Bowman?”

  I turn at the sound of Lonnie’s voice. “It’s not your plays,” I say, answering the question he’s been giving me with every game as of late. “It’s Hobbs. It’s—”

  “You’re in next sequence.”

  I do a double take at his words. “Come again?”

  Did I hear him right?

  “We have five minutes left. You think you can pull this off? You think you can find a way to pull a touchdown out of your ass?”

  My grin is my answer as I pull my helmet on and snap it into place.

  The next minute goes by in a blur. Hobbs loses the ball in a turnover. He stares at me as he jogs off the field with a mixture of confusion and relief when he sees my helmet on talking to the coordinator.

  Then I wait.

  As our defense holds the line and prevents Georgia from advancing. As they force a punt into our hands.

  It’s showtime.

  When I jog onto the field, the only thing I can hear is my pulse pounding in my ears. Not the fans cheering. Not the guys arguing in the huddle. Just my pulse and the confidence that I can do this. That all those nights putting extra time on a darkened field beside the stadium are going to pay off right now. This is what I’ve worked for. This is my strength. I’m the goddamn QB1.

  Get the job done, Bowman.

  “We’ve got two minutes left. Plenty of time to score,” I say to the guys all looking at me in the huddle before reading off the play to them.

  “Right out of the gate?” my tight end asks about my plan.

  “Right out of the gate,” I say with a nod and a grin.

  The ball is set.

  The cadence is shouted.

  The ball is snapped into my hands.

  I dance back into the pocket, hoping the line holds to buy enough time for Nix to get downfield.

  C’mon. C’mon. C’mon.

  I see the first break on the right side as a Falcon pushes through. I take a few steps to the right as he’s yanked down by my lineman.

  Get there. Get there. Get there.

  Another breach on the right side.

  But this time I don’t move away.

  This time I pull back and let it fly.

  The ball sails in the air and a moment later I’m struck, thrown through the air, and hit the ground with a grunt. The lineman is on top of me but my head is angled to our sidelines so I see the entire bench celebrate.

  Arms raised. Fists pumping. Fingers pointing at me as they jump up and down.

  As my running back and my Hail Mary cross into the end zone.

  BREXTON

  I VIBRATE WITH ANTICIPATION AS I wait for him to get here.

  Pride all but bursts in my chest as I relive the moment over and over. Drew’s unexpected substitution for Hobbs. My cheers of support in my empty apartment to a TV screen. The Hail Mary. Its gorgeous spiral forty yards downfield. The roar of the crowd when Nix caught it. The Raptors winning because of it.

  I’ve been on a high ever since.

  And not just for the Raptors’ win. For Drew. For him to touch the field and make a difference has to be a huge boost to his ego. To his pride. To his status on the team. And all of the above hopefully do a number on that self-confidence of his.

  Drew fucking Bowman just showed the world that he is the real deal, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

  When he gets to my door, I fling it open before he can even finish knocking, and launch myself into his arms with a squeal of excitement.

  My greeting comes in my kisses with my legs wrapped around his waist and “that was incredible” over and over.

  It comes in laughter and praise and love.

  So much love.

  And I show him just how much of it when we stumble to the couch before I start stripping his clothes off.

  BREXTON

  “DO YOU REALLY HAVE TO go?” I groan as he crawls over where I’m lying in my bed and plants another long, sweet kiss on my lips.

  Then he winces followed by a curse and a chuckle as he sits up on his knees. “I forgot what it feels like to be hit like that in a game.” He looks down to where a bruise has blossomed right beneath his rib cage.

  “Poor baby. Let me kiss it and make it all better,” I murmur and do just that. But then I let my mouth slide lower until he fists a hand in my hair and pulls my head back so my mouth can’t reach where I was angling to reach.

  “You don’t play fair.” His smile is devastating. Everything about him is really, as he sits in my bed in the bright morning light looking at me with eyes that reflect exactly how I feel about him back at me.

  It’s heady. It’s wonderful. It’s the best thing ever, and the grin that crawls on my lips says just that.

  “Never.” I press another kiss to right above the waistband of his jeans. “And that’s a promise for later.”

  “Later?” He leans down and kisses me again. But what starts out as a peck ends up with my hands threading through the hair at the back of his neck and me deepening the kiss.

  “I’m not ready for you to go yet,” I say and then brush my lips to his again.

  “Films,” he says with a resolute nod as his fingers slide their way beneath the covers before he hisses out a groan and pulls it back. “I have to go watch films.”

  “Sounds boring.”

  He offers me a pained look that makes me smile. I’m glad it’s as hard for him to leave my bed as it is for me to watch him walk away.

  “It’s especially boring when I know you’re here.” He scoots off the bed, grabs his T-shirt, and puts it on. “Warm and inviting—”

  “And wet and willing.” My smile is coy and his groan is one of regret.

  “You’re cruel.” He laughs.

  “And you’re incredible.” He stops mid-motion and stares at me as emotion pools in his eyes. “You are. You have to know that. Not just on the field, Drew, but in real life. Everything you balance, everything you try to do and try to be, you are simply incredible.”

  And I mean every word of what I say, because as I lay in bed this morning watching him sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about the weight of the world on his shoulders. Duty and integrity and his own career, and how he balances it all so that no one else knows the difficulties—because he hides them so well.

  “Thank you,” he says with the softest of smiles that tells me he hears me. That he knows I see the real man beneath his many layers, and I love him more because of them.

  He watches me scoot out of bed, his eyes scraping over my bare skin as if he’s remembering all of the glorious ways he pleasured it last night and before.

  I hold his gaze and only break it momentarily as I slide an old V-neck T-shirt I commandeered the last time he left it behind.

  “Tonight then?” I ask.

  “Only if you promise to be waiting just like that. My shirt and nothing else.”

  “Oh, you didn’t like the lingerie last night?”

  His grin is lightning quick. “On second thought . . .”

  We laugh as I follow him out into the living area of my place, our hands linked, and he places one more goodbye kiss on my lips.

  “I’ll see you lat—” But he never finishes his sentence because when he opens my door, my father is standing there just about to knock.

  I can’t see Drew’s face, but I do see the jolt and the slow shock flicker through my dad’s expression.

  “Drew,” my father says in greeting. My heart leaps into my throat with that sudden fear of being caught, causing my pulse to race.

  Drew steps back and looks at me and then my dad. “Sir.” It’s all he says followed by a nod. But his eyes are wide and his skin is pale, and I can only imagine the million things running through his head right now.

/>   “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” my dad says as he stands there, his cheeks suddenly heating when realization hits him that I’m in a man’s T-shirt and nothing else. And Drew is the one here with me.

  “You didn’t—it wasn’t—he was just going . . .” I shake my head and die a little of embarrassment, but it’s Drew I’m worried about. When I glance at him, he looks horrified. I’m not exactly sure what it is he needs from me in this moment. There’s nothing I can do to make this go away. His confusion, his discord, his discomfort.

  “I saw the game last night.” My dad steps into my apartment, as if he can’t let this moment pass. “One of the best plays I’ve seen in a long time. It stands right up there with Rodgers against the Lions,” he says referring to the Green Bay Packers quarterback and his famous Hail Mary in 2015 to win the game.

  “Thank you, but I doubt it.” Drew simply stands there and stares at my dad. It’s like he’s seeing a ghost.

  “Nah, it was an incredible play. You should be proud of yourself.”

  “I need to uh—get going. Play review.” He looks over to me and I smile trying to make this as normal as can be—when it’s nothing of the sort.

  “Okay. I’ll call you later,” I say.

  “Sir,” Drew says.

  “Drew?” my dad says, causing Drew to pause. He doesn’t speak but rather just meets my father’s stare. He looks like a lost little boy, and I wish I could do something to take whatever is going through his head away from him. All I can do is stand by and watch him struggle. “It was really good seeing you again after all these years.”

  Drew lowers his head a beat before nodding and then shuts the door behind him without saying another word.

  My father and I both stare at the closed door as I debate how to tiptoe around the incredible awkwardness. My lies, and my dad finding out, not to mention just the plain weirdness of being caught by my dad with a man in my place. I don’t care how old you are, that’s always embarrassing.

  Anxious and needing something to do with my hands, I pull my hair up into a messy bun and start to make coffee.

  “Do you want some?” I ask as if none of what just happened transpired.

  “Sure. Yes.” He blows out a sigh and takes a seat at my counter on a barstool. “Christ.”

  “I’m hoping that last part isn’t because I had a man in my apartment. I’m a grown woman who—”

  “That last part was because you missed our morning meeting, you haven’t been answering your phone, and I was worried enough about you to come and make sure you were okay since you’ve never done that before.”

  I drop my head and stare at the coffee percolating into the mug. Well, that’s a first for me. I was so wrapped up in Drew that I lost track of time. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry. I was—”

  “Busy,” he finishes for me. “So I saw.”

  I slide the first mug of coffee over to him without meeting his eyes and then wait for my cup to fill, as I try to figure out how to explain everything.

  “Is this the reason you’ve been avoiding me?” he finally asks, breaking the silence.

  “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

  “No?”

  I meet his eyes for the first time and hate the guilt that hits me immediately. “No.”

  “Because you’ve gone out of your way to make sure you’re not alone in the office with me. We’ve had no talks over lunch in the conference room like we usually do. In fact, you’ve been scarce in person as of late.”

  “Like I said, I’ve been busy.”

  His chuckle is a low rumble that tells me he’s not buying my excuse and honestly, I wouldn’t either.

  “Did you think I’d be mad at you?” he asks.

  “No.” The word comes out way too fast and I follow it up with a shrug, a long stare into my coffee, and then, “I don’t know.”

  “It would be a shame and horribly unfair for someone else to hold all of the mistakes I’ve made in my life against one of my daughters.” My eyes find his. They see compassion, lack of judgment, and hurt. “I’d hate that you’d think I’d do something of a similar nature.”

  I nod and hate that tears fill my eyes. “He thinks you were a part of it or at fault for whatever happened to his dad.”

  “He’s told you that?”

  “No, but it’s been hinted at.”

  “And you’ve hidden your relationship with him because you’re afraid if I was at fault, I’d be upset.” The statement is made as if he’s trying to figure out my train of thought.

  “I know you didn’t do anything. You never would.”

  “And yet you questioned it.”

  I don’t respond but just meet his stare as my cheeks heat with shame.

  “Gary Bowman was my closest friend. He was like my brother. All I can tell you, Brex, is that I know the character of the man I once knew. I know he loved his family with everything he had and loved his sport just as much. When the news came out that he was suspected of throwing a game, I was just as shocked as everyone else. Your mom and I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t believe it. But when he walked away without a word, I feared it was true. Whatever he did, he had to have a reason he felt that justified it.”

  I chew my bottom lip. “Then why does Drew think you were involved somehow?”

  “Maybe it was easier for Gary to put blame on me. To salvage whatever relationship he could with his son, because that was more important than anything.”

  “Doesn’t that infuriate you?” I ask.

  “I’m simply speculating, honey, but if there’s one thing I learned from being a parent, it’s this: before you have kids, you swear up one side and down the other that you’d never do this or that . . . but when you’re staring down an uncertain future and worried about the well-being of your children, worried you’re going to lose them in some way or another—grief, anger, whatnot—sometimes you do or say things without thinking. In the moment, all you can think about is not losing that person too.”

  There’s a sadness in his eyes that tells me he just might understand that feeling. Each of us went through stages of grief after our mom died. There was never a time when we were on the same page with the stage of grief we were in. As our father was trying to keep our family from imploding, he must have felt like a firefighter putting different fires out on a daily basis. Doing anything to help us while processing his own loss at the same time.

  His words hit me hard. As a kid, I never thought twice about how we were taken care of, but now as an adult, I can only imagine that it must have been exhausting.

  I stare at my father with so much love in my heart and wish Drew could see him for the incredible man I see him as.

  “Can you talk to him, Dad? Can you explain that all to him? I mean—”

  “No.” He stops me with his soft smile and gentle voice. “It’s not my place to step in between the relationship of a father and a son.”

  “But it’s wrong. It’s—”

  “Who am I to Drew, honey? I’m no one but an old memory. If he’s going to figure out the truth it has to be on his own accord, or he’ll never really believe it.”

  I set my cup of coffee down and press my fingers to my eyes. Worry hits me again, that Drew and I can love each other all we want, but this rift will never be healed.

  “He took me to Lake George. To see our handprints. Mom’s handprints.” I’m not sure why I feel the need to tell him that, but I feel so much better sharing it with him. I’ve been desperate to share it with Dekker, Lennox, and Chase, but how could I possibly explain how I got the photos?

  It’s been eating at me.

  All of this secrecy has.

  His smile reaches his eyes as they grow misty. “She loved that place. Those memories we made as a family there.”

  And Drew gave them to me again.

  My mind sticks on that one thought and I can’t let go of it.

  “I love him, Dad.”

  “I know.”

  “
How?”

  “He’s important enough to make you lose track of time, that’s how I know.”

  It’s my turn to smile. It’s my turn to realize how wrong I was keeping this from my dad. “What now though? This thing will always be between us somehow.”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  “That doesn’t help.” I laugh.

  “If love were easy everyone would be in it. But it isn’t and everyone’s not.”

  “That didn’t help either.”

  His smile deepens as he rises from his seat, walks over to where I stand, and presses a kiss to my temple. “If Drew’s anything like the kid I once knew—intelligent, contemplative, curious—he’ll figure it out.”

  “But what if he doesn’t pick me?” My voice breaks and his expression falls at the sound of it.

  “You never want someone to have to pick between you and their family. It would never work. There would always be resentment and bitterness that lingers.” He pulls me in for one of those bear hugs that makes you feel like a little girl again and that he has all the answers. “He has to choose you. To want to be with you. To know things will get sticky sometimes but that is how life is.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “You and Drew have had a connection since you were kids. You finished each other’s sentences, you annoyed each other, you stared at each other when the other wasn’t looking, hoping to be noticed. Stay the course. Have patience when you feel like there’s nothing left to hold on to, honey.”

  He knocks on the doorjamb with his knuckles, almost as if he’s completing the one he never got to land when Drew opened the door. I’m not sure why that strikes me, but it does.

  He could have come here in anger, scowling and in no way kind to Drew when he first saw him. He could have scolded me for making him worry.

  But he didn’t.

  Rather, he evaluated the situation in the present instead of harboring anger from the past. He treated Drew with respect, praised his game even, when I’m sure every part of the protective father he is wanted to ask questions and demand answers.