“I didn’t intend to join the list.”
“Because you don’t want to care about anyone who might actually have real feelings for you?” She gives me a small, vulnerable smile.
“Listen, shit happened in my past that I just can’t let go of . . . not yet, at least.”
“I’ve been through shit, too, Derek. Most of my life is spent trying to wade through it.” She holds her hands up in frustration. “I’m fighting all the time for everything and I don’t see you fighting for anything. It’s like you want to keep punishing yourself for some unknown reason.”
“You’re right.” This independent girl, who plays football and has a thicker skin than most guys I know, makes me want to share stuff with her that I’ve never shared with anyone else. I take a deep breath and let out what I’ve been holding inside for so long. “The day my mom died I got a call after school from one of the nurses at the hospital. She said my mom had been askin’ for me all day.” I throw my head back and wince, because the memory still fucking hurts. I’d do anything to turn back time and do that day over again. “I went to practice first, Ashtyn. I put football before my mom . . . I put it before everythin’ else. When I finally got to the hospital, she was already gone.”
Two days later I stood there watching as they lowered my mom’s casket into the ground. I failed her. Her death was so permanent, so final. I’d never get a second chance to make it up to her. “I vowed I’d never play again after she died.”
“It’s not your fault she died, Derek.” Ashtyn places her hand on my arm, her long feminine fingers warm and comforting. I wish she’d been standing next to me at the gravesite so I wouldn’t have felt so alone that day. Instead, I figured if I stopped caring about anything and everyone, I’d eventually stop feeling anything at all. It worked.
Until I met Ashtyn Parker.
“It’ll be okay,” she says. “One day.” She slips farther under the covers and lays her head on one of the oversize pillows, facing me. She reaches out and grabs my hand.
“You’re tired. Want me to leave?”
“No.” She’s still got a grip on my hand. As her eyes close and she drifts off, she doesn’t let go of my hand.
“Just so you know,” she mumbles as she drifts off to sleep. “I did really crappy at football camp this week. Landon convinced the guys to sabotage me, but your words stuck in my head.”
“What words?”
“You can do it.”
I’m sitting on the bleachers watching Ashtyn do drills in the combine and play during the Friday scrimmage. She has no clue I’m here and I’m trying to stay invisible so none of the guys recognize me—I’m wearing dark sunglasses and a baseball cap while sitting behind a bunch of parents and scouts.
She’s stretching on the sidelines, completely focused. In the first quarter of the game, Ashtyn missed two field goals. I watched the ball holders closely. They tilted the ball when she approached so she’d kick it at an awkward angle. More than a couple of parents in the bleachers laughed at her, and others complained that this is why a girl doesn’t belong playing football.
The more the guys sabotage her, the more I have the urge to run on the field and replace the holder so Ashtyn can show everyone watching that she deserves to be here. But she wouldn’t want that. She wants to fight her own battles.
I lean forward on my elbows as I watch the game. The guys are working hard, every one of them trying to get noticed by the scouts in the stands. McKnight is the quarterback on Ashtyn’s team. He’s a solid player and I can see why Ashtyn would want him on her team. But he’s got an ego and taunts the opposing players when his team scores instead of focusing on the next play.
“Derek! Derek!” a woman’s shrieking voice echoes loudly from the sidelines.
Oh, no. Please, no.
My grandmother is causing a huge scene, holding a bright purple sun umbrella and waving her hand like crazy to get my attention. She’s wearing a big purple pantsuit that matches the umbrella. At first I ignore her, hoping she’ll go away when I don’t respond. Fat chance of that. She’s got the attention of everyone in the stands and on the field.
“Who is that?” one of the parents asks no one in particular.
“Elizabeth Worthington,” a guy sitting in front of her answers in a loud whisper. “She’s the owner of Worthington Industries. Very influential lady. Her grandson trained here until his mother died. Quarterback.”
“Oh. That’s so sad.”
Great. I’ve become the subject of parent gossip. I cringe as my grandmother walks up the bleachers and loudly bellows, “Yoohoo, Derek!”
All the spectators, including the scouts, are gawking and whispering among themselves. I might as well have come here with a sign on my head in fluorescent blinking lights saying DEREK FITZPATRICK.
My grandmother has no clue the commotion she’s caused as she takes a seat next to me. “Please tell me why I had to learn from Harold where you’d gone this morning.”
“Because I didn’t want you to come here and make a scene.”
“Nonsense.” She cranes her neck as she scans the field. “I can’t see Ashtyn from these nosebleed seats. Where is she?”
“She’s the one on the sideline next to the kicking net. I swear if you wave to her I’m ordering you to leave.”
She keeps her hands down. “Okay, okay. Don’t get so cranky.”
“What’s with the sudden interest in football?” I ask her. “You never came to Elite when I was trainin’ here.”
She shifts in her seat and keeps her eyes on the field. “That’s what you think.”
“I never saw you.”
My grandmother turns to me with a mischievous smile. “Maybe that’s because I didn’t want to be seen.” She clears her throat and turns her attention back to the game. “I’ve made mistakes in the past that I don’t intend to repeat.” She glances at me sideways. “You would be wise to do the same.”
Mistakes. I’ve definitely made my share.
After the game, a crowd of scouts surround us and bombard me with questions. So much for being invisible. I tell them I have no plans to play football again, but a few of them give me their cards and tell me to call them if I change my mind.
My grandmother says she’s going to wait for Ashtyn to get out of the locker room, when I catch sight of McKnight walking toward the dorm. I meet up with him in the common area, ready to confront him about sabotaging Ashtyn.
“Holy shit,” fullback Justin Wade says. Justin and I were roommates my third year here. “It’s ‘The Fitz’ in the flesh. Yo, Fitz, where ya been?”
A linebacker named Devon slaps me on the back. “Shit, man, I can’t believe you’re back. I thought you’d still be on the fast track to playin’ in the NFL for sure. When I heard you’d stopped playin’, it shocked the hell outta me.”
“My team got creamed in the scrimmage,” Justin says. “We sure could’ve used you—”
“I’m not here to play,” I tell them.
“Wait a second,” Landon says. “You’re Derek Fitzpatrick?”
“The one and only, dude,” Justin chimes in.
“A legend around here,” Devon adds, then tells Landon, “He’s the one I was telling you about the other night.”
“No way. I can’t believe this.” Landon shakes his head as if he’s still trying to figure out how I can be the guy in the pictures gracing the MVP wall at Elite. “Why are you here?” he asks.
“Just checkin on Ashtyn.”
“Why, ’cause you want her for yourself?” He gestures to the doorway. “You’ve wanted to get into her pants the second you laid eyes on her, man.”
I give a short laugh, the sound reverberating across the room. “You don’t know shit, McKnight.”
“I know everything.” He leans forward and whispers in my ear. “If I tell her I’ll play for Fremont, I can have her back with a snap of my fingers.”
I push him away from me.
He pushes me, then throws a punch.
A bunch of guys try pulling us off each other, but I resist and shrug them off.
Until I hear Ashtyn scream, “Derek!”
I turn toward her voice, see her shocked expression, and get clocked in the jaw. Damn, that hurt. McKnight has a solid right hook.
If that isn’t bad enough, the coaches start rushing in. Coach Smart, the head coach and the one who runs the Elite program, gets in between us. “What the hell is going on here?”
McKnight wipes blood off the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nothin’, Coach.”
“Doesn’t look like nothin’ to me.” He steps between us. “Derek, what the hell are you doing here starting trouble with one of my players?”
His players. I used to be one of his players. “Sorry, Coach.”
He barks orders to one of the assistant coaches to tend to McKnight, then grabs me by the front of my shirt and pulls me into the empty hallway. I think he’s about to kick me out, but instead he gets in my face like he used to do when I was on the field. “You used to be a role model to these guys, Derek.” He grabs my chin, making me wince in pain, as he examines my bruises. “What’s goin’ on with you?”
I shrug.
“Where’s your old man?”
I shrug again. “In the middle of the ocean somewhere.”
He nods, as if somehow my father being deployed explains why I just got in a fight. He shakes his head. “I heard you got kicked out of that academy in California. So you’re getting in trouble instead of playing ball?”
Ashtyn is standing at the door, glaring at me with anger and resentment. My grandmother and her umbrella are behind her.
“You know you should still be playing, don’t you?” Smart says. “You can’t just forget everything you worked hard for.”
“I didn’t forget it, Coach. I don’t play anymore. End of story.”
“Your story can’t end, Derek, because it never even started,” he says.
“This discussion is over, Coach.” I came here to fight for Ashtyn, not me. This isn’t about me.
“Not yet. You know I have zero tolerance for fighting,” Coach says. “You can fight on your own turf and own time, not mine.”
“I’m leavin’,” I say.
“Don’t leave.” McKnight suddenly appears in the hallway with a few of the guys standing behind him. His posse. He holds out his hand. “Sorry, man. No hard feelings.”
I shake my head in disgust and walk past him. I open the door and am about to walk out when I hear McKnight’s voice. “That’s all right, Derek. We all know you’re afraid you can’t live up to your legend status.”
“My grandson isn’t afraid,” my grandmother chimes in. She pokes her umbrella in McKnight’s direction.
I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, I glance at Coach Smart. And McKnight and his posse. And my grandmother. And finally Ashtyn. Every one of them is wondering what I’ll do.
In the end, I do what I’ve been doing since my mom died.
I walk away and don’t look back.
Chapter 48
Ashtyn
I can’t just let him leave. My dad drives off when things get tough and he wants to escape. I won’t let Derek get away that easy, so I stand in front of his car and block his path as he’s about to drive away.
He rolls down his window. “What’re you doin’?”
“Get out of the car!” I yell. When he does, my blood boils and I storm up to him with long, purposeful strides. “You just fucked everything up for me!” I growl, then shove my hands into his chest.
“Stop yellin’,” he says, glancing at the others around us.
“No, I won’t stop yelling, because I’m royally pissed off. You know I’m fighting my ass off here, Derek. I’m fighting to be treated like one of the guys. I’m fighting to prove to everybody that I belong here.” I’m getting emotional and don’t care that everyone within a hundred yards can probably hear my rant. “I’ve been fighting since the second I came to Elite. Get it in your thick head that I don’t want you to fight for me. It just makes me look weak. I need to fight for myself, or it doesn’t count. But dammit, Derek, when are you gonna fight for yourself?”
“Not gonna happen.”
I swallow the knot in my throat and say, “My mom left when I was ten years old. She didn’t give a shit about me, and I have to live every day knowing it. You’re lucky. You know your mom loved you.”
“Lucky?” He gives a short, cynical laugh. “At least your mom is alive and you can talk to her. Do you know what I’d do to talk to my mom for just one minute? One lousy minute! I’d cut off my arm to have just one minute with her.”
“What do you want out of life?” I ask, challenging him to answer. I need to pull it out of him. “What’s your goal? Besides pretending not to care about anything, which I know is complete crap.”
“Don’t have one.”
That’s bullshit. “Everyone has a goal.”
He’s averting his gaze because he knows if he looks at me I’ll see right into his soul. The wounds that should have healed by now are still raw because of the massive amount of guilt he’s carried with him since his mother’s death. He keeps punishing himself for that one decision he made a long time ago.
I know he wants to fight for something . . . deep down he’s got a basic, intense desire to compete. It’s killing him that he’s ignoring his instincts and instead is determined to keep himself a ghost of who he can be.
Joining the military after he graduates is Derek’s way of feeding that competitive fighting spirit . . . he was fighting for me back at the dorm, but my conflict with Landon isn’t Derek’s fight to win—it’s mine.
Landon called Derek a coward. Suddenly it wasn’t about me anymore, and Derek walked away.
Derek defiantly crosses his hands on his chest. “Please move so I can leave.”
“Listen to me.” I lower my voice and say softly, “Shit happens, Derek. Life goes on, whether you want it to or not. People die, whether you want them to or not. Don’t make up some bullshit in your head that you quit football for your mom. She gave you life. You think she’d want your spirit to die right along with hers?”
“Don’t bring my mom into this.”
“Why not? Quitting won’t bring her back. You say you don’t have a goal? That’s bullshit! You need to go for what you want and not hold back. When you figure it out let me know, because I’ll bet my left nut you have a goal but won’t admit to yourself what it is.”
The corner of his mouth twists upward. “You don’t have a left nut, Ashtyn.”
“Yeah, well, you’re acting like you don’t have one, either.” I don’t mention the obvious—that if he doesn’t fight for himself, it’s useless to fight for us. “You need to forgive yourself.”
There’s a long, brittle silence before he says, “I can’t.”
He looks past me and I turn around. His grandmother is standing across the parking lot, pretending not to be paying attention to our conversation. When I turn back, Derek’s running a hand through his hair. “My grandmother wants me to come live with her. I decided it’s probably best for both of us if I stay in Texas and go to school here. I’ll get you a plane ticket back to Chicago on Sunday.”
I let his words sink in as deep sorrow fills my chest. “Is that what you want?”
“Yeah,” he says, his face stoic and unemotional. “That’s what I want.”
Chapter 49
Derek
I drive around the rest of the day, my mind trying to wrap around the idea that I’m staying in Texas and moving in with my grandmother. When I arrive at her house, I find her sitting on a small bench in the foyer waiting for me.
“Where were you?”
&nbs
p; “Out.”
She nods slowly. “I talked to Ashtyn after you left. She’s pretty upset.”
“Yeah, well, she’ll get over it.”
“Hmm.”
I look at her with a mixture of frustration and annoyance. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just think you’re not being rational right now.” She sighs loud and slow. “She said you’re moving in with me.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you that I’m movin’ in. Congrats, you got what you wanted.” I start walking up the winding staircase to the second floor.
“I want you to be happy, Derek. That’s what I’ve always wanted.” She hesitates before saying, “It’s what your mother would have wanted.”
“How do you know? She’s not around to ask now, is she? Want to ask my dad what he thinks? Oh, yeah. He’s not around, either,” I say, sarcasm dripping from every word.
“Well, regardless of who’s around, you have to go back to Chicago to pack up your things if you’re going to move in with me.”
At the top of the stairs, I call out, “Get movers to do it.”
“Nonsense.” She stands tall and puts her regal nose in the air. “I’ve already arranged for the corporate jet to take us back to Chicago.”
I stop dead in my tracks. “Us? Who’s included in ‘us’?”
“You, Ashtyn . . . and me.”
No, no. “Sorry to break the news to you, Grams, but that’s not how it’s goin’ down.”
“Yes, it is. It’s a done deal and everything is already arranged. Harold will be picking up Ashtyn on Sunday at Elite and she’ll meet us at the airport.” She crosses her arms and gives me a dignified stare that dares me to challenge her. “And that’s how it’s goin’ down.”
Chapter 50
Ashtyn
I’m sitting in front of Coach Bennett and Coach Smart on Sunday morning for my final evaluation. I fight the urge to bite my nails as they review my stats and performance this past week. They’re also supposed to share any feedback from the scouts who were present at the scrimmages.
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