Page 52 of Faking the Pass

A Pretty Good Indicator

P resley— Super Bowl Sunday

Not my first time experiencing the Super Bowl down on the field with my team, but it was the one that would put me in the record books as the winningest quarterback in Super Bowl history.

All around me my teammates were cheering and jumping and running around waving championship t-shirts, their hair and uniforms decorated in ticker tape still falling from bags near the dome’s ceiling. Some were even crying.

A series of slaps on my back made me turn around where I found Merc and Wilder, who’d made their way from the stands to the field.

Dylan and I had already hugged and congratulated each other before he’d run off to celebrate with his other friends on the team.

“Congratulations man,” Merc said. “If the Nauties had to kick our asses, at least you made it count.”

“Next year. You’ll get your shot next year,” I told him.

He gave me a hug then yelled “Ryno!” as he spotted a Nauticals player he’d played with in the past and went off to congratulate him.

“You did it,” Wilder said. “Eight Super Bowl wins. You are officially the G.O.A.T., brother.”

“Thanks man. It feels good.”

“Does it?” he asked, studying my face.

“Of course. Yeah, sure,” I said.

“Okay, well I’m just asking because you don’t seem all that excited,” he said.

“I am,” I said.

But honestly? I was having a hard time getting excited about anything these days.

I’d tried to go back to my old life after Rosie had left, and things with the team had certainly gone according to plan. You couldn’t argue with the results of training your focus solely on football.

When we’d made the playoffs, I’d tried to enjoy it, knowing that it was never a guarantee, especially considering the way things had started off this season.

When we won the division, I was happy for the team owner and Coach Maddox and of course the guys, and I was proud of myself for doing my job well, but that was about the extent of it.

Today, of course, had gone the way we’d all wanted it to. I couldn’t complain.

But the record didn’t seem as important as it once had, and the goals I’d set for myself this season all seemed hollow now that I’d achieved them.

Now that she was gone.

On every occasion when I should have been celebrating, the strongest thing I felt was the absence of the person I wanted to celebrate with most.

My wife.

At times when I thought of her, I was absolutely fucking pissed.

Most often though, I just missed her. I hadn’t heard from her, and I hadn’t reached out.

What was I going to do? Beg her to come back when she’d made it extremely clear that a life with me wasn’t what she wanted?

Looking over at my brother, who’d been through some hard shit himself, to say the least, I decided to be honest.

“It’s just… nothing really feels like it matters, you know?”

He nodded. “I get it. Your priorities change when you fall in love.”

“Well we never really said, ‘I love you,’” I told him. “Not when we were lucid and not in the middle of sex.”

Would it have made a difference if I’d said it more? It was too late to know, though now I wished I’d at least tried it.

“Doesn’t change a damn thing, does it?” Wilder asked. “I spent over a decade not telling Jessica I loved her, and look how that turned out.”

“Yeah well, not everybody gets the fairytale ending. And whether Rosie and I loved each other or not, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” I said. “I’m kind of sorry I ever met her.”

“She loved you, too,” Wilder assured me, sounding so certain I almost believed him. “Even if it really is over with her, I’d like to see you having more of a life. Records won't love you back. There are more fulfilling things than a job or money or the NFL.”

Didn’t I know it.

I’d had fulfillment. I’d had the love of my life, and I’d let her walk right out of it.

I’d even paid for the fucking plane ticket.

I was sorry now that I’d signed those divorce papers so rashly.

Maybe if I’d stayed in control of my emotions, talked Rosie into getting in the car and coming back to our house, I could have persuaded her somehow not to leave.

Maybe not. But I regretted throwing in the towel the way I did. Now it was too late.

She was gone, and we were divorced.

“That’s easy for you to say,” I told my brother. “You have your wife.”

“There was nothing easy about it,” Wilder said with a rueful laugh. “Opening myself up to Jess and letting myself love her and finally be with her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done—and the best.”

He paused a minute before speaking again. “Jessica saw Rosie when she was in Los Angeles last week.”

“Yeah?” I hated the hopeful note in my own voice.

“She said she looked rough,” Wilder said. “They got pretty close during your marriage, you know? She thinks Rosie’s having just as hard a time with this as you are.”

“I doubt it.”

I basically had one foot in the grave. Everything I’d seen in the news and on social media about her indicated she was doing just fine.

“Why don’t you reach out to her?” Wilder suggested. “It might be good for you both, if only to get some closure.”

“I think her presenting me with divorce papers literally a minute after the threat of the lawsuit passed is a pretty good indicator that the matter is closed.”

“She doesn’t love me,” I said flatly. “If she did, she wouldn’t have left.”

“Or… she left because she did love you.” Wilder said.

“What’s that supposed to mean? That makes no sense.”

“That’s what I did with Jess,” he explained. “After what happened with my SEAL team, I had this thing about loyalty. You know Hap never wanted any of his friends to date his sister, right?”

I nodded, recalling how fiercely protective Jessica’s older brother had been—still was.

“So of course that was an impediment,” Wilder said. “But it wasn’t the biggest one. I was convinced I wouldn’t be good for her. I thought my stained reputation would drag her down with me. And then I beat myself up after the incident at Coachella, convinced I’d failed her.”

“I remember.”

“The point is, we loved each other, and we almost lost each other because I kept finding ways to make myself wrong for her. I believed in her, but I didn’t believe in myself for her—until I had a talk with Hap.”

“And flew to Venice,” I said. “And swam that nasty water like a prime idiot.”

Wilder grinned. “Smartest thing I ever did. Wound up with the perfect wife.”

The perfect wife.

That’s what Rosie had been—perfect for me at least. And I’d let her go.

But this was different from Wilder and Jessica’s story. They’d been madly in love with each other. I loved Rosie, but I didn’t know about her feelings.

Based on the fact I hadn’t heard from her once in over three months, they weren’t anything you could base a real “till death do us part” relationship on.

“You did,” I agreed with my brother. “Now can we change the subject please before I climb to the top of the stadium and jump?”

He laughed. “Sure. You ready for the big Lowe family camping trip next week?”

Each year at the end of football season, we all camped together, getting away from everything for three weeks.

The location varied, but it was always somewhere warm and always in a remote tech-free area where we could detox from social media and press coverage and just spend time together, having fun during the days and talking around the campfire at night.

I shook my head, wincing.

“I might skip it this year actually,” I said. “I’m not in the best place, you know? I’m gonna ruin the vibe.”

“The family ‘vibe’ is exactly what you need right now. You need to be with the people who love you. You gotta come. It won’t feel right without you,” Wilder said.

There was a lot of that going around.

Nothing had felt right since Rosie had left.

“Besides, we’ve all planned a sort of intervention to convince you to go after Rosie,” he confessed. “Don’t tell them I told you. We all miss her. And nobody’s real excited about the return of Presley the Grump.”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

“Camping or reaching out to Rosie?” he asked.

“Both.”