Page 18 of Perfect Storm (Toronto Thunder #1)

Levi braced against the turf, hitting the defensive end who launched himself in Levi’s direction. It was a solid defensive move, even if the guy was slighter bigger than Levi. But Levi was stronger and faster, and he managed to shuck him off.

But it didn’t matter.

He heard a grunt behind him, and the moment Levi had taken care of his assignment, he turned back, and sure enough, Aidan’s ass was on the ground. Ross was looking at his quarterback and Nate, the edge rusher, who’d just taken him out before Aidan could even get rid of the ball.

Sure, Bishop was a killer defensive player. He gave lots and lots of teams fucking headaches during games. He was never going to be an easy assignment to block.

Except the whole point was to learn how to block guys like Nate Bishop every single week. Guys like Watt and Garrett and Henrickson and Parsons.

Before Ross could do it, Levi extended a hand and helped Aidan up. “You okay, bro?” he asked.

Aidan nodded, but there was a white tenseness around his mouth.

“Yeah, you good?” Nate asked, his casual touch lingering on his shoulder.

“Sure, yeah. It was a good clean hit,” Aidan said, patting Nate back.

Right. Of course Aidan would be sensitive to that, after last year. But when he squinted his eyes and looked around, Nate wasn’t who his eyes locked on to. It was Ross.

Levi half expected Aidan to say something to Ross. He’d be absolutely within his rights to do it, because he’d been the one who’d ended up on the ground.

But he didn’t. Instead he just gave Zane a nod, and they went to run the play again.

This time Aidan didn’t end up with his ass tackled to the turf, but he had to throw the ball away too early, hitting Jaden on the outlet route, instead of Trevor deeper.

“That would’ve been a first down if you could’ve hung on to the ball,” Coach Zane pointed out.

Levi gave Aidan a fuck ton of credit. He didn’t argue. He didn’t blame Ross. He just nodded, and then ran it again, and again, and then again.

Once out of eight runs, Aidan hit Trevor on the deep crossing route. That was it.

For an offense that was going to be structured around their two tight ends—Trevor and his stepbrother, Lane—it was not a stellar beginning.

As they walked into the locker room, breaking for lunch and their afternoon meetings, Levi stared at Aidan’s sweaty neck.

He wanted to say something. Not just to Aidan but to Coach Ned. Suggest that they try that same play again, but after rearranging the line. Swapping him and Ross. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure he could block Nate Bishop but he did think he was a better player than Ross.

“Hey,” Levi said, hurrying up to catch up with Aidan, nudging him with an elbow in the side.

Aidan glanced over at him. He looked tense, still, and Levi wasn’t sure he could blame him.

Offensive line problems would doom an entire team.

Make it hard for them to score. And if the offense couldn’t hang on to the ball, there was way too much pressure on the defense, not to mention inflating their playing time.

The best football teams—the ones who made it to the playoffs and then won—were the ones who kept everything in balance.

The Thunder were not in balance right now. There was always time. Teams could find it during the season, but it was harder if the pieces weren’t already there.

“What’s up?” Aidan asked.

“I could ask you the same question,” Levi said.

Aidan sighed. “We’re gonna get there. We’ve not run many two tight end formations yet.”

Right. Because Trevor was a rookie. They’d had more tight ends than Lane on the roster last year, of course, but it took a higher quality player to run the kind of plays that Zane had designed. Lane and Trevor were perfect for them, if Aidan could get the protection he needed.

“I can see the vision,” Levi said, trying to be optimistic. The vision was there. But if they couldn’t move the vision to the field and execute, there was no point how fucking good it was.

“Me too,” Aidan said, frustration leaking into his voice. They turned a corner, heading into the locker room.

“Maybe this afternoon’ll be better,” Levi said.

Aidan shot him a look that spoke volumes. He didn’t think it would. Levi didn’t really think so either.

They cleaned up. Ate lunch. Went to meetings. Levi filmed a fun segment for the social media team, introducing himself and sharing some of his likes/dislikes to help the fans get to know him better.

Then they were back at it on the field, Coach Ned looking resigned as he listed off the line assignments. He didn’t shift Levi to the left, but he did adjust the play. Trevor—the bigger of the two tight ends—wouldn’t be running a route but staying back to help Ross block Nate.

It was an erosion of the original vision, but worse than that, it actually worked.

Levi never had trouble taking extra blocking help in certain games. Some teams rushed more reliably and had better quality pass rushers. A tight end on the line could mean the difference between a clean game and allowing a bunch of sacks.

But to have to do it in practice, just because they were trying to work on running plays?

Fucking embarrassing.

After practice, Levi caught Coach Ned’s arm as he was picking up a bunch of cones from the last set of drills they’d run at the end.

“Hey, Coach,” Levi said.

“Banks.” He looked like he knew exactly why Levi was talking to him. Everyone probably knew why. Levi could see Ross walking slowly towards the locker room entrance, eyes still on the field. He probably knew it too.

Levi half expected some muttered, under-his-breath comment when he got into the locker room himself. But he’d take Ross’ anger if it meant they could fix this problem.

“You know I can play left tackle.”

Coach looked over at him, finally meeting his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Move me over tomorrow.” It was hard to know, being new to the team and new to Coach Ned’s leadership, just how to broach the subject.

How to correctly pitch the suggestion so it had the most chance of landing right.

Levi had debated all during the last drill and had finally come to the conclusion that the most blunt way—cutting through all the crap—was the best tactic here.

It’d let Coach know, also, just how serious Levi was.

Coach Ned shoved his hat off, and set it back in place only after he’d finished running a hand through his hair. Levi was pretty sure he was doing it to give himself a minute to think. But Levi also knew there was no way he hadn’t already considered this option.

“Banks.” Coach sighed. “This isn’t a small thing you’re asking.”

“I know.” He knew. It wasn’t as simple as tossing him to the other side and letting Ross take the right tackle spot.

Maybe Ross had no experience playing right tackle.

Plus, there was the delicate balance of winning football games and your players’ egos.

None of the coaching staff wanted to go scorched earth on Ross.

Hell, Levi didn’t even want to go scorched earth on Ross.

“I’m not quite ready to try it yet. Tomorrow we’re going back to drilling fundamentals. Work on everyone’s basics.”

Levi stifled a groan. What Coach meant was that they wanted to work on Ross’ fundamentals and everyone else was going to suffer as a result.

“We’ll see if that makes a difference,” Coach said, sounding like he was trying for optimism.

Levi couldn’t dredge up the same. He’d looked Ross up during lunch.

The guy was thirty-three now and his speed and reaction time probably weren’t something that could be fixed by drills.

Age had come for him, the way it came for all of them, eventually.

“Sure thing.”

“Expect you to help set the tone, Banks,” Coach said, patting him on the shoulder.

“You got it, Coach,” Levi said.

Griff cornered him when he got into the locker room. “So?” he asked.

Levi glanced around. Ross was already gone—probably in the showers.

“No dice,” Levi said. “We’re drilling tomorrow.”

“Fuck,” Griff said earnestly.

“Pretty much my thought.” Levi gave him a supportive slap on the back. “Tomorrow’s gonna suck.”