Page 5

COACH

I’ll send you the clip. You went weak on the slant.

Yeah, I felt that. When I’m flushed left out of the pocket next time, I’ll hit it.

COACH

Just do better.

Did you talk to Todd? He didn’t come with us.

COACH

If Todd won a Super Bowl and wants to cry in the hotel like a baby, let him. Guy is a free agent soon anyway. I won’t bow to any player, Fitzy. Neither should you.

If someone saw my phone, they might think I was on the losing team. And to be honest? I feel like it. And I don’t blame Todd. If I was benched for three quarters of a difficult game and thrown in for the last few minutes after we got the lead out of pity, I wouldn’t want to celebrate either.

But I still try to get him here.

Just one drink, Todd. You got us here. Doesn’t feel right celebrating without you, man.

TODD

I’m not celebrating being punished for doing the right thing. I’m not some abused dog that keeps coming back for pats. This team isn’t for me anymore. I’ve got options.

Come on. Let’s talk.

Todd

Nothing to talk about. We’re straight, Fitzy. You’re the man. Go celebrate.

Returning my attention to the screen, my response to Todd is sidelined when Nick T-bones me with a text.

Nick

I know who you’re talking to.

Glancing around, I search for him, but it’s impossible to see anyone apart from those around me. The rest of the club outside the VIP section is packed.

Nick replies with a photo where I just barely make myself out, and I roll my eyes.

Nick

Most players are hugging their WOMEN. Not texting their washed-up coaches.

Plenty of fish in the sea tonight. Maybe one is girlfriend material. It’s about time you entered your boyfriend era. This way they’ll be more for the press to talk about other than you and FOLLER!!!!

I reach across the table, but realize the bottle is empty. Twisting, I scan for a waitress. I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea for them to be wearing Rebels jerseys as uniforms. At this point, I could offend ninety percent of everyone here by asking for another round.

I nudge Josh, but he’s too blasted to care. His, wife, Lo, steals his glass from his hand when I get up. But it doesn’t faze him—he snatches her hand and pulls her in for a kiss. I leave the two of them making out like teenagers.

With my head down, I move to the bar in the cornered-off VIP area. For a second, I contemplate leaving. I came, I saw, I conquered, I drank enough, and I’m sure whatever urge I have to drink more will simmer down the moment I get to my hotel room and pass the fuck out because even though we won tonight, my body took two sacks worth of a beating.

There’s a tug at my t-shirt. “Where are you off to, champ?”

I find a petite blonde at my side. She runs her fingers down my arm, her long nails dragging along the skin.

This could go one of two ways. One just gives me a little company before I sleep alone tonight.

She tilts her head. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“It’s an open bar.”

Blondie smirks. “Can I buy you a drink somewhere else, then?”

The strobing lights let me see her hand slide down to mine, but I step away before she can link our fingers. Tonight at least, I’m not this kind of guy, the one who takes an opening from a beautiful, willing woman and runs with it. Been there, done that. The truth is, I’m not in the mood to party in a club or in my hotel bed. Not after tonight’s win which came with a loss.

I head to the bar, deciding one more drink should be enough to cloud over my head enough that I fall asleep not dreaming of throwing picks or my benched guys.

“Tito’s on the rocks, please.” It’s so loud I have to repeat my order to the woman bartending, but that’s not her fault. She turns, leaving number 27—Todd’s number—facing me.

I drum my fingers against the dark, shiny wood, trying to avoid lifting my head because that will require me to smile, to engage, when all of this feels so damn meaningless. I lift my drink when it’s placed in front of me but the glass doesn’t make it all the way to my mouth when I see what’s written on the napkin.

I squint and focus to get a more careful read because I can’t see what I think I see. No way. I just said this all felt meaningless. Now, I’m looking at two words with a shit ton of meaning.

Rebels Only.

My immediate reaction is to look up and scan the area as intensely as I do when I’m looking for a break in the defense, but instead, I wonder if someone slipped something into one of my earlier drinks.

“All good?”

Before I flick my eyes up, I brace myself in case I hallucinate Parker on the other side of the bar. But the only one I find is a redheaded bartender who most certainly isn’t Parker.

I clutch the napkin like someone might steal it as I twist and turn. But god help me, it’s so packed in here it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack considering everyone is in team merch or a jersey.

When I turn the napkin over, my eyes bulge.

555-459-3137

xx--P

I frantically pull my phone from my back pocket. My hands shake more than they ever have from pregame nerves.

Where are you?

I push send while keeping my head on a swivel. But everyone who finds me is no one I’m looking for.

Captain America!

Rhodes of the Rebels!

Fitzy!

For fuck’s sake.

With a bit of the shakes, I bring the short glass to my lips, downing half of it in one gulp.

555-459-3137

Can I steal you for a minute?

This isn’t funny. Who is this?

555-459-3137

Live a little, Fitzy.

Go out the exit by the bathrooms and hang right, I’ll meet you.

“What are you doing?” Josh slings a heavy arm around me. “Why are you drinking alone ?”

I leave my glass half empty. “I’m out.”

Josh lifts his wrist, as if he expects to find a watch when he never wears one. “It’s only like?—”

“Two in the damn morning.” I pull out my wallet and stick a fifty-dollar bill beneath the glass. “See you in the AM.”

“I thought you said it was the morning.”

“ Later in the morning, you idiot.”

I wind my way through the crowd in search of the bathrooms. I still have the note clutched in my hand, and under the strobing light, I try to take a better look at the handwriting. Maybe I’m drunk out of my mind. I must be. This could be some sick joke, even though Parker isn’t someone I share about. But then I remember Nick and the fact that, when I was indeed drunk out of my mind years ago, I did tell him everything. And show him the tattoo.

If he’s behind this, I’m going to kick his ass.

I duck into the men’s room, pushing open a stall and pulling my pants partly down. The fact that I’m trying to compare the writing on a cocktail napkin against a copy of Parker’s handwriting from when we were in high school is indeed absolutely ridiculous. But I swear, the R s look the same. The L s could go either way.

“Fuck,” I mumble before pushing open the stall and heading back into the hallway. I head away from the music, seeing the door with the Exit sign.

And a security guard standing next to it.

“You good, champ? Front door is that way. Just an alley back here.”

I’m fucking sweating. “Can I just go get some air?”

“You need some help, man?”

“No, it’s…”

I’m about to say It’s nothing, never mind , but instead, I decide I’ll just turn around and stop making a complete ass of myself and pretend this never happened. But the moment I give the guy my back, I’ve redirected my heart forward in the direction it’s always pointed.

“It’s personal,” I finish.

Without a blink, my eyes abandon Parker’s face only because they’re drawn by something else—the number five on the Rebels jersey she wears.

My jersey.

I think of all the times in high school I imagined spotting Parker in the bleachers waving to me, smiling as she pointed to her cheek with my number painted on it like all the other guys’ girlfriends did. That never happened. Not once. When it came to Parker, my dreams were always out of reach.

I need something here to tell me this isn’t a dream. I need to know the woman inching toward me, the woman with the warm brown eyes, is really an extension of the girl I grew up with—the first girl I fell in love with.

Maybe the only one I ever actually loved.

When she opens her mouth to speak, my breath gets trapped in the back of my throat.

“Hey, Fitzy.”

I’ve always hated when people called me that.

Except…

“Parker.” A mix of disbelief and relief accompanies her name.

She takes a small step and launches herself at me. As a quarterback, I don’t catch all too many passes. But now, I’m the world’s strongest receiver. It would take all the linemen in the League to make me let go of her .

“Oh, my god….Hi.”

Parker sounds the same, even though she feels different. But we’re both different. How we hold each other, how I lift her feet off the ground, is something Fitz of the past never would’ve done. But Fitz now? If Parker let me, I’d never let her touch the ground again.

I’m struggling to think about anything other than how her smooth cheek feels squeezed against my scruff. “It’s really you, right?”

“It would be pretty awkward if it wasn’t.” She loosens her hold so she can lean back. “Don’t you think?”

Awkward isn’t exactly how I’d describe this moment. Perfect seems a lot more fitting.

“Everything alright?”

Five. Parker waits five seconds before breaking free from my hold and sliding back to the ground. Those five seconds are better than the last five hours after winning the Super Bowl.

“It’s okay, Jax,” she tells the security guard. “We’re together.”

We’re together.

I hope she doesn’t realize I sway.

“You sure, Clara?” he asks.

Clara?

I revisit the idea that someone did indeed slip something into my drink.

“It’s fine. Come on, Fitz.” Parker steps around me. Her arm brushes against mine. Instant fucking goosebumps.

Maybe I should ask where we’re going before I start following. But I’m too dumbstruck, too confused by the ghost I’m trailing down a dark hallway illuminated by only the red of the Exit sign above a door at the end of it. But it gives me just enough light to show me how the ends of her dark hair tied into a ponytail sway over the tops of the letters spelling my name.

God, I never want to forget the sight.

And I never, ever want to forget the moment when Parker stops and turns around, beckoning me with wiggling fingers. Out comes the smile, and I know I’m still a goner for her.

Atlanta’s mild winter air hits me, but it does little to cool my body off. If Parker notices my hand burns in hers, she doesn’t say anything because she drops it, moving to a folding chair with an ashtray sitting on it. She removes the ashtray and climbs up. Immediately, I rush behind her, just in case.

“Some things never change.”

She doesn’t have to tell me that. Standing behind Parker as she attempts to climb something—a tree, the roof , a fence—is an instinct I didn’t know I still carried. “You broke your elbow climbing up the porch column to get the ball we kicked onto the roof.”

With her arms raised, Parker scowls down at me. “That was one time. And we were eight.”

“Seven,” I correct her.

Parker shimmies. Whatever she reaches for unlatches and she hops back, right into me. My hands slide down her body, the jersey bunching beneath my fingers. The pad of my thumb brushes soft, smooth skin.

“Sorry,” Parker mumbles, turning in my hold, straightening the strap of the bag she wears across her body.

“Can you grab that?” Parker points at the fire escape ladder above us. “Chicken,” she teases when I hesitate, giving me a gentle push to the shoulder.

As quickly as it happens, it’s over. But what Parker doesn’t realize is I still feel it, a phantom touch like the way I’ve carried the memory of her the entire time she’s been gone.

“I’ve been drinking. I don’t know if it’s a great idea to be on a roof.”

“You’ll hardly feel it when you fall then,” Parker jokes darkly. “Come on, Fitzy. For old times’ sake.”

Parker doesn’t really have to beg. I’d follow her anywhere now, even up this old, rusty ladder she hoists herself onto after I pull it down. I fold my lips together, eying her bare legs that meet the shredded bottoms of tiny shorts the front of my jersey is tucked into before Parker disappears out of sight, only to reappear when I blink. Parker beams an encouraging smile down at me from the edge of the roof.

Suddenly, I’m a kid who was once afraid of heights. I don’t think I ever told her that. She doesn’t know how brave she made me, brave enough to not care about how high a tree was.

“Only for you,” I mutter as I climb.

I now realize this must be the building next to the club. I pass a dark window of the top floor before I make it up to the roof, trying to hide how I was holding my breath.

Parker is already standing away from the edge, thankfully, well in the middle.

“We shouldn’t be up here, should we?” I move toward her.

“Has that ever stopped us?”

When Parker smirks, I swear, I magically see stars for a minute in the line between her lips. It’s like I took a sack that drives me farther from the line of scrimmage. It knocks me back to over a decade ago because I swear, I’m seventeen with sweaty palms, trying to get the balls to confess, I don’t want to be friends anymore. I want you to be my girlfriend.

And I’m twelve, finding my cheeks burned when Parker smiled at me. I must’ve looked as though I had permanent sunburn for most of middle school.

I’m nine, when I realized I didn’t care if girls had cooties and I was at risk of catching them. I always wanted to be with Parker.

But really, I’m old enough to know better. Because even though those memories of our childhood ring true in my mind, their noise level is second to her absence.

Parker looks off at downtown Atlanta’s skyline, appearing calm and cool while I’m struggling to stand as I mentally trip over all the questions in my head. I don’t know where to start and that stings. There used to be a time when I didn’t know where Parker ended and I began.

“What have you been up to?” I blurt out.

Parker faces me completely now. Her shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath. She gives the gentlest shake of her head, as if she knows whatever answer she’s about to produce won’t be good enough.

“Not doing anything as exciting as winning Super Bowls.”

I’m not sure there ever will be an explanation that doesn’t make me not feel like shit. And then I feel worse, because I think of all the times I dreamed of seeing her again where I promised myself it didn’t matter where she went. It mattered she came back.

Parker fiddles with the strap of her purse. “Congratulations. I know you worked so hard?—”

“You don’t really know anything about how hard I worked.” Her words strike a nerve. After all this time, that’s it? “You don’t even know me.”

My harshness rebounds off Parker and punches me in the gut when she flinches.

“I know you’re mad at me. I deserve it. I just wanted to see you for a second,” she whispers, the way her voice trails off sadly tears at my heart. “I’m really proud of you. I’ve been really proud of you.”

I dip my head again. “You could’ve told me that years ago. I’m sure they had phones in boarding school or wherever you went after.”

Parker stiffens. “Is that what my parents told you?”

I think what Candice Montgomery told me before she closed the door in my face was Parker went to a better environment . I couldn’t really wrap my mind around that. How is there any place better than home ? But it was Coach who let me know that Parker would finish her senior year in boarding school. Eventually, I let him talk me into letting it go, and I came to believe that maybe there was a better place for Parker. It just hurt to accept I wasn’t enough to make things better and that maybe, by pulling away, I made it worse for her.

I read bodies for a living. Parker’s tells me she’s anxious, uncomfortable. It’s a stark difference from the hug we shared downstairs. “I take it you don’t really plan on telling me about any of the time you were gone.”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“Yeah, well, it’s officially offseason.” I pocket my hands. “I’ve got loads of time, but not for excuses.”

“It’s not an excuse, Fitz. It’s?—”

“It’s complicated, right?”

She looks away once more.

“Why did you get my attention tonight?” I ask. “You could’ve said nothing and worked that whole party—” I pause, realizing I haven’t quite addressed the obvious elephant that’s sitting in the White House hundreds of miles away. “Why are you working in a club anyway?”

“There’s nothing wrong with waitressing.”

My hands flee my pockets and I hold them up in defense. “I didn’t say there was. It’s just?—”

“My dad is president. You don’t think he should have a daughter who serves drinks in a nightclub to a bunch of rowdy football players.”

“I don’t care about your dad. I care about you, and if you told me ...”

I can’t say what I really want to. I can’t say it even though she’s standing in front of me in a pair of hot pants with my jersey tied in a knot to show them off. What I want to say is I don’t want you working in a nightclub because I can’t stand the thought of her being drooled over by a bunch of douchebags who might go so far as to even touch her.

I can’t say that though. For one, it makes me sound like some sort of overprotective, controlling asshole. And because I have no right. Parker isn’t my girl. She never has been.

That doesn’t mean I can’t look out for her like I always did until she wasn’t around for me to do that anymore.

“Parker, if you need anything?—”

“I don’t.”

I huff out a frustrated breath because Parker is as stubborn as ever. “I knew you were going to say?—"

“I don’t need you to rescue me, Fitz. That’s not what this is about. I just wanted to see you, that’s all. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I’m alright,” she adds.

Alright doesn’t cut it. Not for me when it comes to her.

“If you need something,” I repeat with a firmer voice before I soften it. “I’d never say no. Not for anything. Even after all this time. Do you understand?”

The hollowness in Parker’s eyes gives me the chills.

“Parker—"

“I’m okay,” she reiterates, but god damn, my heart doesn’t believe it.

“You’re done for the night?” I ask.

Parker nods. “I’ve been on since this afternoon. I’m wiped.”

“Can I take you home? I can have a car outside in five minutes. I’ll ride with you.”

“I have a car,” Parker says.

“I want to make sure you get home okay.”

“You don’t have to do that, Fitz,” Parker whispers, and it crushes me a little bit.

I know I don’t but I curse under my breath anyway. Parker will never understand how hard it is to need to do something while pretending it’s just something you want instead.

She begins kicking at something invisible at her feet. She’s always done that when she doesn’t want to talk. The painful difference is she never used to do it with me.

“I hope you don’t think I found you because I needed to ask for something. It’s just been a long time.” Parker looks up, and her eyes glisten with tears. “I really did just want to say congratulations.”

The talking in circles makes me angry, but part of me falls victim to the soft spot I’ll always hold for her. This doesn’t feel right. In my bones, I know it isn’t. “I don’t know if you’re okay.”

“Maybe you just don’t know me anymore, Fitz.”

It’s a cheap shot to slap me with my own words, but maybe she’s right. I’m holding onto the fact that Parker still loves a good hiding spot, even if that means climbing something she shouldn’t. Maybe her eyes still disappear when she loses control to a laugh. Maybe she’s still the only person in the world who likes yellow Starburst. The truth is, she could be none of those things—none of the parts I love about her—anymore.

All I do know is I’d do anything to find out.

“I’m supposed to leave tomorrow, but I can push it. Can I take you to lunch? Dinner? You know, so we can catch up without having to worry about how we get down after?” I try to laugh, but I’m met with no smile or happiness back.

She just looks so sad.

“Parker,” I whisper when she doesn’t say anything. “You’ve had years. I’m only asking for a day.”

I should take it as a poor sign she needs to think this much.

“I have work tomorrow, I’m sorry. I can’t really afford to miss it.”

I don’t know what it’s like to have my livelihood depend on one day of work. I should be understanding. I shouldn’t be angry. But I am.

And I’m heartbroken.

I reach into my back pocket and pull out my wallet, because all I can give is what Parker can take with her. And I know she won’t take me.

She holds the stack of bills between us, eyeing them. I’m not sure how much I have. Maybe two hundred bucks or less.

But even if it was more, it clearly means nothing to Parker, who backs away from me. Our eyes are locked as she reaches the edge with the money she’s now crumpled in her hand and lets go.

“Get down safely, Fitzy,” she tells me before disappearing down the ladder.