Page 14 of The Wrong Game

“She’s not my girl. We just met. We talked for like ten minutes.”

“Mm-hmm,” Doc said, cocking a brow as he pulled the sliding glass door open. “A girl who loves football almost as much as you do. Try not to come in your pants before you make it to the seats, okay?”

A laugh shot out of me, and Doc disappeared inside, both of us knowing I wouldn’t make a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.

Gemma

It’s just a practice round.

I played that thought on repeat like a Britney Spears song circa 1999 as I got ready for the game Sunday afternoon.

Whenever my anxiety flared, whenever my nerves were rattled, all I had to do to calm myself was suppress those thoughts and focus ondoingsomething.

So, I did my nails, and my hair, and my makeup. I shaved my legs and my arm pits and, just in case, my lady bits. I lotioned up and sprayed myself with my best perfume. And by the time I walked out the door and climbed into a cab, I was the best-smelling, smoothest, calmest version of me I could manage.

“Heading to the game, I presume?” the cabbie asked me, his kind eyes offering a smile in the rearview mirror.

“You got it.”

“Should be a good one. You going alone?”

“Meeting a…” I paused. “…friendthere.”

“Lucky friend.”

I smirked at him, and he smiled in return, turning up the volume on the pre-game show as we made our way to the stadium. Cabbies in any other city in America would have asked me what music I wanted to listen to, but on game day in the windy city? Therewasno other option — it was game day, and that was all that mattered.

Excitement fluttered through me as we cruised across town toward the stadium, traffic getting thicker as we approached the south side.

It had been a long year.

I didn’t like to reflect on the past much. My grandfather had taught me when I was younger that there was no sense focusing on the past because you couldn’t change it, no matter how much you thought about it. All you could do was ask yourself what you regretted, what you loved, and what you learned. Then, you moved forward.

It was because of my grandpa that I adopted the “make a plan, keep it moving” mindset. My parents traveled a lot when I was younger, thanks to their careers as motivational speakers, and so I spent more time with my grandfather than I did with either of them. Funny enough, though they were the ones motivating people all over the country, I was more driven by my grandfather. He was a veteran, a simple country man, and he didn’t take any shit from anyone.

He tried to teach me to do the same.

Still, though I knew he would have hated it, I couldn’t help but think of him as the cab carried me across town. He was a huge Bears fan, and I wouldn’t have even had a date tonight if he’d been alive. He would have been there in the seat next to me, and he would have helped me get over Carlo and move on with my life. He always knew the right things to say.

But he wasn’t here, anymore. Just like Carlo wasn’t.

It seemed everyone I loved in my life was destined to leave in some way.

Yes, it had been a long year. Asadyear. And the closer we got to the stadium, the more I realized how ready I was for football, for the first regular season home game with a crowd all singing “Bear Down” together.

And when we pulled up to Soldier Field, it felt like I was coming home.

“This is fine, I can walk from here.” I handed the driver a twenty, popping the door open and smiling at the sound of the crowd filtering in. “Keep the change.”

“Have fun. Go Bears!”

“Go Bears!”

Once the door was shut and my navy blue Keds touched the concrete in front of the stadium, my stomach fell down to meet them.

I’m about to go on a date.

My palms sparked with heat, heart picking up the pace at my realization. I couldn’t date. I hadn’thadto date since Carlo, and even then, we’d met so young that dating wasn’treallydating. We’d met my first year of college, when he was working as a graduate assistant. Our version of dating was him walking me across campus to class or studying together in the library.