Page 70 of Who’s Playing You (In The Nick of Time #1)

NICK SOBA

W hat a fucking whirlwind this entire football season has been. I couldn’t believe how far I had come since the start of the season. And I still couldn’t believe that I was standing on the field of what used to be my favorite team, right in San Fran, about to play in the Super Bowl.

February in San Fran was a hell of a lot warmer than the weather in New York, but the air was also electric. The irony of it all wasn’t lost on me.

The Trickie Nickies had been meant to play together, in the pros, right here - on this field. Together.

But I’d fucked that all up for them.

For me, I made the absolute right choice. There was no denying it, and both Papas and Loving saw it now. If I hadn’t made the decision that I did, Scottie and I wouldn’t have had our chance and we certainly wouldn’t be a few months away from the birth of our daughter.

That’s right. Not only was I going to be a dad, but a girl dad.

I was over the fucking moon.

Scottie and I had had a few ups and downs since I made my confessions to her right after shit blew up with Loving’s sex club psycho.

Even though Scottie forgave me, I had been working really hard for the past two months to show her that she could trust me.

That I was honest and genuine. I had come clean to her about a number of a few other little things in the past two months.

I decided though that she didn’t need to know about my, ahem , stalker tendencies.

I thought no good would come of that.

She was already painfully aware of how obsessed I was with her, and had been for about ten years. So in effect, she knew I was obsessive. Obsessively in love with her. That was enough. She didn’t need to know the actions involved in that obsessiveness.

Following her. Hacking her computer along with her medical records and other records.

Putting up surveillance in her home. Creating playlists on her Spotify for her to listen to.

Flooding her apartment. Killing Bessie… I mean, you get the idea.

No good would come of her knowing all this shit that I’d done.

Maybe when we were old and grey I’d tell her. But until that day came, I’d keep that shit to myself.

I did however plan to share with her my involvement in the marketing and promotion of her artwork through the years.

I was waiting for the right time to share all of that with her.

But between all the drama with Papas and Loving and the fallout that that had caused with me and Scottie, her pregnancy, and then preparing for the Super Bowl…

I was waiting for things to quiet down in our lives before I let her in on the last secret I was keeping.

I stood on the thirty yard line and turned in a circle, taking the stadium in.

The New York Rage, independent of the outcome of today’s game, are winners. The spirit and soul of our organization was restored this season. Atticus, as I was free to call him now, said that I was the reason for that. I told him that there’s no “i” in “team”.

He told me that every team needs a fearless leader - or dictator.

He said that I was a little of both, then he just laughed.

I watched every single one of my teammates as they warmed up and got themselves in the right headspace.

You couldn’t look at our team and not see the smiles on everyone’s faces.

This is what a team should look like - where everyone is happy to be here, to work, to be together and work as a unit. As a team we are all thriving.

I looked across the field to where the Drillers were warming up. Loving was over there too, stretching, preparing for battle.

Even though I was honored and joyous that I’d be playing in the Super Bowl with at least one of my best friends, I was sad too. I hated that we were being pitted against each other.

But alas, that’s the nature of the paths that we had taken which had brought us to this time and place.

I looked up to the VIP box where my heart was.

Scottie and baby-girl bean were there along with my parents and both sisters. Atticus and Trina were keeping them in good company along with Papas and his girl Noelle, Loving’s girl Valentina and his family.

I couldn’t help the tinge of regret and sadness that I felt for Nik and how his season had come to a screeching halt. After the Super Bowl, I vowed that I’d work with him day and night to prove the doctors wrong… they just had to be wrong.

He had come to accept his new reality though. But I sure as fuck wasn’t accepting their diagnosis, their recovery timeframe was fucking bullshit as were their recovery statistics.

Oh right, I almost forgot to update y’all: Loving, Papas and I kissed and made up shortly after our big sex club / draft fixing blow-out in early December.

A week after our disastrous FaceTime confession, we’d had another conversation. One where Papas just about lost his shit and read both Loving and me the absolute fucking riot act. He threw the book at us, but mostly me, before he dropped his own bombshell.

Turns out that we had all been keeping some pretty big secrets.

We were all straight now though, no more secrets.

But if you’re a nosy Karen and want to get all the tea, including what happened to Papas, you’ll have to read both Loving and Papas’ stories. *wink*

We were deep in the fourth quarter with barely any time left on the clock. This was really it - now or never.

Dreams would come true or be shattered in the next seconds.

The Drillers and my fellow Rage had been fighting with everything they had to try to win that ring and the coveted title of best team of the year. Both of our teams deserved to be here, respectively we had had incredible seasons.

The Rage were the underdogs though. Absolutely no one would have expected us to be here, and who was I kidding? At the start of the season, no one would have expected us to even win more than a couple games, if we were lucky.

But we proved them all wrong.

We were one of the most winning teams this entire season, only having lost two games.

Under my leadership, we showed the world that with the right mindset and work ethic, that you can absolutely achieve any-fucking-thing that you set your mind to.

Our Cinderella story was the stuff that movies were made of. Atticus had been eating this up and he was being approached left and right by all kinds of companies and organizations wanting to partner with The Rage as well as our players individually. They wanted some of our magic.

As an entity, we had decided we’d show a united front and would only do promo shit as a group. There was no one diva .

Believe me, I see the irony of this.

This approach had thrown the entire world into a tizzy. And we had literally become the hottest thing to ever happen since The Beatles or Taylor Swift’s last world tour. Believe it or not, we were a bigger deal.

But I digress.

Seconds on the clock. The fourth quarter of the final game of the season. The fucking Super Bowl.

The Drillers were leading us by four points. I stared at the scoreboard one more time, noting the 25-21 score as well as how much time we had left on the clock. I only had one shot left to win this thing and make history. No one team had gone from being the worst team to Super Bowl champs.

But I was all about absolutely destroying assumptions and setting records.

“Come on Rage,” I mumbled to myself. “We got this. Let’s go Soba.” In addition to giving the team pep talks, I would on occasion need to give myself one, and if ever there was a time for a self-pep talk, it was now.

The pressure of being the first pick to being the team’s hope along with all of the chatter and BS about if I’d live up to the hype hadn’t really made any impact on my headspace.

But right now, I needed to make sure that I stayed focused.

I knew that the commentators were surely going off, talking about us being this dark horse and wondering if I lived up to the hype.

Was The Diva as good as he had projected to the world and claimed to be?

Well, the proof was in the pudding. And I planned to prove that yet again in these final seconds.

As I scanned the field, waiting for everyone to get themselves together and hustle on or off the field, depending on where they were supposed to go, I took in the energy of the stadium. It was absolutely electric. The crowd was so fucking loud that I could barely hear myself think.

I looked up to the Jumbotron again, the camera panned to Loving. He was standing on the sideline, looking like the epitome of calm. His hands were hooked into his shoulder pads, but only Papas and I knew the fire that was probably running through him.

“Ready?” I yelled as I lined my team up. I waved my hands around like a conductor, making small adjustments before I took my place at the helm.

I called the cadence, “Rawdon, bull rush, dark horse right, hut-hut, hike!” And moments after I clapped, the snap fired the ball right into my hands.

The Drillers defense snapped into action so fucking fast and were on my guys, trying to block any possible route. I stepped back in the pocket.

One breath.

Turning to my left, I looked for Micah Jones. Fuck, he’s being double-teamed.

A second breath.

Turning right, I looked for the dark horse . One of our rookies. An unexpected choice that the Drillers wouldn’t have anticipated.

A third breath.

The pressure kept building from the Drillers. My guys were hanging on by a thread to buy me every possible second. Then I see him, Tim DeGeorge is wide open.

Just then, a defender comes for me. I dance like the fucking ballerina that I am, cutting left and dodging him. I make eye contact with DeGeorge and launch it at him.

It’s of course a perfect spiral and it sails down the right side of the field. DeGeorge is going deep, down the sideline. He runs like he’s never run before, stretching every inch of himself to beat the throw.

My hands find my helmet as I try to hold myself together as every millisecond passes. That’s when I see the Drillers’ corner is right there, hot on DeGeorge’s heels.

They both jump up for the ball, fingers tangling as they collide mid air.

Oh-my-fucking-god!

The anxiety is almost too much. From my position I can’t tell if he tipped it, or does he have it?

The crowd is screaming, jumping up and down. The guys on the sideline are all running, screaming, and jumping too.

I stand frozen in place where I chucked the ball downfield in hopes of finding DeGeorge’s fingers. A true Hail Mary.

And then…

DeGeorge bobbles the ball, desperately trying to hold it tight to his chest, stumbling along the sideline, dancing just inside the white line until he hits the end zone. The Driller’s corner coming down on top of him.

From my vantage point I can’t tell if it’s good or not.

I snap my head to look at the ref.

One ref’s arms shoot up signifying a touchdown, while the second ref throws his sideways signifying no catch.

My team and every person in this stadium is literally about to lose their shit.

The refs come together, quickly talking, before ducking under the hood to watch the angles on replay.

The Rage and Drillers filter onto the field from both sidelines - arguing for a different outcome.

Our coaches are pulling our guys back to the sideline, as I’m sure the Drillers are doing to their players.

It’s complete pandemonium.

I just stand there, barely registering anything as my teammates pass me and head to DeGeorge, in hopes they’ll be hoisting him up in celebration any minute.

I stand in place from where I threw the ball, as if frozen in place and completely alone, waiting to learn our fates.

I can’t take my eyes from the Jumbotron that’s showing the refs where they’re discussing the play.

A quiet hush then overtakes the thousands of people in the stadium as the head ref takes the field and turns his mic on. “After review…”

The confetti is already flying all around us like a January blizzard in New York even though a few seconds still remain on the clock. My knees hit the ground, my helmeted head hitting the grass next as I take in the ref’s words. Tears streaming from my eyes.

THE END

Want to know how the game ends? Then you’ll want to pick up book #2 in the In The Nick of Time series. Book 2 is “ Who’s Loving You ” by Ryan Marie followed by book 3, “ Who’s Saving You ” by Carolina Jax.

All will be revealed…