Hate the Game - Winter Renshaw Page 0,27

naturally athletic I was and decided he wanted me to fulfill his dream of playing pro football.

At first, it was nice—the special coaches and clinics, all the accolades and glory and attention—but after a while, it got old.

All my friends were living it up, running around being stupid teenagers and doing stupid teenage shit.

Me? I was in bed by eight every night so I could meet up with my trainer by five the next morning. God forbid I didn’t get an hour in every morning before school with the guy that was going to “help make our dreams come true.”

After a while, I was in too deep.

I was too damn good.

The attention was insane and it became my identity.

High school blurred into football, and soon I was leading the PVU Tigers as their starting quarterback, which came with a whole new level of attention and accolades.

But I’ll never forget sitting down with Mark my senior year of high school, telling him I wanted to be done with football. I thanked him for everything, told him I appreciated everything he’d done, but I wanted to enjoy my college experience without the stress of always having to be number one.

I thought he’d be cool about it.

He’d always been cool about everything …

But I swear to God, the man’s eyes turned pitch black and he hooked a hand on my shoulder, squeezing until a shock of pain flooded my muscles, and he told me, point blank, that if I didn’t play football, he’d leave my mother.

I laughed at first.

I thought he was joking.

What would me playing football have to do with his marriage?

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized, he didn’t need her any more. With the help of my father’s life insurance money, he’d grown his little real estate business into a multi-million-dollar corporation—and his daughters weren’t babies any more.

He didn’t need my mother.

He could walk away a rich man, find someone younger, more exciting, less Xanax and wine flooding her system at any given moment.

It was me.

I was the reason he stuck around.

He wanted to live his shattered football dreams through me, and nothing was going to keep that from happening.

The bastard knew I loved my mother, that I didn’t want to see her alone and devastated from losing yet another husband. So I shut my mouth. I kept up with the coaching and the clinics and the practices. And I took my spot as the PVU Tigers starting quarterback the following fall without so much as a complaint.

“Can you believe it?” Mom says, sipping from her flute. “Richmond. Who’d have thought? Mark, we might have to buy a second place in Virginia. Maybe a little condo we can use during home games?”

Mark scoffs, his bulbous belly jiggling. “Condo? Hell, I think Talon here can drop a million or two on a place for Mom and Dad, don’t you?”

She chuckles, like he’s the funniest fucker on the planet, and brushes her hand along his arm. “Oh, stop.”

“I’m not kidding. We’ve probably invested half a million dollars into this kid’s career,” Mark says. His eyes twinkle like he’s trying to keep it lighthearted for Mom’s sake, but I know he’s as serious as the heart attack that ripped my father’s life from this world.

I ignore their bullshit banter and slide my phone from my pocket, checking my email.

Yesterday I asked Irie for one date. She told me she’d think about it, which I’m ninety-nine percent sure means she’s going to say yes—she just had to tamp down her excitement. God forbid she owns the fact that she wants me just as badly as I want her.

I press the ‘refresh’ button and watch the screen populate, mostly with junk emails and various campus alerts.

And then I see it.

An email from Irie.

“One date,” the subject line reads. In the body of the email she’s written, “Pick me up Saturday at seven. 472 Calle Blanco.”

“Talon, what are you over there grinning about, huh?” Mom asks with a wink, her words half-slurred. “Did Richmond decide to sweeten the pot? I bet it drives them crazy that you haven’t signed yet.”

I rise, tossing my cloth napkin on my plate before rounding the table.

“Nah,” I say when I get to Mom. “Nothing like that.”

“Well then what is it?” she asks.

I don’t tell her about Irie. Girlfriends were never a thing growing up. Mark didn’t allow them. He thought they’d be too distracting and he was probably right. After a while, Mom began to echo