hollered and growled and scrubbed her hands back through her hair and yelled at the players and cursed out the refs and hopped out of her seat like a banshee. What I found more entertaining than anything was how everyone else around us watched her more than the game.
Me, on the other hand? I had no idea what was going on.
I mostly checked my phone to see if Makoa had texted back — which he hadn’t — or occasionally pointed out a player or two who had nice butts to Gemma. She would laugh and wave me off, because obviously there were more important things going on, but I still loved to try to distract her.
“Come on, boys! Let’s make a conversion!” Gemma hollered out when the Bears offense took the field. She bounced on her toes, nudging me with her elbow. “There are so many new guys out there. This is what I love. They’ve all got something to prove. Did you know that at the end of pre-season, they’ll cut the roster from ninety players to only fifty-three?” Gemma shook her head. “Can you imagine that pressure?”
I chuckled, shaking my head at my best friend and her glee that I’d never understand. “You’re a nut.”
She stuck out her tongue, but then the ball was snapped, and her hand wrapped around my arm as she watched the play. The play didn’t last long, and to me, it looked like nothing even happened at all. But Gemma released her death grip on me, clapped, nodded, and said, “Good start, boys! Now, let’s go!”
I found myself zoning out again, even when Gemma jumped up and down after the next play and cheers rang out around me. She said something about what an awesome catch it was, and I smiled, checking my phone again.
Then, the absolute last thing I expected to hear over the loudspeaker made me almost drop it.
“Pass complete to number thirteen, Makoa Kumaka! And that makes another Chicago Bears…”
The crowd cheered first down! to complete the sentence, but I stood there with my jaw unhinged, blinking as I tried to decide if I really just heard what I thought I did.
When I turned to look at Gemma, she was watching me with the same confused look until both of us glanced up at the scoreboard.
On the screen was a replay of the catch.
And beside it, a professional headshot of my boyfriend in a Chicago Bears jersey, smiling, his name and position and stats in a neat line underneath.
“Oh, my God,” Gemma whispered, covering her mouth with both hands. She shook her head, looking from the board to me and back again. “That can’t be… is that…”
“It’s him,” I confirmed. There was no mistaking it. That name, that beastly build, that goofy one-of-a-kind smile.
“I don’t understand… I thought he was in real estate?”
My eyes scanned the field for his number, and when I found it, he was already lining up for the next play. The ball was snapped, but the guy carrying the ball was tackled down quickly, and then they were lining up again.
I knew it was him, the way he walked and carried himself.
I knew it was him, that broad chest, that tight ass, those monster thighs.
I knew it was him, and yet I still couldn’t believe it.
I unlocked my phone so fast I nearly dropped it again, typing out his name in the Google search bar. I’d only written the first four letters when the search auto-populated the rest, and when I hit enter, the screen filled with pictures and videos and articles.
Makoa Kumaka Signs as Free Agent with Chicago Bears.
Chicago Bears Training Camp Spotlight: Makoa Kumaka.
Makoa Kumaka Leaves 49ers as Free Agent, Team Says “He Will Be Missed.”
Makoa Kumaka University of Hawai’i Wide Receiver Stats
WATCH: Makoa Kumaka Catches Flimsy Pass, Runs for Fifty-Two-Yard Touchdown
Video after video, picture after picture, article after article populated as I scrolled and scrolled. One page, two pages, three pages. I shook my head the more I clicked, trying to swallow but coming up empty.
“Belle…” Gemma said, her hand softly finding my arm.
“He lied to me.”
It sounded like someone else’s voice instead of my own, and I kept scrolling, shaking my head as more and more proof popped up.
“I’m sure he can explain.”
Those words almost made me vomit, and to stop it from happening, I jerked up out of my seat. “I have to go.”
I shrugged her off before she could argue, muttering excuse me to all the other fans I passed