the hell of it, but it might have helped relieve some stress. It’d been a long time since I’d dated anyone. Football was my first love, so I typically held any women I dated to that impossible standard. If she didn’t excite me the way being on the field did, I wasn’t interested.
I spent the first twenty minutes of my day grinding through social media and sports websites for any sign that someone had seen our game and had anything to say about it. It was a ritual of mine. I never wanted to be one of those people who didn’t know what was being said about them online, so I made sure to search my name at least once a day to be safe.
Once I was satisfied that no new news about me had made its way to the internet, I got on with the rest of my morning. I took a shower, ate breakfast, and watched replays from Wednesday’s game. I took notes on the mistakes we’d made, which were plentiful, and made a plan to bring them to Coach and change our playbook to account for the errors. I stuck my notes into my backpack, threw in my phone and wallet, pulled it over my back, and left my house.
I complained quietly to myself during the entire hour-and-a-half drive into Montpelier. I technically lived in Pocatello, Idaho, because the thought of settling down in a small town like Montpelier made me sick to my stomach. I was hopeful that my stint with the Vipers wouldn’t be long, but I’d been there over a year with no end in sight. There were days when I thought about escaping the small town and heading for a bigger, busier city, but the Vipers gave me a chance when no one else would and deserved better than that. I knew that this would be my year. I’d whip the Vipers into shape, and then a pro team would see us and pick me up. It was just a matter of time. If I could get the Vipers to the top of the semis, my games would be seen by every recruiter in the country. That was my out if I could get to it.
A couple of cars were already parked in the Montpelier Vipers’ stadium parking lot when I arrived, so I took the closest one and pulled in my black Cadillac CTS. I blinked my eyes against the whipping dust of the Idaho town and snarled with disgust. The sooner I could get out, the better, so I wasted no time in making my way into the stadium.
A few players had already arrived and were at work in the weight room, but they were embroiled in some conversation about who was hotter between a pair of actresses. I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t imagine letting something so simple take up my brain space when football was so close to my fingertips.
I knocked on the door frame to the weight room, and all three guys jumped. “Hey. Hard at work?”
“H-hey, Zeke,” one of our running backs, Monty, stuttered. “How you feeling today?”
I ignored his question. “What are we talking about?”
They exchanged nervous glances, silently pulling straws to see who had to answer the question. Darius, one of the tackles, wasn’t doing anything in particular, and Monty locked eyes with him.
Finally, Darius sighed and looked over at me. “You know that new movie that just came out, Speed G Force?”
I scoffed. “Sure. Who hasn’t?”
“Well, I took my girl to see it last night, and she said that she didn’t think Jessica Storm was a good choice for the main girl. Said she wasn’t hot, and it should have been Tessa Jolenson.” He cleared his throat. “S-so, we was just talking about who’s hotter, Jessica Storm or Tessa Jolsenson.”
I was silent.
He pointed at the third guy, another tackle, Patrick, “Pat thinks that they’re both hot but that none of ‘em hold a candle to Lolo Christie.” He watched me for signs of my response, and when I didn’t say anything, he continued. “I think Lolo’s pretty hot, but then Monty was saying how she looks like she smells bad, so then I was saying—”
“Hey, Darius.”
“Yep?”
“You do realize I don’t give a damn about this conversation, right?” I asked.
Darius swallowed hard. “I know that now.”
“You guys played like the three horsemen of shit on Wednesday. I would think you’d be more interested in trying to figure out your game than figure out who’s hot