First Down (Beyond the Play #1)

by Grace Reilly

I tense when I hear him say Bex’s name, but don’t turn around. Even when I hear the word kiss. “Yeah,” he continues. “She’s just as good as I remember. One kiss and she was begging for more.” I feel my fists curl at my sides. Blood pounds in my ears, but I still hear his next words, clear as fucking day. “Was always a slut for it. She’s been a little whore with Callahan all semester, but I’m getting her back.”

He kissed her. He fucking kissed her. When? How? And if it’s true, why am I hearing about this from him?

want to throw Darryl against the bank of lockers and smash his fucking nose into his skull, but somehow, I manage to walk past him, out of the locker room. Bex is standing by the door, right where I saw her when I went in, and I hate how the cute, excited expression on her face dies the moment she sees me. “James?” she says. “What’s wrong?” “He kissed you?”

“I’m going to fucking kill him.” “Wait,” she says, grabbing my hand. “Just calm down.” “Did he do it?” “Yes, but—” “But what?” I interrupt. The anger that’s coursing through me hits a fever pitch as the truth sinks in. “But what? He fucking touched you without your consent because I know no matter how he was bragging about it in there, you didn’t give it. Did he hurt you?” She turns away. “Let’s not do this now. You still have to play the second half.” “Fuck the game.”

“Tell me what he did.” She sobs into my shoulder, a sound that strikes me right between the ribs like a bullet. “I’m sorry, I just—he’s been trying to talk to me, and we met up before the game started, and when I tried to tell him to leave me alone, he kissed me.” She pulls back, looking up as she hugs herself around her middle. Her eyes are wide, and as she swallows down another sob, I realize she’s not just upset, she’s scared. That fucker scared her. “That’s it. I’m fine.” “Like hell you’re fine,”

I can feel her trembling against me. “You don’t have to pretend you’re fucking fine.” The second I get Darryl alone, he’s going to wish he never even thought about touching my girl. “You have to finish the game,” she whispers. I know she’s right, but there’s no way in hell I’m leaving her like this. “You’re shaking like a leaf, baby.”

“I love you,” I whisper. “I’m sorry,” she says eventually, so quiet I almost miss it. “I’m so sorry.” “It’s not your fault.” She shakes her head. “You need to go. It’s almost time, right?” “Probably.” I pull back, stroking my hand down her face. “Are you okay to go back out there?” She wipes at her eyes carefully, nodding. “Yeah,” she says, voice thick with emotion that makes my heart squeeze. “James?” “Yeah, princess?” She hesitates for a moment, like she’s not quite sure what to say. “I love you too.”

No, it wasn’t a mistake. He threw high on purpose. He threw the pass high because he didn’t want Darryl to catch it—even if it meant losing the game. And I know he did it for me.

I see Bex lingering outside the locker room, but I don’t go to her, not now. I need a shower first, and a clean change of clothes, before I face her reaction to what I did for her. She’s going to be mad, but I don’t give a shit. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’d burn down the whole goddamn stadium if it meant keeping her safe.

“I fucking warned you,” I say, digging my knee down until he gasps. “I warned you not to use those words, asshole. I warned you to leave her the fuck alone.” “James!” I hear Bex scream. “Stop it!”

“You fucking warned me, huh? Think you’re all that? She was fucking moaning into my mouth. I had her first and she’s still my little bitch.”

“He kissed my girl and then bragged about it. Called her a slut and a whore, sir.” Coach rounds on Darryl. “This true?” “He stole her first,” Darryl retorts. “I didn’t steal her,” I snap. “She’s not an object. She broke up with your sorry ass and found someone better.” “Jesus fucking Christ,” Coach says, pinching his nose with his fingers. “He should have made that pass,” Darryl says. “He sabotaged us all on purpose.” I turn to look at him. “I’d do it again. I warned you what would happen if you didn’t back up, you slimy fuck.”

Eventually, he sighs. “You did throw wide on purpose, didn’t you?” “Yes.” “Goddamnit, James!” He slams his fist down on the desk, making it rattle. “You can’t do that, even when you’re upset. Even if your personal life is going to shit. When you’re being paid to do this—paid millions of dollars—you’re not going to have the luxury of choosing when to perform! You can’t bring your issues onto the field. We’ve spoken about this. You might hate all your teammates, but they’re your teammates, so you stick by them.” “I know that, sir.” “So why didn’t you do it?”

“Because he scared my girlfriend. He forced himself on her. And as much as I love football, I love her more.”

If the price to have Bex and make sure she’s safe is my football career, then I’m willing to let it go. I can always do something else with my life. What matters, at the end of the day, is the future I know I can have with her.

“You didn’t just hurt him,” he says, his voice softer. “You hurt the whole team. Men who have worked hard beside you for an entire season. They trusted you, and you let them down.” “Yes, sir.” He leans back, cupping his jaw. “I don’t agree, but I respect why you did it.” He drags his hand over his mouth, thinking. “James. You might get suspended for this, even though he started the fight. The university almost always punishes both parties in these situations. You were still in uniform, representing the school, and if McKee doesn’t act, the NCAA could.”

“I’ll explain that you were defending yourself,” he says. “I don’t think either of you will get expelled, although if Bex chooses to report Darryl’s actions, then that’s a possibility. Sexual misconduct is a serious offense.” “Good. He should.”

“With all due respect, this is different.” “How?” “I’m going to marry Bex one day,” I say. “This is my present, but she’s my future. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Maybe it’s wrong, but I’m going to defend her. I couldn’t just give the ball to him.” He sighs. “And what good did that do? We lost.” “Even if I did throw it right, there’s no guarantee he would catch it.” “No, but he deserved the opportunity to try. Even if you’d have hated it, he deserved that.” “And I disagree.”

“He’s a fucking asshole and he needed to be put in his place. I’m not sorry I did it.” “But I didn’t ask you to.” “You didn’t have to. You deserved to have someone stick up for you.” “Not like this.” My voice rises a little. “You could have won the game! You should be celebrating right now! How could you do this to yourself?” “Because every time I saw him, I just saw you!” he says. “I saw you crying. I heard the fucking fear in your voice. I didn’t want to reward that. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”

“You still don’t get it,” he says with frustration, working his jaw. “Bex. You’re more important than a football game. Your safety is more important. Your happiness is more important. If you’re not okay, then I don’t give a shit about the game. All I care about is you.”

“I’m sorry I fucked things up for you.” “You don’t have anything to apologize for.” He takes my hand, squeezing, as I choke down a sob. “You didn’t make me do this.” “I did.” My heart hammers in my chest. “I’m so sorry I broke down; I shouldn’t have told you then. It threw everything off.” He shakes his head. “If anything, you should have told me the moment it happened.”

“No. I ruined this for you. I took you out of the zone.” “And I keep telling you, I don’t care!” He doesn’t yell, exactly, but the exclamation echoes around the big room. I work hard to hold back a flinch. “I don’t want you to keep things from me, I don’t want you to feel like you have to hold t...

“I’m sorry.” “Why do you keep saying that? You have nothing to apologize for. Tell me you know that, honey. Tell me you know that what he did wasn’t your fault.” I shake my head. “It’s just . . . your dad . . .” “What about my dad?”

“I just need some space.” My lip wobbles, but I stick to my guns. “I’ll see you back in New York, okay?” “No,” he whispers. “Don’t do this.” I shake my head. “We need to think. I know we keep avoiding the conversation, but we’re heading in different directions. You’re going to be living somewhere else soon, and you can’t do things like this when it’s your job. I have the diner, and I can’t—I can’t watch you sabotage yourself like this for me. What happens the next time I’m upset, but you have to play? What if I have an emergency, but it’s the playoffs and you can’t get away?” “We’ll figure it out,” he says. “Trust me, Bex, please.”

I know that if I hear him beg me to stay, I will, and that won’t do any good for either of us. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel like I’m letting go of the one person I can’t live without.

“I threw high.” “Why?” “The receiver hurt Bex. He’s her ex, the one I told you about.” He breathes in sharply, his nostrils flaring. “How?” “He—fuck, he forced her into a kiss. And then bragged about it while calling her a slut.” I look down at my hands. “I found out during halftime.” “So you lost the fucking game? On purpose?” “He terrified her.” “And what does that have to do with the game?” “Everything,”

“I didn’t give a shit about the game when she was hurting.” He looks out the window. “You know I had a terrible rookie season.” “Yeah.” “So, I came into my second year determined to do better. I wanted to win, to prove I deserved to be there as a starting quarterback. But the third week of the season, your mother got into a car accident. T-boned at an intersection.”

“It happened so long ago, before you were born. I suppose we don’t think about it much anymore. But it was a bad accident, and she needed a lot of support in the aftermath. Spent a couple weeks in the hospital. All I wanted to do was be by her side, helping her however I could.” “Of course.”

“And I didn’t do that.” “Dad,” I say. “What—” “The best thing I could do, then, was my job,” he says, stopping me mid-sentence. “If I was focused on doing well, I was helping build the future we were going to have when she got better. I was building stability for her. Wealth. The team was paying me a hell of a lot of money, and I had a responsibility to them as well as her. The game isn’t everything, but it’s the key to your future.”

“I thought you understood what you needed to do. I’m sorry he hurt her, and I hope she’s okay, but James, look at yourself. Losing your head again over a girl.” I swallow hard. “She’...

“I do. And you ought to have handled this issue off the field, after, instead of bringing it into the game. When you’re being paid millions of dollars to perform, you can’t just shut that off, no matter what’s going on in your personal life. What did you accomplish, beside...

“You said something to her.” “Excuse me?” “We talked after the game, and she mentioned you. What did you tell her?” He sighs. “I reminded her that you have this tendency and told her not to create a situation where you’d choose her to the detriment of everything else.” “She thought she had to keep this from me because of you.” “Clearly she didn’t,” he says dryly. “Only because I overheard him bragging about it and went to find her!” I make a fist, hitting my thigh. “What the hell, Dad? You can’t go behind my back like that!” “And clearly the better thing would have been for you to find out about it later.”

“Is she gone?” I ask. “She left a little while ago,” Seb says. He has a concerned look on his face that makes my stomach somersault. “What happened with you two?” asks Cooper. I press my lips together. “Fuck.”

“The point is, your mother didn’t want me there,” he says. “If I’d tried to blow off a game to be with her, she’d have told me to get lost and go play. Her sister took care of her when I couldn’t be there. She understood that I had responsibilities I couldn’t ignore, even where my wife was concerned. She knew that we had to arrange our lives around the sport as long as I played it, and not everyone can handle that. I loved her for it then, and I love her for it now.”

“Um,” Cooper says, “what’s going on?” I ignore him, shaking Dad’s hand off my shoulder. “Is that what you told Bex?” “Not in as many words.” “But you told her that she has to shut herself away for me.” “Not shut herself away,” he says. “I just told her the reality. It takes a lot of compromise, son, making something like this work. I wanted to make sure she knew.” I raise my eyes to meet his. “You didn’t have the right.” “Someone had to know, because clearly you forget.” “No. Screw that.”

“You knew how I feel about her, and you put that in jeopardy. You had no goddamn right to do that. If I lose her because of this, I’m never forgiving you.” “If you lose her because of this, she wasn’t meant to be yours in the...

“I fell for his shit and put myself in a position to let him do this.” Laura shakes her head. “Tell me you’re not saying you think this is your fault.” “I shouldn’t have agreed to talk to him.” “You’re not in control of his actions. He chose to kiss you without your say-so. He chose to punch James. He chose to do all of this, Bex! Let him deal with the consequences!”

“If I didn’t meet with him, then James wouldn’t have had a reason to miss that throw.” I sniffle. Tears seem to come so easily lately. “I let myself get drawn into his orbit again, and then I couldn’t keep it quiet throughout one fucking football game.” I swipe my hand over my eyes roughly. “I was a fucking idiot.” “I wish I could hug you right now,” Laura says. “I would hug you so hard.” I smile, hiccupping. “I’d like that.”

“The thing is,” I say, “I don’t disagree with him. James is meant to play football. I don’t want to stand in the way of that.” “Still,” he says. “He shouldn’t have gone behind his back like that. James is terrified he’s going to lose you because of him.” “Not because of him.” I bite my lip. “I just don’t know if I could live with myself if he does something like that again, only with an entire career on the line. If he ruined things for himself, because of me, for me . . . it’s just . . .”

“You think you don’t deserve him.” I feel myself flush. “Maybe.” “You know that my father played for the Reds.” “Yeah.”

“How did you realize you’re worth it?” I blurt. The moment the words leave my mouth, I wish I could take them back. Talk about pathetic. But it’s been running through my mind ever since the game. James might love me, he might do anything for me, but am I worth it? Am I worth losing a football game? Risking a suspension? Sebastian looks thoughtful; he doesn’t laugh. “You really think you’re not?” “I don’t know.” I drop my gaze to the table. My cooling coffee hasn’t been touched since we sat down. “Maybe.” “I don’t know what to tell you to make you realize what you deserve,”

“What I do know is that you’re smart, you’re wicked talented, and one day, I’d love to call you my sister-in-law. If you decide that’s what you want too, then I hope you find a way to work things out with him.” I wipe at my eyes. “Thanks, Seb.” “Believe in him,” he says. “He wouldn’t have done it if he thought you weren’t.”

“Tell me you’re not about to fucking do what I think you’re about to do.” “If I have to pick, I’d pick her. So maybe instead of football, I can teach and coach somewhere around here. If she really wants to stick with the diner, I’d rather be there with her than off somewhere else alone. Playing football isn’t worth losing her. It just isn’t.”

“If this is what I need to do to keep her, then it’s what I’m going to do.” “Did she ask you to stop playing?” “No, but—” “Then that’s not the answer.” “Thank you,” Coop mutters into his soup. “But I don’t know if I can do both.”

“I know Dad has always wanted me to just focus on football, but I love her, and I choose her. If I can’t be there for her when I need to be because of my job—if I can’t focus on both at once, or let myself get distracted when I’m supposed to be playing—” “James,” she interrupts. “What do you remember about your childhood?” “What?” “What’s something you remember about growing up? Anything you can think of.”

“Why do you think these memories come up first?” Mom says. I answer immediately; there’s no question about why. “They make me happy.” “Yeah,” she says, her voice softer. “Those are all good memories, honey. Why do you think you thought of them instead of the times Dad was playing away games? Or when he had to go to training camp every August and we didn’t see him for a couple weeks? What about when he missed that big game of yours in ninth grade because he had to leave early to prepare for the wildcard game?” “I barely remember that,”

“When I think about my marriage, I think about all the good memories first, too,” she says. “I think about all the wonderful moments I’ve gotten to share with your father. I don’t think about the times I was alone, or when I had to parent alone. I don’t think about the times he was away because he wasn’t, sweetie, not really. We made compromises for us to have a life together. I’m not saying it was easy, but looking back, I wouldn’t change anything.”

“But how? He always seemed to be able to put everything else out of his mind, and I can’t do that.” “A lot of trust.” She rubs her finger over her wedding ring. “He knew that I supported him, and I expected him to put his work first when he needed to. When he was at work, he gave it his all, and when he was home, he gave that his all. You’re not going to be able to do everything, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to sort out what’s important. You can focus on both. It’s not about one or the other, it’s about prioritizing.”

“But if she needs me—” “She won’t be alone. She’ll have all of us. She’ll have other people in her life who are important to her. But until you let yourself focus fully on the game when that’s what you need to do, you’ll never be able to make it work.”

“I don’t want her to think she has to keep things from me, or not tell me when she’s struggling. I don’t want her to feel like she’s constantly coming in second.” “The fact you know that is a good start,” she says. “But even if you do need to prioritize your job sometimes, that doesn’t mean she’s coming in second. What will playing football professionally give you? Beyond love for the game, because I’ve seen you play your whole life and I know you have that.”