My breath hitched. “Was that…” I didn’t know sports, but there was something magical about the way the ball had gracefully sliced through the air and landed exactly where Sierra had meant to place it.
Amanda’s cell phone appeared out of nowhere. “You mind?” She wiggled it a bit and pointed the top toward Sierra.
“No internet.” My daughter didn’t need to go viral for any reason.
Amanda already had the camera app open and recording. “Got it.”
Again and again Drew would give some sort of direction to one of the boys. They’d run in a long, straight line or a short one, then all of a sudden change directions, but every time, Sierra would sail the ball across the expanse toward the intended target. Sometimes the catch would be made, other times not.
My heart swelled with pride, growing so large it hurt when Sierra jogged toward me, her face flushed from exertion and painted with joy. She sparked light, and my stomach rolled. I didn’t want to douse the embers of her exuberance, but I also couldn’t erase the memory of a guy from my high school football team being carted off the field on a stretcher.
Why couldn’t she have been interested in something that didn’t require so much…uh…contact? Calligraphy happened to be a beautiful and lost artform. Maybe the idea of raising kids in literal bubbles wasn’t as bad as it sounded. You’d always know where they were, strangers had to keep their distance because of the physical boundaries around them, and the kids couldn’t get hurt.
Wonder if I could get two-day shipping on one of those bad boys.
“Did you see me, Mom?” Sierra panted, her chest heaving from her quick sprint to me. “Did you see me throw the ball?”
I pushed a sweaty strand of caramel-colored hair away from her sticky forehead. “I saw. You were amazing.” I grabbed a non-plastic reusable bottle of filtered water from my purse and handed it to her. Liquid leaked out of the side of her mouth as she chugged, dripping onto her shirt and darkening the material in spots.
“Think you’ll be the first female quarterback to play for the NFL?”
My gaze cut to Amanda, my face morphing into a mom look. Narrowed eyes. Pinched face. I mentally screamed at her,What do you think you’re doing!?and my furrowed brow addedyoung lady.
She completely ignored my glare and grinned at Sierra.
“I don’t know about that.” Sierra’s brown eyes, the ones she’d inherited from Greg, danced with excitement.
My fingers itched to curve around her arm and keep her close. To share with her the possibilities that lay ahead if she put on those expensive shoulder pads and helmet and let boys bigger than her slam her repeatedly into the ground.
“Stop being so dramatic about everything,” Greg had sneered when I’d voiced my concerns to him. If football had been my decision alone, Sierra probably wouldn’t have been here.
And look at the happiness she’d miss out on, a voice in the back of my mind whispered.
I shook my head.
She wouldn’t have been here. But decisions on how Sierra was raised weren’t up to me alone. No matter that Greg didn’t show up for Sierra as much as I’d like, he was still her father and (I guess) had the right to input on her upbringing.
With football, I’d simply been outnumbered. Funny how I was the only one actually with our daughter at her practice though.
“Coach Drew says I’m a natural. He called me his quarterback princess.” Sierra slanted her big eyes my way. “But don’t worry. I told him not to treat me any differently because of my gender. He looked at me funny, then laughed, so I told him I wasn’t helpless and didn’t need a dumb boy to rescue me. Then he said I wasn’t that type of princess.” Her lips scrunched to the side. “Who’s Xena? He said I was a princess of her caliber.”
Amanda choked on a laugh beside me.
My nerves were already wound tight with anxiety and helplessness. Fears real and imagined. They swirled in my middle, causing friction and heat. Drew might as well have added fuel to the trifecta. My gut burned.
I didn’t need another male in my daughter’s life exposing her to things—and, seriously, an overly sexualized TV character too scantily clad to ever realistically fight in a real war?—only to vanish, leaving me to pick up the pieces and explain things an eight-year-old shouldn’t have to think and feel.
You’re overreacting, that little voice whispered again.
But I was too worked up to rein in, and I stomped toward Drew. As if he was attuned to me, he turned. Our eyes locked, the horns of two butting rams.
Without dropping my gaze, he spoke over his shoulder. “Take over for a bit, Coach Eric.”
The other coach watched my approach, frozen as if an impending natural disaster would soon hit. He spun and blew his whistle.
Drew stood his ground, his arms loose at his sides, his back slightly rounded. If there’d been something to lean on, he’d have lounged against it all relaxed and unaffected.
His body language reached out and twisted the knob on my internal thermometer. My skin flushed.
