Thank freaking god.
“Yes, yeah, can we not push that article through yet?”
“Of course. I’m sorry, I thought?—”
I start to relax my tone. “It’s not you, no worries at all. I know that’s what we originally discussed, but I’ve given it more thought and changed my mind.”
Taylor stays quiet a couple of seconds, and prudently doesn’t pry more. “Okay, you and Rawley are in control.”
“Thank you. Can you maybe do me a favor otherwise?” Switching to speaker, I pull up the Waves’ home page on my phone. Scrolling, scrolling.
“Of course.”
Ah, yes, it’s a day and time I can go.
“Can you get me a ticket to Rawley’s first preseason game?”
And then I jump over to my Etsy app…
44
RAWLEY
Iwake up the morning of our first preseason game feeling ready to go.
Everything seems to be lining up on the field. I’m still making mistakes once in a while during practice, but it’s no different from any of the new players. And we’re clicking among the starters. All that extra practice with Johnson has paid off big-time.
Miraculously, now that they can watch me play, the sports media coverage has been positive—in no small part because Lara and Jim have been aggressively managing it.
“Even when you and Avery aren’t together anymore in the public’s eyes, I think we have this under control,” Jim observed to me yesterday. “I’m confident we can start driving football-focused stories. Maybe even work with a network to do a few long-form videos about your rookie journey and stick them on YouTube.”
The surreal part is that Avery and Iarestill together in the public’s eye. And yet all we’ve exchanged the last three weeks are the group text messages with Taylor, the two quick text exchanges she started, and the social media comments.
With plenty of time to chew on everything each night of camp, I’ve replayed in my head our conversations over the course of the last couple months. One thing that’s clear to me—I don’t think this situation is much like the scenario with Stefani after all.
Avery seemed genuinely hurt by whatever happened in her past. Freaking out when she saw me with Stef? I get it, given the context.
With her sticking to her rule, there isn’t any manipulation going on either, not like with Stef. She’s been nothing but honest about her boundaries.
Still, I wish we could talk it out more. It felt like something was building between us. Something real, somethingreciprocated, a first for me. Granted, what would another conversation do if she’s set on not dating an athlete?
I pull myself out of bed, trying to avoid thinking about this more. Football needs to be my focus.
Once it’s time to go, I drive to the stadium with Landon, though he won’t be playing today. Starters don’t usually play in the first preseason game.
I’m an exception, as a rookie—the coaches want me to get as much experience as I can before the regular season. So I’ll be lining up with Tony and the rest of the second team when the game begins.
No biggie, I’m hyped for it.
Landon lets me control the flow of the conversation during the drive. I notice he hasn’t been asking me about Avery during training camp—today or otherwise. Probably because he doesn’t want to add salt in the wound about the impending breakup.
Instead, we start floating ideas for a trip during our bye week—the week off each season when an NFL team doesn’t have a game. Last year, Landon took Rori to the Caribbean to celebrate her birthday.
“Since our bye week is so much later this year, it won’t line up with her birthday the same way. We definitely should do something as a family, anyway.”
“Yeah, that would be awesome.”
“I’ll get Grace in the mix too, to make sure the plan works for her and Johnson.”
