Piper took a breath. “First game of the season jitters.”
Tank shook his head. “You need a fucking hug, bro.”
“I’ll be okay,” Piper giggled.
“Find me like you always do. Okay?” Tank slapped Piper’s ass and headed for the field.
The field opened at the end of the tunnel, glowing under the lights, as cameras hovered near midfield.
Across the field, Noah Reyes jogged, helmet tucked under one arm. Confident stride like the night was already his and he was simply waiting for the rest of it to catch up.
Noah glanced across the field.
Their eyes met briefly. Piper turned away first, a flicker of competitive irritation, and turned back to his receivers.
L.A. was out on the field first. The first play was a tight spiral and Tank caught it clean. Forty yards. Touchdown.
Tank celebrated by spinning on the goalpost like he was auditioning forShowgirls. The crowd lost their shit. It would cost him fifty thousand dollars, minimum, and he would absolutely do it again because the fans loved it.
Noah answered with forty yards into the end zone, and then he jogged back to his huddle, laughing like he had just phoned in a beautiful throw. The looseness bothered Piper more than the throw itself.
Score: L.A. 7, Seattle 7.
Piper threw again, this time a short route. He focused on rhythm, on the cadence settling into something automatic, the game narrowing from a stadium to a pocket to a receiver’s hands.
Then a linebacker overran a route and collided with a receiver mid-pattern. Pads cracked.
The linebacker shrugged. Piper took his next throw. Across the field, Noah was watching him.
Piper released the ball without breaking eye contact. Perfect spiral. Tank caught it in stride. Touchdown. Score: L.A. 14, Seattle 7.
“Oh yeah. Bitches can’t cover my ass.” Back on the pole. Swirling for his life as if he was at an Atlanta strip club. Another fifty thousand fine.
Piper looked away before Tank reached him. Then, before he’d finished deciding not to, he looked across the field again. Noah had his helmet back on, but his posture had shifted, the first trace of something competitive working through the looseness that was so fucking annoying to Piper. Piper hated arrogance and cockiness. Part of him wished he had a confident bone in his body in spite of being the highest paid quarterback in the league.
The scoreboard clock ran. Players moved toward the sidelines. Tank leaned close.“You keep looking at him like that, the league’s gonna charge extra.”
Piper grabbed his helmet. “We’re playing football. Shut the fuck up.”
Tank smiled. Said nothing. The referee moved toward midfield. The crowd noise climbed louder as the smell of communal Bud Light breath saturated the air.
Piper tightened his chin strap and stepped forward.Hey Joan, who the fuck does this dude across the field think he is?Piper said to his inner self who he had named “Joan” because his obsession with Joan Rivers as a kid made naming easy.
He had asked five separate psychiatrists if he had multiple personality syndrome, but they all just said he had layered thinking patterns, for which he said,okay, then give me fucking Adderall already.
Chapter Two: Los Angeles
Seventy thousand fans were a wall of intense sound, and Piper Ashton lived in these moments. He stopped thinking in these moments, which was all he ever really wanted.
Second half. Score: Seattle 14, L.A. 14.
He stepped behind center and read the defense. Seattle’s secondary shifted late, a corner creeping toward the line, safety rotating high. Pressure from the weak side was coming as he gave Tank a small nod.
“Blue eighty.”
The cadence cut through the noise. The offensive line settled. The defense shifted again.
Snap. The pocket formed cleanly. Tackles widened, guards anchored, and Piper took three steps back with his eyes already moving through his reads. First read covered, second drifting open.
