He simply nods, squeezing my shoulder one last time, then gets to his feet with a low groan, taking my cup of cold coffee with him.
Behind us, the front door opens, and Linden sticks his head out.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” he announces, then frowns when he takes in the look on my face.
“Everything okay?” he asks carefully.
“Yes,” Brandon answers simply as he passes him, his hand reaching out to press down on Linden’s shoulder, brief but firm, before he vanishes inside.
Linden looks after him, then drops down on the step beside me, his arm brushing mine, warm and soft.
“What did you two talk about?” he wants to know.
I don’t answer immediately. Instead, I let my gaze wander off into the distance to where the light is almost gone now, the last of it bleeding orange and red along Bonham’s skyline.
My hand reaches out for Linden’s, and when I find it, I squeeze it gently in mine.
“Choices,” I say as I lift our joint hands to press a soft kiss to his knuckles. “And life.”
Micah, February: Indianapolis
My last college season is a blur of long days, hard-fought wins, and big headlines. I play the best football of my life—my blocks are strong, my hands steady. Each catch slowly adds to a tape filled with beautiful highlight material.
It’s amazing what a body can do when the mind is no longer busy counting every penny. Money might not be the key to happiness, but the day I cancel the regular transactions to my parents’ account while sitting in Dr. Ellis’ office, the knot in my chest loosens. I’m not sure what’s harder to deal with—my father’s lack of understanding about the missing funding for his “needs” or my mother’s quiet indifference.
Dr. Ellis and I try to work through that, one session at a time, but I suspect it’ll take more than just a few months to get to the bottom of it all. And yet, despite all of that, my thoughts keep circling every night when the facility’s lights cut out and I shoulder my bag to cross the dark parking lot:Is it love or need? Is this what I really want?
I still don’t have the answers to that when I arrive in Indianapolis on a bleary February evening alongside Seb, Felix, and Evander, pulling our carry-ons behind us.
The NFL Scouting Combine is, at its core, nothing more than a very expensive cattle auction. I understand that during my medical examination, while several team physicians poke and prod at me from all angles in a room full of people, asking borderline invasive questions about old injuries and pulling on my limbs.
“He has a good frame, but we need to look at that elbow again,” one of them says, his fingers digging into my skin to rotate the elbow in question.
“The papers say he broke it at age nine; we’ll need a scan of it before we decide on anything.”
“There was also that hamstring tightness last season,” a voice chimes in while a pair of cool hands glides over the backs of my thighs, making me grit my teeth.
“He’s explosive off the line. That’s what you want,” another comments while taking notes on her tablet.
“What was his weight again?” a fourth interjects as he measures my arm length.
They don’t bother lowering their voices, all of them speaking with a level of detachment that makes it clear I’m an asset—and a potential risk—rather than a person. I’ve heard Brandon use more empathy while planning out the breeding cycles of his Holsteins over Christmas break.
On day two, when every part of my body has been fully photographed and cataloged by half of the NFL teams present, I get ushered into a stuffy conference room and seated in front of a bunch of middle-aged men. Their faces and ball caps change every few minutes, but their questions are all variations of the same thing:
“Do you consider yourself a team player, Micah?”
“What’s your biggest weakness, Micah?”
“Draw up an offensive formation, Micah.”
“Draw up another.”
“And another.”
I draw. I smile. I answer. I fold and bend into every shape and form they ask me to for the duration of eighteen interviews.
“You’re very versatile,” they tell me, and I have no idea how to feel about that.
