Page 150 of Hard Pass

I lift my helmet to put it on and for some reason, I look up. It’s not intentional. I don’t search or count the number of boxes over from the fifty-yard line, I just look up and find her.

There in my suite.

There, wearing my jersey.

There . . . for me.

Despite the distance, her eyes meet mine and fuck, man. The noise dulls—not gone, just quieter. The pressure in my chest eases, and I can think better. I can breathe better.

There you are.

The words settle in my head without effort or resistance. Like she’s supposed to have been there all along.

We stare at each other for a beat. My dad’s voice fades. It’s shoved back so that it’s not the only thing I hear.

“Hey,” Wolfe says as he pats my shoulder. “Let’s go kick some ass.”

We’re on the field, lined up in seconds. Fifteen minutes on the clock is a lifetime in football. Everybody knows that.

“Blue eighty. Blue eighty. Set—hike.”

Snap. The ball hits my hands and everything narrows to the world in front of me as I drop back into the pocket.

Formation.

Coverage.

Movement.

This is what I know. This is what I trust.

Read one—covered.

Read two—there. An opening.

I plant and it hits me out of nowhere. The hesitation. The flicker. The what if. A split second where everything wants to stall. Where my mind wants to second-guess and overthink.

I clench my fingers on the leather and force through it.

My man is still open, so I pull the trigger and release the ball. It’s not the best spiral but it does the job. The receiver catches it for the first down.

The crowd erupts as I shake my hand at my side and draw in a frustrated breath.

No interception. It’s a start, right?

“Let’s keep it moving down the field,” someone shouts as they pat me on the ass.

The next couple of downs play out the same way. The hesitation hits and I find a way to push through it. To execute the game plan. To compensate. My throws aren’t sharp or clean, but they’re effective. We move downfield—yard by yard, play by play.

Every time the flicker hits, I shove it aside faster. Quicker. Like I’m learning the timing of it. Like I can beat it. I can’t control it, not yet, but this gives me hope that I’ll survive it.

The crowd is on their feet as we take our first snap in the red zone.

“Trips right, sixty-two slant,” I call, stepping into the huddle. “We score, we’ve got this.”

They nod and we break.

The blitz come hard once we snap but I adjust on the fly, stepping up just as the receiver cuts inside. There’s no hesitation this time before I release and I’m rewarded. Touchdown.