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e a face, one that said he was keeping a secret. That’s all right. Flynn wouldn’t prod. “It’s not looking good. Quinn said he had to be with her, so he left. No one argued. Makes me think it’s pretty damn serious.”
Flynn felt bad. Sheridan was a sweet woman, and he wouldn’t wish ill will on her or Quinn. He admired the man tremendously. He hoped she would be okay. “That’s awful.”
“It is,” Nick agreed grimly. “So you’re going to be our fearless leader today, Foley. I’ll help you.” They approached the rest of the team, all of them shifting aside so Nick and Flynn could join them. “We’ll all help you and support you. We’re here for you. But you gotta act like a leader, asshole. You gotta show us you were made to do this. This is your moment, and it’s our moment, too. We need to go out there and kick some ass.”
Okay. Nick was pumping him up, and hell if it wasn’t working. He stood taller, let his gaze track every one of the faces of his team members. They were all keyed up, they were worried that their quarterback left them, and they were looking at the second string to make things all better.
Resolve straightened his spine, and Flynn nodded. “I’m doing it. We all ready to do it?”
“Hell, yeah,” they yelled in a chorus of deep male voices.
Nick thrust his finger in Flynn’s face, his expression serious, his eyes blazing with a fierce determination Flynn usually saw only out on the football field. “If you mess this up, I will tear your fucking face off, Foley. I mean it.”
Huh, well there’s a way to motivate him. “Got it,” he said with a nod.
“I’m still pissed that you messed up what you had with Aubrey. That girl is brokenhearted,” Nick continued.
Aw, hell no. They were not having this conversation again, especially not right before the game. Talk about screwing with his concentration. “I told you what happened, Hamilton,” Flynn muttered. “And after what you said, I’m going to try and make it right with her. After the game, though.”
“Really?” Nick scratched his chin, then grinned. “Well, you need to show Aubrey what you’re made of out on that field, Foley.”
Didn’t anyone get it? What he had with Aubrey wasn’t about football. He didn’t want Aubrey to be with him because of what he did. He wanted her to be with him because of who he was. He was freaking in love with her, and yeah, so she’d been crying. That tore him up and confused him. He wanted to try and work it out, but he was also leery.
But you have to understand that it was real for me, too. Every bit of it.
He couldn’t get those last words out of his mind. Did she really mean that? That it had been real for her, too? Nick said she did, but how did he really know? Flynn had been so pissed in the actual moment, he hadn’t really heard her then. The words had only sunk in a few days later, but how could he go to her and ask what she meant by them? What if she threw them back in his face?
No way could he have risked it. Not at the moment. Too much was at stake, namely his career. He’d once again put football first, but had that cost him the love of his life?
Fuck. He didn’t know.
Flynn rubbed at his chest. Just hearing Aubrey’s name filled him with a sweet ache that he couldn’t deny. Despite his lingering anger and confusion, he missed her, more as every day passed by. She’d left him a text and a voicemail, but that had been early days, when he’d been pissed, so he’d ignored them both. Stupid move. One he couldn’t take back.
No matter how much he wished he could. But that was life. Maybe it was best. Maybe he needed to move on.
Without Aubrey.
The announcements were starting, and the crowd became even louder, if that was even possible. It was time for the team to run out onto the field. Time for the game to start. Breathing deep, Flynn shoved his helmet on and listened as they announced Jared Quinn wouldn’t be playing today due to a family medical emergency. That Flynn Foley would be taking his place as starting quarterback.
It was his time to shine and, by God, he wasn’t going to waste a moment.
Chapter Seventeen
Fourth quarter. Less than two minutes to go, and the Hawks were up by three. Three.
Three was not enough. Aubrey thought she was going to lose her mind, watching this game. She’d already picked off all the polish from her fingernails, Hawks blue fluttering to the ground in little flakes all around her.
And that had been only in the first quarter.
She was so tense she thought she would shatter if someone so much as looked at her. Flynn was playing a perfect game. He couldn’t get any better than he already was. His biggest problem? The opposing team was good.
Damn good.
“Nice touch, you wearing Foley’s number,” Harvey had told her just before the game began. “How’d you grab one? I know they weren’t selling them in the gift shops here.”
“I’ve always been wearing it,” she’d admitted, feeling like an idiot. She didn’t know what had possessed her at first to put Flynn’s jersey on this morning as she’d gotten ready. But the moment she’d seen her reflection in the mirror, the number fifteen on her chest, she’d known.
This was her way of telling Flynn that she missed him.
