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“I don’t know about that. You were stressed then, just differently.” Nick shook his head as he pulled out his iPad before shoving the backpack underneath the seat. He typically watched movies while I slept on planes and I needed that badly right now.
“It’s worse missing her than putting off telling Greg about us,” I said softly and Nick looked at me sharply. “Jesus. Forget I said that. This is better.” I sounded like an idiot and I dropped my head back against the seat as I thought back to a memory that stuck out on my mind.
We all had been swimming at Greg’s in high school. There were a few of us guys and Willow and Emma, both of whom were sixteen at the time. They’d both grown up so much, but Emma had been striking compared to her best friend. She had been wearing a modest one-piece suit, but I could still see her curves as she blushed beside the pool on her chaise lounge.
I knew what those curves looked like up close now and it killed me.
Once we were in the air, Nick caught up on a show and I closed my eyes. I was wiped out. I’d been worrying and thinking too much the last few days and I just needed to shut my brain off.
We landed in Oakland and went to the hotel when I discovered that the girls hadn’t come. The fans here had a way of not making anyone other than their team feel comfortable, so Coach decided not to risk anything happening. I got to my room and sent Emma another text, telling her to let me know that she was okay. I said that I found out that she didn’t travel with us this time and asked again that she get back to me.
We went out with some of the guys for dinner, discussing the upcoming game as we crowded around the large booth. Well, they talked about it. I obsessed about my phone that wasn’t vibrating with a text from Emma. I ate and sipped my water as I thought about everything, knowing that being further away was going to make me feel worse.
We didn’t play until the following evening and I just stayed inside the room. I wasn’t a fan of this area to begin with and I hit the hotel gym alone in the late morning and returned to the room to doze in bed as the TV played in the background. Nick came back from going somewhere with the guys and we dressed to head to the stadium.
Coach was amped as we went over strategies, discussing their players and their strengths. It made me more tired after being such a lazy ass all day, and I reached deep inside me for the adrenaline that normally filled me at game time. Coach was playing me a little bit each game, so I’d had some practice and it was that moment that I lived for, at least before Emma. I was shocked when I realized that she meant more to me than the game.
We went out on the field to the normal boos and names called at us, but I felt confident we’d win. Their team hadn’t been doing so hot in the last few years, but their fans were still devoted.
By the time we won the game, I was frazzled and happy to sit out. I knew that we were going to win, and I longed to go back home and fix things with Emma. I couldn’t deal with this.
Instead, we made our victory lap around the field to the dismay of the locals and then went to shower and change. Some of the guys wanted to go to a sports bar to grab some food and drinks, though I stuck to water. I wasn’t feeling stable enough to drink. We were there for a couple of hours before I went back to the hotel alone, checking my phone to see nothing from Emma but a voicemail from Greg.
I decided to call him in the morning and see what he knew since we weren’t leaving until the evening. Some of the guys thought it might be nice to have some time to tour San Francisco while we were here, based on the fact that so many of the players were new. I couldn’t care less about that and didn’t plan to do anything, but Nick tried to talk me into it in the morning.
“We’re going to play tourist. It’ll be fun and will get the stick out of your ass,” he said. I shot him a dark look. “Jesus, Jackson, lighten up.”
I left the room to call Greg, listening to his tone as he answered the phone. He said that he’d seen the game the night before and that it was great and chatted about his sister as if she was still living at my place. I went along with it, relieved that I had some time to fix things when I got home.
