AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Carter hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “Who were you thinking of?”
She pursed her lips. A team that needed a hero. A man who needed to be a hero again... During their time together, she’d seen how much it had hurt Alex to exile himself from football. Had seen the hollow look in his eyes every time she accidentally flicked on a game on the television. She twisted her ponytail, thinking hard. Would Alex even consider it? His schedule was nuts, yes, but word had it the Messer case was being settled out of court.
She gave Carter an even look. “Give Alex Constantinou a call.”
His brow furrowed. “The way I heard it, the guy wants nothin’ to do with football.”
“Call him,” she said firmly. “I think he might feel differently if he meets the team.”
“And you know this how?”
A sharp pang sliced through her. “I know Alex,” she said quietly. “Give it a shot.”
When Jim Carter called her two days later to say Alex had agreed to stop by a practice, it was a bittersweet moment. Maybe something, something good would come out of all of this.
“Jim, don’t tell him I had anything to do with this, okay?”
He sounded curious, but agreed. She hung up. Walked into James’s office and took herself out of the running for the anchor job. And felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders.
* * *
The smell of fresh-cut grass hit Alex first. The earthy, pungent fragrance of the dirt underneath, turned up by the players’ cleats, came next. They were smells he could have conjured just by closing his eyes. Recalling the hundreds of times he’d walked out onto a field just like this. But today as he did it for the first time in eight years, he knew why he’d never come back.
It felt as though someone was tearing his heart out.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he climbed the bleachers. He would stay for a half hour to make Carter happy. Then he’d tell him he couldn’t do it and leave. Because he couldn’t.
He leaned his forearms on the railing of the first row and watched Carter put the team through drills. The players reminded him of the torn-up, patchy-looking field. They’d seen better days. But there was talent here. Lots of it. Belief was the issue. Vision.
His mouth twisted. He knew the feeling. In the weeks following the airing of his feature, his office had been flooded with phone calls from media outlets wanting a piece of him. Desperate for a new angle, desperate to get a piece of a story that was captivating the airwaves. Were athletes pushing it too far with drugs? Was the pressure on them too great?
He flexed his arms and pushed away from the railing. His faith in humanity had taken a beating. He’d gone underground, avoided the calls that came daily from his three sisters. Told Mark to mind his own business. Then his sisters had shown up at his office and dragged him out for a talking-to. “It’s better that it’s all out,” Agape, the pragmatist, had said. “Now you can move on.”
Surprisingly, she’d been right. He felt a strange sense of freedom in no longer having anything to hide. To put a period on a part of his life that was over. So what was he doing here dredging it up all over again? “Just come meet the team,” Carter had said. “Take in a practice. If you’re still not interested, no harm done.”
Carter yelled some instructions to the offensive line and hopped up into the bleachers beside him. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “Lots of talent out there.”
Carter nodded, slid him a sideways look. “They need a leader.”
“That wouldn’t be me.” Alex kept his eyes on the field. “I haven’t played football in eight years.”
“I’d say it’d be a right fresh start for you then.”
He stared at the field, at the crooked uprights, at the sport that was everything he’d once loved. Why the hell wasn’t he telling Carter no? Getting out of here?
Because in the wake of his disillusionment over Frank Messer, walking out onto this field today had been the rightest thing he’d done in a long, long time. He needed to believe again. And this team had an amazing story.
He looked at the scrappy young quarterback out there. So full of promise. So full of doubt. And knew he could help him.
He looked over at Carter. “I have an insane travel schedule.”
“We’ll work around it.” A wide grin split the coach’s face. “You in?”
“Guess I am.”
* * *
Alex spent every minute of his spare time working with the team over the next couple of weeks. He devoted one-on-one time to every player, finding out what made them tick. What would make them gel as a unit. And finally, he started to see some cohesion. Some of that old brilliance shine through. He pulled in some favors, took them on a field trip to see the New York Crusaders play, hoping the glitz and excitement of watching a pro game in a private box would fire them up.
And somewhere along the way, felt himself heal.
He worked until he was bone-weary at night, then he came home and strategized. Built his game book. But no matter how tired he got, no matter how much he told himself it was a good thing Izzie was out of his life after what she’d done to him, she was everywhere. In his head, in his bed when he finally gave in and crashed at night, on the sofa watching him work, reading his copy of Great Expectations and interrupting him to debate the merits of the book.
It was a problem.
A few days before the game that would determine whether the Warriors went to state, he came home late, took a long, hot shower and headed out to the terrace, a beer in his hand. He opened his playbook, started to scribble some notes from today’s practice, then stopped. There was one thing, one thing he couldn’t figure out. If Izzie had intended to betray him all along, why hadn’t she kept the story for herself and taken all the credit? Lynched him and guaranteed herself the anchor job?
It didn’t make sense. That story had made Bart Forsyth a household name.
He dropped his head in his hands. I didn’t mean to, she’d said in his office. He’d been so angry, so blind with fury he hadn’t been able to see past anything but the fact that she’d splashed his deepest humiliation across the national news. But now, now that he could actually think, he realized he’d done exactly the same thing he’d done to her in the beginning. He’d judged her without letting her explain. Convicted her without a trial instead of believing in the woman he knew she was.
He was afraid he’d made a horrendous mistake.
He picked up the phone and called James Curry. When he was done he felt ill. All that talk he’d fed Izzie about believing in him. When he was the biggest fool of all.
He’d thrown a Hail Mary pass to win that championship for Boston College, its first in too many years to count. A desperate, adrenaline-fueled prayer that had somehow come out right. Could he do it again with the woman who’d captured his heart?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE NIGHT THE River City Warriors took the field in their first game at home with their new assistant coach, Alexios Constantinou—a berth in the state championship at stake—the crisp fall evening, clear and crackling with tension, was the kind that had new beginnings written all over it.
Jim Carter had stepped back and let Alex lead. The players clearly respected, idolized him. And he had pushed them hard. He’d demanded they grieve, honor their fallen mentor, then move on. Focus. And in doing so he’d found his own kind of peace. But as he finished his pregame pep talk and sent the players out onto the field, a frozen tension gripped his body. He could hear the roar of the crowd from the tunnel. Knew there were hundreds of people out there to watch the Warriors play. And just as many to witness his return to football.
The buzz was immense. For the second time in his life, he could feel the pressure of a whole city’s pride winding its way around his throat, choking him.
“That’s a different team goin’ out there tonight,” Jim Carter said quietly at his side.
Alex nodded. Because he could not speak.
“Ready?”
He started walking by way of reply, down the tunnel toward the field. The lights blinded him as he stepped outside. The noise swept over him like an untamed beast. He blinked as the past and present collided like the cold and hot air of a viciously powerful storm. And found he couldn’t move.
Eight years slid away. Suddenly the field was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The voices of his teammates echoed in his head, reassuring him as they carried him off the field on a stretcher. “You’re gonna be all right, Consty. Hang in there.”
But it hadn’t been all right. It had been over.
The chanting started then, low at first, then louder. He lifted his head.
“Alllexx, Alllexx, Alllexx.”
They were chanting his name.
“Check out the signs,” Carter said.
He lifted his gaze to the big handmade poster boards littering the crowd.
The Bull Is Back
Welcome Back #45
We Love You Alexios
His throat seized. How was he supposed to do this?
Carter gave him a sideways look. Somehow he started moving, putting one foot in front of the other until it became an unconscious rhythm that carried him to the bench. Focus, he told himself, the lump in his throat so large he could hardly swallow. Channel it. You have a job to do.
That was when he saw her. Seated in the press section of the bleachers, Izzie looked beautiful in a soft blue dress, her hair loose around her shoulders.
