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3
Brody
To me and most of the other guys on the Stallions, the off-season meant one thing.
Getting laid.
I kept my powder dry during the regular season, so to speak. I’d been doing that way back since college, when Dallas Lockett and I made the pact while playing for the University of Texas.
(Hook ‘em horns!)
No romance during the season. No booty calls. No distractions. It was the only way to make sure we focused on football.
That philosophy had served us well. We dominated in college. Now we were dominating at the professional level. I thrived when I didn’t have those kinds of distractions in my life. My momma had a lot of sayings, and one of them was: don’t mess with a good thing.
But don’t you worry, now. I made up for it plenty in the off-season.
Now, before you go judging me, take a breath and put yourself in my shoes. I was rich. I was pretty damn famous. And, pardon my ego, I was a charismatic sumbitch. Even before I was known for my skills between the yard sticks, I could sit down with a girl and get her number within ten minutes, guaranteed.
So, yeah. I could get just about any girl I wanted. And after voluntary celibacy between September and January, I was ready to blow off a lot of steam once spring rolled around.
The whole offense took a trip to Key West every February, once the season ended. A week of drinking, partying, and meeting the kinds of women that didn’t exist in Salt Lake City. Normally, I loved the yearly trip.
But Dallas, my wingman, wasn’t with us this year.
For one thing, he was recovering from shoulder surgery. It was tough to double-fist margaritas when one arm was in a sling. Not to mention all the other physical activity he needed an extra arm for.
That was only a minor reason, though. The main reason he wasn’t with us?
Kim Dresden.
One morning, I got a coffee from the resort bar and sat out by the pool. As I watched the sunrise, I checked Instagram. Dallas’s feed was full of photos of the two of them together. Watching the new James Bond film at the movie theater, Dallas’s good arm around the blonde woman while she fed him a fistful of popcorn. The two of them making breakfast. A video of Kim helping Dallas exercise with only one good arm, doing a series of dumbbell workouts.
I couldn’t be happier for Dallas. He was my best friend, and my absolute favorite person on God’s green earth. If he was happy, then I was too.
But it did make me wonder about our no-romance-during-the-season policy. The two of them had been sneaking around together since October, and it hadn’t negatively affected his performance. Hell, he had the best year of his career. Dallas was better with Kim in his life.
Was I missing out?
By day three of the Key West trip, I had gotten my fill. There was only so much drinking and partying you could do before it got boring. Especially at my ancient age of twenty-eight. I couldn’t party like I could when I was a fresh college kid. So when the trip finally ended and we got to go home, I felt relieved.
Salt Lake City was kind of shitty in the winter. It was bone-cold and snowed nearly every week. I was used to mild winters back home in Texas, where I grew up. Sixty degree days in December? Yes ma’am, I’ll take that every day and twice on Sunday.
But Salt Lake City was beautiful in the summer, which made up for the winters for sure. Whenever I retired, I wanted to own two homes. I would spend summer here in Utah, then head back to Texas for the winter months.
As the off-season progressed and the weather warmed up, I kept up with my training religiously. I went for a run every morning with my dog Luna, who was a husky and needed to let out some energy. I met with the new Stallions trainer, who was kind of a dweeb, but he was friendly enough and cared about my training.
Occasionally, I got lunch with my buddy Dallas. But he was busy with his new girl most days. And once again, it made me wonder if I was missing out on something special.
One day in May, my buddies Kincaid and Double-D (his real name was Doug Dunlap) invited me out to a playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks. “Hell yeah,” I replied. “A chance to see my boy Luka in action? Count me in.”
My buddies had tickets in a suite. Double-D liked suite tickets because they had all-you-can-eat food, and he could put away five or six plates of whatever was being served. But I never liked the food at those kinds of events, so as I walked to the game from my downtown penthouse, I was looking for something to eat before getting there.
There was a bar on the way that served good food. When I saw the sandwich of the day, I was sold: a grilled chicken sandwich with honey mustard and avocado. Yes ma’am, that’s what I’m talking about.
I pulled my sweatshirt hoodie up over my head. Unlike Dallas Lockett, who was the face of the Stallions franchise, I could occasionally pass unnoticed around town as long as I covered my face or wore sunglasses. Sometimes I liked all the attention that came with being an NFL player, but tonight I only wanted a quick bite before the game. Couldn’t do that if I was signing autographs and taking endless selfies with fans.
The bar was crowded as I walked in, like there was some sort of event going on. All the bar stools were full. So were most of the tables. The only place with any seats was a high-top table over against the wall. The only person sitting there was a cute redhead.
