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15
Brody
That was pretty fucking lame.
Football players had a reputation for being dumb. There was an old joke my high school coach used to tell: “Back in my day, we made all the kids run through the forest as fast as they could. The ones who ran into trees became football players.”
And yeah, sometimes that was the case. I had played ball with a lot of guys who were duller than a bag of hammers. That was true of any profession, so it was true of football, too.
But I had always considered myself a pretty sharp guy. I went to a good school and paid attention during class, rather than the players who just coasted until they could join the NFL draft. I thought I could hold my own in a trivia game. Taylor and I had won at the other bar, after all.
I hated being treated like an idiot. It was humiliating. And the cherry on top was that it was Taylor’s boyfriend doing most of the mocking.
Why’d she have to date an asshole? A girl like her deserves someone better.
“You’re cute when you pout,” Isabella said as we left the bar and walked down the street.
“Not pouting,” I replied.
She took on a mocking tone. “Aww, are your feelings hurt? The big strong man can’t handle being bad at something?”
I knew I would regret it if I said anything, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Fine. Be that way.” Isabella laced her arm through mine. “Oh, I meant to tell you. My brothers are coming into town for the game. I want to take them out on Saturday.”
“Where are you going to take them?”
She snickered. “You’re awfully dense tonight. We are taking them out. I want to get dinner at Giorno’s, and then we can hit up the two clubs on the same block…”
“I’m not going out Saturday,” I said. “I have the game the next day.”
She laughed as if I had made a joke. “I’ve cheered for plenty of games while hungover. You can man up and do the same.”
“No,” I insisted, more forcefully than before. “You can go without me.”
“I don’t want to go without you. I want you to meet my brothers.”
“I want to meet them too. Let’s get dinner after the game.”
“I don’t want to go after the game,” she whined. “I want to go on Saturday night. What’s your problem? Why are you being such a baby?”
“My problem is that I’ve been playing like shit, and I need to focus on football,” I said. “I need to cut out distractions, especially the night before a game.”
Isabella pulled away from me and stopped on the sidewalk. “Oh, so I’m a distraction now?”
“YES!” I said, rounding on her.
The frustration in my voice made her flinch.
“You’ve been nothing but a distraction since the season started!” I bit off every word, my voice trembling with barely-withheld anger. “You’ve constantly made me choose between you, and what’s best for my career. I’ve tried telling you this, but you refuse to hear me. It’s like you’re going out of your way to be unsupportive.”
Isabella put a hand on her hip in a gesture that I rarely saw, but I knew was a bad omen. “Oh, so I’m not supportive? You just want some skank you can fuck and then toss on the street so you can focus on football?” She scoffed. “Such an important career. Running and catching and banging into other guys. Ooo, Brody Carter is so important.”
I started to respond, but then noticed that a crowd of pedestrians had stopped to watch. Several people had their phones out to record the fight.
“Let’s talk about this when we get home,” I said.
“You never choose me,” Isabella said, seizing on the opportunity to put on a show for the crowd. She tossed her purse on the ground. “You don’t care about me at all. You won’t go out with me…”
