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37
Brody
It was one hell of a game.
I was raised like any good Christian boy. I grew up hearing stories from my grandpa about how I needed to behave, or I’d face fire and brimstone. But with all respect to my grandpa and Jesus himself, playing football in a blizzard felt a lot more like hell than any amount of fire.
The weather was kicking our ass. It wasn’t consistent, either. On one play, the wind could knock Dallas’s pass down to the turf before it ever reached me. A play later, the wind would swirl and switch directions, sending his pass five feet over my head. Every pass felt like the trigger-click of a cruel Russian Roulette game. We couldn’t get into a groove at all.
Somehow, the football gods took pity on us in the fourth quarter. I was running on an out route, and somehow Dallas’s pass found a way to cut through the wind and hit me over my left shoulder. I slipped out of the defender’s grasp, dodged another man’s tackle, and that’s all she wrote.
But it wasn’t time to celebrate. Not yet. We lined up for a two-point conversion, and Dallas gave me a lingering stare. I knew the ball was coming to me. I sprinted toward the pylon at the edge of the end zone. When I turned, the ball was already on its way toward me. I caught it, took two more steps, and managed to dive with all my might. The ball crossed the end zone before my knee hit the ground, giving us the lead.
I leaped up and pumped my fist in victory. I had three or four choreographed celebrations prepared, but then I remembered what Taylor had said about her dad. And damned if it didn’t make me want to win him over.
So instead of galloping on a horse, or shooting the football like a bow and arrow, or any other number of silly dances, I simply pulled down my sleeve to show the leather wristband to the camera. This time, the Scrabble tiles were facing out.
There was still some time left on the clock, but our defense—and the weather—were able to stop the Bills. We won the game, and were advancing to the next round of the playoffs.
We celebrated on the field and shook hands with the opposing players, then jogged back toward the tunnel. One of the sideline reporters for Fox, Michelle Anderson, was shouting my name and waving me over.
“Howdy, ma’am,” I said as I joined her in front of her camera crew. “Mighty nice of you to stick around in this weather.”
“Might nice of you to give us a show out there!” she replied. “Tell us about the bracelet on your wrist. The one you showed to the camera after the winning score.”
I pulled down my sleeve to reveal it again.
“What’s it mean?”
I tapped each tile and said, “B, heart, T. It stands for Brody Loves Touchdowns.”
I grinned at the silly response that I had thought up on the spot. I was feeling mighty clever until Michelle responded.
“It doesn’t mean Brody Loves Taylor?”
Hearing Taylor’s name caused my whole body to go still. I felt like a deer frozen in headlights. To buy myself a second to think, I said, “Can you repeat that? I can’t hear ya over the wind!”
“BRODY LOVES TAYLOR!” she repeated, louder this time. “Earlier today, a story broke that you’re dating Taylor Fox, a member of the cheerleading team. Did you score that touchdown for her, Brody?”
I glanced over at the cheerleaders, who were walking off the field and up into the tunnel. I caught a glimpse of Taylor’s red hair before she disappeared.
“I don’t know what… ah, I’ve got to go.”
I sprinted off the field while the reporter shouted for me to come back. All the ecstasy I felt about winning the game was gone, replaced by a single, overwhelming thought:
I have to get to Taylor.
That was the only thought in my head right then. I had to get to Taylor and warn her that there was a rumor going around about us. One that a reporter had just asked me about on live TV. Maybe, if I gave her enough warning, we could figure out what to say to Isabella. We could do some damage control.
But first, I needed to know what exactly the rumors said.
I made it to the locker room and hastily grabbed my phone. I didn’t have to search for very long before finding the story. It was all over the gossip sites, and it was the first Google result when I searched my name.
Fuck.
Even though I was still wearing my uniform and pads, I ran out of the locker room to search for Taylor. I got halfway down the hall before a kid in a suit blocked my path.
“Mr. Carter, I’m Jessie, with the marketing team,” he said. “We need you in the press room immediately.”
