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As the Rush offense trotted back down the field to set up their next play, the camera panned to the crowd and found Garrett’s family. Houston was there, of course. He’d talked about his family a lot freshman year when we’d played together at Southern U. They’d always seemed tight-knit.
Envy wound through the pit of my stomach. I had a sister, but she was a decade older than me and seemed more like a distant relation than anything else. She was already married with kids and living in Seoul, where several of the Whitt Industries factories and warehouses were located. And though I was way too old for the sad, lonely boy schtick, it crept in on occasion. Still, I’d grown up well taken care of by what I called accessory parental units, had anything I could have wanted, gone to the best schools, and lived what anyone else would consider a luxury lifestyle. And I’d achieved my dream of playing pro football in spite of my family’s wishes and despite not being drafted to the Denver Rush like I’d initially wanted. I tried to remember that when those moments of envy crept in. I had nothing to complain about. There wasn’t a motherfucker out there that would ever spare a moment of sorrow for me.
I focused back on the screen in time to see Tucker, the Rush’s starting center, hunker over in preparation to snap the ball to Warner Ramsey, their quarterback. Tucker had been smaller than me the first couple of years we’d attended the same football camp, something I’d taken a weird, petty pride in. And then he’d hit a growth spurt. Now, the guy was solid as an anvil but fast as a tornado. He was cocky as hell, too, which the media and fans seemed to find somehow charming. Not me.
Yet, I couldn’t stop looking at him as he crouched, the round muscles of his quads tensed, the pop of his bicep visible even from the zoomed-out angle. He was a machine, and I knew if the camera had been close enough to capture his expression, his jaw would be squared, eyes laser focused and intent the way I’d seen plenty of times at camp. He’d been a favorite there, making friends off the field but all business on the turf. Meanwhile, I’d always felt like I had some kind of perimeter fence around me that kept people at a distance. “Closed off,” a girlfriend had told me once, and I knew damn well what that meant but not why I was like that.
My phone chimed with a text, and I lazily thumbed it open to see a message from Candice.
Candice:I know what you’re watching right now.
Me:Clown porn?
Candice:I’ll pretend I didn’t just read that. The Rush making you nervous?
Me:Like I said, clown porn.
Candice’s eye roll emoji made me grin. She and her husband, Leon, had started working for my parents when I was just a kid. Candice had moved up from house manager to general life manager. She and Leon were the only ones who’d been visibly excited when I was drafted to the Royals.
Candice:Did you call your mom yet?
Me:No. She wants me to call later since they’re on Oz time.
Candice:Don’t forget.
Twenty years later and she was still trying to engineer the whole nuclear family ideal. I didn’t have the heart to tell her outright that just wasn’t in the Whitt gene pool.
Me:Okay, mom2. Game’s back on, so I’ve gotta run. I got the tickets you requested set aside for the first home game. They’ll be at the VIP box office. Friends and family section.
Candice:Okay, sweetheart. We’re looking forward to it! Don’t forget to call your mom!
I sighed at the screen, even though a smile tickled the corners of my mouth at the second reminder.
Me:Heard you the first time. Tell Leon hey for me.
I tossed my phone on the table and got back to the game, where Garrett was tearing up the field all over again. They were definitely going to be a challenge this year, and I was determined to be ready for whatever they threw our way.
* * *
I got homea little after ten, tossed my keys onto the kitchen counter, and immediately opened all the sliding doors to the balcony before pouring myself a glass of whiskey and taking it onto the deck with me. The Hollywood Hills house was the first thing I’d ever purchased using my own money.
Back then, my pro football dreams had seemed like a long shot to my parents, which was probably part of the reason they hadn’t given me too much grief over my choice to go to Southern; they figured I’d be back eventually, and I had. Sort of. Southern U wasn’t Stanford, but it’d been the switch I’d needed to kick my game into high gear.
As I sipped my whiskey, I couldn’t shake the image of Tucker from my head. His strength and focus had been intimidating on the field, and it was all I could think about. Maybe it was the fact that he seemed to have it all together. Meanwhile, I felt like I was constantly struggling to keep up with expectations I wasn’t sure were mine or someone else’s. I knew it was stupid to dwell on someone who was little more than a stranger I used to go to camp with and who’d once witnessed a moment between me and my dad that still made me feel exposed and vulnerable when I thought about it. I hated that feeling. Or to dislike him just because he’d been drafted to the Rush instead of me in a plot twist not even the best NFL draft analysts had predicted, but I did, and the sour taste he left in my mouth had lingered even after multiple seasons with the Royals and despite how much I’d grown to love playing for them.
I pulled up a replay of their earlier preseason game via the NFL+ app and fast-forwarded to the end of the game, checking out the team interviews I’d missed earlier. I sped through Ramsey’s and Garrett’s interviews, pausing only when I caught a glimpse of Tucker in the background, high-fiving who I assumed was one of his siblings. I waited to see if they’d interview him, but after another minute and a glance at the time, I closed out the app and called my mom’s phone.
“Evening, Patrick,” she said, “Your father and I were just talking about you. Sure wish we could convince you to fly out here and check out this new warehouse with us.” She did that a lot, just sort of barreled into a conversation without the standard exchange of “hello” or “how are you.”
“I’d love to, but you know I’m knee-deep in preseason stuff,” I responded with rote diplomacy.
“Of course,” she said like she’d forgotten, though I knew she hadn’t. My career was mostly treated as a minor inconvenience rather than the substantial accomplishment and accompanying paycheck it was. I’d gotten used to it. They’d never understood the allure for me or that I didn’t want to just be enfolded into the family dynasty. Hell, most people wouldn’t understand, and I couldn’t entirely explain it myself. I just knew that from the second I’d stepped on the football field, it’d felt right. It had ignited a passion inside me I’d never felt for polo, piano, debate team, math bowl, or any number of other “appropriate” extracurriculars for a Whitt.
“Your father and I watched some of your preseason game,” she continued smoothly. “The team is looking really good this year. Think LaForge can get you all to the Super Bowl?” The second disappointment I’d delivered to my parents was that I wasn’t a quarterback, which was apparently the only acceptable position in football. I’d never been cut out for that, though, definitely not the way LaForge was or Warner Ramsey. I was meant for the grind.
I finished off my whiskey, focusing on the way the smooth slide of it down my throat soothed my burning thoughts. “It’ll be a team effort, as always, Mom. But I agree that we’re strong this year.”
She made some small talk about the weather and other topics that hardly seemed important before getting to the reason she’d probably asked me to call in the first place. “We’re hosting another gala this year, and your father and I would love it if you could make it,” she said, excitement creeping into her voice. The Whitt Industries annual gala was a revered who’s who of industry leaders she’d started hosting a decade ago. “And before you can say no, we’ve scheduled it during your bye week this time, so no excuses!”
