Authors: Kirsten DeMuzio
Tags: #romance, #contemporary romance, #college romance, #new adult romance
Fourth Down
Fourth Down
Kirsten DeMuzio
Copyright © 2013 by Kirsten
DeMuzio
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author
except where permitted by law.
Published by
Kirsten DeMuzio
9054 Tabernash Drive
Columbus, Ohio 43240
The characters and events portrayed in
this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or
dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover design by Kirsten
DeMuzio
Smashwords Edition, License
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CONTENTS
Prologue
Ford
January 3, 2009
In those few quick seconds before I
shouted the cadence, I cleared my mind of all the other shit in my
life.
It didn’t matter that Grady, my best
friend from back home, was currently sitting in a holding cell for
drunken disorderly after tailgating too hard before my game. It
didn’t matter that my other two best friends from home, Josh and
Leah, weren’t there because they were trying to bail Grady’s sorry
ass out of jail.
It didn’t matter that my mom wasn’t
there cheering me on in the last and biggest game of my college
football career because her cancer had returned and her chemo
treatments made it too hard for her to travel.
That especially didn’t matter right
then. At least that’s what I tried to convince myself. None of that
shit could matter at that moment. For the next twenty five seconds,
give or take, the only thing that mattered was getting this ball
down the field.
My ability to block out the glaring
lights and the deafening screams from the stands of a stadium that
easily held over 100,000 people had always been my greatest
strength. When I jogged to the center of the field, I allowed the
cheers of the spectators to wash over me and through me, fueling
the adrenaline. But when I got into position, rubbing my hands
together, my vision tunneled in on just the field stretching out
before me.
“4-3, 4-3, Blue 25, Blue 25, hut, HUT,
hut!”
McCauley, my center, snapped the ball
perfectly, and it landed dead center in my waiting hands. The play
I called was a long throw down field, and I had three wide
receivers hauling ass to get on target. But the defense was good,
and my receivers weren’t going to make it where I needed them to be
in time. I was going to have to improvise.
Swinging my eyes to the left I saw a
small window cleared by my offensive line. If I hesitated for two
seconds, the window would have closed and I would have most likely
been sacked or forced to throw the ball away. We were nearing the
end of the fourth quarter and down one score. I had to gain some
yardage on this play or we were in serious trouble. It was third
and ten, and if we didn't get the first down now, we would be faced
with a fourth down decision. Punt or go for it.
Taking off, I raced to the left and
dodged around one of my offensive linemen before cutting back to
the right. I’d already gained six yards, which was enough for that
play. But the first down mark was only four more yards, and I
thought I could make it. I knew Coach would be pissed at me for not
sliding and protecting myself, but this game was too important.
There was no way in hell I was not going for this.
Immediately after I crossed the 43
yard line, signaling I made the first down, I was hit on my right
side. Hard. Harder than I had ever been hit before.
I was on the ground before I even knew
what was happening, and at least four huge guys were piled on top
of me. It’s not like I’d never been hit before. Shit, I was used to
being hit every fucking day. But even before the pain registered, I
knew this was not like any other hit I had experienced. Because
above the roars of the crowd, and above the shouts on the field, I
heard the snap. Maybe I just felt it, but I could swear that I
heard my bone breaking.
When the pile cleared, I ripped off my
helmet, but I was unable to get up. Now that a few seconds had
passed and I didn’t have a thousand pounds of football players on
top of me, the pain in my leg was registering. Holy
fuck!
My ears were picking up the sounds of
the stadium again, but the crowd was eerily quiet except for
someone screaming. I realized it was me screaming in agony, and I
tried to stop. But I couldn’t stop. The pain was absolutely
unbearable.
My teammates were surrounding me, and
each of them had the same horrified expression on their faces. A
couple of them even had to turn away. Raising my head slightly I
tried to see what they were seeing. My right leg was twisted at an
unnatural angle, and there was blood everywhere.
Why was there blood? And what was that
sticking out of where my knee should have been?
Oh, God. That’s my bone. That was the
last coherent thought I had before everything went
black.
*****
Waking up God knows how
much later in a hospital bed with my entire right leg wrapped and
elevated, I knew that I had played my last football game. I didn’t
need the doctor to come in and tell me the slim odds of a full
recovery. I didn’t need to hear that months of physical
therapy
might
return me full use of my leg. I didn’t need to hear any of
that shit, because I knew. I felt it deep in my bones, my broken
bones, that my football career was over. Not able to face it yet, I
pushed the handy button that pumped more pain meds through my IV
and drifted back into the darkness.
*****
“Grady! Shut the hell up! You’re going
to wake him up,” Leah whispered harshly.
If my eyes were open I would have
rolled them. It wasn’t Grady that woke me up; it was Leah’s
bitching. At least I knew they had been successful in bailing out
Grady.
Groaning, I cracked one eye open and
immediately regretted it. Every single light in the room was on,
and my head was already pounding. I reached out one hand and felt
around for the pain pump.
“I’ve got it, Ford,” Leah said,
pressing the button for me. With a worried expression on her face,
she sat gingerly on the edge of my bed and took my hand in both of
hers.
“Jesus, Leah, I’m not dying,” I
croaked and pulled my hand away.
Instead of being offended, Leah just
rolled her eyes and stood back up. She couldn’t have been more than
a hundred pounds soaking wet, but Leah had always had more attitude
than the three of us guys combined. Grady, Josh and I had been
friends since we were little kids. Leah unofficially joined our
group when she started dating Josh a few years ago. They made it
official when they got married last year.
Josh was leaning against the far wall
with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked like he was
standing guard over Grady, who was sprawled out in the chair in the
corner. I had been away at college the last four years, and Josh
and Grady stayed in Penn Yan to work at Grady’s dad’s boat
shop.
While Josh had settled happily into
his work and his marriage to Leah, Grady was another story.
Apparently the summer after my freshman year he met a girl. I
stayed on campus every summer, so I wasn’t around for the epic fall
of Grady Hawke or his subsequent meltdown when she dumped his ass.
The four of us hadn’t spent more than a few days together at a time
in the last several years, but they were still the closest friends
I would ever have.
There wasn’t a window in my room, so I
had no idea if it was night or day or how much time had passed
since I had been taken away from the game.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“It’s 10:00 o’clock,” Josh replied.
“In the morning.”
Holy shit. It had been over twelve
hours.
“What happened?”
Leah began to give me a rundown of
what the doctors had done. “They temporarily set your leg, and you
have a concussion…”
But I cut her off. “Not with my leg.
The game. What happened with the game? Did we win?”
Grady lifted his head off the back of
the chair and slurred, “Yeah, man. It was awesome. You guys beat
their asses.”
Apparently a little time in the
slammer didn’t do much to sober him up. Either that or he had been
drinking again since he got out. The latter was the likely option
given the way Grady had been living his life the last few
years.
Leah turned to give him a death stare,
and Josh shoved Grady’s head back against the head rest of the
chair. Grateful the rest of my team had pulled out a win, I dropped
my own head back to the pillow and closed my eyes. That didn’t last
long.
“Ford, your mom is frantic to talk to
you,” Leah said, shoving the already dialed phoned to my ear.
Jesus, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to my mom.
My dad had left us when I was seven,
and my mom had raised me alone ever since. Right after my dad left
she signed me up for a flag football league to keep me out of
trouble while she was working. She’d worked two jobs so I could
play football.
I never stopped playing. Busting my
ass to get a scholarship to LSU was as much for her as it was for
me. It was a stepping stone to a professional career in the NFL. I
would be able to take care of my mom for once. The only thing that
kept me going when she told me her cancer had returned was knowing
that in a few short months I would be drafted. I could afford the
best medical treatment for her, and she could finally beat the
cancer that had plagued her for five years.
Now I had to talk to my mom and tell
her that I had failed her. I took the phone from Leah just as my
mom answered on the first ring.
“Ford! Honey, how are you?” My mom
asked, and I could hear the worry in her voice.
“I’m okay, mom. I just woke up so I
haven’t talked to the doctor yet.”
“I want to fly down and be there with
you…”
I interrupted her, “No, mom. I’ll be
okay. I’m sure I’ll be out of here soon. Don’t do anything yet.
I’ll call you later when I know more, okay?”
I was able to convince my mom to stay
home, and I wished I could convince myself as easily that
everything would be okay.