Grid Iron Bad Boy: A Football Romance (20 page)

“
Y
ou are glowing
,” my mother admires Chelsea from across the hotel restaurant table. “Don, isn’t she just radiant?” She prods my father.

“What? Uh, yeah. You’re looking great,” Dad answers as he scoops up his last fork full of salmon.

My mother is right, Chelsea has always been beautiful, but now that she’s pregnant, she’s shining brighter than the diamond resting on her ring finger.

“You are gorgeous,” I murmur to her. I push my empty plate away from me and wrap my arm around Chelsea’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” she looks up from under her eyelashes bashfully. “I don’t know about glowing,” she talks to Mom, “but definitely sweating in this heat. My body isn’t doing to well with the transition from Colorado to California in winter.”

“Oh nonsense,” Mom scoffs. “You aren’t sweating at all. I’ll tell you what though, if you want to cool down, how about you and I hit up the pool after lunch? Don won’t go swimming with me, and I’d love the company.”

“Sure, that sounds great. I think this one,” Chelsea jerks her thumb at me playfully, “has big plans of lying around all afternoon anyway.”

“Yeah, well the Rose Bowl is tomorrow,” I protest. “This isn’t a mini-vacay for me, like it is for some people. Little Miss Spa day.” I wink at her.

Chelsea smiles broadly and my heart skips a beat. There is no man on this earth luckier than me. Even if I lose the game tomorrow, even if it all goes to shit, I will still be walking tall as long as I have my beautiful fiancée on my arm.

“Well, we couldn’t be happier than you invited us to your big game, honey. It’s something else to be able to watch you play. I can’t wait,” Mom gushes.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“How about we go get our swimsuits on and let the guys sort out the bill?” Mom nods at Chelsea.

“Sounds good to me,” she agrees. The mother of my unborn child leans in and quickly kisses me on the cheek before disappearing with my mother from the table. I can’t help but watch her walk away, the view is just too good to pass up.

“How about I just charge this to my room, Dad? I should really go get rested up as much as I can,” I start to stand up but my father reaches across the table and grabs my hand. I don’t mean to frown, but it’s so unexpected, it catches me off guard.

“Can you sit with me a minute?” Dad looks up at me and my knees instantly buckle. I plop back down in my seat and wait for him to speak. I haven’t seen his face so somber since he broke the news to my brother and I that Pop-pop passed away.

“Sure, what’s going on?” I peer into his face for answers.

Dad releases my hand and clearly struggles to find his tongue. “I, uh, well… I needed to talk to you, son.”

My heart squeezes in my chest at the earnestness on his face.

“Ok.”

“Listen, I know I haven’t always been the best father to you, Cameron. In fact, you’ve deserved much better than me,” he clears his throat and it occurs to me for the first time that my father is trying not to cry.

“Dad, you don’t have to…”

I stop as he holds up his hand to silence me. Whatever he wants to say, he’s bound and determined to get it out.

“I do. I want to tell you this. Please, let me.” He meets my eyes and I nod in compliance.

“OK. You’ve got it.”

“Like I was saying, I know I should’ve done better by you. The truth is, I always took to Jake because I was intimidated by you, I think.”

“What?” I can’t believe my ears.

“It’s true. From the time you were about twelve-years-old, I knew you’d make something great of yourself. Something better than I could ever have a hand in. You always blazed your own trail, and that scared me, because I didn’t know how to guide you down a path I’d never traveled.” Dad stares down at his hands like he’s watching a movie on a cellphone. Finally, he looks up at me and I can see the tears he’s been fighting lining his eyes.

“Dad, it’s ok,” I try to reassure him.

“No, please, let me finish,” he insists.

I close my mouth and wait for him to get his emotions back under control.

“You know, you like to say that the only time I was ever proud of you was when you joined the Army,” he meets my eyes. “It’s not true. That was actually the most disappointed I ever was in you,” he confesses. “It was also when I realized I failed you as a father.”

“What are you talking about?” I try not to raise my voice, but definitely fail.

“I never wanted you to chase after my dreams, Cameron. I knew you were too talented to enlist, especially just to make me happy. It felt like a kick in the teeth, because I knew that I let you down. If I would’ve just supported you more, if I would’ve tried harder, then you never would’ve joined the Army in the first place.” His shoulders hunch over in defeat.

“That’s not true,” I interrupt. “Yeah, I did join because I wanted you to be proud of me, but also because I wanted to be proud of myself. It was important to me to fight, and I did my time on the ground, like I wanted to, and then moved on. It wasn’t just for you, Dad.”

“Really?” He watches me closely.

“Really.”

“That’s a relief, Cameron. It really is,” he breathes deep. “I’m glad you cleared that up for me. I want to tell you, son. I was wrong. I was wrong about Jake, I was wrong about you, I was wrong to treat you both so differently. I made a lot of mistakes in this life, but that is one that I’ll always regret. I just hope that, in time, you can forgive me,” his voice wavers and I feel a lump grow in my throat.

“I do, Dad. I do forgive you.” I try to keep my own emotions in check.

“I love you, Cameron. I know I’ve been a shit father at showing it, but it’s always been true. I love you, and I’m proud of you.” He quickly swipes the back of his hand over his misty eyes.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

Dad clears his throat loudly, “OK then, I’m glad we talked.” He looks at me, “now go get your rest, so you can get out there and kick some ass tomorrow!” He barks at me like the old, retired General that he is.

A smile spreads over my face, “yes, Sir!”

W
e’re running
out the clock. With a 45-7 score we’re completely crushing this game. It’s done. The Rose Bowl is ours. We’re just waiting for the last couple of seconds to disappear from the clock so we can take what’s ours.

My eyes scan the seats. Where is she? I twist my head to the special seating and a calm washes over me when I see her gorgeous smile. There she is. There they are. I manage to tear my gaze from the only woman in here who literally radiates sex and beauty like a beacon from the stands. I look next to her and see my mother’s sweet smile. Mom has her hands clasped together and is shaking them over her head in victory. My chest gets tight as I see my father right next to her, giving me a thumbs up.

I stick my thumb up in the air back at him as pride fills my chest like wind filling a sail. My mind wanders back to last night when we all had supper at the hotel restaurant together. After the bill was paid and we were leaving the table, my father grabbed my arm and pulled me toward him. I wasn’t sure what he wanted when he placed his hand on the back of my neck and I leaned in to listen to him whisper “I’m proud of you, Son.”

It took all I had to keep it together. Damn it, just thinking about it has me choked up all over again!

After I took Chelsea to our room and made love to her like a man heading off to war, we lay twisted in each other’s arms. “I hope our baby has your eyes,” she told me.

“Yeah? Well, I hope the baby has your heart,” I answered back.

My attention snaps back to the moment as the stadium of fans is cheering around my head like a halo of angels. My guys line up with me at the helm. This is it. The last ten seconds of my college football career is about to count down.

“Thirty-six, twenty-four! Hut, hut, hut!” I scream over the roar of the crowd, directly into Driscoll’s ass.

As my center snaps the ball back into my waiting hands, I take a knee for the final play of my college career. The seconds countdown like lifetimes on the clock. Each number moving downward as a great-grandfather leaves this earth and a baby returns in his place. Like the circle of life, like the natural progression, the clock counts down its numbers. While announcing the death of my college years, it’s also announcing the birth of my NFL career to come.

The crowd pours out onto the field like beer from a frosh keg. I look up into the stands and see my family.

MY family.

Not only is my future wife and my unborn child up in the players’ family seats enjoying the win, let alone the California weather, but so are my mother and father too.

I spike the ball unnecessarily into the ground.

I.Fucking.Did.It!

This is the end.

This is the beginning.

This is it!

I look up at my parents and open my mouth wide in a victory scream. “Yeaaahhhhh!” I haphazardly move around in a circle like a junior high kid excited to show off his latest dance moves.

The boys surge around me as champagne and Gatorade rain from the sky. I stick out my tongue. I’m desperate to feel the combination on my skin. It’s like a recipe shared with only the winners. Like this moment, this second in my life can somehow be turned into a cookie or a wine.

It can’t.

The only thing, scratch that… the only person who can make this moment worth its weight in gold is glowing up there in the stands. Hand on her belly, face turned up to God, she’s the angel I never deserved. The woman who will soon be my wife.

Lucky man.

Those words don’t cover this moment.

I feel like I made a deal with the devil and I won. Somehow. I must’ve out fiddled him or something, ‘cause here I am. Standing with my peers around me and my fans breaking out onto the field with nothing but ecstatic love in their hearts.

I look over at Coach Silver, my surrogate dad, and the look on his face makes me feel like I’m walking on Heaven’s clouds. If his face makes me feel like I’ve been welcomed to Heaven, then my own father’s screaming mouth, twisted in happiness is the pearly gates swung open under my guardian angel’s power.

I can’t believe that the last four years of my life are about to come to a close. Like another chapter written in an already lengthy book. I look up at Chelsea and my mouth twitches into a huge smile. The way she looks at me as she holds her hand on her tiny tummy, just knowing that she’s mine. That she’s my future wife, the love of my life, the mother of my child.

It’s amazing.

We’re not just starting a new chapter together. This is a whole new book and I can’t wait to crack the cover and see where each new page takes us. Before I met Chelsea, I had a dream of making it into the NFL. I don’t want to jinx it, but it looks like that’s gonna happen for me. Now, I have a new dream.

A bigger dream.

One that will take a sky full of stars to wish on, to be the best husband and father I can be. To make that woman up there happy, the one who smiles at me in a way that I can never fully deserve. To give her all of me, every single day. She is my North Star. My one true guiding light and I know as long as I follow her in this life, I’ll never be alone or led astray.

“I love you,” I mouth the words to her. I know she sees me. She holds her hand to her heart and says it back. Even though the roar of the insane crowd is too loud, I swear I can hear her. My heart hears her.

It always has. It always will.

S
weat drips
off my nose as I take another long swig of Gatorade.

“Get those electrolytes in ya,” Gosselin nods at me before downing his own bottle.

“Man,” I pant, “this humidity is going to kill me,” a little bit of the orange sports drink spills onto my Miami uniform as I try to inhale the remaining liquid.

“Didn’t you do time in Afghanistan or some shit? Florida can’t be hotter than a desert,” my new running back squints his eyes in the glaring mid-day sun to focus on my face.

When I got picked in the first round of the draft, I was so shocked, I stumbled to the stage like a drunk. Truth is, I felt drunk, or like I was dreaming, I guess. The moment was so surreal, I barely remembered it when I watched the news coverage of it later.

Sure, Florida wasn’t my first pick. I wanted to stay in Colorado, if I could. However, just like in the army, you don’t have a whole lot of say about what state you end up in when you play professional football. Chelsea was happy to say goodbye to the frosty winters and hello to white sandy beaches. She told me that she can teach anywhere, if she goes back to teaching at all. Between my salary and her bonding with her growing baby belly everyday, I think she’ll be spending her time at home with our little miracle, instead of being in the classroom.

“Yeah, man. I did a tour over there, but it’s a dry heat in the desert. This shit,” I swirl my hand around us, “is like doing practice inside a used gym sock. And doing wind sprints next to your nasty ass makes it smell like a gym sock around here too.” I chuck shit back at him.

When I first started the training camp on the new team, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t know if the guys would be happy to have me, or if they would be shaking their heads at another college kid with wide-eyes and big dreams being added to the roster. Lucky for me, I’ve got a solid bunch of guys. Gosselin and I hit it off right away, with him showing Chelsea and me around Miami’s hotspots whenever we’re not sweating our sacs off on the field.

“Yeah, yeah. I know it might confuse a young guy like you, but this is what real men smell like,” he smiles.

“Dude, you’re like, three years older than me,” I laugh.

“That’s right, and don’t you forget it,” he gives me a nudge with his elbow.

“Armstrong! Get your ass over here!”

My head snaps up as my coach interrupts our banter. I immediately haul ass across the field toward the man who scares me more than any Staff Sergeant I’ve ever faced off with.

If Coach Silver was like my surrogate father, the man you never wanted to disappoint, then Coach Ashcroft is like my crotchety old grandfather who would just as soon whip your ass as he would hug you. I swear, he just needs to wear a set of dentures, sit on his front porch, and shake his fist at the kids who stray into his yard while yelling ‘get off my lawn’.

“Sir?” I try not to suck wind as I come to a stop a foot in front of his sun-leathered, frowning face.

“Listen here, Armstrong, this must be your lucky day, got it? Cause if this shit happened once we started the season, you’d have to sit and wait out the game, hear me?”

“Uh,” I search my mind for the translate button. I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“In my day, you didn’t get excused from practice unless you were being carried off the field in a stretcher. But, now we’re all touchy-feely, aren’t we?”

I stare at him blankly. Is this supposed to be making sense to me? “I, uh, guess so?”

“Yer girl is having the baby, Armstrong. Get your ass out of my stadium and go meet your kid, be there for your woman, and then be back here fifteen minutes early for practice tomorrow, got it?” He looks into my eyes. I can see, behind the chest-puffing, that his eyes are twinkling.

“Chelsea’s in labor? Now?” My chest feels tight and my heart races.

“Did I stutter? That’s what I said. Now, get out of here!” He flings his hands in the air at me, dismissing me from his sight.

I turn and run toward the exit, forgetting everything behind me.

“Oh, and Armstrong!” Ashcroft calls out.

I stop short and turn around to look back at my coach, “yeah?”

“Fucking congratulations!” His mouth twitches like it’s trying to smile.

“Thank you!” I full out run to the doors.

Chelsea is in labor! The baby is coming now. I’m going to be a dad. I race through the parking lot and rush to my car. I need to be with her.

Now.