What He Bargains (What He Wants, Book Nineteen) (82 page)

She thought about texting him constantly, and on more than one occasion, she wrote a text out and her finger hovered over “send,” but each time she lost her nerve or talked herself out of doing it.

On those occasions, which usually occurred at night when she was alone and particularly sad—Faith would instead text her sister, Krissi.

Krissi would start bitching about home, Mom and Dad and their drinking and fighting. And Faith, as usual, would tell her younger sister that everything was going to work out and to just be patient, even as she herself was starting to lose hope that it was true.

Maybe things don’t just work out
, she thought that Saturday night, as she and her sister texted while Faith listened to sports radio in the background.

Maybe things just stay as they are or get worse.

She was down in the dumps, and it wasn’t helping that she was watching Sports Center and listening to sports radio talk shows all day and night instead of doing something productive, such as working out or maybe trying to write a new story.

Faith had been writing since she was a kid, but these last couple of years, she’d started to lose her passion for it, as adult responsibilities and worries had replaced much of her free time to dream and make believe.

After taking a break from texting with Krissi, she pulled out her laptop and opened her word document. She had about two thousand words of a story that she’d begun writing last month and had made very little progress on it since.

Her fingers were poised above the keyboard, and then she heard the sports radio hosts start talking about Chase Winters again.

She turned toward her radio and listened.

“Look,” one of them said, “a lot of folks are excited about what Chase Winters did in his first outing. But tomorrow’s game is going to be completely different. New England is going up against Green Bay, and let me tell you—Green Bay is scary this year. Their defense is full of animals.”

“Oh, yeah,” the co-announcer laughed. “Their pass rush is insane. I think they sacked the QB around fifteen times in their opening game, and they were brutal sacks.”

“Exactly. So people like myself—and don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Chase Winters—but I’m looking forward to see how he performs against Green Bay. Mark my words, people. Green Bay is going to show us the real Chase Winters and the real New England Nationals, tomorrow.”

Faith suddenly got a feeling in her stomach that was different from what she’d been feeling about Chase this past week. Mostly, she’d been worrying about how badly their encounter had ended and whether or not he would ever want to see her again.

But for the first time all week, she had a feeling of concern—not about him, but
for him
. Were those sportscasters just trying to hype up the game on Sunday, or were they being serious about how dangerous Green Bay was?

She closed out of her word document and opened up her web browser, and searched for highlights from the opener that Green Bay had played last weekend.

As she watched the clips, her stomach sank and tightened into a tiny little knot. She felt sick.

Granted, it was the highlights, which meant that they’d packed only the most hard-hitting, cringe-inducing moments into the short segment, but even so it was painful to watch.

Time after time, the Green Bay defense was obliterating the offensive line of the opposing team, and then converging upon the quarterback and crushing him to the ground with tackles that hurt just to watch.

What the commentators in the radio show had failed to mention was that Green Bay had even injured the QB and he’d been forced to leave the game, limping off the field, looking like he didn’t know where he even was.

When the highlights were over, Faith was more afraid for Chase than she’d been beforehand, and this time she felt she couldn’t stop herself from texting him.

“I have to,” she said, grabbing her cell and pulling up their last conversation.

Her heart was beating fast and she was anxious, wondering if this was really a bad idea. She’d been so good about resisting the impulse to text Chase so many times these last few days. And now she was going to give into temptation and bother him the night before a big game?

But she couldn’t help it. She truly just wanted to say something to him.

Hey, I know we had a weird moment the other night. But I just wanted to say that I know u r going to do great tomorrow against Green Bay!

She sent the text off, and then immediately regretted it.

Was that stupid text really going to make anything better? Would it make Chase perform any better, or want to talk to her more than he did previously?

Of course not.

It was just her way of giving into her emotions and trying to jumpstart some contact between them.

“Stupid,” she muttered.

A few hours later, as she was readying for bed, she looked over at her phone, which she’d left by her bedside, and saw what looked like a text message on screen. Faith ran over there, knowing it would be something from Krissi or someone else equally disappointing.

But it wasn’t from Krissi—it was from Chase after all.

Thanx for the thoughts. Enjoy watching
.

That was it. She debated sending something back, but the wiser part of her reasoned that if he truly wanted to engage in a real conversation, he would follow-up with a question or some other comment.

He never did.

B
y the time
Chase Winters took the field for the first time during Sunday’s game, Faith was well and truly freaking out.

It was a night game, so it didn’t start until 8:30 p.m. Faith had invited Krissi over to watch the game with her, and so the two of them were sitting in front of the TV, eating snacks and chatting away.

Krissi had no idea that Faith was so heavily invested in the game, it’s outcome, or Chase Winters in particular.

So it was that when the New England offense was readying to play their first down of the game, Faith was leaning forward in her seat, her hand clenched around her glass of Diet Coke, as Krissi chattered in the background, almost completely unheard.

On the first play, Chase handed the ball off to one of the New England running backs, who got to about the line of scrimmage before being tackled easily.

“Shit,” Faith said, shaking her head.

“What’s wrong?” her sister asked, looking at Faith with a cocked head.

“Huh?”

“I said, what’s wrong?”

“Oh. Nothing.” Faith stared at the screen as the offense lined up again. She felt in her bones that Chase was going to throw the ball this time. Her leg jittered up and down as she waited.

Chase did drop back for a pass, and the Green Bay defense burst through the offensive line, at least three men were rushing in on him. Chase threw the ball quickly so as to avoid being sacked, and it went out of bounds.

“He didn’t even get close to anyone!” Krissi said, rolling her eyes. “They’re going to call him for intentional grounding.”

“Shut up, Krissi.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up.” She pointed at the TV. “Ha!” she said, standing. “Did you hear that? Intentional grounding.”

Faith was starting to wish that she hadn’t invited her sister over to watch the game. She’d thought it might help alleviate her nerves, distract her, but instead she was anxious and annoyed by Krissi’s constant jibber jabber.

New England was on third down and now had twenty yards to go for a first down, thanks to the penalty they’d received from the previous play.

The announcers were talking about how tough and rugged the Green Bay defense was, and how much pressure they could exert on a young quarterback.

But Chase isn’t just any young quarterback
, Faith thought.
He’s going to be one of the best players the NFL has ever seen.

Still, even with her confidence in his abilities, she was frightened for him. There was tension in the air—she could see it even through the television set. As the camera zoomed in on Chase’s eyes, she thought perhaps she even saw a little fear in his eyes as well.

But it might have been her imagination.

The play started and Chase dropped back yet again, and this time one of the Green Bay defensive linemen broke through the offense, but Chase was turned away from him to throw a pass, and the Green Bay player came charging at his blind side.

“No!” Faith cried out, standing up.

Chase was hit hard, just as he was starting to throw the ball. As he was tackled hard to the turf, his pass wobbled end over end through the air, and was intercepted by the opposing team.

A roar went through the crowd at Green Bay, as their team ran the ball back for a touchdown.

Chase stood up, brushing himself off.

At least he’s not hurt.

Faith was biting her lip, watching him, knowing how angry and frustrated Chase must have been with himself at having thrown an interception. “It’s not his fault,” Faith said, more to herself than anything. “It’s his damn line, they’re not protecting him.”

Faith’s sister was watching her with her mouth open. “Are you, like, crushing on Chase Winters or something?”

“What?” Faith looked at Krissi and gave a sour face. “Why would you even say that?”

“Ummm…maybe because you never cared about New England, in all the years Dad used to watch and talk about them. In fact, you always said you hated football.”

“So, I got interested this season after going to the game.”

“Did you meet him in person?”

Faith didn’t respond. She felt trapped.

Krissi giggled and started kicking her feet on the floor. “You did, you met him and now you love him. Admit it!”

“Shut up.”

“Admit you’re madly in love with Chase Winters.”

“I’m serious,” Faith told her. “Stop saying that.”

Her sister didn’t stop, though. She never had given up on anything if she sensed it was getting a rise out of someone. Krissi stood up, holding one of the throw pillows at arm’s length and looking adoringly at it. “Oh, Chase, baby. I need to kiss your boo-boo from where you fell down today.” She brought the pillow to her face and began fake kissing it, falling into the couch, laughing hysterically at her own comedy.

Faith just sat there, angry with herself for being dumb enough to have invited Krissi over for the game. That had been just plain stupid.

Over the course of the first half of the football game, Chase and The Nationals struggled to get any rhythm going against the rugged and rough Green Bay team. Over and over again, Chase would be run out of the pocket, his passes short or inaccurate, as he was usually being pursued by one or two giant opponents.

In the first game of the season, Chase had been able to pass and run. The threat of his running ability had kept New York on its heels. Today, however, even his running game was failing. He tried to scramble for yardage a few times and was stopped cold, including being hit hard enough that he flew out of bounds and looked shaken up afterwards.

It was difficult to watch and Faith was squinting, anticipating the worst every time he touched the ball.

By halftime, Green Bay was up by ten points, having scored a touchdown and a field goal. The game was in reach, but Chase was not playing well.

During halftime, Faith tried to relax and goof around with Krissi, but the entire time, her mind was on Chase. She imagined him sitting in the locker room as the coach gave a pep talk, and she sent her thoughts out to him, wanting him to know she was rooting for him.

I wish I could have talked to him on the phone last night…or woken up in bed with him this morning.

As she came out of her trance, she realized Krissi was in the middle of a sentence.

“…Mom said that I should just go to community college and commute from home,” Krissi was saying. “But I don’t want to live at home. What’s the point of going to college if I can’t stay in the dorms like everyone else does?”

Faith tried to recover without showing she’d been zoning out. “You need to keep your grades up, then,” she said.

Krissi rolled her eyes. “Do you realize how many times a week you say that to me?”

“Do you realize how many times a week you need to hear it?”

“I fucking hate my life.”

“You’ll hate it a lot more if you keep screwing up and lose your chance to get the hell out of there,” Faith said. “I don’t want you to spend anymore time than you have to, living at home.”

“I wish you were still living there. Now it’s just me and Mom and Dad and they’re always fighting and drunk.”

“I know,” Faith said softly. Her gaze flicked to the TV screen and noticed they were coming back from commercial.

“Can’t I just come and live with you?”

“That wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Why not?”

“We’ve been over this. You need to be near school, and Mom and Dad would never allow it.”

“I hate my life,” Krissi repeated.

Faith was about to respond, but the game was starting up again, and instantly she was enthralled.

Okay
, she thought, smiling a little and sipping her drink.
He’ll have regrouped and figured out a plan by now. Chase is smart and brave and so talented. He can do this.

Just thinking that felt good. She believed in him, she knew he could do this.

Why do you care so much about him? The guy used you for an easy lay and then didn’t even call or ask you out again.

But Faith didn’t feel used by him exactly. She felt
connected to him
—which she knew logically didn’t make any sense. She cared about him, even though their time together had been short and confusing. It still had been the best sex of her life, and the truth was, she was enamored with him.

You’re like an addict, and you’re just rationalizing your addiction
.

Maybe that was all this was, but Faith couldn’t change her feelings. She leaned forward again as New England ran the kickoff back to about mid-field, their best field position in some time.

The offense got set and Faith thought she saw different body language coming from Chase this quarter. He was standing tall, confident, despite the way he’d performed so far that day.