Page 78 of Gridlocked on the Gridiron

January 14th

Colton

I can do this forever. You not responding won’t stop me from texting you. We both know how stubborn I am.

January 15th

Colton

Stop running, Luc. I won’t stop texting you, finding ways to see you at the facility, telling you how I feel. I won’t give up on this, no matter how long you ignore me.

Once he’d learned what was really going on with Lucia, he’d gotten his shit together on the field. Now, only three days from the game, he felt certain in his abilities. He would do everything it took to bury Clark and the Vipers. Not for himself, not for a ring, not even for the team. For Lucia.

His father had invited him over after practice, and it’d been a few weeks since he’d been at the house, so he’d agreed. He stood outside, taking in the perfectly manicured shrubs and greenery that lined the stairs of the house, something he was sure his father had nothing to do with, other than perhaps handing someone cash.

That itchy and tense feeling that always accompanied meetings with his father was there beneath his Sabers sweatsuit. He saw a flash in his periphery but paid it no mind. He climbed the steps up to the front door and rang the doorbell, half-hoping the man wouldn’t come to the door.

He was not so lucky. His father opened the door, a suit on that told Colton he’d been working from home. Rather than speak, his father turned on his heel and walked inside the house, leaving the front door open.

Colton stepped inside, respecting his mother’s wishes by removing his shoes, and closed the door. He followed his father toward his study, taking in the bare walls for the first time. No pictures of the family, or of his deceased wife, or even photos of nature. The walls were just bare.

“Hey, Dad.”

“I’m glad you and that girl broke up. She was ruining your chances at another Super Bowl.”

Colton’s legs almost gave out at the words.

“What?” he asked, his voice breaking on the word. How would he know about that? Had the media reported on it just because they hadn’t been seen together outside of the facility for a couple of weeks?

“You haven’t heard? It just came out that she’s been talking to Max Clark the whole time she’s been in Charleston. You wasted your season chasing that girl. That woman was a Viper through and through. I can’t believe you trusted her. I knew from the moment she walked through this door that she was no good.”

Colton had to place a hand on the wall beside him to steady himself.

“That can’t be true. Lucia wouldn’t do something like that.” She wouldn’t, he knew that. He’d learned about her relationship with Max over their past few months together, and there was no way she’d been lying to him about that. The agony in her voice and the sadness that took over her body when she’d talked about it couldn’t have been faked.

His father shoved his phone into Colton’s hand. On the screen, The Richmond Herald claimed to have insider information about the torrid affair between Lucia and Max. About how Lucia was taking information from her work with the Sabers to the Vipers.

It had to be Max’s doing. It had to be. He scrolled down, looking for any proof. There were pictures of Lucia and Max together, but none of them looked recent. Then, Colton’s finger stilled over an image.

In it, Lucia and Max were on some kind of video call, and Lucia was looking down, smiling. Colton would’ve waved it off, but sitting around her neck was a necklace with a pearl pendant. The necklace that she’d told him was new after their Thanksgiving win.

Colton’s heart hammered in his chest, blood rushing in his ears. It didn’t make sense. Why would she have called Max? And if it hadn’t been anything bad, why hadn’t she told Colton? He was sure there was an explanation for all of this. There had to be.

Before he handed the phone back to his father, he saw a video. The hammering in his chest increased as he hovered over it and then finally clicked it open.

“Yeah. I’m gonna give you our plays.” The voice was unmistakably Lucia’s, and she was talking to Max. And wearing that necklace. Which meant that this conversation, whatever it was between them, had happened after Thanksgiving, months after she’d left the Vipers.

Colton looked back at his father in disbelief.

“Are you crying? Christ, you’re such a girl. This is why you should’ve been at the gym more this season. Look at you! Clark’s bigger than you and probably faster too.”

When Colton didn’t respond, his father continued, “I hope you now realize that she was a waste of your time and that your focus should remain on the game. Women and children come after the glory.”

Colton had heard his father talk down about women in the past, but this was different. He hated to hear him talk about Lucia in that manner. Despite that, he bit his tongue, as he always did. He might have been a coward, but he couldn’t bring himself to say something to the man who’d practically built his career. At least the lecture was over.

Colton opened his mouth to speak, but it seemed his father wasn’t done. “If I could’ve had you and Landon on my own, I would have. Your mother only babied you and slowed me down.”

Colton shut his mouth. He was still reeling from the article, but he’d snapped to attention at his father’s words. For him to disrespect Colton’s mom in such a way—the woman who’d loved them and nurtured them the way their father should have, the woman who’d been there for all his practices and games, who’d loved him unconditionally—outraged him. No, it was more than rage. There was no word to describe the eerie tendrils that wrapped themselves around Colton’s insides and pulsed through him as his father shattered any resolve he’d had to keep his mouth shut.

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