Page 5 of The Comeback Pact

I’ve learned I don’t have to say anything to the attention directed my way, which suits me. However, sometimes, I feel like a caricature of myself. A cartoon that eats, sleeps, and shits football all day long, but I’d do it all for the game, anyway. That’s how much I love it.

Once outside, I round the corner of the building and step out into the sunlight. A breeze lifts my hair slightly and presses my Bulldog-blue shirt against my pecs as I take an alternate route to the football building for my meeting with Coach Thompson. We’ve been on campus practicing for weeks already, and everything is going exactly as it should for our opener, so I’m nervous as all hell that Coach called a meeting.

To distract myself, I pull up a pair of doe-brown eyes in my mind to fascinate over. She seemed upset, then angry.

She plowed into me, that’s why I felt that protectiveness over her.

That’s all it was. No other reason whatsoever. When people run into me, it never ends well. Just ask my opponents on the field. She’s already been hurt, and I didn’t want her to get hurt again.

On autopilot, I traverse the campus and enter the football building that houses the coaches’ offices plus the gym and training rooms. Off the back, there’s a practice turf that we run drills on with all kinds of equipment. This is my favorite building on campus. It’s dubbed The Bulldog House, and the air smells like the new leather on a football all the time. I get stoked just setting foot in here.

Checking my phone for the time, I find I’m a little early, but Coach is sitting in his office, so I knock on the door.

He peers up, squinting through the glass before gesturing me inside. Coach Thompson is a goddamn legend in Warner country. He recruited me from high school, and he’s done more for me in these past three years at Warner than any other male influence in my life.

“There you are, son,” he says, and I pull out a chair. It wouldn’t matter if I was thirty minutes early, Coach always greets his players the same: as if he’s been expecting us and our absence has let him down.

I nod in silent greeting as I sit in the royal-blue leather chair across from his stark-white desk. The building and its contents are almost brand new. The newest structure on campus, actually, built by funds from alumni and the community.

We bleed blue here.

Coach leans back, appraising me. I know better than to guess why he asked me here, so I just wait for him to start talking. When he does, he says everything in a rush, like he hasn’t the time to even have this meeting, let alone discuss at length what he wants, but I don’t take offense. He’s always like this.

But what he says nearly knocks me on my ass.

My brows raise.

“You know her, right?” he asks, face scrunching.

I nod because everyone does. The whole damn campus does. Hell, the whole town and surrounding counties know her name. What happened to her was everywhere.

Because of us…

My heart starts pounding so hard in my chest it feels like a rapid tremor. This is a bad idea. “Me?” I finally get out, and the question is strangled, like I’m choking at the thought because I absolutely am.

He fucking knows I’m not the player for this job.

He glares at me, his eyes narrowing to slits until it appears I’m about to get one of his verbal beatdowns. “Are you too fucking good to do something I ask you to do?”

I shake my head, my lips pressed together. I don’t bother arguing that he’s got it all wrong. That’s definitely not what I meant, but my mouth gets me in trouble when I use it.

“Every single one of you players”—he points at me, his finger shaking—“who were involved in that mess with Hamilton will do exactly what I fucking tell you to do, when I fucking tell you to do it if you want to stay a Bulldog. You understand me?”

My muscles flex. The past few months, it’s been the same verbal berating, all of which we deserve, but this one hits home a little more since it’s completely directed at me, and we’re talking about McKenna Knowles here.

He cups his hand around his ear, waiting. Expecting.

“Yes, sir,” I call out.

“Good,” he says, sitting back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of him.

“You’re a damn good player, Brooks,” he finally says. “I have a whole team of amazing fucking players, but let’s face it, we’re in a bad press situation here.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. It’s died down now, but the horror of what happened and who was to blame was so thick around here that it was difficult to wade through.

“You get me?” he asks when I don’t respond.

“Yes, sir.” I know he wants me to say more, but my mind is careening. He wants me to get McKenna Knowles to our games. To our practices.

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