Page 17 of Love at Second Down

My throat works, but I don’t answer as I wipe the sweat from my face with my wrist sleeve, wondering just how completely fucked I am.

We only have two practices left before our game on Sunday. Two days to get my shit together. Two days to forget all about Avery Astor and regain my focus. Easier said than done considering we have class together tomorrow. How many more times will I run into her on campus? Once? Twice? A dozen?

Brandon comes up beside me after Coach orders us to the locker room and nudges me in the side. “Hey, man, chin up. You had a bad day, that’s all. It can happen to anybody.”

I glance over at him, wordlessly. His expression is nothing but honest, but I hate it all the same. “I played like shit,” I grind out.

Jace appears beside me. With the tilt of his head, his dark hair falls into his eyes. “I mean, I think even shit played better.”

I snort. At least he’s not sugarcoating it.

“It was a fluke,” Chris chimes in from behind. “Shake it off, and we’ll get after it tomorrow.”

I sigh as we push into the locker room, hoping he’s right. The only thing worse than an epically poor performance is your teammates shielding your feelings and downplaying it on your behalf.

“You’ll get it back together by practice tomorrow,” West says, and I want to believe him, I really do, but the seed of fear inside my chest has already been planted.

Maybe I’m not good enough. Maybe I never was, and this is where the buck stops. In another year, I’ll be just another NFL prospect that didn’t measure up to their potential. One more name in the countless list of starry-eyed men hoping for their shot.

I’ll be nothing. A nobody. Everything the Astors feared when I first started dating their daughter.

In the years Avery and I were together, she never made me feel less than. It didn’t matter that she came from money and I didn’t, because I was going places. Football was my ticket to something bigger and better, to fame and fortune, tomore.It made me enough for her, until it wasn’t.

Football is the one thing I love that has never disappointed me. Without Avery, it’s been my constant. My true north. My guiding star.

So, if I fuck this up, it’s not just my future riding on it, but my whole identity. Everything that makes me Damon Huhn.

She already took my heart the day she left me.

I’ll be damned if I let her take this, too.

Ever since my run-in with Avery, things haven’t gotten any better. If anything, they’re worse because I now avoid my usualtrips to Java the Hutt for fear of bumping into her, and that puts me on edge. I’m nothing if not methodical. I like the comfort of routine, and yeah, maybe I’m a little superstitious, too. Regardless, the sludge West calls coffee that he brews in the little pot in our apartment isn’t cutting it, nor is the lack of superior caffeine. My headaches are proof of that, and even if they weren’t, I desperately crave a latte and the nutty flavor of espresso mixing with vanilla, caramel, and cream.

I arrived late for my class on Wednesday and Karr called me out, but it was worth it to avoid her. When class ended, I had to bust my ass out of the lecture hall lest she catch me on the way out.

By Thursday, the team was growing weary of my shit performance on the field. Even Coach was at his wits’ end. Murmurs of starting Clayton, our backup quarterback, spread like wildfire. Spirits plummet, and dejection fills the eyes of my teammates where hope and determination once lived.

I’ve gone three years improving and increasing performance on the field, and I choose now to choke.

Now it’s Friday, and as we’re making our way off the field after practice, I can feel everyone’s eyes on me. Gone are the words of encouragement. In their place is the heavy weight of silence.

In the locker room, my name is whispered in corners, and I wince each time I hear it. The only thing worse than letting yourself down, is letting your teammates and your friends down too, and that’s exactly what I’ll do if I don’t get a rein on my feelings.

“Okay, are we going to talk about the elephant in the room or just ignore it?” Jace asks as he strips himself from his jersey.

I grunt out a response, unable to meet his eyes.

Brandon comes up beside him, peering over at me as he says, “What? You mean the five times he got sacked by our own line in practice?”

“Or how he hasn’t hit his target in three days?” Chris chimes in.

Across from me, West sinks down onto the bench, saying nothing as he gazes up at me like a mute. I’m not sure what’s worse: Chris and Brandon’s accuracy in their criticism of me or West’s silence.

I roughly yank my pads off. “You think I don’t know I’m playing like shit?”

“I think even the term ‘shit’ is being a little generous these days,” Jace says.

I sigh, and slam my pads inside my locker, then spin around to face them. My jaw clenches as I try and think of an explanation that doesn’t make me sound pathetic as fuck but there are none.

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