Page 27 of The Goat in the Bedroom
His gaze moved over my face, then down to the floor like he was thinking of how to fix this for me, and I appreciated that more than he could ever know. I was always the one who had to just take care of myself. It was exhausting. “You don't have to decide anything right now, right?”
“Sort of soon, though. If I wanted to transfer, I'd need three years between playing for the US and being eligible for GB. So the clock is ticking if I'm going to consider it seriously.”
Gryff moved closer on the couch. “You gotta do whatever feels right for you. Not what makes your dad… or your mom happy or what seems logical, but what actually feels right in your heart.”
I leaned back against the couch cushions, grateful for his steady presence. He listened and trusted me to figure things out.
“I need a little time to think on it. Besides moving to LA, this is really the first time I’m the one who has to make the decisionto uproot my life or not. And to be honest, there’s something to be said for the stability my mom wanted so badly.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else but didn’t. Weird, because he knew he could say anything to me.
I picked my phone back up. “You know who else needs stability?” I found the cutest picture I could find and shoved the adorableness right up in his face. “Buster, that’s who.”
Gryff groaned and buried his face in the couch cushions. “Artie, no.”
“Buster is still available. And he’s got a friend who is a chocolate lab named Murphy.”
“We are not getting a dog.”
“Yet.”
“Ever.”
But he was smiling when he said it, and I was already bookmarking the rescue website.
RAINBOWS AND UNICORNS
GRYFF
Great Fucking Britain.
Ugh. I didn't think anything was great about it at all.
Two days after her conversation with her dad and I was still processing the gut-punch realization that she might move to another continent. Not might... could. Would, if she decided her father and Team GB were more important than everything she'd built here.
Including me.
Training camp had officially started, which meant longer days, more intense practices, and the kind of physical exhaustion that should have wiped out any capacity for overthinking personal problems. Instead, I spent way too much time replaying her words during every drill break, every water timeout, every moment when my mind wasn't completely occupied with not getting pancaked by three-hundred-pound defensive tackles.
Three years. The clock was ticking like a damn time bomb. She could stop playing for Team USA right now, move back to Scotland or England or wherever her dad was coaching the men's team so they could spend time getting to know each other again, as adults. She'd get to see her father regularly, be part ofhis rugby world again, rebuild the relationship that distance had complicated.
And in three years she'd be eligible to represent Great Britain in the Olympics. It made perfect sense. It was probably what she should do.
And the thought of it made me want to throw up.
“Kingman,” Coach's voice cut through my spiral. “You planning to join us, or are you just here for the scenery?”
I snapped back to attention, realizing I'd been standing in the wrong formation while the rest of the offensive line had moved to the next drill. DeMarcus Clay was looking at me with the kind of patient amusement reserved for rookies who were clearly having personal crises on company time.
“Sorry, Coach,” I called back, jogging to my position.
“Get your head in the game, rook,” DeMarcus said quietly as I took my stance across from him. “Whatever's eating you, deal with it after practice.”
He was right. I was being unprofessional and unfocused, exactly the kind of rookie mistake that got you benched or cut. But knowing that didn't make it easier to stop thinking about Artie packing up her life and moving six thousand miles away.
The rest of practice was a disaster. I missed assignments, jumped offsides twice, and generally played like someone who'd never seen a football before. By the time Coach blew the final whistle, I was covered in grass stains and humiliation.
I wasn't going to be a starter with this kind of performance. Shit.
