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“We’ll make a bucket list, and we’ll make sure you check every last bit of it off.” Olivia laced our hands together as the two of us watched the dark water lap against the shore. “You deserve to be happy, Lottie. And happiness is more important than a good career, no matter what Mom and Dad thought.”
It was odd for the roles to be reversed, with Olivia telling me what it was that I needed and deserved. I had always played that role for her as I filled in for our parents. “Do you ever miss them?”
“Our parents?” Olivia looked at me as if I really was having a medical episode. “Our mother died five years ago, and our father has been absent from our lives since the divorce. Neither of them deserves to be missed. Those two fucked us up.”
“They didn’t fuck us up,” I argued. “We’ve made it just fine on our own.”
“Neither of us has ever had healthy long-term relationships and have never actually celebrated a holiday.” My sister looked at me as if she were daring me to prove her otherwise.
Maybe now that I didn’t have work to distract me, I realized that I just missed the idea of what my parents were supposed to be—a family.
A moment later, the lights in the stadium turned on and threw long shadows across the beach. I glanced over my shoulder and wondered who could possibly be there this late at night.
Chapter 2
Nolan
“The Chicago Bobcats could be poised to have another successful season. They have an extremely veteran staff on both sides of the football. Their defense is expected to lead the league this year again after coming off last year’s season where they allowed the least number of points,” the commentator, Daniel Rice, said.
“They’ll need that same performance this year, Scott, if they plan to have the kind of storied performance they are hoping for with keeping Nolan Hill at the helm of their offense,” the other commentator, Micky Rice, added.
“I still can’t believe that their GM would go and take a first overall pick in the draft with the star rookie quarterback, Caleb Willis, and not start to build their staff around a kid like that. With the experience they have on this team, they have more of a chance of pulling that kid along rather than putting their faith in Nolan Hill for another year. He started last season fresh off rehabilitation for his ACL tear from the previous season and he just never quite looked like the Nolan Hill we all know. Then he went on to throw the most interceptions in NFL history. Who decides to give someone like that one more chance?”
“Can you turn that shit off?” I growled.
One of the new athletic trainers rushed to grab the remote from where it lay on one of the training beds and turned the channel to the Chicago Cougars baseball game. Adam Steel, the star pitcher for the team, was in the middle of delivering a fastballthat tallied him another strikeout. The reporter noted it as his tenth of the game.
I made a mental note to send him a message later tonight.
When the athletic trainer turned back around and saw the hard set of my jaw, he quickly diverted his eyes and scurried back to his station.
“Can we not scare the new people already? Our first game is in just over a week,” Derek Allen, one of my best friends and the best tight end to ever be in the NFL, asked me from the table next to mine.
I didn’t bother giving him a response.
“Derek’s right, Nolan,” Hawthorn Smith, my other best friend and starting kicker for the Bobcats, added from across the room, where he was submerged in one of the hot tubs. The guy barely did anything at practice compared to the rest of us, but he made sure to always take advantage of the hot tub every day. Who could blame him?
“There’s no reason for you to treat any of the staff like that, and to be honest, if you keep that up around the team, the camaraderie this year is bound to be low,” Hawthorn continued.
I pressed my lips together to avoid a snide remark from escaping. This wasn’t my friends’ faults. It was only mine.
“Don’t listen to that bullshit.” Derek lowered his voice so only I could hear him. “You are going to leave this league a hall of fame guarantee.”
“I can’t handle a repeat of last year, Derek.” I could barely get the words out. I hadn’t spoken those words out loud to anyone. Instead, the fear of going from the face of the NFL to the laughingstock played out in my head nearly every day.
“Have you been meeting with the sports psychologist?” Derek asked me.
I nodded, but didn’t tell him how I was beginning to realize that it was going to take more than visualization and mental exercises to fix the fucked-up landscape of my head. My injury from two seasons ago hadn’t just changed me physically. It had taken every piece of confidence I had ever had and obliterated it into dust.
Last season was a perfect example.
I had never played like that before—so unsure of my skills. I had been in the league for thirteen years. I had an endless amount of experience to rely on to remind myself that I was capable. But the moment I had stepped on the field last year after trying to rehab my injury, all that previous experience felt like it belonged to a different person. My legs felt unsteady beneath me. My brain was three beats behind the pace at which I needed to be playing at. I had been too busy worrying about the strength of my knee to focus on who was open or notice when one of my guys was being covered deep on their routes. I threw the most interceptions of my career.
I hadn’t felt like Nolan Hill, two-time Super Bowl champion and two-time MVP.
“We’re going to make this your best year yet. I refuse to let your old sack of bones leave without a third ring to put on your fingers.”
“I’m only eight years older than you, asshole.” I tossed the towel I was using to cover the ice pack on my knee at Derek.
