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Champion
I LOVED THIS.
“Champ! Champ! Champ!”
The applause, cheering, and celebration after a victory ... it was a complete and total rush. It almost made me feel as good as I did while on the field playing football.
“Smile, asshole.” Zachary Steele—the best fucking wide receiver in the league—bumped my shoulder and gave me his infamous lopsided grin.
Almost as talented and good-looking as me, he attracted double coverage both on and off the field. Like me, he evaded most defenders and didn’t let any woman tie him down. My best friend had his reasons for being single, and I had mine, though I wasn’t into his serial thing. I had a regular no-strings hookup partner. It could be said that Zack found what he needed at Fantasy, and so did I.
“Don’t feel like smiling,” I said low. Striding beside him through the cinderblock corridor beneath the stadium, I swung my shaded gaze left and right, acknowledging the crowd several rows deep, lining it on either side.
“Headache again?” He gave me a worried glance.
I nodded carefully, grateful for the tinted lenses on my Oakley sunglasses. They protected my light-sensitive eyes from the piercing rapid flashes of cell phones and professional cameras pointed at me.
The beginnings of a migraine pounded like a bass drum inside my skull, but I didn’t let on that I was hurting. Not here. Not in this very public forum. Zack knew about my concussions and the migraines I often suffered because of them. As my best friend, he knew almost everything.
“Sorry, man.” He shook his head, his black hair gleaming beneath the fluorescent overhead lights. “Sucks to be in pain when today’s your day.”
“Our day,” I said pointedly, correcting him. “Took every single one of us on the team working hard to bring that trophy home.”
“Yeah, man.” His blue eyes, a shade darker than mine, flashed like sparklers. “But there’s only one Super Bowl MVP.”
That would be me. I was the Super Bowl MVP.
I’d completed 58.4 percent of my passes during the big game, three of them leading to touchdowns that Zack caught. He was the voters’ second choice, a distant second choice. It would have been a travesty if the fans and sports writers hadn’t voted overwhelmingly for me.
Gazes followed me as I marched down the crowded hall, a prophet parting a crimson red, navy blue, and shiny silver sea. My worshippers sported Texas Lonestars paraphernalia, most featuring my name, my number 07, and the team’s silver shooting-star emblem with red contrails on a background of deep blue.
All that overpriced shit brought Simon Morris, the rich bastard, a billion dollars in profit each year. It also paid my $240 million annual salary, but I deserved more. As the winningest and most celebrated quarterback in professional football history, I wasn’t only the Super Bowl MVP, I was the most valuable player on Simon’s team. He needed to pay me accordingly.
But tonight, I wasn’t going to focus on the fact that my boss took me for granted or that we hadn’t yet reached an agreement on my soon-to-expire contract. I’d led my team to the ultimate victory in football.
I should feel like I was at the pinnacle of my life. So, why did I feel more like I was in a trough?
“Ready?” Quince “the Mountain” Everest asked, stopping in front of me.
My offensive center was part of my entourage that included stadium security, uniformed Dallas police officers, and my go-to wide-receiver best friend.
“Yeah, man, I’m ready.” I made eye contact with Quince, giving him my agreement as if I really had a choice. “Let’s do it.”
“Right.”
No huddle and break, but otherwise, we approached the Super Bowl celebration as if it were a game. Quince led us through the tunnel onto the field. The country music blaring from the stadium speakers was drowned out by the roar of the crowd as soon as they saw us appear. The stadium was at capacity with a hundred thousand fans and overflow in the parking lot.
I jogged onto the Astroturf alongside my best friend and a floating drone-operated camera, noting like he did that every seat was taken, but no one was sitting down. This was the Lonestars’ first Super Bowl victory. I had won four others while with another franchise, but that had been so long ago, winning one this time felt brand new.
It had taken the Lonestars ten years to build a team around me capable of clinching the ultimate football victory. Through that long rebuild, the fans had been supportive. Now they were ready to let loose and celebrate, and they didn’t plan to do that sitting down.
A late February breeze with a hint of chill blew my shoulder-length blond hair back from my face. Weather conditions being favorable, the stadium roof was open. My hair badly needed a trim. At the beginning of the season, I’d vowed not to cut it until we won it all. Now that we had, I looked forward to returning to my usual shorter style. What I wasn’t excited about was returning to my life apart from football.
Here, I was a giant. There, I was just an ordinary man.
I followed Quince down the open aisle between rows of folding chairs on either side that contained our teammates and support staff. At the center of the field, Quince and Zack peeled left to take their seats in the front row by Coach. I jogged right, taking the temporary stage stairs two at a time.
“And here he is, our man of the hour,” Simon said into the microphone in front of him.
