He disappears to do whatever it is managers spend their time doing, and I head for the locker room. It's half-full when I enter, with more players streaming in by the second. I stand at my cubby, rubbing at my face with my towel. My muscles are fatigued, and I think maybe I should have taken it a little easier today. My shirt is already soaked with sweat as I pull on my shoulder pads.

I've been tuning out the conversation in the room, but raucous laughter draws my attention.

"Dude, she shot you down so hard I felt it out in the hallway."

There's a group of guys gathered around Levi Abrams as he razzes his friend Silas about something. One of them pipes up to add, "Yeah, Moore. I was downstairs, and I felt you crash and burn." Silas slugs the guy in the shoulder, but doesn't seem too bothered by it.

"I would have had her if it weren't for Abrams. She hates you so much, she blew me off just for talking with you."

Abrams shrugs. "What can I say? I'm a heartbreaker."

"Could you get her back?" one of the other guys asks. "Before Moore, that is?"

Silas laughs so hard, he sounds like he's on the verge of choking. He pulls off his shirt, following the rest of the team as they change from street clothes into their workout gear. "No f.u.c.king way," he says to Abrams. "That girl is likely to break your d.i.c.k off if you come within two feet of her."

"You, my friend, underestimate the power of first love."

Silas shakes his head. "You're just asking to get your a.s.s handed to you by Coach, man. You got lucky first time around when she didn't say anything; no way you'll get that lucky a second time."

"It has nothing to do with luck," Abrams says. "Coach loves me, and so does she, even if she doesn't want to admit it."

"When I sleep with her, and trust me, I will, QB, you're stocking my fridge with beer for a month."

Abrams surveys his friend, and then shrugs. "Sure. I'll take that bet." Silas grins and a few of the surrounding guys laugh and cheer, egging him on. Abrams adds, "Because it's never going to happen."

"What if one of us gets to her first?" another guy joins in, blond and heavyset, one of the defensive linemen.

Abrams surveys the bulky guy and says, "Carter, if you somehow manage to work a miracle and sleep with her before either of us, I'll stock your f.u.c.king fridge for a year."

The locker room descends into laughter, and the topic falls away, and I wonder which poor coach's daughter they're targeting. We've technically got nine coaches on staff. I don't know any of them well enough to know which ones have kids our age, but I'm fine being left out of that particular piece of information.

In fact, I wish I were in a different part of the locker room. It would be better for my focus if my cubby weren't so close to Abrams and Moore.

Coach comes in not long after, and I wonder what would have happened if he'd come in a few minutes earlier.

"Listen up!" He doesn't really need to yell. The team has a sort of sixth sense for when Coach enters the room, and everyone was already quiet. But his loud voice echoes around the room, and it makes him that much more intimidating. "As you know, we're cutting practice a little short today."

Some idiot behind me has the nerve to cheer, but from the "Oof!" that follows, I'm guessing someone already shut him up.

"Hot date tonight, Coach?" Abrams asks.

"Shut your mouth, kid," he growls, but I can tell there's no heat behind the words, not like there would be if someone besides his QB had said it.

"I might be giving you all the gift of a shorter practice, but I still expect there to be some blood, sweat, tears, and vomit left on my field today."

d.a.m.n. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to regret that extra workout I just squeezed in with Ryan. When he tells us to wear our pads, I know we're in trouble. When we head out onto the field, a groan cycles back through the team as they spill out of the hallway.

Mat drills.

Or as they like to call it at Rusk, a bleeding day. I know they have them a lot during spring training, but the only time I experienced it was during my tryout for the team. Split into smaller groups, the team rotates through a series of stations, each one with a specific drill designed to make us miserable. If any group is too slow moving to their next station, the entire team starts over.

After my taste of it at tryouts, I didn't stand, sit, walk, or sleep without aching for nearly three days.

Coach's smile is the stuff nightmares are made of.

"Well then, gentlemen. Let's get started."

Chapter 8.

Dallas It's Dad's birthday, and we're going out to dinner to celebrate. I had planned to wait for him in my car, as I had no desire to venture into practice, but here I am heading off to find him anyway.

I skipped lunch to squeeze in some extra time in the studio, and even though Dad said he'd be wrapping up practice early, I don't trust him to actually stick to his word. My grumbling stomach pulls me out of my car, but my stubborn pride is what keeps me walking into the athletic complex.

As Levi said at the party, I'm here; he's here. We definitely won't be starting fresh, but I won't be falling all over myself to avoid him either. College doesn't have to suck because I'm sharing it with my ex and my dad-that frat party taught me that. I just have to take the good in with the bad and hope the good comes out on top.

That's my plan for the meeting tonight with Carson, too.

So he p.i.s.sed me off. (And made me confused and annoyed and self-conscious and a little bit hurt.) That doesn't mean I have to completely shut down. That's how the old me reacted after everything with Levi. That's how I've always reacted with anything emotional. I can't feel pain if I don't let myself feel anything at all.

But I promised myself that things would be different in college. I'm starting over. And that means I can't keep living the same way, afraid that everything is going to break me. I survived growing up without a mom. I survived a broken heart. I survived my first frat party and a stupid football player's attempt to get me into bed just for kicks.

That's why I'd decided in my little lunchtime dance session after my run-in with Carson that whatever he had to say, I could forgive him. Or understand. Or whatever. I'm not going to run away from the first real connection I've felt in years just because he didn't text me back for a couple days.

I've spent too much time pretending, too much time on the outside, too much time feeling spineless. This time . . . I'm going after what I want.

I hear a whistle blow as I walk down the hallway that leads out onto the field. Tugging my messenger bag higher on my shoulder, I continue out onto the springy gra.s.s searching for my dad.

I pause, overwhelmed with the number of guys practicing and just how freaking big they are.

Toto, we're not in high school anymore.

The players and coaches are scattered all over the field in small groups, all of them doing something different while a coach stands over them yelling. Normally, I would say that my dad would be easy to find. He's the loudest person I've ever met in my life, but among all the coaches yelling and the players grunting and yelling back, it's a barely controlled chaos. I walk along the perimeter, searching for Dad.

There are guys doing ladder drills, intimidating and tiring, but I like to think I'm quick enough on my feet that I could give most of them a run for their money. Not so with most of the other stuff I see. There's one group of guys facing a set of hurdles, jumping over each one leapfrog style instead of using the form you see at track meets. There's a group with guys crashing into one another whenever the coach says go, growling and trying to take their opponent down. Another set is doing monkey rolls, my favorite drill to watch because it's just so d.a.m.n impressive (and entertaining). Three guys all start out lying on their stomachs beside one another. In turns, they throw themselves up or roll across the gra.s.s, so it looks like they're being juggled by large, invisible hands.

But I catch sight of Dad at the far end of the practice field. He has two lines of guys set up to form a narrow corridor, and while one player runs through carrying the ball, they all attempt to make him fumble.

Apparently Levi did just that, because I can hear Dad tearing him a new one from over here. "I don't give a d.a.m.n if you're tired or bleeding or about to pa.s.s out on my field, Abrams. You don't drop the d.a.m.n ball. You're the QB. You protect that ball like it's the only one you have, because it just might be if I see it hit the ground one more time."

I wince. Nothing like the threat of castration to brighten up your day.

"Again!"

Levi runs the gauntlet again, and the players are none too gentle as they try to strip the ball away, probably by Dad's order. This time, Levi holds on to the ball. Dad sends him through a few more times, and when he's satisfied, he moves on to the next player.

"McClain, you're up!"

The guy on the end takes the ball from Levi, who fills his post as one of the last members of the gauntlet. The new guy tucks the ball close, keeps his shoulders hunched, and speeds through the middle, holding tight to the ball.

"Again. Faster."

The guy had already appeared faster than Levi to my eyes, but maybe he's a running back. It would make sense for him to be faster.

He turns around, runs back through the gauntlet, his feet even quicker this time.

Dad runs him again and again, pushing him harder each time, and the guy holds up.

Dad sounds angry, but he's not. He wears this thoughtful expression on his face, and I can tell whatever he's thinking . . . it's big. He's pleased.

I may not give a c.r.a.p about football, but I know my dad well enough to know when he's excited about something, when he's inspired. I like to think it's the same look I get on my face when I'm ch.o.r.eographing a routine, and my body seems to know instinctively what move should come next. I only wish he could see the correlation, see that dance does for me what football does for him.

Instead, he just sees a waste of time and money for a career he doesn't think I'll ever have. I know, logically, I know that he's just worried about me, and this is how it manifests, but that doesn't stop the part of me that hopes and dreams from hating him a little.

As I'm coming up closer to Dad, he asks, "Are you tired, McClain?"

"No, sir," the guy barks back.

"You look tired."

"No, sir."

"Tired men drop the football. Tired men make mistakes. Are you tired?"

"No, sir!"

"Then do it again. Keep going until I say stop."

Even I feel sorry for the dude. He's done everything Dad asked, and done it well enough to actually impress my father (not an easy feat), and still he won't let up. But that's an aspect to my father's personality with which I am intimately familiar.

"Geez, Dad. If this is how you like to spend your birthday, maybe we should skip dinner and you could just yell at people as they walk by. Maybe chase some mailmen. Chew on a bone or two."

Dad whirls around, and he has his football expression on-eyebrows pulled low and close together, jaw clenched, eyes even beadier than normal. He looks at me for a few long moments before I see him begin to shake off his practice persona.

With a frown, he steps up beside me and places a kiss on my forehead that's a not-so-distant cousin to a head b.u.t.t.

"Am I running late?" he asks.

"Only a little."

He nods and then blows the whistle, ending the players' agony. I shoot his last punching bag, number twelve, a quick smile, and he drops the ball.

It just slips right out of his hand, bounces twice, and then rolls a few feet away.

Luckily, Dad's attention is elsewhere, or his brain might actually implode due to anger. I raise my eyebrows and glance toward the ground, and number twelve picks the thing up so fast you'd think his life depended on it. Which, honestly, it kinda does.

I walk back and out of the way as the players jog over to circle around Dad. There are so many of them that I have to resist the urge to run to avoid getting swallowed up in the crowd. They take a knee, and I lean against the wall nearby.

I feel eyes on me, too many eyes, but it takes only a clearing of my Dad's throat to redraw all of their focus. I fidget, crossing my legs and studying my toes.

Dad starts in on his wrap-up, his familiar rumbling voice carrying across the field with very little effort.

"You're getting stronger," he begins. "Quicker. Better." I can see the team collectively straighten up under his praise. "But it's not enough."

Dad is inhumanly good at that-building you up just to knock you down a peg or two.

"How many games did you win last year?"

No one answers for several long seconds, then Dad turns on Levi, who is kneeling right next to him, facing in my direction.

"How many games did your team win, Abrams?"

Levi's jaw goes stone hard, and a little warmth of pleasure uncurls in my belly to see him so agitated.

"Three, sir."

"Three," my dad repeats. Then, a little quieter, he says the number a second time. It's the second time that makes a few players drop their heads. Not Levi, though. He's staring at Dad in an angry way that makes me dislike him even more. As if I needed another reason.

"You are better than three," my dad says. "You were last year too, but there's a gap between your potential and your playing. Every second you push yourself on this field, every weight you strain to lift, every time you sit down to study plays or film, we're closing that gap. But we will only completely close that gap as a team. I can't will it closed, and a team isn't meant to be carried by one or two individuals. If even one of you doesn't pull your weight, it won't work." Dad paused and looked around the circle of players. "Don't be the gap on this team. Be the person who fills it."

I know Dad's talking about sports and training and all that stuff I don't care about, but I can't help but hear his words through the filter of our lives. There is a gap in our house. Maybe it's the mom I never knew. Maybe it's the words we never say. Or maybe it's both of us. Maybe there's a gap in each of us so big that we can't get past it to fill the one between us. Maybe we'll never fill it.

Well, isn't that just depressing?

You know you're growing up when you start to see more inevitabilities than possibilities.

Looking for a distraction, I scan the circle of players as Dad keeps talking. My eyes sweep over Silas, who looks at me with a carefully blank expression. I don't let myself jerk my eyes away like I want to, and instead I keep looking past him like he's any other player. I pull my gaze along, but I'm not really seeing much until . . .

I freeze.

Slowly, I let my gaze backtrack to find another pair of eyes on me.

Not Silas. Not Levi.

Carson.

His hair is dark with sweat and sticking up as though he'd run his hands through it. He's kneeling, his body directed toward my father, but his eyes are fixed on me. His jaw clenches tight, and his blue eyes look like steel from here. His knuckles are curled tightly around the face mask on his helmet, and I can see the way he's pushing down on the helmet, bearing it into the ground.

He's angry.

And I feel all my earlier hope for the future, all my determination, just melt away. The gap in me stretches so big in that moment, flowing out from between my ribs and pushing up through my pores, that I forget to feel angry, too.

For a moment anyway.