Winning Pass - A Football Romance by Kerrigan Grant

just need to get back up.”
    “What are you, a fortune cookie now? It’s not that simple, Stacey. I can’t suddenly tell myself okay, everyone else is wrong and you’re right, and you can do whatever the hell you want .”
    She looks at me like I’m a complete dumbass. “Um, yes you can, actually. And you should. You should call Elijah right this minute and tell him whatever it is you feel like you need to tell him. Because you didn’t just sit around on your ass for two weeks and let your apartment turn into a total dumpster for no reason. I know you better than that.”
    I sigh. Maybe she’s right, but I’m not sure I can muster up enough encouragement, even from her decent advice, to actually call Elijah and apologize. I mean, he didn’t exactly try to get in contact with me either. So maybe the whole thing meant way more to me than it did to him. In fact, I’m betting on it.

14

Elijah
    I t’s our second preseason game, this time up against the D.C. Presidents. I can see the field, the players, the smattering of fans. It all slows down until I focus, listening to Maxwell call out the play, knowing in a split second exactly where to be when he makes his pass, the way my feet should be planted, where the cornerbacks for the D.C. Presidents will be trying to cover me, and most importantly, to take a deep breath.
    It’s quiet in my head right before the snap. The only thing that matters right now is paying attention to Maxwell’s arm and where he’s throwing the football. We’re not as far downfield as he would like, so Coach T’s idea is to have him make a deep pass to me.
    Jessup snaps the ball to Maxwell, and everything revs back up in my head. I avoid one of the President’s safeties as I pump my legs good and hard, running along the sideline. My eyes hardly leave Maxwell’s arm, and when I see him whip it back, I quickly scan my surroundings to make sure I’m in the right spot. The ball’s up, up, arcing perfectly over the players and coming right toward me.
    Both cornerbacks are trying to rush me, but I’m too fast for them, and as I gain speed to gracefully catch the pass at the forty-yard line, I see them screwing up any kind of interference between me and the ball. It’s tightly in my arm, and I’m running at breakneck speed, hitting the twenty, the ten, and so close to the end zone . . . but the bigger cornerback is right on my tail, surprising me, given his size. This rookie grabs hold of my ankle right as I make the dive into the end zone, and the yank on my lower body makes it impossible to do the usual tuck and roll. I land all of my weight directly on my left shoulder and yell out as something inside it rips.
    “Fuuuuck!” I yell, dropping the ball once I’ve landed and cradling my arm.
    The crowd erupts, and immediately, Kevon is at my side, turning me to face him. “Yo, that was brutal. You all right?”
    I lie back and look straight up. Well, this is not how I saw my preseason going.

    --

    C oach T paces around in his office again, looking between me and Dr. Bahra as if one of us is suddenly going to give him better news. “So that’s it, then? Elijah is going to need surgery to fix it? And then what? This isn’t my first go-around with a player who has a rotator cuff injury. There’s always more to it.”
    I do my best not to roll my eyes. He makes it sound like I did this shit to myself on purpose.
    But the doc just writes something across his little pad of paper, ripping the paper off and handing it to me.
    My impatient father takes it out of my hand before I get a chance to even read what it says.
    “Pain medication? That’s it? You can’t be serious, Doc. That’s not going to help him. He’s not going to be able to catch any throws.”
    This time, I do roll my eyes. “Yeah, since I can’t catch anything, I guess I don’t deserve any pain relief, do I?”
    And of course, my father ignores me as he waves around the prescription like a crazy person. “There’s