Sacked (The Alpha Ballers#2) (22 page)

“So? Maybe I do get back on the field, what then? How does that affect the two of us?” I could see Lance thinking hard, trying to figure out what I meant.

“You get back on the field, you take the Patriots to the playoffs, you win a championship, and suddenly the entire world knows who Lance Parker is.”

The realization dawned on him and Lance leaned back. “So that’s it? You’re scared I’ll let fame go to my head? You’re scared I won’t be able to keep my cock out of any random girl who throws herself my way? Is that it?”

Now it was my turn not have any words. I tested out my mouth just like Lance had earlier, before squeaking out, “Yes!” I turned around, again unable to look at him.

Lance walked around me till I was facing him all over again. “Charlotte, if you don’t know me well enough by now to know that’s not the kind of guy I am, maybe you’re right after all, maybe this wasn’t going to work out.”
 

Lance stepped back and gestured toward the door. “Maybe we were just fooling ourselves.”

“Maybe you’re right.” I felt crushing to say it, it felt like the weight of the world was falling down on me.

“Alright, then, I’ll respect your decision,” Lance said, barely above a whisper. “Even though I don’t agree with it for a second.”

“Thank you.” I walked toward the door, each step feeling like there were stones in my shoes. Resting my hand on the knob, I turned around. “We’ll keep it professional for work stuff?”

Lance looked up. “Yeah. I can do that.” He smiled. “I guess I don’t have a heart to steal after all, eh?”

I didn’t know what that meant, so I let it hang there. “Goodbye, Lance,” I whispered as I turned around and left the room.

Just before the door closed I heard Lance reply, “goodbye, Charlotte.”

I rested myself against the wall outside Lance’s door, my thoughts rioting in my head. I thought this would make me feel better, I thought the voices in my head would quiet down and let me focus better, but I was totally wrong.

Why didn’t I feel any better? Had I made a huge mistake?

CHAPTER 19 - LANCE

Maybe Drake was right. Maybe I didn’t have a heart to steal after all. I mean, if I had, would I have really stood there and watched Charlotte leave like that?

Of course I’d see her again, she and I still worked together, and I knew she needed the job, and I didn’t have time to get another trainer so late in the season.

But still, if I was really the kind of man who could get attached to someone as much as I thought I felt connected to Charlotte before the last 5 minutes, would I really have let her go like that?

I didn’t think so.

I sat back down on my bed after that and tried to think about her as little as possible. As much as I’d want to wallow in despair or try and figure out a clever way to get her back, I had to face reality - she didn’t want to be with me, for whatever reason, and I had something else to worry about.

Getting my career back on track. And that meant getting my starting job back.

The next week or so I spent doing just that, or whatever I could to make that happen. I was first to every meeting, had the answer to every question the quarterbacks’ coach asked, and in team meetings I took over as much as I could. Drake perked up when I walked in the room, and told me afterward that guys had noticed I was back in my old form again.

That felt good to hear, I really had missed being around my brothers all this time. Oliver Lee sulked at first, but he didn’t have nearly the knowledge I had, so he couldn’t do any better than me when the questions got tough.

When it came to the weight room, I came back with a vengeance, putting weight on my knee and feeling how good it felt to work up a sweat and really move some weight around. I set more than one new personal record in a bunch of lifts, and at times the entire gym was full of guys holding up their own workouts to watch me push out another set. Sure, I wasn’t lifting as heavy as any of the linemen, but I was holding my own.

The practice field was the same way. Sure, I was still on the scout team making sure the defense was prepared, but I started to really get into it, watching film on the opposing quarterbacks and figuring out how to tailor my game to really get into their heads and figure out why they did what they did, while giving it my own touch and flair.

Soon I had our backup offense giving the starting defense a good run for their money, and the coaches noticed. During a couple practices, Coach Armstrong pulled me aside and told me to ease up a bit so the defensive starters didn’t lose their confidence. I laughed and agreed, but Armstrong told me under his breath to keep doing what I was doing.

That was a good sign, I thought.

Everything aside from Charlotte was starting to go my way. Of course, Charlotte, though I would never admit it even to myself, had become one of, if not the most, important aspects of my life.

I still saw her every day. She still worked on me, giving me massages, helping me stretch out, making sure I wasn’t re-aggravating the healing injury in my knee. It must have been tough on her to be touching me like that all the time, but it wasn’t easy for me either. The girl I wanted more than anything was so close to me and yet so far away.

I tried to shut it out as best as I could but she crept into my head at the weirdest times, and I would lose focus on the film I was watching, the question I was answering, or the play I was running on the field.

I had to get back to focusing on football. The Patriots were in a rough patch. After the last couple of losses, and due to the way the rest of the division and conference were playing out, we would need to win every single game from here on out in order to make it into the playoffs as a wildcard, which meant an extra game on our way to the championship.

That extra game didn’t matter, because right now we just had to make it there. Only 12 of the league’s 32 teams even got a shot - the other 20 had to watch from their couches, drowning their sorrows in defeat.

I wasn’t going to let the Patriots be one of those 20 teams, not if I could do anything about it.

We had 4 games left and each of them were critically important. I knew that. Oliver Lee knew that. The coaching staff and all the rest of the players knew that.

I knew everyone would buckle down and help make it happen.
 

Game day came, a Sunday like any other as December began in New England. We’d had a smattering of snow each of the last few days, and the temperature had dropped quite a bit. I loved the cold weather, but most of the other guys complained bitterly, and some of them even made a game of finding the most creative ways to bitch and moan about the biting cold.

We all sat in the locker room before the game, after the coaches had given their final speeches. Normally I’d be totally inside my own head, thinking about the game, the preparation, and everything else I needed to keep track of in order to execute properly on the field.

Two things were different this time. The first was that I wasn’t starting, so the pressures wasn’t on nearly as much as it used to. I hated that. The pressure was what I loved, it was what made me thrive in situations like these. Even though the odds were against us, against a formidable Arizona team, nothing would have made me happier than to be starting right now, instead of fucking Oliver Lee. I cocked an eye at him sitting in his locker and rocking out to whatever music he was listening to.

I was the last guy to begrudge a guy his preparation routine, but he was the only one really making a party out of it. I preferred to be quiet, almost meditative. What was it Charlotte had called me? A ‘football monk’ - that was more right than she thought.

Charlotte.

The way she invaded my thoughts made it impossible for me to relax and get into the flow of the game. In a way, I was glad not to be playing. If I had to deal with both starting the game and thinking about her, I don’t know what I would have done.

Starting clock reached down to 20 minutes before kickoff and we had to take the field for warmups. I went out, giving a few of my brothers fist pounds on the way. Drake, in particular, found me out in the crowd. “Good to have you back with us, man,” he whispered.

“Yeah. It’s good to be back.”

Hud came up next as the defense made its way onto the field. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, buddy,” he looked down at me. “I’ll feel a lot better when you’re starting again.”

“Tell that to Armstrong, yeah?”

Hud’s face darkened. “Make no mistake, Parker, Coach and I have talked about that more than once.”

I remembered how livid Hud had been when Coach Armstrong had left me in the game when we were beating the Steelers, leading to my injury, and I nodded, tapping him on the shoulder just above his pads. “Thanks for the look out, man. Let it go, though. It happened, and if it hadn’t happened during that game, it would have during the next one.”

“You don’t know that.”

I sighed. “Nah, you’re right, I don’t, but I do know the best way to make it all better is for you to man up and lock those assholes down out there tonight, yeah? I don’t want them to make a first down. Not a single fucking first down.” I got louder. “You hear me!?”

“Fuckin’ A, I hear you!” Hud bellowed, and charged out of the tunnel onto the field. A stalwart in New England for over a decade, the crowd knew him by sight even from far away, and cheered him on appreciatively.

I sighed and left the tunnel myself. I looked around and couldn’t tell if there was any change in crowd noise when I came out. How fickle the masses were! It was almost as if I had never existed - Oliver Lee was the new starter and I had to live with it.

After we all got on the field and spent 10 minutes warming up and stretching, I took up my position on the Patriots sideline near the coaching staff - Coach Armstrong and the two coordinators, with headsets on. I put my headset on, so if called on I could give Oliver Lee advice through his helmet speaker.

The starting clock reached double zeroes, and the game started. The crowd was eager and loud; they wanted their team to make the playoffs more than anything. Arizona being so far away, there wasn’t too big of an away crowd this game, but there were more than a few red jackets in attendance.

I settled back down, watching the defense led by Hudson Asher take over, having a great game, and only getting one touchdown go by in the first half. The Arizona Cardinals were a really good team, possibly the toughest and most complete team on our schedule, and we knew there was a good chance that if we made it to the championship game, we’d see them across the field from us.

That was still a long way away, though.

On offense, unfortunately, things weren’t looking as good. Our running game took a little while to get started, and Oliver Lee had suddenly begun to revert to his old, mistake-prone self.

On one level, I was thrilled, because the worse he did, the better it was for me. At the same time, though, I couldn’t help from the sideline, and I couldn’t help at all if they made me the starter after we were eliminated from playoff contention.

Nevertheless, I tried to support the team and help Oliver out, giving him advice on reads and pass rushes before each play whenever Coach Armstrong nodded in my direction.
 

It didn’t work. Lee just couldn’t get the offense started, and it was becoming clear that Arizona’s stifling defense was a little bit too much for him to handle.

At halftime in the locker room the mood was somber. Everyone knew that every single game going forward was going to be like this, as long as we kept winning. Everyone wanted to win, but we also knew that if we lost even a single game from here to the championship, it was all over.

Coach Armstrong walked through the locker room, stopping in front of various players to talk to them quietly. Some players had snacks, some linemen had entire hoagies carted in for them to munch on. Others just sat and meditated, or huddled up with their position coaches.

Coach Armstrong stopped at my locker, and I looked up at him. “You feeling rested enough yet, Parker?”

“Huh? Y-Yes, sir, Coach. Well rested as ever.”

“Good. Stay that way.” He leaned in. “I’m going to make a change for the second half.”

“Oh?” I didn’t let myself get optimistic, but inside I was about to start dancing.

“Yeah. Lee’s not working out today. We’re going to see if you’ve got anything left in the tank.”

“I understand, Coach. I won’t let you down.”

“Feel free to, son. If you do, the season’s over. Just keep that in mind.”

I stood up and started stretching, thrilled that I was going to get to play again.
 

Coach Armstrong went to Lee’s locker next, and I could see Lee slump over while they talked. By now the rest of the locker room had noticed what was happening and there was a little buzz around.

Drake looked at me and nodded, his smile huge. I caught Hud’s eye from across the room and he gave me the thumbs up.

It took me only 3 minutes to get into game-day mode for real this time, and when I looked around the room after, I noticed someone new standing there.
 

Mackenzie Mayfield. I hadn’t seen her since that day weeks ago in my room after the injury. She nodded to Coach Armstrong then walked up to me.

“Parker, good to see you’re feeling better.”
 

“Yes, ma’am, feeling a lot better.”

She came in close. Over her shoulder I could see Hud scowling in my direction. “Don’t let me down, Parker. Remember our discussion from a few weeks ago?”

“I do, Mackenzie.”

“Good. That offer is still on the table. You get us into the playoffs and beyond, and I’ll do everything it takes to make sure you’re a New England Patriot as long as you can and want to play.”

The ‘can’ part was both more important than the ‘want’ and highly subjective, I knew. As long as the team thought I could play they’d keep me on. I knew that was the case when I got into this.

“I won’t let you down, Mackenzie.”

She stepped back. “Good to hear, Parker. I’ll be watching.” After those ominous words, she nodded again to Coach Armstrong and left the room.