The Debt 11 (Club Alpha) (10 page)

It felt like just a few seconds had
passed and she’d drifted off, only to be snapped awake as he pulled away from
her and sat up, clearing his throat, throwing his powerful legs over the side
of the bed.

“You all right?” she croaked.

“Time to get up,” he murmured.

She glanced blearily at the nightstand
clock and saw that it was just past five in the morning.

“This early?”

“Just go back to sleep, Faith.”
 
He stood up and stretched and she could
hear his joints cracking and he turned his head back and forth, as if trying to
work out the kinks.

It occurred to her just how much abuse
Chase put himself through on a daily basis.
 
His life consisted mainly of getting
smashed into by men as big or bigger than himself.

She’d heard it compared to being in a
minor car accident on almost every single play.
 
These men were so big and so fast that
the impact they made on each other would be felt for years to come.

Chase got down on the carpeted floor and
proceeded to run through a long series of sit-ups, pushups and stretches.

Faith eventually did drift back to sleep
again, because his routine went on and on and on.
 
It was soothing in its own way.

When she woke up again, the room was
empty.
 
She glanced at the clock and
it read seven a.m.
 
She got up and
ran into the other room, almost panicked that he might’ve left her there.

Instead, she found him sitting at the
table by the window and reading a newspaper.

He glanced up at her.

She smiled, laughing a little.
 
“You’re reading.”

“What—did you think I’m illiterate?”

“No, I just…I don’t know.
 
Are you reading the sports page?”

He made a face.
 
“Duh.
 
Me only read sports.
 
Me dumb jock.”

“Come on,” she laughed.
 
“I just thought—“

He flipped the paper around to show her
what he was reading.
 
It was an
article about extremists taking over a town in Syria.
 
He dropped the paper back to the table
and picked up his mug.
 
“I find it
soothing to read the paper the morning before a game.
 
The less it has to do with football, the
better.
 
I made coffee,” he said,
getting up and walking to the kitchenette.
 
“I’m gonna have a refill.
 
You want some?”

“Sure,” she said, walking over to the
table and sitting down.
 
She looked
out the window over towards the stadium.
 

It was empty now, but soon it would be
packed to capacity and Chase would be performing.

It gave her stomach a jolt, and she felt
butterflies.
 
She wondered how much
more intense the nerves must be for Chase.

But he didn’t seem anxious.
 
If anything, he seemed calmer now.

He poured them both cups of coffee and
then carried the two mugs to the table, sliding one towards her before sitting
down again.

“You seem happy,” she said.

He shrugged.
 
“It’s better on game day.
 
I want to do it, I want to get out there
and do my job.”

“Yeah,” she said, understanding what he
meant a little bit.
 
She lifted her
mug and sipped from it.
 
The warmth
spread out over her stomach.
 

Things were silent between them for a
long moment.

She thought about what had gone on the
previous night between them and Monique and Velcro.
 
Faith looked at him and wondered what
had happened when he’d given Monique her cell phone back.

But she didn’t want to ask.

Chase saw her expression and smiled.
 
“You seem lost in thought,” he said,
raising an eyebrow.
 
“You thinking
about what we did last night before bed?”

She laughed.
 
“Yes,” she lied.

He licked his lips.
 
“If I didn’t have a game to play, I’d do
it again right now, girl.
 
Believe
that.”

“I believe it.”
 
She tried to smile, but it faltered as
she thought about the fact that something was between them now.
 
She’d lied about her thoughts, because
she’d been afraid to bring up last night.

A sick feeling wormed its way into her
belly and didn’t leave.

She had a horrible sense that whatever
had happened that Chase didn’t want to discuss—it was only just the
beginning.

***

This was like déjà vu, Faith decided.

She was back in the VIP section of the
stadium,
just like the day she’d met Chase for the first
time.

Only now she was here as his personal
guest, although nobody around her seemed aware of that fact.

There were a few groups of people sharing
the VIP box with her.
 
They seemed
to be business people from local companies that had season tickets.

Most of them were loud and boisterous,
yelling stuff as they swilled beer and high-fived and talked about players and
stats and seemed to occasionally be trying to impress her or get her attention.

Then again, maybe it was just her
imagination that they were trying to get her attention.

It didn’t really matter.
 
She didn’t care a bit about any of
them,
she only cared about the game and Chase.

The game was about to start and she’d
never been so nervous for anything in all her life.

Her phone buzzed again and again.
 
She’d stopped bothering to even look at
her cell because since early morning, people had been texting and even calling
her almost nonstop.

The texts were from friends and family
and people she’d hadn’t spoken to in months or years.
 
They were all saying good look or “tell
Chase we love him” or “is what I’ve been hearing true?
 
Are you with Chase at the game?” and
stuff like that.

About an hour ago, her father had called,
drunk, and left two long and rambling voicemails about how proud he’d always
been of her, and in the last one he’d started to sob.
 
Then her mother could be heard shouting
at him in the background and he’d gone from sobbing to screaming profanities at
Faith’s mother, and then the message had been cut off.

So now she was ignoring her constantly
buzzing phone, and choosing to watch the field, as both teams took it.

The men around her were already cheering
and clapping.

Some of them were making bets about how
many yards Chase would throw for, and how many sacks Miami would get.

It was known, of course, that Miami had
one of the best defenses, and with Chase having struggled last game—some
people were of the opinion that he’d do even worse today.

Faith didn’t know the answer.
 
All she could do now was hope and pray
and try not to throw up from nervousness.

Miami took the field to kick off to New
England, and the kickoff was routine, run back to the twenty-four yard
line.
 
Chase and the offense ran
onto the field as the whole arena shook with cheers and clapping.

Music blared over the speakers.
 
It had the feeling of a playoff
game—the mood was raucous and excited.

Her hands clasped together in prayer,
Faith took a few deep breaths and tried to calm her fast breathing.
 
She was practically hyperventilating.

Remember
that
Chase said he wanted to get out there and play.
 
He was ready to go.
 
This is his time.

On the first play, Chase handed off to a
running back that only got a few yards.

Second play in, Chase cocked his arm to
throw.

“Velcro’s open!” someone cried out from
behind her.

Faith looked and saw that Velcro Jones
was, indeed, open and running across the middle of the field.

Chase pumped once but didn’t release the
ball, and instead rolled out of the pocket and scrambled for a few yards.

The crowd went wild, cheering, because at
least he’d gained yardage.
 
Against
Miami, that was better than the alternative.

On third down and four, Chase threw a
short pass to one of his receivers and the player was able to get a first down
before being tackled.

Everyone was celebrating, and Faith felt
her early nerves start to calm.
 
Chase was looking confident and sure of himself, and he hadn’t made a mistake
yet.

On the next series of downs, they ran the
ball three times with some success and then Chase threw yet another short pass
for a first down.

People were cheering wildly, and Faith
licked her lips, trying to maintain composure.

“
Winters
is
strong,” a drunken fan nearby kept repeating, over and over.
 
“Winters
is
so
strong.”

New England marched down the field,
mostly by running the ball up the middle.
 
Chase scrambled a couple more times for short yardage and completed
another few passes, none of them to Velcro.

Some of the fans had started to remark on
the fact that his best receiver had been open on several occasions and Chase
had failed to attempt a pass to him.

It was slightly unusual, but only Faith
had an inkling of why it might be happening.

Please,
no
, she thought.
 
Don’t
take it out on him, Chase.
 
Don’t do
that—you’re going to hurt yourself and the team just to prove a point to
him.

New England made their way to the thirty-yard
line and then it happened.
 
Chase
dropped back to pass and Velcro ran a long pass route downfield.

“He’s open!” people were screaming all
around her.

Faith clenched her hands into fists and
closed her eyes.
 
She couldn’t even
watch.

Please, she thought.
 
Please
just throw the ball to him.

And then she heard a tremendous gasp of
disappointment come up from the crowd.
 
Faith opened her eyes.

The play was over, but on the big screen,
they were showing the replay.
 
Chase
had thrown the ball way over Velcro’s head and out of bounds.
 
It hadn’t even been close.

The fans nearby were irate at how badly
Chase had missed, and some of them were saying he’d choked.

Oh, God, Faith thought, feeling
legitimately sickened inside now.

I
should’ve talked to him about it this morning.
 
I knew something was wrong but I was
afraid to try and bring it up.
 
And
now look at what’s happening.

He’s
sabotaging the game over some argument.
 
He’s seriously going to screw up his entire season over a drunken quarrel.

Eventually, New England had to settle for
a field goal.

The crowd cheered, but now the atmosphere
was somewhat muted.
 
The fans in the
box with her were murmuring to one another, and as people drank more, some of
the animosity was coming out.

“The guy’s getting paid like he’s Joe
Montana, and he’s playing like some third-stringer from Notre Dame,” someone
said nearby.

“But why won’t he throw to Velcro Jones?”
someone else said.

“He did throw to him—“

“You call that a throw?”

And the conversation continued, as Miami
took the field on offense and proceeded to eat up the clock, slowly running the
ball, getting four or five yards at a time, and grinding New England’s defense
down.

They eventually scored a touchdown on a
pass from five yards outside the goal line, and went ahead 7-3.

In the second quarter, Chase and the New
England offense played even worse.
 
The running game was starting to falter, and as Chase threw more passes,
his accuracy seemed to get worse.

And of course, he wasn’t throwing to his
best receiver, and the crowd seemed to be getting more and more anxious because
of it.
 
Scattered boos could now be
heard in various pockets of the stadium.

The half ended with the score still at
7-3, as both teams had appeared to struggle to get much going on offense.