18. Colton

There were a few NFL rules that Colton wasn’t a fan of. But the one he truthfully didn’t understand was the concept of being able to lose in overtime without his offense having the chance to touch the ball. His success on the field was ultimately a testament to how hard he worked, so to lose on the road to a team who”d started overtime with the ball simply because of a lucky coin toss? That just felt wrong. He hated how powerless it’d left him. At the end of a hard game, he didn’t even have a chance to get on the field to try to win it. If he were a cartoon character, he’d have had smoke coming from his ears.

The moment the ball had found Dallas’ wide receiver in the end zone and the stadium erupted in cheers, Colton had tossed his helmet to the ground. He’d tried so hard, and it felt like the loss erased the seven wins they’d managed.

He tried to be cordial as he shook the hands of each of his opponents, clapping some on the back who he was on semi-friendly terms with, but what he really wanted to do was take his anger out on the refs for enforcing a dumb rule. Yeah, he recognized it wasn’t their fault, but all he had was the messenger.

The familiar tightness in his chest only tightened further as reporters swarmed around him like vultures in the tunnel. He could hardly hear them as they talked over each other, though none as loud as the disappointed voice in his head.

He had a few minutes to shower and change before the press conference, so he dodged the questions and ducked into the locker room. He let the steam clear his mind, scrubbing at his skin until it felt raw. Pulling on a Sabers sweatsuit, he tossed his stuff into his overnight bag and pushed his way out of the locker room. He wasn’t in the mood to hear Coach Turner’s lecture, as enlightening as it might’ve been.

He hadn’t expected Lucia to be standing there in one of her sexy, green pantsuits he had started to love, nor had he expected the tension in his body to halve just by being in her presence.

“Moretti? What’re you doing here?” Usually, the analysts packed up and hopped on the bus early. He knew because he always looked for her as he and his teammates filed into the big, air-conditioned units.

He hated the look of pity on her face but couldn’t find it in himself to be upset with her for it.

“I…I just wanted to check on you before the press conference.” She moved further down the hall, putting some distance between herself and the locker room, clearly wanting Colton to follow her.

When she turned back to him, her brows were knitted and she was wringing her hands. She didn’t look away from his eyes, opening and closing her mouth as if figuring out how to say what she wanted.

“Overtime rules are fucking awful,” he said, hoping it would help her find her words.

She laughed, nodding. “Yeah. They really are. Glad you’re doing well enough to joke.” She fiddled with her ring like she always did when she didn’t know what to say, or when she was nervous. Colton reached a hand out to clasp hers.

She cleared her throat. “Just remember that a loss isn’t just on you. That this season is still salvageable. But most importantly, remember that you’re more than your team’s record and your stats. Don’t let them make you think otherwise, okay?” She squeezed his hand.

And just like that, the rest of the tension in his body was gone. It’d taken her a few sentences and a squeeze of his hand for her to ease the stress of the game. He couldn’t believe she’d ever thought that she was only an analyst when her mere presence comforted him more than anything or anybody else. He wanted to beg her to never leave so he could always feel so at peace.

Instead, he asked, “See you on the plane?”

“Can’t very well stay here, can I?” She grinned, squeezing his hand once more before heading in the direction of the team busses.

When he’d asked Lucia to come over to hang out and watch a movie the next night, he’d thought he would get more resistance. He knew he had agreed with her stupid rule not to fraternize outside of work, but he didn’t care for it one bit. He was chasing the feeling he’d had in his grasp that night with her at his house. Hell, he was chasing the high he had been feeling since the moment she’d walked into that damn boardroom.

He’d known he was attracted to her from the beginning. But this was something else entirely. This was making up reasons to see her. This was finding ways to touch her. This was trying to spend the little bit of free time that he had with her, even if it meant being more tired than he was used to the next morning. Though that could’ve been because of the thoughts about her that kept him up at night.

Having her pressed against him—like he had in his hotel room a few nights before, held tight to his chest until his coach had woken them with a loud bang on his hotel door—was decidedly his new favorite way to sleep.

He knew he was only digging himself a deeper hole, knew he was only biding his time until he inevitably got hurt, because she so obviously didn’t feel as strongly for him as he did for her. But he couldn’t bring himself to care. If this was all the time he’d get with her, just until the beginning of January, he would try to make it count as much as she’d let him.

His phone rang, and he answered, entering the pin to let Lucia up his driveway. His heart was beating faster than normal as he tidied around the couch Maya had helped him find, along with all the rest of his decor. He set out a blanket, trying to create the illusion of comfort his sister always seemed to talk about when she visited.

He walked to the tall door, taking a breath after the second knock before opening it. Lucia stood there in a pair of black sweatpants—likely from her time with the Vipers, but he had no way of confirming that—and the Sabers sweatshirt he’d given her. She was weighed down by two bags of…Were those groceries?

“I want to make it abundantly clear that, yes, I am breaking my rule about not hanging out with you outside of work, but it’s only because I feel bad about the overtime rules and I know how grumpy you are about the loss. And there were reporters outside, so really, this is for Tessa. And also, you’re my only friend here.” A lie, but he’d let her get away with it. He was starting to think he’d let her get away with anything.

He took the heavy bags from her. “What’s all this?”

“Oh. That. That’s because I rarely see you eat anything but pizza, and I think it’s high time you eat something healthy.”

“You’re…You’re cooking for me?”

“Think of it as ‘I’m here despite knowing I shouldn’t be, and if I were home, like I’m supposed to be, I’d be making this for myself.’ So you just happen to be with me on a day I’m actually cooking. But don’t think you’ll just be sitting around. I’m putting you to work.”

And, boy, did she. He chopped all the vegetables for the salad as she worked on the pasta and chicken. He’d never had much time to learn how to cook, so he rarely did so for himself. Landon and Maya were the chefs of his family, and it was probably best that way.

They worked in silence, the sounds of chicken sizzling and water boiling mixing with the smells of Italian food.

After a while, she spoke. “Okay. In exchange for this lovely and delicious meal, you have to tell me something.”

He chuckled. “I knew you weren’t doing this out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Never.”

“Shoot.”

“The first day I was here, you mentioned something about having my best friend sleep with your tight end to win our rivalry game. Explain.”

Colton sighed. He didn’t want to talk about it because he didn’t even know what to believe. On the other hand, he owed her an explanation, especially if he’d been wrong.

“Isabella and Vinny were together around the time of our rivalry game.”

“Yeah.”

“After Lincoln won, Clark found me on the field. He told me about how Vinny had been talking to her about our plays, and that’s how you guys beat us. I confronted Vinny, and he denied it, but I just thought he was trying to save his skin.”

After a few years had passed, Colton didn’t think too often about what’d happened. He had only relived the loss of the national title when the Sabers played the Vipers. But it had replayed more often in his mind when Lucia started working with him. Where before he’d felt angry and powerless thinking about it, he now only felt tired. It had been so long ago, and he didn’t care as much, especially now that he’d learned it probably wasn’t true.

Lucia set down the wooden spoon in her hand and turned to face Colton. “I can swear to you on my life that Isa was not interested in your playbook. She was just hooking up with Vinny. I…” She sighed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Max just said that to piss you off.”

Colton nodded, having realized as much over the past few months. He owed Vinny an apology. “I think so too. But I didn’t realize that until recently. I just believed him, and that fueled my hatred for him, and for you, for years.”

“Well, you guys hated each other long before that game.”

“Yeah, but not like that. I wanted to go to the board about it. I had never been so mad. We were supposed to make playoffs that year too.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, Colton. I really am.”

“I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that I was so sure of how good we were that I believed him, or the knowledge that you guys won because you were better.”

She resumed stirring the pasta as it started to boil over the pot. “I know this might not be the right thing to say, but who cares? You won the Super Bowl last season. He has yet to do that. And if we’re being honest, you’re a far better quarterback than him.”

His heart hammered in his ears. Lucia’s compliments were only given when she felt they were worth giving, so his chest swelled.

“How have you been since he called?”

She strained the pasta and readied the chicken and sauce before she responded. “I’m okay. It definitely made me realize how much shit I took from him while we were together. I’ve been going through and analyzing it all, trying to figure out why I stayed for so long when he treated me like that. I had a lot of opportunities to leave, but he always found a way to keep me there.”

She placed the pot in the sink and then added the sauce and pasta to a bowl. “I think I was always going to be his backup. And that’s why he’s struggling so much with me moving on. I’m just glad I didn’t marry him.”

Me too.

Colton added all the parts of the salad into a bowl and mixed it, then walked the bowl to his dining table as he thought over her words. He couldn’t imagine Lucia being anybody’s backup. She was the most ambitious, intelligent, and beautiful person he’d ever met. He wondered if things would’ve been different if he and Lucia had gone to the same college. If he’d met her first.

“Abusive relationships are hard to navigate, especially when you don’t recognize that you’re in one.” As he spoke, he thought about his parents and how much his mother suffered by staying with his father.

“You sound like you’re talking from experience.”

He shrugged, watching her dump the pasta into another big bowl before placing it on the dining table beside the salad. “My parents weren’t happy together. My mom never said anything to me about it, but I think if she was guaranteed full custody of us, she would’ve left him.”

For as long as he could remember, up until his mother got sick, his parents hadn’t agreed on much. His father had always wanted him and Landon on the football field, and their mother had wanted them to go to school and have social lives. His father had wanted them to do drills and watch games, and their mother had wanted them to see her side of the family and learn her culture. She’d wanted to give them a well-rounded life filled with more than just football, but as with everything, their father had won.

“Will you tell me about your mom?”

Colton grabbed a set of plates and two sets of silverware as he thought about how he wanted to respond. “What about her?”

“What was she like?”

Lucia took the plates from him and began piling pasta and salad onto each before walking them into the living room. He followed her, mulling over her question as she set the food on the coffee table and sat on the ground in front of the couch. She took a bite of the food and hummed contentedly.

He sat beside her and finally answered her question. “She was…she was amazing. The funniest person you could ever meet. Even after she got sick, she was cracking jokes to try to make things easier for all of us. You know, my dad always talks about how he’s been at all of my games since I started playing football, and that might be true, but my mom was there too, and she never expected anything from me for showing up. She was just happy I was having fun. Just happy to watch her children do what they loved.”

“What was she like while you were growing up?”

That was a little tougher to answer. More complex. “I can’t lie, it wasn’t always easy. My mom was the best mom, truly, and she put her life on hold for us and my dad. She had three kids, all of whom played very high-level sports, and she was always the one to shuttle us to our many practices, feed us, and honestly, love us. But a part of me always resented that I’m half Indian.”

Lucia’s head whipped around to face him. At her questioning look, he continued. “It was hard to fit in, even in California. I went to a school with a lot of white people, and even if they didn’t mean to make me feel that way, it was always clear that I wasn’t one of them. My name may not sound ethnic, but one look at me, and you can tell I’m different. And, not that I had much contact with other Indians, but when I did, it was clear I wouldn’t fit in there either. I didn’t speak the language, didn’t practice the religion, and barely knew anything about the culture.

“My mom tried to teach us, and our grandparents wanted to see us more and teach us all about our culture, but our dad was very strict with me and Landon growing up. We rarely had time to do anything outside of school and football. And football, it kind of took it all away. It didn’t matter that I didn’t fit in with any group of people, because the moment I got out on that field, it went away. People stopped caring as much when they saw what I could do with a ball. And I think, after a certain point, I just didn’t really want to learn anymore because I’d found where I fit in. I was scared that learning about my culture had the potential to remove that for me and thrust me back into that same confusing place I’d grown up in.”

He smiled sadly. “Now that she’s gone, I regret that part of my childhood immensely, but as a kid, all I could see was the fact that others saw me outside of their predetermined boxes.” He shrugged as he watched her hand hover dangerously close to his. “I rarely deal with anything like that anymore. But in high school, and college, and even when I first started in the league, everyone had something to say about my ethnicity. They love putting people in boxes, don’t they?”

He was trying to lighten the mood after the surprisingly deep confession he’d made to Lucia, one he hadn’t even talked through with his siblings, people who probably felt the same as him. But something about Lucia’s question had seemed so genuine that he’d wanted to tell her how he’d felt all those years.

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m sorry anybody ever made you feel that way. You deserve so much better than that. And if you ever decide you want to learn more about your culture, I’d love to learn, too.”

Colton’s cheeks burned at her words. “Thank you,” he whispered back as he picked up the remote and clicked on the first streaming service that popped up. It’d been so long since Colton used his TV that he had to type in his login.

Before he pulled up a movie, he set the remote down and turned to her. “And I’m sorry about everything with Clark. I really am. You deserve so much better than what he gave you.”

She shrugged, taking another bite of the food in front of her and refusing to meet his eyes. “Thank you. It sucks, but the whole thing just proved to me that love isn’t real. Or if it is, it doesn’t last.”

“You really think that?”

“Tell me one relationship you know that’s lasted, and not just out of convenience.”

Immediately, he said, “Rudy and Jenna. Chris and Elaine. Sam and Kelly.” Honestly, a lot of his teammates were in healthy, stable relationships. There’d only been a few who’d married women who may not have had the best of intentions.

“I guess time will tell, and maybe it works out for some people. But I was raised in a house with a single father whose heart had been broken by the woman he thought was the love of his life. A woman who couldn’t stand the sight of him, and who chose to walk out on him and her child. And you know what my dad did? He kept trying. Kept looking for love everywhere he went, convinced he was gonna find someone someday. All that ended up happening was him jumping from one unfulfilling relationship to the next, and he never has found that soulmate he’s been seeking.”

Colton searched Lucia’s face for a hint of what she was feeling. Sure, he’d lost his mother, but that had been due to illness. He couldn’t imagine having a parent leave him by choice, and it made him angry to think of anybody leaving what he could only picture as a perfect, clever, and happy little Lucia.

“I’m sorry, Luc.”

She shrugged again, this time meeting his eyes. “It is what it is. I’ve had a lot of time to deal with it and how it made us feel. I don’t remember her a ton, but I know we were better off without her. My dad loved me the best that he could while dealing with his own demons.”

Colton set his hand on her knee and squeezed gently. She gave him a small smile, grabbing the remote and clicking on a movie he’d never heard of while they ate the food they’d made together.