28. Colton

Colton took a hit, grunting as he landed underneath one of his defensive linemen. He helped Colton up, apologizing profusely, but Colton shook it off.

“No worries, I’m all good. My fault.” He’d barely been paying attention to practice and hadn’t realized how much time had passed since Chris had snapped the ball to him.

Focusing on football was a nearly impossible task. Colton’s thoughts hadn’t left Lucia for a moment, not even when he was on the field. He was so far gone. He’d known spending that last night with her would only hurt him more in the long run, but he hadn’t realized the depth of his feelings until he’d spent a week away from her. She had called out sick for their sessions the week following their night, and the distance hadn’t done him any good. If anything, it’d just proven to him how in love with her he was. Still, he hadn’t contacted her, trying to respect her wishes.

Colton’s performance had been subpar at best in the last game of the regular season. The Sabers only barely managed to beat Tampa Bay, a team they’d been projected to beat by miles. Lucia had steered clear of him both on the plane and once the team was back in Charleston.

Now, during a Wednesday practice of bye week, he couldn’t even throw one solid pass. It’d been nine days since he’d seen her, spoken to her, held her, and all he could think about was the feeling of her wrapped in his arms. He was sure Coach Turner was one bad throw away from pulling him and putting in their second string, but he couldn’t help that his thoughts were elsewhere, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate.

As if Coach could read Colton’s mind, he yelled, “Beaumont, get the hell off my field!”

Colton’s head snapped to Coach Turner. He jogged over, pulling his helmet from his head. “Coach—”

“I don’t want to hear it. If you can’t make basic passes to your receivers, you’re out for divisionals.” The divisional round of playoffs was only eleven days away. Worse, it was against Max Clark and the Richmond Vipers. He needed to play in that game.

“Coach, I promise I can do this. I’m just in my head. I’ll stay late. I’ll do whatever you need me to do. I promise I can do this. I need to do this.”

Coach Turner’s eyes were already sweeping the field before he said, “Go shower and cool down. I need to think.”

Colton’s heart jumped into his throat as he nodded. He ran off the field, ignoring the looks of his closest friends. Cooper had asked him a few times what’d been going on with him, as had Rudy, but he’d been too embarrassed to explain that his relationship with Lucia had never been real, and yet he’d fallen for her harder than he knew possible.

He breathed in and out quickly, trying to relax even as his mind ran a hundred miles a minute. He needed to find a way to prove to Coach that he could do what needed to be done for the Vipers game.

He took a quick shower, hardly noticing the way the water scalded his skin, and threw on a pair of sweatpants. He couldn’t find the sweatshirt he’d left in his locker, and then remembered it was one of the ones he’d let Lucia have. His chest grew heavy at the reminder.

She’d been the last person he expected to see as he walked out into the facility, and yet there she stood, a white, long-sleeved button-down tucked into a pencil skirt that grazed the tops of her knees. Her eyes drank in the upper body he’d worked so hard for, and then her eyes met his and he stopped breathing. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.

I think I might be in love with you, he thought. And I think that even though that scares the shit out of me, even though I’ve been convinced my whole life that I can’t have a girlfriend and this career, I can’t bear to be without you.

He opened his mouth, but the stricken look on her face and subtle shake of her head made him close it. He didn’t voice his thoughts, and she appeared relieved as she hurried past him to the elevator, his arms aching to reach out to hold her again long after the doors closed. At least her being at the facility meant their sessions would continue.

He walked to his car, trying to understand the look on her face when he’d been about to speak. He located a shirt and threw it on, then went up to her office. He stepped inside, ready to ask how she was feeling, when he noticed Tim standing beside her.

Lucia wouldn’t even meet Colton’s eyes as Tim looked between the two of them. Finally, Tim spoke.

“Today will be a joint session. I’ll be supervising Lucia, but you can continue as if this were a normal session.”

“Why?”

“Lucia wants to make sure you’re getting all the help you need as we go into playoffs.” Colton had been asking Lucia but Tim responded.

Colton’s eyes hadn’t left Lucia. She still refused to look at him. Why was she making this so hard? Why had she called backup, especially when it was at the expense of her independence? She hated people believing she couldn’t do her job, so why would she invite someone into their session as if she wasn’t capable?

And then it all came crashing down on him as he realized why.

She’d sobbed as she’d told him she wanted to end things. She’d let him take her in his arms, let him comfort her, even as she told him she didn’t want to continue their relationship. She hadn’t wanted him to talk when they were alone together. She’d asked someone to come and sit with them through sessions so they would have to keep things professional. She’d agreed to go with him to Devin’s, and then when he’d confessed his feelings to her, she hadn’t said she didn’t feel the same way.

When he’d asked if it’d changed anything, she hadn’t said “no” but “it can’t.” It can’t change anything.

All of this had arisen from her seeing her father for the holidays, a man Colton knew had spent a lifetime getting his heart broken. The man whose experiences had convinced Lucia that she wasn’t built for love.

And it all came together. Maybe she didn’t feel about him exactly how he felt about her, but she was struggling too. She didn’t want this, maybe as badly as he didn’t want this. She was pushing him away because she was scared about her feelings for him. Because she’d felt that thing between them go from a tentative friendship to something entirely different. He hadn’t been faking it for a while, and now he knew she felt the same way.

He wasn’t going to let her push him away. He wasn’t Max Clark, and he wasn’t any of the women who broke her father’s heart. He wasn’t going to give up on them just because she was scared. Things were different for them, and he was going to show her that. Because even if it took him a lifetime to prove it to her, he loved her.

He sat through the session, providing responses only when asked, his head in an entirely other space. And when the session was over, he watched her shoot up and leave with Tim like she knew being alone with him had the potential to change her mind. For the first time in a week and a half, Colton had hope.

January 11th

Colton

If you can honestly say you don’t have feelings for me, then I’ll leave you be. But you have to swear on your fantasy football team or it doesn’t count.

January 12th

Colton

I know what you’re doing. You’re pushing me away because you care about me too. So here’s me refusing to let you.

January 13th

Colton

You can keep having Tim in our sessions, but it won’t change how I feel about you. And how you feel about me. Eventually, we’re probably gonna end up alone in your office or the hall, and then you’re gonna have to face what this is.

January 13th

Colton

Don’t give up on us, Luc. We both know this is different.

January 14th

Colton

I can do this forever. You not responding won’t stop me from texting you. We both know how stubborn I am.

January 15th

Colton

Stop running, Luc. I won’t stop texting you, finding ways to see you at the facility, telling you how I feel. I won’t give up on this, no matter how long you ignore me.

Once he’d learned what was really going on with Lucia, he’d gotten his shit together on the field. Now, only three days from the game, he felt certain in his abilities. He would do everything it took to bury Clark and the Vipers. Not for himself, not for a ring, not even for the team. For Lucia.

His father had invited him over after practice, and it’d been a few weeks since he’d been at the house, so he’d agreed. He stood outside, taking in the perfectly manicured shrubs and greenery that lined the stairs of the house, something he was sure his father had nothing to do with, other than perhaps handing someone cash.

That itchy and tense feeling that always accompanied meetings with his father was there beneath his Sabers sweatsuit. He saw a flash in his periphery but paid it no mind. He climbed the steps up to the front door and rang the doorbell, half-hoping the man wouldn’t come to the door.

He was not so lucky. His father opened the door, a suit on that told Colton he’d been working from home. Rather than speak, his father turned on his heel and walked inside the house, leaving the front door open.

Colton stepped inside, respecting his mother’s wishes by removing his shoes, and closed the door. He followed his father toward his study, taking in the bare walls for the first time. No pictures of the family, or of his deceased wife, or even photos of nature. The walls were just bare.

“Hey, Dad.”

“I’m glad you and that girl broke up. She was ruining your chances at another Super Bowl.”

Colton’s legs almost gave out at the words.

“What?” he asked, his voice breaking on the word. How would he know about that? Had the media reported on it just because they hadn’t been seen together outside of the facility for a couple of weeks?

“You haven’t heard? It just came out that she’s been talking to Max Clark the whole time she’s been in Charleston. You wasted your season chasing that girl. That woman was a Viper through and through. I can’t believe you trusted her. I knew from the moment she walked through this door that she was no good.”

Colton had to place a hand on the wall beside him to steady himself.

“That can’t be true. Lucia wouldn’t do something like that.” She wouldn’t, he knew that. He’d learned about her relationship with Max over their past few months together, and there was no way she’d been lying to him about that. The agony in her voice and the sadness that took over her body when she’d talked about it couldn’t have been faked.

His father shoved his phone into Colton’s hand. On the screen, The Richmond Herald claimed to have insider information about the torrid affair between Lucia and Max. About how Lucia was taking information from her work with the Sabers to the Vipers.

It had to be Max’s doing. It had to be. He scrolled down, looking for any proof. There were pictures of Lucia and Max together, but none of them looked recent. Then, Colton’s finger stilled over an image.

In it, Lucia and Max were on some kind of video call, and Lucia was looking down, smiling. Colton would’ve waved it off, but sitting around her neck was a necklace with a pearl pendant. The necklace that she’d told him was new after their Thanksgiving win.

Colton’s heart hammered in his chest, blood rushing in his ears. It didn’t make sense. Why would she have called Max? And if it hadn’t been anything bad, why hadn’t she told Colton? He was sure there was an explanation for all of this. There had to be.

Before he handed the phone back to his father, he saw a video. The hammering in his chest increased as he hovered over it and then finally clicked it open.

“Yeah. I’m gonna give you our plays.” The voice was unmistakably Lucia’s, and she was talking to Max. And wearing that necklace. Which meant that this conversation, whatever it was between them, had happened after Thanksgiving, months after she’d left the Vipers.

Colton looked back at his father in disbelief.

“Are you crying? Christ, you’re such a girl. This is why you should’ve been at the gym more this season. Look at you! Clark’s bigger than you and probably faster too.”

When Colton didn’t respond, his father continued, “I hope you now realize that she was a waste of your time and that your focus should remain on the game. Women and children come after the glory.”

Colton had heard his father talk down about women in the past, but this was different. He hated to hear him talk about Lucia in that manner. Despite that, he bit his tongue, as he always did. He might have been a coward, but he couldn’t bring himself to say something to the man who’d practically built his career. At least the lecture was over.

Colton opened his mouth to speak, but it seemed his father wasn’t done. “If I could’ve had you and Landon on my own, I would have. Your mother only babied you and slowed me down.”

Colton shut his mouth. He was still reeling from the article, but he’d snapped to attention at his father’s words. For him to disrespect Colton’s mom in such a way—the woman who’d loved them and nurtured them the way their father should have, the woman who’d been there for all his practices and games, who’d loved him unconditionally—outraged him. No, it was more than rage. There was no word to describe the eerie tendrils that wrapped themselves around Colton’s insides and pulsed through him as his father shattered any resolve he’d had to keep his mouth shut.

“How fucking dare you. How dare you talk about Mom like that. Mom was the only good part of our childhood. All you did was take away our chances of being actual children, ruined my relationship with Landon, and ensured I never spent time with the family who actually cared about me. I have grandparents who’ve wanted to be a part of my life, our lives, since long before Mom died. But I’ve felt so guilty about how you made us shut them out, especially after Mom got sick, that I’ve stayed away, kept them locked out for so fucking long. I’m fucking tired of your self-serving bullshit. I’m tired of your lectures. I’m tired of letting you tell me how to play football like I’m not already a thousand times more successful than you ever were. I’m tired of you treating Landon like he’s second best and Maya like she just doesn’t exist. And I’m tired of you talking shit about the woman I love because you’re so emotionally stunted that you’ve never successfully shown anybody love.”

Colton turned on his heel, stomping out of a house he was sure he would never see again. He pulled his phone from his pocket as he got in and started his car, noticing a text from Lucia for the first time in nearly two weeks.

Lucia

It’s not true. I swear it isn’t. Please don’t believe it.

I would never do something like that.

Colton wanted to believe her, but her words from the video kept ringing in his head. I’m gonna give you our plays. Why would she have said that? It felt like college all over again.

He raced to the facility, searching everywhere for Lucia. When he got to her office, Coach Turner and Tim stood outside, somber looks on their faces.

“Is it true?” Colton asked.

Coach Turner’s face didn’t change as Tim spoke. “We can’t say for certain. She’s on temporary probation. You can’t speak to her until she’s been cleared. We don’t know if she’s been feeding the Vipers information about the team.”

At the last sentence, Coach turned a disapproving glare onto Tim before looking back at Colton. “We don’t believe she has been, but we’re taking all necessary precautions. As you know, this is an important game, and we need to be sure no information was exchanged before she can be reinstated.”

Despite the eyes of the two men on him, Colton’s back hit the wall, and he sank to the ground. Betrayal sat heavy in his chest, and as soon as Coach Turner and Tim walked away, Colton opened his texts and read and re-read Lucia’s last message.