Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

JETT

Ava's words sit with me all week, making me examine every way I've pushed away other people sacrificing for me, or trying to, big or small. The last time I asked something big of someone—asking Ava to move to Nevada with me—failed so much that I've spent the last several years relying on just myself. I've focused on getting what I want with hard work, paying the costs, putting in the effort, to achieve my professional dreams. But how much of it is just stubbornness or not letting other people care for me the way I do about them? Even the way I don't ask my mom to come to more games because I know she doesn't like them. It's small, but have I made it unimportant to me because I don't want to ask her to make that little sacrifice for me?

Ava hurt me by making the decision to leave all on her own, but I've spent so much time since that day heaping all the blame onto her. I talked so much about my football plans that is it any wonder she came to the conclusion that I wouldn't be okay without them? It hurts that her first instinct was to run away instead of talk to me, but is it any better that I ignored her after it happened? What if I'd answered one of those texts or calls? We could have talked it out. I could have made sure she knew that while my goal was to make it in pro football, my ultimate dreams and my priorities were a life with her. Her leaving was a call for help, and I cut her out of my life because I was hurt.

I need a sounding board, but everyone in my life has some kind of connection to this. Jenna and Devin think I'll be better off with Ava, Miss Maggie too, I think. Gabriella's allegiance is also clear. Colby wants what's best for me, but he's mixed up in this too, aware of all the history and the complications for the future.

I decide to call a friend who's maybe been a casualty of me turning in on myself and becoming grumpier, like Claire thinks. Brock Turner and I came to the Pumas the same year and we both had things to prove. I might have arrived as a first-round pick, but a lot of commentators thought I was overrated then and that the Pumas were going to regret taking me over QBs from bigger schools. Brock didn't even get picked in the draft. He signed on after the fact, and like me, he pushed himself as hard as he could to prove his worth. We became quick friends along with Colby. While my friendship with Colby has developed into something deeper, to the point that I confided about Ava and our past relationship, Brock got traded a couple years later. He knows I have a relationship in my past with a lot of baggage, but that's about it. He might be able to help me straighten out my thoughts without all the biases everyone else in my life has.

I call him right before I'm supposed to report to the hotel before our game.

"Hey, what's up, Combs?" he answers.

"Oh, you know. Nothing much. Pretty boring over here," I deadpan. "How about you?"

Brock laughs. "Man, I've never seen this much drama outside a Real Housewives episode."

I drag a hand down my face and chuckle. "I just want to play football and win a championship. Is that really so much to ask?"

"Your mishaps last week aside—" he says, pausing for dramatic effect. I groan. "—The championship is a given. Of course you're getting one."

I sigh. "You make it sound so easy. Wish it was."

"Tell me about the girl."

I give a short laugh at him digging down to the issue so quickly.

When I don't respond right away, he goes on. "She's the one from college, right?"

"She's the one." And so I do. I tell him about her leaving, about what she said to me after the game last week, and all my complicated thoughts. How much I still love her. How much I'm scared to trust her with my heart again.

"You've always taken on life like you can do it all," he says.

I scoff, but heat rushes into my cheeks because I am stubborn like that.

"You walked off the field last week like you were the reason you guys almost lost to the Blues," Brock continues.

"If the shoe fits," I protest.

Brock lists off a dozen plays from my various teammates that went wrong in the game, from big stuff like dropped passes that would have been first downs to little things like my left tackle missing a block and cutting my passing time down to just a couple seconds in one play. (I don't miss the critique in his voice when he recounts that play and the tone in his voice that insinuates he'd do better.) Brock has always had a brain for the little things, like the way he notices little tics in the defensive linemen that help him keep the quarterback's pocket open for a few more seconds to pass, or how to shove one just the right way to open up a hole for a runner.

"It all adds up, Jett," he finishes. "Every action and reaction and it's never down to one thing. You and Ava both screwed up. More than just that day she left or what happened in the weeks after. Own it and decide what you want. Move on without her—" My heart drops at the words. I think he's the only person I know who can see that as an actual possibility. "—or move on with her."

We turn the conversation after that, talking about Brock's frustrations on the Denver Devils and Colby's wedding. Brock can't make it since Denver has a game against New York that weekend. Pretty soon we have to hang up, both of us to report to our respective coaches at the hotels.

His words stay with me the rest of the day, as much as I try to shed it all to prepare for my game tomorrow. The way he talked about how everything in the game adds up has me not just thinking about the stuff he mentioned, ways the whole team messed up, but even about the actions that gave us the win. Like the way Colby tackled that defensive player and saved the game, doing something I couldn't in that moment. Maybe that's what Ava saw herself doing, and it's taken me until now to understand that.

That night, Colby and I study game plans and film quietly in his room. We've been at it for hours when I have to speak up. "I'm sorry about everything with Ava," I say.

He looks up from the tablet where he's been watching film of the Arizona Cobras pass defense. He furrows his brows. "Huh?"

"You kept asking me not to make drama, and I just kept stepping right into it. I wasn't ignoring you. I promise." I rub at my temple.

He leans back against the couch in his hotel room and gazes at me. "I know. You and Ava are like magnets, and Gab didn't help things."

I give a dry laugh. "You two should have coordinated strategies better."

He shakes his head, giving me a wide-eyed look that has me grinning. "I thought when she told me to make sure you didn't do anything to run Ava off that we were coordinating our strategies." He pulls off the blue-light blocking glasses he's wearing, ones I've teased him about before for being his old-man reading glasses, and tilts his head at me. "I shouldn't have tried to dictate your friendship with her or think I could manage any bumps there were going to be after your history. I should've told you my concerns and then trusted you."

I lift my playbook back into my lap. "Sounds like we've both got some learning to do about relationships."

Colby puts his glasses back on, shaking his head as he looks back down at his tablet. "Amen, Little Bruh."

When I walk out onto the field the next afternoon with Colby, I see Ava and Gabriella standing in the front row, and I almost trip over my feet. I figured after last week's argument that Ava would never let Gabriella talk her into coming. And seats this close. It's not an accident.

"How'd you get Gabriella those tickets?" I ask Colby.

He eyes me. "I didn't. Ava called in a bunch of favors. I guess she knows some high rollers through her job."

She meets my gaze, and her demeanor has changed since the last time I saw her. It's full of determination. She puts her fist over her heart, a motion we started way back in high school. It was a way for us to communicate when I was on the field and she was in the stands. I'm here is what it means for us. Her fierce expression adds, I'm not going anywhere .

I think about the way that Brock stated so matter-of-factly that I could choose to just move on without her, like that was a possibility, and the way my heart stopped.

I pray I'm not reading into Ava's actions.

The game couldn't go any better. There's a confidence in me that's totally different from the fight and grit that drove me last week against the Blues. Every pass seems simple. I dance easily away from defenders. Every time we get the ball we score. The Arizona Cobras don't have near the defense that the Blues do, but this is something else as well. It's like the trust and faith that Ava showed by coming, by staying in my life when I didn't believe she would, has lifted a weight I didn't realize I was carrying all this time.

We win, but by the end of the game, the last thing I want to do is hang out to answer questions from sports reporters. I've got to talk to Ava. We have so much to say. But Coach wants me back out there after last week's game. He let me off after the interceptions, knowing I wouldn't have the patience to deal with questions on it. Tonight I have to show that I've moved past it.

The first question isn't a surprise. "What did you do this week, Jett, to come back from those mistakes and play strong tonight?"

Even though I dreaded talking about how I almost lost the game for us against the Blues, I want to answer it now. Because what I'm about to say has very little to do with football. I lean forward a bit, putting my fist over my heart. If Ava watches this, I want her to know it's for her.

"Perspective," I say. "One of my faults is taking on everything. I've believed for a long time, since proving myself at Nevada, that to be recognized I have to work hard. That I have to make the plays happen for my team to succeed. And that's true to a certain extent, but sometimes our strengths, when we don't balance them, become our weaknesses. We forget to see the other people on the field working just as hard. We don't see the sacrifices our teammates make for us. Colby saw me slip up last week, and he stepped in." He's sitting next to me right now, even though he didn't have to be. He puts a hand on my shoulder. "That's happened more than once in my life, on and off the field. Someone stepping up when I'm not seeing clearly. I could have, quite fairly, blamed myself for those mistakes last week and never looked past them. That would have hurt my game. This week, that's been on my mind a lot. How I've hurt myself over the years by focusing on one perspective and not understanding someone else's. I hope I'm not too late to make up for that. I hope I haven't pushed away the people who've been beside me the whole time, even when I never saw them. I've been stubborn and unfair, and I just want to give us a second chance."

Silence seems to echo in the room. I've never heard it like this. I turn to Colby. He's the only person smiling, grinning from ear to ear. He claps me on the back.

"Who cares what Coach says?" he mutters. "Get out of here."

And the moment the room breaks into clamor again, reporter after reporter asking me to clarify what I mean, I stand up and rush out.