“I know your mother was all misty about you having your last first day of high school, and I teased her about it, but I will admit, knowing tonight is the start of your last year of high school football has me feeling the same way,” my dad says, sitting down next to me at the kitchen table, where I’m eating my pregame meal after school.
Tonight, Mom made one of my favorites—a steaming cup of bone broth to start, followed by chicken pesto pasta, loaded down with sautéed veggies.
“It’s crazy to think that in January, less than five months from now, you could be starting your college career.”
I nod at him. With my AP classes and dual enrollment, I have enough credits to graduate in December, will start college academically as a sophomore, and will be able to graduate with my degree in two and a half years. I’d have four full years of football eligibility, but if warranted, I could enter the professional draft at the end of my third football season as a college graduate.
“I know you haven’t decided for sure, but have you told Damon you’re considering it yet?” Dad asks me.
It’s hard for me not to sigh. Damon gets good grades and is smart, but he doesn’t want to deal with the extra work. And there have been numerous times over the past few years when I wished I had chosen to just coast a little academically. Those times mostly occurred when I was studying instead of hanging out with him and our friends.
“I haven’t,” I reply, feeling bad for lying to my best friend. Well, not a lie really, more of an omission of the truth. “He’s already been talking about prom, the graduation parties. I’m sure it’s just because it’s the start of our senior year. Everyone is counting down the days until we’re out of there.”
“It’s smart that you have applied for spring admission to the schools you’re most interested in playing football at. There are so many advantages—”
“I know, Dad.” I repeat the spiel, “I’ll get a jump on getting accustomed to college life and, most importantly, get to be part of the team practices and strength training for a full semester before fall camp begins. Participating in the spring and playing in the spring game will hopefully allow me to prove myself and be ahead of the curve when the other players come in for fall camp.”
“Right,” Dad says with a grin. “Which is good since your goal is to be the starter your first season.” He cocks his head and studies my face. “Unless that’s not what you want. You’re a great player, Chase. This isn’t something you have to do.”
“It’s what I want to do,” I say firmly. “It’s what’s best for me. My career. And although I want to go to college with Damon, do you think that is what’s best for us? We’ve both been heavily recruited, oftentimes from different schools, but pretty early on, we let them know we were a package deal, and if one of us wasn’t a fit, neither of us was an option. It’s not the way it’s typically done, and many times throughout the process, we’ve been told it’s a foolish decision. That we should choose the school where we’d make the most impact, especially if we want to play pro.”
“Is the pressure getting to you?”
“Maybe a little,” I admit. “Actually, no. It’s really not. It’s more that I want to make the right decision. You know that we both wanted to unofficially commit to Nebraska last year, but everyone convinced us to wait. To take our official visits this fall and consider our options carefully before signing.”
“I heard Damon wants you to go on all five of the official recruiting visits you are eligible for. That will be a lot.”
“Yeah, we’ll be playing Friday night and then spending the rest of the weekend traveling and visiting different campuses.”
“Is Lacey worried it will cut into your social life too much?” Dad asks with a touch of concern.
I roll my eyes. “Let’s keep her out of this conversation for now. I know that players can pay for their own flights, so we’ll be able to use the plane, right? That would make it easier at least.”
“Of course. You can go straight from your game to the airport. Just let us know if you want us to accompany you on any of them, so we can make plans.”
“Okay.” I set down my fork and get to the heart of the matter. The question that has been gnawing at my brain since the second Dani left for school. What I really want to ask is if it would be stupid of me to go to the college the girl I love is at, hoping that, eventually, we’d work it out even though their team isn’t even close to being in the top ten. But what I say is, “Would it be stupid to choose to play for the college I’ve wanted to go to my whole life when they haven’t been winning?”
Dad smiles as my mom walks into the room. She’s already all decked out in our school gear.
“I heard that,” she says. “Can I answer?”
“Of course,” Dad and I reply at the same time.
“I think you should follow your heart. Your heart is the reason you are such a good player. It always has been. Go on your visits. Soak up the atmosphere at each stadium. Imagine what it would be like to live in each town.”
“Well, that, plus, you’ll need to consider the team’s record and who your position coach would be,” Dad says. “Determine who would be ahead of you in the lineup, how you’d fit into the team’s current offense.”
My mom rolls her eyes at him. “Chase knows all that,” she says. “I say, let your mind fill with all the pros and cons, but in the end, it’s not about that. It’s ultimately which place feels like it fits your vision for the future. In other words, your dream.”
When she says the word dream, my thoughts immediately go to Dani.
I shove a last bite in my mouth and politely excuse myself before heading up to my room.
I sit at my desk and flip through a calendar hanging on the wall. One date has been circled in red since I hung the Christmas gift up. December 18th. National Letter of Intent day. Nothing is considered official until I’ve signed on the dotted line that will legally bind me to one year at that university. It’s supposed to be the beginning of my future.
My phone buzzes with a text from Lacey, letting me know she’s almost here.
I don’t bother to reply because I’m drawn to my window. Since Dani left for college, I’ve kept the curtains closed. I knew it would be too hard, looking out and knowing she wasn’t there anymore.
I take a deep breath, knowing I’m being ridiculous, and pull open the curtains, letting daylight flood into the room. I remove the piece of paper from the window and look at the word I wrote in a flowing script, trying to mimic her ring. The cool thing is, she understood and even wore the ring to school. I carefully fold the paper up and put it into my duffel as I hear Lacey’s car pull into the drive.
I dare a glance at Dani’s window, and it’s then when I spot it. Hanging in her window is a photo. A photo that means everything to me. To us.
Or at least, it did.
I punch my fist into the window frame and yank the fabric shut just as Lacey walks in my room and locks the door behind her. She gives me a wicked grin and looks me up and down.
“You look stressed, baby,” she says, patting the bed. “Let me help you with that.”
I’m pulling my pants back up when she glances at her phone.
“You don’t have to go yet.”
“It’s the first game, Lace. I know you heard Damon’s car leave.”
“Everyone in the neighborhood can hear Damon’s car when he leaves,” she says with a laugh, but then she eyes me seriously. “Why don’t you ask for an exotic car like his for your birthday? You’re turning eighteen. That’s a big deal.”
On Damon’s seventeenth birthday this summer, he got surprised with what he calls his Outrageous Orange Baby, a Lamborghini Murciélago LP640 that Jennifer had totally picked out for him. She has a passion for exotic cars and a garage full of them in LA. Orange is both of their favorite colors, and this one is more toward yellow than pumpkin. Girls love it. Actually, girls love Damon—hot car or not. He’s got the gift of gab, my dad says, and he can talk to anyone.
I assume he left early to stop by his latest fling’s house for a little pre-game action.
“Not really my style,” I tell Lacey, although you’d think by now, she’d have figured it out. “I love my truck.”
What I should really say is that I have a love-hate relationship with my truck. Mostly because every single time I get in it, I’m reminded of the first time I did. It was in the driveway the day we arrived back from our trip to the Ozarks. My parents told me it was for me. For my sixteenth birthday.
Jennifer then went on to explain how it started out as a regular, new black Ford Raptor. How they took it to the guys who modify her cars, who added a higher-flow three-inch exhaust and a cold air intake. Added to that was a performance pack engine upgrade that makes it faster than the already-powerful motor, a massive windshield logo, new grill, industrial-looking off-road lights atop a custom-designed bar, body moldings, and some sweet wheels under a three-inch lift kit. The interior is equally awesome. Embroidered headrests and handmade seats with an impressive sound system. I got to drive it that day with my parents in the car since I still only had my permit, but later that night, I asked Dani to take me for a ride. We went parking, and I just knew we’d be together forever.
Until we weren’t.
And she’s still the only girl I’ve ever let drive it.
“I know you do,” Lacey says, bringing me back to the present.
I pull on my suit jacket, tighten my tie back up, and then grab my duffel, tossing it over my shoulder.
“You look so handsome,” Lacey says, running her hand across my chest.
It makes me feel guilty, knowing I was just thinking about someone else after our intimate moment.
I like Lacey—I do. I’ll never love her, but I also can’t live in the past.
I give her a kiss before making my way to the door. “And you’re the prettiest girl at school.”
She rolls her eyes. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Lacey, I don’t have time for this right now.” I can’t deal with her jealousy when there’s nothing to be jealous of. At least, with no one at our school.
“We’re seniors, Chase. We’ve been dating since last year’s Homecoming, but we aren’t in a relationship. Don’t you think that’s kind of weird? My friends certainly do.”
“I don’t care what your friends think. And if you aren’t cool with the way things are—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. There are plenty of other girls dying to take my place.”
“That’s not at all what I meant. If you aren’t happy with the way things are and don’t understand why I can’t be in a committed relationship, then you can get out. No harm—”
“No foul,” she finishes.
“Exactly. I really gotta go.”
She takes my hand and pulls me back on the bed with her.
Ugh. I don’t have time for this conversation right now, but I still say, “You know I like you, Lacey.”
“You mean, you like having sex with me,” she fires back.
“This moment—right here, right now—is exactly why I don’t want to be in a relationship. I have a big game tonight. I have a lot to prove out there. Scouts will be there. They will be at every game this season, and instead of focusing on that—”
“Why do you think we do what we just did before your games? I’m helping you. Relaxing you. So you can play better.”
“It’s very nice, Lacey, but it’s not what makes me play well. I was winning games long before you started this little routine.”
“But I’m—can you at least go out with me tonight after the game?”
“Not tonight, okay? I’ll be tired. We have to get up early to head to Lincoln for the home opener.”
“We should go out after the games. Everyone goes out after the games, and I’m always alone. You’re just no fun anymore.”
I take a deep breath, trying to stay calm. “I really have to go.”
“Can I come to the game with you tomorrow?”
“If my parents didn’t invite you, the answer would be no because they only have so many tickets.”
“We had so much fun this summer, Chase.”
“Sure we did, Lace. We also had time to have fun.”
“It’s our senior year. It’s supposed to be the best year of our lives. I’ve got so many—”
“Plans?”
“Yeah,” she says with a frown.
“I’m really sorry I’m disappointing you,” I say, feeling bad.
She leans in, puts her mouth close to my lips, and says, “I love you, Chase.”
I back away. “Oh.”
“I tell you I love you, and all you say is oh?” she says, her voice rising. “Do you even care about me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, you’re not acting like it right now.”
I run my hand across her shoulder. “What’s going on? What started all this? If you are unhappy, I understand. We can end things amicably.”
“Football started all this,” she says.
A half-smile, half-frown forms on my face, and I hold my hands up in the air, like, What do you want me to do about it?
She smiles and smacks me playfully. “Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything,” I say as my smile grows along with hers.
“Have you decided where you’re committing to yet? Are you considering Auburn? At all?” She visited the school along with a few others, and it was by far her favorite.
“I got an offer from them, but Damon and I are going to sit down on Sunday with our parents and plan out our recruiting trips. And you should know, that is going to take up a ton of my free time. For five weekends, we’ll leave straight after our game on Friday night and then go to different campuses for the entire weekend.”
“But once all that’s over, we’ll have an amazing spring, right?” she asks. “You’ll commit, and then all the pressure will be off. We’ll have winter formal, prom, graduation. It will be so much fun!”
I know I should tell her I probably won’t be here for all of that, but I can’t bring myself to do it. No need to rock the boat when I haven’t made a decision yet.
She plants another kiss on my lips. “I do love you, Chase.”
“And I really do have to go,” I tell her.
I rush downstairs, grab my keys off the rack, and run out the front door. I throw my duffel into my truck and then stop and stare up at Dani’s window.
Shit.
I run up to their front door, knock once, and then open it. I don’t see anyone, so I rush upstairs and into Dani’s room, grab the photo off her window, and try to get the heck out of here before anyone sees me.
“What are you doing?” Damon says, coming up from behind me and scaring me half to death.
I jump, take a deep breath, and then try to look nonchalant when I turn around to face him. “I thought you’d left already?”
“Oh, you probably heard Dad leave in my car. He and Jennifer drove separately, so I could have it there after the game. I thought we should go together. Being it’s the first game of our last high school season and all. So, you going to tell me why you were in my sister’s room?” he asks, tilting his head at me.
“Can we talk in the car?”
“Sure,” he says, picking up his duffel from the dining room floor. “Let’s roll.”
As we go out the door, I see Lacey getting into her car, and feeling like I was just busted again, I mutter, “Oh shit,” before realizing it’s okay because Damon is with me.
Damon talks out of the corner of his mouth as we rush to my truck. “Quick getaway?”
“Yep.”
Once in my truck and on our way to school, Damon turns down the blaring music and stares at me. “You can’t take whatever just happened onto the field. What’s up? And what’s it got to do with Lacey and my sister?”
I hand him the photo I took from her window. “Remember this?”
“It’s the cupcake Dani made you when we were all together in the Ozarks.”
“Did you put it in her window?” I ask.
“This picture?” he asks, looking confused but then going, “Did she put it in the window for you? I remember you were going on and on about all the little stuff on it. Are you hot for my sister again? Shit, did Lacey see it? Does she know?”
“The day Dani left for college, you came over and told me she was freaking out. I hung up a sign in my window. We used to do that—write each other little notes. Before.”
“Before,” Damon says. “You know how with time periods, there is BC or AD?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Haley and I call the period after that summer BS. Get it? It’s like BS—bullshit—but then also Before That Summer. We feel like our lives were split into two then. We had so much fun together there, and it’s been nothing but BS since.”
“Agreed. But anyway, I put up a sign for her to help her calm down.”
“What did it say?”
“Dream. You know I gave her that ring when I got home from camp. Dani and I talked a lot about our dreams that day. Our individual dreams. What she wanted out of life. What I did. The cupcake was important because it was a combination of the two. The day she left, I put up the sign, closed my curtains, and didn’t open them again. Until today. She must have hung the picture up before she left.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“It’s stupid. Don’t give me shit, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to hang it in my locker. Remind me of what I’ve always dreamed of.”
“You mean, what you two dreamed of—together.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And you still hope that—wait, is that why you won’t commit to Lacey?”
I bite my lip and nod.
“Hey, it’s cool. I don’t want you to commit to anyone. It’s our senior year. We have campus visits to take, coeds to meet. Last thing you need is a clingy girlfriend.”
“She just told me she loves me.”
“Oh shit. Time to cut her loose,” Damon says very seriously. “I don’t know why you keep dating her. Everyone thinks you’re together, and you are even though you aren’t official.”
“Probably because it’s easy.”
“You mean, she’s easy.” Damon laughs.
“She’s not easy, Damon. She likes me. Loves me. And I know what it’s like to love someone when they don’t love you back.”
“Reason number two why you need to cut her loose—before she gets hurt.”
“She was pressuring me about it before—that’s the other reason I’m stressed.”
“Three strikes, and she’s out. Although she told the whole cheer squad that she likes to relieve your stress before every game.”
I run my hand through my hair as I turn into the school parking lot.
“Forget about it,” Damon says. “Let’s go play some ball.”
“We have to figure out our recruiting visits soon. Where we’re going.”
Damon rubs his hands together. “It’s going to be a good freaking year, bro.”
When I get into the locker room, I cut off a few pieces of athletic tape and then hang the dream sign and the cupcake photo way in the back of my locker, where no one but me will see them.
But what I keep thinking about is what my dad said. That in less than five months, I could be at college. What neither of us said was that I could be there with Dani.
And I don’t know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing, but for the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful about it.
