You don’t fuck with a streak because it ruins your focus. It messes with your head. And football isn’t just a physical game, it’s a mental one. When your priorities change, when you stretch yourself to fit in more than you think you can, that’s the real screwing with a streak.
That’s what I’ve been doing.
Once inside my home, I crack open a beer and flick on the TV. Force of habit takes me straight to SportsCenter. Why I do this, I don’t know. But there’s something about putting your finger in the flame. You know it hurts, but you do it anyway.
Let it burn.
Pointing the remote at the TV, I crank up the volume. Soon enough, the host launches into his football recap, and lands on my team.
“Drew Erickson has played impeccably all season, but today the Los Angeles Knights earned their first L of the season. Let’s dig into what broke their four-and-zero record.”
Part of me wants to shout, “It was just four games.”
But another part of me knows deeply that every goddamn game matters. Muting the TV, I park myself on the couch, head in my hand. What went wrong in the game? Where did I fuck up? How can I learn?
When I raise my face and take a long swallow of the beer, the answer rears its head once more.
“Fuck,” I mutter when I set down the beer.
Because I know.
I felt it nagging at me when Elkins talked.
We had a smooth, well-oiled machine—one that I’d turned around after a hellish last season.
Then I put my focus elsewhere. I took off the blinders and let someone in. A woman. And I’m crazy for her, but yet the second this thing between us moved up a level, my game fell apart.
And I don’t have the luxury of time. Of figuring out a balancing act. I’ve got one season with Los Angeles, and we’re more than a quarter of the way through it.
If I want to finish this year poised for the future, I need to realize sooner rather than later that there’s no room in my life for both football and falling for someone.
Grabbing the phone, I dial Dani’s number.
“Hey you,” she says, her voice soft. I don’t deserve her sweetness.
“Hey. How’s it going?”
“I’m fine. But enough about me. That was a tough game today. How are you doing?”
Her tone is comforting. She’s not trying to reassure me, or tell me I played great. She knows I didn’t. I’m glad she’s not lying just to make me feel better. But even so, I know what I have to do. Rip off the Band-Aid.
“Dani,” I say, clearing my throat. My tone makes my meaning clear, because her voice changes too. It’s no longer gentle and girlfriend-sweet.
She’s all pro attorney as she says, “Yes, Drew?”
I heave a big, fat sigh. “I think we need to cool it for a bit.”
“Oh,” she says crisply.
“It’s not you. It’s that I’m losing my edge. I need to focus more on the game,” I say, my tone tinged with regret. “We had a good thing going. We had a great streak. And I put it on the line by letting myself get more into you. I can’t take a chance. I need to impress the coach and the team and the city so they keep me. My contract is up at the end of this season.”
She’s quiet for a moment. I have to wonder if I should have done this in person. But then, I’m glad that I can’t see her. If I did, I’d want to touch her. To kiss her. To take her in my arms again. It’s better this way. I keep caving when I’m with her, and that’s the problem. “I understand,” she says, and her voice is cold.
I hate the frozen sound. I hate that she’s shifted so quickly. But I don’t get to hate her reaction, because I’m the one who gave her this news she didn’t expect. It must be like a brain freeze to her. It came out of nowhere, and now she has to deal with it. But I have to deal with my mistakes too.
“Good luck, Drew,” she says, “I know you’re going to have a great season.”
She hangs up.
Chapter Thirteen
Dani
I shift my gaze away from a parasail floating above the ocean, returning my attention to my sister. We’re at a beachside bar to celebrate since she just aced one of her key nursing school exams.
I can’t even bear to look at the parasail.
Which is an utterly ridiculous emotional response. Drew and I never went parasailing. We simply talked about it. I’m not even at the café where we had our first drink. We’re a few bars down. Ally wanted to surf this afternoon, since I left the office a couple hours early, but I wasn’t in the mood to get on the board, so I’m nursing my frustrations with margaritas.
I’d like to say the margarita is the best medicine, and that it’s inducing Drew amnesia. But no such luck. Aimlessly, I swirl the straw around the dregs of my drink, wishing it were a magic potion to make me forget him. Since there’s nothing—not a damn thing—I can do about the situation. It’s like he handcuffed me with his breakup. Like he silenced me in court with a gag order and I’m left slack-jawed, wide-eyed, shocked.
The only thing that’s taken my mind away from how he cut our love affair off at the knees is work. Blessed work. It’s been my steady during my twenties, and it’ll do the same in my thirties, I’m sure. It’s the one thing that I can control, so I’ve been doing a ton of it this week, burying myself in it. Even today, I logged ten hours, since I was at my desk at the crack of dawn. All the work reminds me of what matters most in my life. I have my sister, I have my family, I have my job, and I have surfing for fun. I don’t need him to complete me. I’m better off focusing on the things that are steady and constant. The things that I can rely on. Not a man who changed his mind on a dime.