Chapter One
Parker
I looked from the weights to the other football players assembled around me on the field. I pointed to Shawn Grogan and said, “Let’s go at ’em side by side. Hundred bucks to the winner, due after we sign.”
“Parker, man, you’re crazy,” Shawn Grogan said. The 320-pound lineman wasn’t taller, but he stood like a planet next to me.
I punched him on his shoulder. “What’s wrong, Grogan? Think you can’t keep up?”
Grogan glanced at the journalists that had been herded off to one end of the track near the yawning tunnel. He looked from them to me, and back to them. “Shit,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
Journalists weren’t allowed on the field at the moment. Even in the distance, the crowd of dressed-for-the-cameras reporters and their crews only helped increase our motivation in the midst of the hell we all knew as the NFL combine. I knew for a fact there’d be at least a few beautiful women among those reporters, and I couldn’t wait to meet them.
Our spotters were ready. A row of four bench press stations rested right in front of us on the infield of the track, where all the coaches could see, along with many of the other 298 players who weren’t performing their own drills. At least it was late February. The sun was bright, but there was just enough chill in the air to keep us motivated. The players who’d crowded around were all stretching various muscle groups, keeping loose as they took a short breather.
Each bar weighed forty pounds and held exactly ninety-two-and-a-half pounds on either side, in the form of a fifty-pound plate, a twenty-five, a ten, a five, and a baby little two-and-a-half. The drill was as painful as it was simple: bench press 225 pounds as many times as we could in a single go.
I watched big Shawn Grogan bend down and roll himself gracefully onto the bench. He made the barbell and its weights look like something some bored kid at a wedding might make. I suddenly had a flash of memory, me at exactly such an event years ago on the Cape, sitting alone at my table, wearing an uncomfortable tux as the older crowd had reached at least their fifth glass of Krug and were leaving me to my own devices. My cute cousin in her miniature bridesmaid dress had ditched me, and there I was sticking two little toast rounds on either end of a toothpick.
I chuckled to myself at the memory just as Grogan settled in. I’m sure he thought I was chuckling at him. I pushed a hand through my hair. Coach had told me more than once that my hair was getting too long. I’d cut it eventually. Right now, I focused on what I was about to do.
When I got under my bar, I was sure the weights looked to the crowd like exactly what they were, iron and steel, enjoying gravity, seeking the ground. I tried to envision the bar and weights as toast rounds on a toothpick. You know, for the mental edge.
We started, and Grogan actually laughed. Guys like him had to try not to cheat by bouncing the bar off their two-barrel chests. His arms were long, but so were mine. However, his torso was so massive, he had about half the distance to push as me.
I was ten reps behind in about twenty seconds. People laughed, not at me, I knew, but just at Grogan’s arms moving like pistons in a car, short quick strokes that seemed like they could go on forever, right next to my long, slower cadence.
We continued like that for what seemed like several minutes, but was probably only about forty-five seconds. That’s when, out of the corner of my eye, I could see his tempo cut in half. Without moving my head, I glanced over. Sweat was pouring from his face.
“What’s a’matter? Gettin’ heavy?” I tried to keep my voice normal, but it gasped out. I was playing him like a second-hand fiddle, and it worked.
Grogan did what I hoped. He roared and increased his tempo again, but it slowed again just as quickly. I knew he was almost done. “Don’t you give up now! Can’t let a little wide receiver like me beat your big ass!”
We both started letting out grunts as the barbells raised. More and more players had crowded around at the commotion. Finally, Grogan bellowed and pressed out two more repetitions before the barbell went down and wouldn’t go back up. The spotters stepped in and lifted it away from his chest. He got up and stood over me.
Then he got right by my face and yelled like a drill sergeant. “C’mon now, Parker! Show me what you got!”
It was my turn to growl. I couldn’t hold it in with him pushing me like that, but I just kept letting it come out in what felt like a slow roar. I pushed it up two more times. It seemed like I had to push for a mile. I let it go down again and began back up, refusing to let my arms shake. It started back up, but I thought it was going slower than seemed possible. When it got to the top people started to cheer. Grogan let out a, “Good job, Starr.”
But I wasn’t done. I let it down again and snatched a breath at the bottom. I heard someone in the back say, “No chance.” I told myself it was Hickman, even though he was one of the only draft prospects in the nation who hadn’t even bothered showing up for the combines.
I thought of all those reporters. They couldn’t see me from where they were, and maybe I was just imagining things, but I caught a whiff of something soft and flowery. Was one of the players wearing perfume? Maybe the strain of the weights was causing me to imagine things.
The bar rose a bit. A couple of coaches got so close they could look in my eyes. As far as they could tell, I may as well have been counting the moons of Jupiter. Behind the deep, stabbing burn from my triceps, shoulders, and chest, I could feel my tendons. Even though I was pushing, they felt like cables trying to hold up the dangling end of a broken bridge, like they were that close to snapping.
Someone said, “Damn, man, that’s enough.”
One of the coaches close to my face held up a hand for him to shut the hell up. I still wasn’t shaking, but the barbell stopped moving, and the spotters moved in.
“No!” I didn’t want them yet. But my shout almost did me in. The barbell dipped an inch, and I sucked in every little bit of oxygen I could as fast as possible, and then my vision went all white. I blinked and looked. The barbell was at the top. I put that fucker right in the hooks without help from anyone.
Players cheered and slapped me on the back as I stood. Coaches scribbled notes, and I even saw one pull out his phone and make a call.
I surprised a lot of people by declaring for the draft while still in my junior year in college. But it still felt like the right decision for me. Already agents were interested in me. This would be my last year of college.
One of the attendants called out the count. “Forty-eight and twenty-five.” Another cheer broke out, but it wasn’t as loud because I knew what Grogan and I had done. A few other lineman and wide receivers were shaking their heads and already hunting somewhere in the open grass for the extra spoonful of motivation they were going to be needing.
Grogan wore the sad frown of a kid who’d been told the ice cream man had just run out of his favorite treat. “Shit, I didn’t even double you up,” he muttered.
I laughed. “Fuck you.”
That’s when I learned he was just messing with me, the frown unable to hold itself as he grinned. Linemen were almost always smarter than people assumed, and a lot of them were more than happy to milk it if it meant making someone look like an idiot later. Grogan gave me a gentle thump on the shoulder that might have knocked most men over. Then he smiled at me and nodded. “Seriously, bro, thanks. I never did more than forty-one before.”
I could still feel my chest, triceps, and shoulders aching. “Yeah, well, that’s the first time I’ve done that drill and the fucking last,” I assured him.
“No way.” He just shook his head at me.
We didn’t stick around to watch the others. There was a schedule to keep for everyone at the combines. It had to be entertaining for other people to watch a group of football players, I know it was for me. We all have to train so much it means we take our bodies to their maximum, and that’s when you really see the difference in types of players. I think receivers look the best, of course, long and lean but still packed with muscles…and then we walk next to linemen like Grogan and feel like skinny little beanpoles. Then there are the shorter, squat types who usually find their way as linebackers or running backs. Kickers, well, they don’t count.
“I’m tellin’ you, first time,” I repeated.
“Shit man, that might be a record for a wide receiver.”
“Well, the worst part’s still coming.”
“What’s that?” he asked, grabbing a towel from a cart to wipe the sweat from his head. I had too much hair to just run a towel over my noggin like Grogan. But, then again, that could be why he kept his hair cut so short.
“Wonderlick,” I announced. Wonderlick was an annoying, often humiliating IQ test.
Grogan grunted. “Maybe they’ll just let us lift some more.”
We laughed and talked shit on our way off the field. Then I saw a group of hot women. The NFL had been making a bigger show out of the combine every year. Three hundred rookie prospects were invited and put through a meat grinder, both mentally and physically. From drills to drugs tests, psych evaluations, IQ tests, injury checks, and just plain old interviews. The only ones who could get away with skipping the combine were a lock for a top ten draft pick, like Hickman, but even most of those guys showed up. The addition of NFL cheerleader tryouts was a recent bonus. The fact remains, when a bunch of women with bodies like that are put into a sea of testosterone, certain things cannot be avoided.
“Hey, cheerleaders.” I nudged Grogan and nodded to be smooth.
Grogan took notice and stood up straighter, sticking his ridiculously pumped up chest out even further.
I shook my head and laughed at how quickly his posture improved.
“Look at those legs,” I mumbled.
Grogan nodded. “Uh-huh.”
The girls went by, smiling at us. A few gave us that come hither look and there were a couple, “Hi, boys. Lookin’ good!” thrown in as well.
Grogan said, “We’re not lookin’ as good as you.”
“I need numbers,” I told them. I wasn’t joking, but we got a few laughs and headed toward the tunnel with the ladies. They smelled like makeup and perfume. I actually made myself stop noticing and could see the other guys doing the same. Wearing athletic shorts with the media around while examining a bunch of bouncing cheerleaders in skimpy uniforms could be a recipe for disaster: public boners. I could see the cheesy bait lines: “A bunch of cheerleaders and football players got together, and you won’t believe what happened next!”
A gaggle of reporters bottlenecked our progress in the tunnel. There were cameras and microphones, and enough college-age football players in prime physical condition that I’d be willing to bet we were making the cheerleaders grit their teeth over us as much as we were over them. Well, almost.
Getting through the tunnel was slow going, but we were in no hurry. All that awaited was a torturous test that had nothing to do with how well we could play football. It wasn’t our fault the reporters were there holding us up from reaching our destination. In fact, I was rather enjoying the moment. The day was gorgeous, a breeze was blowing through the tunnel, and the cheerleaders just did not seem capable of stopping themselves from bouncing. I was half tempted to start bouncing with them.
Grogan let one petite blonde try to wrap both of her hands around his bicep, and he laughed when it became clear she would have needed two more hands at least. Then he flexed, which earned him a genuine gasp.
I looked to the right and did a double take that may have seemed on purpose, but really wasn’t. There was a girl — a woman — she was absolutely polished ebony, standing next to me. I suddenly realized I wished she’d put her hands on my arms. But what really got my attention was her natural beauty.
“You’re not wearing any makeup.”
“Don’t need it,” she said with a wink and then strolled on ahead of me.
“No, you don’t,” I muttered as she looked back at me.
She smiled at me and I swear it lit up the tunnel. That’s when the reporters started throwing questions at me.
“Parker, why didn’t you decide to get one more year of experience at the Division One level?”
It was a woman’s voice, a reporter’s. She sounded insistent, and compared to what I was just seeing and thinking, it sounded like a damn middle school teacher trying to snap me back to attention in Latin class. The tone was matter-of-fact and all business. I couldn’t quite make out her face in the lights—I could only see the outline of brunette hair coiffed for the cameras. It was a question I had answered thoroughly in my statement more than a month earlier, and I wasn’t in the mood to get cranky.
Just then the cheerleader—my cheerleader—strolled toward the right, her long legs creating the perfect figure-eight motion underneath her barely-there shorts, as she and her friends tried to form a line at the right of the tunnel.
“Hey, at least tell me your name,” I called out to the cheerleader
Without looking back, she said, “Amber. I’m a West Coast girl.”
“Is that really the best coast?” I teased.
“You know it,” her voice echoed as she disappeared into her flock of cheerleaders, leaving me at the mercy of the reporters.
“Parker, what about my quest—” the school teacher voice was cut off by a louder, more demanding male reporter.
“Hey, Park, just heard you put up twenty-five reps on the bench. No wide receiver in the last five seasons has done that.”
The guy had gray at the temples and a beer gut, and he was helping a bro out by saving me from the school teacher question. I vowed to remember the favor as a few cheerleaders passing by let out some woo-hoos for me. A redhead came right back over from their line and gave my arm a squeeze. Then she was the one doing a double take, looking at her friends and saying softly, “Whoa.”
I just kept looking at Amber, who had lifted an eyebrow at me.
“Parker, some are saying you should have taken that last year to gain some maturity. What’s your response?” It was the teacher’s voice again. I looked toward the reporters but didn’t answer. There were so many people asking questions at once, I wasn’t sure where to start.
“What about that ninety-eight yarder in the bowl game?”
Another one of the men was bailing me out, which made me grin. That was an easy one. “I wish it had been for the National Championship, but that was a good day,” I responded.
“You demonstrated break-away speed on that one, but what about short yardage. Some think you could show some improvement in the first ten yards.”
“After what I just saw Grogan do on the bench, I think I’d better plan on improving everything in my game for as long as I get to play it.”
Flashes went off, and video cameras pressed closer as though approving my canned response. Then they turned their questions to Grogan, the Nebraska farm boy who had shown me up on the bench just a few minutes earlier.
“Grogan, you came close to a combine record on the bench. Is that your personal best?” one of the reporters fired off.
“Oh, yeah. Parker here knows how to get under the big guys’ skin. It’s good motivation when the little fellas try to show you up,” Grogan said with a sideways grin at me.
The school teacher spoke up again. “Parker, you’ve got a reputation as someone who likes to party, perhaps a bit more than for your own good.”
The cheerleaders laughed. That lady just wouldn’t let up. I squinted. She was silhouetted, and one of the men leaned forward and got in front of her as I was trying to get a look. She dodged to the left, but another man closed the gap. I felt like a running back behind our offensive line.
“What about it, Park? You going out tonight?” a male voice called out.
“Well, I wasn’t planning on it, but you never know.” I grinned to let them know I was joking but winked at Amber. She gave me a crooked grin that was sexy as hell. I was sure it meant, you might not be able to handle this, and just as sure I wanted to try.
The person in charge of the cheerleaders must have finally decided the cameras had gotten everything they deserved, not to mention us players. She waved the girls forward and they started making their way past the clogged mass. More football players had filed in behind us and our voices joined a few of the middle-aged reporters in protest…
“Awwwww,” a mass of male voices echoed together.
“Where they goin’?” one guy asked loudly.
“Stick around!” Grogan added.
“Why the rush?” I pointed my question toward Amber.
The girls giggled and began to bounce and flounce as the line started slowly. Except for Amber who just walked, which is about like saying the Sistine Chapel was just painted.
Once she passed out of view behind the lights, the reporter’s heads turned back.
“Seriously, Parker, you going to settle down now that it’s time for the NFL?”
It was one of the men. I couldn’t even see the brunette anymore.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, but I got my job done in college, right? That’s not going to stop.”
“The only wide receiver slated to go higher than you in the draft is Damon Hickman, you think that’s right?”
“Hey, those guys won two national championships in a row with him starting. You’re not going catch me disrespecting the guy. Doesn’t mean I’m not using it as a little motivation, though.”
My delivery must have been good because they laughed.
One of the organizers called out from behind. “Okay, gentlemen. Wonderlick time. Those IQ tests aren’t going to take themselves.”
Groans echoed all the way down the long tunnel, mine as loud as any.