“Hike!” I run wide and with haste, feeling my lungs about to give way. The ball is thrown high into the air and I should be able to get this one easy. Only, I don’t. It goes right into the hands of a second string linebacker, who runs it on home. I throw off my helmet and scream to the sky. Anger doesn’t help me one bit.

I’m playing the worst I’ve ever played and my coach knows it. Hell, my teammates all know it. Loke pats me on the back and whispers encouragement. “It’s all good, man. It’s one game.”

“It’s not though,” I tell him. “The Super Bowl is coming up. What if I’m still playing this bad?”

We walk off the field and Landon yells out, “Nice job, man! Can’t wait for the big game!”

The coach glares at him, but he keeps one steady eye on me. He’s just waiting for me to explode. Everyone is. They expect it from me now. They want me to lose my cool. The whole damn team is against me now. I can feel it.

“Don’t listen to him,” Loke says. “Remember what I said?”

“Yeah, I remember,” I say. “Don’t worry. I’m keeping my cool from here on out. There’s not much time left, anyway.”

We sit down on the bench and grab a bit of water. I can barely fucking breathe today. My congestion is through the roof. I can’t get around the truth, that I’m sicker than I’ve been in years. Of course, no one gives a shit. This is the pros. You get sick and you play through it. That’s just what you do.

“I guess, man. What’s up with you today? You feeling okay?” he asks me.

“Nah,” I sigh, trying my damn best not to cough. “I’m sick as hell. Something happened to me at that bar.”

“Probably the rain,” he says. “You think you’ll be good by the next game? It’s a big one.” He winks, but I can tell he’s worried. He’s worked hard for this too. After all, he’s the quarterback. There’s a lot of pressure on the guy.

“I’ll be good by tomorrow,” I tell him, really believing it.

When the practice ends, however, I know this is a bad one. I take a few deep breaths and close my eyes. There’s three days left until the game and we’re playing Dallas, one of the best teams in the league right now. If we win this one, we’ll be set for the Super Bowl. If we don’t, we’re fucked. We’ll just be another team who almost made it.

I’m just about to fall asleep, when I decide to turn on the Sports Network. It’s good for me to know what’s going on before these games, and right now, they’re mainly talking about the Championships.

When the show comes back from the commercials, I see my team logo flash on the screen. “More drama for the Black Wings,” the female host says with a slight smile on her face. Ratings, ratings, ratings. What will boost this woman’s career tonight?

“Reports are circulating that Jackson Leeman, famed wide receiver for the Portland team, has gotten into another fight. This time, it’s with a teammate,” she says. The screen switches to a few different images of me catching the football during a few pretty famous plays. Then, it cuts to me flipping off the camera, fighting at bars, and yelling at interviewers. You know, just the regular stuff I do on a daily basis. Or did.

I groan and sit up, trying to pay attention to what she says next. “Three of the staff at the Black Wings Arena report that they all witnessed Jackson fighting with Landon “Brickwall” Karagon. There are no videos yet of the incident, but there have been separate reports of a small brawl at a local pub. We reached out to the coach, Scott Stern, who gave no comment.”

“Great,” I sigh, falling back into bed. My phone starts to ring and I actually answer it without looking at the screen. It’s her, Fiona.

“Miss me?” I ask, mouth full of phlegm. I sound like a complete wreck.

“Fuck you, Jackson,” she says. “Are you sick or something? You sound horrible.”

“I feel like a million bucks,” I laugh. “No, I’m actually really sick. Lucky for you, you don’t have to worry about me coming over late at night right now.”

“Are you watching Sports Network? Did you see the piece?” she asks me.

“Yeah, I saw it,” I tell her. “They don’t have any proof. Everything is fine. Again, you’re worrying too much.”

“We’ll have to give a statement,” she says. “And you don’t know if anyone saw you or not. You better be praying that no one got any video of your bullshit.”

“I’m telling you, no one got a video. No one saw anything. It was just us in that bar,” I say, shutting my eyes. All I want is to just go to bed.

“I can’t ever trust you. Can I?” she asks. Oh, boy. Here we go, I think to myself. First she tells me she has to break it off. Then, the shit with Landon goes down. Then, I get sick before some big fucking games. Now, she hits me with the hard questions? When can I just resume my life?

“You can trust me. I promise. I’ve really chilled out,” I say, but the silence on her end tells me she doesn’t really believe me. “Come on. Have some faith in me, why don’t you? No one else does right now.”

“What do you mean?” she asks me, voice slightly hushed.

“My whole team hates me now. Landon’s got them all turned against me,” I say. “The only person who has my back is Loke, and I’m guessing his trust is hanging by a thread too.”

“Landon? What the hell does he have against you?” she asks.

“You.” I laugh, but instantly regret saying it. She doesn’t need to know the situation. She doesn’t need to know just how much I’ve given myself up for her. It’ll only make things more complicated if she does.

“Me? What the hell are you talking about?” she asks me.

“Never mind,” I whisper.

I bottle up my emotions. It’s what I’ve always done. When my dad beat the ever-living crap out of me, I learned to hold back my tears. When I fuck up a play, I simply look the other way and go onto the next play. When I was 18 and left Fiona for the sport I love, I just kept moving. There was no time to think, and I knew that deep down everything would fall into place.

Maybe that perfect place is now. Maybe I just need to keep moving forward, until things are perfectly aligned. Never mind, I whispered to her, grip firm around the phone. Only, I wanted to say “I think I’m falling for you.” How would that look? I’d look pretty stupid if she said “no thank you” to me.

So, I wait for her response. I wait for her to say “Just keep trying. Stay out of trouble and drink a million grams of Vitamin C. I need you to keep running things smoothly. Okay, Jackson?”

“Okay,” I mutter. “I’m drinking orange juice as we speak.”

“Good,” she says, smacking her lips against the receiver. It makes me go crazy, hearing them. I immediately think about her on her knees. Her ass, pressed against me as I kiss the back of her neck…

“I gotta run,” I tell her, hanging up the phone. I can hear her say my name one last time before I press the red button.

I walk outside my house with a bottle of bourbon. It’s not the best plan, but it’s something to help me cope. I walk and I walk, downing the bottle’s contents. This part of the city is dead at night, but I weigh my options. I can walk into the forest and drink until I pass out in the leaves. That’s one horrible option that I actually consider.

In the end, I just keep walking. I make my way to the bridge and finish off most of the bottle. I give what’s left to a homeless beggar who looks at me like I just gave him gold. “Have at it, hoss,” I tell him, smiling.

His eyes crease and his mouth moves into a round shape. “Say, aren’t you that ball player from around here?” he asks me.

“You got the wrong guy,” I tell him. “Have a good night.” I throw him a 20-dollar bill and keep walking. My footsteps soon turn into drunken stumbles, but I make it to a bar, down past the bridge’s exit.

Quickly, I’m surrounded by college kids looking for something exciting to do. I don’t tell them there’s nothing to do except waste the days away. You can sleep, get fucked up, or eat some food. That’s about all there is. I was told you can find love if you want it enough, but that’s starting to sound like a pipe dream.

I glance at one of the girls with some guy near the entrance. They’re bickering about something stupid. He wanted to go to a different bar, but her friends are here. Now, they’re saying they don’t want to be with each other.

“Here’s a solution.” I smile. The smell of bourbon emanates from me. “Why don’t you have a few drinks here? Then, you can make a pit stop at the other bar you wanted to go to earlier.”

“Piss off,” the guy says to me with an awkward British accent, like he’s been practicing it for a long while or something.

“Yeah.” The girl turns to me. “No one fucking asked you for your opinion.”

“Fine.” I shake my head and walk through the bar.

Inside, I ask for a shot of whisky. “Make it a double,” I say, smile disappearing.

Fuck the world. No, seriously. Fuck it all. You can’t win when you’re Jackson Leeman, the most famous sports player to ever walk these streets.

“It’s on the house,” the bartender, a beautiful woman of about 35 says to me. She even gives me a wink. “Nice game in Arizona last week, Jackson.”

“Thanks,” I say, kicking back the double shot of whisky. When it goes down, it stings as good as I wanted it to.

A few minutes later and I’m drunk. The bartender, of course, knows it. She’s leaning over the bar, tits pressed against the wood, and something in me is different now. I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Her shirt is half open. It’s white and it’s a button up. I watched her unbutton two of the buttons before she grabbed the bottle of whisky. The funny thing is, if this were a year ago, I’d have her in my hot tub by 11 o’clock. But it’s not a year ago. Something has changed inside of me. Do I not give a shit about fucking anymore?

Hell no. That’s something that’ll never change. It’s not that. Fiona. I look at the bartender and she smiles, clicking her tongue against her teeth. Her face changes into Fiona’s and suddenly I’m staring at that successful, gorgeous, and surprising PR agent. Fiona Breckinridge, the only woman in the world that does something for me now.

She hands me another shot and I smile, raising the glass. “To success,” I say. She cocks her head to the side and repeats my words. “No, dammit. To love,” I correct myself.

“To love,” she says, biting her lip. We both down a shot quickly and she bursts out laughing. I can already tell this is not where I should be.

“My shift ends in 30 minutes. What do you say we get out of here?” she asks. I sigh and she keeps talking. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I live alone.”

I drop my face to my hands and groan even louder. When I look up at this woman in front of me, she smiles, but I can tell she thinks I’m crazy. It’s either that, or she knows how much of a loose cannon I really am.

Fuck it.

I push the barstool back, nearly knocking it over. I’m pretty damn drunk and I know people can tell. I have to get out of here before I do something stupid.

“No thanks,” I tell her. She makes a pouty face that’s supposed to be seductive or something, only it doesn’t do anything for me. “I’m sorry. I’ve got a girl back home, waiting for me.” Correction: I wish I had Fiona Breckinridge, waiting for me, naked on my couch. I wish I had Fiona Breckinridge’s legs wrapped around my face. I wish I had her straddled over me, so I could eat her for hours. I wish I could give her my hard cock. I wish I could have her for seconds. Fuck, I wish she was mine.

“Wait, here’s my number,” she calls out to me. “Just in case.” I turn and she’s holding out her card, but I can’t even consider it. There’s just something in me that wants to change, and this time it’s for good. Is that what love is? Doubtful. But every time I think about doing something “bad,” my stomach turns and I feel weirder than I’ve ever felt before. My heart actually aches too. What the hell is the deal with that?