It took nearly forty-five minutes to sign all of the autographs I needed to in order to actually make it out of the train station and into a taxi.
I never minded it, giving my fans a little piece of myself as they waited patiently with excitement wherever I happened to be. I remembered what it was like to be one of them, to look up to the guys in the league with adoration and goals fluttering through my mind. I saw myself in all of them, and so I gave with the same amount of care and attention I would have wanted from one of my heroes.
Unfortunately, this time came with a price—having to live with the look of shock I’d seen on Cat’s face as she’d taken me in with them. Her step had stuttered and her eyes had widened, and I swore there’d been a brief glimpse of betrayal in her features.
And holy hell, that made me feel rotten.
It’d been clear from the beginning—hell, from the plane—that she hadn’t known who I was. It seemed so clichéd, but I’d done the stupid thing, been the girl in the horror movie who hides under the bed, and I’d kept it secret from her—all for the thrill of feeling her open up to me, laugh openly, and talk to me like a regular human being.
It felt good to be teased—something anyone other than my teammates, brother, and Jilly rarely had the guts to do—and linger in the background while I focused on getting to know her.
As soon as people knew I was any kind of celebrity, all focus shifted to me. And frankly, I was bored with myself. Focusing on someone else, delving into their likes and wants and dreams, felt soul-enriching—like I was filling a hole inside myself.
I shook off my negative thoughts and got over it.
Those four hours had been some of the best of my life. I was still going to call her, and I’d deal with the fallout when I did.
Resolved to my new plan, I took out my phone and texted my traitor brother.
Me: I’m in Birmingham. Not that you care since you decided not to pick me up and MADE ME GET A CAB, ASSHOLE.
Denver: Busy…sleeping…bye
Me: I’m flipping you off.
He didn’t answer.
Just for fun, I sent him one more line of text in one-word increments.
Me: I’ll
Me: Call
Me: You
Me: When
Me: I
Me: Get
Me: To
Me: Mom
Me: And
The buzz of my phone interrupted me.
Denver: I WILL END YOU
I laughed out loud, and the cab driver’s eyes came to me in the rearview mirror.
And then he did a double take.
Busted.
It took him a minute to work up the courage to ask, but when he did, his voice was strong. “Are you…are you Quinn Bailey?”
I smiled my charming public smile. “Guilty.”
“Oh, shit, dude!”
The car swerved, and I grabbed on to the seat in front of me as I laughed. “Easy, buddy.”
“Oh, shit!” he yelled, swerving back into the appropriate lane.
“Don’t worry.” I glanced at his GPS with my home address programmed in. “It looks like we’ve got about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to know one another. You just take your time.”
His eyes were manic as they flashed to the road, back to me in the mirror, and back again several times. “No shit? You don’t mind talking?”
I shrugged and extended a long arm against the top of the whole back seat. “Just as easy as sitting here, I figure.” I was tired as all hell, but that wasn’t my driver’s fault. For him, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I tried not to fucking crush people’s dreams when I could help it.
“Kick. Ass. My friends are never gonna believe this.”
When I climbed out of the taxi an hour and a half later, we’d talked about last season, this year’s draft, training schedules, teammates, favorite stadiums, and my favorite team picks for the year—other than us, of course.
And through all of it, I’d managed to keep thinking about Cat to a scorching-low grand total of forty-seven times.
I smiled distractedly for a picture with my driver—as I was still climbing out of the car—and pulled my phone from my pocket. I scrolled to her contact information and hovered over the button to draft a message.
I wasn’t sure what to say, but I couldn’t stop myself from being curious about whether she had made it safely to her flight or not.
“Thanks so much! For the picture and talking and yeah…the ride’s on me,” my driver blathered on, pulling me out of my thoughts and making me concentrate.
My eyebrows pulled together as I protested. “No way, dude. I just brought you well out of your way from normal airport pickups.”
I reached into my pocket to pull out my wallet, and his smile deepened even further. “Man, Quinn Bailey. Football legend and nice guy.”
I smiled. Now that, my publicist would be happy to hear.
I pulled a hundred-dollar bill off my stack and handed it to him. “Keep it. But promise me you’ve got the Mavericks front and center in your fantasy picks.”
He nodded excitedly. “Of course.”
I gave a wave and started across the dirt drive toward the front door of my childhood house when the door burst open and an angry six-foot-four man came charging out.
“You’re dead to me!” my brother whisper-yelled.
Thankfully, when I glanced back, Paul the taxi driver was waving and pulling away.
“Whoa,” I called on a smile. “What’d I do?”
“It’s what you didn’t do!” he explained. “Someone didn’t call Mom to tell her that his plane got diverted. So when you didn’t show up, I’m the one who got the angry phone calls in the middle of the night!”
I laughed. “Serves you right, traitor. You should have picked me up in Birmingham, and maybe I could have shared some of the heat.”
“As if. You’re the golden boy. You shit rainbows and pee sunshine, and I’m your gay misfit knock-off.”
“Hey,” I chastised. “Definitely gay. Maybe misfit. But you’re no knock-off. One hundred percent Bailey original right here,” I teased, knocking my fist against his chest.
“Yeah, you’re hilarious too. Could God have paired me against a steeper opponent?” he called to the sky, as though he were reaching out to God himself.
“Den,” I said seriously, pulling him into me with an arm around his neck. “Stop now. We’re a team, not opponents. You know I am always in your corner.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, leaning into my embrace. “I know. It’s just Mom and Dad.” He shook his hands as though he was wringing an imaginary neck. “You know they make me crazy.”
I smiled. “I know they do. What are you doing here so early anyway? I figured after you bailed on being my ride, you’d delay your arrival as long as possible.”
He grimaced. “We’re supposed to help out over at high school football tryouts, remember?”
“Ohh,” I moaned. “Yeah, I’d forgotten.”
“Well, I hadn’t,” Denver grumbled. “I don’t know why Dad insists on my being there too. I’m not a professional football player.”
I rolled my eyes. “You play for the University of Alabama—one of the best college football programs in the country.”
“Only because Dad would drop dead if I didn’t.”
“Aw, see,” I teased. “You care about his survival. So that’s something.”
“He’s all,” Den deepened his voice to sound more like my dad, “‘I produced two of the best football players in the country from my loins, and damned if I’m not going to exploit it a little. Those high school boys’ll piss their jockstraps with the two of you there during tryouts. Really up the ante.’”
I chuckled as I opened the front door and shoved Denver inside.
“Quinn?” my mom called out instantly, her voice the perfect mix of poise and Southern sophistication. “Is that you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I called back, drumming up my Southern manners and settling in for an interaction with my parents.
Traditional thinkers—real grassroots Southern people—my parents were conservative in a way that was really more like conservative’s older, more conservative friend.
They believed in three things: Family, Jesus, and Football—and not in that order.
Denver wasn’t completely overdramatic with the way he talked about them and the life he’d lived. He was a gay man in rural southern Alabama, but in our house, he wasn’t. Not because he hadn’t told our parents—he actually had, and I’d never been prouder of him than I had been in that moment—but they refused to acknowledge it. They didn’t set him out or make a stink—they just pretended his deepest confession had never happened.
From time to time, they even tried to set him up with well-bred girls from town.
I was heartbroken for Denver, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t pretend he wasn’t gay around my parents, and I supported him whenever he chose to share with someone else, but beyond that, I felt trapped.
I couldn’t even imagine how he felt.
Denver tried to escape my hold and scoot up the foyer staircase, but I ratcheted my elbow tighter and pulled him to me.
“Quinn,” he hissed.
“Come on, Den. I want to see you. Just hang out. I’ll do all the talking with—”
“Hitler and his mistress.”
I shook my head with a smile. Denver was always nicknaming our parents—really awful things. I’d like to say I was above it, but secretly, my anticipation was eternally high, waiting to see what he would come up with.
“Mom and Dad,” I corrected, “and you can keep a running tally in your head of things you’d like to say to them for later. I’ll let you rant about them while we binge on Sons of Anarchy.”
He squinted his unhappiness, but he stopped fighting to get free from my grip. “Goddamn you. You know Jax Teller is my weakness.”
I raised my eyebrows as I waited for his full commitment.
“Fine. I have to spend the morning with you and Assbag McBallsac anyway. I might as well get a warm-up in.”
“Den.”
He swung a dramatic arm and made big eyes at me. “Well? What are you waiting for? Lead the way into the depths of hell.”
I gave his shoulder a squeeze and released him from my hold, heading down the long hall to the kitchen at the back of the house. It was big and stately with ceiling-high cabinets and tan-and-gold-flecked stone counters, and my mom stood in the center of it, twisting a pie that she’d just pulled out of the oven on a cooling rack.
The air smelled like apples and cinnamon.
Her short, blond bob was perfectly kempt, and a string of pearls fell into the hollow of her neck. She was thin—thinner than necessary, if I was honest—but keeping a trim figure had always been something that was important to her.
When Denver was born, I was already seven years old, and I could still remember the manic desperation with which she’d strived to be skinny again.
When I glanced over my shoulder, Denver was halfway through the doorway of the half bath, already going back on his word.
I scowled, and he jumped back out, pretending he hadn’t been caught.
“Quinn,” my mom greeted with a smile, her voice as soft as a vat of Paula Deen’s beloved butter.
“Hey, Mom,” I responded, rounding the island to pull her tiny body into my arms.
She hugged me demurely—formally, even—but for her, that was about as warm as her affection got. She didn’t scream or shout her excitement, and she didn’t bury her head in your chest to get a good smell. Her outfit was too prone to wrinkles, and her skin was the same. It was all to be handled with care.
My dad was the opposite, loud and rowdy and tough. He wrestled and shoved his hellos and felt the thing every growing boy needed most was a metaphorical ass-kicking.
Hard workouts, hard labor—anything that drenched your clothes in sweat and brought you to the brink of physical exhaustion.
Not that I ever liked to picture my parents together, but the logistics had always boggled my mind. Her so delicate, and him so…not. And yet, there were two of us, products of their very lovemaking that proved it was, in fact, possible.
As my mom turned back to the oven to put in another pie, I suddenly realized how weird this was. It was only six thirty in the morning, and my mom was fully coiffed and baking pies.
“What’s with the pies?” I asked her, scooting out of the way while she shut the oven door. Denver, silent and stalwart, took a seat on one of the stools at the island and started playing with a cloth napkin off of my mom’s stack.
“The town bake sale is tomorrow. I have twenty-eight more to bake.”
Twenty-eight pies? Holy hell. My eyes nearly bugged out of my head.
“Wow, that’s a lot of pie,” I remarked. A quick glimpse at Denver caught him in the middle of mouthing That’s what he said.
My mom, thankfully, didn’t notice.
“I volunteered you to be the MC when they do the bachelor auction,” she stated, and I shrugged. I never minded town activities. “And make sure to really talk up your brother when he comes up for bid. Bethany Logan has her eye on him, but her mother can barely afford to keep herself in facials. I’d rather Tiffany Lynn.”
Den’s smile was caustic. My chest squeezed. “Mom, maybe Den doesn’t need to be in the auction—” I started just as my father made his entrance. He had on his Boone Hills coaching gear and a pair of khaki shorts, his whistle already around his neck.
He didn’t pause as he pulled me into a rough hug and barked, “Horseshit,” at the same time. “This is a town thing, your mother’s worked hard, and both of you are going to do your part. If it weren’t for your schedule, you’d be up for sale too.”
I opened my mouth to protest again, but Denver cut me off with a hushed command. “Don’t bother, Quinn.”
My parents acted as if he hadn’t even spoken.
My father looked me up and down, and my mom stared blankly at her newest pie. “Get changed,” my dad ordered. “Both of ya. We’ve got tryouts to get to. If you’re not ready in five minutes, your ass can walk.”
If there was one thing that was a certainty in my parents’ home, it was that I wasn’t anyone to them but their son. Even after I’d gone on to win college football championships at Alabama and had been drafted to the Mavericks in the first round, they treated me like they’d always treated me.
I hoped that aspect of our relationship would never change.
It was things like that that kept me grounded, sane, and able to handle the constant spotlight I faced as a professional athlete.
“Beau,” my mom murmured. “Language, please.”
Déjà vu from the boy at the airport made my synapses misfire. By the time I shook off the moment, Den was gone from the kitchen, and my dad was hauling ass for the garage door.
I moved forward, gave my mom a quick kiss on the cheek, and made a run for my room.
Beau Bailey’s declarations were legendary. If I wasn’t there in five minutes, I would, indeed, be walking to the high school. And then when I got there, inevitably late, I’d have to run sprints to pay for it.
The instant I stepped into my childhood bedroom, I was hit with the comforting sense of nostalgia. My mother still hadn’t changed a single thing. It was like stepping into a time machine, everything just the way I’d left it when I was just an eighteen-year-old kid ready to find his place in the world and heading off to college.
Bag unzipped, I rummaged through it quickly, looking for my athletic shorts and a clean T-shirt.
My phone lay on the bed, forlorn.
I wonder if I have time to text Catharine really quickly?
I paused, just about to do it, when Denver’s knock sounded on my door. “Fucking hustle,” he whisper-yelled. “I’m not walking, and I’m not riding alone with Gary Goodtimes either.”
His face was pinched in pure misery, and any thought of delaying getting ready flew out of my mind. I couldn’t do that to him.
Finally finding what I was looking for, I pulled the shirt and shorts out of my bag and pushed my cargo shorts down off my hips. Denver leaned in my doorway watching, so with practiced ease, I stepped out with one foot and swung my discarded shorts up and into his face with the other.
“Quinn!” he yelled as I laughed, pulling on my other shorts and jamming my feet into my tennis shoes—as a Southerner, tennis shoes are what my northern friends call sneakers, whether they’re used for tennis or not. Hand between my shoulder blades, I reached back and pulled my shirt over my head, grabbed my deodorant to roll on a few strokes, and replaced it with my fresh T-shirt.
Denver straightened from my door when I made it to him.
“Boys!” my dad yelled from downstairs. “Thirty seconds.”
Neither of us said anything as we took off down the stairs at a run.
Denver worked with a couple of the quarterback prospects while I ran the offensive line through some drills with my dad.
Keeping them separated eased the tension in Denver’s shoulders and gave him the freedom to actually make a difference in some of these young guys’ training. Under the watchful eye of my dad, he never played his best. I, however, thrived under Beau’s brand of pressure.
Who knew why, but when he yelled and cursed and chased after me with a clipboard, it fed the monster inside me that knew it was better than that, better than him, better than any opponent in the game.
Originally, he’d wanted to run full game drills, but I wasn’t really into it. I didn’t think it was all that fair to pit me against a high school defense. I was a fucking professional quarterback, and some of these kids were fourteen years old. I knew what playing against a pro would have been like for me at fourteen, and trust me, it would have been nearly spirit-crippling. But working with the offense on timing was a different animal. It was fun and useful, and when I gave the kids pointers, they lit up inside.
No matter what, the game was always fast, whether at the high school level, college, or beyond, and as players of the game, we were always trying to keep up.
“Hut, hut,” I called, willing the ball into my fingers as a young freshman center did his best to do what I’d asked. He had potential, but he needed repetition. Hundreds and hundreds of practice snaps would have his mind throwing to the exact distance I needed without even thinking about it.
Honestly, it was amazing what you could train muscle memory to do with enough practice.
The line scrambled, blocking the pads in front of them with force and persistence. The running back did a sweep behind me where I pretended to hand it off, while both receivers broke off and ran their routes at full speed. I looked up and let it fly, putting the ball where the receiver was supposed to be—unfortunately, not exactly where he was.
As the quarterback, it was my job to put the ball where they were. But I knew my job, and they were still learning theirs. And as receivers, their job was to be where they were supposed to be.
It was essential to the viability of plays, to run them how they were choreographed and make it easier for the guy with the ball—namely, me—to find them.
My dad yelled and screamed, forever the bad cop in his coaching style. But today, I got to be the good guy.
Easy steps crunched in the semi-dry July field grass as I made my way over to the sophomore receiver and grabbed him right in the crease of his neck and shoulder, where I could get to flesh beyond his pads.
“Speed was good, route was accurate, but your timing was off. You gotta pay attention to your yard lines, and you have to have sideline awareness.”
He nodded, his “Yes, sir,” gruff with embarrassment.
I gave him a shake. “Hey,” I challenged. “Get over who I am, and focus on what I’m saying.” His gaze shifted quickly from the ground to my face. “Learn from this, don’t live in it. It was a moment, plain and simple. Even in games, you’re gonna fuck up. It’s how you move on from that, how you fight back against the failure. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” he said again, this time, with confidence.
I nodded. “Let’s run it again, then, okay? Know your route,” I coached. “Follow it, trust it. And when the time is right, I’ll put the ball right in your hands. Got it?”
His nod was sharp, and his eyes—they were life.
Sore and sweaty, Den and I climbed out of my dad’s truck and headed for the house in a rush. Den, I suspected, was running from any more time with my father, while I was just running from time.
I’d been focused all day on technique and timing and trying not to fucking roast in the southern Alabama summer sun. They’d all taken an expert level of concentration and a fair number of hours, and now that I was home, I just wanted to shower off and sleep for-fucking-ever. But first, I wanted to find my phone and try to touch base with the woman I’d met on a midnight train.
With Den no more than two steps ahead of me, I lunged toward him, grabbing at his hips to slam him out of the way as we made it to the door.
He fought back, of course, shoving me off of him and pulling the big wooden thing open with ease.
I stumbled but recovered easily, laughing as I yelled, “Den! Hold up, loser! I’m gonna kill you for that!”
“You have to catch me first!” he yelled back from the top of the stairs, already up them after taking them four at a time.
“Cut it out!” my dad yelled as he dropped his bags inside the front door and pushed it closed.
God, sometimes it was good to be home. Even with my dad yelling at us like we were still teenagers hopped up on hormones and testosterone, it felt good to be able to rely on that stability.
Hell, if anything, it probably only egged me on further to let loose and joke around with my baby brother like I’d done for so many years growing up in this house.
“Beau?” my mother called. “Are you home?”
“Yes, Dixie,” he yelled back, his voice a deep boom.
“Wash up, then, and tell the boys. Dinner will be ready in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes. Shit. I guessed sleeping wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
When it came to my mother, her dinner table was like my dad’s truck. You were at it on time, or there’d be hell to pay.
I picked up the pace to my room, hearing Den’s shower turn on as I passed his room, and quickly shut my door behind me.
My phone lay on my bed, exactly where I’d left it that morning. Desperate despite the crunch of time, I picked it up and lit the screen to try to touch base with Catharine. But the picture of Denver and me on my background may as well have had teeth, red bubbles and notices littering the fucking thing like a booby trap.
I had forty missed calls from my publicist and ten threatening texts from Jilly, and the stress of both made my chest get tight.
Determined to get past it, I clicked the button to draft a fresh message when it started ringing in my hands.
Nathan, my publicist, again.
Jesus Christ.
I dropped it like it was on fire and swept some clean clothes from my bag to head for the shower instead.
After dinner, I told myself. Surely, I’d have time after dinner.