Me: Thanks, everyone. I’ll do my best!
Mom: Love you!
Alex: Love you!
Theresa: I love you and stuff I guess
Blair: <3
Momma: Love you, baby
“What’s so funny?” Brody asked, sliding over toward me on the bench.
“My family. They always know how to make me relax before a game.”
“Lucky man.” He gave me a playful punch on the shoulder. “Now put your game face on. I need you to get open this game, because that’ll take pressure off the middle of the field. Then yours truly can shine.” He beamed.
“You got it.”
When we ran out on the field and then took our position on the sideline, there was a familiar face nearby. Cazzie was sitting in the front row directly behind our bench, gazing down at me from behind the railing. And she was wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses, even though the Raiders stadium had a dome. She looked like a Secret Service agent. Her lips curled in a tight smile.
Maybe it’s a good thing she isn’t armed, I thought, imagining her having to shoot a pair of fans the way Hank Aaron’s bodyguard nearly did.
The Raiders jumped out to an early lead, and our offense struggled to answer back. The cornerback covered me like a Secret Service agent smothering the President of the United States, and I struggled to get open to receive the ball. Dallas Lockett only passed to me once, and that was knocked out of the air for an incompletion.
Throughout it all, I felt Cazzie’s eyes on me. They burned on my back, and her sunglasses reflected the stadium lights whenever I glanced in her direction. It made her look like a wide-eyed insect.
Is she judging me, or is it my imagination?I thought after I dropped a crucial pass in the second half.Why can’t she look somewhere else?
At the end of the fourth quarter, we were tied 17 - 17. I had only made one completion the entire game, and I was feeling down on myself. “Keep your chin up, partner,” Brody told me. “We’re still in this.”
We won the coin toss and received the ball to start overtime, so I put my helmet on and jogged back onto the field. Dallas passed the ball twice to Kincaid, then handed the ball to DeMarco three times in a row. Finally, on the next play, I was able to make a stutter-step and gain a little bit of separation against my coverage. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw the ball soaring through the air toward me. I left my feet, floating weightless for a moment as I extended my hands to catch the ball—
It arrived a millisecond sooner than I was expecting, and bounced off my palms. I scrambled to catch it as it hung in the air, but I was unable to catch it, and it hit the ground for an incompletion.
“God fucking damnit,” I heard Dallas curse as I walked back to the pocket. He clapped his hands together and said, “Let’s go, guys. We need to end it here.” He never looked in my direction.
Throughout it all, I could sense my bodyguard watching from the front row.
Despite my failure, DeMarco was able to make a thirty-yard run on the next play, which put us in the red zone. Two plays later, Brody caught a screen pass along the right side of the field, then dove into the end zone for a touchdown to win the game. I breathed a sigh of relief that my failure hadn’t cost us the game.
When I walked back up the tunnel with my teammates after all the on-field interviews, I found Cazzie waiting with her arms crossed. At least she wasn’t wearing those ridiculous sunglasses anymore. “I don’t need an escort to the locker room,” I said wearily.
“Not your call,” she replied.
I let out a frustrated growl. “You’re a distraction. You’ve been a distraction all week, more than whoever attacked me in my parking garage. And now that the week is over, you’re heading back to Los Angeles. Congrats on keeping me safe from my teammates and the Raiders locker room attendants.”
I stormed off, and fortunately she didn’t follow me.Good, I thought.I can’t wait for things to get back to normal.
Brody caught up to me a few seconds later. “Hey, good showing out there, rookie.”
I laughed bitterly. “Right. My single reception and three dropped passes really helped us win.”
He put an arm around my shoulder. “You kidding me? Forget your stats. They had to use Andreas to cover you all game, which made life much easier for the rest of us. Especially when they double-teamed you, opening up the middle for me. The scorecard won’t show all that, partner. A win’s a win, and you helped, even if you don’t feel like it.”
His words put a smile on my face as I walked the rest of the way through the stadium tunnels to the locker room. Maybe Ididhelp, even if it was just as a distraction so the other players could thrive. Yeah. That was something, wasn’t it?
Dallas Lockett was chatting with one of the linemen outside the locker room. When he saw me, he broke off and came over. “Hey, shake off today’s performance,” he said. “We’re lucky we won today, but we need your head in the game the rest of this year. All right? Sooner or later, I need you to make those catches.”