Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Unconsciously, I felt my jaw clench.
“Well, it’s hard seeing people you care about get hurt,” I said, being careful not to use the word ‘love’ – the last thing I wanted was for Andy to jump ship and run off with some college-aged bimbo. He had a promising career ahead of him, and if he didn’t make that his first priority, I knew he’d never make it to the NFL.
“I guess so,” Andy said. There was a look of reticence on his face that made me stop.
What was so wrong about prioritizing a relationship, after all? Maybe I was getting old, if I was starting to think of guys like Andy as being too young to know what they wanted.
Maybe he didn’t care about football as much as he cared about this girl.
And maybe that was even a good thing.
“Look,” I said. “I’m going to level with you, okay?”
Andy nodded soberly, clearly expecting a lecture.
“I ... I can’t believe I’m saying this,” I said. “But you gotta go with your gut, okay? You have to think about what’s best for you and your life, and you have to stick with that.”
“You mean football,” Andy said dumbly. He narrowed his eyes.
“ ... Not exactly,” I said. “I mean, you have to evaluate your life and decide from there. I know you’re young, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t know what you want.”
Andy frowned. “Everyone treats me like I’m this dumb kid,” he said. “The only person who really listens to me is Rochelle, and that’s why I love her. She said that she’s worried if I go into the NFL, I’ll get like, some brain injury or something and die.”
Inwardly, I groaned. I couldn’t believe I was doing this – tanking my own business, telling my own client to follow his heart instead of follow the football straight into millions of dollars and a multi-year contract.
“The only person besides you, I guess,” Andy amended. He reached for an onion ring and broke it into two pieces. “You really mean it? About like, doing what I want instead of what everyone wants for me?”
I pressed my lips together firmly and thought for a moment.
“Look,” I said. “If you make it to the pros, you’ll be rich. If you play your cards right, you can retire by thirty and literally have enough money so you won’t have to worry about it for a day in your life.”
Andy brightened considerably.
“But that might come with injury. That might come with change – you don’t know if a team is going to trade you, you might be playing for the Patriots one year and the Browns the next.”
Andy’s smile faded again.
“And you have to just think about if that’s what you really want – if you’re really willing to make football your entire life,” I continued. “Because if you don’t, despite the money, that’s giving up a lot of shit.”
Andy nodded slowly. “I think I understand,” he said. “Except, I’m confused about one thing.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Why are you telling me all of this?” Andy asked. “It’s your job to make sure I get to the NFL, not that I quit or somethin’.”
“I ...” I trailed off. “To be honest, kid, I don’t know. It’s sabotage. But I’ve had a lot of changes happen in my life lately, and I’m at a place where I never thought I’d be. And I’m happy about it.”
Andy nodded slowly, and I knew that he understood.
Telling him to possibly choose a girl over football would be career suicide – I could hear Clint laughing about it now – but now that I’d found love of my own, I could no longer go around pretending that work was the most important thing in the world.
Compared to Harper and Ada, nothing was.
32
Harper – Sunday
I hated admitting it, but I had felt hugely disappointed when I’d gotten a call from Nico the day before telling me that he had to fly out to Texas to handle some kind of emergency with a client. Rationally, I knew that this was the kind of thing that would happen all the time, but it had me thinking about the future.
What would happen if he had to miss Ada’s high school graduation because of something like this?
And god, why oh why was I even thinking that far in advance? Ada wouldn’t graduate from high school for almost fifteen years. We hadn’t even talked about the future, much less how we were going to spend it together.
Or if we were going to spend it together.
I was hurt, and I knew it was bitchy and selfish, but I wanted to know how Nico prioritized me and his daughter.
I hadn’t felt this insecure since I was in high school myself, and it was really starting to drive me up the wall. I’d been hoping that my father could come down from Boston to watch Ada while Nico and I had the much-needed talk, but Nico flying out to Texas had changed and all that. And as much as it killed me, I felt lonely.