Most Valuable Playboy

But I can’t quite slide one puzzle piece into the other, so I’m left with curved edges that don’t align with round holes. This is why men fuck up relationships. Because sometimes, women make no sense.

Violet puts her hand on my shoulder. “Our man needed help. I helped him. That’s what we do. We’re a pack. Like when he took me to prom after Jamie ditched me. It seemed only fair.”

Ding, ding, ding! The bell rings. The buzzer sounds.

The situation is crystal clear. Tonight’s save-and-smooch was simply the return of a favor from years ago. I laugh quietly, a relieved sound, because I get it. At last, I understand what went down tonight. The kiss was part of the show, and the show was part of the rescue, and the rescue was her long-overdue thank you.

Even though I wasn’t banking on one. I was simply happy to have helped her when she needed it.

Her senior prom fell over Memorial Day weekend seven years ago, and I happened to be home from my freshman year of college, visiting my mom. Violet’s date bailed at the last minute, breaking up with her the day before to hook up with another girl.

Total dick move.

“Let me take you,” I’d said as soon as I heard.

She’d shaken her head, wiped tears off her face, and slapped on a plastic smile. “I’ll be fine. I have a pint of ice cream and a movie to watch.”

I scowled. “That’s ridiculous. You have me to dance with, cheesy photos to take, and a smoking-hot dress to wear. You’re going, and I’m your new date.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to. Don’t you want to wear the dress?” I asked, because I suspected the fashionista in her would have had a hard time resisting getting dolled up as she’d intended. Focusing on the dress was the best way to get her to say yes, and I didn’t want her to remember prom as the day she was stood up.

Her smile turned real. “It’s a really pretty dress.”

“Then you need to wear it.”

Her dress was more than pretty. It was stunning. The lavender material hugged her trim waist and covered her breasts enough to be classy, but not so much to be prim. Her long brown hair was twisted up onto her head, held in place with a silver clip as soft strands framed her face.

We danced to fast songs and swayed to a few slow songs, then we hung out downtown, drinking diet sodas from the convenience store, and debating the best and worst prom songs, prom couples, and prom outfits. We grabbed a pint of ice cream and watched a movie in the cozy living room at my house. One of those fast and even more furious car movies that was mindless and a perfect popcorn flick for that night.

At the end of the movie, she put her head on my shoulder and murmured, “Thanks for taking me. Someday, if you ever need a date, I’ll be your fill-in girl.”

Now, back in the present, the fading memory only affirms what she said to me in her car on the way over. The kiss was weird, because we have history, because we’ve never been real, because we’re only friends. She was simply repaying a favor.

Trent leans back in the barstool, stretching his arms behind him. “I’m glad we cleared that up. I just couldn’t see you two together.”

I furrow my brow. “Because that’s the most ridiculous thing in the world?”

He laughs. “It kind of is, Coop.” He waves a hand at me. “You’re a playboy, and she’s, well, she’s my sister.”

But that’s not the real issue. The real issue is she’s just not into me.

7

If games are battles, then practices are duels.

No one goes easy on the opponent in a duel, and the same is true for a practice. Especially after a tough game like last weekend, when we eked out a win by a mere three points, and especially with a coach like Mike Greenhaven. He’s the living, breathing manifestation of the word intensity. You know how Tommy Lee Jones looks all the time? As if he’s doing math every second of every day?

That’s Greenhaven. He only cracks a smile when we’ve won the Super Bowl.

Correction: when Jeff Grant won him the Super Bowl.

Those two were as tight as coach and superstar could be. They were the unbeatable NFL combo. Double G. Grant and Greenhaven. G squared. Sometimes, I wished they had last names starting with D so their nickname in the press could have been Double D. That would have amused the hell out of me. But it probably wouldn’t have fazed the man who sets our agenda.

Greenhaven presides over practice from his post on the sidelines, arms crossed, his unflinching eyes missing nothing. He might even have eyes in the back of his head, as well as his knees. Toes, too.

Our game this coming Sunday is against Dallas, and he’s putting us through our paces. We work harder, and longer, and later. Just like we did earlier in the season after we choked the first two games. Or really, after I lost them for us, when I threw a whopping total of three interceptions between them.

Man, those were two of the worst games of my life. The fans let me have it. The sports talk radio guys tied my noose and were ready to hang me. The local reporters lamented the retirement of Jeff Grant all over again, calling me the Big Flop, the Multimillion Dollar Bust, and The Insurance Plan That Didn’t Pay Out.

I found my footing after that, adjusted to the speed and intensity of the game, and stopped googling myself. That’s when we won nine of the next eleven games, putting us in playoff contention. Our biggest rivals, the Los Angeles Devil Sharks, already secured the division, and that’s why we’re hunting for a wild-card slot.

This morning at the training facility where we practice, we run through the playbook, and since Greenhaven graduated from the school that favors the passing game, that means my right arm is in motion all morning long. Throwing to one of our wide receivers. Firing long bombs to the tight end. As the fog starts to break, I gun a pass to Jones. He reaches high while on the run and grabs it, as if he’s poised to win a leaping competition, but the ball spills from his fingers when out of nowhere, the cornerback slams into him.

I curse, frustration crashing into me. But the offensive coach barks orders for us to do it again. There’s no time to be pissed. No space to be annoyed.

“Do it better this time.”

I bear down, focusing on the perfect timing, and when I launch the ball, Jones snags it and gets out of bounds before the cornerback can hit him. He pumps a fist subtly.

Greenhaven doesn’t like self-congratulatory gestures.

We go again, running drills, running routes, ten more times, twenty, thirty. Run it till you can do it from muscle memory, till it feels like taking a breath. That’s what the plays should be. So damn natural and easy. By the time the sun shines high overhead, peeking through the fog that’s burning away, Greenhaven grabs his megaphone and tells the team to run a few laps. I’ve jogged twenty feet when he pulls me aside.

“Armstrong,” he says gruffly.

“Yes, sir.”

“Dallas is tough. Their line is the fiercest in the league.”

I nod, knowing that from observing them, and all the other teams, over the last few years. I studied every second of every game I didn’t play in. I’ve been assembling a plan of attack against every defense in the league for years. I know how to read coverage pre-snap and make split-second decisions. With Dallas, that also means moving at the speed of sound.

“You need to get rid of the ball quickly. Think fast. Think on your feet. Nothing less.”