Linebacker’s Second Chance(53)

Or maybe she’ll be a sports agent. Or a lawyer or doctor or artist—or anything at all.

God knows I won’t be making the same mistakes my parents did when they hurt me so bad in so many ways.

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. And then that booming, masculine voice again.

“I’m hoping you can help me with an issue I’m having.”

“What issue is that?” I tap against the baby’s foot, and she kicks me back again.

“It’s the end of the season, that’s the problem. And another season is coming after that. And my linebacker is completely out of commission. Leg’s broken in two places, back fractured, broken arm. Not from football, mind you. But from mountain climbing. What an asshole. Now, I hope everything’s going to be okay with him... but we’re going to need a free agent. You got anyone on tap?”

I gulp hard. This seems like a trap—a joke. It couldn’t be the call we’ve been waiting for. Not really. All of a sudden, a million thoughts flood my mind. Will we have to move? Do they really want Mack? Are they willing to take a chance on all three of us—Wingate, Mack, and me? As big and pregnant as a beached whale? They’d better if they know what’s good for them. I adjust my attitude—and my voice. “With whom am I speaking?”

“Josh Faison, CEO and owner of the San Francisco football team. I think we have some talking to do about salary. Now from what I understand, you all have been off of the football payroll for some time now...”

After that, things move quickly, time speeding up and slowing down all at once. I go to grab Macklin and pull him into the conversation, and at once, we’re agreeing to the very thing we thought would never happen. It’s funny. When you give up on a dream—like I did on the idea of Mack and me ever happening—and then it comes to you all over again, there’s the strangest feeling that none of it is really happening. That’s how we both felt during our conversation with Josh. Hell, I think that’s how we’ve felt for the entire year of our lives, going to ultrasounds and packing up to move across the country to be with each other, finally.

None of it has seemed like it could possibly be real. After all the mistakes we made, after all the negative emotions and bad ideas, we’ve been finally, truly together. Even Wingate forgave us and begrudgingly moved across the country to start his life anew. It helps that he’s been dating a football player out here and has gotten away from Charlotte, North Carolina for good.

All of that happened, and then this.

This golden thing, the answer to every single one of our prayers.

As it turns out, California is far more accepting of a prodigal son than anywhere in the South—or even in the Mid-Atlantic. The owner of this team doesn’t see a man who had been accused of partying, seducing countless women, breaking an engagement, having an affair, and drawing his teammates into his reckless abyss. Instead, he saw an incredibly talented linebacker that his backwards team gave up for absolutely no reason. I guess this is the way life can go when dreams start to come true. Life speeds up for a flurry of moments and then slows down to meet you where you stand.

We’re both stunned, completely amazed. With all damage Kinley Edwards and Eddie Davidson did in the Southern region, they never knew that their reach wouldn’t extend to California. Now, as I hang up the phone, Mack is employed and will be making twice what he did before. Since we’re no longer paying for the debts of our families, the money will be ours. With a new baby on the horizon, a new house will be too.

***

Before this phone call, we had settled into our life in San Francisco in my tiny house, budgeting to make a single salary work in the most expensive place in the entire country. And thank God Rich had seen me in the same light—an incredibly talented sports agent who made one mistake. Our agency might not be in favor with several of the teams in the South, but we're focusing our efforts on other sports, whose managers and owners don't give a happy damn about the inner politics of football and old school owners who back their players into corners.

The life we had planned was all well and good, even though none of us had any idea what a professional football player might do with his life coming into “early retirement.”

And now, there’s this.

There’s me, thirty-eight weeks pregnant, sitting in our box seats for the first game of the season. As the players file out onto the field, one after another, the baby kicks even though she doesn’t have much room to move anymore. She’s getting bigger by the day, and I can feel her deep in my body, everything in me expanding to accommodate her. If she’s anything like her father—and I hope she is, in all of the good ways—the world will eventually rise up to meet her when she displays her talents. I stand up when I see Mack on the field, his new number, 48, emblazoned on his front and back. Someday, someone will buy that jersey and make it theirs, proud that Mack became part of their team. We might not be from here, but California holds a lot of our secrets and histories fro the time we spent here in college. It holds our future, too. And there are many summer days here where we have to wear long-sleeved shirts. We both like that—and we know our children will too.