“Your dick and football.”
I smirk. “I plead the fifth.”
“Does that all sound reasonable to you?”
“To me? Hell, yeah. But now I have to convince Violet to pretend to be mine.”
Ford laughs, an eminently satisfied cackle. “This is beautiful. You’re not afraid to run with the ball if you can’t find a man open, but you’re terrified to ask a woman you’ve known your whole life to play fake lovers sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g?”
I scoff. “I’m not terrified.”
He holds up his thumb and forefinger. “A little afraid, though?”
I square my shoulders. “Fuck off.”
I make like I’m leaving.
“Wait.” He grabs my shoulder. “One favor.”
“What is it?”
“Can you record that conversation with her for me? Just so I have something to play back when I need a good laugh?”
“Why do I let you have three percent of my earnings? Remind me.”
He waves his arms from the sky to the ground. “Because when I make it rain, you are going to get down on your knees and thank me for making you one of the richest quarterbacks in history. You, Coop, are the real deal, so let’s remember to not fuck this up.” He sobers and stares at me, his blue eyes darkly serious. “And, also, because I will put my neck on the line for you.”
And he would. I know that.
After I say goodbye to Ford, who catches a Lyft, I take a deep breath, pick up my phone, and call Violet. It goes straight to voice mail. I look up the number for her salon and call to try to schedule a haircut. I don’t give the receptionist my name, and she tells me Violet is booked for the evening, asking if I would like to schedule something for a week from now.
I say no thanks.
I can’t wait a week, so I’ll have to make an unscheduled appearance.
9
I cross the Golden Gate Bridge and round the curve on the hill that leads into downtown Sausalito, singing along to Foreigner. How can I not? It’s against the laws of the universe to listen to this song and not sing. As the sun dips in the sky, I croon about climbing any mountain and sailing across a stormy sea. The car practically vibrates from the music and the sheer awesomeness of “Feels Like the First Time.”
This tune has the added benefit of keeping my brain occupied. The more I think about what to say to Violet, the more it’s going to drive me nuts. Executing a play on the field is one thing. Those need to be practiced, memorized, and turned into a habit. But this is a delicate situation—a request—and it needs to come from the heart.
The problem is there’s nothing in it for her. I need her to say yes, but she gets zilch out of this deal. That’s why I need to appeal to our friendship. My request for her to play along needs to feel natural, not as if I’ve been plotting the words to say as I drive.
I focus on the breathtaking view of the navy-blue water in Richardson Bay, on the choppy waves that crash against the rocks and the sand, and on the chorus to the second-best karaoke song ever written. Hell, if I weren’t any good at football, I’d try to find a way to be a professional karaoke singer. Every man needs at least one great party trick. Mine is killing it at the karaoke machine, and I aced every competition we had in college in my dorm. I still try to go to Gomez Hawks, a chill karaoke bar in the city, with some of my college buds — a cool chick named McKenna, along with her husband Chris, and some of my other friends from the non-football side of my life.
The way I see it, I had no choice but to love rock music. I grew up with music blasting from every speaker in the house. My mom worked in customer service for an Internet shopping giant, and when she came home from hours dealing with phone complaints, she needed loud music as the antidote to a day full of “I’m sorry to hear your shipment of Nicholas Cage pillowcases arrived late” and “Of course we’ll replace the fifty-five-gallon drum of lube with the seventy-five-gallon one you meant to purchase.”
As my mom tells it, I was conceived at a Pearl Jam concert with a guy she met in the audience. Apparently, Jeremy did the trick, a detail my mom shared when I was eleven and that song was blasting as I cleared the dinner table. “As soon as Eddie Vedder finished singing this song, that’s when the man in the audience and I sneaked off.”
Honestly, I’m still a little pissed at her for ruining Pearl Jam for me.
When my mom found out she was pregnant, she tracked the dude down and told him the news. He said to her, “Don’t look at me. That’s your problem.”
That was the last she ever saw of him.
As a kid, I was angry that he never cared about me. Now, as a man, I’m grateful that the fucker never came looking for her or me with opportunity in his eyes. But we got the last laugh. We didn’t need him, and the fact that he doesn’t even know my name—because he never knew her last name—means he can’t get anything from me.