Out of Bounds

She’s now a former cheerleader, since she quit and moved back home to Oklahoma to raise the baby with her parents.

That whole situation was a nightmare for the press office. Lord only knows, the sports gossip sites had a field day with the Knights. The team served up a buffet of juicy news all year long, operating as anything but men in shining armor. Spin the roster like a lazy Susan and grab a drug or sex scandal when it stops.

You were virtually guaranteed one or the other.

I’m just glad I don’t do PR for the team.

Ally squeezes my arm. “Yes, I know you’re focused on me. But Drew Erickson is so freaking All-American cute.”

A memory of Andrew—Drew—and his dimple flickers through my mind. “He is cute. Cute, as in young. He’s twenty-six, which makes me four years older. He’s a baby.”

“He’s supposed to be a baby. He’s a pro baller. They’re young.”

I sigh. “You’re relentless and adorable, but also you’re not going to win, because I’m not going to track him down,” I say when I reach her building on campus. “A few minutes ago you were ready to jump on him and beat him up for not calling me.”

“You’re right. I’m back to plan A. Totally going to beat him up.” She mimes punching someone.

I crack up. “Get out of here.”

She leans across the console, gives me a sloppy kiss on the cheek, and then grabs her bag and heads out.

***

I’ve always loved football. It’s been a part of my life as long as I can remember thanks to my dad. He’s not one of those fathers who was disappointed he had girls rather than boys. Instead, he picked up the ball and tossed it to me. We had some good chats and fun conversations throwing a football back and forth in the yard. He’d tell me his plans for upcoming games, and I’d pepper him with questions. My analytical mind wanted to understand every single detail about how football was played, fought, and won. I learned the formations, the types of coverage, when to go for a forward pass, a screen pass, or a play action pass.

Sometimes, he’d ask me what to do in a game, and I’d weigh in with suggestions, based on the opponent and their style of play—running, passing, defensive-minded, and so on.

He didn’t really need my advice. He had a winning record over thirty years as a high school coach. He just liked hearing what I had to say, and he wanted to foster a love of learning in me. He succeeded. That same love turned into my affection for law, for rules, for loopholes. Being a good lawyer isn’t that different—the job is all about strategy, and it lets me apply my questioning mind to something I love—the game.

Truth be told though, most of what I work on are contracts with vendors who we partner with at the stadium, as well as the local TV and radio stations. But Stuart Grayson, the head of communications, has asked me to review all the press releases and statements lately, especially with the heat the team’s been under due to the player fuck-ups in the last year.

That’s what I expect when Stuart raps on the door and strides into my office later that morning. I brace myself for news that a tight end is leading a cockfighting ring, or a linebacker put a bun in the oven of a teenager he met at the mall. “Did you hear about Sanders?”

My stomach drops. Please no. Not the quarterback. Dear God, I hope he didn’t become the next player to go for jailbait. “What now?”

Stuart taps his right shoulder. “His shoulder.”

Even though I’m confident his shoulder didn’t impregnate a high schooler, I’ve been trained to assume the worst, so my first thought is he shot himself accidentally in his shoulder. But then I realize Stuart means the trouble Sanders had with his shoulder the other day. He dislocated it during practice. “Right. He’s in PT isn’t he?”

Stuart shakes his gray-haired head. “Was in PT.” He mimes slicing a knife over his own shoulder. “Labral tear. Needs surgery,” he says, tucking his hands into his pockets and shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet. The man talks in phrases. He has an aversion to using subjects in sentences. “Out of commission for the rest of the season.”

“Ouch,” I say, wincing in pain, like I can feel what Sanders is going through. “That’s terrible. What’s next?”

“GM made a trade a few days ago. Looks like he just wrapped it all up, so we wanted you to take a look at the release. Shouldn’t be anything out of sorts, but it’s good to follow our new procedures on everything. Gotta play by the rules.” Stuart slaps a few sheets of paper on my desk. Still warm. Fresh off the printer. “Back in ten?”