CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
LILLY
January 16th
Georgia Dome
Atlanta, GA
Colt’s mom is awesome, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my boyfriend’s mom and I want to like her. I really like her. I met her briefly in Minneapolis when Colt was injured, but she flew back home the following morning after she assured herself that her boy was going to be okay. We pretty much said ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’, and that was it.
When I flew into Atlanta last night for the game she was there at the airport with Colt to greet me. She’s a pretty woman in her late forties with Colt’s blue eyes and brown hair, but his size must have come from his dad. Carol is barely taller than I am. When she saw me she hugged me in the warmest way, that perpetual Avery smile on her lips that makes me feel like laughing out loud from the pure infectious joy of it.
She has what my mom calls a ‘big personality’, which is a polite way of saying she never stops talking. The thing is, she doesn’t run her mouth off about nothing. This woman knows what she’s talking about and right now she’s talking football.
“Because we beat the Packers we won the Wild Card playoffs,” she explains to me, handing me slices of cheese and apple from her plate. She smuggled it in past the security checkpoint, plate and all, and don’t ask me how she did it. I still don’t know. “This game is the first in the NFC playoffs.”
“What does NFC stand for?”
“National Football Conference. The Kodiaks are NFC West. The Falcons are NFC South. Tomorrow the Panthers play Seattle and whoever wins that game plays us for the NFC Championship. We’ve already played and beaten both teams this year so they’ll be no problem.”
“You mean we play them if we win today?”
She smiles at me, and it’s so many shades of Colt and his cocky attitude that it’s uncanny. “When we win, Lilly. It’s always when we win.”
I grin. “Got it. So is the NFC Championship the same thing as the Super Bowl? Is that it? We’re two wins away?”
She brushes her short, brown hair away from her eyes, fighting against the nacho scented wind rushing down into the bowl and across the field. “Three. The NFC Championship winners play the AFC Championship winners in the Super Bowl.”
“What’s the AFC?”
“American Football Conference. There are thirty-three teams each in the NFC and the AFC. The Kodiaks were added to the NFC only fifteen years ago and the AFC added the Montana Miners to keep it balanced.”
I should be taking notes. No way I’ll remember all of this. I pull my coat tighter, cursing myself for not bringing a pen and paper with me.
Atlanta is mercifully warmer than Minneapolis was a month ago, but it’s still colder than I care to handle. I’m burrowed deep in a thick jacket Colt’s mom surprised me with when we left the hotel this morning. She warned me that Georgia isn’t freezing, but hours spent sitting on your butt down by the field will get cold quick. Colt told me we had the option of taking tickets in the Field Boxes, a covered area with a concierge and comfy seats situated just under the Sky Boxes, but his mom didn’t want them. She insisted we sit front and center next to the field, looking down the fifty yard line and at the backs of the Kodiak players. I’m not complaining. I can see Colt from here, standing on the edge of the field with his hands on his hips like he owns the place. His helmet is off, his brown hair golden in the sunlight. His smile white and wide.
He ate a Snickers for the camera today because we learned our lesson with the bag of dicks back in November. He got his Sugar Rush from me last night, though. I bought an ice cream churner, one of those plastic balls that you fill with ice, rock salt, and flavoring, and you roll them around for twenty minutes to make ice cream. We sat on the floor with our legs outstretched and our feet pressed together, rolling it back and forth to each other like kids on a playground. But once it was ready we took it from G to X rated real quick.
I know now what those DQ commercials were advertising with ice cream and abs, and it’s delicious.
***
We were leading at the half. Fourteen to nine. The guys came rushing out of the tunnel for the second half, all smiles and confidence. It was in the bag. They had this. Now we’re sitting on a tied game.
Twenty-twenty. Three minutes left on the clock.
I don’t know what went wrong.
“Their center is out for the game, that’s a big part of the problem,” Carol explains tightly, her eyes hard on the field. She’s watching like she’s afraid to look away. Like her attention and focus, her very will, can be channeled into the team to help them win. The crazy thing is, she’s not the only one. Every Kodiaks fan in the stands around me is watching intently on the edge of their seats. Gloved hands are clasped to chests, covering mouths, but never their eyes.