When I Need You (Need You #4)

“Or maybe you lost your mojo,” Richards, the cocky cornerback, yelled from the end of the bench.

I flipped him off despite the uncomfortable tightening in my stomach.

“What areas were you planning to work today, Lund?”

“Chest and arms. Abs. Balance ball. Why?”

Devonte’s composure remained cool. “Because there’s a change in plans.”

“Yeah? Says who?”

“Says me.” He flashed those pretty pearly whites. “Soon as you’re warmed up with cardio? You’re runnin’ a dash check.”

I started to say, “Try and make me,” but as I inventoried the room—eight of us in all—I realized I had no choice.

Jesus. My protein shake threatened to come back up. It was one thing to worry about failing on my own; it was another thing to fail in front of a damn crowd.

“Ain’t no one here gonna blab the results to the front office,” Devonte assured me.

Wrong. Either way what happened on the track wouldn’t stay on the track.

Reckoning day had arrived.

“Whatever. Give me twenty to warm up.”

“I’ll warm up with you,” Mitchell offered.

Yeah, they were making sure I couldn’t sneak out. “Sure.”

Most guys tuned out the world during cardio. I didn’t listen to music or podcasts or audiobooks. Instead I focused on the cadence of my steps on the treadmill as I started out slowly and gradually picked up the pace. When I hit the full-run stage, I focused on my breath and keeping my body loose.

Mitchell turned everything into a competition with me—or at least he tried to. Whenever I sped up, so would he. If I wasn’t concentrating on form I’d fuck with him just because he’d expect me to.

Ten minutes into the warm-up, I did a quick mental inventory. Heart rate good. Respiration rate good. Pace . . . faster than normal. Just a twinge of pain in my knee. No pain or strain in my Achilles. No tension in my shoulder—either the right or the left. Jaw relaxed. Abs tight; hands loose. Today my body felt more in tune physically than I had in several weeks since before my checkup. I took that as a positive sign that I was up to the task of pushing myself just a little further.

I kept up the full-out running pace for six more minutes and used the last four minutes to cool down. When the machine shut off, I snagged a towel, mopped my face and headed to the track.

Several guys were parked on the turf “stretching”—aka sitting on their asses pretending to work out as they waited for the show to start. They eyed me with speculation and I literally had to shake off the fear pulling my guts into knots. I rolled to the balls of my feet and bounced a couple of times. First, arms above my head as if I were trying to launch myself into the sky. Then I jumped and pulled my knees into my chest.

“Do the running-man dance move next,” Richards called out behind me.

A spinning back kick to his jaw would shut him up, but I knew better than to take a chance with a twisting maneuver—even in jest.

I wandered over to the stretch of the track where three lanes were marked off for the forty-yard dash. Thoughtful that Devonte had supplied me with a starting block. If I saw him holding a starter pistol, going “thug life” on me, I’d be laughing too damn hard to run. The massive African American defensive end might act like he’d just wandered out of an urban housing project, but the man’s family owned a multimillion-dollar shipping company that stretched along the East Coast from South Carolina to Maine.

“You ready, White Bread?”

I snorted. That wasn’t a racist comment. My wise-ass friend called me White Bread because the Lund family had gotten its business start in the grain and flour milling industry. I grinned at him. “Just watch the damn timer, Black Sails.”

Devonte leaned closer. “Getcha head in the game, brother. We got us a few gate crashers.”

“My head is there, D. Let’s hope my body is.”

He nodded. “Hit the block. Leon is timing you.”

Good. That way there’d be no accusations that Devonte had rigged the timer.

I addressed my teammates standing around. “Do I get one shot at this? Or you gonna let me run it more than once?”

Bob “Bebo” Johnson, one of the special teams’ trainers I hadn’t noticed, stepped forward. “You gotta run it three times, Rocket. A ninety-second break between heats. There’s a block at the other end and Ray-Ray is timing you from down there. He’ll cue you when your break is over and when to line up.”

“Cool.” I took a swig from the bottle of water Mitchell held out to me. “You gonna announce my official time after each run?”

“Up to you,” Bebo said.

Giving him my trademark cocky grin, I sang, “Shout it, shout it, shout it out loud,” complete with air guitar.

Laughter echoed around me.

“Hit the block, smart-ass.”

As soon as I got into position, my focus became absolute. I willed my body to work, to do the job I’d spent years training it for. This time it wasn’t about anything but speed.

I heard the crack of the starter pistol and I was up and gone. Arms pumping, legs churning, heart racing, eyes homed in on the finish line. I blew past Ray-Ray and kept going another ten feet. I rested my hands on my knees to catch my breath for a moment, waiting to hear my time. The run had felt fast. But at this point felt didn’t mean squat.

Ray-Ray shouted, “Four point nine seven, Rocket.”

Fuck. That was too damn slow. My team record was 4.59 my rookie year—which was the same forty-yard dash time as our star running back.

What did I need to change?

React no differently than when you’ve got the ball in your hand. Burst of speed at the beginning to deflect the defense; additional burst at the end to score.

“Fifteen seconds, Rocket,” Ray-Ray said.

I dropped into the starting block.

You got this. Nothing hurts, hit it hard.

The pistol went off and so did I. My existence boiled down to the air billowing in and out of my lungs, my steps eating up the blacktop and the fast thud of my heartbeat in my ears.

Whoosh, right past Devonte and Leon.

Leon yelled, “Four point seven four seconds!”

Okay. Better. That’d been my preinjury speed average for all four seasons.

I cranked my neck side to side. Swung my arms around. Did a couple of vertical jumps.

“Fifteen seconds,” Leon warned me.

One more. That’s it. I blew out a long exhale as I set my feet in the block. Head up, eyes on the prize, body pumped with adrenaline.

Same drill. Put those motherfucking doubts to rest for the last time today.

It seemed my feet barely touched the ground after the pistol popped and I was racing past Ray-Ray.

I spun around.

Ray-Ray whooped. “The Rocket is back! That last run was four point six two, my man!”

I quickly did the math in my head. That averaged out to 4.77—which was an excellent percentage for a guy my size with my recovery history. Chances were good with more sprint training I could lower it by a tenth of a second.

Almost before I could catch my breath I had teammates surrounding me, clapping me on the back, slapping my ass.