Coach Curry found me the night after my first game with the Ducks. I was in the theater room, still in my pads, my body sticky with sweat and my eyes glued to the screen as I watched myself miss two passes in a row.

  Two.

  Fuckin’ amateur.

  “You were outrunning the ball,” he told me plainly. He stood at the back of the theater, his hands in his pockets, his bald head gleaming in the flickering light. Curry caught my eye, nodding to the screen. “Watch it again. You launch too hard. You’re faster than the pass.”

  I watched it again.

  I launched too hard.

  I was faster than the pass.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him.

  “I know you are.”

  “I won’t do it again.”

  “Yeah, you will.”

  I shook my head hard. “No. I—”

  “You’ll screw up other ways too.” He sat down next to me, his broad shoulder bumping into mine. “Everyone will. Eustis will overthrow or underthrow. He’ll throw an interception or worse.”

  “What’s worse?”

  “Take a hit.” He looked at me sideways. “Eustis gets wrecked in the head when he takes a hit. He’s shaken for at least two plays after. You never noticed that?”

  “He hardly ever gets hit.”

  “You did notice.”

  I nodded reluctantly, spinning the remote in my hand. The admission felt like a betrayal to my captain. “Yeah.”

  “He knows it. Don’t sweat it. Everyone has a weakness.”

  “I’ve got a few.”

  “You’ve only got one that I can see.”

  “I outrun the pass. I overcorrect. I miss my routes. I start to fumble when I get close to the end zone. I—”

  He snatched the remote from my hand. “You watch too much footage. That’s your problem. You’re in your own head. Get out. Go to bed. Be on the field ready to start fresh in the morning. Read me?”

  I sat still, my eyes on the floor. Black tile with gold Os in them.

  Oregon.

  I never dreamed of going here. I was an LSU fanboy for most of my life, but they were one of the few schools that didn’t come calling when I blew up. That recruiting report I was so proud of didn’t mean anything to them because they weren’t in the market for running backs. I didn’t just miss out on being recruited – I wasn’t even accepted on academic grounds. Thanks but no thanks, their letter said. Good luck with your second-string dream.

  Then Oregon showed up. Coach Curry and the rest of his team, all of them in our living room sipping sweet tea, a full ride up their sleeve. They were fresh off a Rose Bowl win against Georgia. Coach Pickens still had a sunburn. That’s how recently they’d been in California. And there they were, champions, telling me I was born to be one of them.

  By the end of the day, I was verbally committed to them.

  Fast forward to my first game – sitting in the temple that Nike built, my jersey so new I worried I’d left the tags on, and I felt like a fraud. I was a lemon.

  Only, my coach didn’t seem to think so.

  I frowned at him. “What if I suck?”

  “I’ll cut you from the team,” he answered honestly. He clapped his hand on my shoulder, shaking my roughly. “Until that day, you don’t suck. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Go home. Go to bed. Be back here in the morning for the meeting.”

  “Okay.”

  He shook the remote in front of my face. “And no more tapes.”

  “No more tapes,” I vowed.

  It was a promise we both knew I’d never be able to keep.

  I saw a movie once, or maybe it was a TV show, I can’t remember. It was about Henry VIII. I wasn’t really paying attention, but what I remember about it was there was a guy who was totally normal. Really happy. Super religious and all about the rules. But every night he would go into his private room, take off his shirt, and flog the shit out of himself for his sins of the day. It was really dark and weird, but I got it. I felt for the guy because I am that guy. I feel better after I’ve punished myself for my mistakes. After I watch the tapes to relive my shame over and over, burning them into my brain so I never make those mistakes again.

  Coach Curry was right – I get in my own head. It’s a problem.

  But you know what’s not a problem anymore?

  Outrunning the pass.

  CHAPTER THREE

  My dad was a piece of shit.

  My family doesn’t talk about him, but the one thing I’ve managed to get from Mama’s best friend, Cousin Jules, is that he was a huge piece of shit. That’s it. That’s all she’ll say. There’s a lot of different ways to suck so I’m not sure what his brand was.

  Alcoholic?

  Abusive?

  Drug addict?

  I’ll never know. Mama looks at me sometimes, though, and she smiles real tight, reminding herself, “You’re nothing like him. You don’t even look like him.”

  I’m pretty sure I look exactly like him.

  I grew up the son of a single mother in a little town in South Carolina called Rock Hill. My mama moved there right before I was born to get closer to her daddy’s family. She worked a lot of odd jobs when she got to Rock Hill. She was a secretary at a school, a receptionist for a dental clinic. During the holidays she’d work nights at a department store selling perfume and makeup to get the extra money to buy me Christmas presents. I don’t remember a single one of them, but I do remember the tired look on her face when she’d come home late at night. I’d be snuggled up on the couch with Cousin Jules, warm popcorn on my lap, and there was Mama dragging herself in from the cold. She smiled – she was always smiling – but I swear I could feel how bone tired she was.

  It wasn’t worth it. I wish I would have known to tell her that, but I was a kid and kids are dumb. Besides, she wouldn’t have listened. Mama has a habit of killing herself to make me happy. Whatever it takes, no matter what it does to her. No matter how hard I plead with her not to.

  When I was ten, she married Big John Cohen, and I hope to God that was for her and not me. He’s a wealthy contractor who swept her off her feet when I was just a kid and completely terrified of the guy. He walked into our tiny apartment looking a hundred feet tall and half a mile wide. I hadn’t been around men much before then and the way he came stomping into our lives was hard for me. Even now when I’m nearly his height and packing on more muscle than he’s ever seen, I sometimes feel intimidated by him. He’ll say a thing or do something and suddenly I’m ten and he’s too tall, too loud. He smells like engine oil and cold French fries, and I hate him for reasons that don’t make sense.

  Big John’s been good to me and Mama. He taught me to play football. He taught me to drive and helped me fill out college applications. He makes Mama smile. He buys her dahlias on her birthday. Orchids at Christmas. He’s a good man.

  I really wish I loved him.

  “Do you regret it yet?” Mama asks. Her teasing tone is muffled, like she’s holding the phone against her shoulder. She’s probably out in the garden. Spring is finally here, bringing all of her plants back to bloom.

  “No,” I chuckle. “I don’t need it.”

  “Don’t lie to your mama, baby. It’s bad for your health.”

  “I’m not lyin’. I don’t miss having a car.”

  “You will.”

  “I doubt it. I watch Eustis search for parking five times a day. It’s not worth it.”

  “Having your own car is freeing,” she argues.

  “I don’t miss it.”

  “Yet.”

  I laugh, falling back on the couch. It smells like beer. Someone spilled on it last night. “Yeah, we’ll see.”

  “When’s your summer break start?” she asks with energy.

  She’s planning. My next visit home won’t be for months but she’s probably already changed the sheets on my bed, ready for my arrival.

  “My last final is on June eighth.”

  “I thought it was the third.”

  “No. Eighth.”

  “Will you double check?”

  “I can’t right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Butler Shay.”

  “I’ll look later,” I lie. “I promise.”

  “We need to buy your ticket home.”

  “I’ll look tonight.”

  “Will you fly home that night?”

  “Probably the next mornin’.”

  “Butler,” she sighs impatiently.

  “I’ll be crammin’ all night the night before. I’m gonna come home and crash, then I’ll pack and fly out the next mornin’.”

  “You won’t get here until the afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry, baby, I’m just…” She sighs again, lighter this time. Sadder. “I miss you. That’s all.”

  “I know, Mama,” I answer gently. “I miss you too.”

  “And stop callin’ it ‘home’,” she scolds. “That apartment is not your home. This, Rock Hill, South Carolina, is your home. Your dorm is your home-away-from-home. That couch in your Captain’s apartment is not a home, you hear me?”

  “I hear you.”

  You’re wrong, but I hear you.

  “Are you paying them rent yet?” she asks, but she knows I’m not.

  I have zero money except for what she sends me and even though she’s tried to send me enough to pay rent to Eustis, Weiss, and Meyerson, I’ve never taken it. I don’t because they don’t want it. They don’t care that I’m crashing on their couch.

  “No,” I answer honestly.

  She groans, mortified by my bad manners.

  I can picture her standing in her ugly, tattered sweatpants, a set of garden sheers in one hand, the phone in the other. She’ll dig her knuckles into her lower back as she stretches it out, surveying the acres of green surrounding her, wondering where she went wrong with me.

  “Why are we paying for that dorm room if you’re never in it?” she demands.

  “We don’t have a choice. They don’t let freshman live off campus.”

  “But you’re living off campus.”

  “I just crashed for the night. I don’t have clothes here or anything.”

  “You could lose your scholarship.”

  I snicker. “They aren’t gonna kick me off the team for not sleeping in my dorm enough.”

  “It’s the rules, Butler. They’re in place for a reason.”

  “It’s supposed to help immerse freshman in the whole college experience, but I’m pretty well immersed. I don’t take a piss unless it’s with the team.”

  She tsks with annoyance. “You’re squatting. Those other boys, they’re paying rent for a roof over your head. Heat around your body. Are you eating their food too? Drinking their beer?”

  “I haven’t been drinking.”

  “Stop with that. I’m not an idiot, Butler.”

  “I buy my own food.”

  “Give me the address. I’ll send them money. What’s Eustis’ first name? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it.”

  “You don’t have to send them money. They don’t mind me being here. It’s actually easier since I don’t have a car. They don’t have to go to the dorms to pick me up for practice.”

  “What about getting to class?”

  “Eustis drives me.”

  “Let me talk to Eustis,” she demands, relentless in her pursuit to right the wrongs she feels like I’m committing.

  “His first name is Jake.”

  “Oh no, baby, we’re past that. Put him on the phone.”

  Fuck!

  “I—” I close my mouth tight, thinking of a rebuttal. A reply to get me out of this shame, but there’s nothing to save me. “I’ll get him,” I agree grudgingly.

  In the kitchen, I find everyone, including Eustis. Meyerson is at the table with him, hovering over a bowl of cereal. Weiss is sweeping up a broken glass that spilled orange juice over every semi-clean surface in the kitchen, and Eustis is digging into a plate full of Eggo waffles smothered in strawberry jam. Everyone looks tired and ragged. Especially Weiss.

  “What’s up, man?” he mutters at me as I carefully walk around his mess.

  “My mama’s on the phone.”

  “Oh shit,” Meyerson breathes. “You keeping her waiting?”

  “No. She wants to talk to Eustis.”

  Jake smiles. His lips are tinged pink with jelly. “Why does she wanna talk to me?”

  “Because I’m squatting.”

  “What?” he chuckles.

  “Just talk to her. It’s the only way it’ll end.”

  He wipes his mouth, taking the phone from my hand. “Good morning, Mrs. Cohen. How are you?”

  What a kiss ass.

  “Yes,” Jake answers. “I did. I do. He’s always welcome… No, that’s not something you need to do. We’re good. I promise… It’s not necessary.”

  “Just take the money,” I whisper, pouring myself a bowl of cereal. Meyerson shoves the almost empty milk across the table to me. “She won’t stop until you take it.”

  “We could buy a keg,” Meyerson suggests.

  Eustis frowns at him.

  “Or towels,” he amends. “We never have more than a couple clean towels at once.”

  “There’s only one hanging in the bathroom,” I agree.

  “Yeah, that’s mine.”

  “No. That’s mine,” Weiss argues.

  No, I think, feeling sick. That’s mine.

  I always assumed that was there for me. Meyerson, Weiss, and Eustis, they keep their towels in their rooms. Don’t they?

  “That’s the address, yes,” Jake confirms to my mother. “Jake Eustis, that’s fine. I’ll cash it as soon as I get it. I promise.”

  “How much?” Weiss hisses across the room.

  Eustis flips him off.

  “Don’t get bitchy with me, man. You know you’re thinking about that ancient TV. How sweet would it be to play Xbox on something bigger than a computer screen?”

  Jake lowers his finger, his face conflicted.

  If he wasn’t thinking about it before, he’s thinking about it now.

  “Uh, no, I’m sorry,” Eustis answers distractedly. He glances at me over the table. He makes a motion like he’s handing the phone back to me.

  I nod reluctantly.

  “Here he is. One second… Yeah, it was nice talking to you too. Bye.”

  I swallow my cereal quickly before taking the phone from Eustis. “Hey, Mama.”

  “The check will be in the mail tomorrow,” she says briskly.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “That’s between Jake and me. Don’t let him spend it on something stupid like weed.”

  I thought it was between Jake and you.

  “Okay,” I agree.

  “I’m not trying to be overbearing, baby,” she says softly. “It’s hard—” she clears her throat. “It’s hard to be your mama all these years and then suddenly you don’t need me like you used to.”

  Shit. Fuck. Damn it.

  She’s boxed me into a corner. I can either tell her, in front of the guys, that I still need her, or I can tell the woman who gave me life that she’s right, I’m grown and I don’t need her to mother me this much.

  Ahhhhh!!! I scream inside my head.

  “It’s fine, Mama,” I grind out as smoothly as I can. “I still need you.”

  Eustis grins at me over the table.

  Meyerson snickers. “That’s sweet, Pupper.”

  “I gotta go,” I tell Mama quickly.

  “Okay, I hear you. Go eat your breakfast. You must be starving after a long night of whatever it is you boys were doing.”

  “Studying.”

  “Butler, stop.”

  She doesn’t believe me but we really were studying. I was at the library with half the offensive line until after midnight.

  “Bye, Butler,” she coos. “I love you, baby.”

  “I love you too, Mama. Bye.”

  “She’s nice,” Eustis comments when I’ve hung up.

  I snort. “She’s great. She’s also very invested.”

  “You’re an only child?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s why she’s a lot. You’re all she has to think about.”

  “You’ve gotta have brothers and sisters to spread that focus around,” Meyerson adds.

  I dig into my cereal, asking curiously, “How many do you have?”

  “Three. Two sisters, one brother. I’m in the middle. I fly under the radar. If I’m doing my job just right, they forget I’m even their kid.”

  “I have four siblings,” Weiss says, dumping the shattered remains of his glass in the trash can. “It doesn’t help. My mom is always up my ass.”

  “Yeah, but you’re Jewish,” Meyerson reasons. “Jewish moms are like that.”

  “I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m not Jewish, dude. Weiss is not an explicitly Jewish last name.”

  “I still don’t believe you.”

  “We’re Catholic!”

  “Whatever.”

  “I’m an only child too,” Eustis tells me. “My parents were both really hands off. It probably would have been better if they interfered more, you know?”

  The room goes quiet. It’s an awkward moment that I don’t think Eustis meant to create, but any talk about his past always does it. It’s not an easy conversation.

  In high school, Jake got his girlfriend pregnant. They have a son together. Jackson. He’s five now and living in California with Kaitlyn, Jake’s ex. They stayed together through his sophomore year at U of O but then things just kind of fell apart. I don’t think they loved each other like they did in the beginning. Or maybe it was the distance that did it. The poverty. The loneliness. The stress of school and parenting. The girls throwing themselves at Jake. It probably wasn’t one thing. More than likely, it was everything that did them in.

  Kaitlyn is great, though. She’s really supportive of Jake getting his education and following his dream of going to the NFL. People will say she does it for the money, but she supported him before the Draft was even in the conversation. She’s raising their kid while he’s sending home pennies to help where he can. That trip to Vegas was a belated Christmas present to him from the entire team, an idea given to us by Kaitlyn. She drove Jackson out to spend a couple days with him while we were there. It was weird seeing Jake be a dad, but he’s good at it. His kid idolizes him.