Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Thankfully, the game mostly lived up to the hype. Not in terms of the final score. That wasn’t even close. Roman and his Thunderbolts kicked the living snot out of us. In fact, the Thunderbolts did so well, their second-stringer went in for Roman during the fourth quarter. But even so, that was due to errors by people other than me. In fact, thanks to my shining play, this game felt like a coming-of-age party.
Moriarty played the entire first quarter, which came as a surprise to me. A bad one that caused me to jump out of my skin. But thankfully, when it quickly became clear he wasn’t razor sharp again, the same way he’s been the prior two weeks, our fans started chanting, “Luca! Luca!” And that’s when I finally got the call and immediately went into some kind of weird, catatonic state that turned me into Rambo out there.
Right out of the gate, I applied pressure on Roman like a boss and forced him to throw the ball away to avoid getting sacked. Man, the crowd went wild at that. Unfortunately, Roman being Roman, he went on to make some clutch plays after that, even when I consistently had him in my crosshairs. But still, I made it hard for him and also stuffed their running game like a madman, and everyone could see that. So I knew my time would come.
Finally, at the end of the third quarter, right before Roman was pulled from the game to protect him from any unnecessary risk of getting injured, I pulled off the near impossible: I took my big brother down for the first time in my life. And I did it in front of my hometown crowd and on national TV.
The sack wasn’t pretty. In fact, it was a bit of a fluke. Roman’s own center got in his way by mistake, thereby tripping him up and giving him nowhere to flee, which was the only reason I was able to get in there and exploit the situation. But even then, I only got Roman by the heel of his left cleat. If he’d had one more inch of room, I would have missed him completely and come crashing down onto my chest on the field like a fool. But, hey, a sack’s a sack, baby. And the roar of the hometown crowd in that moment let me know it. Even better, when I looked over at Moriarty on the sideline, the look on his face made me feel like I had a jet engine on my back. My rival tried to keep a poker face, but he simply couldn’t do it, and it was the best moment of my life.
From Moriarty, I looked over at Chelsea and discovered her jumping for joy like a lottery winner with Coach Martinez. And that’s when that became the new best moment of my life—getting to witness Chelsea’s euphoria and knowing it was because of me. Honestly, it was even better than seeing her O face. And that’s saying a lot.
I shouldn’t have done it, but when the series was over and it was time for me to exit the field, I beelined straight to Chelsea, picked her up, and swung her around the same way Moriarty did during preseason. I know full well we’ve got to keep our personal connection on the down-low for now, though, so I quickly put her down and did the exact same thing to Coach Martinez, making him, Chelsea, everyone on the sideline, and every Mastodon fan in the stadium roar and cheer. It was such a clever maneuver, in fact, Chelsea laughed every bit as hard as Coach Martinez when I put him down and she didn’t even look pissed at all that I’d swung her around in front of the world.
“Sorry I can’t make it to dinner,” Roman says into my ear right before we pull back from our postgame hug. “I would have loved to celebrate your first game as a Mastodon.”
I wave at the air. “Bah, rules are rules, even for you.”
As a general rule, even superstars like Roman have to travel with their teams to and from away games. But even if Roman could have gotten a special dispensation to join my celebratory dinner with our parents and Iris tonight, I wouldn’t have wanted him to. Roman’s the leader of his new team, so the last thing he should be doing is coming off like he thinks he’s above the rules or better than anyone else just because he’s the only guy on the team with a record-breaking contract.
As we continue chatting, the crowd of reporters thins out. Apparently, they’ve gotten what they needed from us, and they’re now scattering to find their next story.
“Do you have time to say a quick hello to Chelsea?” I ask.