Page 116 of After the Snap

“Wasn’t mine to tell.” Tuck shrugs before turning back toward his locker.

He doesn’t say it like he did me a favor. There’s no expectation that knowing me longer than anyone else in this room entitles him to something I wasn’t ready to give him. He’d known there was more and left the choice of what to do with that knowledge in my hands. I’d been grateful for that without ever having to think about what it cost him, because Tuck never made his waiting feel like something I needed to repay. Hearing it now makes it impossible not to wonder how many times Coach gave me that same trust while I stood in front of him, knowing there was something I wasn’t saying.

“Now, since we’re apparently allowed to acknowledge this now, there is one thing.” King’s grin disappears. “If you hurt her, I’m taking her side.”

The warning itself doesn’t surprise me nearly as much as the man giving it. King will turn almost anything into a joke if someone gives him an opening, but he isn’t leaving me one now. Whatever else I am to him—his quarterback, his teammate, his friend—none of it is going to matter if I give him a reason to stand between me and Calliope.

“I mean it, Jubal. We all mean it. Callie is family.” King holds my gaze, making damn sure I don’t mistake this as another chance to give me shit.

I’ve watched Calliope find her place with these men one piece at a time, slowly enough that I don’t think any of us noticed when having her around stopped being something we expected. Seeing them close ranks around her now makes the change impossible to miss. They aren’t protecting Coach’s daughter; they’re protecting one of their own. There isn’t a damn thing in me that wants to argue.

“Good. If I ever give you a reason to choose, choose her.”

My practice jersey is still sitting beside me, and I work it carefully over my shoulder brace. There should probably be some part of me that hates how easily they’d choose her over me, but there isn’t. Knowing they would only makes me grateful she found them. The locker-room door opens as I pull the jersey down over my pads.

“Field in five.”

Coach’s voice cuts through the surrounding conversations, and my shoulders straighten as I turn toward him, waiting for the first indication of what walking back into this building today is going to mean between us.

“Receivers, your spacing was shit in the red zone last game. You’re crowding each other and giving one defender two routes to cover. Fix it before team session.” His attention shifts toward me and JJ. “Quarterbacks, I want you working through the red-zone looks with them. If the defense changes the picture after the snap, everyone needs to see the same thing. I don’t want Duvall throwing to where somebody was supposed to be.”

His eyes meet mine before he turns back to the room, and I catch myself waiting for the question about my shoulder. Coach gives me exactly what I need from him as his quarterback, and the fact that I can’t find anything wrong with that doesn’t stop me from feeling everything that’s missing. JJ stops beside my locker with his helmet tucked beneath one arm and the install sheet in his other hand. “You want to run through this before we go out?”

I glance toward the doorway again before I can stop myself. Coach has been gone less than a minute, but I’m already wondering what I’ll get from him when I walk onto that field. Whether he’ll correct my footwork the same way, pull me aside between periods, trust me to see what he sees when the defense gives us something unexpected. None of it should feel uncertain after one conversation, and I hate that it does. JJ shifts the sheet in his hand, pulling my attention back to him. The red-zone work is one thing I don’t have to wonder about. Coach told us what he expects, and I know how to give him that.

“Yeah.” I take the sheet from him. “Start from the top.”

JJ shifts closer and talks me through the first look. He has the coverage right but hesitates when he gets to the backside route.

“You’re late.”

“On the boundary read?”

“Before that. You waited for the safety to rotate before you decided what he was giving you. You need to know what you expect before the snap. Then let him prove you wrong.”

JJ nods and starts again, catching the rotation this time and moving through the progression without stopping.

“Again.”

JJ glances at me but resets the play, moving through the coverage faster this time and catching the rotation exactly where he should. There’s no hesitation for me to correct, but I still make him take me through the progression once more before moving us to the next look. He doesn’t complain, working through every coverage I put in front of him until I’m the one searching for another reason to keep us here. Coach asked us to be ready, but ready has started to feel like it needs to mean perfect. I hate how badly I want to walk onto that field and give Coach nothing else to be disappointed in. JJ gets through the next look clean, and this time I let him lower the sheet. There’s nothing left for me to correct, no reason to keep us standing here.

“Let’s go.”

I grab my helmet from the bench, and JJ falls into step beside me as we head outside. I find Coach before we’ve made it halfway across the field. He’s halfway through the first red-zone period when we reach the field, and whatever I expected from him out here, it isn’t what I get.

The second I step onto the field, I have a job to do, and usually that’s enough to narrow my world down to the next snap. Today, I’m aware of Coach before the ball ever reaches my hands. He stays close enough to the offense that I hear him between reps, but he never comes to me unless there’s something he needs from his quarterback.

When I’m late getting the ball out to Easton, he tells me. When I change the protection at the line and give Whit enough time to pick up the pressure coming off the edge, Coach moves us straight into the next rep without the nod I’ve gotten used to catching from him. I shouldn’t need it, but that doesn’t stop me from looking for it on the next series.

“Old Man.” Easton catches me while the defense resets, and I turn toward him to find his attention on me instead of the coverage across from us. “Are you planning to let the rest of us practice today, or are you trying to personally win Sunday’s game before lunch?”

A couple of guys laugh as they move into position, but Easton doesn’t, which takes the edge off the response already sitting on my tongue.

“I’m doing my job.”

“You’re doing everyone’s job.”

I start to tell him to worry about his own when my attention catches on Coach farther down the sideline.