Fair Catch: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance (Red Zone Rivals)

Classes started, and so did the countdown to our first game.

I thought fall camp was tough, the long practices, nonstop meetings, strength training, and conditioning in-between. But now, we had to balance practice and meetings and training along with classes and homework and exams.

The first day of classes, I thought I’d be fine.

I woke up at six, hit the weight room for strength and conditioning, showered, and reviewed the practice schedule with the team at our first meeting of the regular season.

After that, it was my “light day” class-wise, one at nine and the other at noon. I ate lunch in-between, met up with the other kickers to watch film of our opponents we’d face Saturday, and headed into a three-hour practice.

When practice ended, we talked with the media, showered, and had dinner as a team before heading to the academic support center for homework. Thankfully, it was syllabus week, which meant most of us didn’t have much to do just yet.

By the time I made it back to the dorm, it was nine-thirty, and exhaustion took me under as soon as I’d brushed my teeth and let my head hit the pillow.

I was tired, yes, but I’d made it.

It was the next morning when my alarm sounded at six and I knew I had to do it again, with an extra class on the schedule, that I realized what we were truly in for.

As the week went on, I was lucky to have my bleary eyes open enough at the end of each night to wash my face before I passed out. My body ached from practice and training. My brain ached from class and homework. And my soul ached from feeling like I didn’t have a single spare moment to myself.

I wanted desperately to decorate my dorm, something I hadn’t had time to do during camp, but now I wondered if I’d be subjected to plain white walls until spring.

Zeke, however, seemed to have more energy than four Red Bull cans.

How he did it, I would never understand. His schedule was just as grueling as mine, but somehow, he found the will to have a girl over after study hall, or go out with some guys from the team to check out the local college bars. Sure, some nights he’d come straight home and pass out just like me, but others, he’d be out until well after midnight.

And still, when that alarm sounded at six, he was up.

I think that’s what bothered me most — that he could go out and have fun and still somehow get up and perform. He didn’t slack at practice, didn’t look like he was anywhere near tired. That kind of stamina was beyond me.

Not that I’d let him know I was that aware of his schedule. We were cordial as roommates, but we barely talked, other than discussing what groceries were his versus mine, or asking the other to turn down their music or close their damn door. His favorite pastime seemed to be trying to get under my skin, but he saved it for practice, where I could mostly ignore him.

I had to admit, even when I was annoyed with him, we’d fallen into a routine I was comfortable with. He stayed out of my way and I stayed out of his, and that was all I could ask for.

On the Friday night before the game, Coach dismissed us early and told us to wind down, relieve some stress, and get good sleep. We needed to report back at the stadium at nine the next morning for breakfast and pre-game team meetings, which meant I didn’t need to be awake until eight.

I almost whimpered at the thought of sleeping in.

When I got back to the dorm, I felt that nervous pre-game energy building up just like it had the night before a game in high school. It was the closest I’d felt to being homesick since I’d arrived at NBU — mostly because I simply hadn’t had the time to be homesick.

So, I turned on the latest Kid Cudi album and finally dug out my boxes of art I’d had stashed under my bed, settling in for a night of decorating to take the edge off.

The moment I popped the top on the first box, my heart heaved a sigh of relief.

A bright mosaic painting stared back at me, one from a local Boston artist that Mom had framed for me last Christmas. I pulled it out of the box, wiped down the glass and frame to remove any dust, and then held it up as I pivoted in the center of the room, looking for the perfect spot to hang it.

Art had been my passion ever since I could remember. Where Gavin had obsessed over sports growing up, I’d harassed Mom and Dad to take me to every museum in our city and any we visited, too. I loved soccer, of course, and enjoyed messing around on the football field with Gavin when he played on Little League teams. But for me, there was nothing like spending an afternoon in a museum.

When I was little, I’m sure it was just joy from looking at pretty things, from sculptures and paintings that made my imagination run wild. But as I grew older, I learned to truly appreciate it. I could distinguish where a piece was from before I even read a plaque, and could narrow down to what time period if I looked long enough. I started understanding what made a painting modern versus abstract or impressionism versus expressionism. I found I could easily detect a Monet, or a Picasso, or a Van Gogh. And as I grew up, I felt the urge to decorate my room and our entire house with those aesthetics in mind, with art being the first and foremost thought.

The space above my headboard was perfect for the painting I held in my hands — the mosaic of tiny squares making up a larger image of ducks and other birds frolicking in the Charles River. I climbed up onto the mattress with a nail between my teeth, hammer tucked under one arm and painting laid safe and secure at the foot of the bed. Once I had the nail in place, I hung the painting, using a small leveler to ensure it was straight.

“Need help with that?”

Zeke’s voice surprised me, and I jumped, nearly knocking the painting off the wall before I steadied myself and the frame.

I blew out a breathy laugh at myself.

“I’m good,” I said without turning around, and I sat back on my heels, tilting my head to one side as I took in the painting.

“You sure? I can reach higher than you, you know. And there’s no stepladder around here.”

I turned to find Zeke holding a Dalí print I’d begged Dad to buy me when we visited the museum in Tampa, and I blanched, hastily crawling off the bed and ripping it from his hands.

“Don’t touch my things.”

He arched a brow, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I was just looking. Not my fault you’re hiding freaky paintings in a box under your bed.”

My eyes turned to slits. “It’s not freaky. It’s surrealist. It’s meant to be unnerving.”

Zeke’s eyes slipped to the print in my hands, and they widened at the headless woman with a white, nearly transparent dress hugging her ample curves. Next to her stood a ghastly figure of a man holding a long stick, and the woman held a string tied to a third dismantled figure, all of them set in a scene of barren wasteland with haunting rocks and sand and gray sky.

“It succeeded.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that, and maybe it was the exhaustion from the week, or the pre-game jitters, or the fact that I was touching art again, but my shoulders relaxed, and I handed it back to him.

“It’s called Enchanted Beach. Believe it or not, this was actually one of his more controlled and balanced pieces.” I nodded toward the white wall above my desk. “Can you hang it there for me?”

“Wow, you’re actually going to let me help?”

“Don’t make me regret it,” I said, shoving the hammer into his chest.

Zeke was quiet while he hung the frame, and I watched him every step of the way, making sure he took the same care with making it perfect as I did. Something foreign tugged at my chest, like a string wrapped around a rib that I’d completely forgotten about until I felt the pull.

A flash of Zeke as a kid hit me, his wide and bright smile, his laugh. I remembered for just a breath what it was like to be carefree, to be a little girl with a crush on my brother’s best friend.

But the feeling slipped as quickly as it had come.

When I’d ensured Zeke had leveled the frame appropriately, I dug under my bed to pull out the biggest piece I had, one covered with a thick blanket. I unveiled it and gave a happy sigh.

It was street art, but on a canvas, bright neon colors dancing across the white background. Up close, it might only look like paint splatters, but as the viewer backed up, a whole slew of enigmatic images could be seen — a seductive woman with lush lips of roses, tree branches for her hair, a waterfall for her neck. The earth spread out around her, and above her, an endless starry night.

“That’s beautiful,” Zeke remarked.

“It was painted by a homeless man in Dorchester,” I said, hanging my hands on my hips and looking around the room. “John Blackman.”

“You remembered his name?”

“Of course.”

“Not many people ask the name of a homeless man,” he remarked.

“He’s an artist.”

My eyes met Zeke’s briefly, but what I found there unnerved me for reasons I couldn’t explain, so I cleared my throat and pointed to the blank wall next to my closet, across from the only window I had.

“There. So the light can hit it.”

Zeke picked up the frame and went to work as I picked through the rest of the boxes.

“I forgot how into this stuff you are. Do you want to be an artist?”

“God, no,” I answered immediately. “I mean, I wish I had the talent to paint or sketch, but I tried when I was younger, and let’s just say stick figures is about as artistic as I get.”

I smiled, pulling out my favorite, textured, earthenware clay vase and setting it on top of my tall dresser. I filled it with dried flowers and herbs next.

“I do think this is where my future is, though,” I remarked. “Art curation.”

Zeke lifted a brow, glancing at me only a moment before his attention was back on hanging the large canvas. “Which means…”

“It means that in my wildest dreams, I’ll work for a museum, and I’ll be in charge of acquiring and cataloging new pieces and exhibits.”

Zeke made a face, but didn’t say anything.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I leveled my gaze. “Out with it.”

He shrugged, stepping back to make sure the painting was hung straight. I handed him the leveler just to be sure.

“Nothing. It’s just… you don’t think you have a future in football?”

The question slammed into me harder than I expected, my throat tightening as I struggled to regain my composure.

“Ha, ha,” I said, sticking out my tongue before I instructed him to tilt the painting down a bit on the left side.

Zeke turned, his dark eyes finding mine, jaw set as his brows tugged inward. I hadn’t taken any time to study him when he walked in, but now, I saw the fatigue he held from the week just like I did. And still, his muscles bulged like he’d just been in the gym for a pump, and his shoulders were relaxed, like it didn’t bother him in the least that we had a game in the morning.

“I’m serious,” he said.

“Then you’re even more of an idiot than I thought you were.”

“You think just because there aren’t any women in the NFL right now, that there can’t ever be?”

“I think it’s highly unlikely, and not something I personally want.”

That last part felt sticky as I said it, and I reached for the bottle of water on my bedside table, taking a sip.

“Even though you’re as good as you are?”

“I made chart,” I said. “Not the pro bowl team. I haven’t even played in a college game yet.”

“You earned a scholarship to a D-1 university. Do you understand how impressive that alone is?”

I hated how my heart swelled with those words, something akin to pride begging me to let it out, and hope was right there on its heels, waiting for its chance to dash.

But I stifled them both, knowing there was nothing but disappointment waiting for me if I let myself get too far down that imaginary road.

I shrugged, picking at the polish on my nails and thinking I should probably take it off completely for the game tomorrow. “You know why I’m here.”

That sentence sobered both of us, a heavy silence falling over the room.

“I think it’s more than that,” he said softly.

My face warmed.

And then out of nowhere, agitation washed over me, swift and all-encompassing.

How dare he pretend like he knew something I didn’t, like we didn’t both know exactly why I was playing football?

Like the reason wasn’t directly tied to him.

“Yeah, well, it’s not,” I said flatly, turning back to the boxes. “I’ve got the rest. You can go play video games or fuck a cheerleader or whatever it is you were off to do before you barged into my room.”

“I was going to study, actually. This Econ class is really—”

I didn’t mean to snort out the laugh that came involuntarily from my chest, but I did, and it cut Zeke short. I glanced up with an arched brow and smile of amusement to find his expression hardening into stone.

“Sorry,” I said, though I was still laughing a little as I shook my head and pulled a small watercolor painting out of the box. “I thought that was a joke.”

He stood frozen in the corner of my room, and I looked up again just in time to see his jaw flex. Something in his eyes made mine soften, and I opened my mouth to actually apologize, but he was gone before I got the chance.

His door slammed so hard it shook the whole dorm, and I shuttered at the sound of it, blinking as my veins ran cold.

But I shook it off a moment later, assessing my room for where to put the next piece.

I didn’t care if I’d hurt his feelings.

He’d hurt me and my entire family far more than that.

Zeke

It took every effort not to slam the door behind me when I retreated to my room, chest seared by every fiery breath I expelled. I yanked my desk chair out and flopped into it, tearing my textbook open with entirely too much force. My over-the-ear headphones were snapped in place next, and I turned on an atmospheric playlist, something to stimulate my brain without distracting it with melodies or lyrics.

For a long while, I just stared at the book where I’d opened it to chapter four, to our assigned reading before class on Monday. It was just a few chapters. All I had to do was read and comprehend it enough to pass the quiz that would be waiting for us on Monday morning to ensure we’d read.

If only it were that simple.

For almost all the other students in my class, I assumed it was just that simple. They’d probably wait until Sunday night and just crank those chapters like it was nothing, absorbing every word and going into Monday morning feeling confident in their ability to ace the quiz.

I, on the other hand, would need to read it several times, take notes, and even then I’d be lucky to retain enough to get a C.

Riley’s laugh haunted me as I stared at the open book. She’d always just assumed I hated school, or was lazy, or incompetent — or maybe a combination of the three. She didn’t know how I struggled. Not many did. Outside of my parents, Gavin, and the teachers who had to know in order to allow me more time on tests, I kept it to myself.

A glance at the clock told me I could go down to the team study hall if I wanted, maybe enlist the help of one of our tutors. But we had a game in the morning, and I just wanted to get enough done to make me feel confident that I could focus all my energy on football for a full day and be fine.

Blowing out a breath, I sat up a little straighter, using the edge of my notebook to line up right under the first sentence. I only moved it down when I was ready to read the next line, so I wouldn’t get distracted.

Slowly, I read the first page, having to pause now and then when a word didn’t make sense because I’d read the letters out of order. Any time that happened, I’d lose the context of the sentence completely and have to read it over. But I was used to this. It was just the way it was for me. Reading and comprehension took time and work.

It was never going to be something that came easy to me, never going to be something I excelled at. And that was just fine.

Because I had football.

I sat back for a break after the first page, sipping my energy drink. I had to be careful — I needed energy to focus, but I didn’t want too much or I wouldn’t sleep, and that was what I needed most before our first game.

The deep humming of the atmospheric song playing in my headphones lulled me into a quiet focus, and I thought about the day I found out about my dyslexia.

Tears stained my face as I stared at the test in my hands, at the letters and words that didn’t make sense. Mom and Dad sat on either side of me, their hands on my shoulders, and they didn’t think I noticed the concerned glances they shared as they waited for me to respond to what they’d told me.

“So, I’m stupid.”

“No,” Mom said instantly as Dad lowered to one knee in front of me. He took the paper from my hands and sat it aside.

“You are not stupid,” he said, his eyes connected with mine. “You are special.”

For some reason, that word hurt worse.

“All this means is that you learn a little differently than other kids,” he added.

“We’ll help you,” Mom chimed in. “And you’ll get extra time on your tests now so you can take more time to read and understand what you’re being tested on.”

Everything had changed overnight, it seemed. I went from not having a care in the world as an elementary student, to suddenly waking up to a very different reality as a middle schooler. Kids didn’t laugh and play in middle school the way they did in fifth grade. Everything was more serious, and you were judged the moment you walked into school on the first day. What you wore, who you hung out with, and what hobbies you had suddenly defined you and placed you in the hierarchy whether you wanted to be labeled or not.

Thank God I had Gavin.

Dad must have noticed that I wasn’t convinced anything about being dyslexic was a good thing, because he stood, and commanded me to do the same.

“Come on,” he said, nodding toward the back door.

I had no choice but to follow, my feet dragging underneath me as I ambled outside after him. I snapped back to reality just in time to catch a football as it was lodged at my face.

“Nice catch,” he said, and then he held up his hands for me to toss it back. “Go long.”

I figured it was just a way to distract me, but I jogged out past the swing set I used to play on as a kid, turning just in time to leap up and grab the throw Dad had made.

The moment that ball was tucked into my chest, I couldn’t help but smile.

“Again!” Dad yelled, and Mom retrieved the ball from me only to toss it to Dad, who had me line up a fake play like I was a wide receiver.

He called out the route, one I’d played often on my team last year, and I juked like I was avoiding a safety before catching the ball and running it across the yard. Mom and Dad cheered, and then I ran back for another.

Again and again, over and over, Mom or Dad called out a drill and I executed. Before I knew it, I was panting, dripping sweat, and high off the adrenaline that only football provided me.

That test was the last thing on my mind.

Mom met me with a bottle of water after about an hour, and as I drank it, Dad laid a hand on my shoulder, leveling his eyes with mine.

“You are not stupid, son,” he said. “You are remarkable.”

My eyes fell to the ground.

“Do you think just any kid could run routes like you just did? That they could be that fast, that agile, that explosive? Do you think every kid is just born with that talent, with the ability to catch every ball without dropping a pass or even so much as bobbling?” He shook his head, poking his finger hard in my chest. “You are special.”

There was that word again, only this time…

It felt different.

“You know what you’re going to do, Zeke? You’re going to make it to the places other people only dream about. You’re going to play varsity football in high school. You’re going to get a scholarship to a D-1 college. And one day, you’re going to be picked in the first round of the NFL draft. Who cares if you can’t read a book in a day, or that you don’t have an A in history class?” Dad waved it off as Mom chuckled. “Neither of those things matter. Not to you. Not to us. Football, son,” he said again, patting his hand hard on my chest. “That’s your future.”

That was the moment where my parents’ belief in my dream began. They went from supporting me as a kid playing football for fun, to drilling me like the NFL player they already knew I would be one day.

It was love in the purest form.

But resting just below that layer of love was an even thicker, heavier layer of pressure.

“Just do what you have to do to be eligible to play,” Dad had told me when he dropped me off for summer term. Because he knew just as well as I did that there was no degree waiting for me here, no future career that would require anything of me other than performing on that field.

It was football or bust.

So, I took a deep breath and got back to reading only long enough to get the first chapter read, and then I climbed into bed to make sure I had a good night’s sleep.

Because tomorrow was the chapter that mattered most for me — the next one in my football career.

That’s where my focus needed to be.