The Way We Touch: or Wrangling the Wide Receiver (The Bradford Boys)

Garrett hops off the bar with a heavy thud. He whips off the wig and apron, and his voice is a low growl. “What the fuck is he doing here?”

My brow lowers and adrenaline surges through my veins when I turn to see Davis Kent standing in the back of the room with his arms crossed.

He’s dressed in his usual khakis and light blue golf shirt—in the middle of December—and standing right next to him is someone I’ve been waiting to see again. Peter Krall.

Instinctively, my hands fist at my sides. My jaw is tight, and I step in front of Dylan as if I’ll shield her from these bastards. I’m struggling with the urge to wipe the floor with their asses.

“I think we need to take these losers to the parking lot.” Jack’s voice surprises me, and I turn to see my former football hero with fire blazing in his eyes.

“Are we doing this?” Zane steps up beside him.

Craig is off the bar at once. “Not without me!”

I’ve never been in a gang, but I understand the appeal now that I have four men at my side all thinking the same thing.

“Wait!” Dylan’s voice is worried. “Don’t… It’s Christmas.”

“Too late for that, Sis.” Garrett’s eyes are leveled on Davis and Peter. “These assholes came here looking for trouble, and we’re going to help them find it.”

“Logan?” Dylan puts her hand on my arm. “You’re still injured.”

The worry in her voice twists my stomach, but I can’t let these guys walk.

I put my hand on her cheek, sliding my thumb across her bottom lip. “Don’t worry, babe. We’ll just have a little meeting of the minds.”

“In the parking lot?” Her brown eyes are round, and I lean down to kiss her lips briefly.

She reaches up to touch my face, and I see the leather bracelet on her wrist. Mine is stamped on the side, and defending her honor is the only thing on my mind.

“This won’t take long.” I nod to where Allie is in the middle of the girls scooping up guacamole and watching us. “Take care of your people.”

She doesn’t go to her friend, but I can’t wait any longer.

I rejoin the guys as we walk to where Davis is glaring at us with a disgusted expression, and Krall has his eyes leveled on me with something like hatred. As if he has a right.

“Hello, Davis.” Jack takes the lead. “What brings you here with this guy?”

“Hello, Jack.” I’m ready to slap the smug smile off his punk-ass face. “My friend Pete here wanted to know where he might find your sister’s new boyfriend. I told him I knew right where to go.”

“Let’s take this outside,” Garrett growls, seeming to grow larger.

Davis blows air through his lips. “You think I’m stupid enough to go to the parking lot with you, Garrett?”

“No.” Garrett spits out the words on a taunting laugh. “I think you’re way stupider than that.”

“What do you want, Peter?” I’m working hard to keep my tone level.

“We have a beef now.” This guy’s a defensive lineman, and he’s as big as Garrett with light brown hair shaved close to his head and dark brown eyes.

“Oh, yeah?” Standing taller, I’m mad enough to whip his ass by myself. “How do you figure that?”

He leans down in my face. “You ended my career.”

A meaty hand fists the front of his shirt, shoving him back. “You got what you deserved, asshole,” Garrett seethes. “You tried to kill my best friend.”

“Fucking bullshit. I only broke your streak, Lightning.”

The sarcasm in his tone is like a match to the gasoline in my veins.

Jack must see I’m about to go off, and he quickly steps into the mix. “Outside. Now.”

Thomas has joined the group, but Zane puts his hand on his arm. “Stay here, friend.”

The older man’s dark brow furrows. “You might need help.”

Zane nods at the girls. “We need you to watch over Dylan and Kimmie if things go sideways. You don’t need to be in this.”

Thomas’s lips tighten as if he’ll argue, but he glances at the five of us and chuckles. “Let me know when you need the shovel.”

Davis has both hands up. “I didn’t agree to take it outside.”

Zane’s eyes flash fire, and he steps closer. “Then you shouldn’t have opened your lying mouth about my sister.”

He grabs Davis’s shoulder, turning him and shoving him through the door. We’re all out the door, our boots scuffing against the gravel parking lot.

“I’ve been waiting for this.” Craig hustles up, getting in the rich prick’s face. “I’ve been ready to kick your ass since you put your hands on her.”

The match is struck, and my fury explodes. “What did you just say?”

“Give me a break. I grabbed her fucking arm.” Davis rolls his eyes, blowing air through his lips. “She wouldn’t listen, so I had to⁠—”

My fist slams into his mouth before he even finishes speaking. He takes a staggering step back, then drops to one knee. Craig rushes forward and hits his shoulders hard with both hands, sending Davis all the way onto his back with an Oof.

“What?” Craig yells in his face. “I only pushed you down. Give me a break!”

Craig pulls back his foot, ready to kick him in the stomach, but I reach down and grab Davis under the arms instead. I stand him on his feet so I can punch his lights out again.

My fist is raised, but he holds up both hands, ducking and whining. “Don’t hit me again!”

Blood covers his mouth and chin, and my fingers itch to pulverize this sniveling coward. Tension tweaks all my muscles, and only one thing is strong enough to hold me back—Dylan and Christmas and not spending the weekend in jail.

Instead I shake him hard, throwing him on the ground again. “Don’t show your fucking face here ever, or it’ll be the last time. Hear me?”

“Yes,” he whines, curling into a ball.

Jack steps up beside me, and he reaches down to grab Davis by the collar, jerking him off the ground with his fist raised. “You hurt my sister, and you lied about her to TMI?”

“No, man!” Davis holds up both hands over his head, whining. “It was a misunderstanding. Just let me go home. I won’t come back.”

“You’re fucking right you won’t.” He shoves him back hard onto the gravel, then he kicks him in the stomach.

Reaching out, I grab his shoulder. A small crowd is forming, phones are coming out, and I’m the only one who won’t suffer for what’s happening here. As head coach at the high school, Jack could lose his job.

“Go on back inside. I’ll finish up here.”

He’s breathing hard, looking down at that fucking prick on the ground, but I manage to get him to turn. I grab Craig’s arm and pull him over.

“You two go back inside. Take care of the girls.”

“Take care of him.” Zane nods to where Garrett and Peter are circling each other behind us with their fists raised.

“Shit like that doesn’t go unanswered by me.” Garrett lands a punch to the side of Peter’s face, but the big guy only takes a half step back.

“Then you’d better have more than that in you.” Peter swings, but I’m there to block it with my forearm.

“I’ve got more.” Not wasting a beat, I step forward quickly, pulling with my stomach and using all my weight to drive an uppercut straight into the bottom of his jaw.

His teeth rattle and he snorts a grunt. I actually see his eyes roll before he staggers to the side. Garrett is right there with a finishing jab to the chest, and the asshole falls like a tree, a knockout punch.

We stand over him, breathing hard when red and blue lights flash through the trees. A police car is headed this way, and in an instant, the crowd starts to disperse.

Behind us, Davis has crawled to his Rover and is now dragging himself inside it.

Garrett grips my shoulder, shaking me and laughing. “What the fuck was that?”

I look at the Goliath on the ground. “College boxing.”

“Boxing?” His voice is loud, and I can tell he’s happy. “What the hell?”

“I took it as an elective. Probably the smartest thing I ever did.”

“Man, that felt good. He hurt the whole team with that tackle.”

“I’m sorry.” I hadn’t considered how we lost the game, and with me off the team, they’ve been struggling to replace us.

“Whatever, we’re big boys.” He grips my shoulder. “It’s the fucking holidays. Let’s get inside.”

Garrett and I hustle into the restaurant where the party is still going strong. A brassy version of “Sleigh Ride” is playing, and everyone is dancing.

The place seems oblivious to what just happened in the parking lot. I don’t see Craig, Jack, or Zane, but when Dylan’s eyes meet mine, she heads straight to me.

“Allie took the guys to the kitchen. Oh—your hand!” She lifts my swollen hand, pulling me in that direction.

“I’m ready to dance!” Garrett is on the bar at once, dancing with the waitresses.

Kimmie jumps up and down beside him, and he lifts her onto his hip. We pass Craig on the way to the kitchen, and he’s in his wig again looking for all the world like nothing just happened.

“I’ll deal with the sheriff,” he says as we pass, and Dylan nods.

In the kitchen, Thomas has a bowl of ice on the large silver table. Dylan leads me to it, wrapping my hand in a thin towel before dunking it in the ice bath.

“Not too swollen.” Jack inspects the damage. “I doubt you have a fracture.”

“I only punched the soft spots.” I glance at Dylan. “You didn’t tell me he hurt you.”

“It was only one time.” Her lips are tight as she dries my hand. “It was after we broke up, and he came here to talk…”

“The marks on your arm?” I remember her playing it off that night in the kitchen so long ago.

“You remember?” Her brow furrows, and I reach for her, pulling her to my chest.

“Don’t ever hide something like that from me again.” I kiss the top of her head.

“You should’ve seen your man here, D.” Garrett blusters into the kitchen with a beer in his hand and a smile on his face. “Dropped Krall like a rock, and from half a foot below.”

“Look at your hand!” She grabs Garrett’s fist and puts it in the ice.

“I’ll be fine.” He looks up at me. “We got him, bro. He won’t mess with you again.”

“I hope not.”

“If he does, we’ll be ready for him.” Garrett nods around the room at the five faces smiling back at us. “The Bradford boys.”

“Does that include me?” I tease.

“Hell, yeah, it does, and we take care of our own.”

Christmas is almost here, and my knee is getting stronger. My physical therapist prescribed walking, so I’m strolling along the bay in the direction of the old cinder-block radio station.

A cool breeze coats my face, but it’s nothing like the winters up north. I’m far away from that level of cold these days.

The resident flock of pelicans glides silently in their V formation, dipping their beaks into the water, and it reminds me of being on a team.

For so long, my life has been about football. It was where I went to escape the loneliness of my home. It was where I went to find a family.

But football ends, guys retire, and I’ve grown older. I think about that night at Galileo’s last July, when I was disillusioned with everything and so frustrated with my prospects.

Then Garrett brought me here.

Watching the games from this distance, sitting beside Dylan as she hides every time her brother gets tackled, I think about going back for a tenth season. I think about leaving Dylan behind and returning to the days of phone sex and hand signals and stolen weekends.

She’s in even less of a position to move to New York, and I wouldn’t ask her to do it anyway, not after seeing her with her students. Teaching brings her joy and healing. Her family and her support network are here.

What about my support network? My dad said I should go for the MVP trophy and retire. It was his goal for me. I went into this season with my sights set on proving I was more than just a cog in the wheel, a player who’d better get the fucking pigskin across the line.

Breaking records and proving I was still relevant was my goal, and even if my season was cut short, they’ll be talking about what I did and sharing my highlight reels for years to come, for better or worse.

Most of it’s better, but last week I stumbled across another replay of the hip-drop tackle that landed me in the hospital. Commentators debated the merits of banning Krall from the league. My injury didn’t end my career, they’d argued, so was it fair to end another player’s?

My jaw tensed in anger, but it got me thinking about how next season I’ll start from a place of recovery. All the records I’ve set will be overshadowed by my comeback, and everyone will be watching to see what happens.

It’s possible I’ll make it back to where I was before I was injured, but it’s more likely my days of being the fastest wide receiver have passed. There’s no guarantee I won’t be injured again, and another injury could be worse.

Walking up to the small building, I study it for a few moments. A truck is parked in the back lot, and a man is inside behind the desk.

It’s easy to see the new path in front of me. It’s not complicated, and I don’t hesitate.

I walk straight to the door and open it.