Jockblocked: A Novel (Gridiron Book 2)(65)

And neither are risks. I get it now, better than I ever did before. Being with Luce these past couple of weeks has showed me how rigidly she has to monitor herself. What she eats, what she drinks. I don’t blame her for being cautious. The one time she took a step outside her comfort zone, she was humiliated. It’s burned into her psyche.

Success in sports is almost entirely mental. The best quarterbacks have terrible short-term memory. You have to forget your mistakes or be paralyzed by them. Luce hasn’t moved on from that. Still…it says a lot about her that she didn’t quit on the team entirely.

“You’re tough. Anyone else would have quit and run away.”

“I love it too much,” she admits. “Like you love football.”

“I do.” I hesitate, gulping hard.

“What’s wrong?”

I grip her hand tightly. I’m afraid of how she’s going to react and I feel, foolishly maybe, that if I’m still holding her at the end of this, we’ll be okay.

“I hate coming to you like this. I really do, but you’re my last resort.”

Is she really? my conscience chides me. You haven’t really done anything to smooth this over with the team. But Luce is clearly made for persuading people. It’s in her blood. She might not be able to do it in competition but one-on-one? She’d be able to persuade someone to willingly walk the plank. And hell, maybe she’d even want to do this. After all, Ace is her friend. She wants him to succeed, right?

“I really think you’re the only one who can do this.”

“What is it?” she asks warily.

We’ve reached her apartment. I draw her to the side, away from the center sidewalk and down toward the empty parking lot.

“There was a fight in practice today.”

“Oh no. Is that where you hurt your lip?” Her fingers come up to touch the corner of my mouth. “Ace wasn’t an ass to you, was he? He’s going through something right now.”

I nod grimly. “I’m fine. Ace is fine. Physically, that is.”

Her face falls. “Physically? Did the coach talk to him again?”

“You know then? He told you about the QB thing?”

“Yeah.”

“We weren’t supposed to tell anyone outside the team,” I answer, but even though Ace was supposed to keep his mouth shut, I’m relieved she already knows the general gist of the situation.

She shrugs. “Ace doesn’t really think the rules apply to him, and besides, it wasn’t like I was going to ESPN with this or anything.”

“Right.” I exhale heavily. “The situation is grim. I need to say something, ask you something really important.”

Her face pales under the harsh glare of the apartment’s floodlights. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

I try to think of the most positive spin on this that I can. “I’m only bringing this to you because I think it’s right.” Although I don’t know what’s right other than if our team keeps fighting like we did this afternoon, we’ll be a basket case this fall, and we’ll be lucky to win half our games, let alone make another run at the title. “You can say no, and I understand if you don’t want to hear this, but…I’d like you to make the case for Ace as a safety.”

“No,” she says immediately and turns away, but not before I see the hurt in her eyes.

My stomach falls somewhere around my boots, but I’ve started down this path and I might as well see it to the end.

“What if I told you that I want Ace to succeed?” I ask.

“So?”

“So this isn’t just about me wanting to win another title. I want that, but I’ll admit I’m not as hungry as I was before. A repeat is great, but my aims and goals are different now, and I bet that’s true for Ace. Only he’s not seeing it clearly because all he sees is embarrassment from losing his position.”

“I don’t really care.” She pulls away again. Hard, and I finally feel compelled to let her go.

I don’t like that she’s so far away from me, but I’m afraid if I step toward her, she’ll run inside and that will be the end of it. I grab the back of my neck but my anxiety doesn’t subside. “You know what the Heisman is, right?”

She nods. “The trophy given to the best college football player each year.”

“Do you know how many Heisman-winning quarterbacks fail in the NFL or don’t even get drafted? There have been seventy-seven winners and a third have been quarterbacks. Combined, they don’t have a winning record in the NFL. College success doesn’t translate to pro success for most quarterbacks. Ace won with us, but it was a team effort. In the pros, he’ll be exposed. If I were told that I was too small, too slow for my position but that I could have a shot in the pros if I played a different position, I’d move in a heartbeat. What do you think Ace wants?”

Ace wants to play in the pros, no question.

“You know what he wants.”

Yeah, she knows him.

“Right. I do. Have you heard of Scott Frost?”

“No, doesn’t ring a bell.”

I take a step toward her. Just a small one. I’m not trying to intimidate her; I want to convince her that this is the right thing for everyone. “He led his Nebraska team to a National title over Peyton Manning and the Tennessee Volunteers. He had a record of twenty-four and two when he graduated. Despite his extremely successful college career as a quarterback, he was drafted in the third round and played safety in the NFL. You’ve heard of Tim Tebow, right?”