Fourth Down (26 page)

A year ago I would have been down for
a girl who was a sure thing without me having to really put forth
any effort. I still didn’t want to put forth any effort, but I had
zero interest in Kayla or anyone else…anyone who wasn’t
Poppy.

The girls were drinking fruity
cocktails, and I joined Logan in ordering a beer. I wondered what
Poppy liked to drink, if she drank at all. I knew she let her
twenty first birthday pass by without a celebration, and during the
month we spent together, we hadn’t gone on an actual date. With my
mom dying, the funeral, packing up my house and then Poppy starting
school, it wasn’t exactly a fun time. It was one of many regrets I
had regarding Poppy that our relationship, if you can even call it
that, was bogged down by all my shit.

I realized that all eyes were on me,
but I had totally spaced out and missed the questions. “Sorry,
what?” I asked Kayla, who had closed the distance between us in the
booth and was now sitting right up next to me.

“I said I loved watching you play
football. I was at LSU when you were, and I never missed a game,”
Kayla said.

I didn’t really know what to say to
that. Thanks? Good for you? It turns out I didn’t need to worry
about keeping up my end of the conversation as she launched into
more babble and questions.

“I bet you’re glad to be back in the
warm weather. I hate the snow!” Kayla said and then giggled like
hating the snow was somehow funny.

I’d actually forgotten how humid it
could be down here in Louisiana, and it wasn’t even summer yet. The
snow was one thing I always missed during the winters I spent in
the South. I smiled as an image of Poppy in her baggy sweatshirt,
leggings and furry boots popped into my head.

“I like the snow. It gets too damn hot
down here in the summer,” I replied. Kayla and Ally frowned at me
like I was speaking another language. Thankfully, Logan jumped in
and asked Kayla about her recent trip to Europe. Apparently, as
Kayla leaned even closer to inform me, she wasn’t sure what she
wanted to do with her life, so her parents sent her to Europe to
find herself. Seriously? She says this as if it’s something to be
proud of. I sure as fuck wouldn’t be proud of being twenty five
with a college degree and having to go to another country to find
myself. Not that I was any better a few short months ago, but at
least I wasn’t proud of my shitty life. If there was any hope that
I would enjoy this evening and get my mind off Poppy for a few
hours, this just killed it.

Fortunately Kayla was a talker. And
while it annoyed the shit out of me, it allowed me to just sit back
and drink my beer without having to add much. Logan knew I wasn’t
much of a conversationalist, so he kept Kayla going with questions
here and there.

The food was good, and the waitress
kept the beer coming. When she brought our checks, I picked up mine
and Kayla’s. Even if I never wanted to see her again, the least I
could do was buy her dinner.

As Logan and I were signing the credit
card slips, Ally suggested, “Ford, do you want to come back to our
place for drinks?” Logan raised an eyebrow as he shoved his wallet
in his back pocket. Obviously I didn’t fool him, but the girls
seemed oblivious to my complete lack of interest in being here
tonight.

Kayla nodded her head and looped her
arm through mine. Shrugging out of her grasp and standing up, I
made my exit. “Uh…thanks, Ally, but I’ve got a lot of stuff to do
tomorrow…early in the morning. So…I should be getting
home.”

Logan stood up as well, and the girls
followed. We shook hands and he patted my back. He knew coming into
this dinner that I wasn’t into it, so I was glad he wasn’t upset at
my cutting the evening short.

Kayla looked like she might burst into
tears. “Are you sure you can’t come for just a little while?” She
whined and turned her sad brown eyes on me. If Poppy had asked me
for something with that look on her face, I would have died rather
than disappoint her. But Kayla had nothing on Poppy, in any
area.

“Sorry, not tonight,” I said as I
started backing away. “It was nice to meet you, Ally, and Kayla.
Logan, I’ll see you on Monday.”

And with that I was out of there.
Stepping outside, I was hoping the blast of fresh air would wipe
away the restlessness I had been feeling since entering the
restaurant two hours ago. Instead, the humid air hit me in the face
like I had just walked into a sauna.

My apartment was only a few blocks
from the restaurant, so I had walked here. While I was retracing my
steps back to my front door, my phone beeped with an incoming text.
Pulling it out I was relieved to see it was a message from Leah.
Since leaving town almost three months ago, I had harassed Leah and
Lindsay on a regular basis for updates on Poppy. I didn’t think she
would want to hear from me, but I couldn’t function without hearing
about her and how she was doing.

I knew she was taking the MCATs today,
and I couldn’t stop from letting her know I was thinking about her.
I just hoped the flowers I sent weren’t sitting in her trash can
right now.

Leah: Girls Night
Out

Her text was accompanied by a photo. I
clicked on it and a shot of Poppy with her arms around a very
pregnant Lindsay and her friend, Brooke, filled my screen. She was
dressed up with makeup on and her long hair curling over her
shoulders. It seemed longer than I remembered, and while she was
smiling, the light in her eyes was missing. Anyone else looking at
this picture would see three friends having a good time. But I saw
only Poppy, her big hazel eyes holding a sadness I could
understand.

Hitting the button to call Leah, I put
the phone to my ear. It wasn’t very late, so she was probably still
with everyone else, but I had to talk to her.

“Yo, jackass. Like the pic?” She
answered on the second ring.

I snorted. Leave it to Leah to make me
laugh. “Yeah, I liked it.”

“Hold on a sec,” Leah said, and I
could hear her say something to the other girls. Closing my eyes, I
waited for Leah to come back on the line. Knowing she was likely
standing right next Poppy was killing me.

How did I think I could move across
the country from her and ever be okay with that? Didn’t I have what
I’ve always wanted? No, I wasn’t playing in the NFL, but for me
coaching was the next best thing. Just being back in the game was
enough for me. I had a stable job that tons of guys would kill for,
a hefty paycheck, a nice apartment. Why wasn’t I happy?

“Sorry about that. I didn’t think you
wanted Poppy to know that her stalker was calling to check up on
her,” Leah said sarcastically. I heard the sounds of the bar fade
away, and I assumed she had gone outside to take my
call.

“I’m not stalking her. I just…Fuck,
Leah!” I shoved my free hand through my hair as I continued to walk
down the sidewalk in the direction of my apartment. That might have
come out a little too loud judging from the looks I was getting
from the people around me.

“Don’t get your panties in a wad,
Ford. I’m just kidding. Honestly she probably would have full body
tackled me for my phone if she knew it was you calling.”

That got my attention. “Really? Did
she say she wants to talk to me? Because with how we left things, I
just assumed she wanted a clean break. Did she get my flowers? Did
she like them? How did her exam go?”

“Whoa! I’m sorry, I thought I was
talking to mean, bad ass Ford who doesn’t give a shit about himself
let alone anyone else. When did he hand the phone to a twelve year
old girl?”

I rolled my eyes and came to a stop at
the entrance of the park a few blocks away from my apartment.
Almost every day for three months I had walked by this park and
never once went inside the gate. There were a few people walking in
the dusk as I sat on a bench and dropped my head back to look up at
the stars.

“Leah,” I began before she
unceremoniously cut me off.

“Look, Ford. Here’s the deal. I don’t
have that much intel on Poppy, due to the fact that she has avoided
me like the plague. Lindsay has spent more time with her, but Poppy
keeps the talk strictly to the class they have together. Tonight is
the first time I have seen her remotely have fun since you left.
And that’s only because she’s wasted. Before the alcohol took
effect she was a royal bitch to Brooke and kind of reminded me of
you.”

That didn’t sound like Poppy at all.
She was hands down the nicest person I had ever met, and she would
go out of her way to avoid conflict. I was an asshole, plain and
simple. Poppy couldn’t be like me. Did my leaving do this to
her?

“And, yes, she liked your flowers.
Actually she loved your flowers. So much that Brooke found her in a
sobbing mess on the floor when she went to get her ready. I got the
impression that she does that a lot lately. Cry.”

Leah needed to shut the hell up. I
couldn’t take much more of hearing how miserable Poppy was. If I
thought I was missing her before, it was nothing like the feeling
in my chest now as I listened to Leah.

“Leah, what do I do?” I managed to
choke out when she stopped ranting to take a breath.

I heard Leah sigh dramatically on the
other end of the line. “I don’t know, Ford. What do you want to do?
Are you missing her at all?”

“Christ, Leah. Of course I miss her. I
think about her all the damn time. Every fucking morning I wake up
and reach for her. When my hand hits the empty bed beside me, my
heart drops out of my chest. I thought she wanted me to go. She
told me I had to take this job.”

“Oh, Ford,” Leah said, and I could
picture her shaking her head and rolling her eyes at me. “You need
to take some time and think about what you want in your life. What
you really want. What you can’t live without. You’re both
miserable, and I’m not really sure why. Poppy seems to have some
misguided sense that you don’t love her. That you just needed her
to help you get through your mom’s passing.”

My focus caught on the word love. This
wasn’t the first time that someone had suggested that I loved
Poppy. The first time was when Grady was giving me shit on the day
of his wedding. At the time I scoffed at the idea. We were just
friends. But now…now we were more, so much more. Or at least we
were, before I left. Left town. Left Poppy. Fuck. Did I give up the
best thing that ever happened to me to chase an old
dream?

“Ford? Are you still
there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Did I fuck up too
bad, Leah? Can I fix this?”

“I think you need to figure that one
out for yourself.”

Fucking great. The one time Leah
decides to keep her big mouth shut is the one time I need her
advice. Without my mom around anymore, Leah and even Lindsay were
my only sources of female insight. Wait. My mom’s letter.
Remembering that I had packed away her letter and never read it, I
stood up and kept walking toward my apartment.

“Thanks, Leah. I’ll let you get back.
Keep an eye on Poppy, okay? Don’t let her drink too
much.”

Leah laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m on it.
Take care, Ford. And I hope to see you soon.”

Ending the call, I thought there was
definitely one person I was hoping to see soon. But first I needed
to find my mom’s letter. I doubted that it would be full of advice
for my particular situation, but I hoped there were some wise words
that would help me figure out what I needed to do. Because, the
truth was, that I was still not happy. I had my dream job, next to
playing in the NFL. But it didn’t matter.

Because I didn’t have the one thing
that I loved more than football. The one person that brought me out
of myself and made me care about someone else more than I cared
about my own happiness.

Back at my apartment in record time, I
racked my brain trying to remember where I had stashed the letter.
Finally I remembered shoving it into my glove compartment the day
of my mom’s funeral. Not wanting to wait for the elevator, I took
the stairs two at a time down to the underground parking garage. I
yanked open the glove compartment and tore the envelope
open.

Dear Ford,

I hope you are doing well
by the time you read this letter. I’m guessing you have waited
several days or even weeks to read this. I want you to know that I
have loved you every second of your life, and I will continue to
love you even after I am gone. I am so proud of the man you have
become, Ford. You worked hard to accomplish so much at such a young
age.

I’m also guessing that you
have accepted the coaching job at LSU. Now you have an opportunity
to get back some of what you lost. But just because you’ve wanted
something all your life doesn’t mean you can’t follow a different
path. People change and so do dreams. Make sure you’re chasing the
right dream.

Remember what is most
important in life and go after it with all the passion you have
inside you. If you choose to leave again, make sure it is for the
right reasons. Because you are truly following your
heart.

I support you and love you
unconditionally, Ford. Always.

Love,