The Debt 9 (Club Alpha) (3 page)

Not to mention the scoreboard.

By halftime, New England was up 14-3.

Chase had thrown for one touchdown and
actually run for a touchdown from about five yards out.

“The kid can’t miss,” Dad kept repeating,
even when Chase wasn’t throwing a pass.

During halftime, her parents began
arguing again, and Faith saw Krissi finally look up from her phone.
 
Krissi’s eyes were desperate and tired
as she exchanged a knowing look with Faith.

For the first time since meeting Chase
Winters, Faith felt a surge of guilt, as she remembered just how bad things really
were in her family.

She was used to feeling guilty for moving
away from home and leaving her sister alone with their crazy parents these last
six months, but she’d actually managed to forget that familiar sense of shame for
just a moment.

Now, hearing Dad and Mom insult one
another with slurred voices, Faith wished there was something more she could
do.
 
It was embarrassing and
pathetic, and yet it was so completely normal at this point.

Krissi had turned seventeen, and she had
one last year of high school, after which she’d be ready to leave home
too.
 

She
just has to make it a little while longer.

But Faith knew only too well how long a
year felt in that household, and besides, Krissi’s grades weren’t so great
anymore.
 
Would she even be able to
get free of them by the time all was said and done?

Nothing was certain.

Mercifully, the third quarter started,
and everyone’s attention focused back on the game.
 

When The New England Nationals’ offense
took the field again for the first time, the crowd at the stadium let out an
earth-shattering cheer that had even Krissi looking up from her cell phone with
wide eyes.

The applause was for one man and one man
only: Chase Winters.

Everyone in New England had been arguing
about whether or not he would be the savior of the team, or just another hype
job.
 
Even Faith knew this, just
from overhearing conversations at her temp job.

It was such all pervasive water cooler
talk that you’d have had to be living in a cave not to know what people around
Boston thought about him.

There was apparently a long laundry list
of high-profile college players who’d come into the NFL with all sorts of
fanfare, who’d then promptly fizzled out once they were faced with the higher
quality of athlete found in the pro ranks.
 

As with anything, there was a fairly
large and vocal contingent of New Englanders who believed that Chase Winters
didn’t have the goods, that he would be at best an average quarterback, and
more likely a complete dud.
 

But from where Faith was standing, she
couldn’t believe that anyone had ever doubted him.
 
She watched him stand there while bodies
flew by him on all sides, and he was as composed as could be, throwing accurate
pass time and time again.

“He’s shredding their defense!” Dad
screamed at one point, when Chase threw a twenty-yard pass and the receiver
caught it, running the rest of the way for a touchdown.

And it seemed that indeed, he was
shredding the other teams’ defense, because as the game wore on, more and more
it appeared that they had no answers for Chase’s quick and accurate
passing.
 
When they tried to rush
him, he dropped back and threw a quick spiral to one of his players, and gained
short yardage.
 
If they tried to cover
his receivers, he might find the slight opening to still get a pass through, or
more likely Chase would take the ball and run himself.

Many times throughout the game, Chase ran
for anywhere between five and ten yards with ease.
 
New York seemed not to know whether to
cover his passing or his running game.

By the time the game was wrapping up in
the fourth quarter, it had turned into a slaughter.
 
The score was 41-10, and Chase had
thrown four touchdown passes, run for one, and then they’d also put up two
field goals.

The crowd in the stadium was filled with
jubilant fans literally dancing in the aisles.
 

As the stadium began clearing out, Faith
pulled out her cell phone.
 
When
would he call?
 
Was he seriously
going to text or call after having the biggest game of his life?

No, of course not.

He’d been playing with her—he’d
probably forgotten about her the second after she’d left the room.

“Come on, I need to take a leak before we
go,” her father said, his voice slurred.

“Awww, shut up,” Mom replied, as they
both lurched for the exit to the clubhouse.

Krissi began following them, her head
down.

Faith was lagging behind as she recalled
Chase’s comment about what to do in regards to her family.

When
the game’s over, lose them.

Her heart sped up at just the thought of
it.
 
How could she lose them?

Instead, she followed them down to the
first floor, where her parents both went to use the restrooms.

Krissi was standing near a pillar, on her
phone texting, as usual.
 

“Hey,” Faith said, walking up alongside
her.
 

People were still pouring out of every
exit and entrance, streaming to and fro on all sides, and the noise was
overwhelming.

Krissi hardly glanced up.
 
“Hey.”
 
Her fingers typed expertly on her phone.

“Dad and Mom are both wasted.”

“Nothing new there,” Krissi intoned,
bored.

“Yeah, but I think you should drive.
 
Neither of them are in any shape.”

“I’m not arguing with them.
 
Why don’t you drive if you’re so worried
about it?” Krissi said.

“I brought my own car and I’m not leaving
it here just because my parents are irresponsible idiots.”

“Fine, then I’ll go back with you,”
Krissi said, finally looking up at her.

Faith’s heart felt heavy.
 
“Well, that’s the thing,” she said
slowly.
 
“I think I’m going to meet
someone for dinner nearby, so I can’t take you back.”

“Who?” Krissi demanded, her eyes
narrowing.
 
“You never mentioned
anyone before.”

“It’s nothing,” Faith replied, waving off
the question.
 
“It’s not one hundred
percent, but I just can’t drive you home.”
 
She looked away from her sister’s piercing gaze.
 
“And anyhow, we can’t let Mom and Dad
drive in their condition.”

“Whatever,” Krissi said, and returned her
attention to her phone.

Faith realized she wasn’t going to get
any help from her sister.
 

Her father appeared first, scratching his
ample belly hanging out from beneath his old New England jersey.
 
“That was fun,” he said, belching.
 
“Ready?”

“Mom’s not out yet,” Faith told him.
 
“But I want to talk to you about
something.

Her father looked at her with suspicion
in his bloodshot eyes.
 
“What?”

“Kriss needs to drive on the way home,”
she said, trying to sound firm.

His gaze grew cool.
 
“I’m driving
my
damn car.
 
Not this
shit again, Faith.”

“Dad, you and Mom have had way too much
to drink.”

“That’s your opinion.
 
But I know how I drive and I know when
I’m fine, and I’m fine.
 
End of
story.”
 
He started walking and
began to disappear into the crowd, not even waiting for her mother to emerge.

Krissi turned to go with him, but Faith
grabbed her shirtsleeve.
 
“No,” she
said, gritting her teeth.
 
“You’re
not getting in the car with that idiot.”

Faith’s sister gave her a relieved
grin.
 
“So I can go with you then?”

Now Faith sighed, looking up towards the
heavens.
 
She’d tried to lose her
family and it had ended predictably.
 

FAIL.
 

“Of course you can come with me,” she
said, resigned to her fate.

“Cool!” Krissi said, laughing and putting
her phone away.

They waited for their mother, who came
out looking angrily for their father, and when they told her he’d already left,
opted to also accompany Faith and Krissi home in Faith’s car.

“He won’t be home until late tonight or
tomorrow anyway,” Mom said, her cheeks red, lighting a cigarette as they hit
the parking lot.
 
“Useless is what
that man is.
 
I always knew it.”

Faith knew better than to say anything
when her mother got like this.
 
The
three of them got into her car and Mom promptly passed out in the backseat,
while Krissi put her iPod on and started playing her favorite songs on the car
radio.

Soon, they were leaving the stadium and
headed home.

Faith felt her stomach sink as the sign
for the highway pointed right and she promptly made her way to the onramp with
the rest of the traffic heading back towards the city.

He
wasn’t going to call you anyway
,
she told herself.

Except that twenty minutes later, she
felt her phone buzz in her pocket, indicating a text message, and she knew
exactly who the text was from.

She didn’t even look at the phone with
her sister sitting next to her, and especially not while driving, as much as
she wanted to.

Besides, it didn’t matter.
 
She’d blown her chance to spend time with
Chase Winters and there was very little likelihood that she’d get another
chance again.

***

After dropping her sister and mother off
and waving goodbye to them, Faith finally pulled out her cell phone and looked
at her latest text message.

Call
me.

That was all it said.
 
The number wasn’t recognizable, but she
knew it was from him just the same.

Call me.

There had been nothing since then, and
that had been sent to her about twenty-five minutes ago.
 
Faith’s hands were shaking and her
insides vibrated with anticipatory anxiety as she thought about actually
placing a call to the quarterback of The New England Nationals.

Just a few hours after his home opener,
when he’d played his first professional game and brought the house down with
his spectacular moves on the field.

I
can’t do it.
 
I can’t call him.

She wondered if she would lose her nerve
and just never respond to him out of sheer terror.
 
But then she remembered what it had felt
like to be in his presence.

The feeling of his lips on hers was still
just as vivid in her mind as it had been thirty seconds after it happened.
 
She pictured him standing there in that
towel, most of his athletic body exposed to her as he stared at her with those
dark, frighteningly sexual eyes.
 

And then she recalled watching him
perform on the field.
 
He was so
quick, so powerful and his movements showed a completely fearless knowledge of
his own abilities, his skill and dexterity.
 

A man who could move like that on the
field could probably do things to her in bed that would defy imagination.
 

The look in his eyes said that he knew it
too.

Faith’s car was still idling in front of
her parents’ house, and she shook her head, not wanting to stay there long
enough to draw attention.
 
She drove
away, turned onto another road and then parked in the lot of a convenience
store nearby.

“You can do this—he’s just a guy,”
she told herself, taking a deep breath as she called the number back.

As the phone rang in her ear, part of her
wished for him not to pick up because it would be so much easier to just leave
a quick message—or better yet, hang up and then text something
instead.
 
The other part of her was
praying that he would answer, because she wanted to hear his voice on the other
line and know that he still wanted to talk to her.

Wanted to know that this whole thing was
real, even though it couldn’t be real.

And then the unthinkable happened, and he
picked up.
 
“Where are you?” His
tone was demanding, insistent, completely lacking in polite formalities.