Billy clicks off the TV. “Son of a bitch. Now we’re stuck with that asshole another year.”
Dread fills my chest.
I’m not sure what that means for Billy, but it’s probably not good.
38
BILLY
Four and a Half Months Later
“Dude,where do you want the chocolate-filled diapers?” Jinxy asks as he sniffs one of them.
Jake hefts his son Asher on his hip as he side-eyes me, and I shake my head. “Don’t look at me like this was my idea. I’m just executing Charlie’s suggestions.”
Sure, I came up with a few things, but filling a diaper with melted chocolate so it looked like shit and making everyone guess what kind of candy bar it is was not my brainchild.
We’re all running around Coach’s backyard, prepping for Roxy’s baby shower. Several football players came today, including my old roommates, a half dozen cheerleaders from her old squad, two pregnant college students she met at a parenting class, and a few friends from an animal rescue we’ve both volunteered at with Charlotte.
It’s an interesting mix of people, but that’s because everyone adores Rox wherever she goes. And I’m grateful as hell Ezra was too stupid to fall in love with her because then she wouldn’t be mine.
Roxy’s mom drapes a banner behind the gift table. “Don’t let anyone give you a hard time, Billy. The shower games you and Charlotte came up with are great. Roxy is going to love them.”
Deacon stares at the pregnancy photo of Rox that Charlie took last month. She looked so beautiful, I had it enlarged and mounted. Roxy is glowing, and she’s all baby bump. Deacon makes a face and reaches for a balloon to blow up. “Good thing we’re doing this now. Roxy looks like she’s gonna burst any day now.”
Charlotte pokes her head up from under the table to give him the stink eye, which matches mine.
Marlena elbows her son. “You’d better not say that to her,mijo. A woman feels self-conscious when she’s this pregnant. She held off doing the shower because you were moving last month, and she didn’t want to put you out.”
Roxy is thirty-six weeks pregnant. I don’t know why people describe pregnancy as a nine-month thing. She could go up to forty weeks. That’s ten fucking months. And yeah, she kept pushing back the date of her shower. The draft and cheerleading nationals were in April, and she wanted to support our friends. Then we had finals in May, and Deke was moving here in June, and she helped him settle in at his new apartment. My little mother hen has been focused on everyone except for herself.
After he blows up another balloon, Deacon shrugs. “I don’t know why I have to be here. I thought baby showers were for women.”
He may be Roxy’s brother, but he’s starting to piss me off. “Bro, do me a favor and pretend to be grateful she held off her shower so you could attend. Because if you say that shit in front of your sister and hurt her feelings, you and I are gonna have a problem.”
Everyone gets quiet, and I realize I’ve just told off Coach’s son, but when I look up, Marlena nods in approval.
Mrs. Santos likes me okay, but I’ll never be Coach’s favorite person.
While he didn’t kick me off the team, I’m still on probation. I’m not sure he bought Ezra’s official story that we were horsing around at the restaurant, but that jackass didn’t get in trouble while I did because of the arrest and Ezra’s broken nose.
But Coach did me a solid and talked to the police station. The captain said that because he’s a huge Bronco fan and Ezra recanted his story, they’d wipe my slate clean so the media wouldn’t get wind of my arrest. If we were in a larger jurisdiction, it would’ve been harder to keep under wraps, but fortunately, there aren’t any reporters who troll our local precinct.
Coach also told me he felt bad for making me run so many stadium stairs. He said he collapsed before he was able to tell me to stop, and no one else knew I was out there. He apologized for making me run so long, but then he had to ruin it by telling me to quit fucking around and get serious about life.
The people who posted footage of the fight only got the tail end, once Ezra was already down on the ground, so there’s no video of me clocking him. And the audio was shit, so you can’t hear what we’re yelling at each other.
Now Ezra has a little notch on the bridge of his nose. It’s a reminder of that punch, which I’m pretty fucking fond of, to be honest. Especially now that I have to see him all the damn time since he decided not to declare for the draft.
His cover story about staying to support Santos? Yeah, it’s all bullshit.
That idiot fell out of the window of a frat house while he was getting a blow job. Abigail had broken up with him, and he ran out to hook up with someone else like fifteen seconds later. He was getting his knob polished when he leaned back, fell, and landed on his shoulder.
It was only the first floor, so it’s not like it would kill him, but he was injured enough that he couldn’t throw at the combine the following week. And while not every single person who gets drafted attends the combine, NFL teams would wonder why he didn’t show up. Personally, I think he was lucky the girl blowing him didn’t bite off his pencil dick when he flipped backwards.
He told Coach he was accidentally pushed down some stairs at a party.
Apparently, Coach was on board with Ezra not disclosing his injury to protect his reputation, and there’s not a requirement that he share this information. Coach explained to us that no team wants their opponents to question the strength of their quarterback heading into a new season, so it behooves everyone to shut the fuck up and pretend he’s staying “to help his team.”
