Page 9 of Hard Count
“I know.”
Jayson sat down in the chair beside the bed, “How long do they want you here?”
“A couple days.”
“I will stay as long as you need.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know,” Jayson said.
The second time he had said it was like he had already considered the question before Piper had asked it.
Piper had thought about that night many times since. Not the access, not the money, not the specialists. The chair. The book. His parents not being there, and Jayson reading quietly in the corner while the anesthesia wore off.
Years later, after his father died on Pacific Coast Highway, Jayson arrived at the hospital in Santa Monica before Piper’s mother did. Piper would come back to that first hospital night.
He had thought it was love. Someone who took care of the things that needed to be taken care of in life. It was the closest thing to it he had gotten.
He had been twenty-one.
Chapter Five: Seattle
The talking heads and armchair quarterbacks were laser focused on the rivalry. It was the moment.
Noah knew exactly how this all worked. Football was the thing. The surrounding narrative was the product, and the product right now was Ashton versus Reyes, control against instinct, architecture against improvisation, a comparison the analysts could repeat until it stuck its landing. Noah had watched it happen to other players. The league picked a frame, and you either inhabited it or spent your career arguing to a screen about it.
He wasn’t arguing with the new attention since he knew it was good for his career. In a way, he sort of loved it. He had not received this level of attention since he was the first Mexican American to hit number one in the draft. Then the first to win World Championship MVP. The honor was monumental for his community and meant a lot to Noah, but thewhat have you done for me latelymentality of the sport was exhausting to him.
His parents were proud of him for his achievements, but he knew that would ultimately change the moment they found out his truth. The truth that his mother suspected for years and his father chose to ignore.
She had told him when he was in college,be that thing that the fans and coaches wanted first, be you second and silent.This lecture happened after she caught him and his best friend at the time in bed together when he was eighteen. She never spoke about it after that moment ten years prior, and from that day forward, the Noah the world knew was the one he curated for them.
***
The locker room was quiet this early in the morning. The cleaning crew was finishing around him, and practice wasn’t for another two hours. Noah sat with his tablet, headphones in,Unusual Youby Britney Spears running in his ears.
Piper Ashton’s last four games of the previous season on the screen. He did film study the way other people did crossword puzzles, until the shape of something emerged.
Piper Ashton’s playing style was odd. Uptight yet effective was the first thought through Noah’s head. The other thing running through his head was Piper’s perfect ass. He had not been ready for that sight during the loss the previous week against L.A. He was staring at that very ass attached to this really unusual dude on his tablet. The list of what he would do to that ass was accumulating in his head like the closing credits of aMarvelmovie.
Most quarterbacks had a tell under pressure, a tendency to drift left, a slight elevation in the elbow when the pocket collapsed. Piper had none of these things. What he had instead was a kind of absolute stillness in the pocket that should have read as vulnerable but didn’t. This dude completely blocked out everything around him and was able to focus on that moment and make it perfect.
Noah had played against a lot of quarterbacks. He’d never played against one who felt like he was arguing with the past.
He ran the end zone throw again. He’d watched it from across the field in real time and understood immediately what had happened. Piper felt the pressure, planted wrong, threw across his body, and the ball arrived two inches short of where it should have been. The receiver adjusted. The catch happened. And Piper had stood there for exactly one second with the knowledge of what he’d done and what it had cost him before his face went neutral again on film.
Darius dropped onto the bench beside him. “You’ve been here since six.”
“Film study.”
Darius glanced at the tablet. “Ashton. We don’t play him again until December.”
Darius reached over and tilted the tablet toward himself.
“He’s something else,” Darius said. He watched the end zone throw play. “Uptight as hell, and then the ball leaves his hand and it’s completely different. Like there’s another person in there who only comes out when he’s playing and he doesn’t know them.”
Noah took the tablet back. “I think it’s pretty special.”
