Page 8 of The Golden Receiver

“You said you weren’t alone, but…” I motioned at the empty space around us, beer sloshing over the edges of my cup as I waved at the air.

“Teagan went to…” Kieran’s voice trailed off. He blinked. “I’m not actually sure what he went to do, but he said he’d be back.”

“Oh.” I had to assume that Teagan was one of his roommates. “I take it you get along with your roommates?” I was surprised to hear that. From what I’d noticed so far, he didn’t seem to get along with anyone. I was even struggling to get him to have a normal conversation with me, and people had always said that I was very easy to get along with. Except Wes, but he was just salty about the whole tree incident over the summer. We’d gotten along perfectly fine before that.

Kieran nodded.

This whole one-sided conversation thing was going to get old fast. A normal person might have decided to walk away. They might have picked up on the signs that maybe their conversation partner wasn’t that interested. I’d never been great at picking up on those hints. Well, I could pick up on them, I just ignored them. I danced around them like they were minor inconveniences. Besides, if Kieran and I were going to be teammates, then we would need to get along.

I decided to try again. I knew one thing we had in common, and that was football. I could talk about football for hours. “Are you excited for practice to start Monday?”

“We’ve already been practicing,” he pointed out.

I sighed. “We’ve been doing summer training. No pads. It’s different.”

I saw a spark of something behind his dark blue eyes. Got him. “You were on the team last year, weren’t you?”

I nodded. “And the summer training is very different from the in-season training. It’s not as long, but it’s a lot more rigorous.” I grinned. “I really like the morning training sessions the best. Going to the gym and working out with everyone is a great way to start the day, you know?”

To my surprise, Kieran didn’t clam up. “I work out every morning. First thing.”

“I like to run in the morning. Even when we have early training sessions, I always go for a run first.”

“Where do you run around here?”

Oh, I definitely had him. All it took was figuring out a good conversation entry point. A shared interest was always the best place for that. I was practically quivering with excitement about the fact that he was contributing to conversation. Don’t get too excited, Evander, I scolded myself. I’d finally got him to talk. I didn’t need to scare him off.

I told him about a few of my favorite running trails. Most of them were in the woods, but I found it a lot more exciting than running laps around a track or wasting away on a treadmill. Don’t get me wrong, there was value in those, but they were boring. Running on trails had variety. There were obstacles like branches and bumps and other runners. There was scenery, even if it was the same scenery every time.

Kieran listened while I talked, and he didn’t interrupt except to ask a few questions about where the trailheads were and how long they were. I thought about inviting him along for my morning runs, but that might be pushing things a little. I’d just got him to actually talk to me without looking like he was trying to set me on fire with his mind.

Our conversation lasted a little longer before the guy he’d been standing with earlier came back over. There was something familiar about the man, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I could put my finger on the fact that the minute he came over, Kieran clammed back up in our conversation. It felt like a cold dismissal, but I was taking the whole thing as a win.

We talked. We’d had an entire conversation.

I told him goodbye and wandered back over to the team, but for the rest of the night, my eyes kept wandering to Kieran Sawyer.

Chapter Three

Kieran

The sound of my alarm ripped me from slumber way too early.

It was the same time it always went off, but something about the first day of actual classes made it feel earlier. I forced myself out of bed and into my gym clothes, which I’d been smart enough to lay out the night before. I just had a feeling I wasn’t going to want to deal with struggling to find everything I needed at the ass crack of dawn.

I had a real busy day planned. It would start with the first team weight training session of the semester. After that, I had classes, video review, practice, the whole nine yards. I was just glad I’d been smart with my class schedule, and I didn’t have more than three classes a day. Had to have some time to actually study if I wanted to take advantage of being at a better college than the one I’d been at. And I did want to take advantage of that. I had dreams of being a professional football player, but I wasn’t naive enough to think that was a guarantee.

Weight training was easy enough. I didn’t think it would stay that way. Before long, the coaching staff would probably start pushing us a little harder than they were this week. It was the first week, and it wasn’t like we had a game to prep for that weekend. I would be lying to say I wasn’t excited about getting pushed harder. I was operating at a deficit compared to my teammates, and I would probably be at the same deficit when it came to our opponents. If pushing was what it would take to give me an edge and a starting spot, then that was what I was going to have to do.

The best part of the early morning training was that everyone was too tired to be overly chatty, and by everyone, I did mean Evander. He’d come over and chatted my ear off at the bonfire, and I had been ready to walk off if Teagan hadn’t come back over and saved my ass.

Weight training took about two hours, and when we were released, I had to practically sprint back across campus to change for my first class. I’d thought I’d left enough time in my schedule, but I wasn’t so sure now. I’d failed to take into consideration the amount of time it would take to get out of the locker room. Coach Shaw had some notes, and he’d wanted to go over the training schedule for the day.

He realized we all had classes, right?

When I’d left for the morning, no one had been awake in the suite. I hadn’t seen anyone up and moving when I’d come back to change, but when I’d left for class, I was able to walk out with Isaiah. His dark eyes were heavy with sleep, and he was walking around like he was moving through something thick and sticky. “You okay, man?” I asked as we waited for the elevator.

Normally, I would’ve taken the stairs, but one look at Isaiah and I knew that wasn’t going to be an option.