Connor
CONNOR “Holy shit, Big Tony’s back in the stadium.”
I followed Josh’s eyes up to the big screen as we stood on the sidelines, waiting for kickoff, and
there they were. Duffy and her dad were de ep in conversation, oblivious to the fact that the camera was
on them. Her hands moved wildly while she spoke, appearing absolutely determined to make some
point about something.
I couldn’t look away. “Duffy finally caved,” I said, still staring at her. She looked cute as hell in her
Coyotes baseball cap as her dad said something that made her roll her eyes and laugh.
“Uh-oh,” Josh said with a laugh, shaking his head. “They caught you straight-up ogling on the other
screen.”
I glanced over and there I was on the other big screen—the one on the west side of the
stadium—grinning like a lovesick fool, clearly talking about her to Josh.
“What are the odds no one noticed?” I asked. Just as I said that, whoever was in charge of running
the huge display put a pair of those fucking heart emojis over my eyes.
And it sounded like the crowd approved. “Not great,” Josh said with a laugh, but then Norton’s foot
connected with the ball and it was on. All thoughts of Duffy disappeared as our
defense shut them down, as they went three and out and had to punt after barely two minutes ticked
off the clock.
And hallelujah, we never looked back. Our line was fucking firing on all cylinders, manhandling
theirs and giving Josh all the time he needed to get the ball where it needed to go. He ran in two
touchdowns, sent one to Teeders and one to me, and JJ on special teams ran one all the way back just
under the two-minute warning.
It was a great win for us. Everyone was loose and happy in the locker room, the vibes so different
from last year. It was still early in the season and the entire team knew the rumors regarding
management’s potential plans, but that shit didn’t seem to matter right now.
The season suddenly felt like it had possibilities, like we were all just going to put our heads down
and believe.
When it was my turn to take questions, I got only two about the game —two—before I got served
three about Duffy. Were we “official”? What was I saying to Josh about her during kickoff? And the
funniest one—Did my cats get along with her cat?
“Dale is actually her dad’s cat and kind of a woman hater,” I said, knowing they were going to love
such a ridiculous answer, “so he hasn’t been over yet to meet the girls.”
I knew that made it sound like we were more than we actually were, but we’d already been faking it
for her family, so it wasn’t hard to say a few harmless lines to the press. But like the team’s season, it
definitely felt like there were possibilities.
I just wasn’t sure what to do about it. I wanted everything that was fake to become something real,
but I didn’t want to rock the boat by pressing too hard when things were going so well. I needed to take
my time because I had zero margin for error.
When I glanced at the back of the press room and saw Bethany nodding and smiling while the press
chuckled at my answers, I felt that even harder.
Zero margin for error.
Because between the possibility of staying with Minnesota after this season and the possibility
of... everything with Duffy, I was almost paralyzed by the fear of messing things up.
It all felt close, and that was a little bit terrifying.