Brice adjusted the sleeve on his left arm for the third time. He smiled. Jimmy used to hate this shit.
Jimmy just didn't get it. He'd stand there in his practice jersey and his plain black compression sleeve and cleats he'd had for two seasons because he couldn't be bothered to care, and Brice would look at him and shake his head and tell him he had no drip. Jimmy would just shrug and accuse Brice of wanting to play dress up. Barbie, he'd call him. Only when it was the two of them. Only when whatever he kept locked down the rest of the time cracked open for a second.
The tunnel curved ahead of him. He could hear the stadium now, that low, building hum that started in the concrete and climbed up through his shoes and into his chest. His parents were a few feet behind him. He could hear his father’s voice, low and steady, saying something to his mother that Brice couldn’t make out. Sophie was beside him, wearing Jimmy’s St. Joseph jersey.
James was in his mother’s arms somewhere behind him. Brice could hear the small, restless sounds he made when he was being held by someone who wasn’t Brice or Miss Lafitte these days, that particular fussiness that meant he was looking for his father. Brice kept walking. The tunnel was getting brighter. The hum was getting louder.
He adjusted the sleeve one more time.
Brice’s mouth twitched. His eyes burned.
The tunnel opened.
The light hit him first. Then the sound. Sixty thousand people, or something close to it, all of them on their feet, all of them turned toward the tunnel where he was standing, and the noise was so big it didn’t register as noise anymore.
The announcer’s voice cut through it.
And now, your starting quarterback, number five—
Brice couldn’t hear the rest. The crowd took it from there. The sound swelled and broke over him in a wave that started at the student section and rolled across the stadium until every seat was standing and every voice was part of the same roar, and Brice stood there in the mouth of the tunnel with his sleeve on his left arm and his tape on his right and his brother’s name on his sister’s back, and the tears came before he could do anything about them.
They ran down his face and into the collar of his jersey and he didn’t wipe them. He just stood there and let them come because there was nothing else to do, because the sound was too big and the moment was too big and the weight of all of it pressed down on him at once and his body did the only thing it knew how to do.
His father’s arm came around him.
Tom pulled him close. One arm, strong and steady, wrapping around Brice’s shoulders and drawing him in until Brice’s head was against his chest and the stadium was still roaring and the tears were still coming and Brice didn’t fight it. He let himself fall into it. He let his father hold him up because he couldn’t hold himself up anymore, not right now, not in front of all of these people who loved him for reasons that sometimes felt inadequate
He'd take it anyway.
…
The suite was quiet compared to the field.
Serena stood at the window with both hands wrapped around a cup of tea she hadn't touched in ten minutes. Below her, the stadium was still settling, the ovation for Brice fading back into the general pregame hum.
She took a sip. It had gone cold.
The suite was smaller than the ones they'd been assigned before. Family only today. No sponsors crowding the back wall, no one from CAA working the room, no boosters angling for a photo. Just family.
And her.
She'd watched the walk from up here. Watched Brice come out of the tunnel with his parents and his sister and his son. Watched the crowd come to its feet. Watched him cry. Watched his father pull him in and hold him there. She'd stood at this window with her cold tea and her steady hands and her face doing whatever it was doing, and she hadn't moved the entire time.
She should have been down there. She knew why she wasn't and knew she had no right to feel that way but knowing why didn't make the window feel any less like a window.
She set the cup down on the table.
The door opened behind her.
She turned. The smile was already there.
It wasn’t Tom. It wasn’t Liz.
Mel stood in the doorway with a small purse over her shoulder and for a half-second Serena’s smile didn’t change because her face hadn’t caught up with what her brain was telling it yet.
“Oh,” Serena said. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Mel stepped inside, glancing around the suite, then at the window, then at Serena. “This is nice. I can see why people go to these things.”
Serena forced a laugh as she picked her up tea cup again. She didn’t drink from it. She just held it.
"So glad you could make it."
…
Brice stood on the patio with a sparkling water he hadn’t opened yet, the can cold against his palm, and let the noise from inside wash past him. Current teammates. Former teammates. Friends. Family. The whole house was full of them, voices overlapping, someone laughing, someone’s music playing from a speaker in the living room, the sound of a bottle opening, the sound of a door closing, the sound of his mother’s voice cutting through everything the way it always did.
He set the can on the railing and sat down in one of the chairs.
The yard was dark. The string lights Serena had hung were off tonight and the lake at the bottom of the slope was invisible, just a flat black nothing that the moon hadn’t found yet. The air was cold enough that he could see his breath, thin and white, dissolving almost as soon as it left his mouth.
He was tired. The kind of tired that lived in his bone. His arm ached. His shoulder ached. His face ached from the smiling.
He leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes.
The sliding door opened behind him. He didn’t turn around. He heard the sound of someone sitting in the chair beside him, the creak of the cushion, the soft exhale of someone settling in.
He opened his eyes.
Sophie was in the other chair with her knees pulled up to her chest and Jimmy’s jersey still on, the dark fabric bunched around her shoulders. Neither of them said anything.
The noise from inside continued. Someone shouted something. Someone else shouted back. A laugh. The music got louder for a second and then quieter, like someone had turned it down after realizing it was too much.
Sophie took a sip of her water.
Brice picked up his can. He still didn’t open it. He just held it, turning it in his hands, feeling the condensation gather on his fingers.
Sophie set her cup down on the arm of the chair.
“People like you, Brice.”
She said it quietly. Not really to him. More to the yard. More to the dark in front of them.
He looked at her. She was still staring straight ahead, her chin resting on her knees, her face half-lit by the light spilling through the sliding door.
“I don’t know why, honestly,” she continued. “But they do.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I know you think I’m like jealous of you or whatever,” she said. “I’m not."
He did, actually. He always had.
"I’m not like trying to be a bitch or anything," she continued, "It’s just that when I see all those people in the stands, all the people we come across whose face light up when they realize we’re related to you, it still feels a bit dumb. All of it. I know that’s not your fault. You didn’t ask for it. Well, not really. Not in that way."
Brice laughed under his breath.
"I guess what I’m trying to say is," Sophie cleared her throat, "People really like you. Kids really like you. I know you didn’t ask to be a role model. No one ever does. But I see the way the kids at my school talk about you. The way they all want your jersey."
She stopped there. Brice didn't fill the silence.
"I know Jimmy looked up to you," she said. Her voice cracked, just slightly, and she pushed through it. "Like you were his superhero. I don't know…maybe I was jealous of that, a little. I'm not even sure jealous is the right word. I just didn't love that the greatest person I knew was looking up to somebody who I felt like wasn't always..."
She didn't finish it. Brice didn't ask her to.
"I don’t hate you," she told him, "I want you to know that. I just want you to be better. I think you can be better. I know you can be better.”
Brice could feel her looking at him. He didn’t look back.
"I just know that a lot of people look up to you now," she sniffed once, "It’s not just Jimmy anymore. It’s not even just James. You’ve got a million little Jimmy’s now, thinking you’re the best thing ever and they want to be like you when they grow up. They need that person to be a good person, Brice. They need to know it’s not okay to talk to women like that. To treat them like that. They need to know how important it is to be gentle. To be kind. To be a good person. They need to know that, Brice. You need to know that."
The yard was quiet except for the noise behind them, muffled now, like it belonged to a different house.
Brice finally opened the can in his hands. He didn't drink from it. He just sat there holding it open, the small hiss of it already gone, and looked out at the black water he couldn't see.
"Yeah," he said. "I know."
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