I felt Jet tense next to me but neither of us moved.
“How long did it take you make your hair all fancy like that? It would be a real shame if someone went and messed it all up.”
I had awesome hair and it did in fact take longer than I liked to admit to get in the lifted, retro style. If this dude thought he was putting his hands anywhere near my head, he had another thing coming. I was going to tell him that we didn’t want any kind of trouble, that we were happily on our way out the door, when I saw his arm start to lift up. I was going to grab his wrist and tell him to f**k off, when the guy he had tagged in the ribs beat me to the punch.
He reached out and smacked his mouthy buddy’s hand out of the way and pointed at me.
“You look familiar.”
I cut Jet a sideways look and he shrugged.
“I don’t see how. It’s our first—and last—time in here.”
The guy considered me. I mean really looked at me for a long minute until it got kind of awkward. The guy with the mouth looked like he was ready to pipe up again when the gawker suddenly snapped his fingers and broke out into a huge grin.
“I know! You played college ball for Alabama.”
I blinked and it was my turn to stare. No one recognized me from that part of my life. I mean no one. Those days were long past and I had only been on the field for one season.
“Uhh . . .” I heard Jet snicker a little next to me but I didn’t want to waste this chance at making a clean escape. “I did play, a very long time ago.”
“I graduated from the University of Alabama, so I follow the Crimson Tide like it’s my religion. You were a running back. I remember everyone saying that you had a boatload of potential. I remember thinking the coaches had some serious balls putting you in first string. You were fast, fast enough to help them get to the Sugar Bowl that year. Rowland something . . . right?”
I reached up and rubbed the back of my neck. The rest of the superfan’s cohorts had fallen quiet and were now looking at me in an entirely new way. Nothing like football to soothe the raging blue-collar beast.
“Rowdy St. James.”
He nodded. “Right. Rowdy, because you were wild and unpredictable. No one could ever tell what kind of pattern you were going to run. Something happened, though. I don’t remember what but I remember you didn’t play in the bowl game or the following season. I remember them taking about you on ESPN. You just vanished and everyone wondered why.”
That was not something I wanted to discuss, especially not with a group of guys that had been all too eager to start shit a second ago.
I shrugged and forced a sheepish grin. “Well, you know, the pressure got to me. I wasn’t ready for the big show. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
A professional football career really wasn’t in the cards for me, but it had nothing to do with the pressure and everything to do with me not being invested in it. But I wasn’t about to share that with these guys.
“You were a talented kid. It’s a shame you didn’t follow through.”
I gritted my back teeth and offered a shrug. It had nothing to do with follow-through and everything to do with the fact I nearly beat the starting quarterback to death with my bare hands a few weeks before the bowl game. Man, what was it with the ugly past rearing its head and refusing to stay in the dark where I left it?
There was only one way we were getting out of here. I reached out and clapped the superfan on the shoulder and hollered as loud as I could, “ROLL TIDE!”
It was immediately followed by an answering holler from the guy that recognized me and that of course started an epic debate about college football and the Big Ten, which of course transitioned into talk of the Broncos and their tragic loss in the Super Bowl earlier in the year. Before the guys had noticed, Jet and I managed to slip out the front door, leaving the sounds of arguing male voices and clinking beer bottles echoing behind us.
In the parking lot Jet doubled over in laughter and I couldn’t help but smack him on the back of his head as we made our way to the flashy Dodge Challenger he drove.
“Shut it.”
“What the f**k does ‘Roll Tide’ even mean?”
He popped the locks on the car and we got in.
“How about, ‘Thanks for saving us from having to fight our way out of there, Rowdy’?”
The car started with a sexy purr and I had to cringe when thundering guitars and screaming vocals assaulted my eardrums. I dug what Jet did for a living and there was no doubt that he was a very talented dude, but that metal music he liked and played was not my favorite. I reached out to turn it down without asking, which made him laugh again.
“It’s a football thing. Something you musicians wouldn’t understand.”
“Hey, I watch football when it’s on.”
“I’ve watched games with you. You watch for five minutes then check out and either get falling-down drunk or go find something to write with and end up writing twenty new songs by half time. That is not watching the game, my friend.”
He didn’t argue with me. “Still, I had no idea you were seriously famous for throwing a ball around. I mean I knew you played when you were younger, but not that you were like on ESPN and shit.”
I groaned and leaned back in the seat. “I didn’t throw a ball. I caught a ball and ran with it, and the only reason anyone cared one way or the other was because I walked away from all of it without an explanation.”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and I purposely looked away.
“I don’t suppose you want to explain it now?”
“You suppose right.”
“Well, hell. I thought my old lady was the master of keeping the past a secret. Turns out she don’t got nothing on you.”
I just grunted in response.
The truth was I never really thought about my past. I had put my heart on the line after I followed Poppy to college, watched it get shredded, and had decided then and there I was never going to invest myself in anything or anyone like that every again. I dropped out of school, not like I really had a choice after the incident with the quarterback anyway, and ended up doing the same thing Salem did, packed a bag and hit the road, leaving everything behind.
I left Texas—all the memories she held, football, college, and Poppy Cruz in the dust, where they had stayed until a few weeks ago when Salem sauntered back into my life like she had never left it.