Quarterback Draw

Now she was really into the game, and she probably asked Savannah and everyone around her a million questions. She learned more about football during that game than she ever had before, and by halftime she felt like she had a pretty good handle on the different plays. The Traders were up by seventeen points. The hometown crowd wasn’t happy at all about that, but the club room was.

They got up to stretch, and Savannah introduced Katrina, Leo, and Anya to several of the people in the room, some of them wives and relatives of the other players. Leo and Anya decided to go out and wander around. She told them to stick together.

“Should we hold hands, too?” Anya asked.

Katrina rolled her eyes. “Just don’t wander too far.”

“We’re going to ogle the souvenirs. That’s it,” Anya said. “We’ll be back in a bit.”

As they walked off, she turned to Savannah. “I probably smother them.”

Savannah shrugged. “I’m horrified at the thought of someday having teenagers. Or children. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do. I think you handle them well. You don’t seem like you’re smothering them at all.”

“Thanks. We’ve all grown up together, so I’m doing the best I can.”

“It’s all you can do, really. They seem like awesome kids. And hey, they both know football, so a point in their favor.”

Katrina smiled. “They know a lot more than I do. They’re constantly educating me. I wouldn’t know much about pop culture, the latest hot music, or social media if it wasn’t for them. Sometimes it helps having teenagers in the house. I feel so old sometimes, even though I’m only twenty-seven.”

Savannah laughed at that. “I did an image makeover for a very young entrepreneur last year. He was a software developer and I spent quite a bit of time with him. I learned a lot of things I wasn’t aware I didn’t know about. I might know clothes and image and presenting yourself to the public as a professional, but Twitter and Instagram and Tumblr and the different types of music streaming and … God, I don’t even remember the rest of it. Everything that’s now and cool and other things I don’t have the time or the energy to delve into. He was on top of it all and deeply immersed in it. Talk about feeling old. How can we be so young and be so out of the mainstream?”

“Because we spend all our time working and not enough time playing?”

“I guess. So, see, you’re learning a lot just having teens.”

“I suppose I am.”

“Besides, they can program a new phone for you. Plus, they know way more about how to find things on the Internet than we do. That’s invaluable.”

Katrina laughed. “You’re so right about that.”

The kids came back and everyone settled in for the second half. New York came back and scored twice, but so did the Traders, with a field goal and a touchdown.

Grant didn’t play the second half, nor did the other starters like Cole. She wondered if he was hurt or if there was some kind of problem, but everyone told her since this was a preseason game, the starters typically only played the first and second quarter.

“It’s just a preseason game, remember,” Leo said. “I mean the coaches are watching, sure, but a lot of the second- and third-string players come in later in the game, so it’s not like any of this means anything in terms of standings or anything. They’re really evaluating players at this point.”

“They also look at what plays work and what doesn’t,” Savannah said. “It’s a chance to try out some plays that they’ll use during the regular season.”

Katrina was learning so much about football. It was like she was getting years’ worth of information in one game.

Katrina found herself missing Grant. He really did have an imposing presence, a command of his team, and a knowledge of where his players were. The game didn’t seem as exciting without him in it. But with the help of Leo and Anya as well as Savannah, she learned even more in the second half of the game about offensive as well as defensive plays. Once the Traders were up by fourteen points, the defense came into play as the Traders tried to hold the lead deep into the fourth quarter, when New York pushed down the field.

Katrina found herself alternately watching the clock and the play on the field, hoping the clock would move faster. When the clock wound down to the two-minute warning and New York was on the five-yard line, she felt the hard thump of her heart.

“This is agony,” she said to Savannah. “What if they score? They’ll be within a touchdown.”