Broken Play Read online

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  BROKEN PLAY

  An Offensive Line Novel

  By Tracey Ward

  BROKEN PLAY

  An Offensive Line Novel

  By Tracey Ward

  Text Copyright © 2017 Tracey Ward

  All Rights Reserved

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, events or incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to places or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  TYUS ANTHONY

  SCOUTING REPORT

  Position: Wide Receiver

  Height: 5-11 Weight: 194 Age: 24

  Born: Texarkana, TX

  College: University of Michigan

  High School: Liberty-Eylau High School

  Draft Declaration: January 3rd

  Awards

  SENIOR YEAR:

  N/A – Entered Draft after Junior Year

  JUNIOR YEAR:

  Offensive Player of the Week

  SOPHOMORE YEAR:

  2nd Team All-American

  Maxwell Award Semifinalist

  FRESHMAN YEAR:

  Co-Offensive Freshman of the Year

  Freshman All-American

  Kick Returner Performer of the Week

  Records

  200-meter Dash

  21.90

  60-meter Dash

  6.68

  Rushing Attempts - Rookie

  376

  CHAPTER ONE

  TYUS

  October 30th

  Gillette Stadium

  Foxborough, MA

  Four years.

  Three thousand nine hundred ninety-two yards.

  Two hundred eighty-five receptions.

  Thirty-seven touchdowns.

  Three broken toes.

  One fractured rib.

  That’s what I’ve given to this team, not to mention the blood, sweat, diets, and hours spent in physical rehab. The endless immeasurables that add up to a solid sum of everything. All of me. That’s what I’ve given to them; to my family. And what do they give me in return?

  “Anthony!” Coach Allen shouts, waving his clipboard. “You’re in!”

  A silent boot up my ass.

  I pull on my helmet from muscle memory. My body does what my body has been trained to do, but what my brain wants to do is tell Coach to fuck off. Send Josh-goddamn-Ramsey in if he’s so much better than I am. And he must be, right? Otherwise why would they replace me with him?

  No one has said it, but I see it. I feel it. It’s obvious in every play he runs instead of me. Every practice he gets extra attention – attention I don’t need because I’m already hands down one of the best wide receivers in the league. But they’ve been benching me. Every. Single. Time. I touch toe to turf twice a game if I’m lucky. They’ve basically retired me while I’m still on the team, a team I’ve killed myself for, and that is some Grade A bullshit right there. I’m being humiliated game after game while they play that punk ass kid who couldn’t catch chlamydia in a sorority house while the season slips through my fingers.

  I’m angry, but I’m not stupid. There’s only one reason they’d run a tricycle like Ramsey out there when they got a Ferrari in the garage – they know about me.

  Talking to Coach last spring, I couldn’t remember my mom’s name. That shit does not go unnoticed. Not by an eagle-eyed old bastard like him. He knows my head ain’t right. And if he knows, the team manager knows. The owner knows. Maybe the whole fucking team knows, but that doesn’t matter. What matters to me is that he hasn’t said one word to me about it. He’s killing me slowly, replacing me with Ramsey right in front of my eyes, and he doesn’t have the stones to tell it to me straight. That’s what boils my blood in my veins like lava flowing under stone; unseen, unnoticed, but volatile as shit. There’s no way I can keep it all inside forever. It keeps growing and rolling, and eventually… eventually I’m gonna blow.

  “Anthony! You hear me?!” Coach shouts at me again.

  I nod, not looking at him. “Yeah,” I reply stonily. “I hear you.”

  I hear him bein’ thirsty. He’s ignored me all game and suddenly he needs me.

  It’s written across the scoreboard in bright red letters exactly why.

  Kodiaks 18. Patriots 20.

  Six seconds on the clock.

  Fourth and long.

  My helmet jostles on my head as I run to the huddle. It feels too tight. I feel underwater. Heavy. Colt rolls up next to me, sweat streaming down his face. He’s been running like a bitch, throwing himself against the line over and over again trying to get a hold on this game that’s slipping away from us.

  “Welcome to the fray, baby,” he tells me breathlessly.

  Even exhausted, he smiles at me; that big-ass grin of his that’s white teeth and infectious. But not today. Today I’m immune. I’ve been inoculated by nine hundred and twenty-eight minutes spent on the sidelines.

  Trey shifts his hands on his hips as he listens to the play coming in on the mic in his helmet. His eyes are distant but sharp, his knuckles bloody from the last sack he took. Finally he nods, looking us over. He meets my eyes with a cool stare, the ice in his veins overflowing mercifully into mine.

  “It’s coming to you, Anthony,” he promises me. “You ready?”

  “When am I not ready?” I reply calmly.

  Trey smiles faintly in reply, his face almost hidden inside the shadows of his helmet. “Sixty-five Vector Left Swing!” he shouts. “Sixty-five Vector Left Swing! On three! Go!”

  We break as a mass, moving to our positions on the line where the Patriots eagerly await us. While my brothers are broken and tired, the Pats are electric. They’re amped by t
he taste of victory on their tongues. It’s almost theirs. All they need is for this play to go south and they’ll have it. They’ll have everything. A win over the Kodiaks, a better record, and the favor of the entire nation if this matchup goes down again at the Super Bowl. There’s a lot on the line and only six seconds to take it. That’s why I’m here. Because I don’t need six seconds to win this game.

  I’ll do it in four.

  I get comfortable crouched down on the line like I’m about to run a race, and in a way, I am. I have to race the ball down the field. I have to outrun my cover, always staying ahead of him. I have to race myself, running faster than I ever have before. I’m the freshest man on the field right now. I’m a loaded gun, cocked and ready, about to rush down this field with speed these fat fucks have never known.

  I’m also a marked man. The defense knows I was being saved for this last play. They know the ball is coming to me.

  “I’m gonna break you, little man!” a Patriot shouts at me from across the line. He points at me, warning me. Tracking me.

  I shake my hands out at my sides, allowing the slightest of smiles; all arrogance and acceptance. “Come and get me, baby.”

  “Oh I’ll come for you, fucker! I’ll come for you and your mama!”

  Jokes on him; my mom’s dead. He’ll never touch either of us.

  The ball is snapped. I launch into action as helmets and pads clash loudly to my right. Men shout angrily, but I ignore it. I put my focus on my route and I run it like lightning. My cover comes for me, but I slip easily out of his grasp. He’s big and he’s fast, but he’s not agile. Not like me. He can’t change direction on a dime without giving up speed, a natural law of life that I do not abide by. I juke him nearly out of his shoes, changing it up so fast, so many times, he’s gonna be dizzy for a week. When he finally gets a read on where I’m really going, I’m already gone.

  The pass is late. Domata was probably tied up in a blitz attempt, but finally it comes. I keep running, watching over my shoulder, reading the arc of the ball to get myself under it. It’s gonna be close. Trey has thrown it ahead of me straight into the far right corner of the end zone. I have to leap into the air to catch it before it goes out of bounds. My defense is close behind me but he’s giving me enough space to avoid a flag. I have just enough room to reach up and snag the ball out of the air. I tuck it to my chest just as I start to lose momentum. I’m coming back down to earth and I have to make damn sure my feet land inside the end zone.

  A toe inside is practically all I get. I land on my right foot hard before stumbling and rolling across the field to an abrupt stop. The whistle blows. The catch is good.

  Touchdown, motherfuckers.

  The stadium explodes, the fans crying and screaming together for opposing reasons that sound the same inside my helmet; muffled and indistinct. It’s far away, on the other side of my pounding heart and labored breath. Their joy and sorrow just on the other side of my anger.

  Lefao’s meaty hand reaches down for me. His face is shrouded inside his helmet, the sun gleaming behind it, blinding me as I take his hand to let him pull me up. He launches me onto my feet like I weigh nothing. Like I’m smaller than one of his fifty kids he’s got at home.

  He swats me proudly on the ass. “You did it, brotha!”

  Down the sidelines, through the sea of people swarming the field, I see Coach Allen. He’s standing silently. Watching me.

  I knock back my helmet, letting it drop to the ground behind me. I walk away from it slowly. I grip the bottom of my jersey that feels like it’s two sizes too tight and I yank up hard, pulling it over my gear. I hear it rip in my ear.

  It’s the loudest sound in the stadium.

  The guys see where I’m going. They see the look on my face. Several men drop in around the coach to try to stop me from doing something stupid. I stop five feet and six hundred pounds of Kodiak defense away from Coach. My chest aches, my lungs screaming, but my mind has gone dark.

  “Why’d you do it?” I demand, my voice unrecognizable as I ask the question that’s burned in my brain for months. My ears are ringing, stuffed tight with anger and alarm bells that rattle inside my brain. “Why the fuck did you let ‘em draft Ramsey? You don’t need him. You got me.”

  Coach Allen keeps his composure, his old eyes hard bits of blue stone. “This isn’t the place, Tyus. It’s not the way.”

  “You didn’t leave me any other way, did you?”

  He doesn’t answer. I brought him honesty and he gives me more silence in return.

  I can’t stand it.

  My temper flares, blinding hot and agonizing in my eyes. The jersey in my fist burns like fire, so I throw it at his feet, relieved to be rid of it. To be done with this.

  “I’m not your fuckin’ safety net,” I tell him bitterly, my lips curling away from my teeth in a snarl of disgust. “Get your boy Ramsey to bring you the V next time. I quit.”

  I leave the field. The team, the fans, the world; they watch me walk away, disappearing into the darkness of the tunnel. But that’s where they lose me. They don’t see me burst into the empty locker room, heading straight for the showers. No one knows I turn on the water, cold as ice, fully dressed. They have no idea I’m barely breathing. Violently shaking.

  No one sees me vomiting onto my cleats, not even me, because I’m blinded by the screaming pain inside my skull.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MILA

  Tyus Anthony just quit the Kodiaks.

  I can hardly believe it. I’m frozen in place, my eyes wide, my hand over my mouth. I literally gasped when he threw his jersey down. It shocked and devastated me, gut punching me in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I’ve been to every Kodiak game for the last ten years – since I was a nine year old girl with long, black pigtails and a personalized jersey on my back – and I’ve never seen anything like what happened on the field today.

  I’m not alone.

  The stadium is in chaos. The fans have gone insane. The doors to the skybox patio are closed, keeping out the cold, but the sounds of madness seep in. The Patriots’ shouts of anger rise up through the stands, swirling and mingling with the triumph of the Kodiaks like smoke from a fire. A fire lit by Tyus Anthony.

  Daddy inhales, letting it sink into his lungs. He tastes the atmosphere on his tongue before exhaling sharply, expelling the flavor with disgust.

  “Goddamn it,” he growls. His whiskey glass is held tightly in his right hand. The ice sits perfectly still inside, unshaken by his anger. He holds it all in, his hands as steady as time.

  Uncle Grant grunts with disdain. “It’s a power play. He’ll be in your pocket looking to get paid within the hour. I guarantee it.”

  “You’d know what that looks like,” I mutter under my breath.

  He glares at me with heat but no sound. Daddy wouldn’t like it if he came at me, and Uncle Grant doesn’t do anything his brother doesn’t like. Not if he wants to eat tonight.

  Daddy looks pointedly at Keith sitting at the end of the bar. Keith is a big ball of sweaty butter parading as the Kodiak’s General Manager. In a lot of ways, Keith is the boss. The coaches answer to him, he makes the final call on Draft picks, so he essentially builds the team. But Big Bill Greene owns the team, so in one way, the most important way, he’s the real boss. And Keith and his receding hairline know it.

  When his superior turns to him, Mr. Margarine visibly starts secreting oil.

  “Get him back,” Daddy demands.

  Keith blinks rapidly. “I—he can’t.”

  “He can’t what?”

  “He can’t quit. His contract isn’t up. Not until the end of this year.”

  “Do you really believe he’s thinking about his contract right now?”

  “No?”

  “‘No?’” Daddy echoes. He takes a step closer to Keith. “Are you asking me or answering me?”

  “Answering,” he replies firmly, but his eyes dart to the side as he does it. He’s trying to be confident but he
doesn’t have a spine so he just looks confused instead.

  Daddy is going to tear him apart.

  “Tyus is thinking about Josh Ramsey and all the times we benched him in favor of an amateur,” I fill in for Keith, saving his unworthy ass from the wrath of Big Bill Greene. Not because I care about the guy, I don’t, but I’m not in the mood to mess around. This is serious. The team is in turmoil and we have a Super Bowl to think about.

  Daddy points at me approvingly. “See, that’s an answer. How is it that my nineteen-year-old daughter has a better grasp of the situation than my GM?”

  “She’s very intelligent,” Keith answers, but it sounds like he’s asking again.

  “You’re damn right she is. So what’s the deal? Why aren’t we playing him?”

  “Coach Allen says he’s injured.”

  “He didn’t look injured just now when he won us the goddamn game.”

  “He has an old knee injury that acts up.”

  “That’s Colt Avery,” I correct him, wishing I didn’t have to. Daddy will only get angrier every time I have to step in to do Keith’s job for him. “He got injured back in college. That injury took him out late last season. He’s back now. He’s fine.”

  Keith frowns at me. “Are you sure?”

  “Google it.”

  “Jesus Christ, Keith,” Daddy mutters, draining his whiskey. “Hit me with it, sweetie. What’s Anthony’s issue?”

  “Back spasms,” I answer immediately. “It gives him trouble whenever he takes a hard hit. He’s hard to catch, it’s rare, but it happens and we lose him for a game almost every time.”

  Paul, the Kodiaks’ very tall, very brilliant cap manager, disagrees with me. “It’s not that rare. He took two hits last season that left him concussed. It’s why Coach Allen is afraid to play him.” He adjusts his dark Clark Kent glasses on the bridge of his nose, not afraid to look me in the eyes as he contradicts me. “He’s fragile.”

  “But talented as hell.”

  “I’m not arguing that. He’s a last resort is all I’m saying.”

  “Not anymore he’s not.” Daddy points to Keith, hesitates, then swings his finger to Anders, his obedient assistant. “Anders, go get them. Anthony and Allen. Bring them to the boardroom downstairs. I don’t want Tyus Anthony leaving this building until I talk to him personally. I sure as shit don’t want him getting to the press before we get to him.”