So I coyly texted:Go get some sleep so you don’t screw up tomorrow.
Connor:Oh, you are a fucking FLIRT, Distefano. Sweet dreams.
21
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 deep 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 weactually 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 todoabout 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.
Zeromargin for error.
Because between the possibility of staying with Minnesota after this season and the possibility of…everythingwith Duffy, I was almost paralyzed by the fear of messing things up.
It all felt close, and that was a little bit terrifying.
22
Duffy