1: The Combine (Bryce’s POV)

Bryce

It felt like I was starting all over again.

It felt similar to when I left Dallas after high school and started playing for Mifflin.

A whole new chapter of my life.

Except this time, everything really was on the line.

The NFL was right there.

Sitting in the palm of my hand.

This week would determine just how close I was to finally having everything I'd ever worked for.

I flew out to Indianapolis after the best two months of my life with Joelle.

New Year's was perfect.

January was perfect.

Valentine's Day was perfect.

Everything in my life was absolutely perfect.

This was the final piece of the puzzle.

Registration came first at the Combine.

I checked in, got my credentials, my schedule and more shit with my name slapped across it.

From there, everything moved so fast.

Meetings.

Orientation.

Measurements.

Drug panels.

More medical evaluations.

They wanted to know every injury I'd ever had.

Every major hit.

Every surgery.

If anything hurt that probably shouldn't.

They took blood and did scans and pulled at my arms and legs.

Seriously, they had me bending limbs in directions I didn't know they could bend.

By the end of all of that, I felt less like a football player and more like a livestock animal being inspected before an auction.

Which, I basically was.

Height.

Weight.

Hand size.

Arm length.

Wingspan.

I stood there in compression shorts while a room of fully grown men wrote numbers down on clipboards.

Stand there and be impressive.

I could do that with ease.

The hard part came next.

Interviews.

Those were significantly worse.

One team wanted to know my reasoning for throws I made during a game TWO YEARS AGO.

Another wanted me to draw out a play from Mifflin from memory.

Then they erased it and made me draw their version of the exact same play.

Another coach put defensive coverage on a screen for a few seconds before shutting it off.

Then he asked me what I saw so I told him.

He changed it to a different video and asked the same question again.

So I told him what I saw that time.

They asked about Coach Dalton.

My teammates from high school.

My teammates from college.

My leadership.

My hometown.

My grades.

My social media presence.

My temperament.

My mistakes.

Then...

They actually asked about Joelle.

That one caught me all the way off guard.

"You recently got engaged?"

I looked down and nodded before picking my head up again.

The coach across from me smiled.

"You're a young man with an NFL career ahead of you. You sure you're ready for marriage?"

Yes, Dad.

"Yes."

He paused and his face changed to something unreadable.

Like I wasn't supposed to sound so sure about that.

I didn't change my answer.

I didn't know this guy and he didn't know me or what me and Joelle had.

There wasn't anything else to say.

Marrying Joelle was hands down the easiest decision I'd ever make in my entire life.

Football was just what I needed to do in order to support us.

This wasn't a game to me.

This was my life on the line.

My life with Joelle.

By the time workout day came around, my body was ready and my mind was focused.

This was what I'd spent the last two months preparing for.

The forty yard dash.

Jumping.

Agility.

Position drills.

Throwing.

That was the part I cared about.

That was what I did best

And apparently, I was doing everything pretty fucking well too.

I knew I was fast.

I knew I was strong.

I knew I had an impressive set of skills in comparison to a traditional quarterback.

I knew what my body could do.

After my forty, I heard the reaction before I even saw my time.

A few guys near the sideline turned toward the board.

One of them swore under his breath.

I straightened and looked over at the officials with a nod.

Like I knew I could do that.

The jumps went the same way.

Then agility.

Every time numbers went up, more heads turned my way if they weren't in my direction already.

Coaches whispered to each other.

Scouts wrote something down.

Cameras started following me more than they had before.

One of the other quarterbacks walked past me after my last drill and shook his head like I was single-handedly killing his career.

By the time we moved into position drills, I was sitting at or near the top of almost every physical category they'd put me through.

Still, I didn't care about that.

I could run.

I could jump.

So what?

I wasn't trying to get drafted to run track for the Olympic team.

I was a quarterback.

So when they finally put a football in my hand, everything and everyone else disappeared.

I rolled the ball between my palms and found the laces.

This was the part they actually needed to see.

I could throw.

To receivers I barely knew.

Through routes we'd hardly practiced.

Every NFL team watched every move I made.

When the ball left my hand on the last route, there wasn't anything else I could do.

I'd trained.

I'd interviewed.

I'd let them poke and prod at every part of my body.

I'd answered every question.

I'd thrown every ball.

Now they got to decide what I was worth.

By the time I got back to my hotel, I was done.

My physical and social battery was practically empty..

Mentally, I didn't want to answer another fucking question for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, everybody else in my room had other plans.

My new agent Jason was sitting across from me talking about teams.

My dad was beside him talking running numbers.

Marcus stood near the window with his phone to his ear in one hand and one of his tablets tucked beneath his arm.

Coach Dalton and Coach B were on a video call through my father's laptop on the coffee table.

And everybody was talking to me.

At me.

Around me.

Over each other.

"Did you get a chance to speak with that scout from—"

"Yep," I cut Jason off.

"What did he say?"

"Something about... something."

Jason stared at me.

I stared back before I sighed

"He said a lot of shit."

My dad eyed me over, annoyed.

"Bryce..." He leaned forward in his chair. "We need you to lock in here for twenty minutes."

I was locked in!

"I've been locked in for a month, Dad."

He just rolled his eyes.

My phone sat facedown on the coffee table.

I'd been staring at it for the past half hour.

Joelle and I hadn't spoken all week.

Not once and that was her idea.

She said she didn't want to distract me.

I told her she wasn't a distraction but she didn't want to hear it.

We agreed I needed to focus on football for one fucking week without worrying about what she was doing, where she was, who she was with or whether she made it home okay.

So we made a deal.

No calls.

No FaceTime.

No texting.

Nothing until I finished the Combine.

At the time, I agreed because it made her happy.

I guess she felt like she was helping.

Being supportive.

But no.

It was a terrible fucking idea.

I missed her more than anything.

"Bryce."

I looked back up.

Coach Dalton was staring at me through the laptop.

"What?"

Coach B laughed beside him.

"Did you hear anything anybody just said?"

I shrugged.

"No."

My dad leaned back in his chair with a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"At least he's honest," Jason rubbed his eye.

I looked back at my phone.

I did what Joelle asked.

I was done now.

Which meant our deal was done too.

"Can we finish this tomorrow?" I asked. "I'm tired."

"No," Jason and my father said in sync.

Immediately.

I looked at them with a glare.

"We need to go over which teams expressed the most interest while it's still fresh to you. Marcus needs to discuss the media response to today. Your coaches want a rundown. Your father has—"

"Nothing," my dad interrupted. "I have nothing left to say that he's going to listen to until he calls Joelle."

Exactly.

My eyes went back to my phone.

Jason looked between the two of us.

"You haven't spoken to Joelle?"

"Not since Monday," my Dad answered for me. "She made the smart decision of putting herself aside for Bryce. I respect that."

God, I always wanted my father to come around to Joelle.

But now, it was just weird.

Like he might actually like her...

Jason glanced at his watch.

"We're almost finished."

Everybody kept saying that.

Almost finished.

One more question.

One more conversation.

I leaned forward, rested my elbows against my knees and picked up my phone.

Jason stopped talking.

"Hey— I— We're not finished!"

"I am," I laughed.

Then I stood up and walked away.

Out of the hotel room.

Away from everyone.

I was already pulling up Joelle's name before the door shut.

Just when I was close to hitting that call button—

"What's up, Valentine."

Jesus Fucking Christ!

Motherfucker made me jump like three feet in the air.

I closed my eyes and let out a deep, exasperated breath.

Andrew.

Fucking.

Bennet.

Of course we'd be in the same hotel.

A lot of the players were staying here. It was the nicest one.

But ew.

Being on the same floor as this guy was aggravating.

"What the fuck do you want?"

Andrew held his hands up.

"Damn. Chill out. You know, we might be teammates one day."

"Unlikely," I rolled my eyes

"You never know."

I looked him over.

That smug smirk on his face.

"Eh..." I folded my arms. "You'll get traded enough times so you're right. Possibly."

His smirk dropped.

Mine appeared.

"Funny," he deadpanned.

Drew stared at me for a second, calculating before reaching into the pocket of his sweats and pulling out his phone.

"But you know what's really funny?"

"I don't care."

"This," he finished anyways.

He turned his phone around.

It was a picture of Joelle.

I immediately recognized it.

She was standing behind the register at the Market in that stupid smock and her curls pulled into a messy bun.

The picture was from a month ago.

I'd already seen it.

So had half the fucking country.

I looked from the screen to Andrew.

"What about it?"

"Your fiancée is working at a grocery store..."

"I know," my jaw clenched

"You're about to make millions of dollars and you've got your girl ringing up milk and flour?"

My jaw tightened.

"I told her to quit a hundred times..." I muttered under my breath.

"A hundred-million-dollar arm and your future wife still has to clock in?"

"Shut up. She doesn't have to do anything."

That was the fucking problem.

Joelle wanted to work.

God knows why...

Andrew zoomed in on the picture.

I stared at him.

Why the fuck did he even have this saved?

"She looks different..." he grinned. "From the last time I saw her."

My eyes narrowed.

"Different? How?"

He shrugged.

"I don't know. Bigger."

I stared at him before swatting his hand away.

"Bigger?" I glared.

"Yeah. Like she put on some weight."

I don't know why I was so offended by that comment on her behalf.

I looked down at the picture on his screen again.

She just looked like Joelle.

Same face.

Same hair.

Same everything.

I saw her every day.

If Joelle gained three pounds on a Monday, I wasn't going to wake up Tuesday and notice.

"She looks the same."

Andrew smirked.

"Whatever you say."

"And I wouldn't give a fuck if Joelle weighed four hundred pounds," I continued through wherever he wanted to go with this.

He laughed.

"How romantic."

"At least she's real."

His smile faded slightly.

I noticed that and kept going to drive the point home.

"Maybe you're just used to looking at your fake, built influencer girlfriend all day."

His jaw flexed.

I tilted my head.

"What's her name again?" I raised a brow.

"You know her name."

"I really don't," I shrugged. "It's hard to keep up with that girl. Every time I see something about her, she's with a different basketball player."

Andrew's entire face dropped.

Then it changed.

Like the guy might actually fucking cry.

That rumor had been everywhere for weeks.

His girlfriend had apparently been seen leaving some NBA player's hotel.

Then another one.

Then she was on some boat in Florida with the guy.

She denied it.

He denied it.

The internet had a very different opinion on that situation.

"Watch your fucking mouth, Bryce."

"Why?"

"You don't know anything about my relationship."

"And you don't know anything about mine," I glared.

That shut him up.

I stepped closer and looked him directly in the eye.

"Joelle works because she wants to work. She looks however the fuck she wants to look. And unlike whatever you've got going on, I know exactly where my fiancée is at night."

His nostrils flared.

"Joelle is a real person," I continued. "And she's loyal."

Andrew stared at me.

I stared right back.

Then I stepped around him.

"Fuck you," he spat.

I lifted my hand dismissively without turning around.

Finally...

I looked back down at my phone and pulled Joelle's name up again.

I didn't give a shit if she'd gained weight.

And it's not like it was noticeable.

Drew was just trying to piss me off about something that was a non-issue for me.