Rooster: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (47 page)

I have Luke’s pendant on underneath my shirt, and before I get out there I give it a kiss. Coach has given the motivational talk, and I’m pumped up and ready to end this.

I look for Lucy in the crowd, and it takes me a while to find here in the chaos that surrounds us. I blow her a kiss, which she catches and places on her belly. A month and a half and it’s the size of a grain of rice, and nobody knows but the doctors and us. Lucy wants a boy and she wants to name it Luke Sebastian Vann Haden after my brother and her father, and I would be happy with either. I’m just pleased she’s pregnant in all honesty, and I still can’t believe how keen she was to begin, without any persuasion at all.

When Lucy’s a little further on, and she can’t hide her bump and longer, no one’s going to be able to say a bad word about us. The press have already done a complete U-turn over their attitudes towards me this season, and since Lucy did her Sports Illustrated interview, she’s become well liked and highly in demand. Since all that bullshit with the Cincinnati Chest and the two or three girls that came out of the woodwork afterward, we haven’t seen a single negative news story, and for the first time in what seems like forever, unless the press have something decent to say about me, they just leave me alone.

Lucy is here with her mother, Jack, Tracy, and Charlie. I extended invites to the rest of her family members as well, but Dana and Mark are currently on a break while Dana goes through therapy and Mark takes a stint in rehab for alcohol and Oxycontin addiction, so weren’t really in the best state to come. My parents are here too. Dad’s not been to a game since the last Superbowl and Mom wasn’t going to come because of the travel, but I wanted them to be here to see me win and meet the other side of the family too.

Everyone but Lucy is sat up in the posh, expensive seats. Lucy’s in the press box next to the action, as close as the marshalls will allow her to get, and I know for a fact, even when she’s nine months pregnant and ready to pop, that’s where she’ll still want to be, fighting the crowds, cheering me on, on the edge of her seat and the tips of her toes.

There’s a whole lot of commercial shit we have to run through before we actually have the privilege of starting to play, but once you’ve done one of these you know how it works, and as much as all you want to do is get the job done, this part figures into it just as much. If you can’t get through the bullshit before it, you’ve got no chance of lasting the game.

We salute the crowd, we do welcoming laps, we get past MVPs honored and we get the national anthem sung by the latest big titted, empty-headed star I should recognize but don’t. It’s not quite the Cincinnati Chest, but she isn’t all that far off, which is kind of appropriate considering we’re up against the Bengals.

Eventually, after what seems like an hour of pre-game entertainment - I swear these things get longer and longer each year - we finally take to the field.

My fourth Superbowl final, my second in just as many years, and I’m not even twenty-eight yet. I’ve got ten more years left in me, maybe even more. I’m going to take that record and smash it into so many pieces it’ll take years for someone to beat it. When I finally hang up my boots, I’m going to be remembered in this game as the man who could never be beaten. Passing yards, touchdowns, starts and finishes, I’m going to beat them all, Lucy and the rest of my family watching over me, like they were always meant to do.

The first quarter is a masterclass of football from both teams, and I’m impressed by how the Bengals take everything we throw at them and give back to us with just as much force. I’m untouchable, but they defend against us well and we have to work hard to get points on the board. We pip the quarter 10-7, which is just about a fair result for what we’ve seen. The touchdown we score is a rush from eight yards, and the one we concede a piece of outlandish brilliance by their rookie wide receiver Carlos Zane.

Zane is a constant threat in our half of the field, and what he lacks in experience he more than makes up for in speed and agility. He’s not the biggest man on the field, but with feet as quick as they are, he doesn’t need to be.

We’re the better side on paper, the better side coming into this game, but if we don’t control Zane we are likely to make this more difficult than it needs to be. Coach is aware of it too, and before we come out for the second quarter, we mix up a few of the plays and make sure everyone on our defensive line is aware who they need to be looking out for.

Apart from Zane, and a couple of veterans, their offensive line is as normal as any other team. Where the Bengals have excelled this year is in defense, and coming into this final, the only team that has conceded fewer points is us. We need to work hard to wear them down, and make sure we don’t fall asleep when they're coming at us, because if Zane gets even half an inch on one of our backs, he’s going to slice through us like a knife through hot butter.

The second quarter is a fierce battle of attrition that leaves injuries on both sides, white flags thrown to the ground, plays contested, penalties awarded and helmets knocked around like conkers. I wouldn’t call either the Giants or the Bengals dirty or violent sides, but at the end of the first half, I feel like I’ve been in a battle. Zane scores another outrageous touchdown, but it isn’t enough for the Bengals to go into the lead. We work hard and go in 24-14 up, which is a higher score than I expected at the start of the game.

I throw two perfect crossfield touchdown passes - the kind of sweet missile balls that look like they are guided by lasers - which are plucked out of the air expertly by our own rookie wide receiver.

It’s the kind of stuff you see on the training ground once every blue moon, and afterward, look around stunned, asking yourself if that really happened. The crowd goes wild when they see it, none more so than Lucy. From the point of view of a casual observer, they look like simple plays, which is where their brilliance lies. For those in the know, it is a perfect execution of something only a few people are capable of doing, and making it look so simple is nothing more than elevating sport to an art form.

Both of Zane’s touchdowns are close, but those two touchdowns of ours in the second quarter eclipse even those.

24-14 is a decent lead heading into the second half. We won last year’s Superbowl with fewer points, but in that one, we were so tight we didn’t even concede a single touchdown. The record for touchdown passes in a Superbowl final is six, and I’ve got my eyes on breaking that, even if it looks almost impossible.

Winning isn’t enough for me. I want to win better than anyone else has in the past. I want to smash my opponents into nothing, then pick up that nothing and smash it into a void so huge it’ll never come back again. This is their third final, and their third attempt at winning it. I wish them luck in making that a fourth.

We take to the field again after a half-time music show I don’t even realize is going on. I’m so focused I don’t even take my helmet off during the break, and although I’m relaxed inside, it probably looks nothing like it from the outside. All we need to do to win is hold on, but holding on was never good enough for me and all these players know it. I won’t risk losing, but I’m not a make do man either. If there are records available for the taking, I’ll go for them. If there’s a pass to play I’m going to play that same fucking pass, whether ten points in the lead or ten points behind.

We kick the second half off, and they run the ball back like they always do up into the middle of the field. We should stop them way before we do, and I make sure every single one of our players, whether out on the field on stood around me to the side of it know we can’t be complacent.

We’re winning, it’s what we do best, but there is a full half left of this game, and I’m not going to stand here and watch it slip away from us.

The Bengals aren’t exactly the best side historically, but they are strong, determined and talented in specific areas, and if we aren’t careful, one fuck up could cost us the game.

They turn one down into another and before too long, and a series of decent plays even I would be proud of producing, they’ve made it to our twenty-yard line and are bearing their teeth down upon us.

One dummied running play and a simple conversion later, and they’re only three points off our lead.

For a team that hasn’t given away more than three touchdowns in one game before, and less than two minutes played in the third quarter, I’m not exactly happy when I take to the field. Before we line up I bang helmets and make sure everyone knows that there’s a lot of football still to play in this game.

The rest of the quarter is brutal. We get another injury to our mountain of a tight end, who has to be carried off the field with a suspected twisted knee, and for a lot of the time we’re on the back foot. I’m off the field more than I’d like, and when I’m on it, nothing I seem to do has any effect. It’s frustrating, and I have to struggle hard to keep myself calm and composed, a feat I find much easier every time I look at Lucy and she smiles her loving smile down at me.

We are outplayed in the third quarter in every area. I can’t get a pass to connect, my arm feels heavy and I’m a half a yard behind the pace much more often than I’d like. I get sacked too. With our tight end replaced with a rookie, we get opened up and I get knocked to the ground with so much force I feel my head spinning. It’s not good. They’ve come out of nowhere and turned the tables on us and it means we go into the final quarter 27-28 down.

They’ve scored four touchdowns to our three and I can’t have that. They are winning by a single point, and I can’t have that either. We’ve thrown away a decent lead and I refuse to let that quarter dominate this game. We are the better team, even with the injuries we have sustained. I am the better quarterback, and I’m going to prove it if it kills me.

When we take to the field for the final quarter, I take a quick moment to go over to see Lucy. I can’t get all that close to her, and I haven’t got that much time anyway, but I just want to look into her eyes and have her look back into mine.

“I love you”, she shouts down through the roaring crowd, and even though it’s way too loud to be able to hear her properly, I do. I hear every syllable like the ringing of a bell, every word like an explosion.

“I love you”, I call back, and the smile she gives me tells me I know she’s heard me too.

27-28. I’ve been in worse situations before and come through them. I’ve overturned a twenty-eight point deficit in one game, throwing four touchdown passes and setting up a field game by playing out of my skin. I’m better now than I was then too. I’m more focused, more balanced, a complete all rounder. I’m a family man for fucks sake, and a family man can’t let down his family, can he?

Tear them into nothing and throw that nothing into the void so it never comes back.

We line up, we kick and we go head first and teeth bared, into the most important battle of my life.

I haven’t become the most valuable player four times in my career for nothing. I haven’t led this team to three Superbowl wins and four finals because I’m a journeyman quarterback. I haven’t broken every single record there is and rewritten new ones because I’m pretty good at this game. I was born to play this game and I’m not going home until I’m satisfied I’ve done just that.

I used to tell myself to do it for Luke. This time, I’m doing it for me.

We push, we fight, we take the battle to them and still they refuse to yield. Their defensive wall looks like a fortress, and every time we try and penetrate it, we get smashed back and broken away. I throw missile balls that hit their targets, but somehow we don’t move out of the middle of the field. Like two armed forces battling trench warfare, we sit in and advance very little.

They match us blow for blow, helmet to helmet, down to down. They soak up everything we give them and give it back just as hard, but we stand strong like an army defending its land to the death, and they are unable to get through and increase their advantage.

Men fall from fatigue and others from injuries that see them carried off the field never to return. I feel exhausted from the effort, my whole body heavy and covered in bruises. I’m favoring a leg because of a knock to the right ankle I think could be twisted and my head is foggy from the lights and the noise around us. I’ve given everything and more and we’re still a point behind, the clock ticking down much faster than it usually does.

With only a few minutes left, and not a single point scored by either team in this quarter, coach calls our last timeout.

This feels like a world war one battle. It feels like if I get through this alive I’ll look at life with a renewed sense of importance. If we win, it’ll be the best moment of my career, and if we lose, I’ll have given everything I have and I’ll have failed at the ultimate test.

That might not matter to anyone else and it shouldn’t matter to me, especially because of what I’ve achieved already in this game, but I know it’ll torment me until the day I die.

Coach takes me to the side for a moment. He looks at my ankle with a sigh and then he pulls down on the grill of my helmet so we are practically face to face.

“If you’re really a rhino, show me your fucking balls.”

I can’t help but laugh. The Rhino. That dumbass fucking nickname they came up with for me. When I throw that winning touchdown they’ll see that I’m not just a big dick with a small brain, I can actually play ball too.

“Get your victory lap boots on”, I say. “I’m bringing this fucking home.”