Page 22 of Going for Two

Going into the third game of the season, the attitude among the team was at an all-time high. I noticed fewer people were treading carefully around Nolan during the week. The offense was even starting to come together and work like a single unit. Which was all due to Nolan utilizing the respect he’d garnered from his career for the good of his team.

The team carried that progress into the third game and walked right by the Nashville Smokies in a shutout win. Nolan took a few sacks still during the game, but I watched him get back up without any hesitation before getting back in the huddle with his team and proving to them why he was their leader.

After I had finished all my treatment duties for both Nolan and Derek after the game, I excused myself to get ready for a date that I had agreed to earlier that day. I hadn’t given up on the dating app that Maggie and Olivia had set me up on just yet, butall the dates I’d been on thus far had been more disappointing than anything.

I could hear the music kick on in the locker room as I finished applying my makeup, which meant the media were long gone and it was just the team.

My date was in downtown Chicago at an Italian restaurant I hadn’t been to yet. My date—Henry, a tech engineer—had suggested it. I had told him that I may be a little late getting there depending on how quickly I could get out of the stadium after the game and the traffic that would allow me to get across town to the restaurant. Henry had gotten at least one point in my book for not asking any questions about how someone like me got a job in the NFL—I’d gotten five of them just this week in my dating app instant messages—and instead told me to take my time.

Maybe chivalry wasn’t dead.

The hallway was almost empty with only a few players trickling toward the player parking lot after their postgame showers. The music that had been coming from the locker room turned off as soon as I stepped out into the hallway dressed and ready for what I hoped would be a romantic Italian dinner with Henry.

As I turned to walk to the parking lot where my car was parked, the door to the locker room burst open. Derek, Hawthorn, and Nolan were too busy laughing at whatever they had been talking about before to notice me standing there at first until Derek almost knocked me over.

“Lottie!” Derek exclaimed. “I didn’t see you standing there. I’m so sorry.”

Derek reached out to steady me before I ended up on the ground.

“You look nice, Lottie.” Hawthorn gave me a small nod of approval at the outfit I had planned for tonight’s date.

I had picked my favorite black dress and paired it with my knee-high black boots before topping the outfit off with my double-breasted brown wool coat. My hair was still up in the ponytail I had worn for the game, but I had slicked back any stray hairs that had pulled loose.

“Thanks, Hawthorn. Great game, guys,” I told them before trying to excuse myself from the conversation to get to my date on time.

“You have plans tonight?”

I glanced back over my shoulder to see Nolan’s eyes roaming over me from my hair to my boots.

“A date actually.” I gave Nolan a smile that I hoped relayed that I was still working hard on my goals just like he had been. But instead of him giving me a smile back at the bucket list item I was trying to cross off, he gave me a frown. I could see Derek glancing between me and Nolan as we stared at each other in a familiar standoff.

“Where’s your date?” Derek’s overly excited question managed to break the tension building between me and Nolan.

“Formento’s, over in West Loop. I heard they have one of the best meatballs in town.”

“My wife, Sarah, loves that place. We’ve celebrated every pregnancy there,” Hawthorn told me.

Who would have thought Hawthorn was a hopeless romantic?

“I need to get going though so I’m not later than I already am. Henry was nice enough to understand that I was coming from the game.”

I heard Nolan scoff from behind me as I turned to walk away. “Henry?”

I didn’t bother giving him a response. He knew that the only date I’d had so far had been a dud and this one could very well be more of the same, but who was he to judge? I had withheld myjudgement when it came to his actions so far this season. I had stood by and proudly watched him try to change himself for the better.

Couldn’t he do the same for me?

“Have fun!” Derek called after me, in a suspiciously happy tone.

Henry had already ordered one of the more expensive bottles of wine by the time that I arrived. But by the end of the salad appetizer, there was still no spark between the two of us.

He was the perfect picture of charming, with blonde hair and blue eyes, a button-down shirt that was tucked into a pair of khakis, and a blindingly white smile. But when the conversation mostly centered around the finance app that he was currently building for his new company, I realized that I would need more than one bottle of wine to get through this dinner.

Only during the main course did Henry finally decide he would ask me about my own life after he’d told me nearly every detail of his own.

“So, you work for the Chicago Bobcats?”

“I’m their in-house physical therapist,” I told him.