On the eighth play, Riverside was supposed to run a dive to the right between the center and guard. I spotted their tackles rock back and drop their outside foot, indicating a pass. We had an all-out blitz called that was precisely the wrong play if they ran play-action, where they would pull the ball from the runner and throw it. With all our players sucked in playing the run, it would be simple to toss it over their heads and count on your receiver slipping one tackle attempt to score.
“Call time!” I yelled at Coach Hope.
Thank goodness he didn’t stop to think about it. I looked across the field and saw their coach throw his clipboard on the ground. We were in his head, and he wasn’t sure how we knew what he planned to do.
When the defense came over, Coaches Hope and Rector looked at me.
“Their tackles indicated a pass. We were about to give up a big play,” I explained.
“I didn’t see it,” Tim admitted.
“Okay, going forward, I’ll have David clap if it’s a pass play,” Coach Rector suggested.
I didn’t call him out on it, but I suspected he’d missed the linemen’s stance, too. As a quarterback, one of my main jobs was to read the defense. If you knew what to look for, teams gave off little tells showing what they planned to do. The good ones then used false tells to trap you. It was a game of cat and mouse, and you hoped you were the cat most of the time.
By halftime, Riverside hadn’t crossed the 50 yard line, and we’d punched in two more scores to make it 28–0. Not only did we have the lead, we would get the ball to start the second half.
Coach Hope split us up between offense and defense. I went over with the offense to hear what Coach Mason had to say.
“We’re going to open it up in the second half and start to pass the ball. You think you’re up to that, Son?”
“Yes, sir,” Trent said with confidence.
The second week of preparation had been what he needed. He looked like the cocky leader I’d seen when I came back from playing baseball.
In the second half, we steamrolled them. With the addition of the short passing game, Riverside could no longer just play the run. That opened up the field for Ty to do what he does best. He ended up scoring six touchdowns and rushing for 410 yards. The final score was 59–7.
◊◊◊
There are no direct flights to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, unless you take a private charter. Because this was an official visit, we had to fly commercial. The closest airport we could get a flight to was Birmingham. From there, the University of Alabama had a bus take us from the airport to the hotel we were staying at. By the time we got there, we were all exhausted. With all the other recruits and their families arriving at the same time, check-in was total chaos.
Some poor lady, who looked to be my mom’s age, had three babies to contend with. They were all crying, and nothing she tried worked. Mom looked like she was having flashbacks from her two weeks of watching all our little ones.
“Go help her,” she ordered me.
I walked over to her and smiled.
“Mind if I help?” I asked the woman. “I seem to have a way with little ones.”
That was when I got a close look at them. There were two little boys who had curly blond hair and blue eyes, and a little girl with black hair and brown eyes. If I didn’t know that Coby was at home, you could have convinced me that either of these boys was him. I blinked a few times and froze. Could it be?
“Mom, Dad, get over here,” I called.
I picked up the little girl.
“Hello, Angel. What’s your name?” I asked.
If I was right, she was just a few months older than Coby. She blinked at me and stopped crying. I handed her to Dad.
“What’s going on?” Mom asked.
“Look at her closely.”
My parents gasped as I picked up the two boys. Most babies sort of look the same if you glance at them casually. When you have one of your own, though, you can pick your child out of a field of a hundred babies without even trying. The only difference between the two boys and Coby was that they had curls in their hair. The little girl had dark hair and brown eyes, but she looked just like my son in almost all her other features.
“Hey!” I exclaimed to get their attention.
My deep voice seemed to distract them, and the boys both looked at me with tears still in their eyes.
“Are these …?” Dad asked.
“I think they are,” I said.
◊◊◊
Chapter 29 – You’re Both 100% Sure? Friday October 21
My mom was of two minds. The first had me going to the vet with Duke and us both getting fixed. I was sure Duke wasn’t on board with that idea. The second was reveling in the possibility that she had a little granddaughter in her arms. I figured the little girl couldn’t be mine. Dawsons only had boys. The only reason we had a little girl in the family was that Greg had adopted Mac.
I spotted Ashley Kincaid and Scarlet White, the two girls I suspected were the mothers of these children. These two beautiful and elegantly dressed Southern belles, one blonde and one with silky black hair, were walking towards me with sober, expectant looks on their faces. I also felt Brook’s presence at my side as she somehow knew she needed to find me.
Every teenaged male’s worst nightmare had tripled with the three little ones. Then I thought of Brook standing next to me. Make that quadrupled.
Every guy on the face of this Earth probably has had two or three ‘oh, shit!’ moments in his life where he can’t help but think, ‘What have I done?’
I was having one of those moments.
Both Ashley and Scarlet hesitated when they saw my mom holding the little girl and me holding the two boys. Two young men behind them bumped into them when they stopped. Another woman, whom from her looks I assumed was Ashley’s mom, managed to skirt the four without mishap.
Scarlet’s nervousness was plain to see, but she gulped and came up to me with a look of determination.
“I see you’ve met my little girl, Carol,” she said, finally looking at her child. Then she indicated the two boys. “Dawson and Allen are Ashley’s boys.”
They were named after my mom and me. It was a shrewd move because something like that pulled at your heartstrings. My dad cast an obviously troubled look at Scarlet.
“I hate to ask …” Dad started.
“David is listed as the father on the birth certificates,” Scarlet answered.
“And you are?” Mom asked, clearly not knowing what to think.
“Scarlet White,” she replied and took the little girl from my mom.
You could see by the little girl’s fine black hair that she was Scarlet’s daughter, just as you knew Ashley was the mother of the two blond-haired little boys.
“Ashley Kincaid,” she answered as she took one of the little boys from me.
My teammates, their families, Cassidy, and Fritz all stood behind my parents, obviously listening intently.
I looked over at a small commotion to see two men my dad’s age slowly and deliberately step around the rest of their party. Each of them wore the ‘righteously pissed-off daddy’ look as if it had been tailored for them.
“Is this the boy who knocked up my little girl?” asked the dark-haired man I guessed was Scarlet’s dad.
Ashley and her parents cringed at what looked to be heading toward a nasty public confrontation. Scarlet, however, took it in stride.
“Yes, he is.”
“We need to have a talk, boy.”
I bristled at the ‘boy’ reference. I only kept from snapping back because I was holding what I suspected were my sons.
“Sir, right now, I need to sit down with your daughter and find out exactly what is going on. Once we’ve sorted that out, we’ll have all the parents involved. This is something I had no idea about.”
One of the two younger guys tried to step between us.
“Oh, I think we all need to be involved in this,” he said, trying to insert himself into the center ring of this circus.