Pepper Espinoza

Patton Cooper won three national championships as the starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Marauders, but that didn’t stop them from trading him to Phoenix without so much as a warning. At thirty-two, he finds himself weighed down by old injuries and forced to start over again as a backup quarterback for an untried rookie. Deeply hurt by the betrayal of both his team and his ex-lover, Patton keeps to himself and takes what solace he can in football.<br><br>Cornerback DeShawn Jones has loved two things in his life -- football and Patton Cooper. It seems like his dreams have come true when he’s drafted to play for the Phoenix Wildcats, until he realizes the coach has no intention of letting him start, and his childhood hero is a withdrawn, wary man. But DeShawn refuses to give up on his dreams of playing, or his hope of reaching Patton.<br><br>A tentative connection forms between the two men, but the pressures of the game may be too much for the relationship to withstand. Especially when DeShawn is given the chance of a lifetime while Patton struggles not to relive the mistakes from his past.

Mr. November

Just after the two-minute timeout, Nelson broke right with a surprising swivel of the hips, dodging one tackle, feinting away from the second, and after that nobody could even get within touching distance.


The scoreboard flashed as the numbers changed, the jumbo screen showing Nelson’s run from several different angles. Twenty-nine to twenty-eight, with a minute fifty left in regulation.


“We gotta go for two,” Patton muttered, just as the speaker in his ear echoed his thoughts.


He signaled for the rest of the offense to join him in the huddle. The crowd’s chants and cheers were loud enough to make the ground tremble. Patton barely trusted himself to speak, feeling himself vibrate from the inside out. He wasn’t nervous. He didn’t know what he was, except ready to end it here.


Chapter 56