“Nice to see you could both stop by,” Drew said as he rounded the corner. The two men sitting on his family room couch were staring intently at his flat-screen TV and working their game controllers. Good. If they remained focused on the game, they wouldn’t notice his ridiculous outfit. His coffee table was festooned with the remains of two large Pagliacci pizzas, dirty paper plates, and empty beer bottles. They’d been here a while. Of course there were no leftovers for him.

“Shit, McCoy, where the hell you been? I told you my mama and grandma are staying in my condo right now. Can’t game while they’re there,” Derrick said.

Seth shook his head. “I love his grandma, but she was reading Bible verses out loud while we were trying to get to the next level on Titanfall.”

“Grandma’s worried about our spiritual lives,” Derrick said. “My mama wanted me to take her to some church revival thing tonight. I love her, but it wasn’t going to happen.”

There were two grocery bags on Drew’s kitchen island. Maybe there was something edible in there. One of the bags contained two six-packs of microbrew. He glanced into the other bag, moving aside two bags of Juanita’s tortilla chips to spot four large bags of Skittles, a bag of mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and the biggest bag of plain M&M’s he’d ever seen. It was carb-loading at its finest. He was going to have to look through his own refrigerator for sustenance, it seemed.

The guys still hadn’t glanced over at him. They might put the game controllers down if some young, beautiful women walked into his family room. Then again, probably not.

“How’d you get out of that?” Drew said.

Derrick stabbed at one of the buttons on the game controller while Seth let out a groan.

“I gave five thousand dollars to the church’s building fund this afternoon. My mama acted like I gave her some diamonds. I also ordered them dinner from Lot No. 3 and told them they could watch whatever they wanted on pay-per-view,” Derrick said.

“Doesn’t your grandma like watching MMA?” Seth said.

A smile that could only be called calculating spread over Derrick’s mouth. “Why, yes. She does.”

“She seems like such a harmless, sweet little old lady,” Seth muttered. Derrick laughed out loud.

The Sharks had acquired middle linebacker Seth Taylor in a blockbuster trade with San Diego just before the start of the regular season, unloading a rookie who wasn’t cutting it at the same time. The defense kept improving, which Drew loved. Great defenses equaled championships. Seth wasn’t a bad guy, either. He’d been quickly accepted into the group of single Sharks that spent most of their free time gaming, clubbing, or both.

Derrick’s comments were punctuated by the chirping of an incoming text. Derrick grabbed it off of the coffee table and stabbed at the phone’s screen with one finger while continuing to play. “It’s my mama. She wants to know if we’re safe.” He tapped in a short message and put his phone back down on the table.

“It’s late. Don’t they sleep?” Seth said.

“Does your mama sleep when she thinks you’re up to no good?” Derrick said.

“I’m guessing all the pizza’s gone,” Drew said.

“There’s an entire extra pepperoni and sausage in the fridge,” Seth said.

Drew grabbed a cookie sheet, shoved a few slices of pizza on it to reheat them, and turned on the oven.

The TV set went blank. Drew heard groans and some choice obscenities from Seth and Derrick as they worked the game controllers.

“Goddammit, did Xbox Live crash?”

“What the fuck. I had the high score!”

Seth jumped up from the couch and tried rebooting the gaming system. It wasn’t coming back on. Drew could get upstairs, change, and rejoin them before they noticed what he was wearing. Maybe the late night, the storm (and three beers each) made them less observant.

He was wrong.

Derrick dropped the game controller onto the coffee table and whipped around on the couch to face the kitchen. Derrick looked, and then he stared at Drew.

“Hey, big guy. Did you go shopping in a dumpster earlier? What the hell is THAT?” He indicated Drew’s outfit with a nod in his direction and let out a booming laugh. “Does Coach know you’re wearing another team’s merchandise?”

Seth turned to look at Drew. “Dallas. You’re joking, aren’t you?” Seth said.

“My clothes were wet. I needed something to change into.”

“How wet were they, and what the hell were you doing earlier?” Derrick got up from the couch and moved closer. The grin bloomed over his face like a flower filmed in slow motion. “Nice logo. You were at the Westin, you dawg.”

“I was not—”

“Our boy got laid, Derrick,” Seth said.

“Doing the walk of shame, were you? This calls for a beer.” Derrick vaulted off of the couch and invaded the kitchen. “Do we know her?”

Telling them nothing happened would do no good. It was also a lie, but he knew they wouldn’t believe it. He tried it anyway. “I told you. My clothes were drenched. I borrowed these.”

“Borrowed, huh? Is that what it’s called now? I’m surprised you’re not in a better mood, McCoy,” Derrick said.

“What’s her name?” Seth said. “Are you going to see her again?”

Derrick strolled back into the family room gripping three cold and already opened beers. He handed them around. “Let’s drink to Drew’s love life.”

“Let’s not,” Seth said. “He gets more than the rest of us do.”

“Come on. Don’t you have a girlfriend?” Drew said to Seth.

“Bad topic,” Derrick warned.

“Yeah, I have a girlfriend.” Seth didn’t elaborate.

“And she’s why you’re here playing video games with two of your teammates on a Friday night,” Drew said.

“Uh huh. And I’m about to beat your ass at Madden again if we can find the game DVD.”

DREW TRUDGED INTO his bedroom after one AM. He’d made sure the guys were settled in guest rooms before hitting the sack himself. He should have been in bed hours ago. The storm raged on, though, and he couldn’t send Derrick and Seth out in it. Luckily, he had plenty of room for the guys at his place until things calmed down a bit outside. He pulled on clean, dry pajama pants and a T-shirt.

His teammates gave him shit on the regular for buying a 5800-square foot, five bedroom family house as a single guy. Whatever. They seemed to end up at his place a lot. He liked doing the yard work, and there was somewhere for his parents, three siblings, and their spouses and kids to stay when they visited. Truthfully, he bought the house because he could see his future wife and kids here. He’d like to think he could be lucky (and persuasive) enough to end up with a woman like Kendall.

She was beautiful, but that wasn’t the most attractive thing about her. She was sophisticated, intelligent, interesting, had a sense of humor, and she loved books. He also had to admit he wanted to spend some time in her bed; she pulled him toward her like metal to a magnet. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like he’d be spending any time at all with the lovely Ms. Tracy anytime soon.

He wanted to find someone he could spend the rest of his life getting to know, just like his parents had. His mom and dad had been happily married for thirty-five years now. His mom had dinner on the table every night at six. Her whole world was his dad and Drew’s brother and sisters, and he wanted the same thing: a woman who wanted to make his house a home.

If that made him old-fashioned, so be it. He loved the idea of coming home every day to a beaming woman, dinner on the table, and a few little rug rats to liven the place up.

He was used to hearing the house settle at night while he lay in bed, or the gentle patter of raindrops on the roof. The storm’s fury wasn’t letting up. Water slammed into the windows and broken tree branches thumped onto his house. He wondered if sleeping in a room with a gigantic clerestory window facing those trees was such a great idea tonight. Maybe he should move to another room, at least temporarily.