THE 90 PERCENT | joe burrow

griddy-ing fool

The team was kicking rocks when I got to work on Monday.

Like literally. I swear I saw Tee Higgins kicking a rock in the parking lot.

They were all down in the dumps after a debut game of the 2023-2024 season loss. I tried to comfort a couple of the players, but they were so aggravated, it was pointless.

Around 2, I could see a large figure in the corner of my eye, who I immediately recognized as Joe without even looking at him, "If you're just going to be pissed about the game yesterday like everyone else, give me a break man."

He held up his hands and backed away. "I was just going to give you a quote to release to the media about coming off of injury."

"I'm listening." I said, embarrassed by my immediate annoyance at him when he did nothing wrong.

"That's the quote."

"Joe." I said looking at him with pleading eyes.

"Uhhh.. my calf is performing well, I'm more mobile. There's my quote." He said teasing me for being highly professional. I acted like I was pushing up my blue light glasses, but in reality I was trying to mask the fact I was flipping him off.

He playfully scoffed and walked off.

He was becoming more intolerable by the day. I could only laugh at that.

Around 5, Aria and I finally swung around the high school to pick Leo up from tryouts.

"Coach said I'm on varsity!" He cheered from the outside of the car. "Ava made the cheer team as well, so that's cool." He said just as excited.

It was so odd to me that they told kids immediately after tryouts, that would crush my confidence if I didn't make the team.

It was like ripping off the bandaid in all the worst ways. I was just glad we didn't have to go through a disappointment period with him.

"When's your next game?" I asked while hugging him tightly. He was trying to get away from me because we were in public, but I wouldn't let him escape.

"Friday night lights this week baby." He said with a huge grin on his face.

"Ok, Aria and I will be there then."

On the ride home, I let him have the aux and blast anything he wanted, but that was a huge mistake.

I had to listen to some of the world's worst rappers.

"What are we going to do about dinner with Ja'Marr?" he asked, halfway to home.

"Why don't you grab my phone and text him that we might have to push dinner to Thursday or later Friday night?" He groaned. He hated being the bearer of bad news, especially when it was dinner with his new favorite professional football player.

Instead of doing what I told him, the little jerk pressed call and it went straight to the car system. I tried to hang up, but he answered to fast and then we were all on speaker phone.

"Leo" I hissed.

"Everything good Lia?" He asked, there was shuffling in the background.

I was about to speak, but before I could he warned me that I was on speaker phone with a bunch of football players in the locker room.

"Nothing urgent, just Leo made the varsity team so we'll have to move dinner to either Thursday, later Friday, or just cancel altogether." I said while turning onto the street our apartment block was on.

"Can I come to the game?" He asked.

"For sure!" Leo shouted from the passenger seat.

"Oh hey Leo, congrats man!" Ja'Marr continued and Leo beamed. It was insane how easy teenage boys were to please when it came to "cool bros" such as Ja'Marr Chase.