Quarterback Keeper

Welcome to the porch.

Come on up.

I’ve poured the coffee, and I’ve been looking forward to catching up with you today.

As you’ve probably seen, I’ve been more than a little preoccupied with my football books lately. Part of that is because I love them <3 and part of it is because when there’s no football to watch, I make up for it by consuming adjacent material—like the show Quarterback on Netflix—and reading/writing football romance.

The great news is that as of this week, football is back. The Hall of Fame Game happened last night, and this Saturday, I’ll be glued to my TV to watch the induction ceremony, which promises to be a tear-jerking time. I cry every year, but this year, Drew Brees, one of my long-time favorites, is being inducted. It’s quite literally on my calendar. I cannot wait.

As so often happens with my books, I didn’t set out to create a football series. I wanted to tell the story of Leo, Quinn, and Nate; I knew it would be a trilogy, and then I thought that was the end of it.

I was wrong.

First of all, it was abundantly clear that two of Quinn’s friends needed their own books. Gia and Zelda were never meant to be more than vague foils for Quinn and her drama, but both wound up with hints of their own complicated tales sneaking into the trilogy.

But I am a woman who appreciates symmetry, so after Gia and Zelda’s stories had been told in their delicious fullness (and I do ADORE those two books), I needed a third to make up the third ‘trilogy’ of standalone stories. I thought about Leo’s brothers, but Simon was already married and Danny—well, his romance is coming. Someday. I already know a little about it.

Sarah Jenkins was really my one loose end. Brought into Sugar Huddle to act as a fairly non-threatening foil to Quinn, back then I had resisted the urge to turn her into the stereotypical mean girl cheerleader. Instead, Quinn realized she liked Sarah, and even later, in Final Score, Sarah is a sympathetic character.

The truth was that Sarah really did like Leo. She liked him a lot, but she was also smart enough to realize that Quinn would always be his one and only, and Sarah, with her family background, didn’t need to be any man’s consolation prize. But Leo caused Sarah to institute her no athletes rule when it came to romance.

And then she met Gideon Maynard.

Gideon is introduced in Final Score as the quarterback for the Richmond Renegades. Rookie Leo has a brief moment with him in the locker room:

Gideon was a young QB, but he was damn good—and he came from a football legacy. I’d worked with a bunch of different quarterbacks over the years, and I knew it was in my best interest to cultivate a healthy relationship with him, for the good of the team. I’d heard scuttlebutt that Maynard could be a bit standoffish and hard to know, so I really appreciated him reaching out to me. I made a mental note to take him up on his offer.

Later, when Quinn attends Leo’s game, sitting with Ellie Iverson, she gets the scuttlebutt on the QB:

Leo had mentioned Maynard before; they weren’t as close as Corey and Leo were, but everything he’d said about the QB had been positive. I let my gaze wander over the women around us, curious to see what kind of wife or girlfriend he might have.

“Does the quarterback have anyone here?” I bent my head close to Ellie to ask her the question.

“His people are up there.” She motioned above us and to the right, where the luxury boxes were located. “Gideon’s parents have their own box. They don’t mingle with the commoners.” Her tone was dry.

“He’s not married?” I craned my neck and checked out the glass windows of the box seats, wondering which one belonged to the Maynards.

“No.” Ellie’s mouth twisted. “He had a girlfriend from college, and it kind of ended badly last year. He’s been single ever since, in spite of my frequent attempts to set him up. He says he’s not interested, so I don’t push. Much.”

“He’s good.” I watched him fire off a short precise pass to one of the receivers. “I’ve seen him play when I watched games on television. He seems very . . . focused.”

“Oh, he is that.” Ellie nodded. “I think Gideon’s biggest issue is feeling that he has to overcome the fact that he was born into a very wealthy, very influential family. His grandfather was one of the owners of the Cardinals when they were in St. Louis. The Maynards have always been involved in football, and Gideon is sort of the culmination of all their hopes, it seems. Mr. Maynard—his dad—played college ball, but he wasn’t good enough for the pros. Same with the grandfather. There was a great-uncle who played a few seasons of professional ball, I think. It’s pretty impressive that Gideon does as well as he does, given all the weight of expectation on those shoulders.”

Still, when it came time to write Sarah and Gideon’s romance, for the first time in this series, I didn’t have the wealth of incidental background that had been present for Gia and Tate or Zelda and Eli’s stories. It was also the first one that didn’t happen at least partly concurrently with Quinn and Leo’s love story; Sarah and Gideon meet at Leo and Quinn’s engagement party.

But I loved writing that book. Loved it hard. Why is it that I fall hardest for the characters who make me work for every inch of text and dialogue? I don’t know, but it’s true.

Sarah and Gideon are both wounded souls, coming from disparate backgrounds. They’re both just on the far side of recovering from some trauma.

Finding each other could be the best—or worst—thing that happened to either of them.

But we all know what it will be . . . and the final scenes in their book were some of my favorite to write.

Originally, this book was named after one of my best-loved Blue October songs, Sway. It’s since been changed to its present title, but I still hear the words of the song when I read Gideon and Sarah.

If you haven’t dipped your toe into the yumminess of Final Score, you can find it on my store or on Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play, or any number of smaller retailers.

And in case you missed it—Sugar Huddle, the first book in Going Deep is now permanently free on all vendors!

Have a wonderful, book-reading filled weekend, friends.

Until next time ...

Keep believing in happily ever after.

Love,
Tawdra