Damaged Petals.

[Captain Canada]

Mrs. Lafitte reference shook the block

Hanging a Nike marketing campaign on the most dysfunctional, toxic protagonist there is is certainly ... a choice.

[Caesar]

Mrs. Lafitte reference shook the block

Didn’t even register to me because no Mrs. Lafitte in the D2L universe would be folding some white man’s laundry.

[djp73]

Interesting development with Brice trying to play dad

[Soapy]

Serena bailing lmao

apparently taking care of a baby ain't worth a Birkin. Brice gonna hire the hottest nanny and make James a brother.

Can't believe brady2moss just compared Brice Colton to Tom Brady. you really sold your soul for this trash ass white boy

to both comments

As he emerged from the bathroom, towel around his waist, he nearly collided with Serena in the hallway. She had her bag over her shoulder, keys in hand.

“I’ve got that thing,” she said vaguely, not meeting his eyes. “You good?”

Before Brice could answer, she was already moving past him, the front door closing behind her.

PRAISE BE. THE SISTER HAS BEEN RELEASED FROM THE SHACKLES OF THE YAKUBIAN MENACE

A national championship winning quarterback on the brink of generational wealth?

*also a complete POS who can count the people he can really depend on with one hand...and that's only one

2nd hates her family so much she will probably move across the country and never talk to them again when she graduates

and the third one dead



you sure baby jimmy gonna beat those odds?!

most people would take a 1 in 3 chance at generational wealth brudda

Mrs. Lafitte reference shook the block

Hanging a Nike marketing campaign on the most dysfunctional, toxic protagonist there is is certainly ... a choice.

They found their Ant Edwards

Mrs. Lafitte reference shook the block

Didn’t even register to me because no Mrs. Lafitte in the D2L universe would be folding some white man’s laundry.

Interesting development with Brice trying to play dad

indeed

[Soapy]

[Soapy]

Season 8, Episode 1
The ceiling tiles stared back at Brice like blank pages of a book. Brice laid there for an extra beat, cherishing that the day hadn’t started. Just silence and the weight of his own breath.

His phone buzzed against the nightstand. He let it vibrate three more times before reaching over, squinting at the screen. He quickly typed before tossing the phone aside and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

The bathroom was only ten steps away, pausing at the window, pulling back the thin curtain to survey Thibodaux. The view was... well, it was Louisiana. A parking lot, a strip mall, and beyond that, the vague suggestion of swamp. He stayed there an extra beat too.

In the bathroom, Brice ran the water cold, splashing his face until his skin tingled. He trimmed his beard carefully, then ran a comb through his short hair.

A knock at the door.

Brice didn’t hurry. He pulled on his navy shorts, a white t-shirt. Th lanyard went around his neck, the ID card dangling against his chest like a salesman at a conference. Another knock, this one more impatient.

When he finally opened the door, she was leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, a brown paper bag in one hand.

“Carpe diem?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Brice nodded, reaching for the bag. She pushed off the wall as he took a bite of the sandwich. “They’re already setting up on the field. You’re late. Let’s not make a habit of it."

…

The South Bend Community Pool gleamed under the noon sun, its newly renovated surfaces reflecting light like a mirage. Liz adjusted the sun hat on her head, squinting as she scanned the crowd of local politicians and community members gathered for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Baby James gurgled in his stroller beside her, his hands reaching for the balloons tied to nearby chairs.

Sophie was about a hundred yards way, laughing with a group of friends as they lounged by the pool. Tom sat beside her, face buried in his phone.

Across the pool deck, she was there too, sticking out like a sore thumb in her blazer and Hillary Clinton pantsuits, shaking hands and kissing babies on the trail.

“I’ve been thinking,” Liz began as she pushed James’s stroller back and forth. "I just think Lafayette makes a lot of sense for us right now. As a family."

Tom sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Liz, come on."

"I’m just saying. I work remote half the time anyway and you can run the business from there. Maybe come into the office once a week if you need to. I just think—"

“Brice is going to be drafted in a few months,” Tom interrupted. “He’s not staying at Purdue forever. We can’t just uproot our entire lives to follow him around the country.”

“But if we moved now, we could help with—“

“With what? The baby?” Tom shook his head. “Brice needs to figure this out on his own. We need to let him be a dad.”

Liz’s grip tightened on the stroller handle. “Right, because this is about what’s best for Brice.”

Tom didn’t respond. Instead, he glanced across the pool again, his eyes briefly meeting Britney’s before darting away.

…

The camera crew had been waiting when Brice arrived at the field. Three guys with cameras, a fourth with a boom mic, and a fifth who seemed to exist solely to hold a clipboard and look stressed.

“Okay, so we’re going to get some b-roll of you warming up,” Clipboard said. “Just act natural.”

Brice had learned, over the years, that “just act natural” was the single least natural instruction a person could receive. He nodded anyway.

“Big smile when you see the other guys,” Clipboard added, already walking backwards, already talking to someone through an earpiece.

The other guys.

Brice spotted them at the far end of the field. Keelon Russell stood with his arms folded and beside him, grinning at something on his phone, was C.J. Carr, still looking out of place in his Michigan gear.

Brice took the final bite of his sandwich.

The cameras swung toward him as he crossed the field. Shoulders back, chin up.

"What’s up, baby?” Keelon dapped him up.

"Getting to it," Brice gave him a nod, then turned to the former Notre Dame quarterback. “C.J.”

Carr looked up from his phone, that grin widening. “You’re late, man.”

“I’m on time. You’re just early.”

“We’ve been out here twenty minutes, bro.”

“Then you wasted twenty minutes of your life standing in Louisiana,” Brice spread his hands. “That’s on you.”

Keelon laughed, a low rumble. The cameras loved it. Brice could tell by the way one of the operators stepped half a foot to his left, adjusting the angle.

They ran through the b-roll. Walking together along the sideline, talking and laughing, which required approximately zero direction because Keelon was genuinely funny and Carr was genuinely annoying, and both of those things made conversation easy. They threw some routes with a few of the high school kids who were already filtering onto the field, and the cameras caught Brice dropping a ball into the hands of a skinny sophomore from somewhere in Georgia who looked about as nervous as could be.

Brice remembered being that kid.

After forty minutes, Clipboard called cut, and the camera operators started reviewing footage on their monitors. The second the cameras dropped, C.J. walked over and stood next to Brice with his arms crossed, watching the monitors.

"It’s a good thing we’re not having a modeling show in October," C.J. scoffed, "You’d beat all of us, Hollywood. You sure you still play football?"

"Being a national champion has its perks," Brice shrugged with a smirk, "Projected number one draft pick. Best player in college football. You know how it is."

"Yeah, I’m sure you do," C.J. let out a small laugh.

Brice glanced over. "You got something to say?"

"Nah," C.J. shook his head and tried to hid his grin, "Just a lot of talking for a guy who still has to see me in a few months."

"We play you guys this year?" Brice shrugged, "Must have slipped my mind."

"I had you crying after your first college game or did you forget that part? You’re drinking the Brand Brice Kool-Aid, my friend. Never get high on your own supply."

Brice’s smile thinned. "And I returned the favor. Ran you out of my city. Don’t get selective with your memory.”

"I love that for you," C.J. laughed, "I mean, everyone should get to feel special every once in a while."

“I’m not,” C.J. said calmly. “I just don’t need to remind people every five minutes.”

Keelon let out a quiet “ohhh” under his breath, half-laughing.

"You’re such a bitch," Brice shook his head as he looked at the ground,

"Boys, boys, boys," Keelon said through a forced smile, "There are children around. And cameras. And the hundred of mics. Courtesy of yours, truly."

"Don’t worry, they won’t catch any of this," C.J. smirked, "They’re trying to make Brice over here look good. Miracle workers, honestly."

"We’ll see whose talking come next April," Brice nodded his head as he began walking towards the cluster of kids gathering around midfield.

"We don’t have to wait that long," C.J. sucked his teeth, "See you in October."

…

The sun in Cochabamba didn’t ease into the evening. It just dropped, like it had somewhere else to be, and took most of the warmth with it.

Connie wiped her brow with the back of her wrist and reached for another stack of plates, scraping the remnants of the afternoon into the compost bin. Around her, the outdoor kitchen was winding down, the folding tables half-collapsed, the serving pots drained and rinsed, the other volunteers moving with the easy, tired rhythm of people who had done this before and would do it again tomorrow.

She had found that rhythm too, somewhere in the last few weeks. That surprised her more than anything else about Bolivia. Not the altitude, not the language barrier, not the roosters at four in the morning. It was the rhythm. The way a day of service could fill you up and hollow you out at the same time, and somehow that felt like exactly the right amount of both.

She stacked another plate.

Down the makeshift walkway which was really just a worn dirt path, the last of the community members were making their way home. Connie watched them without meaning to. An older woman in a bright yellow cardigan. A group of teenage boys laughing. A man with a small child propped up on his shoulders, the little girl’s hands pressed flat against the top of his head like she was trying to steer him, and beside them, a girl, couldn’t have been older than twenty, walking close, her fingers laced through the man’s free hand.

The little girl laughed at something. Connie couldn’t hear it from where she stood, but she saw it. The way the sound moved through the girl’s whole body.

She looked away, running the sponge along the bottom of the serving pot, pressing harder than she needed to. She set the pot on the drying rack and grabbed the next one.

“You doing alright?”

It was Maya, one of the other volunteers from her church group, a twenty-two-year-old from Mishawaka who had never left Indiana before this trip and had somehow adapted to everything with an ease that Connie found both admirable and quietly annoying.

“I’m alright,” Connie said. “Just tired. You?”

Maya nodded, already moving on, already wiping down the folding table beside her.

Connie went back to scrubbing.

The walkway was empty now. The family was gone, folded into the streets beyond the path, swallowed up by the ordinary evening. She rinsed the pot and set it down and stood there for a second with the water running over her hands, cooler now that the sun was gone.

[Caesar]

Not Brice at MPA. Johnny Manziel got arrested there. Brice would 100% be a guest of the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office at their fancy new prison complex.

Also, can I just say that a dude from fucking Indiana attempting to shit on any state in the Union is ironic? But we know why Brice is so critical of the second Blackest state in the country.

Tom need to divorce Liz before the stories drop that she and Brice fucking.

Someone need to beat Brice’s ass.

Connie going find herself a Latino in Bolivia on a mission?

[Captain Canada]

Brice getting a little too bold for a man who's baby mama got murdered and baby got snatched.

Boy better pray he don't get caught lacking on the field for all that shit he's talking

[djp73]

Connie:

[redsox907]

Tom need to divorce Liz before the stories drop that she and Brice fucking.

I'm all for some shit talking but...



also, isn't Brice a junior. So Tom just assuming he going pro after Y3 eh?