The Rookie and Me (COMPLETE)

twenty-four.

Sunday morning I woke up to a text from Tyler:

TYLER: Good morning beautiful. I just wanted to say thank you for coming all this way to support me today. It means so much to me knowing that you are in the crowd cheering me on during the biggest game of my career.

ALI: I wouldn't have it any other way, Ty. Good luck tonight! You're going to do so great!

This text might not mean much to anyone else, but it means the world to me. It means that he woke up thinking about me this morning. It means that he knows he won't be able to talk to me much today, but he wanted to let me know that I'm still on his mind. It's just a little thing, but it means something so much bigger to me.

Cameron stirs around on his bed and slowly opens his eyes. He stretches his arms out wide and yawns loudly.

"Good morning, mommy." He says as he sits up, rubbing his eyes.

"Good morning, baby. Do you want to go down to the beach again today before we have to leave for the game?" I ask him as he climbs into bed with me to snuggle.

"Can we go to Disneyland now? Tyler said we would go to Disneyland before we leave. Can we, please?" Cameron begs giving me the biggest puppy dog eyes possible.

I chuckle and say, "Bug, we're supposed to go to Disneyland with Tyler. He wanted to go, too. I will see if we can do that tomorrow before we leave, okay?"

A disappointed frown spreads across his face as he nods his head. "We can still go to the beach, right?"

I smile down at my boy, "Yes, we can still go to the beach. Let's order some breakfast and then we will go when we're finished, okay?"

He perks up in the bed, "Can we have toast?! The kind with syrup on it?"

I nod my head and grab the room service menu out of my nightstand. I call room service and order our breakfast. About twenty minutes later, our breakfast arrives. We finish eating and get ourselves dressed and ready for the day. We head down to the beach and find a spot to leave our things. We make sandcastles and bury each other's feet in the sand. Cameron loves burying my feet. He tries to pile as much sand on them as possible every time.

After a long morning spent at the beach in the hot California sun, we head up to our room for Cameron's nap. Quite frankly, I could use one too. That sun has worn me out just as much as it has him. We nap together for a couple hours and by the time we wake up, it's almost time for us to leave to go to the game. I give Cam a bath and get him ready for the game. He requested eye black again, just like Tyler.

When I'm finished getting him ready, I hop in the shower and wash the sand out of my hair. I finish my makeup and add some eye black on my cheeks so I can match my boys. I blow dry my hair and flat iron it as best as possible. My hair can be so unruly sometimes, so I throw on a hat that Tyler gave me with his team logo on it. We throw on our jerseys and head out the door for the stadium.

This stadium looks like it's twice the size as the one back home. There's gotta be at least 70,000 people here... my anxiety starts going wild as I grip onto Cameron's hand, much tighter than usual. I've never done too well in major crowds, although I've never been in a crowd this large before so I can feel the panic seeping into my body. We make our way to our seats and sit down and wait for the game to start.

The announcer calls out the two teams and welcomes them onto the field. The referee in the white cap flips the coin to see who gets the ball. Looks like Tyler's team is playing defense first. He slides his helmet on and runs out onto the field.

The center snaps the ball back to the quarterback. As soon as the ball is released, the defensive line drives into the offensive line with so much force. The quarterback throws the ball off to his wide receiver. He catches it and runs the ball another 10 yards. Shit... come on guys! 1st down with 10 more yards to go, Tyler plows through the line and sacks the quarterback.