The Guy Named Harrison: Book One

86

Carrie waited in the truck for Harrison to come back out with their take out. She constantly refreshed her phone. Today, the Pro Bowl results would be released to the public.

Harrison had been leading the NFC linebacker voting since it first began. And although he didn't really care, she continued to check it out. He was still leading just before voting ended, so there was a good chance he'd start if the Panthers didn't make it to the Super Bowl.

Her phone finally refreshed with the results. He won the voting in his position. That would be his 7th Pro Bowl.

The door opened and he jumped up in the truck to see Carrie beaming. He handed her the bag of food. "What?"

"Make it 7 now."

She handed her phone over to him and he looked over the list. "Luke made it too."

The other Panther linebacker finished 5th in the voting. "So did Cam, Greg, Kelvin, Christian, Thomas, Ryan, and Graham."

Harrison gave Carrie her phone back. "You know where I'd rather be."

"Me too. I want to see you guys win the franchises first Super Bowl. But still, that's 7 now. Most guys don't get 1 and you have 7."

"It's hard work."

He started the truck. "Where are we going?" Carrie asked.

Harrison took off his glasses, folded them, and put them in the cup holder. "Mountain Island Lake."

"The lake?"

"It's really pretty in the winter."

He turned back onto the road. "Anybody recognize you?"

"Nope."

To avoid being recognized by fans and swarmed with autographs requests, Harrison often wore a pair of glasses with a black Nike hat. Carrie was surprised how many people failed to recognize him with glasses. That was because he never wore his real glasses in public. He always had contacts in because of football. The glasses in the cup holder weren't even his real ones. They were fake. The real pair were unrecognizable from the fake pair. He had to try them both on the find the real pair.

Carrie did the same thing. It was so much easier with a little disguise to go places with him. They were hardly recognized and could have the time for themselves.

❺❾

A half hour later they finally made it to the lake. Harrison let the dogs out of the backseat while Carrie jumped out of the truck with their takeout from Moe's.

Out of all the places he'd taken her to eat, Moe's was by far her favorite. She followed Harrison and the dogs to a small picnic bench not to far from the water.

They quickly unpacked the food. "The sun's going to set pretty soon. It's going to be pretty."

He slid the box with her quesadilla over to her while keeping the one with his burrito. It didn't take the two of them long to finish at all.

"Moe's is the best."

"It's pretty good."

Harrison and Carrie cleaned up before going to sit by the shore. Since it was still mid winter, they brought plenty of blankets. It wasn't long before Carrie said, "I'm still cold."

"I'll be back."

He came back a minute later with a black jacket with orange sleeves. "What's this?" She asked as he handed her the jacket.

"My letterman from high school."

She checked out the jacket. It had his name on the right side with the year he graduated on his sleeve. On the back were the sports he played. Football and basketball.

"Basketball?"

Harrison smiled. "I played basketball for a little bit."

"Were you any good?" Carrie asked as she put the jacket on.

"What kind of question is that?" He asked with an even wider smile. "Of course I was good."

She laughed as he continued. "Boston College was going to give me a full scholarship for football or basketball. I decided I loved football more."

Harrison crawled under the blanket next to her. Then Wilson tried to crawl under, followed by Gary.

The kept trying until Harrison lifted the blankets and allowed them to crawl onto his and Carrie's lap. "You boys are something else."