Last Man Out Read Online Free PDF

appreciate every second of each game. Because somedayyou’ll all be willing to pay any amount of money to get even one of them back.”
    Tommy looked up at him. “Coach, I don’t just want to play. I
need
to.”
    Coach put out his hand. One more hand to shake. This time Tommy didn’t mind. He looked Coach Fisher in the eye, the way his dad had taught him—one more life lesson from Patrick Gallagher—and shook his hand.
    â€œI’ll see you at practice,” Coach said, and then he walked back inside to tell his wife it was time to go.
    They were playing the Watertown Titans on Saturday afternoon, at home. They had practice tomorrow night, Friday night off, then the game the next day. Tommy couldn’t wait. Like he’d told Coach, he
needed
to play. Needed something to take his mind off things. When he was alone, he focused all his energy on the upcoming matchup against the Titans. He knew football shouldn’t matter right now, as important as it had always been to him, and to his dad, but somehow it mattered more to Tommy now than it ever had before.
    It was one more thing he needed his dad to explain to him. But then there were so many questions that needed answering, so many things that had happened across the week that he’d wanted to share with his dad, because even as sad as things had been, he knew that if his dad had been around, he would have given Tommy a look or a wink to let him know that he understood how weird some of it was, or even downright funny.
    But his dad wasn’t around anymore to answer questions, or talk football, or just listen to Tommy like he always had. PatrickGallagher wasn’t around to give Tommy the advice he desperately needed.
    He knew his mom would come in eventually to say good night. For now, though, he just lay on top of his bedspread, still in his clothes, lights off, his room as quiet as the rest of the house, wishing he could hear the sound of his dad’s voice one more time.

SEVEN
    W HEN
I
WAS YOUR AGE
,”
Patrick Gallagher said, “everybody wanted to play offense.”
    â€œEverybody still wants to play offense,” Tommy said.
    â€œYeah, I guess that never changes.”
    â€œSo even when you were a boy, everybody wanted to be Tom Brady? Even before the Patriots were taking the air out of their footballs?”
    â€œHey!” his dad said.
    â€œJust kidding.”
    â€œAs if Deflategate was funny? Not in this family.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œMy point is,” Patrick Gallagher said, “all of my buddies wanted to be quarterbacks, running backs, or wide receivers.”
    â€œJust not you.”
    â€œNot me. I wanted to play defense.”
    â€œBut why?”
    His dad laughed. He laughed a lot, and loudly, not caring who was around to hear him. Tommy always thought it was thepressure of his dad’s job that made him want to let loose when he got home and just throw his head back and laugh.
    But nothing was more fun for his dad than football, than finding an open patch of green grass so that he and Tommy could work on Tommy’s game. They were at Rogers Park on this night, on Foster Street in Brighton. It wasn’t close to being a real field, just a place where parents brought small children and pushed them on swings or caught them when they came down the slides. Others came to walk their dogs. But there was usually enough room for Tommy and his dad on a summer night, after supper, to come and work on the small things that Patrick Gallagher said were going to make Tommy a big star someday.
    Maybe even get him to Foxborough, home of the New England Patriots.
    It was the first week of August. Tryouts for the Brighton Bears would be held in a couple of weeks. But tonight it was just the two of them, in shorts and T-shirts, both of them wearing football cleats with rubber spikes. They were using the football Tommy’s dad had given him on his last birthday. But there were nights