The Hail Mary

by Ginger Scott

  “Fuck, man…I mean…I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that in front of you,” I blubber. I laugh nervously, but cry harder.

  “I’ve heard worse, trust me. Just say it—let it out.”

  Both of his hands squeeze at my shoulders and he stands facing me, trying to force my gaze up, but I can’t. I stare at my feet, my shoes tapping forward one foot at a time while I rock.

  “This game didn’t forget him, Reed. And nobody knows what pushed him so far into sadness, so far into his habits. He had demons, and he made decisions—his decisions Reed.”

  I nod, but my head still screams no.

  “Just like you and Trig are not the same people. You make different choices, walk on different paths. You get to choose, Reed. Only you…Trig didn’t choose for you. He chose for him, and that’s it.”

  I look up at that, our eyes connecting, and mine rejecting him suddenly. I shake my head.

  “I know that,” I protest, and one of his hands slides from my shoulder, but the other keeps a firm grip.

  “You sure?” His eyes probe at me, and my jaw works while I consider it for real. My eyes move from focusing on his left to his right, and several seconds pass while we stay in this standoff.

  “I’m sure,” I say, finally. We both know I’m lying, but we both also know that for now…that’s as good as my answer is going to get.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Reed

  Nolan made it. Honestly, I wasn’t sure she would show up. She hasn’t watched one of my games in person since…well, just since. Really, it was before that, too. Mostly because she has her own things, and they can’t thrive if she’s locked into living for only my things. I see so many player wives here on the road, from city to city, living this life just because they’re afraid if they don’t, their man will step out.

  A lot of the guys do. They’re douchebags. And those marriages, they aren’t going to make it. They probably shouldn’t.

  But Noles and me…we’re climbing back out of this. I can feel it. I feel lighter somehow, after giving her the box and after talking to Chaplain Cruz. He wasn’t all wrong. Damn, he wasn’t wrong at all. I thought about it that night when I got back to the hotel, and I thought about it all morning today—through the breakfast Noles and I got up at four o’clock in the morning to enjoy because we knew the day would get swallowed up if we didn’t force in some time to just be a couple. It was so normal, sitting at a table and eating eggs and reading the news on our phones.

  I’m not Trig.

  But that doesn’t take away this itch. I don’t know how to explain it to anyone, really. Football is like this piece of me. Yeah, yeah…I hear people make the identity speech all the time, and sure…it’s my identity. But it’s also like it’s in my bones somehow. Like, if I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t be able to stand up and breathe.

  With the crowd booing and smoke hazing the field from the pregame entertainment, I think about what Chaplain Cruz said—that last thing that really stuck with me.

  “You look at the game ahead, and that’s as far as you look,” he said.

  I’m looking at it right now, and it’s looking brutal.

  I’m heading into major enemy territory, with a coach who left this franchise to come to this new one. We’re expected to get killed. Even the Vegas odds aren’t very nice, putting them up by three touchdowns.

  I better ruin a lot of gamblers’ days today.

  Helmet poised above my head, I follow the booming echo of the growl as our line leads us out into the stadium, a few cups getting tossed at us on our way out the tunnel. The second I break through, the boos get mixed with the sound of polite reverence. That’s what they do for us old guys. We might not play for their teams, but damn is it nice to see other dudes with shot knees and torn-up shoulders still living the dream.

  That’s what this is, isn’t it? The dream.

  It’s warm out tonight. That’s L.A.—a late fall game in the eighties. At least it’s a night game. This shit in full sun is brutal. My arm feels good. Shoulder pain is right where it should be, which…at least it’s not getting worse, I muse to myself.

  I hold out my fist for Waken, and he pounds back.

  “Gonna get rough out there today. Be ready to stretch.” I shout my words at him because it’s nearly impossible to hear. That’s the extra weapon in this stadium. It should work both ways, L.A. not being able to hear shit either, but somehow it only screws the away team.

  I slip my helmet on, and Waken grabs it with both hands and nods, revving himself up, bouncing on his legs and firing up his muscles as we stare at one another. He’s in for it today. This defense plays dirty. They eat up fines for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’m gonna try to keep him out of trouble, but I’m gonna have to use him more than normal. Our rushing game is weak against this defense. Coach thinks Waken can hack it though, so I’m gonna let him do the work.

  We lose the coin toss so we receive first, L.A. banking on that number-one defense to shut it down. They do. I don’t know what it is out there, but it’s like I’m tight and uncertain of everything. The field looks so different, and the rush is getting in my head. Three and out and I’m sitting on the bench listening to Coach Jenkins feed me more routes I’m not going to remember and plays that don’t make sense. He’s off with this. Something today is off.

  I’m off. Fuck, I don’t know. But if I don’t fix it, my comeback story is going to be majorly short-lived.

  “You got it?”

  I meet Jenkins’s eyes and nod. I have no fucking clue what he said.

  “Yeah,” I bark. Helmet on, I march to the water and douse my face and gulp some down.

  It’s too big in here to find her, but I know where she is, generally. I glance up to the booths, to the suite Jason’s sitting in, and I just stare at it and breathe.

  “Come on, Babe. I am nothing without you. This arm is shit without your faith in it,” I mumble to myself.

  “Huh?” A guy named Shiff grunts at me as he passes. He’s on the line. I should probably know him better, given his job is to keep my head attached to my body.

  “Just prayin’ is all.” I smile. He rolls his eyes.

  “You better be. They’re coming in hard, man. We got you, though. We got you.” We pound forearms as he passes, but I laugh to myself because damn was that a contradiction. I better pray, but he’s got me. WTF?

  I think about what he said though while we let L.A. drive all the way to the twenty and kick a field goal. Three is better than seven.

  If they’re rushing that hard, they’re light on Waken. They have no idea how fast this kid is. He had some great catches last game, but damn can he run. It’s time we get him some attention.

  When we go out again, I grab his facemask in the huddle and stare at him so he gets me. Coach has a list of plays, but I’m gonna skip ahead this time. Veterans can get away with this shit, right?

  They’re ready for the short pass. Almost everyone’s ready for the short pass. But Waken ghosts our tight end and jets out another fifteen yards. I hit him mid-stride just before I land on my ass and lose my breath for a second.

  “Fuck, that kid better have doubled that,” I grunt.

  A familiar face picks me up off the ground. Lawrence O’McCoy has been knocking me down for a decade. He’s done it in six different uniforms. Class fucking asshole, he is.

  “A’right, man. That’s your one,” I say, and he just chuckles and pats me on the back with his big-ass hand.

  We move up forty yards. That’s more than double. Nice work, kid.

  I nod at Waken in the huddle and we break again. We’re gonna run this until it doesn’t work. It’s the rock-paper-scissors theory—if you throw that rock enough, eventually the other guy will switch it up and you’ll crush his damn scissors. They’re gonna keep throwing rock. I’m gonna keep throwing paper.

  I hit Waken again, with almost the exact same play; the L.A. defense starts to scramble a bit. Before they have time to think, we hurry and go no-h
uddle so I can hit Waken one more time, this time gaining seven.

  We make it all the way to the ten before they put on the brakes with a timeout. I prepare myself for an ass-chewing on my way over to the sidelines, but all I get is three pounds before Coach holds an open palm flat out between us.

  Paper.

  I slap his hand, and he laughs, pounding my helmet.

  We work out options on the fly, knowing that they’re probably going to guard the pass in the end zone, which makes the run a lot more effective than it was before.

  “You go with what you see, though, got that One-Three?”

  I smirk when Jenkins calls me that. It’s been a while since a coach used my number. Been a while since I was the guy they gave the orders to. It feels nice—damn nice.

  “Yeah,” I say, guzzling more water and heading back out to the field. I’m going to leave it all out there. One game at a time has just become one play at a time.

  We line up and wait while L.A. matches us, their shift just a little different—ready. I call the count, but at the last second, I get a glimpse of something in the backfield. They’re going to collapse, and it’s going to collapse on our run. Waken might get free in the corner, or he might not. I’m not going to have the time to figure that out; the instant the ball is in my hands, I run. This wasn’t on the table. Probably for good reason. It’s like I’m trying to outrun an explosion in one of those action movies, the collapse coming in slow motion, my legs feeling heavier with every step. The goal line seems to be moving farther and farther away. I spin and manage to break a tackle and get a good block from the next, but there’s still an unmovable force between me and the end zone. Without pause, I ready myself to push and climb. I find myself flying with the ball cradled in my suddenly puny-feeling arms. Every sound outside my head is gone, drowned by the warning bells and prayers sounding off inside me. This is stupid.

  My shoulder hits the ground first, and my body rolls with it until I’m on my feet, stumbling my steps into the center of the end zone like a drunk frat boy just thrown out of a golf cart by his friends.

  “Yeahhhhhhhh!” I scream so loud my voice goes hoarse. I toss the ball to the ref and slam chests with my new friend Shiff, who I’m pretty sure threw me over the rest of that pile.

  My body is throbbing with energy, my arms and legs pulsing and wanting to go again. Right now. I feel it boiling in my chest, the faith that I can—I will—do this. And I’m not just going to do the job. I’m going to win. Everything.

  The clock tells us that sixty minutes of football is played. The game takes three hours from first snap to final down. My dad always liked to point out that actual ball in play only happens for a total of eleven minutes, though.

  Eleven.

  That’s a small number to have a huge impact on the outcome of sixty. I’ve always taken that little fact to heart, and today…today, I was wicked for exactly eleven minutes.

  I’m sure I’ll feel it all later. I know Nolan probably left, or at least retreated and didn’t watch every play as it happened. I was careless. Wild abandon, I think is what the ESPN reporter said in the media room. Whatever I was, I know this—I was great.

  I felt great. I feel it now.

  I’m one of the last to leave the locker room. I’ve been waiting for Jason to do his work, to field the calls and set up the interviews that he knows I’ll do. I finally get a text to meet him outside when I’m done. I pull my bag up on my shoulder and hobble into the hallway. Nolan’s waiting against the far wall, her expression one that I think she’s worked on for the last hour to perfect. I see the cracks in the slight smile, the tinge of worry in her eyes. They start to slope.

  “Come here,” I say, dropping my bag to the ground and stepping into her. She folds into my chest and I wrap her up in my arms. It breaks me to feel her shiver with tears.

  “Shh,” I hum as I kiss the top of her head. She grips my jacket and sinks into me with all of her weight. I run my hands down her back and hold her steady.

  “Baby, I’m fine. It’s okay,” I say. She quivers again, but nods.

  “I know,” she sniffles.

  I pull back just enough to cup her face in my hands and rest my forehead on hers. Her eyes are closed so tight. I swallow because I’ve never really seen how this affects her. I was so out of it in the hospital when she showed up, and through recovery I was so focused on…well…me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, rocking us both side to side, alone in the cold concrete hallway in the underbelly of L.A.’s stadium.

  “No…don’t do that. You don’t have to,” she says, grabbing onto both of my wrists. She licks at her lips, eyes still closed but working to open. She blinks a few times with her stare at my chest before her eyes flit up to mine.

  “Don’t apologize, Reed. You are so gifted. You were amazing out there…like you always are. I just…I’m so sorry, but I can’t watch.”

  It breaks her to say it to me.

  “I know,” I nod, repeating again and again. “I know, and it’s okay.”

  I hold her, swaying like this, for several minutes until the nervous beating simmers in her chest. She grips my hand, searching for it in a panic when we turn to walk out to the lot where Jason is waiting. Her grip gets tighter with every step we take, and when I have to let go at the car she flexes her stiff fingers as we part.

  Jason takes over the conversation for the car ride. He’s got me doing two phone-ins, one for the ESPN radio show and another for the NFL channel. I’ll pre-tape a pregame for next week’s Monday night game, and that should do it. It’s part of the contract, being the face of the OKC brand. Truthfully, I don’t mind that part all the time. But after my injury, the questions got grating—they got personal. I just didn’t like people sizing up what they thought of me and deciding for themselves if I would ever be the same on the field. That shit got in my head. I got rid of it tonight, though.

  Jason leaves us at our hotel, and I half wonder if he’s speeding off to hop a plane to meet Sarah or if she’s here waiting for him. I could have teased him, but I wanted to get upstairs to be with Noles and make everything right for her. I need her to be right, because tonight for me was the most right I’ve felt in a long time. If I’m capable of more nights like this one, I just have to keep chasing them.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Nolan

  Reed fell asleep stroking my hair. God was it sweet.

  I know he wanted to make it through the night, but I also know how tired he was. I’ve been lying here folded inside his arms while I listen to the steady rhythm of his heart. His beat is so pure and perfect. It’s so strong. I let it fool me into believing he really is invincible even though I know—I’ve seen—that he’s not. Tonight, he was, and I can’t deny that.

  When Reed is at the top of his game, it’s something special to get to witness. His passes cut through the air like bullets, yet somehow float down like feathers into his receivers’ hands.

  Trig loved his passes best. And tonight, it felt a lot like that’s who Reed was throwing to. I wonder if that’s who he was playing for.

  His breathing starts to deepen. I roll to my side to check the clock. It’s roughly two in the morning, and I know that no matter how exhausted he is now, his body will be ready to go again by six. The game did that to him—put his body on this demanding schedule.

  I make my move to slip from his arms, but he starts to stir, his fingers curling around my bicep, the tips tickling against me like a feather.

  “Too early,” he grumbles, pulling me into him.

  His body is so warm. I love the way his chest feels covered in the thin layer of jersey cotton. He smells of my favorite shampoo and expensive hotel linen; rather than leaving his warm embrace to go pace and overthink more, I turn into him and kiss the dead center of his chest.

  “Sorry, did I wake you up?” I whisper.

  He shifts his hands until they find my lower back. He slides them underneath my sleep shirt all the way up to my shoulder bl
ades. His hands feel so warm and strong.

  “Maybe. I was dreaming about you, though, so this is better…the real thing,” he says, his gravelly voice vibrating in his chest.

  I can feel him hard against my thigh, but I also know he’s really only half-awake right now.

  “Dreaming about me, huh?” I say, tempted to see if I can wake him completely.

  “Mmmm, you were giving me a strip tease,” he says, a mischievous tugging at the right side of his cheek.

  “Yeah?” I lift a brow, suddenly feeling a different kind of restless.

  “Uh huh.” Hazed eyes sink down my body while his grin stretches. His hands slide around from my back and run up the front of my cotton shirt, his thumbs rubbing over my breasts and incredibly hard nipples.

  “Was I wearing something like this?” I bite at my lip and push myself up on my palms, moving one hand to the other side of Reed’s face as he rolls to his back underneath my arms. I have him caged, dragging my left leg over the center of his body so I can straddle him, setting my weight directly on his hard cock.

  He nods slowly, but says the opposite.

  “No, but I don’t care what you wear,” he growls, rolling his hips to push up against me. The feel of the pressure sending a wave of pulses up my body and through my legs.

  I arch my back and look up to see how much room I have. When I’m satisfied it’s enough, I carefully get to my feet while hovering above him. My fingertips can barely touch the ceiling, so I let them when I reach up to steady myself.

  Fucking hell is he sexy on the bed. The cover is twisted along the side of his body, and his gray shirt is pulled up enough to show off his impressive set of hard-earned abs. It’s always been the way his sweatpants hang low on his hips for me, though. That line that dives down inside his pants, the curvature of his stomach muscles and golden color of his skin.