A Deeper Blue

by S. E. Harmon

  Warner elbowed me as we got on the elevator. “I thought he’d be embarrassed, but the little shit isn’t half-bad, is he?”

  “Nope.” I paused. “Probably kind of wrong to make him sing Katy Perry, though.”

  “Baby, he’s a firework.” He smirked. “I might’ve suggested it, but he’s the one who knew all the words.”

  “You mouthed along during the chorus.”

  “Shut your lying face before I put you up on that table.”

  “You wish.” I shook my head, thoroughly amused. “You know he’s got to block for you, right?”

  “Aw, come on. It’s all in good fun.” We reached his floor, and he put his arm in the elevator door before it closed and the doors jumped apart. “See you downstairs in fifteen?”

  “Gimme twenty. I have to wrap my knee.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “Hurry up, though. Now that I know the little shit can carry a tune, we’re gonna make him do a Beyoncé medley during warm-ups.”

  I laughed as he moved his arm and the doors swooshed shut.

  I’d just finished getting dressed when I heard a knock at the door. It showed how fuzzy my morning mind was that I briefly hoped it might be Kelly. Reality clicked in somewhere around the moment I opened the door and saw my father’s scowling face. Of course it wouldn’t be Kelly. I practically hyperventilated when he touched my face in a darkened parking lot. Why would he think it was all right to come and visit me? I grimaced as I pictured the justified look on his smug little face. As though he’d been right to keep distance between us all along.

  My father’s scowl got deeper. “You going to let me in or what?”

  My God, but I lived for the day when I finally lost my temper and said “or what.” I enjoyed a beat of silence and pictured slamming the door in his shocked face. My fingers actually itched. But I finally stepped aside with a sigh, and he brushed past me. He was right on time for one of his pregame talks, full of advice I didn’t want and critiques I never asked for. Luckily I’d built his annoying presence into my routine, right behind the team breakfast.

  I let the door swing shut behind him and sat on the edge of the bed. Then I pawed through my duffel until I found my athletic tape and started wrapping.

  “Thought I’d come by and see how you’re doing.”

  “I’m doing fine, Dad.”

  “I hope you boys are planning on a better season than last year’s disaster.”

  “My injury put me on the bench most of last season.”

  “Still your team, isn’t it?” My father shook his head in disgust. “You guys had the playoffs in your sights instead of the fucking Sabers. Did you see who they played against? Did you?”

  “We were watching together,” I said dryly. He yelled at the screen most of the game. “Would’ve been pretty hard to miss it.”

  “The Titans, Blue. The freaking Tennessee Titans. You guys wipe the floor with them every time you meet, which means you would’ve had that game in the fucking bag. Then right on to the Super Bowl.”

  “You say that like we wanted to lose.”

  “Bunch of fuckups,” he muttered.

  “It was one season.”

  “Every game matters, Blue. Don’t you forget that. Your next stop is the Hall of Fame. Do you want to fuck that up too?”

  I gritted my teeth as I wrapped my knee with athletic tape, but it had less to do with the phantom injury and more to do with my father’s yammering. I thought about telling him I didn’t give a fuck about the Hall of Fame, but I didn’t want to be responsible for his second stroke. He could never understand where I was coming from—I had enough money and awards to last me a lifetime. I just wanted to play football as long as I could.

  My phone buzzed in my bag, and I paused in mummifying myself to grab it. I knew even before I checked that she was calling me again. I glanced at the screen just to be sure, and her name glared up at me.

  Savannah.

  I only wish I could say I was surprised. She called me like clockwork before every game, like we had anything left to talk about. She usually left me a message wishing me luck. Sometimes she added something in there about wishing we could cultivate a real mother-and-son relationship. I never answered, and if I checked the message before I went out on the field, that was no one’s business but mine. I tossed the phone on the bed next to me and looked around for the tape.

  “Anyone important?”

  My father was sitting in the lone chair in the room, and I raised an eyebrow in response. I don’t know what world he was living in where he thought I’d tell him about my phone calls. I told him once that she’d reached out to me, and he’d been obsessed with the topic ever since.

  “Don’t tell me, then,” he finally grumbled.

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “It’s not Kelly, is it? Whatever you boys have to talk about can wait until after football camp.”

  “No, it’s not Kelly,” I said absently as I rooted through the covers on the unmade bed. “Help me find my tape.”

  Kelly was yet another topic Randall Montgomery was obsessed with. Why was Kelly so very gay? Why did his father fail him and raise him to be so very gay? And why did I have to talk to Kelly so much if he was going to be so very gay?

  He stilled. “It’s not her, is it?”

  “You want to just save time and wiretap me instead?” I shook out a pillow, knowing I was showing my cards by letting him see my irritation but unable to do anything about it.

  It wasn’t that I couldn’t just tell her to get lost, although I was certainly angry enough. But some part of me was pathetic and weak and wasn’t sure I was ready for her to fuck off again. I was still looking for answers that wouldn’t make a bit of difference. Why did she leave? More importantly, why was she back now?

  As much as I liked to pretend she didn’t matter anymore, she just did. You might be born tabula rasa, but everyone you met along the way had something to write on your wall. Some people wrote lightly in flowing script. Some people pressed a little heavier on that pen. And then there were the people like my mother—the ones who decided to tag your mental canvas with as much graffiti as they could manage.

  I blinked, suddenly aware of my father’s watchful gaze as he turned the roll of tape around in his fingers. I held out my hand, and he furrowed his brow. Then he handed over the tape, folded his arms, and watched with a gimlet eye as I proceeded to tape my ankles and knee. So I could get it tight as possible, I saved my right shoulder for the trainers to do at the stadium.

  “You used to let me do it,” he finally said.

  “I know exactly how tight I need it,” I said impatiently.

  Randall huffed. He was clearly looking for something else to bitch about, and after a moment of charged silence, he found it. “It’s about time you got your hair cut, isn’t it?”

  I fought the urge to flip back the jumbled mess of wheat and blond that fell forward with my downturned face. Sure, it was a little longer than I usually kept it, but a noncommittal grunt was the best I could do. I didn’t think he wanted to know my boyfriend liked to have something to grip when he fucked me.

  I could tell my father was nowhere near finished with the Savannah subject, mostly because he resembled a balloon that someone had treated to quite a bit of friction. Sometime around my knee, which I always took pains with, he finally burst. “I can’t believe you’re even entertaining talking to that woman.”

  My voice was purposefully calm. “It’s just a phone call.”

  “She just left, you know, up and left me with two kids to bring up on my own—ten and twelve years old. I didn’t know what to do with you boys, but I figured it out.” He pushed out of the chair and began to pace, a study in nervous energy. “Now she wants to pop back into your life? Now that you’re a success?”

  “Will you relax? This can’t be good for your blood pressure.”

  “What’s not good for my blood pressure is you communicating with that woman. Some people don’t deserve sec
ond chances.”

  I’d heard the rant before. So had my brother, Ian—ad nauseam.

  My mother took off one cool December day, two days before Christmas. My father only spoke of her in stiff tones at breakfast to tell us that she was gone and wouldn’t be back. Then he gruffly told us to finish our oatmeal and that we couldn’t leave the table until we did. Ian and I both stared at him in silent shock until he hit the table hard enough to make the dishes rattle. “I said eat.”

  I stuck my spoon in my bowl almost by reflex and shoveled my oatmeal into my mouth, along with a dumbfounded Ian’s portion too, when our father wasn’t looking. I didn’t even want to imagine what he’d say if I cried, so every now and again, I unobtrusively swiped at the tears that threatened to leak from my blurry eyes.

  She eventually became the topic we didn’t talk about or poke at—the tooth in the back of your mouth that you’re pretty sure is a cavity, so you keep food and drink away from it. Savannah Montgomery was a tooth that didn’t need filling—it needed extraction.

  It was drilled into my head growing up that if it weren’t for Savannah—selfish fucking Savannah, my father would say—he would’ve made it in the NFL. With the knowledge of the game I had now, I wasn’t sure of that. He was a little too short and a little too small to be a powerful force on the field, didn’t have a good enough arm to be a quarterback, and wasn’t fast enough to be a receiver. He had the drive, though, and he proceeded to channel it all into selling insurance.

  He retired long ago—two sons in the NFL, and you think I’m going to be schlepping life insurance? Between Ian and me, we made sure he wanted for nothing. But he would never forget that he topped out as regional manager of an insurance company instead of a superstar NFL player. No stadium lights, no jersey, no fans, no Hall of Fame—no glory. In his mind, it was all snatched away because of Savannah. He’d never forgiven her for it.

  Or us.

  “Blue, are you listening to me?”

  I made a noncommittal noise and began to shake up a can of Biofreeze. The anti-inflammatory spray helped me ignore the little twinges that came with old injuries. A couple of slow-release pain killers would take care of the rest. I was rebuilding my body in layers—like the fucking Tin Man.

  Satisfied that he’d reamed me out enough for the mom thing, he moved right along. “You eat a good breakfast?”

  Five egg whites with spinach and cheese. Wheat toast. Chicken sausage and some fruit. “Yup,” I said as I began to spray my knee with long, deliberate strokes.

  “Are you stretching that leg properly? Can’t be too careful.”

  “Yes. Stop worrying.” I did some light stretching earlier, and we always did more before training really started.

  “I’ve been up in the stands watching you practice, and you’ve really been favoring that knee. I’m surprised Coach Young hasn’t said anything about it. That’s a good way to get reinjured. Are you working with your trainer? Billie Stocks is the best in the business, you know. It should be your priority to do what she says.”

  “I know that.” I winced as I rotated my knee, so I sprayed it some more. “I’m the one who’s been playing for five years, or did you forget?”

  “Don’t get smart with me.” He stared at me, his eyes cold and tone icy. “And let’s get something real clear. Without me, you wouldn’t have made it this far. You wouldn’t be anything at all.”

  I gritted my teeth. Apparently when you sacrificed your own career for your children’s happiness, you got to throw it in their faces for the next millennia. But despite all his faults, he’d been the one to stay—not like her.

  Because of that, I finally decided on a terse “Yes, sir” instead of ripping his head clean off.

  “Good boy.” He slapped my face in a friendly manner but hard enough to sting. “Now we just gotta get you to the playoffs, especially since your brother’s team is in a rebuilding year.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from saying anything, but the Wildcats had a lot more trouble than just a couple of rookies on the roster. Their best defensive lineman was traded the year before for a third-draft pick who didn’t work out, and they hadn’t quite recovered from the loss. If being in a rebuilding year meant they needed to start from scratch, then yes, I agreed.

  Ian was a solid player and put up good stats, but the Wildcats as a unit were mediocre, and mediocre teams didn’t win championships or get Super Bowl rings. Ian wore his jealousy like a suit, and it was clear he knew all that. He also had all the codes to my houses, and I didn’t want him to murder me in my sleep, so I kept my big yap shut.

  Sometimes I wasn’t even sure if Ian really liked football or if he was still a little kid inside, trying to get our father’s approval.

  Like you?

  I ignored the voice inside my head a little grimly.

  What would Ian and I be doing if our father hadn’t been so football obsessed? I was never much of a hobbyist, but Ian was pretty interested in bugs, if I recall. He had tons of bug cages lining his shelves. When we were growing up, it was pretty much an unspoken rule that you stayed out of Ian’s room unless you wanted to be creeped the fuck out. Then our mother left and the bugs eventually disappeared, and football paraphernalia took its place.

  He would’ve made a kick-ass entomologist.

  Done with my knee, I applied Biofreeze to my shoulder. “The Wildcats are going to be fine if they can build up their special teams.”

  My father wasn’t hearing it. “I don’t see it. It’s on you this year. Bring home another Super Bowl ring, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. His face grew mottled and red. “You guess? Jesus, Blue, I don’t even know why I bother.”

  I didn’t either. It wasn’t that I didn’t love the game anymore. I just had different things on my mind. At the top of the list? Why a certain someone wouldn’t move in with me and avoided all discussions about the topic as though I were offering him a nice double helping of bubonic plague. Hell, sometimes he even pretended not to hear me.

  I shook my head. Kelly. Not able to hear something. The same man who could understand me perfectly through a mouthful of toothpaste. The same man who could hear a Snickers wrapper crinkle two states over. He had a lot in common with Waffles that way. I pictured both of them lifting their heads at the sound of a cellophane candy wrapper and had to bite back a smile. My next thought wiped that smile away completely.

  He wasn’t sure about us.

  You haven’t given him much of a reason to be, have you?

  My subconscious was right—bitchy but right.

  He said he was willing to give me time, but lately I wasn’t so sure. It seemed like he was less and less happy being secretive and closeted about every damn thing, and who could blame him? I couldn’t even really give him a definitive timeline.

  When would I be ready to take all that scrutiny, to have everything change in the blink of an instant, to have sportscasters discuss my love life, players treat me differently, and fans demand refunds for my jerseys? Even if some people did surprise me with their tolerance, I wouldn’t be able to get away from all the media attention everywhere I went. Everything I did would be fodder for gossip.

  I was embarrassed to admit it, but… I wasn’t ready to be that guy. Worse yet, I couldn’t really see myself ever being that guy. I imagined my father’s face when he found out that things between me and Kelly weren’t exactly platonic, and my stomach went cold.

  But it wouldn’t be fair to Kelly to ask him to wait forever. It was all too easy for my racing imagination to picture him as he moved on to someone else. It would be too hard for us to be just friends after that, and eventually he might even pull away from me completely. I would have to be without him every day for the rest of my life.

  It was enough to make my breath come short. The Biofreeze can fell from my suddenly clumsy fingers and rolled on the floor until my father stopped it with his foot. I forgot he was even there. I blinked at him as he stooped to pic
k the can up and muttered something about me fumbling before I was even on the fucking field.

  I needed to get focused, so I leaned down and laced up my sneakers with quick, efficient movements. My only thoughts should be about football. I stood and shook out what was left of the kinks in my sore muscles. Hopefully my stretching routine would take care of the rest. Then I shouldered my bag and headed out the door. I didn’t say goodbye to my father, and I knew he wouldn’t expect me to.

  CHAPTER 7

  Kelly

  ALEX JONES, a repeat student from my Intro to Physics class, was my last session of the day. I sat back in my chair and tried not to spin impatiently as I watched him work. He labored over the simple problem of velocity versus time as though he were creating some sort of complex theorem… or at least puzzling out the age-old question of whether the chicken or the egg came first. I understood the need for an open-door policy during office hours—I really did—but sometimes I ran out of patience long before I ran out of hours. Just sayin’.

  Alex blew some of his long, wispy bangs out of his eyes and scratched out what he’d written a scant second before. His pen hovered over his paper for a moment, and then he scratched out the rest. His paper was starting to look like a mad scientist’s manifesto. I sighed as quietly as possible and watched as he started all over again.

  I had to be patient. It wasn’t Alex’s fault that Blue was back from football camp. It had already been several days, and we hadn’t had time to do much of anything together. I picked Blue up late on Sunday, and after mauling each other for a suitable amount of time behind tinted-glass windows, we headed home with grand ideas.

  Blue promised me things on the way home—horrible, dirty, wonderful things—and got my hopes up. When we got there, he went upstairs to shower, and I impatiently took Waffles outside. By the time I bounded upstairs, Blue was sprawled on the bed, sound asleep. I only laughed a little at the fact that he fell asleep with one hand on his dick. Okay, maybe I laughed myself silly and took a picture that I then sent to his phone, but I did cover him up. Then I crawled in bed beside him, and his perpetual warmth lulled me to sleep.