Blitzing Emily

by Julie Brannagh

  Now it was Emily’s turn to feel awkward and insecure. She wasn’t sure what to say, but Brandon, as usual, sensed she wasn’t overly thrilled.

  “Sugar, I’m an ass,” he said as his hand closed around hers. “What I should’ve said is that I’m damn lucky to be here with you tonight. I can’t believe you’re wearing my ring. Out of all the parking lots in the entire world, you wiped out in mine.”

  Emily had to laugh when she saw his slightly crooked smile. “I just didn’t understand how you could . . . Well, Anastasia and I don’t have much in common.”

  “Thank God.”

  Emily laid her head against his shoulder and looked up at the endless, starry sky. “You’re not an ass.”

  “I really messed up just now.”

  She slid her arm around his waist. “No. You were being truthful. Every guy in America wants to go out with a Victoria’s Secret model.”

  “Not this one,” he said firmly. “I like opera singers.”

  “You are such a liar.”

  “Listen. I have a fiancée that can bitch me out in five languages. Plus, I’d be nuts to go out with someone who’s elevated getting rid of the dinner I just bought her to an art form.”

  “So bulimia doesn’t make you hot.”

  “I love watching you eat,” he assured Emily. “You enjoy it. You enjoy everything, though.”

  “Are you looking forward to this season?”

  “I’m always looking forward to the season. I want to play forever, but I can’t.” He looked out over the bay. “I might have another couple of years. Maybe.”

  “What’s it like to be out there?”

  “Playing in a game?”

  Emily nodded. He thought for a moment. “You perform for an audience, too. What’s it like for you when you’re standing onstage? You’ve just sung. The crowd’s applauding. What happens?”

  “I love the feeling. There’s nothing like it. There’s energy, and adrenaline, and the fact people love what I just did. I can’t wait to do it again.”

  “Okay. That’s usually a couple thousand people.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Well, I’m listening to fifty thousand people screaming my name. There’s nothing else I could ever describe that matches it. I’m doing something I love, and I want to keep doing it forever. When I get home after a game, I can’t sleep because I’m still so wound up from the energy in the stadium.”

  “I’m looking forward to seeing it.”

  “You will. When guys retire, they don’t know what to do with themselves. There isn’t a stadium full of people cheering for them when they mow the lawn and drive the carpool. They’re guys that used to be somebody, and now they’re not.”

  Emily bit her lip. “They’re always somebody. They still mean a lot to their families and friends.”

  “Of course they do,” he said gently, “but it’s not the same. It’s never going to be the same. That’s what I’ll be facing. I’ll have to find something to do with the rest of my life that won’t be anywhere near as exciting as what I’ve been doing since the first day I ran out on a football field and played in a game. I love the sport. I always will.”

  He folded his lips. A shadow passed over his features, and Emily felt her stomach clench in empathy. She didn’t know what to say. Mostly, she knew that whatever she did say would probably be wrong. She would have to try till she got it right, though, because she wondered how she would feel if she woke up one morning and could never sing again.

  “Maybe there’s a new adventure for you,” Emily said.

  “I’d like to think so. I’ll still be there if I’m doing the announcing thing.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I’ll be there, too. We’ll get through this.” Emily watched Brandon’s eyes widen in surprise.

  They sat quietly for a few more minutes, and then he murmured to her, “You aren’t getting rid of me. You know that, don’t you?” He buried his face in her hair.

  Emily reached out to kiss him. She tasted the malt vinegar they splashed on the fish and chips, a little salt, and what she would always know as Brandon—the taste she still couldn’t identify, but craved more than anything else she ever wanted.

  Of course, one kiss turned into many. Brandon finally pulled away. “We’d better stop this, or our PG rated date’s going straight to triple X.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  * * *

  EMILY’S WALK-IN CLOSET remained the coolest place in her townhouse during August’s heat in Seattle. She stripped to her bra and underwear while pawing frantically through a selection of clothes that would make a buyer for Nordstrom green with envy. No matter how many clothes she might own, however, she had nothing that was right for this evening’s event: Brandon’s first preseason game.

  Only a builder would think an exterior window in a walk-in closet was a good idea. The late-afternoon sun shining through it, though, gilded the small mountain of clothing she tried and discarded onto the closet floor. Nobody wore a little black dress and spike heels to a football game, as far as she knew. Jeans and a t-shirt were so ordinary, not to mention unbearably warm in the heat. She grabbed a scoop-necked, cap-sleeved cotton sundress off a hanger. Too garden party-ish.

  Emily’s rapid perusal—and incipient panic—gave way to full-on terror when she heard a key in the front door lock.

  Amy called out, “Hey, Em, we gotta go. Where are you?”

  Emily heard Amy’s footfalls on the stairs, and she appeared in the bedroom doorway.

  “You’re not dressed yet. We’re going to be late.” Amy said.

  “No shit.”

  They stared at each other. Amy looked like the Sharks’ team store threw up on her. She wore a Sharks hat, a Sharks t-shirt, and a Sharks patterned knit scrunchie on her ponytail. Shiny plastic beads shaped like footballs and painted in the team colors hung around her neck, while little football earrings dangled from her earlobes. Her Keds had Sharks shoelaces. She even sported a temporary tattoo of the team logo on her cheek. The only thing on her body not branded with “Sharks” or “football” was the denim shorts she wore.

  “Did you buy it all?” Emily asked. “No wonder I can’t find anything to wear, if that’s what everyone else will have on. This can’t be typical.”

  “You need to wear Brandon’s jersey. I know he gave you one,” Amy said.

  “It’s enough that I’m wearing his gigantic ring. I am not dressing up like it’s Halloween.”

  “Everyone else wears them. Go put it on. He will love it.” Amy pulled Emily out of her closet, grabbed the jersey off a hanger, pushed it against her sister’s chest, and started yanking items out of a plastic shopping bag looped over her wrist. “You can wear that cute denim mini-skirt you have with these. I have beads, earrings, and a hat. I even have a scrunchie thing for your ponytail.”

  Emily snatched the denim skirt from halfway down the pile in her closet. “I’m leaving my hair the way it is.” She stepped into a pair of cobalt-blue flats with gunmetal-gray buckles on the toes.

  Amy frowned. “Camisole.” She extracted one from Emily’s dresser drawer and handed it to her. “The jersey’s a bit see-through,” she said. It wouldn’t do to flash an entire stadium full of people.

  When Emily was finally dressed to Amy’s satisfaction, Amy looped beads over her head, put the scrunchie on her wrist, handed her a hat, and said, “You need to put on the football earrings.”

  “No. Absolutely not.” Emily pointed at the pea-sized diamond studs in her ears. “Brandon gave these to me. He wants me to wear them. The other girlfriends and wives don’t dress themselves up like this.”

  “Wait till you see them,” Amy said. “I have one word for you: Bedazzler.”

  Emily tossed the scrunchie, hat, and the earrings on her bed. “I’ll wear the jersey and the beads. That’s it.”

  “Come on,” Amy pleaded. “You have to look like a fan.”

  “This is what I’m wearing. If you keep bugging me about it, I’ll wear a band
age dress and my new pair of five-inch heels.”

  Amy heaved a heavy sigh. “You’ll wish you’d worn it all when you get there,” she warned.

  “I guess I’ll have to live with that.”

  Emily made a knot in the side of the jersey as Amy dragged her down the staircase, and managed to hook her handbag with one hand on the way out the door.

  Amy drove like a madwoman on a good day. Today, she was even more determined to get where she was going before she and Emily missed a second of the action. She swerved around slower vehicles; she switched lanes, jabbering the whole time. Shortly after Amy skidded into a parking space, they joined the thousands of people making their way through the parking lot into the stadium.

  Emily glanced around at a huge crowd of Sharks fans attired in jerseys, team t-shirts, and even a few people dressed up in old-fashioned zoot suits in the team colors. The area around the trash cans was littered with what looked like thousands of red plastic cups already.

  Amy was so excited she was practically levitating as they moved along a huge concrete concourse. “We’ll go to our seats, but first, you have to see Brandon.” She pointed to the sidelines. “If we walk down the aisle closest to the field, he can see us when we get to the bottom.”

  “Where is he now?” Emily scanned the guys on the field. None of them wore Sharks blue, and none of them wore Brandon’s number 99 jersey.

  “They’ll be out in a minute to stretch. He’ll see you.”

  They made their way down what seemed like a thousand steps to the railing only feet from the team’s bench area on the field. Emily gripped the railing and looked around. The afternoon’s heat was dissipating as the sun sank lower in the sky. A soft breeze ruffled her hair. Even an hour before the game, there was already what looked like thousands of people sitting in their seats and waiting for it all to start. The cheerleaders were already on the sidelines as well.

  “Shark Babes,” Amy explained, and waved at a dark-haired woman who waved back. “That’s McKenzie. She owns the yoga studio next door to my shop.”

  McKenzie not only had a gorgeous face, she also had a perfect body. Emily ignored the momentary twinge of jealousy over McKenzie’s figure as she heard a huge roar from the crowd. The Sharks ran onto the field, and Amy was jumping up and down.

  Brandon spotted them almost immediately. He dropped his helmet onto the team bench, ran to the wall, leaped up, and sat on the railing in front of Amy and Emily. “How’re my two girls?” He patted Emily’s cheek. She took his hand to look at the glove, and the tape around his wrist.

  “We’re great,” Amy told him.

  “Looking forward to the game?” he asked Emily.

  All Emily could manage was a nod. She was momentarily speechless, and she couldn’t seem to stop touching the pads and other paraphernalia he wore to do his job. She couldn’t imagine why seeing him in his uniform affected her like it did. He was the same guy who lounged on her couch, slept in her bed, tormented, teased, and kissed her. She spent most of her free time with him now. Don’t freak out, she told herself.

  He leaned forward and said into her ear, “It’s me, sugar.”

  By now, though, other fans advanced on Brandon, and he said to Amy, “Gimme a kiss for luck.”

  She kissed his cheek and said, “Win.”

  “I’ll do that. I need a kiss from you, too,” he told Emily. His mouth touched hers. She felt the familiar rush in her blood as his arm wrapped around her. Her knees went weak. She leaned into him. He laughed softly as he leaned his forehead against hers. “Save some for later.”

  A fan thrust a pen and a piece of paper at him. He took a quick moment to sign his name, jumped down from the wall, then waved at them and ran back onto the field.

  Brandon told Emily a few days ago he probably wouldn’t be playing in this game. After all, it was a preseason game, and the coach wanted to make sure he’d have the starters when the season began. This was actually a good thing, according to him.

  “If Jon’s playing, I’m not starting, sugar. That’s what I wanted.”

  “I won’t get to see you, though.”

  “You’ll see me plenty during the regular season,” he said. “Really. I’ll be all over the place.”

  “But I won’t be there. I have to go to—”

  At that point, Brandon kissed her breathless, and she forgot that she wouldn’t be able to watch him play in person when she was performing elsewhere. Maybe it didn’t matter.

  Amy had rented a tablet-sized satellite television receiver for the season, which she’d taken from her purse and set up on her lap. “That’s odd. Didn’t you say Brandon wasn’t playing today?”

  “He said he wasn’t.”

  Amy made a sound like a grunt, stared into the tiny screen, and listened intently to the headphones.

  The team ran off the field. They evidently finished their warm-up and were going to the locker room. Emily couldn’t believe the amount of noise in the stadium. Finding anyone who could out-yell or out-sing her was quite an achievement, but there seemed to be an entire stadium full. She could feel the stadium shaking when the team made their entrance and the game started.

  The Sharks won the coin toss and elected to defer. When the defense lined up for their first series, Brandon ran out onto the field. “Amy.” Emily grabbed Amy’s arm. “There he is!”

  “I can see, I can see,” Amy told her, but she was laughing. “The coach must have put him in for a series so you could watch. The TV guys are talking about it right now. They said the coach will play him for a few downs, and then he’s sitting for the rest of the game.”

  Emily still clutched Amy’s arm.

  “I love you, Em, but you need to lay off the weightlifting. Damn, you’re breaking my arm,” Amy said. She reached out to give her sister a half-hug, though.

  The ball was snapped. Players crashed into each other, and Brandon managed to wrap his arm around the quarterback and drop him to the turf. “Look,” Emily called out.

  “I needed that eardrum.” Amy was grinning at Emily’s excitement. “Yes, yes, he did well. Look at Damian. He got pig piled.”

  “Isn’t he supposed to be sitting, too?”

  “Next series,” Amy said.

  The players on the field formed their lines again. The ball was snapped, and Brandon took off after the runner carrying the ball. He wrapped his arms around the guy and pulled him down to the turf. The crowd went wild. Obviously Brandon tackled him, but Emily was a bit confused at the reaction around her.

  “What happened?”

  “He dropped the guy behind the line of scrimmage. The other team lost yards,” Amy said. Evidently, this was good. She’d have to remember to ask Brandon about it later.

  She glanced up at the scoreboard. Third and fifteen. Brandon told her before that when the other team had “third and long,” it was the defense’s job to make sure they couldn’t get enough yardage to get a first down.

  Brandon lined up a short distance away from the other guys on the line, the ball was snapped, and he ran toward the other team’s quarterback. He leaped on the guy, but something must have happened during the tackle. A few seconds later, Brandon lay on the turf in obvious pain. He pushed his helmet off and was writhing, flipping from side to side. Emily looked on in horror. He couldn’t be hurt. He never got hurt, according to him. What on earth could be wrong?

  “Oh, God, Amy, he’s not getting up. What happened?”

  The crowd was silent.

  “He’s fine,” Amy soothed. “Maybe he just got the wind knocked out of him.”

  The trainer, the team doctor, and the defensive coaches ran out to Brandon. Emily couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She jumped up out of her seat. She had to get to him.

  Amy grabbed her arm. “Stay here.”

  “He needs me.”

  “No. Em, he’ll be fine. He’s just—let’s see what happened.” Brandon was still rolling around on the turf. Someone had picked up his helmet, and it looked like he was cl
utching his thigh. Amy consulted her TV receiver. “They turned down the sideline microphone. They’re bleeping every other word. It’s picking up Brandon. I think he’s in pain.” Amy smiled wryly. “He likes the ‘F’ word, that’s for sure.”

  Finally, the three men clustered around Brandon helped him up. He leaned on them as they made their way back to the sidelines. There was a short discussion with the team’s doctor. Moments later, the same men walked Brandon to the tunnel that led into the locker room. People clapped. Emily watched with one hand over her mouth.

  “Where are they going?” Emily said.

  “He’ll have an exam and a couple of X-rays,” Amy said. “He’ll probably be back in a few minutes.”

  She’d evidently attracted the attention of the people sitting around them as well. Even in a noisy stadium, she could hear people murmuring, “McKenna’s fiancée,” and “Why is she sitting in the stands?” Emily wasn’t sure where they all thought she should be sitting, but they seemed angry somehow. She pasted on a smile she didn’t feel, and Emily and Amy alternated between watching the tiny television screen and waiting for Brandon to re-emerge from the tunnel.

  Amy wrapped her arm around Emily’s shoulders. “Listen. The sports guys are all saying that the preliminary injury report looks compatible with a thigh bruise. It’s not his knee, it’s not a broken bone, it’s just painful as hell and he won’t be playing for a couple of weeks. But he’ll be okay.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Now, buck up, little camper. If the camera guys figure out where we’re sitting and he sees you crying on the video screen, Brandon’s going to be upset. He said to the reporter that he’s hurting, but he’s going to be fine.”

  “You’re sure.”

  Amy nodded. “In the meantime, we’re going to beat the Mustangs. Their quarterback got sacked and their running back got dropped for a significant loss in the first series of the game. They’re toast.”