On the Line

by Liz Lincoln

  “Hey, how’s it going?” the skinny guy behind the register said.

  “Hey,” Maddie mumbled, staring at her feet. She hurried off to the left side of the store.

  Seth turned to follow her.

  “Hey, are you…Chamberlain?” the cashier asked.

  Seth closed his eyes. Dammit, of all the times for him to get recognized. This excursion was supposed to be about Maddie.

  But he wasn’t going to be a jerk just because the guy had bad timing.

  “Yeah. Hey.” He held out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Brian.” For as skinny as he was, the guy’s handshake was solid. “I had no idea you were a comic book fan.”

  “I’m not really. But my daughter is. She lives for comics.” Seth inclined his head in the direction Maddie had gone.

  “Oh, that’s cool.” Brian nodded, head bobbing up and down in a way that made him resemble a chicken. “Let me know if you need any help finding something. And great meeting you. Good luck this weekend.”

  Seth smiled. “Thanks. Nice meeting you too.”

  Heading toward the back corner, he went in search of his daughter. He found her inspecting a large display of plastic figurines with small bodies and large squarish heads. She balanced four boxes against her chest as she reached for a fifth. Wonder Woman. Except she had strange, muted colors.

  Whatever. If it made Maddie happy, he’d buy it. Which felt suspiciously like trying to buy her affection, but if it garnered him even the slightest bit of goodwill, or opened the door to a non-hostile conversation, it was worth it.

  “One of your adoring fans?” she asked, her sarcasm so thick it was practically visible.

  Apparently he’d have to purchase the figurines before getting a chance for non-hostility.

  Ignoring her snark, he tried to see the boxes she held. “Who’ve you got to go with Wonder Woman?”

  Maddie sighed. “Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Katana.”

  Which made four, and she held five boxes now. But he wasn’t going to argue math details. “Don’t you already have Wonder Woman and a few of the others?”

  “Not the Bombshell versions,” she said in a duh voice.

  “Oh, right.” Because he knew what that meant.

  His gaze caught on a figure with orange hair, dressed in green. Poison Ivy. His heart rate picked up and he put his hands in his jeans pockets to keep from reaching for the toy. Carrie probably already had one. And there was no way he could explain to Maddie why he wanted to get that particular one. Yet the idea of getting one for himself, to put on his computer desk to remind him of Carrie, was compelling. They probably made Iron Man too. He could get the pair.

  Which was a ridiculous idea. It was the sort of sappy thing men in love did to remind them of their wives. Lem had gotten a pair of bobbleheads made of him and Sarah for their tenth anniversary and they kept them on a bookshelf in their family room. He and Carrie weren’t even a couple. They were sex buddies.

  Sex buddies did not buy action figures to remind themselves of them as a couple. Because of the whole not-a-couple part.

  “Here.” She shoved the white boxes at Seth. He barely managed to catch them all before she disappeared around the back of the display.

  “Hey, can I get a couple for Carrie?”

  A present for Carrie? Hadn’t he just decided that was a bad idea? Or sort of, anyway.

  But this was different, because it would be from Maddie.

  Seth joined his daughter on the other side of the shelves. “What did you have in mind?”

  She handed him a box containing a female superhero with brown skin and hair, a red, white, and blue costume, and a blue mask over her eyes. “Ms. Marvel. Carrie really likes her.” She gave him her winningest smile. The one she knew would get her whatever she wanted.

  He reached for the shelf. “Let me guess, you want one too?” He grabbed another and added it to the stack he held balanced on his forearm, leaning against his chest.

  “Thanks, Dad.” She wandered down another row of shelves, all containing action figures and other collectibles.

  For the first time in days, Seth could almost draw a full breath as he followed her through the store. She was smiling, and had managed to go a whole five minutes without rolling her eyes or making a snotty remark.

  “How come you never tell me about my mom?” she asked matter-of-factly as she rounded the end of yet another aisle. Her tone was so casual, it took Seth a moment to realize what she’d asked.

  When he did, it felt like a punch caught him right under the rib cage. He could barely breathe for a second. Everything in him tensed, bracing for a fight.

  “Because she left when you were a baby,” he spit out. The few pleasant memories he had of Jessa were vastly overshadowed by her abandonment of her own infant. “Why would you care?” He loved Maddie enough for two parents.

  She stopped and gave him a withering stare. “I don’t know. Maybe because she’s my mother?”

  Only in the strictest biological sense of the word. “I’ve told you everything I know about her.” Maybe that wasn’t 100 percent true. He’d glossed over details about how cold Jessa could be. The lack of emotion she’d shown toward their child.

  He definitely wasn’t going to tell Maddie how Jessa called every few months asking for money, but rarely asking about their daughter. The first few times, Seth had asked her if she wanted to know anything about Maddie. Her answer had always been a genuinely confused “Why?”

  “She took off before I got to know her very well.”

  “You knew her well enough to have a kid.”

  “Two stupid-drunk college kids don’t need to know much of anything for one of them to get knocked up.” As soon as the words came out, Seth regretted them, even if they were true.

  Maddie winced, closing her eyes. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and tell her he hadn’t meant that the way it sounded, that his bitterness was all for Jessa and not at all for her, but he couldn’t. Besides the stupid figures he carried, everything about Maddie’s posture screamed not to touch her.

  “So I’m a mistake,” she whispered.

  Fucking hell.

  He shoved the damn toys onto a shelf and took Maddie’s shoulders. He turned her toward him, but she didn’t open her eyes. He wanted to scream at her, he wanted to hold her forever, he wanted to puke. How had tonight gotten so royally fucked up?

  “No. Absolutely no. We didn’t plan you, but you have never, ever been a mistake, Madison.”

  When she finally opened her eyes, her glare was sharp enough that it felt like glass tearing through his heart. “Coulda fooled me.” She jerked out of his grip and stalked away.

  Seth reached her in two large steps, grabbing her arm. “You can stop this tantrum right now. I know this move has been hard and the season is tough on you. I hate that it’s so hard for you. But never, not once in your life, have I treated you like a mistake. I love you more than anything. You might not believe it, but even football is a very distant second to you, Madison Deanna Chamberlain. From the second I first held you, you have been the best, most important thing in my life. You can be mad at me for plenty of things, including dragging you to a new city. But treating you like a mistake isn’t one of them. Treating you like I don’t love you so much it hurts sometimes isn’t one of them. So go right ahead and stay pissed at me for the shit Jessa did if that’s what you need to do. But you don’t ever tell me again that you’re a mistake.”

  They stood in weighty silence for endless moments, Maddie staring at her feet, Seth trying to get his temper under control. Finally Maddie turned away from him. “I’m gonna go find a few comics.” She shuffled away.

  Empty and deflated, Seth gathered up the stupid action figures and headed for the register.

  Chapter 14

  The crowd roared as the Dragons ran onto the field for the second half. Carrie and Maddie stood with everyone else, clapping. Carrie’s eyes scanned the players’ jerseys as they jogged o
ut of the tunnel to her left. Even with seats so close—second row, forty-yard line—she couldn’t really tell one player from another. They all looked huge in their uniforms, though admittedly some were bigger than others.

  Finally her gaze found number 52, with his long hair loose and flowing out the back of his helmet. To keep from grinning and giving herself away, she opened her mouth and yelled, “Let’s go, Dragons!” The sound blended in with the rest of the whoops and hollers around them but drew a suspicious look from Maddie.

  Carrie pretended not to notice. She couldn’t explain the sudden increase in her interest in football to a twelve-year-old. Working for Maddie’s dad only explained so much.

  The Dragons kicked off, one of the Kansas City players caught the ball and waved his arm, and then men flowed onto the field as others returned to the bench. Then the Chiefs’ offense and the Dragons’ defense lined up at the seventeen-yard line.

  Seth was on the far side of the field, pressed up against a massive guy—even compared to all the other players—and trying to get around him; since Carrie couldn’t take her eyes off him whenever he was on the field, she missed whether anyone caught the ball.

  It was torture, watching Seth crash into his opponents on each play, especially knowing how much his hip hurt him. When she and Maddie watched games on TV, there was a distance, the violence a step removed from the living room. Plus, the camera rarely focused on Seth except when he was making a play.

  Everything was so much more immediate, seeing the game in person. So close to the field, she heard the crash of the players’ gear as they made contact, the grunts the impact pulled from them.

  “What’s with the sudden interest in football?”

  There it was. Of course Maddie wasn’t going to let it go without asking.

  Carrie opened her mouth, hoping a credible answer would come out. None did; fortunately, the Dragons made a good play and the crowd cheered, giving her an excuse to wait until Maddie could hear her answer. Those few seconds gave her time to think of something to say.

  “I’ve been doing a little research, about all the science involved in the game,” Carrie said. It wasn’t a complete lie. She had dug into the physics and math involved in the game, because she was that nerdy. It just wasn’t the reason for her newfound fandom. It was more a result of it.

  She couldn’t imagine Seth or Maddie would find her newfound knowledge as fascinating as she did, but who cared? Between her research and watching a few Monday night games with him, she could almost imagine herself enjoying the sport. She was at least starting to understand it better.

  On the field, Seth wrapped himself around a Chiefs player carrying the ball. Holding on to the other man’s waist, Seth dragged them both to the ground. Maybe it was Carrie’s imagination, but it seemed like she could hear the thud as their bodies hit the turf.

  “So you’re only into the math and physics?” Maddie asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “I didn’t say that.” She needed to pull a statistic out of her head quickly, to appease the girl. “But it got me more interested. I’d explain all the nerdy stuff I find fascinating, like force and acceleration and torque, but you’d—”

  “Be bored to tears,” Maddie finished. Shaking her head, she grinned. “Wow, I thought I was a nerd.”

  Carrie grinned back. “Gee, thanks.” She looked back to the field in time to see Seth and his teammates jogging to the side, while other Dragons ran onto the field. It appeared as if the Chiefs were setting up to kick a field goal.

  When Seth and she had watched the Monday Night Football game together last week, he’d explained that the defense’s job was to stop the opponent from scoring a touchdown. But if the team on offense got far enough down the field, sometimes they tried kicking a field goal rather than punting the ball to their opponent. A field goal was worth three points, half as many as a touchdown. From his perspective, the worst case was when the other team scored a touchdown, best case when they had to punt. A field goal was somewhere in between.

  The kick was low, but it had enough velocity to squeak in over the bar, adding three points to the Chiefs score, making it 21–17, with the Dragons in the lead.

  As the offense took the field, Carrie’s gaze went to the sideline. Seth had removed his helmet and was sitting on the bench with number 50, whose jersey read “Feu’u.” Carrie knew that was his friend and college teammate Lem. The two talked animatedly, gesturing and squirting water into their mouths.

  Around her, the crowd cheered, and Seth and Lem jumped to their feet, along with the rest of their teammates on the sidelines, yelling about something happening on the field.

  Carrie dragged her attention away from Seth to see number 80 sprinting down the field with the ball, toward the Dragons’ end zone. Only one Chiefs player was near him, and he was losing speed.

  The crowd roared and a chant of “James” vibrated through the stadium. The team celebrated the touchdown as they headed for the bench, knocking helmets with Marcus James, clapping him on his back, and giving him high-fives.

  Again Carrie’s attention was more focused on the sideline than the field, so she paid little attention to the extra-point kick and the following kickoff. When Marcus reached Lem and Seth on the bench, Lem pretended to punch him in the gut while he and Seth bumped fists. All three talked as Seth gathered his hair and twisted it up at the nape of his neck.

  Marcus wandered off. Seth and Lem bumped fists, then both pulled on their helmets as they jogged back to the field.

  Immediately the nerves twisted up in Carrie’s belly. She liked it better when the offense was on the field. As cool as it was to see Seth play, it was also a chance for him to get hurt.

  As the Chiefs’ next drive got under way, Maddie made an annoyed sound that pulled Carrie’s focus from the field.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I don’t like that guy,” Maddie said. “Number 66.”

  The behemoth offensive lineman who was in Seth’s face almost every play. “It is his job to keep your dad from getting to their quarterback.”

  “He’s a dirty player,” Maddie insisted.

  Carrie looked from Maddie to the field, where for once 66 was entangled with a different Dragons defender. The way they were grabbing at each other and dancing in a circle looked like every other play to Carrie. But she didn’t understand the intricacies of all the rules.

  “It’s not just me.” Maddie’s tone grew defensive. “He gets fines all the time. So I don’t like him playing against my dad.”

  Now Carrie didn’t like it either, but she ignored the pressure building in her chest at the idea of Seth facing a dirty player. Instead she smiled. “Look at you, all worried daughter.” She slung her arm around Maddie’s shoulder and pulled the girl against her side.

  “Uhhhh, stop,” Maddie protested, though she leaned against Carrie for a moment before pulling away. “Come on, defense! Get a stop!”

  “I like coming to games with you,” Carrie said, not willing to let Maddie escape the moment entirely. “I promise I won’t tell any of your friends that you get excited and cheer for your dad.”

  Maddie gave her a deadpan teenager look, but Carrie could see humor dancing in her eyes. “I do have a reputation to uphold.”

  Laughing, Carrie turned back to the game. The teams were lining up around the ball, which was placed almost directly in front of Carrie and Maddie. The scoreboard showed it was third down, with four yards to go. If the Chiefs didn’t get those four yards, they would have to punt it to the Dragons.

  And Seth could go safely back to the bench. Carrie cupped her hands around her mouth. “Let’s go, defense!”

  Kansas City’s center—look at her, knowing the positions—hiked the ball to the quarterback, who dropped back and held it near his shoulder as he scanned for an open guy. Seth darted in a wide arc around number 66, aiming for the quarterback. The lineman got in Seth’s way and the two danced around each other until Seth was able to spin around him a
nd continue toward the quarterback.

  Coming up on his right side, Seth dove at the quarterback just as he pulled his arm back to throw the ball. The impact of Seth connecting with the quarterback’s shoulder jarred the ball out of his hand. As Seth and the quarterback hit the ground, a half dozen other players from both teams dove for the loose football.

  It all happened in the span of about five seconds, but for some reason, it felt like it played out in slow-motion detail. Carrie’s eyes never left Seth, even though the action was in the pile of men scrambling for the ball.

  The quarterback extracted himself from beneath Seth’s body and stood. Without offering Seth a hand up, he backed away from the chaos and disappeared from Carrie’s sight.

  Still on the ground, Seth rolled to his back, one hand tucked under his right side. His right leg kicked in and out, as if he were in pain.

  Though he was only a few feet from where the referees were sorting out who had the ball, no one seemed to notice Seth still lying on the turf. Carrie wanted to hop the railing and go scream at his coaches. Couldn’t they see he was hurt? He needed help.

  She couldn’t breathe. One hand went to her throat, the other covering her mouth, holding in a pathetic cry.

  “My dad,” Maddie choked out. “He’s not getting up. I think he’s hurt.”

  Of course he’s hurt! He has a bad hip that’s been bugging him for weeks. Stupid idiot athletes, playing hurt.

  But Carrie didn’t say that out loud. She put her arm around Maddie’s shoulder and pulled the girl close. It was on the tip of her tongue to say he would be OK, but she bit it back. She didn’t know that.

  Finally some of the guys from the Dragons’ staff jogged onto the field, all wearing matching maroon pants and silver windbreakers. One carried a water bottle. Because water would help fucked-up muscles and ligaments?