Zomgzomgsheputonhersocksitstimeforawalk!
I let my face drop into my hands.
“You know you’re supposed to put your socks on in private,” Bridget says. I peer at her through my spread fingers to see her looking at me with a frown. A frown so dramatic that it makes her face mask crack a little. “Can you take him?”
“Bridget. We’ve discussed this.”
“Pleeeeeeeeease.”
“He’s impossible. You know that.”
“You know you wanna!”
Of course I do, but here’s the thing about Frankie: He’s the only therapy dog I know who had to drop out of school due to a morbid fear of Crocs. But he does have a vest, which is helpful at Halloween and the occasional dog-sitting quandary. Bridget clasps her hands together. “He missed you. Take him with. His feet smell so much like corn chips right now…”
Lord. I’m such a sucker for that dog. But we have been through this more than once. “I don’t even know where I’m going. Do you know what happens if there is an unsuspecting stranger wearing the shoes? Do you even know what happens to him when we pass a shoe store?” In the background, Frankie zips back toward the bathroom and then zooms toward the kitchen again. I hear him slide into the trashcan.
She twists the knot on her flannel shirt. “Please?”
He runs back toward the bathroom and emerges dragging a full-size bath towel behind him. It doesn’t go quite as planned, though, and he ends up getting rolled up into it like a burrito. “Fine, yes, okay,” I say, unrolling him from the towel, which he then grabs to begin a pick-up game of tug-of-war.
She claps her hands together in front of her. A little crumble of clay falls from her face and lands on the floor.
“But if he starts growling at my clients, I’m calling you. It’s bad for business. A lot of my clients think Crocs help plantar fasciitis.”
Bridget scoops him up in the towel and swaddles him, then pulls out his paw to wave it at me. She does her Frankie voice, which sounds awfully like her impression of Oprah. “Thank you, Mama Mary. Thannnnnk you. What’s your man’s name, by the way?”
This is Bridget all over. She always asks the important questions through the dog. We are like some old married couple bickering through a Brussels Griffon.
“Moist Ache. You know that already,” I say as I take Frankie’s travel carrier from the closet. It’s basically a big purse with a little modification on one end for his head to peek out. Frankie zooms at full speed into it, turns around, and pokes his head over the edge, panting. I hand him his panda.
“Jimmy.” I clear my throat, realizing I’m just a little hoarse. “Jimmy is his name.”
Again, I feel that rush through me. Scream until you’re hoarse. And now here I am.
Bridget makes a pshaw sound. “What kind of internet stalking can I do with that? Last name?”
Frankie gets his head situated over the edge of his carrier, breathing hard into his panda. I hoist the carrier bag up over my arm, and grab one more apple for the road. “Jimmy Falconi.”
I sink my teeth into the apple. Bridget’s mouth falls open at the very same moment that her mess of pretty red hair falls out of its chopstick bun. I have no idea what that look is for, but I tighten my scarf, put on my hat, and head out the door, and as I’m hustling down the hallway with Frankie bouncing along next to me, I’m almost sure I hear her say, “The Jimmy Falconi?”
Just as I put my hand on the door handle to go out onto the street, my phone chirps at me. I pull it out of my pocket and see the face of Dr. Curt Curtis, my boss, and owner of Healing Therapies LLC. He’s been out of the Army for twenty years, but still rocks the buzz cut, and the jaw line, and a passionate love for clipboards. Once a colonel, always a colonel. No matter what we’re talking about, he sounds like he’s on the battlefield.
I hit ACCEPT. “Mary, what’s your ETA?” booms his voice from the phone. I scramble to turn down the volume. I’ve tried to tell him there’s no need to talk as if he’s giving orders through a walkie-talkie. It hasn’t sunk in.
But wait. What is my ETA? It’s a good question, seeing as I don’t even know where I’m going. “Had a little car trouble.” I bite off a piece of apple for Frankie. With my shoulder, I shove open the front door to our apartment building. A mailman skids along with his hands out, narrowly avoiding me and doing a spiral around a parking meter.
“Just leaving now!”
“Jesus!” he booms.
That’s his favorite word. Jesus. It’s his all-purpose exclamation. Good news? Jesus! Bad news? Jesus. Really bad news? Jeeeeeeesus. Just depends on the moment.
“Had a long night!” I slide toward my car along the salty but still icy sidewalk. “Where am I headed?”
“New patient. Just got the call yesterday afternoon. It’s a shoulder. Looking at the chart, I decided you needed to take it. Might be that there’s a little mind-body connection going on, like you’re so fond of talking about.”
Dr. Curtis isn’t exactly closed-minded about such things, but the closest he gets to any kind of holistic, natural approach to anything is a celery stick in his Bloody Mary. So sometimes, just once in a blue moon, there’s a case that he feels might be a bit bigger than therapy bands and stretches.
“Roger,” I say with a little twinge of excitement. “Just tell me where I’m headed.”
“To Soldier Field. I’ll email you the file. You know how to get there?”
“Soldier Field,” I reply slowly, almost sounding it out. “Baseball? South Side?”
Curtis groans. “The football stadium. Where the Bears play. Da Bears?”
“Oh! Right! Of course!” Still, I have no idea whatsoever. I mean, I know the Bears. Of course I do. But as for where they play?
No idea at all.
I can almost hear Curtis smack his forehead. He’s a die-hard Bears fan. He has a standing order for two dozen Buffalo wings for every game day, and a flag in his front yard that says I BLEED BEARS BLUE. HOW ABOUT YOU?
Normally, I’d ask for info on the patient, the injury, the prognosis. But the file is on its way, and I’ve got some serious windshield fog to deal with. “Having some operational problems, Colonel. Will report back to base after the appointment.”
He pauses, waiting for me to end radio transmission.
But I don’t. Instead, I decide to ring the gong of the day, in a way. Because it just felt so right earlier, and feels so right still. “May you be eternally blissful.”
“I don’t read you, Mary! Repeat.” Curtis hollers.
Okay, fine. It’s not really his cup of tea, so I go for the old trusty, “Over and out, Colonel!” and end the call.
I buckle Frankie into his harness clip that fastens to the seatbelt, and tell my phone, “Okay, Google! Take me to Soldier Field.”
She beeps at me. “Soldier Field is the home field of the Chicago Bears. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league’s National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Their head coach is Mike Radovic and their current starting quarterback is…”
“No, Google! Open Maps. Driving. Maps! Give me driving directions,” I bark at my phone, trying to enunciate as much as I can with my lips almost frozen. “Driving directions!”
Bloop bleep.
Finally, my phone gets with the program, and Google Maps chirps back, “You are on the fastest route. You will arrive in 20 minutes.”
And we’re off.
16
Jimmy
In the parking garage, I hook snow chains to the tires of my old Toyota 4Runner. For a day like today, I could definitely take the Yukon, but there’s just nothing better than hauling ass down Lake Shore in chains. I’m only bummed I didn’t have time to stick chains on her Wrangler, but everything in its own time.
This truck is my favorite, and I’m super fucking attached to the old JOE MONTANA FOR PRESIDENT bumper sticker that I put on the back when I was a kid, so I’m not about to change it up. This thing was my dad�
�s first, and then mine. The day I got the keys might have been when shit started to go south with me and my brother, but I suspect it was a hell of a lot earlier than that. Like, say, birth. Or maybe he was already busting my balls in the womb. That would be his kind of thing. The ass.
This 4Runner is a part of me, a reminder of who I was before I became The Falcon. I was nothing but a kid with an arm, from a dirt-poor oil rigging family in the Permian Basin. Which is still basically what I am—some guys feel comfortable with money, but I never have. Never will.
Unless it means I get to spoil the living hell out of that woman.
As I’m chaining up the tires, I send her an array of texts, which is a first for me. Being the first one to text. And not only do I do it once and play it cool with, like, a, Hey. Thanks for last night. No way. This time, I go balls-deep in it, talking to her like she’s standing here with me:
Where should I take you for dinner?
Italian?
Greek.
Ribs again?
I could make you an omelet. That’s pretty much all I know how to make.
But I can make the shit out of it. Cheese and everything. Avocado?
But no answer, not even any sign that she’s read the messages. I think about telling her something dirty, but no. That’s not right. Don’t be an asshole, Jimmy. She hasn’t been gone an hour, and what? You’re going to blow up her messages? Play. It. Cool. This one is a keeper.
Did I just think that?
Oh Jesus.
I did.
But I cannot get her out of my head, which is also unusual for me. I’m not exactly a playboy… Okay, fine, I am. Kind of. A serial first-dater, anyway. But she’s different. I can feel it. I mean, maybe that’s my dick talking, but it’s never talked quite like this. Those orgasms. Fuck me. We’ve got the spark, the chemistry, whatever it is. It’s undeniable. I’ve never felt it before, and it feels fucking amazing.
As I hook the chain on the back wheel, my phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s her.
driving!
I find myself smiling at my phone, moving my thumb over the message. See, I even dig that. Admittedly, it’s dangerous as fuck, but it’s nice. It’s cute. It’s considerate. Sweet.
With one hand, I open the hatch, toss my bag into the trunk and hop into the driver’s seat. As I head for the garage door, I listen to the chains banging on the dry concrete. When I get onto the road, though, it all pays off. I watch a guy in a Tesla slide off into a fire hydrant, doing just enough damage to fuck up his day but not enough to involve the insurance. The worst.
I wind my way out of town, past snowdrifts and plows pulled off to the side of the road. I turn up the heat and put the radio on full blast. I get on the highway and gun it toward Soldier Field.
Toward work. Toward the game.
The thing that was amazing about being with her was that it was as if I was completely outside of all of this stuff. For a few hours, I had a break. I was totally free to just…be. To get lost inside her, to get away from everything. But now, the butterflies start again, and it feels like a bowling ball knocking down all the pins in my gut.
On the highway, my phone buzzes again, and I put it on my leg. This time, it’s not from Mary. It’s from Michael. The dickhead with my DNA.
Looking forward to watching you fuck it up again on Sunday, James.
I’m making bank by keeping you off my fantasy football team.
If we’re the yin and the yang, he’s the dark one. The underside. The kid who got in trouble; the one who was too violent for team sports. And if it were anybody other than my identical twin, I’d have told him to fucking take a hike. Twins, though, it’s complicated. Really complicated. Especially because of Annie.
I moved the two of them with me to Chicago because I couldn’t fucking handle the idea of leaving him to raise Annie without me keeping an eye on him. The shit gave me nightmares before it had even started. If my mom were still alive she’d be able to help, but she’s been gone for years. My dad is just as bad as Michael. So it all comes down to me.
I peer at my screen, at the little thumbnail I use for his contact photo, which is her face. Christ. That little girl has my number every which way. She’s wearing a little tiara I bought for her, and her face is covered in SpaghettiOs. The cutest stinking thing I've ever seen, and how in God’s name she is related to that absolute asshole…
I reread the messages.
Goddamn it, how I hate him.
Without fucking fail, the guy makes me feel like a total pussy. And a failure. Nobody else on the planet makes me feel like I’m five years old, but he does. He’s an asshole, a deadbeat, but he’s always known exactly how to get to me. I’m not jealous. I don’t want his life: a temper, a gambling problem, and a slow creeping case of serious alcoholism. But I envy him for having Annie. That much is definitely true.
Normally, I’d answer with some shit about how he should stick to what he knows: Jim Beam and the slots. It never works. When you’re a losing quarterback at the end of your career, man, there’s a lot of cheap shots to be had.
But today, I’ve got a different reply. And it feels damned good to say it.
Driving.
When I get to the locker room, I find Valdez sitting on the bench in front of my locker with his leg up on a chair.
We were at OSU together. He’s approximately the size of a polar bear, and also the owner of the world’s most unfortunate tattoo. After playing six seasons for the Raiders, he took the plunge and got a huge number 18 tattooed on his back. And I mean, fucking huge. Like, bigger than the number on his jersey. He might have done it in an ill-advised trip to Vegas with me, but we don’t really talk about that because about six seconds after they turned off the tattoo gun, he got traded to the Bears. On the upside, it meant we got to finally play on the same team again. On the downside, 18 wasn’t available. So he’s 81. I said, “At least they’re both multiples of nine.”
I still don’t think he got that. He nodded like he did, but I’m pretty sure it went right over his head. That’s okay, though. He’s got a heart of gold, is tough as shit, and loves Angry Birds. And he looks like a bear, eats like a bear, so we call him Bear.
“Dude, what the fuck?” he says as his iPad screams, “Kakawwwwwww!”
I drop my bag. “What?”
“We had darts last night. You never showed.” The birds on his screen make annoyed grumbling noises and he holds his enormous finger out in the air.
“Fuck.” I slump down next to him. “I…fuck. I’m sorry, man. I got a little busy.”
Valdez wrinkles up his massive face and scratches his ear. Then he reaches over and grabs his very favorite snack, a honey stick, which he snaps open with his teeth and squeezes in his mouth. He considers me while sucking on the honey and blinking slowly. I’m serious. The bear behavior is really hard to ignore. “You meet someone?”
This is the other thing about Valdez. His mom is a palm reader from Guatemala, and nothing gets past him ever.
“Dude, stop. Will you? I’m totally good as a bachelor.” So good, in fact, that I declined an invitation to be on The Bachelor.
“Pffffffft.” He wiggles his tattooed ring finger. “A wife is the best thing that can happen to a guy. Next to kids.”
I don’t know about that, but Valdez is a true believer. He may look like a thug, but he’s pretty much the most wholesome guy on the team. Never looks at another woman, and never misses dinner at home if he’s in town. His one treat to himself is darts, over a pitcher of Old Style, with me. And I stood him up.
“I feel like a total douchebag.”
“I wasn’t gonna say it, hombre. But yeah. Total douche.” He sucks some honey from the straw and gnaws on the end. “I can only forgive it if it has to do with a good woman.”
Christ. Among his other pursuits, including raising money for the Cook County Humane Society and serving at a soup kitchen in Riverdale on Saturdays, he’s dying to get me married. I mean absolutely hell-bent on seei
ng me walk down the aisle, any aisle, even if it’s the hallway at City Hall. He and his wife have set me up on more dates than I can count. All perfectly nice women. Some with big hair, some with small hair. Big boobs, small boobs. Nice, though. Super nice. But none of them quite right.
Probably because none of them knocked me unconscious before they even knew my name. My type might be one in a million.
“I fell asleep on the sofa,” I explain, because I don’t want to involve Mary in this. If I did, if he had any idea how she makes me feel, he’d be booking a photographer and asking me if he can be the godfather to a kid we don’t even have. Valdez only has one relationship speed: warp.
But Mary and me, we’re new. Just starting. Too early to say, but not too early to hope. I flash back to last night, to her at the end of me, on her knees the second time, gripping my forearm as she came, the way her head landed on the pillow, the way she whimpered as she shuddered.
Fuck.
Screw taking her out for dinner. We’ll get takeout, and I can feed her grapes and lick whipped cream off her nipples.
“Bullshit.” Valdez runs his tongue around his mouth and then gnaws on the plastic straw. “I can see it on you. Like a glow.”
I look at myself in the mirror on the other side of the room. And actually, I can kind of see it. Weirdly. I don’t know what it is, but I look…happy? I’m usually happy-ish. But now, I’m damn near beaming.
“New soap,” I tell him.
Valdez lets fly with a pelican bomber. “Riiiight. You’ve got six hundred bars of Ivory and you’re saying new soap? Okay, Mr. Costco. Okay.”
Hail Mary Page 8