Hail Mary

by Nicola Rendell

The guy is a ballbuster, and as usual, can see right the fuck through my ass. I mean, I guess I’ll have to tell him eventually, so I try to get the story lined up in my head. I went to that boxing gym, you know the one with all the guys with neck tattoos? And there was this girl, who flattened me…

  See, that’s…

  We talked about bestselling biographies of American presidents, and she did this impression of How It’s Made that…

  Ummm…

  She ate a half a rack of ribs just as fast as I did…

  Well okay, yeah, that one might actually seal the deal for him.

  But before I can get the story started, I hear the jingling of keys and a woman’s voice saying, “I’m looking for Mr.…”

  I freeze. I know that voice because it’s totally stuck in my head. Jimmy, Jimmy, please, please… And the thing is, her voice is a little ragged now. From screaming my name.

  Ever so slowly, I move my eyes to the nearest mirror. There she is, in the doorway, scrolling over something on her phone. She’s got snow boots on, with red laces, and her yoga pants tucked into the tops. Today she’s wearing a puffy short vest, so I can see every last inch of her perfect fucking legs. And that beautiful Y between them. Yoga pants, God bless them. Namaste, motherfuckers. Namaste.

  But wait. What am I doing, getting lost in those legs again? The real question is: What the hell is she doing here?

  Her eyes dart around the locker room, and she adjusts her scarf. It’s my fault that she’s got to have it so tight around her throat. Mine. All mine.

  Jesus Christ, this woman is turning me into an animal.

  She can’t see me, but I can see her; this place is full of mirrors and I’ve got a fun-house advantage.

  She unzips her vest and I try to read her shirt backward. It’s just a goddamned jumble. CLL SEIPAREHT GNILAEH.

  What is happening? What the fuck does that even say? Is that English? I try to sound it out. Call Separate Ghinleah. No. What?

  I come around the corner and slide one eye out past the locker so I can get a direct line of sight. HEALING THERAPIES LLC.

  Uh-oh.

  Her eyes meet mine. I can almost see the thoughts streaming through her head. Why is the model who sells Fords and Fiats in the Bears’ locker room? Is he stalking me?

  Fantastic.

  Her mouth drops open. How the fuck am I going to explain this? I kind of liked being anonymous, and I haven’t talked about a book with anybody since I was drafted. Plus, you were just so cute having no idea at all who I was that I couldn’t say anything, but I really was planning on doing it tonight over dinner.

  Smooth. So smooth.

  I take a step toward her, and then another, but I’m not looking where I’m going, and I’ve gotten myself into a serious situation. My legs have gotten tangled in someone’s gym bag. I try to take a good, long, steadying step, but that just makes the shoulder strap tighten and gets the bag wedged under one of the benches. It pulls my foot back, and now the shit is really hitting the fan. Like something out of a slow-motion blooper reel, I feel myself falling, falling, my arms out and pawing at the air like a haunted house mummy.

  Her mitten comes up to her mouth. My shoulder ricochets off the corner of the locker bank. Now I’m falling, and turning, and flailing…

  Somewhere behind me, I hear Valdez holler, “Stand clear! Save yourselves! Quarterback going down!”

  Just behind Mary is my guard, Macklin, with his hands cupped to his mouth saying, “Ohhhhhh shiiiiiiit.”

  With my other foot, I try to get back on solid ground again, but I manage to step into the other strap and flail, flail, flail until I’m going headlong toward the industrial carpet with the Bears logo woven a million times into the nylon pile.

  Boom.

  I land hard and knock the wind out of myself, and so to add insult to injury, I’m there tangled up in a gym bag gasping into the floor. I feel an old familiar pain in my groin, one I haven’t felt for years and years.

  “Fuuuuuuck,” I say, into the carpet.

  Her snow-crusted boots inch closer, and then she drops down into a ball beside me. Her hand touches my back and she whispers, “Jimmy?”

  “I’m good.” I suck up some drool. I’m really winning this. Totally.

  Frankie Knuckles now comes to see to me, checking for signs of life by smashing his nose into my ear and giving me a cold, wet, sneeze. I try to face him, but as soon as I move, I feel it—the hot-poker pain in my balls. I roar into the carpet.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Groin,” I snarl.

  “Oh no.”

  I try to roll over, but my legs are all tied up, so I just stay where I am, feeling the slight rug burn on my cheek and wondering if a person can actually die of embarrassment. I look up at her, and her hair slips down over her shoulder. The dog stares down at me, a few inches from my eye. “What are you doing here?” I ask her. As I do, swear to God, the dog’s eyebrows come down like I’m talking to him.

  She blinks. “I’m…your new physical therapist, I think?”

  Well. Fuck me.

  But that’s when Radovic stomps in, with his warm-up pants swishing and his blue Crocs making small farting noises under his feet. He believes in three things: a no-huddle offense, Crocs, and Red Bull. And he has an absolute gift for stating the obvious.

  “Falconi. You’re on the floor.”

  Told you.

  That’s when Frankie Knuckles turns his scruffy head to look at Radovic, zeros in on his shoes, and absolutely loses his shit.

  17

  Mary

  “That’s a terrible therapy dog,” says Coach Radovic, sucking down some Red Bull and standing in the middle of the training room in his socks. I managed to snatch the Crocs off his feet before he got his ankles mauled, and hid them on the top shelf of Jimmy’s locker. Now I hear his toes crack and he burps a little over my shoulder. There’s something in his eyes that tells me he might be a few eggs short of a dozen. I’m pretty sure the guy wasn’t poached from NASA. He slugs back a big gulp of Red Bull but doesn’t swallow, so his mouth is full and puffy like he’s swishing with mouthwash.

  I guide Jimmy to a massage table and help him sit down. He makes it look like a children’s pool floatie. His feet hang off the bottom, his head hangs off the top, and his shoulders are about five inches too broad on either side. He gives me this look, this mischievous look that absolutely melts me.

  Stay professional, Mary. Do your job. I adjust the headrest to maximum extension and position his head on it, letting my fingers linger on his sexy, thick, perfectly trimmed sideburns...

  Mary!

  I know I’m here for his shoulder, but the groin injury is acute. I can’t ignore it. That groin.

  Oh God, this is a disaster.

  Focus. He’s just a patient. That’s it. So simple. A patient with a groin injury that he got because he fell down trying to get to you in the locker room of the Chicago Freaking Bears. Just an ordinary morning.

  “I think I should probably get you on the floor,” I tell him. “For leverage.”

  And Jimmy grumbles something like, That sounds good to me, under his breath.

  Are you there, God? It’s me, Mary…

  But I can tell he’s in pain, and I’m not totally sure that the floor is going to make any difference at all. “Let me take a look at your groin.”

  Jimmy’s eyes meet mine. Radovic is standing so close that I can hear the air from his nose whooshing off the top of the aluminum can in his hand, along with a low whistle from his nostrils. The guy could definitely use a neti pot.

  “Coach, I think Dawkins wanted a word with you,” Jimmy says, shifting his head to look past me, at the same time revealing the veins and muscles in his neck, like columns. The guy is just pure sex appeal. Two hundred eighty-three pounds of delicious at my fingertips.

  Radovic swishes off, hollering, “Dawkins!” at the top of his lungs.

  Now we’re alone. Jimmy tucks one arm behind his head, the same way he di
d this morning in bed, and smiles up at me. He’s in sweatpants, a hoodie, and well-worn tennis shoes, and his hair is an adorable mess. “Well. Hello again.”

  “At least this explains where I thought I’d seen you before,” I whisper, pretending to look busy with my clipboard. It’s an old Army trick that Colonel Curtis taught me. Clipboards make everybody look official. He said that’s how he got promoted to sergeant. Or something. “So you’re not just a Gillette model.” I pretend to jot down some notes. Really, I’m writing his name very, very slowly on the form. “And the car dealership?”

  “Falconi Ford and Fiat,” he smiles. And winks.

  Suddenly I am transported to the Dan Ryan Expressway. That is the face. “You’re on billboards! Winking like that!”

  He snorts. “Possibly.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t know you were the quarterback,” I whisper. “You’re actually famous!”

  He shakes his head. “It was awesome. I kind of wish you didn’t know now.”

  But I do know. There’s no getting around it. James Falconi, 34, 283, 6'6" is my patient.

  “Code of Ethics for the Physical Therapist, Principle 4E: Physical therapists shall not engage in any sexual relationship with a patient…”

  Oh geez. But it’ll be okay. I’ll get in and out, and then I’ll hand it over to Dr. Curtis. It’s one session. We can keep our hands off each other for one session. We can pretend last night didn’t happen for one session. Maybe.

  “Nice scarf,” Jimmy says, running his tongue along his teeth.

  I open my eyes up wide, painfully wide, and blink at him as I pull it tighter to my throat. “My roommate asked if I’d been attacked by a vacuum. She tried to guess the brand!”

  There are those dimples. And then he shifts his hand down from behind his head. He scratches his throat and then, just as if it happened by accident, runs his fingers along my thighs.

  Not an accident. I make a little whimper.

  Then I clear my throat. I bend down and grab a piece of gum from the side of my bag. With care and focus, I unfold it. As if when I put my gum in my mouth, it’ll be time to get down to business.

  Right. Business time, like the Flight of the Concords say. Conditions are perfect. I put the fresh Juicy Fruit on my tongue and straighten my shoulders. “Okay, Mr. Falconi.” I glance at my phone, which I have clipped onto the clipboard above his notes form. I read aloud, “Recurrent rotator cuff injury affecting job performance?”

  Jimmy swallows hard, clearly embarrassed. “Yeah,” he says, wincing and holding on to his leg. “But right now, this is a fuckload more painful.” His hand slides down to his thigh, and his huge thumb rests over his balls.

  Mentally, I steady myself. I’ve worked with all sorts of patients. I can be objective. I can be professional. It’s just a groin.

  I look at his pants. No, that is not just a groin. I know that from first-hand experience. It’s the groin of groins. I’m torn between wanting to help him and bolting for the door. I wonder if I can get the hell out of here, even temporarily, so I can pull myself together. Maybe I’ll say I got food poisoning, or maybe Frankie will do me a solid and start dry-heaving because of the panda stuffing he’s been eating. Could happen any minute.

  Only, it’s not going to. We’re here. I’m here. He’s here. Frankie is sleeping off his Croc rage. And if I bolt now, Dr. Curtis will never forgive me.

  Keeping one hand on his arm, I reach over and pull a cart full of therapy gear—tape, bands, balls, creams, lotions—over toward the table.

  “Let’s have a look,” I say, feeling for the injury through his pants.

  His eyes meet mine, and then I take a deep, steadying breath as I hang on to his arm. “I have to,” I whisper.

  “Fuck. I know.” He looks past me, checking that the coast is clear. “Is this hot? Do you find this hot?”

  “Don’t you dare.” I bite down hard on my Juicy Fruit. “But yes.”

  “Christ.” He adjusts his balls in this way that just oozes masculinity. The alpha wolf. “I can’t get you out of my head.”

  “It’s been two hours!”

  “That’s a long-ass time to be stuck on a loop.”

  How am I going to do this? Examine his groin right here in the middle of everything while he is flirting so shamelessly that I’m blushing already? The situation is impossible. But I really don’t have another choice.

  “Could you move your…” I cough meaningfully and glance down at his bulge.

  Jimmy slides his hand down into his pants and cups himself, moving his…his package…aside. It’s the only word for it.

  Here we go, Mary. Be professional. Just do your job. Focus on your training. It’s just a groin.

  With my fingers, I delicately examine the place where there’s trouble. I can feel it’s a spasm, probably not a tear. But I really can’t get a sense of what’s happening without getting right up against his skin.

  “Is it okay if I move down a layer?” I ask.

  Jimmy pretends to cough into his elbow, and I’m pretty sure I hear him growl out a, “fuck yes, it is,” into his arm

  I take a tub of arnica cream from the training cart and scoop a dollop into my palm, warming it up. Jimmy picks up the waistband of his boxers, making a space for me. I see underneath that these, just like the long johns, are courtesy of Costco. In a totally feeble attempt to make conversation, I say, “I’m a Costco girl myself.”

  I shift the right leg of his boxers up toward his groin so I’m touching his skin directly.

  Jimmy’s dark blue eyes follow me back and forth. I purse my lips to tell him, Stop it. He looks right at me. Stop what?

  This man. I want this man.

  He sniffs. He gets this cocky look on his face. “I’m a fan of bulk. I like things big. But sometimes, it’s a tight squeeze in my apartment.”

  Oh God. I rub the cream into his huge thigh, feeling the flicker of the spasm now very clearly under my fingertips.

  “Fuck,” he groans and drops his head back on the massage table.

  “Does that hurt?”

  He doesn’t answer, not at first. There’s some commotion behind me, players making a racket over something, ribbing each other over something, and Jimmy takes the chance to say, “Careful. You know what you do to me.”

  If I didn’t know before, I can see it now. Slowly growing in his sweatpants, showing me exactly what he wants.

  “You should probably grab me a towel,” he says softly. “Because this train is leaving the station…”

  Right. Good thinking. I snatch a fresh white one off the pile to my left. He drops it casually on his lap.

  Again, our eyes meet. While under his waistband, I widen the area where I’m applying the Arnica. His eyes shut and he winces, so I lighten my touch. And that’s when the back of my hand brushes against his hard-on.

  He groans, “Oh shit…”

  His eyes lock on to mine. I glance at the towel. A family-sized terrycloth tent begins forming, in spite of our preventative efforts. He flares his nostrils. I stop moving my hand and hold my breath.

  He gets this look in his eye, that intense, driven focus that I saw last night when he was inside me trying not to come. This time, though, he’s using his powers to stop himself from giving us both away. Which is incredibly sexy in and of itself. Slowly, the flagpole is lowered to half-staff.

  “Well done,” I whisper as I explore the muscle gently. I press my body up against the table to get a little leverage on the spot. I don’t think it’s torn but… I move my fingers down between his legs, along his perineum.

  “Fuck, you’re not making it easy.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t you dare apologize.”

  I look away from that handsome face and raise my eyes to the fluorescent bulbs above me. Being this close to him is intoxicating. Unethical, and utterly intoxicating.

  I have a quick but not at all unpleasant flash of me asking everybody to leave us alone and then climbing up on this tab
le on top of him.

  Mary!

  “It seems to be in spasm, not torn,” I tell him. “So that’s good. That means it could get better relatively quickly. Unless you do something to aggravate it…”

  “You want some aggravation?”

  I will not answer that. I cannot. Because I want it. I want all the fury and aggression. I want him. I want him now. But instead of letting any of that on, I swallow my own groan and take a gel ice pack from the cart behind me and wrap it in a towel. “Will you put that in your pants for me?”

  He nods and takes it in his huge hand. Our fingers brush against each other, and he growls again. He lifts his sweatpants open a little wider, and I see the head of his cock has come out of his boxer briefs, which probably come twelve in a pack, every plaid sexier than the last…

  Oh God.

  He grunts a little and then slips the ice pack in and lowers his waistband. From the table, I take four Advil and a bottle of water. I help him sit up and watch him drink, completely possessed by his lips on that bottle. Those lips that marked me. That mouth that bruised me.

  “I think you’re going to be okay,” I tell him. “But you need to rest that leg before we can do anything for your shoulder.”

  Dark, low, and demanding, he says, “Rest with me.”

  My knees actually wobble and I have to brace myself on the side of the table. “You should probably go home.”

  With one finger, he traces a line up the back of my hand. “Go home with me.”

  My God. This guy. It’s madness. I can’t. And yet, I can’t not. There’s something about him vulnerable on this table that is incredibly sexy too. The beast brought down for just one second. “I’m going to hand your file over to Dr. Curtis,” I tell him quietly. “I can’t do my job feeling like this. It’s not right. It’s against all the rules.”

  Jimmy glances past me toward Radovic, who I can see reflected in a mirror. “You have to help me, Mary.” Just a low growl. “I’m fucked if I don’t play. Break the rules for me. Please.”

  I shake my head. “No way, Jimmy.”

  He looks sad in the eyes, a little wounded, and it breaks my heart.