“I love this,” he says, drawing my neck to him for a kiss.
“Me too.”
One slow, gentle thrust, and then another. “So fucking much.”
41
Jimmy
When we wake up, I don’t have the usual rush of adrenaline that I do on a normal game day. Instead, I feel calm, almost drunk. On her.
I make sure she’s covered up, nice and snug, and then get up and head for the bathroom. I wipe the sleep from my eyes and start the shower. I hold my hand under the water and let it warm up. I learned a long time ago that if you want to get a hot shower on game day, you better start early. There’s no hotel on the planet that can keep up with 60 guys killing time in the shower, nervous as shit and wishing it was tomorrow already. Out of habit, I shower fast—another rule of the road—and when I get out, she’s there waiting for me. With a roll of therapy tape in one hand and a pair of nail scissors in the other.
“Come on, champ. Let’s get you ready to play.”
After I dry off, she starts with my shoulder, making careful meticulous curves over my muscles. Making me raise and lower my arm, and sticking the tape down gently but firmly with her fingertips, until my shoulder is a web of crisscrossed tape.
And then she lowers down onto her knees. There was a time, not so long ago, when I’d have made some crack about while you’re there…
But not now. Because last night, fuck. Last night changed everything.
She gently positions the tape on the insides of my thigh in three orderly stripes. I watch her take such care with me it makes me fucking speechless. Makes me weak, so I have to brace myself on the sink. Her fingers press the tape to my skin, and then she looks up at me. “How’s that?”
“Perfect.”
She reaches for a bottle of Advil and hands it up to me. I put four in my palm and dry-swallow them.
Below me, she shakes her head. “Brute.”
“You know I’m soft, though.” I put my hand to my chest. “In here.”
The corners of her eyes wrinkle when she smiles. “You’re going to be fine today. I’m going to be right there with you.”
I shift her hair off her forehead and cup her chin in my hand. “Okay.”
“Now, one last thing. Is anybody else going to see this spot?” she says, pointing to the athletic tape high on my leg.
“No, just you.”
She turns and takes a tube of lipstick from her bag. She applies it carefully and thickly in the mirror and then gets back down on her knees and places a soft and lovely kiss on the tape on the inside of my thigh.
She heads down to the busses first, and I agree to follow. I gather the books from her room and stick them in my suitcase, which I zip shut and shove into my closet. Then I look at my phone. Exactly one minute has passed.
So I reopen my suitcase and take out The Heart of Tantric Sex and thumb through it. It’s got a kind of crunchy, hippy feeling that I like a lot. Not too slick, not too fancy. Just really fucking sexy.
There is also a tenderness to what it’s saying, which I like too. I like porn as much as the next guy, but this is different.
She is different.
Sometimes Valdez does this thing where he lets a book fall open. He calls it “casting the sortes,” I think; I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure that’s it. He usually does it with the Bible, because that’s his jam. It’s like palm reading for the bookworm, he says. It’s all in the words somewhere, you’ve just got to find them.
So I try it.
I close my eyes and let my finger fall to the page. That’s when I see I’ve landed on Chapter 15, The Power of Love, and the line “Love will set you free, if only you’d let it.”
Damn. Goose bumps slide up my arm.
“Love will transform your world if you believe that it can.”
I get lost in the words. In how true they are, and how possible, until there’s a heavy knock at my door and Valdez booms, “Come on, buddy! We got a game to play!”
Quickly, I steal the dust jacket from The Mind of the Champion and put it around the tantra book and put it in my bag. But then something on the bedside table catches my eye. She left her ring in my room next to the alarm clock. I turn it over in my fingers. The thing is absolutely tiny, barely big enough to get to the first knuckle on my pinkie.
I could put it back in her room. But I’m late, and Valdez is waiting, and having a good luck charm never hurt. Ever.
42
Jimmy
The fucking Broncos. Seriously.
We start off fine, with a halfway decent kick return that gets us into good position at the forty. It’s a clear, cold, fall day. A day for victory. A day for good goddamned things.
But the first thing they do is get a touchdown. In the first twenty seconds.
Assholes.
With that in my craw, we take the field. I focus. I calm myself. I think it through. Valdez snaps to me, and the fullback comes through, between my left tackle and guard. Classic Wishbone. The triple-option…
But then, one by one, every option goes tits up, as they say. First, Valdez gets in a rapidly escalating tussle with one of their defenders, which starts with the defender screaming, “You fucking Guatemalans!” into his face mask and getting worse exponentially from there. Because you know who else is Guatemalan? My fucking fullback.
There goes that option.
I’ve got to think fast and modify the play a little, waiting for my halfback to come around on my left.
But he doesn’t.
Because his wife is Guatemalan.
Fucking fuck.
And my other halfback gets knocked down in a spectacular horse-collar that happens so fucking fast that the refs don’t even see it. Bastards.
It’s like my whole offensive line has suddenly become Latin American social justice warriors. Before we can even get the first down, the defense is all over me, swarming me like huge, predatory bees, blue-and-orange hornets.
As I regain some semblance of balance, with the bright cold sky above me, I hear Radovic on the sidelines, screaming, “What. The. Fuck!” I glance over and see him flattening another can of Red Bull and looking at me with his hands out, furious and red-faced in a way that only professional head coaches can get. Two seconds from a coronary but too hardcore to drop dead on the field.
One of the defensive ends helps me up and slaps me on the ass. “Welcome to the motherfucking Mile High City, Falconi. We missed the shit out of you.”
Bastard.
I’m also fucking winded, because Radovic has me doing a no-huddle offense, which is perfectly fucking fine at sea level. But I can hardly see straight up here with the birds. They might call me the Falcon, but I need oxygen, and bad.
And so the end of the first quarter, I’m getting that old anxious feeling that we are royally, epically, completely, professionally fucked. As the Denver offense executes a slow but steady march down the field, Mary appears next to me with a bottle of oxygen, which she loops over my face. She turns it on, full blast, and suddenly, the world starts to clear.
But from there, even though I’m feeling better, it gets worse. And worse. Our defensive line can’t hold the offense. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like the bastards have been drugged and I find myself actually watching from between my fingers for a play or two.
Mary comes by and hands Valdez and me a bottle of water. She looks me in the eye and flares her nostrils, sets her teeth.
“What!” I say. “It’s not me!”
“Jimmy!” she growls.
And slams my bottle of water on the bench before stomping off.
Which is when Valdez lets out this Santa Claus laugh.
“Shut up,” I say, but his smile is so contagious that I literally cannot help myself.
“You’re cute, you two,” he chuckles. “Super cute. Got all the fire to stay married for seventy years.”
“Will you just…”
“You know I’m right, man. You fucking know it.”<
br />
On the field again, and no luck. One blocked play after another, one incomplete pass after another. One foot out of bounds on an otherwise perfect punt return.
Goddamn it.
At the half, in the locker room, Radovic makes his speech. He’s frighteningly calm, like a dying man or a mass murderer.
After the short speech, which is about as inspirational as a kick to the nuts, I stand up and go to my locker. Inside, there’s a note. JANITOR’S CLOSET. NOW.
I wad it up and rub the sweat from my face. Then I walk out into the hallway. It’s cute and all that she knows exactly nothing whatsoever about football, but I’m going to have to explain to her that twenty minutes is about enough time to catch your breath, and I just don’t have time for secret liaisons in secret closets, no matter how fucking sexy that sounds. I look up and down the hall but don’t see anything that looks like a janitor’s closet.
Until I see her pretty little finger poking out of a slightly open door, curving to tell me to come closer.
I slip into the closet, which smells like Lysol and has a paper towel supply that would make Costco Corporate jealous. I get right up next to her ear and say, “There’s no time for…”
But she’s kissing me before I can finish that sentence. Wrapping her legs around me, pulling me to her by the jersey, slipping her hand down the back of my uniform pants and grabbing my ass, dragging her fingernails deep into my skin. God, she is the sweetest fucking thing. In the midst of all the chaos, it’s just her. And me. And, I notice, an endless array of mops.
“Jimmy.” She looks me clean and hard in the eye.
I wipe a smudge of grease paint off her cheekbone. “Mary.”
There’s that nostril flare. The fighter in the ring that I first fell for. Fuck, I want her so bad. I want her slow and fast and dirty and wet. I want her every single way she’s willing to give herself to me.
But she’s not giving me anything. Because that’s when she grits her teeth, blinks once, and says, “Stop thinking so much,” before shoving me back out the door.
With the taste of Juicy Fruit in my mouth and the smell of coconut in my nose, I take the field again. And again. And again. Their fucking defense is killing us, but miracle of miracles, ours is holding tight. At the two-minute warning, it’s 7-0, Broncos.
We take the field one more time. I glance over and see her with her mittens pressed together, like in prayer, in front of her lips. She’s looking right at me, and today her hair is loose around her face, like it was last night. She looks so beautifully out of place there on the sidelines. Not wearing sports gear, but a tweed jacket. Not wearing tennis shoes, but boots. I am close enough to see her take a breath, and then she wiggles her knees back and forth, nervous.
Stop thinking so much.
The guys get in formation and I call out the 525 F Post Swing. Valdez is looking at me from between his legs and gives me a quick nod. It’s a solid decision. A tough play, but a fucking ballbuster if it works.
Love can change everything, if you let it.
The last few possessions have gotten the defenders riled up like crazy, like rabid dogs held back by chains. They know that stupid Guatemala thing gets to my guys—and they will not knock it off.
So before I call out for the snap, I say one last thing, just on impulse, “Stop thinking so much, and long live Guatefuckingmala!”
It’s so unlike me to yell some shit like that, that the defense is shocked into movement and force a false start.
The crowd grumbles like one big angry beast all around us.
I look over at Mary. She’s beaming, and Radovic is stunned, also beaming, with his Red Bull in midair. His big bushy eyebrows creep up into his hat and he gives me a well done! nod.
Five yards and the first down, we creep down the field.
I call out the run-and-shoot, spreading out the offense, but the defense is too good and stops us cold. No gain.
Second and ten, I try for the zone read. No dice, motherfuckers. The defense is on the ball today. And we get moved back for a face mask.
Again, we reposition. The shadows are getting long, and we’re in a shady, cool patch of the field, still in Broncos territory. Third and fifteen, fucking do or die.
I get low down in the huddle, looking at my guys. I can see the doubt in their eyes, even though they don’t mean to show it. And I don’t blame them.
Last night comes back to me, with her. What are you afraid of, Jimmy? Why?
Of losing. Of fucking up.
You won’t. Her face. That tenderness. The way she held on to me.
I shut my eyes. I give myself two seconds to visualize something other than this goddamn game. I see her. On my couch. With the fireplace going. I see snow outside, and her wrapped in a blanket. I see her with me not just this week, but next week. At Thanksgiving. And the week after that. And the week after that, on down the infinite calendar for forever and ever.
I open my eyes.
The play clock ticks down. Down. Down. Radovic roars from the sidelines and the defenders start digging in their heels.
It’s time, Falconi. Fuck yes. Now or never. Love will transform your world, if you believe that it can.
Do I believe it?
Fuck yes, I do. I can feel it in my fingers. I can feel it in my blood.
I call out the 525 F Post Swing again, all disguised in Bears-speak, but the same play. If I can get a ten-yard pass, we’re in the money. We need this. And then I’ll worry about what’s next.
I call it out. Nice and loud, but at the end, I throw in an “Omaha!” Manning-style, to piss them off and make them remember that they used to be good. But now they’re just the Donkeys again. Nothing but a bunch of second-rate players in used outfits with socks that don’t match. That’s how they started, and that’s how I’m gonna make them feel again…
The snap is good, but they’re wired up and angry, which gets the defenders into a rugby-style scrum down in front of me.
It’s exactly what I need.
My tight end runs a shallow cross as my full back takes off with a speed that I’d forgotten he ever had. I play fake once, twice, and the defenders are narrowing in.
Then he’s there, in the end zone, the sun glinting off his helmet.
Stop thinking so much.
I glance at Mary. Her eyes are locked on me, and she mouths, “Do it.”
I don't know if I can be a husband, or a father, or the kind of man I want to be. But I know this: I can throw the living shit out of the football. So I do. I stay present and Zen myself right into the spiral. I do what I’m here for—a hard-as-hell throw, the throw that got me my nickname in the first place: a high, arching pass that nobody else in the game has, and I haven’t had myself for at least a year. But now I do.
The Falcon is back.
I stagger away from the line as the defensive line scatters around me. Everything slows down. The crowd goes quiet in my head. I clap my hands to the back of my helmet, watching the ball spiral through the sky.
A millisecond becomes a minute, and the ball flies 85 yards in the time it takes me to inhale. I hear my own breath, and also her voice. That voice. That hoarse, beautiful voice screaming, “Yes!” At the very, very top of her lungs.
Yes.
Please, yes.
I watch Benitez crouch and then leap into the air, all six foot five of him three feet higher into the sky. His feet go up, up, up, dangling in the air like he’s suspended from above. His arms go up, his hands extend in the shape of the ball, waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
I hold my hands to the sides of my helmet.
Don’t think so much.
I focus on Benitez. On his hands. On his gloves. On his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth.
And then the ball flies into his hands.
And he makes the goddamned catch.
Holy.
Shit!
I turn and see her jump into Radovic’s arms. The Red Bull goes flying
, and he twirls her through the air.
On the PA system booms the announcer, “That’s Jimmy Falconi with the touchdown for the Bears.”
Fuck yes.
43
Mary
Football from the sidelines is violent, loud, aggressive, dirty, and also absolutely awesome.
With the scoreboard now saying 7-6, I listen to Radovic talking something over next to me. They call Jimmy over and the three of them get in a tight huddle
The sidelined players go quiet. Valdez says to me, “You got any fucking idea what’s going on?”
I look up at him. He really does look exactly like a bear today. He’s been sweating so hard that the black greasepaint has run down his cheeks, giving him panda eyes. He produces a stick of honey from somewhere inside his jersey.
“No idea. At all.”
“So here’s the deal…” He pops it open and sucks some out. Then he hands one to me and I do the same.
“…the idea is we kick it into that thing there. If we do, we get a point. But,” he says, bending around and pretending to tie his already-tied shoe. “Jimmy’s on fire. So they’re going to let him go for the conversion. If we do it, we win. If we fuck it up, we’re fucked.”
Desperately, I try to remember the bits and pieces of the game that Wikipedia has taught me. “Two points?”
“Bingo. And it’s all up to your man now.”
I suck hard on my honey, gnawing on the straw. “Can he do it?”
Valdez cups his hand to his ear and leans down to me. I repeat it into his huge, sweaty, dirty hand, “Can he do it?”
He doesn’t look at me as he flattens his honey straw. “Their defense is good, but lemme tell you something. When that motherfucker is on,” he stares down at me, “he’s on.”
I nod. I blink. And then Valdez grabs his helmet and runs back out onto the field.
I focus on Jimmy. They’ve lined up in that same pattern, generally, as before. Close in to the end zone. I can feel the nerves on the sidelines. I watch a hulk of a guy, must be seven feet tall if he’s an inch, gnawing on his nails. I watch Brenner, who was so super smooth on the plane, look up at the sky and press his palm to his mouth.
Hail Mary Page 24