DREW WAS PREPPED for surgery by what seemed like an army of nurses and the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist administered the first sedative, and the surgeon and nurses gathered around the table in the operating room and laid one hand each on the blanket covering him. They all grinned at him.
“Go Sharks,” someone said.
“Yeah,” he responded. He was already a little sleepy. That anesthesiologist knew his shit.
“Drew,” the surgeon said. “This is going to go perfectly and you’re going to have a quick and complete recovery. We’ll see you when you wake up.”
“Thanks, Doc.” He tried to wave at all of them a little, and it was the last thing he remembered before he awoke in a dimly lit recovery room with two nurses peering down at him.
“Drew, it’s time for you to wake up,” one of them said.
“Nooo,” he said, and he tried to shake his head. His throat was raw. It friggin’ hurt. “Where’s my mom?” he tried to say. He couldn’t get anything out but a whisper, and his throat was so dry.
“We’ll let your mom come in here as soon as we get your vitals and help you walk a little.”
“Walk.” Not only no, but hell, no. He was staying in this nice warm bed.
“Yes.”
“Where’s Kendall?” No sound came out. He needed some fucking water, which didn’t seem to be making an appearance anytime soon. “Water.”
“We’ll let you have some ice chips in a few minutes.” He’d almost forgotten how much fun it was to wake up post-op. He’d love to go back to sleep for a few hours, but these two were all over him every time he closed his eyes again.
“Oh, no, Drew. You need to get up and walk a little before we let you have ice chips or something to eat. How do you feel about graham crackers? We’ve got some apple juice for you too. You can have a snack right after we get you to your room.” Maybe he got dropped off at the local preschool or something. Graham crackers and apple juice? He’d prefer beer.
The nurses were helping him to a sitting position. His shoulder was packed and immobile. He couldn’t use his right arm at all. He didn’t even want to think about how he was going to pee when he went home. It wasn’t like he was asking his mom to help him out on that one.
Shit.
If he forced himself to walk a little for them, he could get out of the recovery room and find somewhere with refreshments and ESPN. He hoped these two nurses lifted weights or something; they didn’t look strong enough to keep a 250-pound man upright.
“Here we go,” the brunette nurse said. She wrapped her arm around his waist, careful to avoid his packed shoulder. Her blonde colleague slid one arm around him as well and steadied his arm by taking his (good) hand. “We’ll take it easy today. No wind sprints.”
Like that was funny right now.
Half an hour later, the nurses and his surgeon signed off on his returning to a hospital room for the night. They wanted to monitor things with his shoulder. Whatever. He wanted to know where his mom was and where Kendall was, and not necessarily in that order. The nurses wheeled in his bed, set up all the various accoutrements someone who’d been out of surgery for an undisclosed amount of time seemed to need, and tucked a blanket around his legs as they raised the head of his bed to a sitting position.
“Okay, Drew, we promised. Your snack is coming up.”
They doled out a couple of graham crackers and a small plastic bottle of apple juice. He glanced out the window. Dusk was falling. In other words, he’d been in the recovery room a hell of a lot longer than he thought, and he was pretty hungry as well.
His mom breezed through the door to his room seconds later, trailed by his dad.
“Honey!” She hurried across the room to kiss his cheek. “How are you feeling? I wanted to sit in the recovery room with you, but they wouldn’t let me. I was so worried. The surgery took a lot longer than the doctor told us and we knew nothing until about an hour ago.”
“Your shoulder was a challenge, Son,” his father said. He reached out to grasp Drew’s still-working hand.
“The doctor says he thinks it will heal up, but it might take longer than he anticipated,” his mom said. “You might also need an additional surgery later.”
His throat still hurt like a mother, but hand gestures weren’t working at the moment for the questions he wanted to ask. “Is he going to come and talk to me about this anytime soon?” Drew said.
“Of course, honey. Is that all they gave you to eat? You must be starving.” She began rooting through her purse. “I know I have some crackers or something in here . . .”
The brunette nurse chose that moment to walk back into Drew’s room.
“He’s hungry,” his mother told her. “He needs more food.”
“Let’s see if he keeps what we just gave him down first,” the nurse said. “Can I find you another chair or two, Mrs. McCoy?”
“That would be great.”
Two sturdy folding chairs materialized minutes later. The nurse was checking his IV again, taking his pulse, blood pressure, and listening to his heartbeat. She put a small plastic basin next to him in the bed.
“Let’s hope we won’t need this,” she said. In other words, he might puke up his snack.
Drew gave her a nod. “I hope not as well.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” the nurse said, and she hurried out of his room.
“Mom,” Drew said. “Is Kendall here? Have you seen her yet?”
His mother reached out for his hand. “She called your phone earlier. There was an emergency at her office, and she missed her flight.”
“Did she say what happened?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Is she still coming?”
“I don’t know.”
His heart dropped into his stomach. Why didn’t she tell his mom she’d be on a later flight or she’d be calling him later? She’d been so insistent that she would be at the hospital when he woke up. He was going to live, but he’d looked forward to waking up and seeing her.
It was middle school puppy love crush time, but he wanted to hold her hand when he didn’t feel well. He’d like to be a tough guy about all this, but right now, he couldn’t. He was glad his parents were there, but he wanted Kendall.
He grabbed the remote control velcroed to the railing around his bed. He clicked the TV on, but no picture appeared. “The TV’s broken,” he said.
“I’ll get the nurse,” his dad said. He got up from his chair and walked out into the corridor outside of Drew’s room.
“She told me she was going to be here,” Drew said.
“I’m sure she will be, honey. She had to deal with something.”
Drew frowned at the small sign posted next to his bed. He wasn’t allowed to use his cell phone in here. There was a landline phone, at least. He picked up the handset and stabbed in Kendall’s cell number. His call bounced to the hospital’s operator.
“I’m so sorry, but you can’t make long distance phone calls from your room, Mr. McCoy,” she said.
He wanted to ask how the hell she knew who he was, but that was too much for someone still a bit woozy from the day’s adventures.
“I can’t use my cell phone in here, and I need to make a call.”
“Is there anyone who can step outside the hospital and make that call for you?”
“I’ll work on that. Thank you,” he said and hung up.
“What’s the matter?” his mother asked.
She was currently reading the menu that had just been delivered by another one of the nursing staff. It was nice to know the hospital was going to allow him to eat actual food sometime in the next few hours. He was hungry, he was still tired, he was pain-free, but he knew the latter would change in a big way when the anesthesia wore off. Maybe he should consider getting some sleep until then.
“I tried to call Kendall and they won’t let me. I can’t use my cell phone in here, either.”
“Let me call her,” his mother said. She
produced Drew’s phone out of her purse and stared at the screen. “How do I hit ‘redial’?”
Drew managed to unlock the screen and find the correct number for her. She scooted out into the corridor while Drew leaned back against the pillows.
IT WAS SHAPING up to be one of the worst days of Kendall’s life, and it wasn’t over by a long shot. She was back in the Miners’ offices after taking a cab from the airport. She had no other choice but to return, and she was upset and frustrated over this fact. The director of player personnel ignored her phone calls and was in Vegas bailing out Rocky Hill. Her phone was on perma-vibrate in her pants pocket. She didn’t even want to look at it right now. Sydney was currently answering her desk phone while she notified the Miners’ department heads that she would like to meet with them in half an hour in the conference room.
Kendall was using Sydney’s cell phone to reach Rod Carpenter. She was cutting Hill as quickly as she could find him, and she’d announce this fact at the meeting she’d just called.
The Miners’ PR group filed into her office and waited for Kendall to end her call. Sydney glanced up, gestured for them to wait while Kendall ended her call, and went back to her phone call. They’d have to duke it out over the two available chairs in front of Kendall’s desk.
“I’m very sorry, but Ms. Tracy is not available for comment right now. May I take a message?” Sydney said for the fifteenth time in fifteen minutes. “I’ll make sure to pass that on,” she said. “She will call you back at her earliest convenience.”
The PR department would be scheduling a press conference when she could announce she’d cut Hill, and she’d answer most of the press’s questions at that time. She would deal with the director of player personnel later on. She’d been overridden for the final time. She needed to stand up on her hind legs.
She called Rod’s phone for the third time in fifteen minutes, and miracle of miracles, he picked up. She hit the speaker function as he spoke and put her finger up to her lips so Rod wouldn’t know there were others listening to their phone call.
“Sydney, I don’t have time for this right now—”
“That’s nice, because this is Kendall. Where are you?” She could hear him gulp at the other end of the phone.
“I just paid the bail and Mr. Hill will be on his way back to San Francisco as soon as I can get him there. This is just a misunderstanding.”
Misunderstanding, my ass. She wasn’t harboring that guy for one more minute than it took to get rid of him. Either one of them, actually.
“Didn’t I tell you I didn’t want you bailing him out of jail in the first place, Rod? Why did you think you could defy me?”
“He’s an All-Pro. We can’t get through the season without him. We’re having enough trouble on the offensive line already—”
“How much more trouble are we going to be in when the security camera recording of the incident is made public? The witnesses are already talking to the media as well. No.” She could hear a male voice in the background.
“Hey, Rod, great to see you. Sorry about all the excitement.”
“Don’t worry, Rock. We’ll be on our way in a few minutes. Why don’t you have a seat?”
“NO,” Kendall said. “Put him on the phone right now.”
“Maybe you should cool off for a while before you talk with him,” Rod said.
Kendall saw red. Enough was enough, and she’d had enough.
“Let me make it easy for you, Rod. You either put him on the phone right now, or I’ll fire you. How’s that?”
“You can’t fire me—”
“Yes, I can, and I will unless Rocky’s on the line in five seconds,” she said.
Rod’s voice was nervous. “Hey, Rock, the boss lady would like to chat with you for a minute. C’mon over here, will ya?”
“I don’t have to talk to that bitch. Tell her to talk to my agent.”
“No can do, buddy. She insists.”
A few seconds later, she heard Rocky Hill’s “What the fuck do you want?”
For the first time since she’d walked in the building that morning, she smiled.
“Hi Rocky, it’s Kendall Tracy. I’d love to do this in person, but it can’t wait. You’re cut from the team. We’ve disabled your playbook tablet already, so there’s no need to return it. We’ll pack up and mail the items in your locker to the address on file. Sorry it didn’t work out.”
She heard a few seconds of silence, and then the man who (allegedly) beat up his one-third-his-size girlfriend in the lobby of one of the most famous hotels in the world recovered his voice.
“I’ll make you pay for this, bitch.” He took a noisy breath. “You’d better watch your back, because I’ll be there when you least expect it, and I’ll make sure that pretty face isn’t quite so pretty anymore. You dig?” His voice was low, chilling, and furious. Kendall heard the other Miners employees in the office gasp.
“Yes, Rocky, I dig. Thanks for the warning.” She didn’t bother waiting for him to speak. She hung up, glanced around, and said, “Did you all hear that?”
The five PR department employees and Sydney all nodded.
“Great. I hope you’ll back me up.” She picked up Sydney’s phone again, dialed 911, and asked to speak to the Las Vegas Police Department.
AN HOUR LATER, Rocky Hill was in custody again for threatening Kendall. Rod was on his way back to San Francisco. He’d be fired as soon as he returned to the office and Kendall could get the company property in his possession back. Kendall walked into a crowded conference room and stood behind the chair at the head of the table.
“I’d like to thank Sydney and the PR group for their assistance with what’s going to happen this afternoon and tomorrow morning.” She glanced around at the thirty people. “I have scheduled a press conference for later today. We’d like to get out in front of the information as much as we can, and I’d like as many of you as possible to be on hand for this.” She saw nods from most of the employees. The front office guys looked on stonily. She knew all hell would break loose when she fired Rod, but it was unavoidable.
She pulled in a long breath. “Rocky Hill allegedly assaulted his girlfriend in the lobby of a hotel in Las Vegas a few hours ago. She is in the hospital. He was arrested. I have cut Rocky Hill from the team.” She waited for the gasps (and some applause) to die down. “Due to his threats against my safety, he is back in jail. He is not allowed in the building under any circumstances. The San Francisco Police Department will be coordinating security here and at the stadium until further notice. There will be more information as it is available.”
“Our offensive line—” the offensive coordinator sputtered.
“You’ll need to find another guard. I will not reconsider.” She glanced down at her notes. “The Miners’ owner will be in attendance at the press conference today as well, which will be held in the auditorium at five o’clock. We’ll make a statement and answer questions.” She glanced at the offensive coordinator and the head coach. “If you could possibly work on bringing in some guys for a tryout tomorrow or Friday, I’d appreciate that.”
“We have a game on Sunday. In Atlanta.”
“I realize that. Let’s plug in Rocky’s backup and see if there might be someone available on the West Coast, for starters.” She glanced around the room again. “Any questions? I’ll be in my office if you need to talk with me.” She gathered up her notes, her tablet, and a bottle of water and walked out of the conference room.
Her phone rang again seconds later. She glanced at the screen long enough to see it was Drew. Oh, God. She had a million things to do, and virtually no time to accomplish them in. Plus, she felt guilty. She should have been there when he woke up from his surgery. He was probably so hurt and angry with her, and she deserved it.
She swallowed hard and clicked “talk” on the screen.
“Drew?”
“Hi Kendall, it’s actually Drew’s mom, Bonnie. Do you have a moment to talk?”
�
��Is he okay? How is he?”
Kendall knew she should have asked how Bonnie was and the usual small-talk pleasantries when someone she’d never met called, but Drew’s mom on the phone . . . maybe he couldn’t speak for himself. Maybe it didn’t go well. Her heart moved into her throat. A cold fist clutched her stomach.
“He’ll be fine,” Bonnie said. “He’s asking for you.”
She closed her eyes with relief and concentrated on taking a breath so her knees wouldn’t buckle.
“I’m so sorry I’m not there yet. Things here are not good, and I have to fix a lot of problems before I can get back on a plane,” Kendall said. “I–I’m so sorry.” She held in the sigh of frustration and anger. She was trying to concentrate on the eleven-hundred things that needed to happen in the next hour, but right now, she needed a few minutes to compose herself. She wasn’t going to get it. She headed toward her office while conversations swirled around her. “Is there any way I could possibly talk with him?”
“He’s not allowed to use his cell phone in the room, so I’m outside of the hospital right now. Would you like his room number? There’s a phone in there.”
“Oh, yes, please.”
Kendall skirted her desk, plunked down in the desk chair, and grabbed a pen and the first piece of paper that lay atop her desk: the receipt from today’s turkey and provolone sandwich. Bonnie gave her Drew’s room number and the hospital’s main number.
“I hope we’ll get to meet you soon,” Bonnie said.
“I hope so too, Mrs. McCoy.”
“Call me Bonnie,” she said. She let out a sigh. “The doctor said Drew might be in rehab for as long as a year.”
Hot tears rose in Kendall’s eyes. In other words, the injury was a hell of a lot more than just the labrum tear and was most likely the end for Drew’s NFL career.
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