by Box Set
Shouts erupt from the field, jerking our attention away from each other. Players bunch around our goal, whistles blow, and a New York forward shouts, “We need a medic!”
Fuck. What now?
Pepper grabs her bag, but not before she grits out at me, her eyes flashing fire, “When this game is over, we are so having some words.”
Luke
I’m sweaty and dirty, and my ass is glued to a teal seat cushion in the waiting room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s ER. Eamonn will be fine. He was responsive and able to walk off the field, but Pepper fears a concussion so they’re running a bunch of tests. I’ve got my leg stretched out with a new bag of ice strapped on, and they’re doing an MRI as soon as they can squeeze me in.
The rest of the team are entertaining the New York players at The Alligator’s Butt. Fuckers.
The waiting room is eerily quiet for an ER. And too fake-cheery by half. There’s a huge floor-to-ceiling fish tank near the check-in desk, and the teal-colored walls are peppered with round mirrors and paintings of pelicans and sand dunes and shit. Near me, but not near enough to be sure, is a plant on the cusp of can’t-tell-if-it’s-real-or-fake. It’s too perfect and glossy, but maybe they just pay good money to a team of plant tenders.
Across from me, a girl with bangs and crooked pigtails won’t stop looking at me and blowing bubbles with her gum. Each pop feels like some kind of judgment dropping into the otherwise silent waiting room.
Yeah, I feel like shit for reasons other than my knee.
We lost to New York because of the goal I let through, but I’ve got a war going on in my head. Part of me is shaking a fist and saying Pepper has no right to bust my balls like that, and the other part of me is shaking a fist and saying I should have come clean. It’s a toss-up right now which fist will win. Either way, it’s got me fuming and swirling with regret. So, yeah, that’s why I’m sitting here completely worn out and at a loss for what to do.
And the zapper on this cockup is that I have to be fit enough to escort Slaine around for the next three days. Bodyguard duty. Shit.
At the next pop of the girl’s gum bubble, I tell the fuming fist to shove it, because I know that’s just my ego talking. If I’d come clean earlier, several things could have happened instead. With us still having a whole quarter left, we might have decided to not play any further and called it with a tie. Worst case scenario, I might have been able to do some strengthening exercises and still be able to train up till the division playoffs.
Guilt twists through me as the next realization finally pierces my fuddled head.
Eamonn wouldn’t have been injured.
I need to apologize—again—to Pepper. She was right.
But how many times can I be wrong with her before she washes her hands of me? I’m not exactly projecting a solid front to her.
Pepper
It’s all I can do to channel my anger into efficiency and productivity as I consult with the doctors in the ER and mitigate any lasting harm for Eamonn. Calm, cool mantle. Calm, cool mantle.
Finally, he’s in a room for observation, and I pull up a chair. It’s always a bit jarring to see a larger-than-life athlete laid out helpless under a hospital blanket and hooked up to monitors. He eyes me warily, and the instinct that has served me so well in the past with patients wells up inside. In the last round of questions, his answers had raised my suspicions—insomnia, bouts of depression, poor decision-making.
He’s also the only one whose medical history I still haven’t been able to get—apparently his family doctor in some small village in Cork, Ireland has retired, so there’s been a holdup in tracking his records down.
I decide to cut straight to it. Catch him by surprise.
“This isn’t your first concussion, is it?”
His blue eyes flash with guilt, but he doesn’t say a word.
Anger spears through me. Concussions aren’t something to mess around about. These guys think they can’t be broken. But they can. “How many does this make?”
I say it calmly and pull out my notebook where I’ve been keeping notes on the team members, pen poised.
His lips roll into a thin line, and now that tiny suspicion I had earlier blooms full grown—these guys have been purposely thwarting me. I stand so abruptly, the chair falls back and thunks against the floor. I lift it with shaking hands, because—what’s with all the anger? I need to get out of here and get my head screwed on straight. I mentally reach for the calm mantle, but it’s out of reach. Yes. I need to be alone.
I push open the door and smack straight into the last person I want to see—Luke.
He grabs my shoulders and steadies me, his body a solid wall of strength filling my vision, and that just makes me more irritated.
“How is he?”
I can’t even form words. The team’s been working against me this whole time, keeping me from doing my job. At the very least, it’s only Eamonn. Already my colleagues are questioning how long this is taking. And while I’d seen the job’s temporary nature as a plus, in case I decided Sarasota wasn’t for me, the other plus was that it could become permanent. And despite what’s going on right now with Luke, I find I do want to stay.
Everything inside me is seething, because on top of all that? Luke kept an in-game injury from me. I do the only thing I can do at this point. I step back, letting his hands drop from my shoulders, fix him with a glare, and quick march down the hall. Away from him. Away from the words I know will spill from my mouth and can’t be taken back.
Especially because—all those emotions? They’ll get snagged into the lust I feel for him and the we-might-have-feelings-for-each-other emotions stupidly sprouting inside me. They’ll get tangled up, twisted, and what comes out has the potential to be really, really ugly.
These emotions need time away from him to sort themselves out. Some might call me a coward, but there’s nothing wrong with a strategic retreat.
Chapter Fourteen
Luke
It’s Monday, and Mr. Langfield has me on the phone. I tilt my head up to the ceiling and blow out a sharp breath. Everyone wants to take a pinch off me lately. Pepper won’t answer my calls or texts, and I haven’t yet decided whether to force the issue by going to her apartment. Which I can’t do for another two days anyway—I still have the Slaine detail for two more nights. I’ve met arrogant VIPs before, and usually I just find it funny. But not last night. I lost my cool with him, and Dennis called earlier to chew me out about my attitude. Whatever.
I adjust my knee, propped up on the table, and shift the ice pack.
And now Mr. Langfield is blistering my ear. “I repeat. Either you cooperate with Dr. Rodgers on those PPEs, or we’re pulling our sponsorship. We don’t need the lawsuit if something preventable happens. There are other amateur sports teams we can sponsor. Heck, I could sponsor a Little League team. They’re always needing money.”
Ouch.
I put on my politest voice, because there’s no way we’re losing this sponsorship. Yeah, the Slaine gig is supposed to offset some of the financial outlay in case the sponsorship falls through, but I’d rather not have it come to that. “You can rest assured that Dr. Rodgers will have our full cooperation. We truly value your support and are committed to the team and our shared goals.”
I rub my nose, positive it’s dripping brown.
After we do the goodbyes, I end the call and fall back against my couch. We’d passed one hurdle since the game—my MRI showed a meniscus tear in what they said was “the red zone,” which despite the name, is the best possible scenario for such an injury. Don’t care why it’s called that, but it means with some PT, I can play in time for the playoffs.
But without the money Langfield is forking over, we won’t have the proper gear and travel money to get to the division playoffs, and I won’t get paid back for the uniforms and the cost of the trainer. The kink in what I thought was a sure thing? Eamonn still hasn’t been able to get his records sent over from Ireland, and
with his concussion, Pepper’s suspicious and has voiced her concerns to Mr. Langfield. If Eamonn’s been delaying on purpose because he’s had multiple concussions in the past, then it could be enough for her to bench him. And then we’ll be short one team member one month before the division playoffs, and having the sponsorship would do us no good.
Fuck.
We have no choice, though.
I pop another Advil and send a text to Eamonn and copy Conor.
Cooperate with Dr. R about any previous health issues or we lose sponsorship
Luke
It’s the Day of Reckoning. Or, technically, the Night of Reckoning. We’re at the practice field Wednesday, and Pepper is all cool efficiency, questioning each of us privately, checking off items on her damn clipboard. I’m up soon, and for some reason, I’m nervous. I’ve been wanting to see her since the game and finally apologize, but not like this.
Aiden passes me on his way to her, and his dour expression is so out of place, I can’t help but ask, which just earns me the finger.
That right there? Not normal. He’s usually our fucking cheerleader. He’s one of the most laid-back guys I’ve ever met.
Mark leans over. “Been that way since Saturday.” His broken finger is in a splint.
“What happened Saturday? He played well against Galway.”
“He hooked up with a friend of Claire’s at the after party.”
“And?” Aiden might be Mr. Amiability, but he’s also Mr. Any Skirt Will Do.
Mark shrugs. “I know, right? Usually he’s slinging it out from both pant legs. But she got to him, man. She got to him.”
Doubtful. The day he gives up switching bed partners is the day I kiss my old man. But something is up with him.
“Luke?” Pepper’s voice carries to me in an impersonal, you’re-next tone.
I approach the field chairs she’s set up to conduct her interviews and sprawl in a chair, like I’m all relaxed and shit.
“How’s your knee?”
“It’s fine,” I bite out. But then I recall Mr. Langfield’s phone call, and while it referred specifically to Eamonn, I know I need to cooperate, to keep with the spirit. Plus, I respect the hell out of her. “I’ve been icing and elevating it whenever I can, and when I’m working as a bodyguard or here supporting the team, I have a compression sleeve to keep down the swelling. The pain is minimal. I hope to start swimming tomorrow for exercise to replace CrossFit and do some strength-building exercises.”
Her eyes narrow. “I’m not your team’s official physician, but I’ll be blunt. In the future, you should not keep injuries from the team.”
“I—”
Her eyes flare with heat, but not the good kind of sexual heat. No, this is temper. Which is better, I guess, than the disappointment it replaced.
I snap my mouth shut.
The truth is, my head’s messed up right now. Foolishly, I’d started to believe I had a chance with Pepper after all, but her disappointment, the judgment I know is there at my failure, eats at me. Brings up the few times I made mistakes with my old man before I learned to either not make them or get the shit beaten out of me.
Having grown up dirt poor, he wanted better for me. Hell, we lived in such a shitty trailer park, we envied the one known for lighting its streets up for Christmas. “This is for your own good,” my father recited every time he took a belt to me. “You have no room for messing up.” It wasn’t until my mom died when I was eighteen that I learned I was his biggest mistake. The reason he’d had to marry her. And he’d seen it as the reason he’d never made a better life for himself. His one mistake which cost him dearly.
Pepper takes a deep breath. “Eamonn’s concussion concerns me. Especially since this is now his fourth.”
Motherf—
“Fourth?” Eamonn kept three concussions from us?
“Yes. Oddly, he finally fessed up after all this time.”
After my text. I’m not liking the slow burn of anger and betrayal sizzling through me. We’re supposed to be a team, and we’re supposed to be able to trust each other.
That realization pulls me up short. Because I’m failing to trust Eamonn right now as a team member. “I’m sure Eamonn knows his limits and how far to push it.”
But right as the words come out, I realize that yes, I know my limits. I trusted my SEAL team members to know theirs. But I can’t just transfer that trust straight to another group.
A memory flashes of one of our deployments in the remote mountains of Afghanistan that the Taliban controlled. Dependence on the team is so ingrained as part of how we operate, that we’re always covering for the team member beside us, no matter how routine. We were ingressing on a lone airfield and its hangar, that intel said was abandoned, during the black of night. It hadn’t been abandoned, and I’m here because that time, like many others, another team member literally had my back.
That trust was there because we held our team members’ lives in our hands. And while we’re looking out for each other’s safety and wellbeing here, the mindset and stakes are not the same. More importantly, they don’t think the same.
Pepper jolts me back to the present. “Are you seriously trying to tell me how to do my job?”
Fuck.
See? That right there shows that, despite our attraction, we’re doomed.
Pepper
I push away the take-out salad and turn to the computer at my desk in the practice group. Just like at home, I’ve already put my decorative stamp on the office. Except here, I have soothing photographs interspersed with framed full-color posters of the musculature system, another of the major bones, as well as casts of knees, feet, and hands.
I’m in between appointments, and I’ve finally gathered the last bit of detail to file my PPE to Mr. Langfield. My hunch about Eamonn was correct, and surprisingly, he opened up to me at practice.
Four concussions is one too many. Some doctors will allow as many as seven over a lifetime before they take someone off a team’s roster, but with all the recent studies about the long-term effects of multiple concussions, I’m a bit of a hard ass. If I can prevent someone from becoming a vegetable, I will. And I’m not alone. Many more doctors feel like I do—our radars going off on four or five.
I didn’t do the right thing once, and it nearly cost me everything. My parents, with their alternating bouts of silent judgment and passive aggressive comments, had driven me to excel ever since I could remember. Every science fair ribbon, every cheerleading trophy, every A, all of it, had been to earn their approval. I should have reported my injury before that championship, but I…I couldn’t face them. My insecurity, my anxiety clouded my judgment, and others suffered.
I hadn’t quite connected the dots until the stress of med school and my residency. Increasingly, I found I had to keep shutting off my emotions in order to do my job well. Until I didn’t. I knew, I knew, my relationship with Phil wasn’t good for me, but I’d tenaciously held on. My emotions had gotten all twisted with him since he’d been the first guy I’d opened up to, been seriously intimate with, and fooled myself into thinking he saw me, and was with me for me.
So when he’d been injured during practice and had asked me to write him a prescription, I’d trusted my feelings and emotions for him and did. I trusted him.
Only to find out I was one of several doctors he had doing this. I was put on probation with a severe warning from my supervising physician.
And I hate that that still didn’t end the relationship. I planned to, but I was also so scared about getting my board certification after that fiasco that I kept putting it off.
I pull up the team’s files and fill out the last of the report. My finger hesitates over the Send button. Luke won’t be happy, but that doesn’t matter.
I’m not too happy with him right now.
Bottom line? I need to do the right thing. But the fact that I even contemplated otherwise tells me I still haven’t found the right balance—my emotions for Luke have compromise
d my integrity.
I press down on the Send button and can’t help but think this spells the end to whatever Luke and I might have had.
Luke
It’s not one of my best ideas. Standing out in front of Pepper’s door. I’ve been vibrating on the edge of coming over here since the game and my injury, but the bodyguard detail kept me from following through. Now we have the report to tackle too.
She answers, the door opening only partway. “What do you want, Luke?” The porch light is behind me and casts her partly in shadow. What little I can see of her kicks my heart into overdrive.
“To talk.” To kiss you. To ask you, are we still…whatever it is we were to each other?
She pulls in a deep breath. Her eyes tell me she’s gonna regret what she’s about to do but can’t help it. She opens the door wider and steps back.
Breezing by without touching her about kills me, but keeping this visit professional is important. As much as I wish otherwise, this isn’t a social call. No, it’s now Mission: Report Persuasion. Eamonn was fuming at her report, saying it was his body, and was willing to sign a waiver. But Mr. Langfield was insistent—abide by her decision or no money. Which means bye-bye division playoffs. The team sent me to “get her to see reason.”
I wanted to come here for me—to apologize for not telling her about my injury—but like a patsy, I’ve come for the team instead.
The door shuts behind me with a soft click.
“Luke. I’m tired.” She crosses her arms. “I had a long day with patients, and tomorrow’s a full schedule. Can we make this quick?”
Her abruptness throws me off. And suddenly I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. If the team wants her to change her mind, then Conor, our captain, or Eamonn, the cock-thistle who put us in this situation, can come do the dirty work.
And I get the feeling I’d punch either of them if they showed up right now to even ask it of her.