Line of Scrimmage

by Desiree Holt

  Ivy wasn’t sure if she was impressed by the number of Mustangs people at the hospital or worried about what it might mean. Jake was a valuable commodity to them, so of course they’d pull out all the stops. That’s all it was, right?

  Two men in Mustangs polo shirts and khakis stood outside one of the rooms in Emergency. Ivy tried not to read anything into their solemn expressions, but the fear she’d been swallowing back surged through her again.

  Jake lay on a hospital bed, his face nearly as white as the sheets draped over his lower body. One leg was exposed, wrapped in an inflatable cast. His left arm extended out from his body, strapped to a board with an IV shunt in his vein. His eyes were closed and lines of pain etched his face.

  “Miss Russell?” A tall, thin man in scrubs and a white jacket stepped toward her. “Dr. Moline. I’m the orthopedist called in for your brother.”

  “Hello.” She shook his hand. “How is Jake?”

  Moline’s face gave nothing away as he answered her. “He’s okay for now. I gave him something for the pain so he’s not in a lot of discomfort.”

  She gripped her hands together so tightly she nearly shut off the blood supply. “How bad is it?”

  “I won’t lie to you. It’s not good. We need to get him up to surgery right away.”

  “I don’t know what on earth Jake will do if he can’t play again,” Ivy said. “Football is his life.” Much more so than any of these people knew.

  He had spent so much of his life taking care of her. Now she had to be strong for him. If he was done with football, he’d need someone to pick up the pieces and help him rebuild his life.

  “Let’s not buy trouble until we have to,” DiMarco said.

  “You don’t understand.” She twisted her hands together again. No one understood and she couldn’t tell them. Jake would die if she told anyone their family history.

  Time seemed to stretch endlessly. By nine o’clock that night, Jake was in his hospital room, and Ivy had spoken to the surgeon again. Nothing had changed. The news was still bad. Severe complicated break, exactly like the one Joe Theismann suffered, but each person healed differently, they held out great hope here, yada yada yada.

  By the time she walked in the door of her condo she felt as if she’d been awake for a year. She couldn’t erase from her mind the picture of Jake lying in the examining room. Right now, she wanted a good stiff drink to settle her nerves. She’d get what sleep she could because tomorrow he’d need her. When he was awake enough to understand what happened, he’d go off the rails.

  * * * *

  Jake tried to open his eyes, but it seemed someone had placed lead weights on his eyelids. It took herculean strength just to raise them an infinitesimal amount. When he did, nausea surged through him, and he was afraid he’d vomit all over himself. He tried to sit up but something seemed to be holding him down. Maybe some things. He didn’t seem to be able to lift his left wrist too well, but worse than that, his right leg was immobilized.

  He tried to draw a full breath and was smacked with the odor of antiseptic. From somewhere next to him he heard the steady beep, beep, beep, of some kind of machine.

  What the fuck?

  With superhuman effort he forced his eyes open a little more and looked around. He was in a hospital room, in a bed, his leg in a cast and hooked up to some contraption. Pain covered him like a second skin.

  So it hadn’t been a dream. The scene on the football field was real. Too fucking real. He knew all about the danger of injuries in football and the sometimes devastating results. But… Maybe this wasn’t as bad as he thought. Maybe they were just being extra cautious with whatever they were doing so he could get back on his feet quicker.

  Okay, hospital room. Nurses. Call button. He fumbled with his right hand and discovered the unit clipped to the bed. He pressed his thumb hard on the red button. In what seemed like minutes, but was probably only seconds, a nurse in baby blue scrubs appeared beside him.

  “You’re awake.” She smiled at him. “Good.”

  “Not so good,” he said thickly. “I have to—” He slapped his hand over his mouth.

  “I’ve got it covered,” the nurse said in a calm voice.

  The next thing he knew she had propped his head with one hand and with the other held a small metal barf tray. He was glad she was that observant and that fast, because in the next minute he was heaving his guts. It was both embarrassing and debilitating. When his stomach was empty, the nurse helped him rinse his mouth before she gently wiped his face and eased his head back to the pillow.

  Jake squinted at her, trying harder to focus.

  “I’m Regina,” she told him in her soothing voice. “I’ll be one of your nurses.” She gave him a tiny smile. “We had to flip to see who got to take care of Jake Russell.”

  “Not much left of Jake Russell at the moment,” he said wearily. And how much was left he still had no idea.

  “There’s a gentleman waiting to see you,” she told him. “Let me just take your vitals and I’ll let him in.”

  “Wait.” He held up his uninjured hand. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to see anyone at this particular moment. “Who is it?”

  “He said his name is Scott. He said he’s a good friend.”

  Scott Manchin was more than just a friend. He was Jake’s agent who had overseen his career from the day of the NFL draft. If he was here, things couldn’t be too good. Scott had clients playing today all over the country; he wasn’t scheduled for a Mustangs game and a sit-down with Jake for a couple of weeks yet.

  “Can I tell him it’s okay to come in?” Regina asked. “He’s been waiting a long time.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Whatever. Better to get the bad news over with. He tried to shift, and groaned as pain stabbed through him. “What’s with my leg?”

  “It was broken and you’ve had surgery. Dr. Moline wanted it in traction for the first few days. I know it hurts. Let me get you some pain medication.”

  Broken, broken, broken.

  The word bounced around in his brain like a ping pong ball. Broken was not good. Broken meant no football. Broken meant there was nothing left of Jake Russell. Broken meant he was back to being that worthless kid. The adjective drummed into him over and over and over.

  The nurse finished taking his vital signs and hurried from the room. Jake closed his eyes, and when he opened them again Scott was standing beside his bed, trying to look calm despite the lines of worry creasing his forehead.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said to Jake.

  “You can skip the pleasantries,” Jake growled. “Just go straight to the death sentence.”

  Scott gave what Jake thought was supposed to be a reassuring grin. “Nothing is ever as bad as it seems. You know that.”

  “I know that I got hurt and I’m fucked, so let me have it.”

  At that moment, Regina came back, wheeling in a small machine of some kind on a metal stand. With her other hand she held a syringe.

  “Is that my happy juice?” Jake asked. “Because right now I’m not happy.”

  “This is a morphine pump. I’m going to show you how it works, how you can press this button for pain meds when you need them. But I’ll give you a shot first so we can take the edge off right now. I’m sure you must be hurting like crazy.”

  Jake waited while the nurse took care of business. When she was gone, he turned back to Scott.

  “Okay. You’re on. What’s the diagnosis?” Jake grimaced as he shifted in bed. “You didn’t drop everything to fly into Austin because I got a little nick or bump. And give it to me straight. No sugar coating.”

  “Okay. You have a complicated multiple fracture in your leg. The docs pretty much had to put it back together again.”

  Fear rose up in Jake’s throat. “That means I’m done for the season, right?”

  “Maybe.” But Scott said the word hesitantly.

  “Worse than that?” Jake could hardly get the words out.
“Is this a Joe Theismann break?”

  “Let’s not apply terminology. We’ll let the doctors do that.”

  Fuck. The man was evading the issue. If possible, Jake felt even sicker. Football was his savior. The sport was what made him who he was. Made people look up to him and respect him. If he lost that, he lost everything.

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  Scott sighed. “They won’t make any determination right now beyond getting you through recovery and rehab. If all goes well, you’ll be back on the field next season.”

  “If all goes well?” Rage at his situation coursed through him. “I’m not sure I want to know what that means. But this season is over for me, right?”

  “You’ll be getting the best care,” the agent guaranteed him. “We want to get you back on your feet as soon as we can.”

  “That’s dodging the issue,” Jake pointed out, his words beginning to slur from the medication.

  Scott took his right hand and squeezed it.

  “We’ll worry about that issue later. Right now just concentrate on healing.”

  Yeah, right. Healing. Who cared if a worthless no-good healed or not?

  “You are so much more than football, Jake. You need to believe that.”

  He could hear his mother’s voice in his head, but it didn’t help now any more than it had when she first said it.

  Scott was barely out of the room before Regina was back.

  “I want to make sure you’ll be as comfortable as possible,” she told him. “That morphine’s going to hit you full force any minute.”

  Even as she spoke the words, he felt himself fading. At least for a few hours he wouldn’t have to face the terrible reality his life had become.

  Chapter 3

  “I see they’ve taken the leg out of traction.”

  Jake looked up as his sister walked into his hospital room and frowned. “Yeah, big deal. And by the way, nice of you to show up today.”

  Ivy stopped just shy of the bed and glared at him. “Are you for real? I was here every damn day for the first two weeks. Took off work so I could do it and handle things for you. And I’ve been here every other day since then, listening to you bitch, answering your questions, talking you off the ledge. You’ve got some nerve, Jacob Marlowe Russell.”

  He managed to pull out a tiny smile. “The full name, huh? You must be really mad at me.”

  “Trust me. It’s hard sometimes not to be. I understand the nurses just want to throw you raw meat before they come in to check you and give you meds.”

  “You try having your whole life jerked out from under you and destroyed and see how happy you’d be.”

  The grim lines on her face softened as she moved closer to the bed. “I know this is hard on you. And yes, I’d probably be in the same snit you are if I was in that bed. But Jake, all you do when you get angry is make yourself sick. You need to think healing thoughts right now.”

  Jake grimaced. He needed a hell of a lot more than healing thoughts to get him out of this fix. He couldn’t gripe about the way the Mustangs were treating him. DiMarco had been in to see him several times along with Coach Raymond. Trip Faulkner, the quarterback, had been in every day after practice along with some of the other players. And Larry O’Donnell, the offensive lineman who’d missed tackling the defender who’d taken him to the ground, had practically cried all over the bed.

  But Jake could hardly talk to them. None of them could possibly understand how devastating this was to him. After all, they were still out there, admired and respected. While he was just…just…a lump of nothing.

  Scott had stayed in town for nearly a week, a record for the man with all he had going. But, to give him credit, he’d been at the hospital every day checking on Jake and his condition. And feeding him equal doses of optimism and practicality. If anyone knew what the devastating possibilities of an injury like this were, it was Scott, and he was a realist. It was his job to look out for Jake’s future if indeed his playing days were over, although that was the last thing Jake wanted to discuss right now.

  He appreciated all of it, but it still didn’t change things. One bad break—pun intended—and he was out for the season. He just hoped whoever they socked into the lineup in his place wasn’t such a standout that he, Jake, ended up playing backup when he returned. For one brief moment, he felt a tiny sliver of guilt for wishing the team bad luck. Then he forced the thought away. He was more honorable than that. At least he liked to think so. He knew his playing career was nudging the finish line, but he truly believed he had at least two excellent years left to give the Mustangs. He didn’t want this injury to cheat him out of them.

  Football is who I am. It kept echoing in his brain. It’s all I am.

  He heaved a sigh. His life was in the toilet and being pleasant was a real chore. Still, he shouldn’t keep taking this out on his sister. She’d been more than great, taking time off from work, spending it here listening to him bitch, soothing him when the frustration became too intense.

  “Sorry, Ivy. I know I’m being a pain in the ass, but try putting yourself in my place.” He took her hand and squeezed it. Sometimes he wondered how he’d ever have made it this far without her. “Half a game and my season is over.”

  “I do understand,” she told him, “and I’m really trying to cut you some slack.”

  “I know, I know,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re all I’ve got to get me through this, you know.”

  “And isn’t that a sad commentary on your life. That the only person you can lean on is your sister.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Too bad you shy away from relationships.” She sighed. “Right now you could use the attention of someone special.”

  Like a bolt of lightning striking from the sky an image of Erin Bass flashed across his brain. She was pretty damn special.

  What the hell had gone on in her life that she had such a bitter, jaded opinion of football players? She’d never given him the chance to tell her who he really was. What kind of person he was. He’d never really wanted to do that with another woman before. Too much garbage from his past always got in the way.

  Only she’d dumped him like yesterday’s trash, and that still burned him. He hadn’t been able to erase the memories, and that made him even angrier.

  Why the hell was he thinking of her, anyway? She was in the past and she’d stay there. Had to. Period.

  “I don’t need anyone.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t expect my life to change so drastically, and no woman’s going to fix that. Trust me.” He dug up a semblance of a smile. “Anyway, I’ll try to behave. For you.”

  “Ha! That’ll be the day.” But she gave him an answering smile before she pulled a chair up to the bed. “So. I hear they’re letting you out of here Sunday.”

  “Yeah. That ought to be a barrel of laughs.” And just like that depression crept over him. “I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to get around with crutches while sporting a cast on my left hand.” Hadn’t that thought just given him nightmares.

  “No crutches at first,” she told him. “I spoke with Dr. Moline this morning. They’re going to send you home with one of those foldout walkers. That way you can grip with your right hand and—”

  “And hop like some deformed creature because they won’t give me a walking cast,” he growled. “I’ll be lucky if I don’t fall down and this time break my damn neck.”

  “No, they won’t give you a walking cast yet. It’s too soon. Dr. Moline and Coach Raymond said they explained all of this to you, in great detail. Did you listen to them?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He scraped his hand over his jaw. “But they aren’t the ones stuck in this situation while the season goes on without them. They don’t have to figure out how to get through the next couple of months. Or even the rest of their lives. They aren’t—” He flapped his uninjured hand in the air.

&nb
sp; “No, they aren’t,” she agreed. “But you might as well deal with it because bitching isn’t going to change things.” Her features softened. “No one argues this is a very bad situation. But getting better and healing is going to be in large part up to you.”

  “Okay, sure.” He grunted. “I’m in great shape to take care of myself.”

  “Well.” She scooted her chair a little closer. “As a matter of fact, funny you should say that. It’s exactly what I came here to discuss with you today.”

  He frowned. “Oh! You have some ideas? Like getting the hospital to keep me a while longer?”

  “Forget it. You no longer require hospital care.”

  “Well, that sucks.” Then a thought popped into his head. “Hey. I could stay with you for a while. Or you could come to my house. Right?”

  Ivy shook her head. “Bad idea. Besides the fact I might end up killing you, I work for a living and don’t have the time to do what needs to be done for you.”

  “Thanks a lot, sis.” He glared at her.

  “Anyway, you’ll be better off in your own place. You can hide away from everyone until you get over this little hump and get back on your feet.” She grinned. “Literally.”

  “Little hump? Fuck.” The cast on his wrist was making him itch like a motherfucker, and he tried to scratch beneath it. One month, Moline had said, to give the torn ligaments a chance to heal. “Okay, maybe you’re right. I don’t need to socialize and put up with anyone’s pity. I don’t feel very social, anyway. I can just drop out of everything until I get the casts off and I’m back on the field.”

  Ivy gave him a look of worry. “Jake, you have to be prepared for the fact that—”

  He sliced a hand though the air. “Don’t say it. I’m going to get back, start conditioning again, and be good as new for next season. I already told coach and everyone. So shut up about that.”

  “Okay, okay, okay. I’m just—never mind. Let’s take care of this problem first.” Ivy took out her cell phone and brought up the notepad. “I did get the names of some excellent caregivers from Dr. Moline. I have a whole list here—”