by Lynn Shurr
He recited it aloud, keeping Tricia in his mind, before turning to his bed.
Chapter Sixteen
The Sinners planned to head for the west coast in the morning without returning to New Orleans. Coach wanted them adjusted to the time change and the playing field by the time they took on the Seahawks the following Sunday. Rex slept poorly the night before, waking when his roommate stumbled in after partying hearty, then worrying about Tricia. Once he got back to sleep, he experienced an embarrassing wet dream about her just before dawn that went unnoticed by his passed-out teammate. A quick flick of the covers over the damp spot hid his shame. He arose at six a.m. to take a cold shower and annoy the guy in the other bed with the noise, read his Bible quietly for a while before going down to an early breakfast. Most of the team stayed abed. He tried to reach Trish again.
This time someone picked up the phone on the first ring. “Layla Devlin’s suite, how may I help you?” Tricia’s voice sounded tired but otherwise okay.
“It’s Rex. About that stuff in the papers.”
“Don’t worry about it. Layla was more concerned about her butt looking too big. When I said you swore nothing happened between us, she believed me—or rather you.”
Tricia’s naked breasts, the ones that haunted his dreams, jiggled into his mind. Perky and Pretty. Good thing he’d had some relief earlier or the waiter would be wondering what went on under the breakfast napkin covering his lap.
“That’s good.” He searched for more words. “Did you see the game yesterday?”
“Oh, yes. Congratulations on another touchdown. Very impressive. Layla dragged me to a sports bar to watch. The celebration went on well into the night. She’s sleeping in right now. I’m making coffee and ordering the usual Virgin Marys with hot sauce she needs after drinking like that.” In the background, hot water burbled in the pot.
“I’m glad I don’t have your job.”
“Or I yours. Sorry they booed you while you prayed. That woman from San Antonio has some nerve talking about you like that when she has no idea what happened. Of course, I don’t either.”
“Doesn’t matter to me. If I know I did the right thing in my heart, I’m good. It’s you I worry about. Your reputation is ruined now. People will believe you are a fallen woman. If you want to get married, just say the word.” Laughter trilled in his ear. The waiter stood at his shoulder with the platter holding his overstuffed omelet, a side of sausages, and a heap of toast. He motioned for the man to set it down and go away.
“Rex, I fell a long time ago. Guess I told you that. Anyhow, believe it or not, a girl no longer has to marry a man if she’s seen going into a hotel room with him. Put your mind at ease. So, how did you spend your victory night in Dallas?”
Reciting poetry and having a wet dream about you. “With Joe, Howdy, and Adam playing darts and eating chicken wings.”
“Sounds pretty tame.”
“I didn’t get any of that experience you want in a man, if that’s what you mean.” Should he ask her now to show him as Nell suggested? No, better to say something like that face to face. Rex took a big gulp of orange juice. On the other end of the line, Tricia stayed quiet for a moment.
“Layla is still up for teaching you all she knows, which is quite a bit. You should take her up on the offer.”
Suddenly, his massive breakfast had no savor. The best he could answer was, “I don’t think she’s my type.”
“She’s every man’s type. Gotta go. The Virgin Marys are here, and I don’t want room service to wake the sleeping demon. Thanks for your concern, Rex, but I’m fine, really.”
He didn’t think so. Her voice wobbled a little under a false cheerfulness, but she’d disconnected. Across the hotel’s restaurant, Joe, Howdy, and Adam entered appearing well-rested and hungry. A few bleary-eyed Sinners straggled in after them. Most hit the buffet line, but the three older men came to sit with him.
“Joe, I think I just proposed to Tricia, and she told me to go sleep with Layla,” Rex said miserably.
His team captain motioned the waiter over and indicated he needed coffee. The waiter poured, and Joe remarked, “Weak” as he tasted it. “Frankly, I can’t begin to deal with a statement like that before I have a couple of cups, maybe more considering the brew. Don’t they know about dark roast in Dallas?”
Howdy grinned, boyish as ever with his freckles. “It seems to me a guy either proposed or he didn’t. Like a woman can’t be just a little pregnant.”
Adam disagreed after he gave his order for three poached eggs on a bed corned beef hash. “In the islands once your family settles on a bride, you can be engaged without knowing exactly how that happened, but in this case I don’t think she took you seriously, my brother.”
“She surely did not. Trish said if a couple spent a night in a hotel room together, they didn’t have to get married anymore.”
Joe sputtered into his cup of weak coffee. Once he could breathe again, he replied, “Remember what Nell said about taking this slow and steady. Too soon for a proposal, man. Think about dancing in the pocket looking for a target for your pass. Don’t rush it.”
“Slow and steady works,” Howdy agreed.
Jones and Blixen, who roomed together, sauntered into the restaurant and swung by Rex’s table. Blixen gave him a sharp slap on the back. “You missed some prime Texas ass last night while you were out with the old, married guys. I tell you these cowgirls like riding more than mechanical bulls.”
Joe set his cup down with a decisive click. “You know I often have a bunch of receivers to choose from when I toss the ball. In my old age, I just might forget about some of the new ones.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to diss you, Joe,” Blixen backpedaled.
“Get some breakfast. The bus for the airport will be here in an hour.” Joe dismissed them. As the young players moved away, he said to Rex, “And that is how you keep their respect.”
****
Tricia sat in the kitchen area of the suite with her face buried in her hands. She couldn’t offer Rex her long gone virginity, and she suspected with his high morals he scorned liars as well. Merely suggesting he learn about sex from Layla nauseated her. What would she do when Rex returned to New Orleans, and she had to make good on her promise to deliver him into Layla’s clutches?
She took advantage of the momentary quiet to phone the woman she did all this for, her mother. The answering voice sound dry and weak. “Hey, my baby,”
“How are you doing?”
“Complications and more complications. Now it’s blood clots in my legs. Doesn’t hurt but I have to lay still here with those awful white stockings on my legs until the Coumadin takes care of them. I never thought I’d miss cooking big meals for harvest hands, but seems like fun compared to this. Enough about me. Tell me all about your glamorous life with Layla. I’m so glad the two of you stayed friends after college and are still together looking out for each other.”
As always, her mother deflected the conversation away from her health. Tricia scrambled for some cheery tale she could conjure for the sick woman’s entertainment. Only one came to mind. “We met some of the Sinners players the other week and went to a barbecue at Joe Dean Billodeaux ranch. Dozens of children running around and lots of good but plain food, not quite what you’d expect.”
“But you had a good time.”
“I guess so. We had to cut our stay short.” Tricia smiled, recalling Layla covered in manure. She revamped the story minus Rex. Hearing her mother laugh—worth all she put up with from Layla, but Mom stayed on point when it came to her daughter and men. “You didn’t meet these Sinners in a bar, did you?”
Mothers always knew. “Not exactly. We went to one of their practices and then out later to a club. Layla knew Joe from making Savaged!, but one of his friends introduced us to some of the others. Don’t worry. When I go out with Layla, I am always the designated driver.” And flunky. “One of the guys was Rex Worthy.”
She tried to suppress any s
pecial interest in her voice, but her tone must have changed involuntarily. For certain, her mother would not have seen the gossip magazine because Dad would never bring upsetting news to the hospital. Besides, he paid no attention to such stuff, only reading headline articles in the regular newspapers and the sports page mostly. Chances are he did not know about the scandal either.
“The young man who prays so much? Ordinarily, I’d say to watch out for football players, high school, college, or pro, but he seems very nice. Are you interested in him?”
“No, no, but Layla is. He is a good man, kind and trustworthy.”
“Now that would be an odd combination, him and Layla. She was none too religious when we all went to the Methodist church. I doubt she is any better than she should be now. I mustn’t say that. Layla took the time to call me the other day and inquire about my health. You wouldn’t expect a big star like she’s become to do that, now would you?”
“Layla is full of surprises.” Mostly bad ones.
“You think he will marry Layla? Imagine, I might be the first to know.”
“Doubt it. Layla often says she’s not the marrying kind.” She’ll only ruin Rex and toss him aside, words Tricia could not say to a very sick woman.
“But is he?”
“Definitely.”
“Maybe he’ll see past her star and notice the one I brought into the world.”
“Only my mother would say that about me.” And that was why Tricia would do anything for her.
“Oh, no, here come the needles and meds again. I have to go, but don’t let Layla or anyone else say you couldn’t get a man like Rex Worthy.”
Too late for that now, way too late.
****
At the airport, Rex called home. No one would rag him about that. Lots of team members were close to their mothers, especially Jakarta Jones who had grown up without a father in the picture. His own mother answered immediately, one of the advantages of the caller I.D. he’d gotten for them to sift out reporters and cranks.
“Honey Lamb, how you doing? You did so good on Sunday, we’re right proud of you, and you gave the credit to God, too.”
Ten years under the African sun had not taken the sheen off her Texas twang one tiny bit. To Sue Grace Worthy everyone deserved to be called honey something. His sister grew up as Honeybee. His father answered to Honeydew and returned the favor by referring to his wife as Honeybunch. At least, she’d stopped calling her son Honey Lamb in front of his friends when Rex begged her to desist during his high school years. Today though, the fond nickname soothed his soul.
“I’m glad you’re still proud of me. Did you by any chance see my picture in the paper lately?”
After a request to put the call on speaker-phone by his father, the reverend answered. “We certainly did. The sports page had a wonderful shot of you completing that touchdown with your hand raised to heaven.”
“Nowhere else?”
“If you mean that scandal sheet, Mrs. Murray had the nerve to bring it to church and shove it right in my face during the social hour. Ruined my appetite for the cake,” his mother declared. “I told her I simply knew you were helping that poor girl get safely back to her room. That is what you were doing, right?”
“Yes!”
“I told you so, Honeydew. Your father said boys will be boys, and you would outgrown lust and repent of it, but I said my boy has nothing to repent.”
He surely had not outgrown lust yet, but no need to tell his mother. “Say, Mom, do you remember you once told me when I met the right girl, I’d recognize her as the one?”
“Yes.” That one little word came back to him full of hope and excitement.
“Well, what if you meet her, and she doesn’t recognize you?”
His mom was on that like a speckled hen on a June bug. Her disappointment registered immediately. “Would this be the young lady in the picture?”
“Yes, but she’s better than that. I mean she drank a Mickey intended for me on purpose. I had to watch over her.”
“Son, did you spend the night with her?” his father asked in that measured, neutral preacher’s way of his.
Rex could imagine him clearly, the kitchen light shining down on his bald head, accenting his hollowed cheeks and yellow-toned skin. Africa had sucked the life out of his dad, forced to give up his mission because of ill health. About now, the reverend would be cleaning his glasses as he considered his next words. Rex felt a pang of guilt because he’d always been glad he took after his mother’s big, round-headed German side of the family who kept all their hair into old age.
“Now Elton, he already said he didn’t,” interjected the mother who believed she’d raised the perfect son.
“I meant I saw her safely to her room—and I stayed the night watching over her, but nothing carnal happened.” Except for staring at her naked breasts and being unable to forget them. “She wasn’t too grateful in the morning.”
His mom, always ready to play defense when it came to her children, groped for a mild pejorative. “Why that—that hussy!”
“Sue Grace, we do not know this girl and cannot judge her.”
“Really, she’s a great person. If you knew what Tricia endures from her boss in order to get her mother top cancer care, you’d admire her. She isn’t exactly the kind of girl I thought I’d fall for, but you’d love her, honest.”
“I believe Rex and I need to have a father-son talk. Would you go in the other room, Honeybunch, and shut the door?”
His mother left, unwillingly judging by her heavy tread followed by a slam. No frail bluebonnet, his mom outweighed his dad by quite a bit. Her German genes, she said, but a fondness for those social hour cakes figured in there somewhere.
“Now, tell me what’s wrong with Tricia.”
“It’s just that she’s not a virgin, and she’s been with more than one guy.” Rex scanned the waiting area, but most of his teammates were plugged into their iPods or deeply immersed in their own calls since their flight had been delayed until late afternoon. Joe appeared to be talking to each of his kids one at a time and would be on the phone until the flight boarded most likely.
“Neither was I when I married your mother.”
“Dad, you’re the holiest man I know!”
“I wasn’t hatched under God’s right wing, Rex. I grew up in west Texas groping girls in the back of pickup trucks on Sunday nights. I came to Jesus after my stint in the military, met my Honeybunch at Texas Bible College, and that was it for me.”
“So you were experienced before you got married. Was Mom?”
“I never asked. She took me as is, defied those racist parents of hers to embrace my dream of going to Africa as a missionary. All that mattered was our future together.”
“Because God would forgive her trespasses if she asked.”
“Of course, but that would be between her and God. It isn’t wise to press an issue like this with a woman.”
“Seems like I’ve already been unwise. Mom always said I should save myself for my bride, and the woman I chose should do the same for me.”
“You have a great mother, but sometimes I think she’s overprotective. Despite your size now, you were a sickly child in your earliest years. She feared to lose you. When Honeybee came along, she loosened her grip a little, but she still wants what is best for you. A virgin bride would be wonderful, but in this day and age, not too realistic. I’d overlook Tricia’s past if you truly care for her. Forgive and forget.”
“I’m glad we talked. Let me say good-bye to Mom. Our charter finally is being called.” His mother spent her last few seconds of the call warning him about bad women. She meant Tricia, but Rex knew the term applied much better to Layla Devlin.
Chapter Seventeen
Layla dragged Tricia to a sports bar for the next two Sundays to watch the Sinners games along with other ardent fans. With wing sauce dribbling from her plush lower lip, the actress screamed with delight when Rex went in during the fourth quarter of the Se
ahawks game to give the obviously fatigued Joe Dean a break. The regulars stared at her and mumbled under their breath about Worthy’s not being able to throw a pass. Eighty percent of them wore Billodeaux’s number 7 jersey. Rex did not make a touchdown this time around but managed to run a lot of time off the clock moving the ball slowly down the field. Despite this, the Sinners lost on a last minute field goal made just under the wire by their opponents. The defense had to take the blame for this one.
Feeling better and not giving Rex a chance, Joe Dean played the entirety of the Cardinals game the following week and brought off a stunning victory based on four of his long passes. Layla pouted and loudly voiced her opinion about not putting in Worthy. A man with the build of a dockworker told her to shut her yap. After emptying a pitcher of margaritas on the guy’s head, Layla pitched chicken bones from their platter at the TV. Asked to leave, they’d have to find another bar when the team left New Orleans again.
Other than that, Tricia finally located a furnished rental condo on Decatur Street that met Layla’s specifications. They moved in, and she got a small respite as the star amused herself with Lilah Divine who took Layla to the best restaurants and most interesting dives in the city. Time off to visit the art museum, the aquarium, the zoo in the afternoons before the transvestite needed to go to work, what luxury. Now, if she could only stop envisioning going to those places with Rex. Probably not the art museum, but she’d bet he liked animals. This had to stop. She needed to think of him as Layla’s man, hands off!
When the team returned to New Orleans, Layla insisted on being front and center at the airport. Wearing the jersey that appeared to grow tighter each week, the actress rushed the security line and shrieked her favorite player’s name over and over. A hunted expression on his broad face, Rex passed quickly, flicking a brief wave their way and boarding the bus without pausing for so much as an autograph or a fist bump. Layla did the whole “Do you know who I am?” bit with the officers before being escorted to a cab. If they didn’t, the paparazzi sure did. There would be pictures within the next week, Tricia knew.