Second Chance: A Military Football Romance

by Claire Adams

  “Wait, guys! No!” Cheese yelled. “I can explain!”

  “No, you can’t,” said the taller brother. “You’re done. We’ll have a meeting tomorrow and decide whether to eject you or not. Now, go find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”

  Cheese shot Brian and I a dirty look as he slunk out of the house. Brian nodded at the brothers who’d evicted their offending member, and said, “Thanks, guys. I’m going to get her home. I think she’s had a good enough time tonight.”

  “Hey, no problem,” the tall brother said. “Sorry about our idiot friend. He’s not a bad guy, just a little clueless.”

  “Yeah, well, you’d better watch out that that cluelessness doesn’t get you guys suspended,” Brian warned. “You know how they’re cracking down on misconduct.”

  “Yeah, we know. That’s why we’re policing it ourselves,” the brother replied. “All it takes is one idiot to ruin it all.”

  “Well, thanks for intervening,” Brian said as he began walking me toward the car. I could barely stand up anymore, so he reached down and scooped me up in his arms and carried me to the car. He gently put me in the passenger’s seat and attached my seatbelt and then added, “And for God’s sake, if you have to throw up, warn me!”

  I looked up at him and whispered, “Promise I will,” before I passed out cold.

  *****

  The whole ride home I leaned against the door with my head halfway out the window. I felt sick and wasn’t entirely sure that I wouldn’t throw up all over the dashboard. My mind was racing through hundreds of thoughts as we sped back to the dorm. What happened? Why is he so mad? Why aren’t I more worried about Dominic? Did I study for my Psych exam? Does he like me or am I just a work fling? Why do I care? Did I study for that Psych exam?

  By the time we got back to the dorm, I was drunkenly grilling Brian about my Psych exam. “Did I study for that exam?” I slurred. “I think I need to study for the exam.”

  “You can study as soon as you’ve sobered up,” he grimly informed me as he helped me out of the car and put an arm around my waist, and I leaned heavily on him as we made our way back to my room.

  Once inside, I collapsed on the couch in a drunken lump, and felt the room begin to spin counterclockwise as I held my head with one hand and my stomach with the other. I moaned softly as I desperately tried to fix my gaze on something that would stop the dizzying speed with which the room was turning, but after a few minutes, I knew this was not going to end well. Weakly, I pushed myself up to a sitting position and then tried to stand. I fell back and began to cry because I knew I couldn’t make it to the bathroom on my own. The next thing I knew, Brian had swept me up in his arms and carried me to the toilet, where I immediately bent over and emptied what few contents my stomach still contained. It was painful and I cried as the waves of nausea rolled in over and over. Brian stood behind me, silently holding my hair off of my face and rubbing my back until the violent spasms subsided and I sunk to the floor and rested my cheek on the cool tile. Brian left the bathroom and then returned a few minutes later.

  “C’mon princess,” he said as he gently shook me back to awareness. “Let’s get you into bed.”

  “No!” I cried weakly. “I don’t want to go to bed! It will spin and I’ll throw up again!”

  “No you won’t,” he assured me. “You’ve gotten rid of the bad stuff, now it’s time to sleep the rest off.”

  “I don’t wanna,” I whined as he lifted me off of the floor and carried me to the bed. He gently removed my clothes and pulled a T-shirt he’d found on the dresser over my head, then he pulled back the covers and slid me under them before pulling them back up to my shoulders.

  “You sleep now, okay?” he said softly. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  Only half-aware of his presence, I nodded before I passed out.

  *****

  I squinted as the sun shined through the curtains covering my dorm window, and then groaned as I moved my head. The effects of the party and my overindulging had left me with a splitting headache and a mouth that was as dry as desert sand. I groaned again as I rolled over and found that the other side of the bed was empty. My memories of the night before were fuzzy, but I did remember that Brian and I had had some hot sex on the couch before everything had gone south. What happened last night? Where is he? I wondered.

  As I lifted myself off of the pillow and tried to sit up, the sharp pain in my head took my breath away, and I lay back down as I tried to breathe the pain out of my head. Bits and pieces of the party came trickling back into my memory, but I couldn’t quite grasp the whole picture. Did I make a fool of myself? I knew I’d gotten really drunk, thus the splitting headache and queasy stomach that were now at war with one another, but what else had happened? And where was Brian?

  I took a deep breath, pushed myself up into a sitting position, and immediately rested my elbows on my knees as I held my throbbing head. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe, I chanted to myself as I tried to get the pain under control. After a few minutes, I felt steady enough to look up and scan the room. Brian was sound asleep on the couch with his arm tucked under his head as a pillow and his hand on his gun. Even in his sleep he looked serious and ready to wake up and fight, and as I watched him, he shifted and made soft noises that sounded almost like barking. He didn’t seem to be someone who rested easily.

  I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and felt the soles of my feet soak up the coolness of the tile floor. It helped soothe the ache and the rolling waves of nausea, so I tested my legs and stood up. Major mistake, I thought as my legs gave out and I tumbled to the ground. I cried out as my head hit the floor, and in an instant, Brian was by my side hauling me back up into the bed.

  “What the hell were you doing?” he demanded in an angry but still sleepy voice.

  “I needed to go to the bathroom,” I replied, irritated that he was mad at me for wanting to get up and move around.

  “Well, you should have woken me up so I could get you there safely,” he lectured.

  “I have never once in my life woken anyone up in order to ensure my safe travel to or from a bathroom,” I shot back. “I didn’t know that this was a new rule on the list of the millions you have already devised for me.”

  “I didn’t devise any rules for you, sunshine,” his voice rose as he continued. “I’m not here for my health, you know. I’m here to ensure that your psycho ex-boyfriend doesn’t do anything that will harm even one precious hair on your little head.”

  “Well, I’m not a child!” I yelled. “I can take care of myself! I don’t need you watching my every move or monitoring my bathroom visits!”

  “I would argue differently, sunshine,” he said drily. “Especially after last night’s activities.”

  “So I drank a little too much and got sick,” I said with a petulant frown. “Lots of college students do that and they don’t get reprimanded by their bodyguards the next morning! It’s part of college life!”

  “You really don’t remember what happened, do you?” he shook his head in disbelief. “You don’t remember how it all went down.”

  “What went down?” I shouted. “I remember that I was having fun with my friends drinking punch and dancing, and you were standing in the corner like a stick in the mud watching everything and creeping everyone out! That’s what I remember!”

  “So, you don’t remember Cheese and his groping hands?” he asked.

  “No. What?” I demanded. “What in the hell are you talking about? All I remember is how damn boring you were while every other person at the party was relaxing, having a drink, and enjoying themselves. You acted like someone’s grandfather. No, I take that back. You acted like someone’s boring old judgmental brother!”

  “Bravo!” he laughed as he clapped his hands together slowly. “Bravo! What a wonderful performance by Ms. Klein. You really are brilliant, you know?”

  “What in the hell are you even talking about?” I was utterly confused now.

  “I
’m talking about the fact that you’ve conveniently forgotten that you got so drunk that you wound up in the lap of the most lecherous frat boy on campus. The guy that is so bad, even his frat brothers don’t like him and are meeting today to decide whether to sanction him or expel him from the fraternity for good,” he explained. “I’m talking about the fact that you didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting away from him because you were too drunk to even stand on your own two feet. I’m talking about the fact that you spent an hour vomiting in the bathroom after I brought you back here last night, and I’m talking about the fact that you are so self-absorbed that you don’t even stop to think about the fact that I wasn’t at the party to have fun, I was there to protect your precious little ass!”

  By this point, Brian was pacing the room as he barked at me. Anxious and angry, he looked down at the floor as he paced; one hand on his head and the other on his gun.

  “Don’t you think I would have loved to have a drink last night? To kick back and have fun with you after what we did before the party? Did you ever think of that?” he continued, then he stopped pacing and looked at me as he quietly asked, “Did you ever think of that, Ava?”

  “No, I didn’t think of any of that,” I admitted as I felt the flush of shame rising in my cheeks. “I just thought you were uptight and boring and you didn’t want me to have any fun. I mean, you didn’t even have one beer!”

  “I can’t have one beer!” he roared.

  “Of course you can!” I yelled back in exasperation. “Good lord, it’s just one beer, not a whole brewery!”

  “I can’t have even one beer because I’m an alcoholic!” he blurted. “There, are you happy now?”

  We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity as I considered what to say. I owed him an apology, for sure, but he owed me one for keeping such a huge secret. I was certain of that, but I didn’t know how to say it so that he wouldn’t start yelling again.

  “I’m sorry, Brian,” I offered. “I had no idea.”

  “Why would you?” he asked defensively. “I’m your employee, not your friend. You know nothing about me.”

  “Now that’s not fair!” I cried. “I think we’ve crossed over the employee/employer boundary and are something a bit more than that, don’t you think?”

  “Whatever,” he grumbled as he resumed his pacing.

  “And if I know nothing about you, then that’s your fault,” I asserted.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked incredulously. “You don’t ask me any questions about myself!”

  “Well, that’s because you’re not particularly inviting, now are you?” I said flippantly. “Not exactly the warm and fuzzy guy who invites people to get all cozy and engage in chit chat, are you?”

  “I have my reasons,” he grumbled.

  “I’m sure you do,” I replied. “But it still doesn’t make you easy to get to know, now does it? And if I don’t know you because you choose not to let me in, then it’s really not my fault, now is it?”

  He shrugged and walked toward the window. He pushed back the curtains and stood staring out the window for a long time. I said nothing, partly because I had no idea what to say, but also because I figured that if we were going to change the course of this relationship, right now was as good a time as any to begin.

  PROTECTOR #3

  “So, what made you stop drinking?” I asked.

  “Long story,” he mumbled.

  “Well, it seems I’ve got nothing but time,” I replied in a slightly sassy tone. Brian smiled a little and then shrugged. “Seriously, I’ve told you all kinds of messed up stuff about me, now it’s your turn. I’m sincerely asking to know more about you.”

  “You really want to know?” he asked.

  “Yes, I really do want to know,” I replied, smiling.

  “It wasn’t hard to decide that I wanted to quit drinking,” he began. “It’s just that it took a lot longer to get to the point where I could stop.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because by then it was both a part of who I was and a way of dealing with all of the horrible stuff I’d seen,” he admitted. “Drinking is a part of Navy culture. It’s what you do to bond with other sailors, it’s how you spend your down time, and it’s what we did in the war zone to help us forget what we’d seen and, sometimes, what we’d done.”

  “So, when did you start drinking?” I asked as I sat up, pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin on one as I watched him talk.

  “Oh, I started that when I was young,” he waved a hand dismissively as he chuckled. “My whole family was a bunch of drinkers who were into working hard and playing harder. The Navy was a tame version of what I’d grown up with, so I fit right in. And I could usually outdrink everyone. The problem was that in my family there was a strict line between work and play, and you knew when to stop playing and start working. In the Navy, that line got blurred after boot camp, and I watched a lot of really good sailors get sucked under when they couldn’t figure out where to draw it.”

  “What do you mean? I thought you guys were under strict orders and that you couldn’t get away with stuff or you’d be kicked out.” I was confused, but intrigued at this inside look into his life.

  “It’s not like the movies, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said with a wry look. “We don’t have drill sergeants barking at us 24/7, and while we’re expected to keep things in tip-top shape, there’s a whole lot of leeway once you’re out of basic training. It’s like with anything, really. The rules start out super strict and then kind of lose their grip the more you know how to circumvent them.”

  “Oh, I get it,” I said. “It’s like boarding school. They crack down on the first years and then ease up when they know you know the rules, and you figure out how to work around them without totally flaunting that you’re breaking them.”

  “Yeah, kind of like that,” he said with an eye roll. “The Navy is totally like a rich boarding school.”

  “You know what I mean!” I laughed as I tossed a pillow at his head and narrowly missed.

  “That aim might be good enough for boarding school, but you’d never make it in the Navy,” he laughed as he picked up the pillow and tossed it back at me, hitting me squarely in the face.

  “Well, I’m not a trained assassin!” I laughed harder. Brian stopped laughing and looked away. I waited for a moment and then offered, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “I know,” he said. “Just hit a little too close to home.”

  “So, you were telling me about how you stopped drinking,” I reminded him.

  “A lot of the story is about how I started,” he said as he picked at the hem of my bedspread. “It became a habit while I was over here in the States, and then once we were deployed to Iraq, it became a necessity. It’s boring over there, a lot of sand and heat and not a lot to do when you’re not out on a mission. So, we lifted weights, played video games, and drank.”

  “So it was the habit that made you stop?” I asked.

  “No, it was the nightmares,” he said as he stood up and walked over to the window. “I couldn’t control the nightmares when I drank, so I saw a shrink and he told me to stop drinking.”

  “And you did? Just like that?”

  “No, not ‘just like that’” he laughed sadly. “It took a stint in rehab to get dried out and then they tried to send me to a shrink to make sure it stuck, but I said no thanks. I’m fine with just not being drunk, I don’t need some doctor picking at my brain to find out why I’m drinking. I already know why.”

  “So, you went to rehab?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I had to get out of the environment I was in so that I had a fighting chance of quitting,” he watched me as he explained. “After I was discharged, I didn’t have a job lined up or anything, so I had to go back home for a while, but home is where the whole thing got worse.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, like I said, they’re hard
workers and hard drinkers, so I fit right in,” he stopped and looked away for a long while before turning back to face me. “They didn’t understand what had happened to me in Iraq. Hell, I don’t think I understood what had happened to me, but the nightmares got worse when I was home. I knew there was a problem, but I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. All I wanted to do was drink it away.”

  “But if the drinking was making it worse, why did you keep doing it?” I asked.

  “My life isn’t like yours, Ava,” he explained. “I don’t have a whole lot of options, you know? The VA makes you wait for everything, so even if I’d wanted treatment, I couldn’t have gotten it for months, but at that point, I didn’t even want it. I hadn’t hit bottom yet.”

  Not knowing what to say, I simply nodded as I listened. I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant when he said that his life wasn’t like mine, but I knew if I listened, he’d explain.

  “It wasn’t until the night that I wrapped my car around a utility pole on a dark county road and walked away without a scratch that I realized I had a real problem.” He took a deep breath. “I could have died, or worse, killed someone else, and, at that moment, I knew that if I didn’t get my drinking under control I most likely would.”

  “It’s a miracle that you weren’t killed,” I whispered.

  “Don’t think I don’t know that,” he said. “I thank the higher power every single day that I wake up!”

  “So if you’re sober, then why were you so mad about what happened last night?” I asked.

  “Look Ava, I know it’s hard for someone who has never had a problem with alcohol to understand, but it’s not something that ever goes away,” he turned and stared at me as he talked. “I haven’t lost the urge to drink, I’ve just gotten better at managing it, but last night reminded me how little it would take for me to tip it back over to the other side, and I just don’t want to find myself in the position of having to make that choice.”

  “I’m so sorry, Brian,” I apologized. “I had no idea. I’m sorry that I took you to that party and I’m sorry I put you in that position.”