PLAYERS: The Complete Series (Springville Rockets (Sports Romance Books 1-3)

by Daphne Loveling

  If it hadn’t been for Knox, I never would have done it.

  I wonder if football feels sort of like that to him. Not as extreme, of course. But I wonder if it’s the same exhilaration, of trusting his instincts and his body, and just throwing himself into something completely. I’ve never done anything like that before, much less chosen a career that meant my doing it every day.

  Knox’s words from last night come back to me again:

  “I went into pro football with my eyes open. I’ll take being out there on the field with everything that means over sitting behind a desk getting a pot belly and carpal tunnel any day of the week.”

  We’re so different, the two of us.

  Maybe this whole thing was a mistake.

  I just wish, if it was, that I’d never met him. That I’d never known what the touch of his hands on my skin felt like. I shiver involuntarily, the memory of his lips on my throat so vivid it’s almost as though he’s here, right behind me. Knox feels almost imprinted on my flesh, hardwired into my senses. The memory of every moment we’ve spent together is so vivid, so intense, it’s like no other relationship I’ve ever had. He’s like the human equivalent of bungee jumping: scary, exhilarating, but unforgettable.

  How do you get over someone like that?

  Later that day, I’m just leaving a meeting with Dr. Pataky when my phone buzzes in my bag.

  I’m sorry I went off last night.

  A surge of relief floods my veins, making me feel almost dizzy. I text back:

  I’m sorry too.

  After a few seconds, Knox replies:

  Wanna fuck?

  In spite of myself, I snort with laughter.

  You could at least buy me dinner first.

  Almost immediately I can see the little dots that show he’s typing.

  So that’s a yes?

  I laugh and write back:

  Depends on how good dinner is.

  More dots, then:

  Prepare to be dazzled, cupcake.

  When I get home, Knox comes to my door and tells me to get dolled up and be ready to go in an hour. I grab a quick shower, dry my hair, then paw through my closet for something that won’t make me feel like a reject. I mean, I’m a graduate student. Most of my clothes are from discount stores or consignment shops. I don’t know where Knox is planning to take me, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have anything that’s worthy of someplace really fancy.

  In the end, I choose a blue shift dress that is comfortable enough for me to move in and simple enough that I hope it will project understated elegance. I decide to pull my hair back into a not-too-fussy bun, letting a few tendrils of my red hair escape to frame my face. I opt for a pair of simple nude sandals with just a little bit of a heel. When I’m done doing my makeup, I take a glance in the mirror and can’t suppress a little thrill of excitement. I’m nervous, too, because last time I saw Knox things didn’t go so well. But I vow to myself that I won’t think about our fight, or all the reasons why this can’t work between us. Not tonight.

  I’m basically ready when I hear Knox’s knock. I open the door to find him dressed in a charcoal-colored shirt and light gray pants. He looks… amazing.

  “Hey, cupcake,” he murmurs, holding out his hand for mine. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  I’m a little surprised he doesn’t want to come in for a few minutes, but I follow him mutely down the stairs and out to his car. He opens the door for me and waits for me to get in, then shuts it and goes over to the other side. Knox starts the engine and starts driving. For a couple of minutes neither of us says anything. The silence feels weird. Not uncomfortable, exactly. Just strange. Finally, though, I can’t take it anymore.

  “So. Where are you taking me?” I say casually.

  “You’ll see.” He keeps driving, looking straight ahead. I frown and settle back in my seat, wondering what’s up with him.

  Finally, he pulls into a large parking lot that’s about half full. I look at the building we’re driving up to and frown. “Al’s Bowling?” I say in disbelief.

  Knox finally glances over at me then. His eyes are twinkling with suppressed laughter. “They have one hell of a cheeseburger,” he tells me with a mischievous smirk.

  Knox turns out to be right. Al’s cheeseburger is maybe the best I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t know what they do to it, but I can barely take a bite without moaning. Plus, it comes with a huge mound of the most amazing fries. When we’re finished eating, I feel like I’m going to explode out of my dress.

  “Ugh,” I tell him, blowing out a breath. “I can barely move.”

  “That’s too bad, because I’m about to kick your ass at bowling,” he grins.

  Knox pays for a lane and we grab our shoes and pick out our balls. It’s weird bowling in a dress, but I try not to think about him looking at my butt as I throw the ball down the lane. Miraculously, even though I’m pretty bad at it, I manage to get two strikes in the first game. Knox still kicks my ass, though, just like he said he would.

  Between games, we take a break and he orders us drinks from the waitress as she walks by.

  “It’s no fair,” I’m complaining. “You’re a pro football player. Of course you’re wiping the floor with me. You should have some kind of handicap. Like throwing with your other hand.”

  “I can do that,” he says evenly. “But I have to warn you, I’m still gonna kick your ass.”

  I sigh. “You’re probably right.”

  “Hey, we each play to our strengths,” he teases. “Mine is balls. Yours is books.”

  Even though I swore to myself I wouldn’t think about our fight, when he brings up my studies, I can’t help but say something. “Knox, about last night,” I begin. “I really didn’t mean to lecture you. I mean, you asked me to tell you more about what I was studying, and I told you, and then all of a sudden…” I look at him helplessly. “It just… turned into a fight.”

  Knox takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Yeah, maybe I overreacted.” He’s silent for a moment. “So, it’s a complete coincidence that you study spinal injuries in football players?” he asks, cocking an eyebrow at me.

  I nod. “Crazy, isn’t it?”

  He laughs softly. “Yeah. What are the odds?”

  Then somehow, without saying anything, we decide to not talk about it anymore.

  After bowling, Knox takes me to a city park on the eastern edge of Bryant Lake. It’s just starting to get dark, and we walk along the shore, holding hands. We’ve gone mostly silent again, but this time the quiet feels nice. Companionable.

  Knox tells me he’s leaving next week for a three week training camp in Rochester. I don’t say anything, and try to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach at the thought of him being gone for so long. He asks me to keep an eye on his place while he’s gone.

  Then we go back to my place. Knox takes me slowly, but with an intensity that brings me to a shattering climax as I cling to him and cry out his name. I fall asleep in his arms afterwards, and dream about watching him play football. In the stands, I clap and yell as his team scores touchdown after touchdown. But with each play, my voice gets hoarser and hoarser. By the time he catches the ball and is tackled from the front with a sickening crunch, my voice is entirely gone, and I can only scream in silence as I watch them carry away his lifeless form.

  22

  Knox

  In the days before I leave for training camp, Ivy and I don’t bring up our fight again. We avoid anything having to do with football or her research. On one hand, it’s a relief that we both seem to have decided those topics are off-limits. On the other, though, it feels like we’re tiptoeing around a giant elephant in the room.

  Just because we aren’t talking about it doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about it, though. Trust me, I’ve thought long and hard about exactly what the risks of playing football are. I’ve seen it up close and personal. Way too personal, in fact.

  My best buddy in high school, Chris Payne — the one I wear number 8
9 for — should have gone pro. He would have, too, eventually. He was a receiver with me on our high school team, the Southwest High Raiders. We played together, both as wide receivers, all four years of high school. After graduation, I got an athletic scholarship to the university right there in Atlanta. Chris ended up at Memphis, which meant we were in the same division.

  Chris and I knew each other since we were little kids. Our rivalry was always part of our friendship, but we never let it get in the way. Playing for rival teams in college was no different. We’d give each other shit over the phone before and after big games: I’d tell Chris he was gonna get his ass handed to him, and he’d tell me he could have caught a pass I’d fumbled with his eyes closed. Once, when the schedule meant that our teams would be playing against each other, I send him a tube of lube and told him to get ready for the reaming he was about to take.

  In our junior year of college, Atlanta and Memphis were scheduled to play each other in Tennessee. Both of us were getting a fair amount of attention from scouts by then, and we’d had more than one conversation about which teams we were hoping to get drafted to at the end of our senior year. Our team had gotten to Memphis on the bus only a couple of hours before the game, so the first time I saw my friend that day was out on the field. We were both in the starting lineups, and I remember him lifting his chin at me in greeting right before kickoff.

  Toward the end of the fourth quarter, I was on the bench, having played most of the game, waiting impatiently for Coach to put me back in. I was following the plays with the strange mixture of admiration and competitiveness that I always felt when competing against my best friend’s team. Memphis was down by six, and the mood on our bench was tense but hopeful. It was fourth down and twenty-two, the quarterback having been sacked on the previous play.

  The Memphis QB threw a Hail Mary pass to Chris, who caught it and started running like lightning toward the end zone, the path in front of him totally clear. My teammates and I immediately shot to our feet, yelling and screaming at our guys to take him out. One of our safeties, Lance Zach, got to him first, and clobbered Chris from the side at the eight yard line. My teammates and I started yelling like fucking maniacs, clapping each other on the back and pumping our fists that we prevented a Memphis touchdown and got back the ball.

  We were still yelling and congratulating each other when I happened to look over and notice Chris wasn’t getting up. The Memphis head coach ran over to him, followed by the team physician. Then suddenly, there was a swarm of players and assistants everywhere. I took a few steps toward them, but my teammate Roscoe stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Man, you can’t go over there,” he said. “I know he’s your friend, but this ain’t about you right now.”

  I watched helplessly as Chris was moved onto a stretcher and carted off the field. His prone form didn’t move the whole time. I knew then, without being told, that something was really fucking wrong.

  Atlanta ended up winning the game by nine. I barely noticed. I was too busy scanning the stands for Chris’s parents, knowing they had probably just seen their youngest son get seriously injured on the field. But I couldn’t find them anywhere. Just as soon as the game ended, I was down in the locker room, pulling off my pads and uniform as fast as I could. I took a quick rinse under the shower, threw on my street clothes, and bolted to the other team’s locker room to find out about my friend. Someone told me they’d taken Chris to one of the local hospitals. I asked for the name of it and where it was, then ran back to tell my coach I’d find another way back to school.

  The blow Chris sustained from our safety snapped his spine at the thoracic nerves in his mid-back. Luckily, the injury was low enough down on his spinal cord that he kept the use of his arms and hands. But because the cord was completely severed, it’s pretty much guaranteed he’ll spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

  Any possibility of a career in professional football ended for Chris that day. I played out the rest of the season, and every game, the image of Chris lying motionless on the ground was never far from my mind. That summer, instead of staying on campus like I had planned, I moved back home with my parents. Instead of the job I had lined up working for campus security, I worked full-time at my dad’s tree-trimming business. Whenever I could, I went to visit Chris, and tried to talk about anything but football, college, or the future. My parents, especially my mom, started pressuring me to quit the team, even though it would mean losing my scholarship and racking up student loan debt. The more they pushed, the tenser things got, until finally the summer ended and I was able to go back to school and start my senior year. At the end of my last season playing college ball, I got drafted to play pro ball with Carolina, and the rest is history.

  Even now, whenever I’m back in Atlanta, I try to go see Chris at least once during every visit. But these days, I don’t get there very often anymore. My mom’s still friends with his mom, though, and I get news about him that way from time to time. I guess he’s working at a bank now. He got married last year, and I guess they even have a little baby now. I keep telling myself I’ll give him a call. But the fact is, I’m not sure he really wants to see me. I’m afraid I’m just a reminder of the life he worked hard as hell for and lost, through no fault of his own.

  In the days after my fight with Ivy, I find myself thinking about Chris more than I have in a long time. And about how hard my parents tried to get me to try to quit the game after he got hurt. Even though I know Ivy isn’t asking me to give up football, I could see in her face how worried she is about me being injured. I can’t handle having another person in my life try to talk me into quitting the game.

  Can we make this work? I wonder. Or is football always going to be something that comes between us?

  Cash leaves on Saturday, the day before I leave for camp. He’s planning to stop in Atlanta before he turns north toward Atlantic City. I tell him to say hi to our folks for me, and he promises to come back to Springville sometime the fall to come see me play a game with my new team. The following day, I say goodbye to Ivy and Zeus, then head to Rochester for three weeks.

  When I get to the camp, which is on the campus of the university in Rochester, I check into the dorms and get my room assignment. I go upstairs and throw my stuff on my bed, then I head out to the meeting with the head coach, Phil Porter, who sets the scene for us in an auditorium-style classroom.

  The next morning is our first practice. I’m up at six to grab breakfast with the team. Then it’s off to the training room to talk to the docs about the results of my latest physical. After that is an hour-long session of lifting weights. Since it’s the first day, I’m not in pain yet, but I know from experience that tomorrow, I’ll be battling stiffness, pain, and bruises.

  After weight training, it’s off to meetings. We had a team meeting yesterday, so this one is relatively brief. Then there’s a special team meeting without the quarterbacks, and then an offensive meeting. By the time we’re sent to our lockers to get ready for practice, I’m all meeting’ed out and looking to blow off some steam, so I’m really looking forward to getting out there on the field.

  Training camp practices are open to the public, and there’s a pretty good crowd out there today. When we walk out on the field, the fans erupt. Next to me, our quarterback, Jake Ryland, grins. I grin back. It’s a great feeling, hearing the cheers greet you. It never gets old.

  There are five veteran receivers and five rookie free agents at training camp. The team will only keep five wide receivers on the roster, so for one of the rookies to make the team, he has to unseat one of the veterans. I keep my eyes on the rookies as we practice, sizing them up, but I don’t see anyone who looks like he can shove me out. I shut everything else out except for the work. We practice for two hours, then grab lunch and hang out until the second practice.

  By the time we’re done with second practice, it’s evening and I’m pretty worn out. It’s an effort not to fall asleep for the last meetings of the day. After we’re done fo
r the night, I head to the locker room with the guys, shower up, and trudge back to the dorms. This will be our daily routine for most of the next three weeks. It’s intense, exhausting, and even though it’s tough as hell, I would trade this life for anything.

  We don’t have a lot of down time during training camp, but we do manage to carve out the occasional half-hour or so before bed to have a beer in one of the dorm lounges. One night I’m shooting the shit with Jake, the quarterback, who’s telling me about his checkered reputation in Springville and how it almost cost him his position with the team. Apparently, he met his girlfriend, Rinn, when the team’s owner, Knute Amundson, gave him an ultimatum to clean up his act. Jake’s penance was to start doing high-profile volunteer work with a local charity. Apparently, Rinn was the director of the charity at the time.

  “God damn, that woman couldn’t stand the sight of me when I first met her,” Jake shakes his head ruefully as he tells me about her. “She thought I was just a hotshot athlete with only one thing on my mind. Well,” he concedes with a laugh, “I guess she was mostly right about that one. But still. It definitely took some time to get her to see beyond the dumb jock stereotype.”

  I smirk. “Funny, my next door neighbor sounds a lot like your girlfriend.” I say.

  Jake turns an appraising eye on me. “Next door neighbor, eh? That all she is?”

  “Not exactly,” I admit with a grin. “I don’t know for sure what else she is, though. Still trying to figure that out.”