Finding Infinity (Infinity Series)

by Layne Harper

  “Never mind. Pull over,” I instruct. She pulls up to the curb. I open the car door and get out, and walk around the elaborate entrance to our neighborhood, filled with waterfalls, and ducks, and shit like that, and I try to fight the nausea. God, I’m in that place. If I hurl. I’ll feel better. But who wants to hurl on purpose? My stomach is bubbling. I feel faint. My fever is making me shake. My throat is on fire. And Charlie is working in a damn germ factory while she could be carrying our baby. Too much. I lose my stomach in a holly bush next to a duck’s nest that smells like wet bird shit, which makes me puke harder.

  Then, wouldn’t you fucking know it? A car comes to a screeching halt next to Charlie’s. Some nosey-ass reporter jumps out of the car and starts taking pictures of me becoming acquainted with the local plants.

  Out of my peripheral vision, I see my wife tear out of the car. “Leave him alone.” She’s screaming like the wild woman of Borneo. “Get in your car and leave us alone, you asshole.”

  She puts her hand in front of the camera, trying to prevent him from getting any more pictures of me. Nothing like watching my wife lose her mind to force myself to stop being sick. I stagger over to her as best as I can. The reporter is asking for a comment on my condition. I’m sure that he’s hoping to be the first to report my illness to the fantasy football sites.

  “Get in the car, Caroline,” I growl. My voice is so scratchy that I barely recognize it.

  The reporter keeps snapping away as Charlie gives him a look that would scare a death row inmate and slides into the passenger seat.

  I shut the door behind her and walk around the back of the car trying to avoid the reporter and slide into the driver’s seat slamming the car door behind me with what little energy that I have left.

  “Do they have no dignity?” She fumes once we’re on the road. “You were clearly in an ill position, and they want a picture of that? Fucking vultures.” She’s developed quite a mouth on her. I’m sure it’s my negative influence. We’re both going to have to clean up our language if we’re going to be parents.

  My girl is pissed, and it would be so fucking adorable if I didn’t want to collapse because I feel so bad. When I get home, I drag my sorry excuse for an immune system self to our bedroom, strip off my practice clothes, and slide under our covers. I don’t even bother to rinse my mouth out. I’m shaking so violently that she grabs another quilt to place over me.

  “Did you practice today?”

  “Yes. Why?” I chatter.

  “Give me your phone.”

  “Why?”

  “You got your dumb ass dehydrated, and you need IV fluids. Hand me your phone.” She’s standing over me staring me down. If I didn’t feel like death, I’d inform her that her bedside manner leaves something to be desired.

  I reluctantly hand her my phone as I get up, and do my best “I’m just fine” walk as I head for the bathroom. I’m going to be sick again. The room is fucking spinning like a top. I just pray that I’m quiet, and she’ll stay occupied on the phone.

  I hear her in the other room asking to have an IV bag brought to the house, and nausea meds, and I shut and lock the door. I know that I’m dehydrated and sick. This isn’t the first time, but puking sucks. Puke in front of your wife, and you might as well hang up your balls.

  I’m so achy that I feel like a ninety-year-old man, my throat filled with sand from the strep mixed with my stomach acid, and the love of my life is screaming for me to open the closed toilet door.

  “Jesus Christ,” I moan. “Can’t I just puke in peace, Caroline?”

  Silence.

  When I’m finished, my stomach feels much better. I wait in the bathroom a couple of extra minutes and hope that she’s been called back to the hospital. I’m not looking forward to the wrath of Caroline.

  I open the door cautiously and see that she’s nowhere in sight. I head to my sink to rinse out my mouth and brush my teeth. Then, I walk into our room and slide back under the covers, but first I put some workout shorts on, expecting visitors any minute.

  My phone is next to the bed. I pick it up, and swipe my finger across the screen. There’s already a picture of me hurling in the bushes live on some fantasy football site. “Fucking perfect,” I say.

  Charlie left me a bottle of Gatorade, water, and some Tylenol. I kinda didn’t want her around before, but now I wish she was in here, fussing over me just a little. I open the Gatorade and take a sip. My stomach screams at me, “Too soon, fucker.” I slam the bottle back down. I grab the water bottle instead, and the remote. I turn on Sports Center just in time to see me puke all over the holly bushes. Lovely. I turn the channel.

  Charlie slips in the room and takes a seat on the bed next to me. It’s too much motion for my stomach to enjoy, but I keep my mouth shut. Literally. No more being sick.

  “How are you?” she asks.

  “Fucking miserable. I’m dehydrated, nauseous, my body aches, I can’t quit shaking, and my throat’s on fire. How are you?”

  “Ovulating,” she says, with a smirk.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Really? I’m literally the sickest that I’ve been in my professional career, and you’re ovulating? That’s just fucking wonderful.”

  I’d bought an ovulation kit for her a while back, and she’d promised me that she’d use it. I guess she has been. I’m desperately proud of her, but right now, even my dick is achy.

  “Can you drink a little water? They’re bringing an IV and anti-nausea drugs over for you.” She pauses, and I can sense her revving up for a lecture. I brace myself.

  “I didn’t know you felt bad when you left this morning. Why did you practice in one hundred and three degree heat if you had a fever? Are you asking for death?” She reaches for the water bottle, which moves the bed enough to tell me that I’m not finished being sick yet.

  I push her off of me and walk as fast as I can toward the toilet. I don’t have time to barricade myself in before I throw up all the water that I’d managed to get down. Yeah! I’m a dumb shit. I got myself this dehydrated. I’m a quivering, pathetic, slab of meat.

  “Come on, baby,” she sounds like a damn chorus of angels behind me. “Let’s get you in bed. Fluids are coming.”

  I let my tiny excuse for a wife help me back into bed, but before I can push her away and head back to the bathroom, a wave a nausea hits me and I spew all over her. Yup. I, Colin-fucking-McKinney, just vomited on my wife.

  I make it back to the bathroom to finish. I spend a little longer than I should inside, just to make sure that I’m done. I can’t believe that I puked on her. If she packed her shit and left, I wouldn’t blame her. I sit there on the cold tile floor, hoping that God will go ahead and take me. I hear the shower turn off and the sound of her knocking. “Open the door, Colin.”

  “Go away,” I moan.

  “Baby, you’re sick. I don’t care. I’ve had a whole lot worse on me besides vomit,” she says, as if that’s supposed to make me feel better.

  “For God’s sake, don’t tell me. I might hurl again,” I plead. I think about the baby that could be growing inside of her. I can’t even imagine what’s worse than puke, but I don’t want it near my wife or child.

  I finally decide to be a man and crawl my sick, pathetic ass out of the bathroom, and get back in bed.

  Not too much later, the doorbell rings and Charlie races off to answer it. In walks my head coach, head doctor, trainer, offensive coordinator, quarterback coach and general manager. Apparently, we’re having a fucking powwow at Casa de McKinney.

  The trainer quickly hooks up the IV and gives me the anti-nausea pills, which I promptly vomit into the garbage can that Charlie’s placed next to my side of the bed. He goes for plan B, which clearly should have been plan A, and hooks up a bag to the IV.

  Then they all begin discussing me like I’m a used car at a dealership. Even Charlie joins in, tossing about her two cents. This just pisses me off.

  “I have strep.” I manage to croak out.

 
“His fever was one hundred and four degrees. He’s been vomiting almost nonstop since I picked him up. I think Monday is a long shot,” Charlie pipes up. Way to be on my side, babe. Traitor!

  “I’ve never missed a game. Not going to do it now,” I say, and then I add more vomit to the garbage can. I will my stomach to calm the fuck down. I get it. I’m an idiot, but do I really have to keep puking? “Seriously guys, I’m fine. I’ve played through the flu before. I’ve played through injuries much worse than this. Give me until tomorrow.” Then, I look at Coach. “Give me until tomorrow. Have I ever let you down?”

  He smiles at me, and says, “No, son. No, you haven’t.”

  It’s agreed. I have until noon tomorrow to be fever-free and rehydrated. I can do it. To be on the safe side, the doctor is sending someone to stay with us overnight. I remind them that my wife is a doctor, but no one seems to care.

  Once they leave, I turn the TV back on and pray that my news story has already passed. Not so much. I get to see it in high resolution no less than four more times.

  Charlie waits on me, hand and foot. I get chicken broth, which I manage to keep down. Next are two grape popsicles that taste like heaven and feel incredible on my burning throat, and finally, I get to have my girl snuggled against me. She changes my IV bags, and helps me get to the bathroom, dragging my pole, so I can piss out all the liquid they’re giving me.

  By nightfall, I feel like a new person. Okay, not a brand-new, healthy person, but I feel like I might live. I’m not ready to throw a ball just yet, but my stomach has settled. My head has quit pounding, and my throat is burning less.

  There’s one thing on my mind. My girl is ovulating. Are we really going to keep a little thing like strep throat from getting in the way of baby making? “Hey, Charlie. Why don’t you come crawl on my dick and ride me like the cowgirl you are?”

  “I don’t want to get puked on again,” she quips, raising her eyebrow.

  “No, honey. This time it’ll be my dick that does the spitting,” I tease.

  “Ew…gross, Colin. I don’t want your cum. It’s got strep,” she says, in her best little-girl-at-the-playground voice.

  “Hey! I thought I got this from you?” I ask.

  “You probably did,” she says with concern on her face. “I’ll do a better job of showering at the hospital, and when I get home.”

  “Well, next time, can you keep your germs at the hospital? Now, what about our problem?”

  “The only problem that we have is that you’re sick, and now, apparently, horny. I’m not helping you with the latter.”

  My dick’s now standing up like a fucking flagpole. “Come on, Charlie. I’m not nauseous. I kept down my dinner. Please come ride my dick? Please, with cherries on top?” I beg, in the least pathetic way possible raising my eyebrows and then looking down at my cock

  “What makes you think that I want to fuck you? I’ve watched you get sick all day. That’s not a huge turn on for me. Sorry.” She rolls her eyes and looks back at the TV.

  God, she’s killing me. I love her smart mouth, but right now, I wish that I didn’t have a needle in my arm so I could give it a good fucking. I take matters into my own hands. Literally. I know how to turn her on. She won’t get me off? That’s what I have a perfectly good hand for. She likes her masturbation game? Well, two can play at that.

  I reach my hand under the covers and begin stoking my dick in the rhythm that she likes so much. “Oh God, that feels so good,” I moan. “I’m picturing you dancing on my dick like the night in New Orleans after the club. You were so tight around me.” I continue pumping myself with the hand that doesn’t have a needle in it. “You remember how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other in the club, and how you almost fucked me in the back of the cab on the way back to the hotel?”

  This may have started out as a seduction game, but I’m seriously about to blow my load all over our sheets. “Remember? Your beautiful tits fit perfectly in my hand,” I spit out the words in the middle of a jerk. “That song on repeat. Your pussy against my nose and mouth. You tasted like heaven and rainbows,” I say, as I jerk my cock. I’ve pulled my own pork probably a million times. I don’t think that I’ve been this hard. I see her, staring at me, as she slips her right hand in her panties.

  “Don’t do this, baby, to prove a point. I need you on my dick. You need my dick inside of you. It’s not wrong if we both want it.”

  She pauses her ministrations and looks at me. I can tell that she’s thinking about it. “Okay, I’ll ride you, but you have to tell me if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

  “The only thing’s that uncomfortable is my throbbing dick. I need to fuck you, like, right now. It hurts. Climb on.”

  She does so, very gingerly. I can tell that she’s trying not to cause too much motion, and that’s not going to work for me. I grab her hips and move her onto my dick. Fuck! It feels so good when her wet pussy grabs onto my cock pulling me in deeper.

  “Rub your clit, Charlie, I’m going to cum,” I instruct her, but, I sound more like a teenage boy seeing his first pussy, than a happily married, thirty-something-year-old man. She reaches down, and I see her pinch her clit and hold it between her two fingers while she rides me to her ecstasy. I come with her in a fireworks-quality moment.

  Once we’re done, she climbs off of me as if I’m breakable. She settles herself next to me, and says, “I don’t think that’s what Coach meant when he said take it easy.”

  I laugh, and wish that I could kiss her smartass mouth. Sex with Charlie is perfection, but not kissing her while we make love leaves me wanting more. More incentive to get better. I need my girl’s lips pressed against mine.

  “Now, tilt your hips up. Keep my jiz inside, baby,” I order.

  * * * *

  By noon the next day, I’m back at practice. I’m not in the heat, and we’re just tossing the ball, but I’m here. I prove to them all that I can start the game. I remove the doubt, and that’s what matters.

  Monday, I’m not a hundred percent, but even at ninty percent, I’m better than most of the starting quarterbacks in the NFL. Not bragging. It just is how it is.

  A lot of teams make the players sleep in a hotel near the stadium the night before home games. They want to ensure that players aren’t boozing it up, or getting into trouble. My team only makes the players that have raised red flags stay at the hotel.

  Which makes me fucking ecstatic. Between practice, public appearances, fan nights, banquets, film watching, and sponsor demands, I’ve seen Charlie not more than a couple of hours at a time since we got married and training camp began.

  Getting sick sucked sweaty balls, but at least Charlie and I got to spend twelve hours together, which was like a Christmas gift.

  Tonight isn’t Charlie’s first time seeing me play since we got married—God, I fucking love saying that word. She’d been to all the preseason games, but I usually only played the first half, and then Coach gave the backups some playing time. This is the first real game that she’s been to. I have a suite box, for my family and friends. It’s on a secure part of the floor. The last thing I need to worry about is some drunk asshole fan getting near her; or, worse yet, some of my crazy fans. She’ll be safely tucked in a secure box with Jenny and Brad, her family, and my parents. Jamie, my security guy, will take care of everything.

  Time to concentrate on the matter at hand. It’s fucking game time. The last thing that I do before I walk out on the field is slip my wedding ring off. I had planned on wearing it on my right hand, but Charlie threw a fit. I got a lecture about how dangerous it was, etc. I’m sure that what she said made perfect sense, because it usually does, but it doesn’t change the fact that I hate being without it. I place it gently in the pocket of the pants that I wore to the stadium. That way, I know where it is, there’s no chance of it getting lost, and I can easily grab it and put it on after the game.

  First game of the season. No stopping until the last game in New Orleans, with confetti r
aining down on us. It’s Showtime.

  * * * *

  When there’s a late game like Monday Night Football, I don’t leave the stadium until way after midnight. Before I put Big Bertha in reverse, I send Charlie a text.

  Me: Headed home. Not sure if you’re still awake.

  I wait for a couple of minutes to see if she’s going to reply. When she doesn’t, I go ahead and start my trek.

  Before I was with Charlie, after a game I would go home, sit in my giant bathtub, filled with Epsom Salts, and drink about a gallon of water. Now, I don’t know what to expect. Will she be asleep? Is she waiting for me? My parents, Amy, and Julie, are staying at our house. Are they up and wanting to chat? God, I hope not.

  It doesn’t matter how good a condition I’m in, taking the hits to my ribs never gets any easier. Since I’ve been playing they’ve improved the padding, so there’s a little more cushion, but a three hundred and fifty pound guy crashing into my side is brutal, no matter what I’ve wrapped myself with.

  When I pull up to my house, there’s no spot for me to park in the driveway. I make a note to ask Charlie to remind her family to park on the street. As I climb out of Bertha, I can feel my body starting to get sore. I sort of hobble, but not really, because I’m fucking fine, through the back gate entrance and into the backyard.

  My hot tub, which is separate from the pool and closer to our bedroom, is turned on, and the bubbles are making quite an inviting sound. It’s dark out, but the moon is providing enough light that I see a head just above the edge.

  “Hello, my love. Care to join me?” It’s the sweetest voice that I’ve heard all night.

  I walk over to the hot tub and see that she’s alone—thank God. Her hair is piled on top of her head in some sort of a messy knot. She’s got a yellow string bikini on that barely covers her nipples. Do I want to get into the hot tub with my almost naked wife? Is that even a question?

  “Are we alone?” Please, God, let her say yes.

  “Everyone is asleep,” she says, giving me a sexy little smile.