Love In the Red Zone (Connecticut Kings Book 1)

by Love Belvin

  What?

  Now, I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or not. This was…insane!

  “What’re you saying, Pete?” I couldn’t gain a hold of my damn vocal chords. They were flopping, producing a pre-pubescent sound.

  “It would be their way of observing you to see if you’re in league shape and still with professional stamina. Apparently, they’ve heard about your performance level at Rutgers.”

  Months ago, I stopped trying to resume a life I’d forfeited when I was convicted. I’d been laying low since, no longer wanting the limelight. I had to focus on my life. Yeah, I still had some paper in the bank, but nothing that would sustain me if I didn’t get a new gig, and definitely nothing that could maintain this big ass house if I didn’t resume a salary similar to what I made in the league. I’d been smart with my money, but I couldn’t live on my current savings forever.

  “What’s supposed to happen now?” I asked, still dumbfounded.

  “I told him I want to meet right away. It’s still early, so I have to wait for him to wake up to respond,” he added dryly.

  “A’ight. I’ll wait to hear back from you.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up the other half of my brain, because the current one couldn’t process this.

  “All right, brother,” Pete assured before hanging up.

  I lay there for a moment, going over what he’d just said. This was unprecedented. Almost no convicted player is let back in the league after being locked up; Mike Vick was a rarity. I couldn’t get my hopes up over something that was unlikely to happen to a regular Camden dude like me.

  Before putting my phone back on the nightstand, I happened upon a missed text. It was from Ezra Carmichael—my unofficial pastor. Technically, he hadn’t been installed yet and was still assistant pastor—and one from Brielle. I ignored Brielle once again and tapped on Ezra’s thread.

  Ezra: I need to meet with you right away. This morning if possible.

  I immediately returned his text. As I typed, my mind took flight with the possibilities of the emergency. Why would E wanna meet with me right away? Ezra wasn’t just my pastor. He was my therapist for a minute. I’d known him since before I got signed to the NFL. He just got back into the country and started helping out his pops, the first pastor, around the church. The first thing that struck me about him was his energy, which was on freeze all the time. My man, Jeremy Harris, another NFL quarterback, went to Redeeming Souls for Abundant Living in Christ in Harlem, New York. Harris played for the Giants and had been mentoring me. When he invited me to church with him my last year in high school, I had no legitimate reason to say no. I didn’t believe I’d like it, but went with the flow. When I met Ezra and was able to kick it with a minister who didn’t look or act like one, but was also in no way a hypocrite, I kept coming.

  Me: That’s what’s up. What time?

  Ezra made sure we weren’t overwhelmed by the fanfare of the congregation. I wasn’t signed at the time, but had a name as a future-leaguer. He also made sure we were covered with our personal lives. I don’t know how he was able to do it, but he got me to a place where I wanted to become more spiritual. I wasn’t with no holy-roller shit, but I needed to know more about me and my purpose here. People would assume it was to ball, but I saw the fakes and the phonies as my name spread across the country from my skills on the field. I saw through the fake ass smiles and offers to be “cool.” But with Ezra, I was just Trent. He never asked me about my future, only wanted to know about my current state of mind and the condition of my heart. Harris told me I could trust him, and was right. Ezra is the one who put me in touch with my current attorney, Edward Chesney, when I got signed. Chesney got me hooked up with the right finance team and their guidance is the only reason I was still in my ten-thousand-square-foot home while unemployed.

  Ezra: Nine am at the coffee shop in Closter.

  I knew the place. We’d met there a few times when I was in counseling. It was now five, which gave me plenty of time to pray, get a run in, and put in a good hour of weight lifting before showering and heading over to Closter.

  Me: See you then

  I let out a long breath, forcing myself to start the day. Pulling from my abs, I sat up, rolled over, and swung my feet to meet the floor. My first decision was to push the dark shit from my head so I could focus on the tasks of the day.

  I headed over to the corner table near the window when I made it to the coffee spot. My hood hung over my head and mind was reeling with so much. I had too much time on my hands and yet no opportunities. I’d been praying and waiting and nothing had happened. It was driving me crazy. I admitted to feeling alone last night while finishing up on a circuit of strength training routines. All I did when alone was pray, workout, and listen to old Stevie Wonder albums. The only things I did with others was church and volunteering with the football team. I’d been home for six months and felt more alone than any other time in my life. Shit, I thought I experienced desolation when I was locked up, but this shit is even more depressing when you’re a free man. You feel some kind of way about being alone and not wanting to be around anyone at the same damn time.

  As I looked out into the shop, I noticed a tall suit with a bearded face approaching me. Ezra. I stood, removing my hood.

  “Ezra!” I offered my hand, glad to see him looking clean and shit. We shook hands and then, out of nowhere, he pulled me into a hug. “Good to see you, man.”

  There was a brief freeze in his hold before he released me then held me at arm’s length. It seemed as though he was examining me, something that was the norm with Ezra. He could sense the shit out of the tiniest mood, making him good at what he did in therapy as well as on the pulpit.

  “Do we need to resume our session? When I discharged you it was because you’d met your treatment goals and could function independent of guidance,” he asked with scrutiny in his eyes.

  I snorted, quickly deciding to move this conversation into a different place. I didn’t want to come off as weak or needy, though I knew I could be real with Ezra. There weren’t many men I could get real with other than Shank and my pastor.

  “E, man, you know how it goes. Sometimes you have your good days and others you have your not so good days. Ain’t nothing I’m not managing and giving over to God through prayer and fasting.” I tried for a smile. “Have a seat, man. You’re looking debonair as usual. Your swag turned up a few notches. Is that what marriage does to you?” I laughed, knowing that would rattle his otherwise cool temperament.

  He returned a crooked smile that was loaded with something I could grasp. He was married now. That expression could have meant anything.

  Marriage.

  “That, and makes you reconsider every thought before it becomes an action.” He snorted.

  “I hear that, man. It’s a beautiful thing, and you deserve it.” I meant that. Ezra was a straight up dude. No gimmicks. “You’ve held out long enough. I thought you’d be like your boy, Bishop Jones, and never marry.”

  “Bishop has been married.”

  “Really?” I felt my face ball. This was news to me. I’d never seen Bishop Jones, a mega-pastor out in California, with a woman. He was a known, trusted friend of Ezra’s and a televangelist like him, too. Bishop Jones had been in the game a lot longer and was older. He was widely respected and had a certain draw to the ladies. He’d been in tabloids like me, allegedly attached to women in Hollywood. I never asked Ezra about the truth behind the rumors. Every man had his weakness and more often than not, it was the opposite member of the species. “I thought he was like Paul and opted for singlehood and ministry.”

  “No,” Ezra shook his head, his mouth curved to the side. “That has been his preference for around twenty years since divorcing, but he has children by his wife, whom are older than you.”

  “Wow?” Again that was news. Whenever I’d been in his presence when he wasn’t speaking at Redeeming Souls, it would be briefly in passing with Ezra at a function. Ezra introduced us once and Bishop t
alked shop about my career, being familiar with me, but outside of that, I knew little about him other than what I’d observed. “I know the ladies love him. I’ve seen him out at functions. He’s a magnet out there!” We both got a good laugh out of that one.

  “Yeah. The ladies love Bishop,” he confirmed.

  He was a friend of my pastor’s. A close one, I could tell. But other than that, I didn’t know him. Didn’t really care much about his personal life. I was just making small talk with Ezra, who I knew had that chick magnet swag in common with Bishop, only he was younger. I studied the way the women would respond to his presence over the years, but I never got the impression Ezra was beat for it. Like, the moment he took to the stage or entered a room, his presence dripped a certain elegance that drew that type of attention to him.

  Even when I brought a few of my friends in the entertainment industry to church with me when Ezra was speaking, the ladies in particular, would always ask about him. I recalled Brielle even twisting in her seat when he began a sermon one Thursday night. Everyone in our section couldn’t stop stealing glances at one of the biggest pop star artists around sitting at their church, flanked with body guards, and she couldn’t get enough eye fucking time in with the preacher innocently doing his job. She asked me in the middle of service who he was and if he was married. Mind you, I’d just fucked her twice that day before church.

  Of course, when she wanted to meet him after, I declined. I wouldn’t allow those two energies to intersect, and not because I was jealous in any way. I just wouldn’t subject Ezra to that type of fandom. He’d always been straight up. But I didn’t object when she tried stuffing my dick down her throat on our way back to her crib at Trump International when we left service. Hey, I loved God, but was no saint. Never claimed to be. Ezra knew the good, bad, and ugly of me, and never judged. He always led my attention to my core, as he would put it. He told me if I let Christ in there first, He’d start showing Himself in other areas of my life. So, I took my salvation one day at a time.

  “Y’all need to pass that over here. You’re now married; he don’t want to get married. I thought light-skinned dudes were coming back in style.”

  “I’ve been hearing that conjecture for years. You guys stopped reigning in the nineties. It’s now our time, T.B.” We cracked up at that. This was why I kicked it with Ezra. You never had to worry about falling out of sync with him; he could kick it on any level. “You know there’s a reason I called you out here this morning.”

  I opened my palms, reminded of the nature of this last minute meeting. Ezra never called me like this, not even when he counseled me. I hadn’t seen him since his wedding this past summer.

  “I was curious as to why. I understand you’re still on leave from the church.”

  He nodded in agreement. “Have only a few more weeks to go and couldn’t wait that long to pull you aside.”

  The waiter came over to take our order. I told him no thanks. Today was my fasting day. Ezra ordered tea.

  “Trent,” he started once the waiter left, “I had a rough night of sleep last night. It started off with a nightmare of sorts. I was in the wilderness at night with nothing but a flashlight. It was cold, woodsy, endless, and quite frightening, considering I was alone. I could hear the echoing of steps behind each one I made. I knew the sounds were not from mine; they were louder, almost as if from a big creature creeping up on me. But no matter how many times I would turn and flash my light behind and around me, I couldn’t find anything. I heard the howling of wolves, flapping wings of fowls, and the cries and movements of various reptiles.”

  I straightened in my seat, already feeling eerie about this dream. Ezra’s stories were always crisp enough for you to get a visual from the pulpit. This personal one from him was no different. I could see the setting he described.

  “I was tired and hungry, and while that was to be expected and didn’t trouble me, what did was my state of dismay. I didn’t think I’d ever leave that wilderness. I’d been walking for miles—days! I couldn’t identify where I was, only why I was there. The worst part of it all was I didn’t know how long I’d be there. So discouraged, at one point I dropped to my knees to pray—to beg God, actually, to save me. I needed rescuing or I’d certainly be devoured by wildlife. I prayed for an unknown, yet long period of time. When I came up, it was still pitch black and I’d lost my flashlight. I was ready to give up. To surrender my will to live right there.”

  I went rigid in my seat. Unusual emotions shooting up my chest.

  “The moment I made the decision to succumb to my destiny in the wilderness, I heard a commanding utterance. “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you. And will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you. And will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” That declaration—that promise restored just enough energy in me to walk again,” he went on.

  I adjusted myself in my seat again, my eyes wandering aimlessly out the window as I processed this. Ezra had always been a straight up dude…no hocus pocus shit. I could feel an energy radiating from across the table, drawing me into this place with him. It was surreal. All of my doubts and fears from the past two years came to an invisible surface, exposed for me to acknowledge whether I wanted to or not. They were also there for someone else to identify: Ezra, the man I’d chosen to lead my life spiritually as my pastor and emotionally as my former therapist. He’d put a lot of time and energy in making me whole and well as a man. And now my truth was out there. I still felt the remnants of incarceration. I hadn’t evolved mentally or emotionally outside of that cell in Wisconsin. Out of nowhere, I felt ashamed for not really being as well as I appeared. The more he spoke, it was being revealed that I hadn’t been as mentally healthy as what he’d been trying to coach me to.

  “I began to slump forward—not that I knew where I was going, but I followed that commanding voice with depleted energy. It was my promise. My manna. I had to go or else I’d die. I couldn’t tell you how long I forged toward the voice, but could tell you along the way I saw wolves, bears, lions, and even a serpent advising me to go the opposite way. As much as my flesh wanted to give up and cave to my fears and thoughts of betrayal from God allowing me to spend so much time in this wilderness, hungry and scared, I had to press toward the mark and seek the Source I knew had plans for my life.”

  When the waiter dropped off his tea, Ezra paused for a minute. I sat rock-hard still and waited for him to go on.

  “As I tossed and turned last night, I prayed silently, not wanting to alert my sleeping wife. I didn’t want to leave our bed for fear of losing what God was trying to show me, and of course that may have awakened her. So, I stayed the course, until my limping brought me to big bright overhead lights. I could recognize a stadium right away. I questioned if I had the energy to make it inside to safety, rest, and food.” He shook his head. I could tell experiencing this dream last night for him was similar to my current revelation of the wilderness I’d been living in. “The next thing I knew, it was no longer me in the wilderness. I’d somehow stepped out of the shell and looked back on it to find you. You were present age and in the same top physique you’re sitting in here with me now. This was your journey I’d experienced. You’d just made it out of the wilderness and into the stadium packed with all of your fans, cheering you on from the bleachers. Your teammates were there, shouting your victory. Your coaches smiled with pride and happiness at your arrival.”

  I sat cold and numb, barely able to breathe. I couldn’t recall ever feeling so out of my element and into my feelings. Even the day I reported for lock up and the metal gate clo
sed behind me, I didn’t feel much emotion because I was able to handle it, closing myself into a steel enclosure protecting me from the vultures. This was a method I’d developed as a kid, watching my mother covet my brother while resenting me.

  I felt the heat of his hand that covered mine, snatching me from my internal thoughts. My eyes snapped up and Ezra nodded softly with determined eyes, keeping me out here with him. I returned the notion, trying to hold my shit together.

  “Trent, I saw a woman, standing directly in front of you, waiting impatiently to embrace you. She held a small baby, a newborn. Next to them was an older child, almost as tall as the woman. I understand this doesn’t make much sense, brother, but this was your wife and children.”

  That shit hit me like a blow to the head. I sat back, covering my face with my hands. This was really crazy…scary I could admit to myself. What are the chances of Pete calling me first thing this morning with the news of the Kings wanting to look at me and then Ezra texting—

  “Trent—”

  “My old agent called me,” I spoke through my hands, somehow unable to move them from my face. “First thing this morning. He was blowing up my phone, trying to catch me before I headed out for my morning workout. I thought it was strange, E, because even though we’ve kept in touch, he doesn’t call that early.” His hands dropped from his face. “He got an email saying the league wants to consider re-instating me. They’re thinking about bringing me back and want me to come in and sign paperwork to use their facilities to train. Pete, my old agent, said it would be their way of looking at me on the low to see if I still got it, but…”

  “My God…” he muttered in pure shock.

  “Ez, man, you know—” my voice dropped exposing my emotions so I took a deep breath to slow the hell down. “Last spring you preached about miracles and how in this age we’re not being taught to call on God for the impossible. You said He’s the same God that performed miracles for Moses in parting the Red Sea, permitting Peter to walk on water, and raising Lazarus from the dead. That’s the same God I’ve been petitioning for life after the shi—the storm,” I caught my slip. “I’ve been through. The same One I’ve been begging for forgiveness from. So, I’ve been fasting once a week since then for Him to show His hand in my life in any way. I would love to get back in the league, but even if He were to move in another area of need, I would’ve been content with that. But this…” I couldn’t finish, trying to breathe deeply in order not to lose my shit.