The Hardest Hit

by Teague, AS

  Hunter giggled. “Yeah. Landon and Mia, sitting in a tree…. K-I-S-S-I-N-G…”

  Landon’s face turned ten shades of red as he leapt from his seat.

  “Alright, alright,” I said, sticking a hand out to stop him from pouncing on his brother. “That’s enough, you two, give it a rest. Hunt, you even know what that spells?”

  His head bobbed enthusiastically. “It spells ‘kissing.’”

  “And what is kissing?” I asked him, my lips twitching.

  “It’s when two people get in bed at night and lock the bedroom door,” Owen replied.

  I sighed and squeezed my eyes shut. “What do you know about locked bedroom doors at night?” I quirked a brow.

  Landon piped up, “Mom locks her bedroom door every time a new friend comes over.”

  I groaned. Fucking Shay.

  “Enough with the talk of kissing and locked doors. Let’s talk about something we all like… Football.”

  Hunter jumped up and grabbed the football from the table. He threw it to Owen, and I was impressed with the spiral it had on it, even for the short distance it went. “You gonna win tomorrow, Aiden?”

  “What kinda dumb question is that?” Owen snapped as he tossed the ball back. “Of course, Dad’s gonna win. Only time he doesn’t win is when he plays Uncle Griff.”

  I threw my head back and laughed. I’d lost one game to Griff’s team, and it just so happened to be one that the boys were at, and those three hadn’t let me live it down since.

  “We’re playing Uncle Quinn’s team tomorrow.” I smirked.

  “Definitely winning, then!” Landon piped up.

  I reached over and mussed his hair before pulling him into my side for a quick hug. Of all the boys, he was the one who had always been eager to climb into my lap, but the older he got, the more I had to be the one to initiate any affection. He still wasn’t too old to not lean into his dad’s side though. “That’s right, kid. Uncle Quinn’s team sucks. We’re gonna blow them out. You wanna be there to see it? Give Quinn a hard time after the game?”

  All three let out whoops of excitement, and I smiled. “That a yes?”

  “Hell yes!” Owen shouted before clapping a hand over his mouth, his cheeks pinking.

  I shot him a look but didn’t say anything. Sometimes a bad word or two was warranted when you were excited. And considering the boys hadn’t been to a game in a while, I let it slide.

  I pushed to my feet. “C’mon, boys. Let’s get some grub.”

  “Dad...” Landon groaned. “No one says grub. You’re so old.”

  The boys all laughed, and I flexed an arm, popping my bicep. “Old? What old man you know has guns like this?”

  Landon groaned again. “Only old guys call their arms guns. Gah, you’re making it worse!”

  I threw an arm around his neck, getting him in a headlock, and started rubbing my knuckles over his head. “Call me old again, man!”

  “Ow! Ow!” Landon shouted through his laughter.

  Owen jumped on my back and Hunter wrapped his arms around my waist, and together, the four of us fell to the grass, a massive pile of arms and legs.

  Owen got the upper hand and put me in an arm bar while Hunter worked to free his older brother’s neck from my grasp. “Mercy! Mercy!” I shouted.

  “Gotta say the magic word,” Owen gasped.

  “I don’t know the magic word!” I rasped out, my chest heaving from the exertion of having three boys wrestling me on the ground.

  “It’s ‘what what in the chicken butt’! You gotta say it, Dad!” Owen wheezed.

  I shook my head. “I’m not saying that!”

  Hunter punched me in the gut, his fist so small that it barely hurt, but I still let out a shout. “Hey! How am I gonna throw all the touchdowns if I’m bruised and beaten?”

  The boys started chanting together, “Say it! Say it! Say it!”

  I knew that if I was ever going to escape, I had to say the ridiculous phrase they all loved to run around saying. “Fine! Landon, Owen, and Hunter all smell like chicken butt!”

  The boys dissolved into a fit of laughter and rolled off me. Even though it wasn’t their favorite saying, I assumed that I was getting cool dad points for telling them they all stunk… which they did.

  “Alright, boys… I wasn’t kidding. You all smell like dogs that have been catching catfish in the lake all day. Get inside and get showered, and then we’ll grab dinner.”

  The laughter turned to groans, but they all pushed to their feet, and together, the four of us made our way into the house.

  I watched as they raced up the stairs, pushing and shoving each other, and laughed. The way the three of them loved each other made my chest tighten every time I saw them together. I’d have given anything to have that relationship with my brother growing up. But he’d always been too busy for me, and I had always been the annoying kid brother, even though I was only two years younger than him.

  No matter what kind of sacrifices I had to make, the lack of just about any personal life, and having to put up with Shay’s crap day in and day out, those three boys made every bit of it worth it.

  There would never be a moment that I regretted putting them first, even if my fingers did itch to take out my phone and text Mel.

  She thought she was right, that we were just in different places in our lives, and maybe that was true. But that didn’t mean that we weren’t meant to be together. And somehow, someway, I’d show her that. But for now, it was time to order dinner and turn on college football with my boys.

  Chapter Ten

  Mel

  Every day for the last two weeks, Aiden had sent me a text. Nothing pleading, there was no begging, there wasn’t even any talk of us. They were all questions.

  “How was your day?”

  “What’s your favorite sushi roll?”

  “Any plans for the weekend?”

  I’d ignored them all. Every last one. I’d read them, don’t get me wrong. I’d formulated responses in my head.

  “Day was shit. Sure wish I could tell you about it.”

  “Any roll someone else buys me.”

  “Yeah, cleaning my house and then wishing you were here for me to lie in bed with and be lazy all day Sunday.”

  I didn’t send any of those messages though. I didn’t send Aiden Shaw anything. Because we were done.

  The messages never came at the same time of day, so I never really knew when to expect them. If I had, I could have turned my phone off and not even heard the notification.

  As if he knew I was thinking about him, my phone chimed.

  Aiden: Watched Griff’s game today. Did you go with Brooke?

  I had gone to Griff’s game with Brooke and Allie earlier that day, and now we were having dinner at their house to celebrate his victory.

  Brooke raised her brow over the rim of her wine glass when I sighed and set my phone back on the table.

  I shook my head. “Don’t start.”

  The corner of her mouth tipped up and she shrugged. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  She was such a terrible liar.

  “Who was that, Aunt Mel?” Allie piped up.

  I looked over at where Griff and Brooke’s seven-year-old daughter sat, face covered in chocolate ice cream. “That was Uncle Pecker.”

  Griff threw his head back and roared in laughter. “I’m using that one on the next team call.”

  Despite myself, I grinned. “Please make sure you let him know that’s what I call him these days.”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll be the first thing out of my mouth.”

  Griff, Aiden, and their three friends from college, Quinn, Trav, and Shane had weekly “team calls”. None of them were on the same team anymore, each of them being picked up by a different NFL team out of college, but they insisted on discussing their games and trying to improve on what they may have done wrong. The calls also involved a lot of ball busting and shit talking, and I knew that Griff would be true to his word.
A small part of me wished I could listen in on the shit that the guys would give him after hearing my new nickname for him.

  “Why don’t you wanna talk to Uncle Aiden? Don’t you like him?” Allie piped up, and any trace of humor that had just been in the room vanished.

  I swallowed and Brooke stuttered, “Uh, Allie. That’s personal, honey.”

  She looked over at me, her eyes sad, and I knew that she too wanted to know the answer to the question that her daughter had just asked me.

  “Allie Bug, your face is a mess. Go upstairs and get in the tub. I’ll be up in a few minutes to read you a story before bed,” Griff told her.

  “Aw, Dad! I want to stay up and watch Uncle Aiden’s game with you.”

  Brooke shook her head. “Not tonight. You have school tomorrow.”

  Allie frowned. “Why do I have to go to school? I’m already the smartest girl in the world. Daddy always says so.”

  I giggled as Brooke cut her eyes at where Griff was sitting with a smirk on his face.

  “Yes, you are the smartest girl in the world. But you have to go to school so you can keep getting smarter.”

  Allie sighed as she jumped to her feet. “Fine.” She came around the table and wrapped her arms around my neck, and I squeezed her tight, praying that she didn’t get chocolate all over my shirt but knowing that was probably inevitable with the amount of mess she’d made during dessert.

  “Night, Allie Bean. Love you.”

  Allie squeezed again. “Love you too, Auntie Mel.”

  She bounded up the stairs, and Griff pushed to his feet. “You two go relax. I’ll clean this up.”

  Brooke smiled. “You sure? I can get it.”

  “Nah. I can tell Mel wants you alone. I’ll get this cleared and then get Allie in bed.”

  I swear, I didn’t know how Brooke had gotten so lucky, meeting a man in Las Vegas of all places and finding out that he was quite literally Prince Charming. If she weren’t my best friend, I’d be a little jealous. Well, I was a little jealous, but I’d be a lot jealous.

  “You’re too good to us both,” I told him as I snagged my glass of wine and phone and followed Brooke into the living room.

  We settled into the couch, and she grabbed a blanket and tossed it at me before covering herself with another. “Okay. Spill it.”

  I glanced back toward the kitchen, where Griff was out of sight but making enough noise that I knew he couldn’t hear me.

  “There’s nothing really to tell.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She knew I was full of shit. “Oh, okay. So, then you’re answering all those messages from Aiden?”

  “Not a single one.”

  “Why not?”

  I groaned. I was too tired of thinking about Aiden to talk about him. Especially not to Brooke. She’d see through my tough girl act, and if I knew her, would have me calling Aiden ten minutes into our conversation. “I’m not in the mood. Can’t we just watch the game?”

  She sighed and patted my knee. “Sure. But don’t think I’m going to forget. You’re going to have to tell me eventually.”

  I covered her hand with mine. “I will, I promise. Just not tonight.”

  I’d spent years barely seeing or talking to Aiden, but tonight, for some reason, the realization of our relationship, or lack thereof, had me wondering if we’d been dumb to let trivial things get in the way of whatever it was we had. Although, kids and careers and sickness weren’t trivial.

  I leaned back against the sofa and focused on the television, determined to push any of the niggling doubts about Aiden out of my head.

  The game had been a total blowout. By the third quarter Aiden’s team was up by four touchdowns. Brooke and I were barely even paying attention at this point, instead chatting about the paint and pour class we were going to take next weekend.

  “Why is Aiden still even playing?” Griff grumbled to no one in particular.

  I glanced up at the screen and watched as Aiden took another snap, the ball landing in his hands just a second before he handed it off to the running back. “You know he wouldn’t let them take him out even if they tried.”

  Griff shook his head. “That stubborn ass.”

  Stubborn was just one of the many words I could think of to describe him. Arrogant, cocky, confident, annoying, frustrating… I could go on and on.

  The offense lined up after getting the first down, and yet again, Aiden was behind the center, ready to take the snap. The ball was hiked, but it was a low snap and Aiden had to scramble to get his hands on it.

  The ball bobbled in his large hands, and Aiden’s head swung from right to left, looking for a way to recover the play, but there was no one to hand it off to. He dropped back and Griff cursed, “Just fall on it!”

  But that wasn’t Aiden’s style. He’d always been able to salvage a play, to gain yards when he should have been sacked. I’d watched most of his games, and it was rarely that he ever made a bad play, his decision-making skills on the field, under pressure, were the best in the league. It was why he was destined to be a Hall of Famer, why he’d been drafted in the first round.

  But this play couldn’t be saved, and I held my breath as he scrambled around, trying to avoid a sack.

  “Just get rid of it!” Griff shouted at the screen as he jumped to his feet. “Jesus Christ, Aiden!”

  Just as Aiden’s arm reared back to throw the ball, a defensive lineman came out of nowhere and launched himself at Aiden. He must have seen him coming because he pivoted on his right leg at the exact moment that the defender wrapped his arms around Aiden’s waist.

  The living room was silent as Brooke, Griff, and I watched Aiden go down in a heap. The other player jumped to his feet immediately, and it was at that very second that my heart dropped into my stomach.

  Aiden lay on his back, his hands clutching his right knee.

  “Oh, God,” Brooke breathed as the color drained from her face.

  Aiden was writhing in agony, and the reason for his pain was apparent.

  The impact of the linebacker’s shoulder pad against his leg had broken both of the bones in his lower leg and they were protruding through his skin.

  The stadium was silent as the broadcasters cut away from the gruesome image on the screen, both of their faces ashen.

  “We, uh, we’re going to go to a commercial break,” one of the announcers said as he swallowed hard.

  I felt Brooke’s hand around my wrist and realized that at some point I had stood and crossed the living room until I was standing in front of the television.

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. I looked over my shoulder at a green Griff and opened my mouth to say something. But nothing came out. After another moment, the announcers were back on the air and showed a shot of the field, both teams on their knees, heads bowed as the medical staff tended to Aiden.

  Just breathe.

  Just breathe.

  I wasn’t sure if the words were coming out of my mouth or only in my head because all I could hear was the roaring of my heart as it pounded nearly out of my chest.

  He was still writhing on the ground, in obvious agony, and the trainers were trying desperately to calm him. I knew the only thing that would calm him down would be to rewind the clock and make it so that play had never happened.

  “Because of the nature of the injury, we’ve decided we aren’t going to show it again, but it looks like Shaw’s suffered a broken leg. Our sideline reporter, Judy, is down on the field. Let’s go to her.”

  “Thanks, Mike. Obviously, it is a very solemn scene down here. Players from both teams have formed a circle around Packers’ quarterback, Aiden Shaw, and the crowd is silent. I don’t think I’ve heard a stadium this quiet before. Trainers aren’t telling me much, just that they will be transporting Shaw to the hospital for treatment, but that it does not appear that there are any concerns about injury to his head or spine at the time. I’ll try to get an update later.”

  The camera panned away from the reporte
r and back to the field, where they had loaded Aiden up on an injury cart and began to pull away. The crowd roared in support as Aiden held up a hand, indicating that he was okay.

  The three of us stood in the room for several long moments just staring at each other until the sound of Griff’s phone ringing broke us out of our trance.

  “He’s going to be fine.” Brooke tried to be optimistic, but she didn’t believe that anymore than anyone else did. “He’ll be okay. It’s not that bad.”

  “Quinn.” Griff barked into his phone. “What the fuck?”

  Quinn was at the game; he’d been on the sidelines. He’d tell us what was going on. “Put it on speaker,” I choked out.

  Griff pulled the phone away from his ear and hit a button, and Quinn’s voice echoed in the room. “It’s bad, man. It’s really fucking bad.”

  I crossed the space between us and grabbed the phone. “Are you with him?”

  “Mel?” Quinn’s voice was strained.

  “Are you with him? Right now?”

  “Not right now. I was with him on the field.” Quinn’s voice broke, and I looked up at Griff, the fear in my gut reflected back at me in his eyes.

  My stomach churned. Out of all of the guys, Quinn was the toughest one. I’d never seen him get emotional about anything, so the fact that his voice sounded as though he had swallowed a bag of gravel told me that this was not going to end well for Aiden.

  “Ambulance is here to take him to the hospital. I’m gonna follow. I’ll call you back as soon as I know anymore.”

  I handed the phone back to Griff and turned to where Brooke was watching me, tears filling her eyes. I walked over to her and wrapped her in my arms, hugging her tight for my benefit as much as hers.