Why didn’t you explain to her who the girls are, dumbass?
Because I was wrapped up in my own butt hurt. Lily didn’t trust blindly, and she had good reason. Thing was, I knew how bad it looked to Lil, but a small part of me wanted her to give me the benefit of the doubt. Not fall back on her media-soaked idea of who I was. I wanted her to see me, who I was now, not who I’d been once upon a time.
I didn’t know, maybe I was asking too much. It was one thing to see it in a magazine. It was something else to be slapped in the face with it in my apartment. If roles had been reversed, I’d have been just as closed off. In fact, I was. Lily was pissed but she’d tried to give me a chance to explain and I hadn’t. I’d never had to explain myself to someone else like that. When I was with Andra, I didn’t have the player reputation then. And before Lily, I honestly didn’t give a single fuck what anyone thought of the reputation I’d earned post-Andra, either. Lily deserved an explanation at the very least—if she chose not to believe me, it was on her.
The weight room was empty except for a couple of trainers working out with Devon. He gave me a nod when I walked in, but I tapped the earbud in my ear, letting him know to leave me alone.
Wrapping my wrists, I stacked plates on the shoulder press and took my seat, anticipating the routine of it all. The space it gave me to think. The time to sort shit out. After pulling up my lifting playlist, I found my hand placement on the bar and hoisted over my head.
One. Two. Three...
I was falling for Lily Costello, and it scared the shit out of me. It fucked with my grand plan, didn’t it. After all, it would be a shit-ton easier to let her make the decision to let me go than it would for me to decide between football and Lily. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that if we continued down this path, our relationship would never get out. It would eventually, and it would be the end of my run with the Bulldogs. But was I even ready to give up football for a woman who seemed to think the worst of me? Would I always have to explain myself to her or would she ever give me the benefit of the doubt? That’s why I’d hesitated to tell her who Erica and Staci were. If she didn’t trust me, it would be a lot easier for both of us to walk away now. Before our relationship got out, my dream of retiring with the Bulldogs went in the shitter and I’d lost both my job and my heart in one fell swoop.
Half growling, I pushed off the bench to stack more weight on.
Was that six or seven plates? Eh.
Must have been an uneven number because when I lifted the bar the left side felt heavier. Whatever.
One. Two. Three...
I had this insistent part of me that believed when Lily got what she needed from me, she’d take off. Would she even need me anymore if I didn’t play football?
That’s when it happened.
It felt like somebody bumped the left side of the weight bar while I had it in the air. The bar listed to the left halfway above my head. My hand slipped, and I tightened my shoulders, reflexively.
POP!
Pain rocketed up my neck and down my arm. My ears started to ring, and my field of vision narrowed. I let the bar go, and it tumbled to the floor, but I barely registered the ruckus it made. Instead, today’s early practice ran through my head.
We’d been running scenarios and were only supposed be going at seventy-five percent speed.
I called a new blitz. The play did what it was designed to do, creating a hole in the offensive line. The left guard read it and saw me coming.
We were both going harder than we should. Both twitchy for some real contact. He grabbed for the chest piece of my shoulder pads. I used a swim move to get around on him, throwing my left arm up and over his helmet.
But somehow his foot ended up on top of mine. The guard’s weight shifted funny, but he’d managed to get ahold of a part of my pads. Brian rolled to my left on his way down, taking me with him. I landed on my left side, my left arm extended all the way out over my head, and all 320 pounds of writhing guard on top of it.
I lay there a minute and took stock. I heard two little pops and my shoulder hurt plenty, but it was fine.
I got up and walked away. Brian didn’t. Broken ankle.
Now, I thought maybe I should have told someone about those two little pops earlier.
Slowly the ringing subsided and I heard Devon talking to me. “Brody, I’m sorry, man. My shirt...it got stuck on the bar. Shit, get Dr. Chase.”
Ugh, not that fucking guy.
The pain wasn’t the same as when I’d dislocated. That had felt wrong on so many levels. This felt more like soft tissue. It wasn’t nearly as deep.
“Devon, stop. It was an accident. It’s not your fault.”
In the medical room, Dr. Douche gave me a shot of some painkiller and took films then sent me to the recovery room to ice it. I sat there like nothing. Just waiting to hear if my career was over. I didn’t think so. I was moving okay. It just ached.
Half an hour later my ice had melted, and I hadn’t heard anything. Sitting up from the table, I went to find out what was going on. Outside the PT room and down a hall, I finally heard the first voices.
I didn’t think anything of it when I stood poised to knock and heard Dr. Chase say my name, or even when Dick’s voice came from the other side of the door. But when I heard Lily’s name, I pulled my fist back.
Why the hell would they be talking about Lily?
The voices were muffled, but it was definitely Doc, Dick, and someone else, a voice that was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“That girl’s a pain,” Dick said. “What...about Shaw?”
I was only getting bits and pieces of sentences.
“...some hyperextension...” Dr. Douche responded.
“... I need...sidelined,” Dick said, but I missed so much of it I couldn’t make heads or tails. Were they going to sideline me? My heartrate kicked into a gallop.
“...on the bench,” Doc answered. “...it’s a separation... X-ray or MRI. I’ll put him in an immobilizer.”
Okay, a separated shoulder. That wasn’t too bad. It would take a little time to heal, but it wasn’t a career killer. I might even make it back for the season opener.
“But... Lily...insurance.” That from Doctor Douche. Again, with Lily. What the hell did she have to do with any of this?
“That was smart...real dedication, son,” Dick intoned.
Then the third voice spoke up. It was also the hardest to hear. I pressed in close. “...lose my job...” He kept going but I could only make out the last few words, and I wasn’t even sure of those. “...stepdaughter, you’d overlook this.”
There was more after that, but the rest was so mashed up, I couldn’t make anything out. I knew I should walk away. Go back to the treatment room before I got caught, but when I heard Chase’s voice again, I stayed put. “How?”