Chapter 37 Jillian
JILLIAN
My heart jams my throat.
Fear attacks every cell in my body.
A player’s down. But not just any player. My player.
I rush to the window of the press suite where I’ve been watching. I press my fingers to the glass, and my veins flood with a primal, wild fear.
Jones lies on the field, grappling with his right leg.
“Oh God.” A tear streams down my cheek, and I snap my gaze to the TV screen as the camera zooms in on him. The trainer’s already there—the coach, too. Harlan kneels next to him, offering a hand.
The shot of his face shows Jones wincing. The pain seems to ricochet through him, and I wish I could take it on for him. My feet are glued to the floor and my eyes to the screen. I can’t look away.
“We don’t know what happened to Jones Beckett, and whether he can walk it off or not. But that was one tough fall as Collings rammed into him right at the end zone,” the announcer says. “I’ve seen these kinds of falls before, and sometimes you get right up, and sometimes you don’t.”
Shut up, I want to say. He’ll get up.
To the screen, I mouth, Get up. Please get up.
Jones rolls to his side, his big, beautiful hands clutching his right knee.
Harlan slides an arm under him, the trainer on the other side as Jones hobbles off the field with them.
I run like hell from the suite, down the hall, and to the elevator that’ll take me to the locker room. He’s not even going to the sidelines medical tents. They’re taking him to the locker room, and that means it’s serious.
“C’mon,” I mutter as I wave my ID tag at the card reader, and I wait and I wait and I wait. Grabbing my phone from my pocket, I try to find some information, but that’s stupid. That’s pointless.
ESPN has no more data than I do.
This is happening in real time, and I need to get to him.