Unstoppable Love: The Kelley Family Series

32. Cameron

Of all the goddamn fucking plays. Of all the games. Of all the shitty things to happen, my busted leg and knee were the worst possible things I could think of happening.

“Mr. Kelley, we’re ready to disembark now.”

My flight attendant was a man half my size. How in the hell was he going to get me off this goddamn plane and back into my wheelchair?

“You’re helping me?” I couldn’t stop the snide tone in my voice. What’d they expect?

The team rushed me to surgery, told me to keep my ass in Buffalo as long as I needed, but there was no way in hell I was staying there.

The first thing I thought when I woke up, the first person I called as soon as I could was Ava.

Sure, it’d been three in the morning her time when all that happened, but she didn’t only not answered, she hadn’t called back.

I hadn’t heard from her all-damn day, or Isaiah when I tried to call him. I’d spoken to my dad, and when I asked if she’d stayed there, he’d only said, “She had a long night.”

Like I hadn’t.

The attendant’s smile was more of a snarl. “I can do my job, sir.”

Sir. Like I was now an old, washed-up has-been and not one of the top five quarterbacks in the country.

“Fine.” Thank God for the private plane my team had sent for me, though. I was able to sit in a reclining chair, casted leg fully propped up the entire ride.

Screwed. I was so damn screwed. In my lap, my phone buzzed, but after a quick glance to find another teammate’s name on the screen, I hit ignore.

There was only one person I wanted to talk to, one person I wanted to see, one person who would make this shitty, completely shitty situation not be so damn overwhelming.

“All right,” I muttered. “Let’s do this.”

I pushed up in the chair, wincing from the pain searing straight down my leg and biting back a cry of pain, and swung my broken right leg over the side of the recliner. My damn fucking leg. My right leg. The one where I planted my foot for a pass. It couldn’t have been my left? That would have at least been different. That one might not be causing whispers I’d seen all day on my phone about a career-ending kind of injury. Over before he really began.Kelley has one serious, long road ahead of him. One good season, and to go out like that? Shame. What a shame…

Shame? Please. It was a goddamn fucking joke, was what it was. Worse, I wouldn’t know for months if the announcers who’d taken far too much joy in discussing my ruin were right or not. Not with another surgery on the horizon and rods in my damn leg.

“Fuck,” I grunted as I leaned all my weight on my left and grabbed the crutches.

“Sir, we have the chair.”

“I’m not being pushed out of this damn plane like an invalid,” I growled. The attendant stepped back and grabbed my overnight bag that Marlin had stayed and packed for me. He’d brought it to the hospital, was there when I woke up, and after handing me my phone and telling me he’d called to give Ava a heads-up on what was going on, left.

I hobbled up the aisle of the small plane, every step and swing shooting a stabbing pain to my leg. Doctors had told me to give it another day before traveling.

I’d told them to fuck off.

They offered me pain medication, which got them another fuck off. Probably didn’t need to be a dick to them, but their careers weren’t getting dissected on social media by every single reporter and every man over the age of thirty who could have made it to the NFL if they just didn’t have one small thing happen.

Goddamn I was becoming a cynical bastard. Crazy how quickly that happened.

I hit the ramp to the plane, the small ramp in the distance, and leaned my shoulder against the wall. Fuck, this hurt. I was panting, and my sweatshirt was already sticking to my back. Behind me, the attendant had my bag, and there was a wheelchair to my right.

“Fuck it,” I muttered and glanced back. “Any chance you’re still willing to give me a push?”

It wasn’t an apology for being an ass to him, but at least he nodded.

“Absolutely, sir.”

I collapsed in the chair as soon as it was opened and allowed the man to bend over and flick up one of the foot braces. Sweet relief swept over the stabbing pain, leaving a muted roar instead of the needling sensations.

After shoving my crutches between my hip and the chair, I took the bag from him, and he hauled my invalid ass up the exit ramp. The airplane was private, and the airport was small, so we were through the one strip of twelve boarding areas and in an elevator heading to baggage claim quickly. My crutches clicked and clacked against the metal chair, and my fingers tapped the armrests.

Ava.

Where in the hell was she?

I almost expected to see her standing at the sliding doors to the pickup area, pacing back and forth with her hair braided and down her back. I imagined the sweet relief in her eyes—probably tears—when she saw me.

Instead, my breath caught and stalled as I saw who was there to pick me up.

And there was no relief in Isaiah’s eyes as he caught sight of me.

“What is it?” I barked. Because that look wasn’t for me. If it were, he’d be giving me shit. Teasing the hell out of me despite the mess I was in.

“We gotta talk,” he said. He yanked off his ball cap, swiped his forehead, and resettled his hat on his head. “It’s about Ava.”

Jimmy Morton was fucking dead. Isaiah had to be thinking the same thoughts as me because he hadn’t even warned me not to voice that thought to an officer of the law. He was going to be a fucking dead man if I ever laid my eyes on him again, and it wouldn’t be a quick gunshot death.

It would be a slow, painful, choking-the-life-out-of-him-one-squeeze-at-a-time-until-his-lifeless-eyes-stared-back-into-mine kind of death.

It was a blessing and a curse that I was stuck in that stupid chair, my leg all broken and twisted and wrecked. It was the only thing stopping me from heading my ass to the sheriff’s office and doing exactly that, too.

“Tell me again,” I demanded. “How bad she looks.”

I needed to know. Had to be prepared. As soon as Isaiah said the words, “Ava was attacked,” I knew it was Jimmy. Knew it’d be bad, but thank Christ, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Thank God Isaiah had the sense to go back and check on her. Thank God he’d done it exactly when he did and didn’t hesitate another moment.

“Her jeans were unbuttoned, but that was it,” he’d said. I’d slammed my fist against his dashboard.

“Bruised throat. Lump at her temple that’ll probably bruise at some point too. That’s it, Cameron. It could have been worse.”

“I know that,” I gritted through my teeth. “I fucking know it could have been worse. Fucking hell.”

We turned to her parents’ driveway, where Isaiah said she was going to be staying, but fuck. I had to get back to Denver and had a calendar full of already-scheduled doctor’s appointments coming up. I couldn’t leave her here. Not even with her parents. Not in the same damn county where Jimmy was, at least until he was moved to District Court if he was charged with a felony.

If he wasn’t?

I would raze the entire damn town.

“She didn’t want you to hear her voice,” Isaiah said, pulling his truck to a stop. “She sounds worse than she looks. Can barely talk, and when she does, it’s like her throat was sliced with razor blades. But besides the prints on her throat, that’s the worst.”

Prints on her throat. From Jimmy’s hand. His fingers.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I muttered and swung open my door.

“I’d help,” Isaiah muttered and then glanced at me as I glanced at him. “Need my help for something else?” Smart-ass.

“My crutches. Maybe the pain in my leg will distract me from my losing my shit when I see her.”

“Good call.”

Isaiah climbed out, came around, and once I was settled, leaning over my crutches and hobbling, oh so slowly, over their gravel driveway, he helped me up the stairs to the porch and opened the door.

“Got someone who couldn’t wait to see you,” he said, and then he stepped back.

And holy shit.

It was better than I imagined, still worse than I expected.

Ava’s entire throat carried the bruised marks of a hand that had been intent on squeezing the very life out of her.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I said, and Ava flinched.

“Nice,” Isaiah whispered from behind me. “That’s helpful.”

“Dick.” I swung a crutch at him, and he jumped out of the way.

“Hey,” she said and came to her feet. “What are you doing here?”

My rage was a living, burning, boiling thing. She could barely speak. I could barely move.

Rage at the world. At the Buffalo players who took me out. At me for not reading the defense fast enough. At Jimmy-fucking-soon-to-be-dead Morton.

And still, Ava was there. Red-rimmed eyes and messy hair and bruises and all, and she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“Look at us.” I smirked and nodded down to my cast. “Seems like we’ve had a hell of a night, Sunshine, yeah?”

I made the joke to break the ice. To lighten the mood even though the air was heavy and stifling. But it was a challenge for Ava. A push.

And I was good at that.

We didn’t need to talk about anything. About any of it.

Not tonight. Not tomorrow.

“Yeah.” She huffed as tears slid down her cheeks. “We’re quite the broken pair.” She choked over a cry and came to me, wrinkled shirt and sweatpants and thick, heavy socks on her feet.

“You’re not broken, Sunshine,” I whispered when she was close. I was smiling like I was high. But Ava was my drug. My sunshine. The only thing right in my world when everything else was falling apart.

“Neither of us are broken,” I continued. “Just a little bent right now is all. We’ll get it all straightened out, though.”

“Yeah?” She fiddled with the hem of her shirt and glanced down, but I caught it. That fear in her eyes. The pain and terror lingering in them before she could fully blink them away.

“Hey.” I leaned on a crutch, and despite the pain, I adjusted my weight so I could reach out. She flinched as I did, and I yanked my hand back.

“Sorry,” she whispered, turning those terrified eyes up to me. “I don’t…”

“It’s okay.” I nodded and gripped the handles of my crutches so tight it was a wonder they didn’t snap. “We’ll straighten that out, too.” I forced a grin, waited until hers returned. “After all, turns out I don’t make such a great football player after all. Think I’ll try my hand at farming and coaching someday soon.”

Her eyes widened, and Isaiah muttered something in the distance. I had no idea where Ava’s parents were, but Isaiah was the only person making sounds from the kitchen.

“You don’t know that,” Ava whispered.

“I do, Sunshine. I might not have known it an hour ago, but I do now. Nothing’s ever gonna take me away from you again, especially not some damn sport. You’re my home, Ava Decker, and I belong right next to you, for as long as you’ll have me.”