Chapter Thirty-Eight
ONE MINUTE
CAGE
My life in flashes:
Lake.
My father.
The moment of impact.
The crowd.
Lake’s lips moving along my skin.
The sweat.
The light at the end of the tunnel coming into focus.
My heart beat heavy in my chest.
The roar of 73,000 people.
My lungs fighting for breath.
Lake’s back arched, eyes closed, lips parted, as I moved up her naked body.
My mother’s voice in my ear.
Fisting my hand over and over to keep it from shaking as flags wave and someone draws out the final note to The Star Spangle Banner.
Lake’s tears.
Drowning. Fucking drowning in her tears.
A coin rotating again and again in the air on its way to the turf.
The echo of my own voice shouting the play.
And then … silence.
LAKE
Please, God … this time … just please don’t take him. I’ll do anything.
I had the card he left me in my purse:
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lake: Keep your head in the game. My premonition was just a moment of insanity. Enjoy this moment. You deserve it! Loving you is my life’s greatest pleasure. I cannot wait to be your wife. <3
I didn’t know if he’d see it before the game, but it took the edge off by pressing send.
“You good?” Jessica grabbed my hand before Flint escorted me to the owner’s suite.
“Luke told you.” I looked over her shoulder to the rest of the family alight with excitement. Luke had his back to us. We all owed Penny big time for watching the young kids.
Jess squeezed my hand. “I think you messed with his head too.”
I nodded, forcing a smile. I never meant to bring back bad memories for my brother. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Jessica stepped closer, squeezing my hand harder. “He’s strong like his father was … maybe stronger. But you …” She grinned. “You’re me … maybe even stronger. Survivors aren’t made. They’re born. You’re one of us.”
“He could get hurt.”
She nodded. “He could.”
“He could …” I couldn’t even say it.
She nodded. “He could.”
The woman I’d idolized since the day I met her believed in me. I didn’t feel deserving. I felt like the girl who built her dreams on a man—a mortal—and everything was ready to crash, taking me in its wreckage.
“He’s my everything.”
Jessica shook her head. “He’s a moment.”
“I’m not ready for this moment to end.”
She smiled, small, painful, and filled with her own lost moments.
“Ready?” Luke took Jessica’s hand.
I drew in a big breath and converted it to a smile for those who had held my hand my whole life. “Go, Minnesota! See you guys on the other side.” Grabbing Flint’s arm, I followed him to the owner’s suite.
Gretchen greeted me right away. “There she is!” She hugged me. “Get a drink and something to eat. Are you ready for this?”
I wasn’t. I was so. Not. Ready.
“You have no idea.” My lips pulled into a tight smile.
“Not a bad place for him to be in just his second year.”
It was the worst fucking place ever, and I was the only one who saw it.
Ben died and I lived.
I wanted the heart. I wanted his kiss. I wanted that moment.
There didn’t have to be a reason he died and I lived. Life was a million things and something profoundly different to everyone, but stripped down to its most simplistic truth, life was always an experience.
If there was a God, maybe he didn’t really hate me. Maybe he loved me. Maybe he loved me enough to let me experience life—without limitations.
I loved Cage. I loved him enough to let him experience life—without limitations.
As I eased into my seat, I spotted Monaghan on the field. It was the experience for him. Calling it once in a lifetime was such an understatement.
A little boy’s dream.
A father’s proudest moment.
I hoped AJ was watching his son.
If God was truly all-knowing, then he knew Ben was going to die and I was going to live. He let life happen. I had no other choice but to experience the day—the moment—with 73,000 other people.
“You’re shaking.” Gretchen rested her hands on mine that were folded in my lap. “Gene played for Baltimore many years ago. Did you know that?”
I shook my head. Cage didn’t talk much about the team’s owners other than to say how grateful he was for their offer to let me sit with them.
“He was a quarterback too. We met in college and got married the summer before his rookie season. I gave myself an ulcer his first season. I was so worried about every tackle, every hit … for us it’s not about the win.
Every game that your guy walks off the field on his own is a victory.
” She squeezed my hands. “I smell victory today.”
I wanted to know if her words were a premonition or just bullshit to keep me from vomiting on her expensive shoes. I didn’t ask.
Sixty minutes of clock time and four opportunities for it to read 1:00.
Please let it just be a bad dream.
By the end of the first quarter Cage was still fine and Minnesota was up by seven.
By halftime they were up by fourteen and Cage was not only fine, he ran a quarterback sneak play and scored with three seconds left on the clock.
He couldn’t see me, but he knew just where I was.
He kissed two fingers then pointed them in my direction.
Gretchen hugged me. My heart still wasn’t beating.
Denver tied it up with two minutes left on the clock in the fourth quarter. Just like I had done in the previous three quarters, I held my breath during every play as the numbers on the clock ticked down. I only had to survive one more time that clock would read 1:00.
One minute and ten seconds … the center hiked the ball.
Nine seconds, Cage took several steps back and cocked his arm ready to throw.
Eight seconds.
Seven seconds.
I grabbed my stomach. That pain? It punched my gut. “NO!” I screamed forcing myself to standing like somehow he’d hear me on the field.
Everyone in the suite looked at me in wide-eyed shock.
Five seconds.
Four seconds.
“Noooo!” I fisted my shirt over my heart. “CAGE!”
He brought the ball back to his chest, protecting it, then he ran with it.
Three seconds.
Ducking his head and hunching his shoulders, he collided head first with a defender.
Two seconds.
All eyes in the suite shifted from me to him as he fell to the ground.
One second.
I banged my hands against the glass. “CAGE!”
With the clock stopped at one minute, my world lay lifeless on the field. Coaches, trainers, and doctors rushed to him and that fucking eerie silence spread through the stadium.
Gretchen hugged my back. “It’s okay, he’ll be okay.”
I shook my head, tears bleeding down my face.
Fuck fate.
Fuck premonitions.
Fuck life.
Ben died and I lived. Bullshit … in that moment I was far from alive. If Cage left, I wanted to go too.
CAGE
“Help … me …” My words found no voice. My lungs begged for air. I couldn’t move.
Before the doctors got to me, I saw it on my teammates’ faces—fear.
Why wouldn’t my hands move? My legs … I could feel them, but I couldn’t move them. My lungs … what the fuck was wrong with my lungs. Why couldn’t I breathe? Tiny puffs of air, that’s all I could take. It wasn’t enough.
They asked me so many questions as they went through all their checks with me.
“Bring your legs together,” one of the doctors instructed.
I couldn’t.
Lake. She knew.
They screwed off my face mask and eased me onto the board, strapping me down while someone held both sides of my helmet.
I was paralyzed.
I couldn’t breathe.
Lake. She knew.
“Can you give the crowd a thumbs up?” one of the doctors asked.
My thumb moved, more like a twitch, but that was all. Over seventy-thousand people in the stadium, and all I could hear was my heart. It felt weak.
Lake. Where was my Lake? I hated that she was seeing this. What was I going to do? I couldn’t hold her and tell her everything would be fine. Would it? Would I ever hold her again?
Then it set in—fear. I was so fucking scared.
Was I paralyzed? Would I ever walk again? Why was it so damn hard to breathe?
Lake … she knew …