Chapter 20 #3
He watched her catch her bottom lip as if in anticipation of his pain.
Unable to help himself, he reached out and caught her chin with his left hand, then lowered his mouth onto hers, pressing his lips against hers, feeling the soft, moist, plump flesh, catching it in his teeth and nibbling before letting go.
She said nothing, but the disturbance in her eyes was probably about a lot of things in their relationship, not just the fact that she was about to cause him pain.
She picked up the needle and stabbed it deep under his flesh into tendons that made up the rotator cuff, right where the stabbing pain already assaulted him.
Hissing through his teeth, he clamped his mouth closed, determined not to cry out with the unholy pain.
Jesus, this had to be the mother of all injections.
Never had he felt anything like it and he’d had plenty of shots of one kind or another all his life.
When she withdrew the needle, the pain stayed, less pronounced, but still there. He would never admit to it.
“Three days and you’ll be good, I predict,” she said. Her smile was small, but genuine. She knew he was in pain.
“If you warm it up slowly, you’ll be back in limited action by day four. It’s all a hypothesis, though. We’ll test it.”
She looked away from him and busied herself packing up her black bag.
“You’ve become my special guinea pig.” She didn’t look at him.
They both knew he meant a whole lot more to her. But this was no time to contemplate what was going on between them. He needed to keep it simple.
He needed to keep his mind on football. Before he had a chance to go back to watching the game, his phone rang. He answered it without checking who it was because he knew.
“Ma, everything is okay.”
“Are you sure? It looked like you were in pain when you went off the field.”
“It’s football. Pain is part of the game. You know that. I’ll be fine. We have a bye week to rest and then I’ll be ready to play the next game.”
“I’m relieved to hear that.” She paused a beat as if she had something else to say. He sat up straight and looked at Charlie, who watched him. “I probably shouldn’t bother you with this—”
“What is it, Ma?”
“It’s your father. He’s had a . . . setback.”
The words stabbed his nerve endings like a million tiny knives. Charlie moved closer and he let her listen in, as if sharing whatever it was with her might help.
“What do you mean by setback? What did Doc Waters say?”
“He said it was some kind of ministroke. Your Dad is all right. Tough as nails. But he gave us a scare.”
“Was it a TIA?”
“Yes, that’s what Doc Waters called it. You always were smart about medical things.
Your father may have been right—you would have made an excellent doctor.
But you’re a spectacular football player, Trent and that’s meant all the world to all of us to watch how successful you are. Especially to Dad.”
He listened to his mother’s sweet voice with clenched teeth.
“Did he say that?”
“You know his ways, Trent. I can see it in his smile every time the sportscasters talk about you. In any event, I wanted to make sure you can still come home for Christmas.”
“I can be there for dinner, maybe even stay overnight depending. Unless you think I should come home sooner—”
“No don’t do that. You take care of yourself.
You have your doctor friend take care of you.
Your dad’ll get mad as a bear if he knew I told you about his .
. . condition. He really is fine. Doc Waters increased his blood pressure medicine.
It was scary for about a half hour, but by the time he was settled in the hospital, it was all over and he was fully recovered. Don’t you worry.”
“I’ll let you do that. You’re a spectacular worrier.” She laughed and he unclenched his jaw, rolled his shoulders, felt the stab of pain.
“You devil. I’m counting on you for Christmas. Maybe you can surprise me with your special young woman, Charline?”
“I’ll let you know.” Guilt forced him to end the call quickly.
He’d told his mother about Charlie in an excruciating phone call because he had no choice.
It had been terrible to hear her joy knowing it was based on a lie.
He rushed their goodbyes and ended the call before his mother mentioned Charlie again.
Damn. If he’d had any hesitation before, the TIA was a stark reminder of his old man’s age and inevitable decline, and it put him over the fence firmly on the side of going for broke now. Before it was too late to make his father proud.
“Your father had a TIA? Do high blood pressure or strokes run in your family? I didn’t see that indicated in your family history. Trent?” Charlie’s concern seemed exaggerated to him.
“No, don’t worry. Nothing like that runs in the family. My father is seventy-two years old and he’s a lawyer. He has a big case going and he’s likely overstressed. His biggest problem is that he won’t quit.”
“He’s stubborn. Like you,” she said. She sighed and appeared to calm down.
“He’s determined. Like me.” It was about time he started acting like it.
He grabbed the headset and went back to work, concentrating with everything in him on the game in front of him.
The plan for Monday’s session with the media was for Trent to play down his injury and talk about the game. He was still pissed that they’d lost, even more so than his coach, who seemed to blame him and the offensive line that was supposed to have protected him.
“You’re right, I should have thrown the ball a beat sooner. But I didn’t. Get over it.”
Trent could talk to his QB coach like this, but he’d never spoken to the head coach of the Minutemen this way.
Coach Sal Marini stared him down, his features like cast iron.
Trent stared back and felt the dangerous tension surround him.
They stood in the hallway outside the pressroom.
It was silent as a tomb now where the noise had buzzed around them a moment before.
The others nearby, various teammates expected to take the mic, either stared open-mouthed or looked away.
He felt Jamie Jones take a step closer, saw him in his periphery.
Trent had damn good peripheral vision though it had failed him during the game long enough—just a microsecond—for that damn lineman to hit him.
The loss meant that the team would need to work hard over the next two weeks to clinch the playoffs in week sixteen.
“Looks like you’re the one who needs to get over it.
” Coach’s tone was icy, but he turned away and opened the door to face the press.
Apparently, wrangling with them was preferable to arguing with Trent in front of the meat of their team.
But Trent knew coach would come back to him later and there’d be hell to pay.
There were no prima donnas on this team.
He’d never acted like this before. In a small corner of his mind he wondered if it was the serum.
His mind pinged away from the notion, dismissing it.
But the next thought replacing it was whether or not his relationship with Charlie was affecting him.
He’d never had such an intense relationship with a woman before, especially not at this time of the season.
Hell, he probably deserved a dressing down by coach. Maybe it would help him get his head back in the game. Not that he should need help. He’d never needed damn help with his focus before.
Pushing through the door, he took his place on the sidelines of the stage to watch the coach field questions in his confident, soft-spoken way.
No matter how quiet and unassuming his voice was, people listened.
He commanded respect and got it. He gave it too.
To every last person on the team, down to the ball boys.
Trent felt like shit by the time he took the stage with stabbing guilt adding to the stabbing pain in his shoulder every time he moved. They’d thought it best to remove the sling for the press conference.
The coach stepped off the small stage and, as he brushed by Trent, he said, “Good luck.” It had been a struggle to keep the media off Trent’s injury. But they knew it wouldn’t be easy. In fact, Trent knew any amount of deflection would fail.
His first words before he called on any of the more than a dozen reporters with raised hands and phones aimed at him for impromptu video were meant to placate the lion’s den.
“I know you’re thinking that if I hadn’t gotten injured, we might have won the game. But the truth is, it wasn’t our day to win. And I guarantee we will clinch the playoffs in our next game.”
“How’s the shoulder injury?”
“What injury? I’ll be playing in the next game.” Issuing his cheeky smile, he paused for the laughs and the photos. “Kidding aside, my rotator cuff is inflamed, but it’s a temporary setback.”
Once the next reporter asked about his refusal of treatment, he knew he wouldn’t be closing Pandora’s box anytime soon.
“I’m getting treated conservatively, with automatic icing and, of course, resting the shoulder. We have an extra week so we decided it would be the best treatment. The injury is not as serious as the doctors originally thought.”
He spat out the lines he’d worked out with Charline and Nunley to answer the press.
He was counting on his QB coach, Parker, to keep the team physician and Coach Marini in line.
Parker had a lot of respect for him and faith that he knew what he was doing based on his performance and handling of injuries over the years.
He’d asked the man to trust him. After an oblique look in Charlie’s direction—because Coach knew Trent was asking him to trust Charlie as well—he agreed and said he’d back him up, make sure Marini and Dr. Briscoe didn’t give him shit about the MRI and treatment.
So Trent was somewhat prepared for the next question.
“Why did you refuse the MRI? Isn’t that standard?”
“Unnecessary. I know my own body. I don’t need an MRI to tell me I have a slight sprain to my rotator cuff.”
“Is it true that your fiancée is treating you?”
He allowed a slow grin to spread across his face, the playful teasing kind he often engaged in with the media.
This time it was all for show. He didn’t feel the lightheartedness that he usually did talking the press on media day.
In fact, the tension felt like his boa constrictor had come back to life with a vengeance.
He hoped to hell Charlie’s booster would work its magic.
“Charlie is what you might call my very own personal physician. She will always be treating me one way or another.”
That got some laughs and, as he’d hoped, took the sting out of the rest of the questions. By the time he stepped away from the podium, Trent believed his rapport with the press was in tact. Now all he needed to do was lay low and exercise patience while he recovered over the next two weeks.
Then they’d all find out whether or not he was lying when he told the press he’d be back in action after the bye week.
The only good thing about the injury was that it forced him to stay away from the coaches.
Avoiding the team physician and his probing questions was trickier.
It was an iffy proposition convincing Briscoe and the team’s orthopedic surgeon that the automatic icing and aspirin were all he’d need.
With rest. But Charline had managed eventually to placate them with her stunning expertise about musculoskeletal injury treatments.