Chapter Eighteen Sunday Morning Football
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The morning sun slanted in through the east window shutters at a soft angle, warm and golden, illuminating dust particles that floated lazily in and out of the light. It was still early. Too early even for Siri to wake them with her daily anguished howls. Brie stretched, then sat up with a sudden lurch. Cameron wasn’t there.
Though it had been less than a week since they’d started sharing a bed, his absence nudged that place inside her where she’d held her anxiety for five years, when he’d disappeared from her life without a trace and left her with nothing but a waning conviction that he was ever real.
“Cameron?”
She made her way quickly to the bathroom, then froze the second she opened the door.
“What do you think?” he asked proudly, fists on his hips.
She gripped the doorknob, hoping it would serve as some emotional support anchor and keep her from laughing. Or swooning. While she’d slept, her guardian angel had decked himself out in full quarterback gear from the 1950s. Pads, tight white fabric, and strategically placed stripes dominated the outfit. A helmet and mouth guard dangled from his hand.
“I asked your phone what the American football teams wore in the greatest game ever played, and it showed me photos of this.” He turned this way and that, admiring his reflection in the magically fixed mirror. “I think this will help immensely in the sports rehearsal today. With so much protection, these players must never get injured.”
She bit her lip so hard she almost tasted blood. “You asked about American football outfits?”
“Of course. Mike mentioned I looked like one of the people who call it that.”
“From the greatest game ever played?”
He looked down at his clothes. “Do you think that was overly ambitious?”
“And it showed you a Colts uniform from 1958?”
He stared back with a frown. “I sense there’s something I’m missing.”
She had a heated internal debate about whether to tell him that he’d suited up for the wrong kind of game. Whether to tell him that her father had often spoken about “The Greatest Game Ever Played” when she was a girl, and she’d developed a terribly poignant prepubescent crush on quarterback Johnny Unitas while watching SportsCenter clips with her dad.
In the end, she decided to do the honorable thing. “Cam, we call it soccer here. This…” She trailed off as her eyes ran up and down the length of his frame. “This is for a different sport.”
“Oh.” His disappointment was visible. “Might this not work all the same?”
“I’m afraid not,” she said with a grin, walking into the room. A wild thought raced through her brain, like a lick of fire through a dry forest. In half a heartbeat, everything was aflame. She stepped even closer, maintaining eye contact. “Though I have to tell you, this is really working for me. On many, many levels.”
She hooked her fingers into the elastic on top of his pants.
New Brie. New rules.
Those heavenly edicts are his problem, not mine.
He stiffened as she drew them together. “Oh yeah?”
She nodded mutely, watching with immense satisfaction as his cheeks darkened and he tried casually to avert his gaze. Things had just reached a breaking point when she suddenly released him with a cheerful grin, pushing him towards the door. “I need to take a shower. Meet you downstairs?”
He nodded swiftly as he hurried out of the room. There was a tension in the way he was moving that betrayed any level of casual retreat, and no matter how hard he tried to stop himself, his eyes kept drifting back to her face.
“Of course. Have a good—” He let out a quiet gasp, having walked full tilt into the door frame. “Have a good shower.”
She nodded lightly, already pulling off her shirt. “Remember to take off those clothes, Cam. Wrong uniform.” Her eyes twinkled as she swung the door shut. “The team would never permit that.”
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Breakfast was an excruciating affair. Not so much for Brie but for the angel sitting by her side.
He listened in silence as she prattled on cheerfully about anything that happened to strike her fancy. A list of top vacation spots, the list of skills she was meant to be perfecting at the hospital, the price of milk. It didn’t stop when the waitress dropped off their food. It didn’t even slow down.
There was a chance it might have gone on forever if he hadn’t suddenly interrupted. “Do you have any idea how much I want to kiss you?” he asked quietly, freezing her in her tracks. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is sleeping beside you, night after night?”
Their eyes met, until it was finally she who was forced to look away.
“To me, you are a miracle. You are the first person who’s ever been able to see me. To touch me. Do you have any idea, Brianna? Any idea how much I wish to touch you in return?”
Her cheeks flamed, and her gaze dropped to the table.
“I understand how it must seem,” he continued softly. “And I understand the urge to push against those boundaries. Trust me , I do. But I don’t think you understand the full consequence of where such a thing might lead. I don’t think you understand the forces that stand against it. The same forces that could separate the two of us in an instant. They could make me ache for you forever…” He inhaled painfully and finished, “And make you completely forget about me.”
She froze perfectly still, having never considered such a thing.
“You are a brave, intelligent, powerful, compassionate woman of surpassing beauty in body and spirit. You are everything I could have imagined, if I had ever imagined a woman for myself. If such a thing was up to me…” He trailed away with the most heartbreaking look she had ever seen. “But it isn’t. Do you understand?”
It was quiet a moment, then she nodded. “Yes, I understand.”
And I don’t see how I’ll ever recover.
She sat there another moment, then flashed a heartbroken smile herself. “Cameron, let’s get you a chocolate croissant.”
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“The other goal, Cameron! You’re going the wrong way!”
The angel turned around and careened in the opposite direction, completely failing to take the ball along with him.
“The ball, you lunatic! Don’t forget the ball!”
Cameron’s research, focused on the wrong kind of football, had led to an excessive use of hands and a flagrant misunderstanding of every single rule in the game. Mike looked for all the world like one of those dads at their child’s ball game who was far too heavily invested in the outcome. Brie could see a vein bulging in his forehead from halfway across the field.
Now, this is quality entertainment.
She was lounging on a lawn chair on the sidelines with Sherry, who was halfway through a glass of something called a Yellowhammer. Her insuppressible friend had smuggled a pitcher of the stuff into the McRyan Athletic Complex. Brie was immensely enjoying both the spectacle of her angel being thoroughly dominated and her best friend’s gradual descent into tipsiness.
She didn’t know what was in the beverage, but based on the rate of Sherry’s giggle escalation over the past twenty minutes, she suspected rum.
“That is a fine-looking collection you’ve assembled,” a cheerful voice rang out behind them. “Where’s the photographer? I have to assume we’re making a calendar.”
“You made it!”
Rashida grinned and sank into the waiting lawn chair. Sherry lifted the pitcher of radioactive-yellow liquid in her direction. “Drink?”
“No, thank you. I’m swinging by the hospital with Brie after this.”
“More for me.” Sherry delightedly topped her glass off and let out a hoot, raising it in the direction of the players. “Shirts and skins, please!” she called.
“Isn’t that basketball?” asked Rashida.
Brie had more pressing concerns. “Sher, that’s half the police force out there. This might not be the ideal place to be drunk and disorderly.”
“Who’s drunk?” Sherry looked at her in mock scandal. “Brie, if you see someone drinking, you should really report them. That’s half the police force out there. Noble officers who are sworn to both serve and protect me. Besides, you know I can handle my liquor better than anybody.”
“You’ve been talking in a British accent for ten minutes.”
“Sod off, ungrateful colonist. I’m trying to watch the game.”
Rashida shot Brie a grin. “Is she always like this?”
“Only when there’s rum involved. She turns into a gentleman pirate.”
“Shirts and skins!” Sherry cupped her hands around her mouth in case they hadn’t heard her the first time. Mike shot her a grin. “I see you, Mitchell. Eyes on the game.”
On the field, Cameron asked curiously, “What is she yelling?”
“She wants our team to take off our shirts,” Mike explained.
Cameron tilted his head in puzzlement. “Is that customary?”
“It is when my girl’s involved.” Mike whipped off his shirt, revealing an impeccably sculpted and blindingly white form underneath.
Sherry started laughing uproariously. “The beacons are lit!”
Mike looked over and scowled. “I’m not that pale.”
She put on sunglasses and indicated that Brie and Rashida should do the same. “Gondor calls for aid!”
“I could have you arrested, you know.”
“What was that, dear?”
“Nothing.”
Meanwhile, Cameron crossed his arms at the base of his shirt and pulled it over his head. All three women pulled their sunglasses halfway down their noses to better appreciate the view.
“Damn, Brie.” Rashida let out a low whistle. “You go home to that every night? How do you manage to leave in the mornings?”
Brie pushed her sunglasses back up and settled back in her chair with a sigh. “It isn’t really like that,” she admitted quietly.
They looked at her in surprise.
“What do you mean?” asked Rashida.
“We don’t… we haven’t really…”
Sherry’s face cleared in a look of understanding, but Rashida was clearly shocked.
“Are you kidding me? Child, if I had something that delicious anywhere near the vicinity of my bedroom, I would take a sabbatical so we could spend more time exploring ways to corrupt each other. What’s the problem? Is there something wrong with him?”
Brie shook her head quickly, wishing she hadn’t brought it up.
“Of course not. He’s…” She watched him catch the ball and yell, “Hike!” as the rest of the team groaned in exasperation. Mike jogged over and whispered in his ear. He dropped the ball and apologized profusely for what had to be the tenth time. “He’s perfect.”
It’s me. There’s something wrong with me.
If I were normal, I wouldn’t even be able to see him. And none of this would have happened.
Neither of us would be feeling this pain.
“They’re taking things slow,” Sherry interrupted quickly, seeing her expression. “You can’t let someone that good-looking get their way all the time, Ida. It would set the stage for a dreadful amount of entitlement moving forward. He needs to learn to sing for his supper. Besides, Brie is a woman of incomparable virtue, not a wanton harlot such as yourself.”
The topic settled in laughter, and Brie flashed Sherry a grateful look.
“How’s it going with that case from the other night?” she asked Rashida.
“Terrible. Worse than terrible. I’ve run every test and gotten everyone involved I can think of, but no matter what I do, I’m still no closer to an explanation about the cause of death. And if that wasn’t bad enough, we caught another one yesterday. The bodies keep piling up, and I have nothing to tell their families.” She slumped back in her chair. “At least the hospital got me a new mass spectrometer to try to help. I only wish it would turn up an answer already.”
Sherry and Brie looked at each other.
“Was the one from yesterday an unexplained cardiac trauma from the ER?”
“Yes.” She looked at them, confused. “How did you know?”
Brie stared out at the field, unseeing. “We brought that in.”
“I thought it was your day off!”
“It was. We were out on a run. The guy just dropped right in his own driveway. We rode with the team back to the ER to try to help.”
Rashida gave her a strange look. “You always seem to be right in the thick of it, don’t you?”
You have no idea.
Sherry was quiet for a moment, swirling her neon yellow drink thoughtfully in her cup.
“Brie, why did you call for Cameron when we found that guy yesterday? We’d just left him back at the house, but you called out for him.”
Brie was stunned for a second, before stammering, “Oh, I don’t… I don’t know what I was thinking. He’s been there for me during a few dramatic times recently. I guess I just got used to turning to him during emergencies.”
Sherry flashed her a look but said nothing.
Why does she have to be this perceptive, even when she drinks?
Just then, a wave of appreciative yells from the field caught their attention. Cameron must have finally gotten the gist of the rules because he was tearing down the field with some impressive footwork. He passed to Mike, who passed to one of his friends, who passed it back to Cameron, who sailed it into the goal with a mighty swing of his leg.
He immediately turned to Brie, both his arms raised in childlike triumph.
He was still in this pose, bathed in applause, when the goalie for the opposing team attempted to kick the ball back to him. He turned at precisely the wrong moment, and it hit him square in the nose. Blood immediately gushed forth as the goalie yelled, “Man, I’m so sorry.”
He lifted his hand to the blood, glancing at his palm with an expression nothing short of delight. He flashed Brie another grin, then froze when he saw the pained look on her face.
Angelic moron.
At that point, he seemed to register that he was supposed to be having a normal human pain reaction. He stilled for a moment in indecision before throwing back his head and shrieking at an ungodly pitch that could best be described as that of a junior high girl.
The field quieted, as Sherry lifted her eyebrow slowly. “Yeah. He seems like he’d be really good in a crisis.”
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Not long after, Brie and Rashida left to go to the hospital. They piled into the pathologist’s green sedan with plans to meet back up with the others at a pub later. Sherry promised to get Cameron to the venue and to properly introduce Rashida to their team’s goalie. The two had been making eyes at one another for the past half hour, very much at the expense of his concentration, and Sherry was thrilled at the prospect of playing matchmaker.
After fruitlessly grilling Brie for information she didn’t have about the soccer player she’d never met, Rashida gave up and focused on her impending introduction.
“So, I’ll just change and meet you in the parking lot, okay?”
“If you want to run home, it’s no trouble. I can always take a cab,” offered Brie.
“No worries, I have everything I need at the hospital.”
Brie looked at her sideways. “You do?”
“Of course,” the woman answered easily. “I always keep a cocktail dress and heels in my locker, just in case. Doesn’t everyone?”
Brie grinned. “I really shouldn’t have introduced you to Sherry. You have everything in common. You’re bound to run off together. I’ll soon be nothing more than a distant memory.”
Rashida shook her head, smiling. “Nah, that lady adores you. I’ve never seen a grown woman so intractably protective of another.”
“What do you mean?”
“Little things. Like how she bullies and bribes everyone on the nursing staff to switch shifts with her until your schedules match up. Or when I asked you about your handsome boyfriend. She practically grabbed my shoulders and steered me in the opposite direction.” Rashida laughed. “She called me a harlot.”
Brie couldn’t help but grin. “Well, in fairness—”
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, Chuckles. The point is, I don’t think there’s any getting between you two.” She looked over warmly. “But I am glad you have room for a third.”
They drove on in silence for a while before Brie said, “It isn’t for lack of trying, you know.”
“What isn’t?”
“Me and Cam.” She fought through her reluctance and said it out loud. “The truth is I’ve been wholly unsuccessful in my every attempt to seduce him.”
Rashida’s eyebrows shot up, but she remained quiet as Brie continued.
“We come from very different worlds. And where he comes from, to be with someone like me is considered taboo. Whether or not he wants to… it isn’t allowed.”
Rashida considered this, then nodded slowly. “Sherry mentioned that he might be Amish when you went to the bathroom.”
Brie didn’t know what to do except agree. “Right. Well, the point is, being with me might destroy his relationship with his people — with his family. And I don’t know if I’m selfish enough to want him to do that. But I’m afraid that I am.”
Rashida was quiet for a minute. “I know exactly how you feel.”
“You do?”
She laughed humorlessly. “Believe it or not, dating as a Nigerian woman in the American South hasn’t always been the smoothest sailing. I’ve run into a few families less than thrilled to accept their son’s new girlfriend with open arms.”
“What did you do?”
Rashida shrugged. “The only thing I could do. The only thing anyone can do. I made my choices, and they made theirs. Sometimes, I walked away. I decided that they were too much work, and if they wanted to be with me, they’d stop dragging their feet and make it happen. Sometimes, I took the initiative. I made my feelings known, and they took that information and made their decision.”
She looked over at Brie. “It’s all about choices. In the end, you can only be responsible for your own.”
Brie swallowed hard and looked at the road ahead. “Rashida? I’m thrilled you’re our third.”