Chapter 35
Gabe
“That is looking incredible, Shaunessy. I wish Sinclair was as easy a patient as you.”
It’s because Blaise lacks patience, but I’m not about to have that conversation with Doc Keltner. Instead, I’m going to be really happy with the fact that we’re only a week into March and my MCL is already getting an ‘incredible.’
“Seriously, I wish this was the injuries we were getting during the season,” he continues as he takes hold of both sides of my leg and flexes it. It’s stiff, but that’s from the brace. The only reason I haven’t been taking the stairs at Joss’s place is she gives me that look. She’s personally taken it upon herself to decide when to clear me for construction, too, so it’s been a lazy few weeks. “Out one game? Medical advisement the second, good to go by the third? Can’t ask for better. I do want you to go easy on the running, stick to the elliptical for your cardio to help on the impact, but once practice starts up again? You’re clear to go.”
Clear to go. Doc Keltner doesn’t know anything about what’s going on upstairs, he just knows that I needed my knee fixed and my badge is getting me into the clinic to get it worked on. When I went down on Super Bowl Sunday, we called Coach Keenan, who made Bodley hand the phone to each of us so we could all get yelled at before he ordered Vedder to throw my ass in the back of his SUV and drive me down to the facility. His professional assessment was that because I was talking on the phone, I didn’t need an ambulance, just a ride. Doc Keltner’s been treating me ever since.
If this is my last hurrah here, I guess it’s a good one.
I’m in the middle of some PT, on that elliptical that I’ve graduated to from the aquarobics the guys have been razzing me for, when Maurice Bradley, the GM, pops in and heads right to me. “You got a minute to talk, son?” he says, and my soul withers.
This is it. Every time I come here, I feel this dread. I can understand waiting until the end of the season before telling me I’m not coming back so I didn’t pull any nonsense on the field, but I figured it would have happened right after the end, not almost two months later.
I want to tell him no, just so I can cling to this stupid elliptical another couple minutes, pretend that I’m still a pro football player and I don’t have to figure out what’s next yet, just play ball and be a dad and make Joss happy. But Doc Keltner claps my shoulder and says, “He’s all yours. That MCL of his healed like a champ.”
“That’s great,” Bradley says without inflection.
I trudge behind him to the elevator up to the corporate offices in silence. In the elevator, he says, “Heard a rumor about you.”
I swallow to make sure my voice doesn’t sound all sad and mopey. “What rumor?”
“Heard that gal of yours is expecting.”
“She is, yeah. We’re having a girl. Due at the end of June.”
He raises an eyebrow like he heard the panic in my voice that time, but he must misunderstand it because he laughs and gives my shoulder one of those fatherly squeezes old coaches give you when you slip up and admit you have a personal life you’re actually concerned about. “The first is always terrifying, son. But I can tell you’re going to love that little girl.”
“Yes sir. She and her mom are my world.”
“That’s great. Glad you’re settling in to Wilmington.”
Probably because it’s easier for former players to move on after they’re let loose if they still have some connection.
I’m despondent by the time we reach his office. He gestures to a chair for me to sit in, and it looks flimsy as fuck, but I’m surely not the only linebacker to have sat here. I ease myself down, cringing at the creaking but feeling solid once I’m settled. I’d hate if my final act as a Jug was landing my ass on the floor.
Bradley pulls an old-school manila folder out of a drawer and pitches it across the desk along with the pen. “Alright, now. You’ve had your fun. Stop dicking around and sign this before Accounting rips me a new asshole.”
I don’t have anything to say. I’m guessing this must be my severance package, but that’s a set number. It’s not like Accounting doesn’t know exactly what it’ll be. I go ahead and open the folder, wondering if there’s stuff I don’t know about leaving the NFL.
There’s a new contract inside.
I look up at Bradley and frown. I should be happy — I will be happy in another couple seconds, I’m sure of it — but for now, I’m holding back the need to freak out over the stress he’s put me under.
I’m staying another . . . however long. I didn’t actually look. I glance back down, the words blurring together, but I finally locate a 3 (THREE). Three more years. This is it.
Bradley groans. “Please tell me you’re not retiring and have just been dodging my messages!”
“Your . . . messages?”
“I’ve been texting and emailing you about this for five months, since we got this hammered out with your agent!”
“I—what? I haven’t received a single message. I thought you were letting me go, Maurice! What the hell?”
We stare at each other. I probably shouldn’t have said it that way, but Bradley’s used to hotheads. He keeps his cool as he finger-pecks his way through his computer and then turns the monitor to face me. “Look, we’ve been reaching out to you since November.”
I do see a string of messages, both texts and emails, sent weekly. Marked as opened by receiver but no responses. I definitely haven’t opened them. I look more closely and see that although this is a tab with my personal information, only my home address is correct. I don’t recognize the email address, and the phone number isn’t even my area code. “This info is wrong!”
Bradley takes a look at it, then shrugs. “It’s what your agent gave us,” he says defensively.
I glower at him as I whip out my phone and dial the number on the screen. Caller ID gives me the name, but I go ahead and hit CALL and turn the ringer on.
“‘Sup, broseph,” Vedder says on the other end, and Bradley grimaces.
“Hey man, have you been receiving a bunch of texts and emails about me needing to go get my contract straightened out with Bradley?”
“Yeah, bro. You get that done?”
“We don’t even have the same agent,” I inform Bradley as I hang up on Vedder.
I look back down at the contract. It’s a mountain of pages with little flags all over the place, a million things for me to sign my life away on in the National Football League’s behalf. There’s a page about money, and numbers are thrown all over the place, the magic of that Accounting department working to pay us our market value while circumventing the NFL’s salary caps. I scan through it, but math’s not my strong suit. I find the box that matters, the bottom line, and my jaw drops.
“You’re giving me another nine million over three years?”
Maurice Bradley snatches the document back, fishes out a decaying bottle of liquid paper, and dabs it on a couple numbers. He writes over them and passes it back. “Ten million. Sorry about whatever that was. And Gabe? Please tell me you’re not retiring.”
“Nope, definitely not.”
We both let out huge sighs of relief, and then Bradley says, “Why the hell didn’t you ask someone about your contract?”
I cringe and look away sheepishly.
“Fucking millennials. Go see the team therapist and explain it to her.”
“Yes, sir.”
I groan as Joss straddles me and takes hold of my cock. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re trying to keep me here all day?”
Not that I’m complaining, but she’s got a list of stuff she insists has to be done today, and instead, it’s nearing noon and we haven’t even gotten out of bed yet.
“I think we should test the frame while it’s under warranty, Mr. Starting Center For Three More Years,” she says, as though it’s the most reasonable thing ever. As soon as I told her what my next bonus will be, she took me bed shopping so we could finally get her mattress off the floor.
It’s a fresh start for us both. Out with my bachelor furniture and the emergency stuff she got when she had to sell everything. Out with Cora’s dressing studio — which is getting moved to the barn, where I’m betting the quilting crew will love it anyway, since some of them do dressmaking on the side — and a complete makeover of the nursery. When the new furniture arrived yesterday, the first thing we did was move the urn to a special cabinet we ordered specifically for it. There’s a spot for the baby blanket she made beneath the urn, and I’m having a plaque engraved. We’re moving on, but there will always be room in our home for his memory.
But this moment is about us and Joss’s obvious deception.
And I’m going to take advantage of it.
“Ma’am, you weigh 148 pounds. We’re never going to be able to test the bed like this.”
She glares at me for giving the exact weight that we got from her appointment two weeks ago, so it’s probably not even accurate anymore. “What, you think I can’t make this bed shake?”
I grin and grab her by the waist. She might be nearing the 150 mark, but she’s still featherlight in my hands as I pluck her off me, set her on her hands and knees on her side of the bed, and smack her ass.
She squeaks and looks back at me. I love the way she looks like this, her ass and pussy on display for me, her face rapidly reddening, a fire in her eyes that never existed before the big disaster, but I love it. I’m not going to say what I did was the right thing or a good thing, but the baby isn’t the only right or good thing to come out of this. There’s a temper to Joss, a passion I don’t think she let herself feel before. There’s a bite to her words when she says, “Don’t you do it!” that makes the tease so much more worth it.
I slide a finger into her pussy and crook it.
“No!” she screams, but if she really meant it, she could pull away. I’m not holding her in place.
And I’m only teasing. She’d love to force us to waste more time today stripping the bed. Again.
Instead, I bite her ass cheek, give it another smack, and mount her roughly enough I bet she regrets telling me to stop fingering her so soon.
She groans and drops her head into the pillows, and I take hold of the wrought iron headboard and give the bed the test it deserves.
It survives with barely a squeak, which is actually a little sad until I remember that one day, in only a few years, we’re going to have at least one kiddo running around who’s going to start questioning the sounds coming from mommy and daddy’s room.
I drag Joss out of the bed — again, to protect the bedding — and haul her into the shower. It’s barely big enough for me, let alone us both, but I make it work while I plot a complete remodel. I have a feeling, or at least a hope, that we’re going to outgrow this apartment someday, but I’m going to spoil us both until then.
She tries to distract me in the shower, but I refuse to let her drop to her knees when I’m not even sure she’s going to be able to get back up. She’s in a playful snit by the time we get out, huffing off to make coffee, shaking her ass the entire way down the hall. She’s taunting me, trying to distract me for another half hour, and my dick is definitely interested, but I tell it to shut up. “It’s not going to work!” I yell at her. “You want to tell me what you’re up to now?”
“Of course not!” she calls back, which isn’t even a little bit of a denial that something is going on. And listen, I know I shouldn’t be getting irritated that she’s hiding something from me. I deserve it. But my nerves are still recovering from my meeting with Bradley. She’s going to be the death of me.
What a wonderful death it will be.
“We should make pancakes,” she continues, meaning I should make pancakes. “I’ve got this new—oh no.”
I head down the hall to the kitchen in no rush. Her tone isn’t saying disaster so much as I’m about to run to the grocery store for maple syrup. I only ask, “What’s wrong?” when I see her looking out the window at the barn.
The grass, brown and dormant but clear of snow since the recent warm spell we’ve had, has been spray-painted. In great big neon pink letters, it says LEAVE WHORE. Surrounding it is a bunch of weird wire frames. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like it, but then I look closely at one and see something in it.
“Go back to your bedroom and call the cops,” I say softly, not wanting to alarm her too much. “Stay there until I come get you.”
“But—”
“Please, let me take care of this.”