Chapter 19 #3
“Ready?” She was all business. He followed suit and nodded.
“Where’s Ralph today?” she asked as she stabbed him with the needle in the exact spot where he knew it belonged, just under his shoulder blade. He held in his flinch.
“He has some other customers that needed his attention in the massage and ice bath room. We’re fine here. You staying until the end of practice?” He asked the thing he really wanted to know. “You coming home with me?”
She withdrew the needle and looked at him as if making up her mind.
He sucked in his breath and waited a few racing heartbeats, not sure if he wanted her to say yes or no.
He really didn’t need the distraction, should stay late tonight like he always did, but she was like an addictive drug.
He wanted more of her. More of what was bad for him.
“I will, but just for the testing and examination, then I’m leaving. I’ll need to go back to the lab and do some more work.” She met his eyes and hesitated. “I have an appointment with the university police. They have questions for me, said they wanted an official statement.”
“You okay with that? They’re not using a lie detector, are they?” He meant it lightly, but she frowned.
“I don’t think so . . .”
“I was kidding. Don’t worry, Charlie. I doubt the university police are equipped with lie detectors. You can handle them.”
“Of course. I only wish I knew what Lisa Cooper was going to tell them, whether she’ll mention that we took those files out of the office that night.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. The files are at my place. Safe and sound.”
“I know, but that’s just it. They know we’re engaged and that I spend time there. I don’t want them going to your house to look for files—or for anything else. It’s the next logical place for them to look and it could get you in trouble.”
She was right, but he shrugged it off because it was bad enough that one of them was so worried, the last thing she needed was for him to panic about it. He was about to tell her it didn’t matter, he’d lie his ass off, when she spoke.
“I’ll take them home with me tonight. All the paper files and whatever else I have at your place. To be on the safe side, to keep you out of whatever trouble I’ve got myself in. I’m the one who stole the serum. There’s no need to drag you into that.”
Sliding off the table, he went to her where she was packing up her bag, avoiding his eyes. He put his hands on her shoulders, telling himself she needed his support, then he’d get out of here and get back to football.
“They can never prove that you took the serum, Charlie. Don’t admit to it no matter what.”
She nodded. “Bet that’s what you tell all the girls.” She smiled. He laughed.
Ralph opened the door and came inside and Trent snapped his attention back to where it belonged.
“Everything going okay?” Ralph asked.
“John Doe couldn’t be better,” Charlie said in a false voice. “I predict he’ll have a better than average week at practice.” Charlie shrugged into her coat while Trent slipped his Under Armour and pads on.
“Feels that way to me,” he said. His muscles were ready, his body felt good, pain free. Now all he needed to do was get his head on straight and aimed at football.
There were some new plays the coach had drawn up last night and he was anxious to try them out, to perfect them. He and Jamie could stay for extra reps except for the fact that he needed to go home and get examined and tested.
“Doc, I’d like to stay late after practice tonight. Maybe you should go back to the office now. Ralph will watch out for me today. Meet me at my place later.”
She stood at the door, one hand on the knob, considering him.
“I can handle it,” Ralph said. “I have your number on speed dial if anything happens.”
“All right. What time at your place?”
“I should be home by nine. Meet me then.”
She nodded and left. Watching her go, he felt relieved, yet out of sorts at the same time.
Not even the cold bothered him, long after the sun set over the end zone behind the archway of the stadium. It was December 4th, but the temps this week were more like those in the deep winter of January: in the teens during the day and dipping down to single digits at night.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m staying out here with you for extra reps, man,” Jamie shouted over the clamor of the team gathering gear and heading for the tunnel. But Jamie didn’t move to go inside.
“A dozen reps and we’ll go in. Shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes if you’re any good.”
“Man, you’re gonna make the poor ball boy stay out here. Look at him—he’s shivering his ass off.”
“You worried about his ass freezing or your own little-girl ass?”
The ball boy laughed. Jamie threw up his hands and let out a string of oaths as he took his place.
Trent followed and took his own place behind his imaginary offensive line.
A gust of wind caught him, sending a chill through his body, but he didn’t dare show any signs of being cold.
He hoped to hell his muscles and tendons stayed warm and flexible, hoped the ligaments stayed stretched and lubricated.
His heart pumped as he made the count, dropped back, and watched Jamie run his route against imaginary defenders.
Then he threw the ball. As it sailed twenty then thirty yards, Jamie turned, reached for it and caught the ball, toes dragging before he fell out of bounds.
He rolled over and Trent could hear him swearing from forty yards away.
“Only eleven more reps to go,” Trent yelled.
The stark iciness of the night air hit him when they were through. The moon and stars were obscured by the stadium lights. Trent signaled for the lights to go down and the stadium dimmed behind him as he, Jamie, and the ball boy trotted through the tunnel to the warmth of the locker room.
“Man, I’m gonna take the longest, hottest shower I ever had. You’re a real bastard sometimes.”
“All for the pursuit of perfection,” Trent said the line he’d said many times before, to many people, including Jamie. He’d believed the words, felt them. But tonight, they sounded hollow.
“You don’t believe that shit, do you? No such thing as perfection.”
“Such thing as pursuit.” The automatic response popped from his mouth without him thinking.
Or feeling. He wondered how this thing that he’d internalized over the past fifteen years of playing in the NFL suddenly seemed like a stone on his tongue, like nonsense words with no meaning, no feeling behind them.
Could it be that his cheating, breaking the rules and violating his own standard of ethics, had corrupted him internally? Did the end not justify the means?
He’d always been a guy who lived by the means leading to the end. Now he felt the self-betrayal of his own actions, of his trying to cheat his physical health by using the serum.
But this was important. One more Super Bowl to cement his place in history, to grab that final brass ring, the one that would prove his career choice had been the right one, meant to be. He needed to go on and win as long as he could in order to make the Hall of Fame.
The locker room was empty and they both headed to the showers after stripping down quickly. Ralph was nowhere to be seen. Hell, he was supposed to be watching out for him. Great.
The hot shower warmed Trent, but instead of clearing his mind like he usually did, he let it wander to Charlie. Not a good place to go while showering in the locker room.
“Hey you taking an all-night shower?” Jamie shouted over the sound of water. “Even I’m out already.”
Trent turned, flipped the handle down to shut the water off, grabbed his towel and went to his locker.
“Hey, what’s the matter with you? Or should I ask how things are going with Charlie?” Jamie was already dressed as he sat tying his shoes.
Trent pulled on his shirt. He knew he owed his friend an honest answer. Or as honest as he could make it.
“Things are fine. We . . . need a little space. We’ve been spending too much time together and I need to clear space for the playoffs, to concentrate and eliminate distractions. You know how it is.”
“No, man. I don’t. I have no clue how it is for you.
Never did. Don’t know how you turn yourself into a monk at the end of the season every year and the playoffs.
It was one thing when you were single—for all intents and purposes—and you could tell your woman of the moment it’s been swell, here’s a bauble, and send her on her way.
But you try that shit with Charlie . . . well that’s another matter altogether.”
Trent grunted. He couldn’t argue with Jamie. His words were real and even in their fake relationship, things were different with Charlie.
“Don’t have to tell me that.” He zipped his pants and turned to face his friend.
“To tell the truth, I’m not exactly sure how to handle things with her.
But hell, I still need my space. I’m a little worried about media attention too.
I don’t want them bothering her—or me—about how the relationship is going.
That’s a whole other layer of complications I didn’t factor in.
” In admitting that, he felt relieved, expelling a breath.
“No shit. That’s what you get for being the most eligible bachelor in Boston for the last dozen years. You did nothing all those years to discourage the limelight, now you have to pay the piper. You and your love life are news stories. That’s your bed.”
“Thanks a lot, Jamie. F—ng helpful.”
Jamie laughed.
“Don’t worry, man. I’ll help you out. Charlie is something special. You must think so or you would never have proposed to her at the most inopportune time.”
Trent snorted. “Couldn’t be helped.” He had no idea what else to say about that. He didn’t want to pile on any more lying, so he gave no explanation.
“I get it. The heart wants what the heart wants. So, the problem is you need space from Charlie, and she’s unhappy about it, but you need to keep the media satisfied that there’s nothing wrong?”