Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Super Bowl Week
Trent traveled to Miami with the team for Super Bowl week.
It was Friday morning and he stood on the sidelines while the team walked through some new drills.
He paid attention, trying to keep his head in the game even from his enforced distance.
Nine days until the Super Bowl, his last game. If he got to play at all.
He stood by himself—he’d been doing a lot of that this week—as if he were a leper. The only ones who wanted to talk to him were the media and there was an absolute ban on him doing that while the decision on the injunction was pending.
As he tried not to contemplate his future, his phone rang and he slipped it from his pocket immediately, thumbed it on and put it to his ear.
“The NFL couldn’t very well suspend you until after their investigation was complete. I was right. We won the injunction.” His attorney’s voice was the same as usual: sure, confident, without any celebratory note.
“Thank you—”
“As soon as the investigation is complete, however, the NFL will make a decision. I can guarantee it’ll take at least two weeks for them to do that. You will get to play in the Super Bowl in the meantime. Now you can thank me.”
Trent laughed. He was happy, but it was a subdued victory, marred with too much guilt and unsettled problems. What especially bothered him was Charlie’s uncertain future. And the uncertainty of a future for them together.
“It’ll take us a week just to put together all the materials they’re asking for and another week before they can decipher all the medical crap,” his attorney added.
Trent would play in the Super Bowl one last time.
“Thanks, man,” his agent said. “This is great, Trent.”
“Yeah. It is.” Trent’s mind spun. He tried to capture the joy he knew should be there, tried to unbury it from beneath the heap of guilt and uncertainty.
“You don’t seem as excited as I imagined you would be,” the attorney said.
“I’m excited for the team,” he said, feeling it. Then he let all his unsettled emotions spill into words. “But I feel like playing in the Super Bowl is a privilege I don’t deserve this time.”
The old lawyer grunted. “Don’t worry kid, you didn’t kill anyone. You won’t go to hell because you took some performance-enhancing drugs. Hell, I think any drug that can help you heal ought to be legit for all football players. Heaven knows you constantly risk your necks with serious injury.”
“Maybe.” Trent couldn’t be philosophical about it, couldn’t rationalize it.
He’d made the choice to take the drugs knowing full well it was against the rules.
Knowing full well that if he got caught, he would forfeit the rest of his football-playing career.
He also realized it had had an impact on a lot of other people and he owed it to them to play the next game like he’d never played it before, until the very end.
He ended his call with the attorney and his agent and went to deliver the news to Coach Parker on the field. It wouldn’t be long before the media got hold of the news and then all hell would break loose.
It was still early, but there were lots of fans in the stands and plenty of media in the stadium.
Trent was in his street clothes. He trotted over to where Coach Parker stood on the sidelines, talking to his backup quarterback, and motioned that he wanted to talk.
Parker looked at him, and although Trent tried to keep his face neutral, he knew a small smile crept through.
“You got the decision? You’re in?”
Trent nodded and pulled Parker aside before anyone else became aware. He was afraid it was too late, though, because the backup QB heard and trotted off to spread the word.
“Look, Coach. I need to leave for the day. I promise I’ll be back and ready to go for all the drills and the media circus tomorrow. But today, I need to go to a funeral.”
Coach Parker’s grin turned serious and he thought for a few seconds.
“Take the team plane. I’ll clear it with Marini and the owner. But you sure as hell better be back by midnight.”
“Thanks, Coach. I owe you.”
“Play your ass off like you’ve never played before in the Super Bowl and we’ll call it even.”
Trent called out and motioned to Ralph, who was squatting in front of a player, taping his ankle.
“We’re out of here,” he said in response to Ralph’s questioning look. Ralph finished a last wrap of tape and stood. He followed Trent to the tunnel as Trent called the limo service to take them to the airport.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“We’re going to Charlie’s mother’s funeral. I figure we can make it to the cemetery. I figured you’d want to go.”
“No way. I can’t afford to be seen anywhere near her—and neither can you.”
Trent stopped and looked at him. Anger flared at first, but then he reminded himself that Ralph wasn’t in the same position that he was.
Ralph wasn’t a media darling, didn’t have superstar status or millions in the bank.
The man had been trying to help him and Charlie and he didn’t deserve to get dragged down with them.
Charlie had been trying to help Trent and she didn’t deserve to lose everything either.
“You’re wrong, Ralph. I can afford to see her. In fact, I can’t afford not to. She’s the only thing left that really matters.”
Ralph nodded. “It’ll be a media circus. You should stay low.”
“Don’t worry. Whatever happens, your name will never come up.
I swear. No one will ever know you had involvement in anything except introducing us.
We’re sticking to the engagement story.” Trent wished to hell it was no longer a story.
He wished it were real. But dealing with the fallout of the criminal charges and the NFL charges and the University Research Center firing Charlie, they couldn’t deal with their personal relationship.
Ralph sighed. “Tell her I’m sorry. About her mother. Hell, about everything.”
Trent walked away from him, but Ralph called after him, “And good luck with the NFL investigation, Trent. I hope your career doesn’t end . . . like this.”
Maybe it wasn’t the ideal way to go out, but Trent realized he was ready for retirement.
It was as if the soul-burning ambition that had driven him all his life had suddenly sputtered out, run out of fuel.
Maybe he’d just hit a damn wall with this drug investigation and didn’t want to fight his way through it.
Couldn’t come up with a reason why he should.
He already had two Super Bowl rings—didn’t need another. He didn’t even care about the Hall of Fame anymore, or anything else. Scratch that. He cared about letting his coaches and team down. But most of all he cared about Charlie.
In the limo on the way to the airport, he got a phone call. He would have let it go to voice mail, but the area code caught his attention. He answered.
“Dad.” He had no idea what to say. Emotions paralyzed him. Only his father could make him feel this way.
“How are you, son?” Trent’s chest tightened at the worry in his father’s voice. The lack of accusation in the voice deepened his guilt. He forced himself to speak, forced himself to admit his mistakes to his father, to tell the man he was sorry.
“I’m okay. Look, Dad, I’m sorry—”
“No need to apologize to me. I understand. I know why you felt you needed to do what you did.”
“Do you? I’m not sure you do. I’ve never taken any performance-enhancing drugs in my life before.
But this was different. This was experimental, over-the-top promising and I was hurting.
It was the next logical step to take. Next step in the extremes I needed to go to, to be the best. Nothing half-ass. Balls to the wall.”
“How’s your shoulder?”
“F—cking fantastic.” He couldn’t help his derisive tone.
“I could play football for another ten years. If I didn’t mess up.
It was a risk. I knew it was the risk of a lifetime.
But I had to take it. I got it in my head, once I decided not to go to med school, that football was all I had to do in life, the thing I was meant to do.
The one thing I had to do the best I possibly could.
” He paused, his voice shook, his whole body felt shaky.
Even when he’d been on the biggest football stage in the biggest games he’d never felt like this.
“Trent, you have far more going for you than football.”
“Do I? I must have lost sight of that, of what else I was missing in life.” He’d refused to think about any of it—especially finding a special woman and having a family.
He took a deep breath. “I needed to prove that I’d chosen the right path, the path I was meant for, even if it meant excluding everything else. ”
“Son, you have most of your life ahead of you. You can choose another path, more than one. You have so much to offer the world, so much still to fill your life.”
“Guess I’ll find out about those other paths now.”
“I’ve been waiting for years for you to realize football wasn’t all there is for you.”
“You never said—”
“What? Was I going to try and tell you what to do?” His father sighed.
“You would do what you thought was right, no matter who told you what. You always blamed it on Doc Waters that you chose football, but it wasn’t his idea.
It was yours. You loved the game. Still do, I suspect.
Loved it because you were made for it. I never saw someone so perfectly suited to what they did as you to football. ”
“Why didn’t you ever say any of this?”
He paused and Trent pictured him shrugging the question off.
“You already knew. I didn’t need to tell you what you knew, what everyone who’d ever known you all your life had been saying. Besides, I told you often enough growing up how good you were.”
“Goddamn it, Dad.” Trent was overwhelmed, but there was no way he was going to let himself cry. He was a 35-year-old man and he needed to suck it up.
“You’ll be fine, Trent. No matter what happens with football. You come home and visit soon. Your mother is worried.”