37. Joey
37
Joey
“ J oey, what are your plans regarding work?” Sandra asks during a commercial break in the game.
We’re watching Brent’s away game at the Hutchinson home. When Brent left to catch the team bus to the airport, I came here. I hadn’t been able to watch his games with them much in previous seasons due to working on the weekends while at college. During the last season, it became a tradition for me to come here to watch, and this season, to go to the stadium with Sandra and Bobbie for home games. Charlie and Stevie join us if they’re home. We all wear Brent’s number eighty-eight jersey, though this year, it’s a Firebirds one.
We make our favorite junk food—fully loaded nachos, buffalo chicken dip and artichoke dip, and personal-size pizzas with our individual favorite toppings.
It’s a lot of food but we munch on it throughout the day. I finish my mouthful of nachos before answering Sandra.
“I’m working temp jobs until I find a job I really like. Working with the Firebirds confirmed for me that I want to work with clients year-round, not just when they’re injured. To be part of the process that keeps them healthy, helps them prepare for the season, and hopefully, avoid preventable injuries.”
“That sounds wonderful. I hope you find something soon.”
“Aren’t you also working with some of the players privately?” Charlie asks.
“Yes,” I reply, “but not full-time since they still have access to the Firebirds trainers that the team pays for. Just a session here and there.”
“You should go into business for yourself, like a freelancer or something,” Bobbie suggests.
“That’s a great idea, baby genius,” Charlie says.
Bobbie is a couple of grades ahead and will graduate high school early. Though Charlie is proud of her baby sister, she likes to annoy her with the nickname.
“Thanks, Barbie,” the teenager retorts with a smirk as she leaves the room.
“I don’t have the boobs to be Barbie,” Charlie calls out to her sister.
Sandra shakes her head at Charlie, who just shrugs. “What? It’s true.”
Unlike me, Charlie has the opposite problem. She once said the gene gods gave me her portion. I told her she was welcome to all my portions.
We turn our attention back to the TV when the crowd noise from the game becomes loud.
“What the hell is wrong with Brent? He should have caught that pass,” Charlie says in disgust.
I wish I could defend him, but Charlie is right. Brent has been off the entire game so far. He knows it too, by the way he slams his helmet to the ground and pushes his way through the players on the sideline to sit on a bench, not saying a word.
I can’t help wondering if his performance has anything to do with the bad dream he had the other night, mere hours after I admitted my love for him.
“Charlie, you told me once that Brent used to have nightmares. Do you know what triggered them?” I look at Sandra to include her in my question.
“His therapist thought they were caused by stress, on top of the grief of losing his father and brother,” Sandra responds. “Why do you ask, honey? Is he having them again?”
“He had a nightmare the other night,” I reluctantly admit. I don’t think Brent would appreciate me telling anyone about this, especially since it’s only happened once—that I know of. But I’m concerned, and this is his family.
Charlie and Sandra eye me with surprise and dismay. “He has? About what?” Sandra asks.
“He says he doesn’t remember, but he was pretty agitated. I think he was calling out for his dad and RJ.”
“Oh no.” Charlie trades glances with her mother. “I wonder if he’s been still having them all this time, and he never told us.”
“No, I don’t think so. I mean, he hasn’t had any while…” I blush. It’s one thing for his mother to know Brent and I are together and another to point out that we sleep in the same bed. “The night before last was the first one that I know of,” I finish without looking at Sandra.
“I wonder what caused them to come back now, after all this time?” Charlie ponders.
Sandra asks me, “Has he been stressed about something lately?”
I shake my head. “Not that I—” I stop in dismay. Did I cause him to become stressed?
“Maybe it’s from changing teams and moving back here? Or his injuries and missed games?” Charlie suggests.
“No, he’s been fine with all of that. It started the night I—” I break off, embarrassed.
“Whatever it is, you can tell us, sweetheart,” Sandra says, perceptive as ever.
I duck my head. “I told him I love him.”
Charlie squeals and squeezes me.
“No, Charlie.” I try to untangle myself from her. “It’s not good.”
She sees my expression and her own falls. “Oh shit. He didn’t say it back.”
Tears clog my throat, so I just shake my head.
“Whatever. He’s a guy,” Charlie says.
“But the nightmare was that night…”
“Honey, I don’t think that’s the reason,” Sandra says. “He may not be able to express them yet, but he has feelings for you. I’ve never seen him happier.”
Though the words thrill me, I shake my head. “I don’t know. The timing—”
“Someone’s hurt,” Bobbie announces, walking in from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn.
The three of us turn to the teen, then focus our attention back to the TV in time to hear the commentator say they’d be right back after the commercials and injury time-out.
“Did you see who it was?” I ask.
“No, just that it’s someone on the Firebirds,” Bobbie says. “Was our offense on the field?”
We’d stopped paying attention to the game when the conversation turned serious. I wait with bated breath, willing the commercials to hurry and finish. When the game comes back on, it’s just in time for the next play to start. We have to wait until it’s over before the sideline reporter comes on for the injury update.
“I just talked to the tight ends coach, who said Brent Hutchinson—”
My breath stops.
“—is being checked for a possible broken rib from that hard hit he took. He could return to the game, but until then, the Firebirds will have to…”
I tune out the rest of the reporter’s commentary and try to calm my racing heart. Though the injury could be serious, depending on exactly what happened, I’m relieved it isn’t something worse like a concussion or neck injury, my two biggest fears for any player but especially for the man I love with all my heart.
God, I hope I’m not the cause of his stress. I realize how important it is for athletes to be well-rested and stress-free during a game. It’s one of the reasons the players have to spend the night before a game in a hotel, including home games, to avoid outside distractions.
“He’ll be fine, honey.” Sandra rubs my back reassuringly. “You’ll see.”
I attempt a smile for her, but my mind is on Brent and my need to see him when he returns. Since it’s an afternoon game, it will be midnight by the time they fly back and the team buses arrive at the stadium. He plans on hitching a ride with CJ, but I’ll feel better if I meet him at the stadium.
I’m anxious throughout dinner and relieved when it’s time for me to leave to pick up Brent. Despite my impatience, I drive carefully on the dark, deer-prone roads of Connecticut. My thoughts pivot back and forth between his new injury and the reason for his nightmare. No matter which way my thoughts turn, I keep returning to the possibility that moving in with him and declaring my love are the reasons for his stress, causing him to lose focus, which resulted in the injury.
I unhappily conclude it’s time for me to move out of his penthouse.
Will that be enough to ease his stress? Or will I have to end our relationship completely?
Brent’s rib is bruised, not broken, and he won’t have to miss another game. I’m glad, especially if Charlie is right and sitting out from the games might also have contributed to his stress.
“I’m fine,” he told me when I expressed my concerns. “It hurts almost this bad after every game.”
But he didn’t object when I helped him prepare for bed and settled him with a bunch of pillows at his back and ice on his ribs.
But will he object to my decision to move out? I’m still figuring out how to bring it up to him. I need to do it soon because he had another nightmare that night. It was worse than the first one, the intensity causing him to wake up, trembling and sweaty, groaning from the pain caused by the thrashing. He insisted it was nothing and encouraged me to go back to sleep. I’m pretty sure we both pretended to sleep for a long time after.
In the morning, I let him sleep since he has a late practice. My clinic is opening late due to an educational conference that I don’t have to attend, so I get ready for a run. I pull my hair into a ponytail and change into my running clothes—a heavy-duty sports bra, tank top, and a hoodie that’s a size too big—and lace up my sneakers. After grabbing my earbuds, I leave a note for Brent on the kitchen island.
I head out toward the reservoir in Central Park after starting my “Autumn” playlist, a compilation of instrumental music by Vivaldi and George Winston. It’s a perfect cool, crisp day. I love the fall season for its weather and the changing colors in the foliage. I’d hoped the music would help me relax, but my thoughts return to how I’ll tell Brent I’ll be finding my own place.
A part of me regrets giving up my old apartment, though it had been long past time for me to move on from the stability and comfort of the last seven years. But I don’t regret giving up a full-time job for the temporary one with the Firebirds. It was the impetus I needed to make changes in my life.
Of course, I never imagined just how much my life would change, most of it due to Brent. I feel almost like a new person since the summer. My relationship with him, as friends and as lovers, as well as my short stint with the team, have given me the confidence I needed to come out of my self-imposed shell and continue growing in all aspects.
I’m not sure if I’ll be doing him a favor by moving out or making things worse. I’m tortured by my mixed emotions—concern for Brent’s stress, sadness I’m moving out, pride in myself for being strong and doing the right thing, and fear over how things will change between us once I leave.
Ugh, I groan. The run was supposed to relax me. I force myself to turn off my thoughts and focus on the beauty of the day instead. One of my favorite places at the park is Belvedere Castle, so I head there. The narrow winding stairs lead to a stone terrace overlooking the pond. I stand there at the railing and drink in the gorgeous view of the trees, multicolored with endless shades of reds, oranges, and yellows.
I take a couple of pictures with my phone to show Brent, then head back uptown. I take my time, enjoying the run.
Slowing to a walk as I approach Brent’s building, my eye is caught by a fashionably dressed blonde coming out of the front door, held open by the doorman. Just before disappearing into the back of a black Mercedes, the woman looks up and my breath catches when I realize it’s the woman in the photos with Brent. His ex, Caitlyn. I learned from Charlie they’d been serious in college, having dated for over a year. She didn’t know the reason for the breakup, only that Caitlyn married a baseball player soon after.
What was she doing in Brent’s building?
All my earlier self-congratulations are a joke as my newfound confidence comes crashing down and all my fears and doubts race through me. My heart is pounding, and my steps slow as the car pulls away. I tell myself not to jump to any conclusions. A lot of people live in the building, and she could have been visiting any one of them. But how likely is it that she is here to see someone other than Brent?
I take a breath and try to think rationally. Maybe Caitlyn came to check on him. But why would she do that for a bruised rib when she hadn’t after his more serious ankle injury?
Maybe I imagined it’s the same woman because of my own self-doubts that still crop up so easily. Years of baggage can’t be erased in only a few weeks, no matter how wonderfully healing the time has been.
Why am I standing here letting my imagination run wild when I can simply ask him? I want to hear from him directly if it was Caitlyn and why she’d visited. I’ll just need to be careful not to sound like I’m accusing him of anything.
Maybe he’ll mention it first and I won’t have to ask. God, I hope that’s the case.