As I slowly start to wake up, my eyes feel blurry but despite that, I know I’m in an unfamiliar and entirely white room. I turn my head slowly a bit more to the right and notice machines with monitors, presumably monitoring my heart rate.

I don’t quite feel with it, but I become aware of a searing pain in my knee, I wince as the pain shoots up my leg. My memory of the incident on the pitch with the other teams player making a tackle which went horribly wrong comes flooding back into my mind. It was a dirty move on the other guys part that’s for sure.

I cock my head the other way, and notice Noah sat in a chair beside my bed, dozing quietly. I smile to myself, what would he do in my shoes? I think to myself.

“Oi, pretty boy. Wake up!” I shout at him.

He jumps awake startled all of a sudden and I laugh before wincing in pain having moved my body too much in reaction to my own amusement.

“Cheap shot bro,” he says back.

“Like you wouldn’t have done the same,”

“Not the point, but yeah..course I would have,”

I notice four balloons with teddy bears and ‘Get Well Soon’ all over them tied to the end of my bed and flowers everywhere around my hospital room.

“Are all these for me?” I ask, surprised at the sheer amount of flowers in my room. “Lucky I don’t suffer from hay fever” I joke.

“The balloons are from me,” Noah says. “I thought it would be funny until I realized what a dick I looked like carrying them through the hospital. I’ll say one thing though, the nurses all think I’m such a super sweet guy now,” before adding a cheeky wink.

“Jeez, Noah…you haven’t started hitting on my nurses now have you? At least wait until I leave for Christ’s sake. The last thing I want is a pissed off nurse looking after me,”

“Hey, who says they’d be pissed off?” He looks at me like butter wouldn’t melt, but we both know he’s a player and has a hefty list of women he’s pissed off in the past.

“Are you kidding me? Are we really going to have this conversation, you are aware that I know you better than everyone else right?” I add.

“Fair point bro, anyway, the flowers aren’t from me. I draw the line at buying another guy flowers that’s for sure. They are from your adoring fans and the rest of the guys on the team. Turns out they don’t have any issues all with buying a guy flowers,” he adds with a stupid grin on his face.

The door opens, and a doctor walks in, “Ahh, Mr. Morton, you are back with us I see. Did you friend fill you in with the details?” He asks.

“Not really, he’s not exactly great in these situations,” I tease Noah.

“Thanks a bunch,” Noah replies. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. I’m gonna go now, need to get some beauty sleep,” he adds before grabbing his jacket.

“Yeah, you need a truckload of it, I call after him,” before the door closes behind him.

The doctor pulls up a chair next to the bed, and I can’t help but notice that he has a serious look on his face, which at once puts me on edge.

“Mr. Morton, you’ve been out cold for a good few hours and are suffering from the effects of concussion,” he says. “It’s just after midnight now, so you’ve been unconscious for a few hours, but I’m pleased that your tests are looking good, so I’m not too worried about that. You are a young and healthy man, so I’m sure with some recuperation time, you’ll make a speedy recovery,”

“Great, sounds good doc,” I reply. I’m no good being cooped up, let alone in a hospital bed.

“Well, Mr. Morton, that’s not all that I wanted to talk to you about,” he adds, looking even more serious which gives me a sick feeling in my stomach.

“You have a rather serious injury to your knee Mr. Morton. We’ve done various tests etc., and it really is quite nasty. I have to tell you that I’m not sure whether your knee will ever stand up to playing professional sport again,”

“Are you kidding me?” I reply I feel numb. I’m not often stuck for words, but right now I don’t know how I can think straight.

“No, I’m afraid not Mr. Morton. There are still tests we need to do, and potentially there might be surgery we can offer. We’ll know better when the inflammation in your knee goes down a little and we can do some more tests. So my best advice to you is to make sure you get as much rest as possible and don’t try to push yourself too much,”

I nod in agreement, I really don’t know how to deal with the information that my career in football might be over. It’s a blow I wasn’t expecting. The doctor gets up from his chair before leaving the room, but as he does so, I see him saying something to someone approaching the door and leaves it open as he goes through it.

I’m surprised to see Mandy walk into the room, my best friends ‘not so’ kid sister. There are many problems with Mandy. The first problem is that she is beautiful, blonde, and has the most perfect backside I’ve ever seen. The second problem is that she drives me nuts, she never just lets something be, she always wants to argue the point. The third and probably the biggest problem with Mandy is that I’m really not supposed to be noticing how perfect Mandy’s backside is, nor how beautiful she is for that matter.

The thing is, she really isn’t a kid anymore, she grew up a long time ago, and she’s most definitely grown into those curves…those god damn man-eating curves. The curves kill me dead every time she flaunts them. And by flaunts them, I mean she just has to show up in the same room as me. Somehow though it’s become a sport to see how mad I can make her. She deserves it some of the time, and the rest of the time..well I just think she’s hot when she gets mad. The problem is, the madder I make her, the hotter she gets, and more she makes my dick get hard. It’s a problem. A huge problem.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” I say. I genuinely am surprised to see her. She might have that effect on me, but I’m also fairly sure she just hates me. Period.

“Yeah, well, I just finished my shift at the bar and my mom and sister wanted me to check that you were ok since I was working until so late. And you know, they think you are basically like family, so they are worried,” she adds trying to look like she doesn’t give a single shit. I can see through her though, she could easily have just gone straight home, but she didn’t. She came here instead.

“And what do you think about me?” I ask. “Do you think I’m like family?”

Rather than answer me, Mandy fishes around in her bag and produces a plush football and a get well card for me.

“Here, umm, sorry…it was slim pickings at the 24 hours Walmart. I see you’ve got enough flowers anyway,” she says as she surveys the room of all of the vases perched on every single available space.

“Yeah, I probably do. But you didn’t answer the question,” I point out.

“Well, I don’t really think you are my family, no. You are just around all the time. That’s not really the same thing. You’re my brothers best friend, that’s all. Just because my mom thinks of you that way, it doesn’t mean I do,”

I’m not sure what to make of her statement, there’s no venom in her words, and It doesn’t surprise me a whole lot. My relationship with Mandy has always been different to the one I have with her sister Isabelle and Noah of course, but it makes me wonder what she really thinks For the sake of peace I decide to not push her further. God knows I love to rattle her cage, but this probably isn’t the right time or place.

“Well anyway, Lucas, at least the fall didn’t mess up your face any more than it already is,” she jokes.

“Very funny, Mandy. Thanks a bunch for that one, you are such a charmer at times, you know that?

“Yep, always,” she replies.

“Did you see the game? Did you see what happened?” I ask her.

“Nope,” She replies, but somehow I don’t believe her.

“You know I can tell when you’re lying right?” But she just shrugs.

“How are you though? Is it going to be ok?” She asks.

I desperately want to tell her about the doctor's prognosis which surprises me. I don’t want fluffy right now, I want someone as defiant as I am and that’s definitely her. Mandy would never take no for an answer for anything, and I guess I feel the same about my injury. I refuse to accept I won’t get back on to the field to play again.

I decide not to tell her though. I want as few people to know as possible, and I can’t be sure that Mandy won’t tell everyone about it. I always tell her how awful she is at keeping secrets, she’s always been the same, ever since she was a snotty nosed little kid.

The problem is that she’s still wearing the skimpiest of outfits from her shift at the bar and I can barely take my eyes off of her curves and the way her short dress hugs her figure tightly. She infuriates me because I want to do things to her that are so wrong given she’s my best friends little sister. Why the fuck did she have to grow up to be so damn hot?

I know she dresses that way because that’s what is expected of her in that dive of a bar she works at, but I hate the idea of other men looking at her the way I do. I don’t even give a shit that it makes me a giant hypocrite because I know I can’t be the only one looking at her this way. But if I catch any other guy looking at her that way, he’ll be sure to know how I feel about it.

“Anyway, I better get going now, it’s really late, and I’m glad you’re still alive and everything. I’ll be sure to tell mom,” she says dryly.

“Oh, so you don’t want me dead after all then?” I joke back at her.

“You’re an ass sometimes, you know that? She replies before leaning down to hug me which takes me by surprise and turns out more awkward than anything else. It’s like she’s trying to not get too close to me. But once I feel her breath on my neck, I can barely deal with it. My blood pumps hard, and my heart beats faster and faster. I’m sure when the nurses check my heart rate on that machine later they are going to notice a sudden spike where Isabelle just made it go off the chart.

I don’t know that I’ve ever had Mandy so close to me before I didn’t even know how much I wanted to feel her so close to me until then. I desperately want to feel the sensation of her breath on my skin for longer than a few seconds again because that moment was tantalizing and too brief.

After Mandy leaves, I drift off to sleep imagining us naked together. Even in my dreams, this is such ridiculously dangerous territory, I need to stop this right now.