Chapter Eight
I dragged myself into practice after a sleepless night alone in a bed that smelled like Jennifer. I couldn’t get the vanilla scent mixed with honey out of my nose, and I felt miserable, worse than if I’d never had her at all. The coach took one look at me and ordered everyone else out onto the field as he pulled me aside. “What the hell is wrong with you, McLeod? Is your shoulder still bothering you?”
“No, that’s not it. I didn’t feel well last night.” I wasn’t going to throw Jennifer under the bus since she seemed so terrified of anybody finding out.
“Can you play today?” he asked, and I nodded stoically. I was always up for football since it was the only constant in my life. I practiced and held it together even as she watched from a seat in the first row. I went to see her after I finished and she went about her business methodically and without any small talk, but the circles under her eyes were prominent.
“Why?” I asked her as she pressed heat to my skin.
“It’s for the best.” That’s all she said, and I barely got her to say goodbye when I was leaving. It hurt deep inside, and I knew that I was given hope when she came to me and let me make love to her. I’d never made love before, and I thought back to coming inside of her as my throat closed.
I walked to the gym and worked out quietly before heading home to relax before the game. I could feel the looks that the guys were giving me all day, though nobody asked anything. They would never guess that I was this caught up with a woman. Hell, even I couldn’t believe that I was.
The game went on, and she treated my injury with the utmost professionalism. She was friendlier with the other guys, laughing and chatting while with me she just said what she needed to.
Eventually, word got around that she was seeing the hockey player regularly. They showed up around town and had pictures taken and I felt like shit every time that I saw one. A month passed before I wanted to have sex again and I threw myself right back into my old lifestyle, only I was colder this time. It was just a fuck and I was gone, with any woman that would have me. They never got inside of my heart or even my mind.
I knew that I was falling for her when the pain never seemed to go away.
I learned to fake it every day for games and practice. I acted like I was happy to be living my life again. That’s what the guys wanted from me as well as the media. I started playing well again once I decided to focus only on football and we climbed to the lead.
My shoulder stayed about the same even when I’d see her. I could see the concern in her eyes when she could tell that I was hurting. But I lied and left to go drink with the guys until I was tired enough to sleep. I wasn’t stupid and I never let it ruin the game for me, but I knew that I was letting myself go to some degree. I just had to keep it in check and make everyone believe otherwise.
I could never let anyone know that I’d fallen for a woman. I could never tell the guys that I wanted to spend time with just one for as long as I could imagine. I was Justin McLeod: The Casanova of the NFL and I was going to stay that way.
I could see that she felt the same way, at least in part. Jennifer had revealed a side of herself to me that went beyond the bedroom. She was caring and focused on her career, so much so that she ran away from me. I saw her need in her eyes when she looked at me, though, felt it in her touch. My cock raged under me every time she touched me, and I’d started fucking girls nearly every night to forget how good she felt wrapped around me. I was pissed off at my lack of control.
I knew that she continued to see Keith and kept it quiet around me. The team would ask her stuff every now and then but Jennifer only smiled and kept her answers minimal. Coach was the one that she seemed to talk to most and I wondered about them the more I watched them together. They appeared to be closer than employee and employer and it made me wonder. He’d told me months ago that he was never hiring another female since I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants. They were just flings though. Jennifer was the real thing.
I knew that something changed when my shoulder was the focus of a tackle. I was just trying to get the ball to David one game when I felt someone slam into me. The pain set in as I hit the ground with a loud cry. Everything seem to stop as a few of my guys leaned down and asked me if I was alright. I could only close my eyes and work through the pain until I heard Coach. “Justin, are you with me?”
I nodded but grimaced as I realized that I was injured more than I wanted to think about. “Jennifer,” I choked out as I tried to open my eyes. Five minutes or an hour later, I wasn’t sure, I felt myself lifted carefully onto a stretcher. I just knew that I needed her to fix me and put me back together again.
“We’re taking you to see the doc,” Coach told me as I felt the movement of being carried off the field to the sound of applause. Despite my reputation, I was a fan favorite and I knew they were all hoping for me to return to the game and take us to the championships.
I was rushed back to the locker room and the team doctor started to look me over with a worried expression. I heard him tell someone that it was my rotator cuff and I knew that I was out for at least a little while. My heart sank and I realized that pushing it along with the hit might have cost me my career. Coach talked softly and asked if they should call in the new therapist but Doc said he’d try to ice it and see what he could do.
“New therapist?” I managed to ask as I sensed movement around me.
“Jennifer was offered a job back home closer to her family, son. She left at the end of this week.” I heard the regret in his voice as I looked into his face. “I have a new guy taking over.”
“She was only here a few months,” I argued as Coach nodded. I only got one night with her and now she was gone.
“I hated to see her go but life happens. I had to support her and she seemed to be troubled during the last month and a half. Maybe, she needed this change.” Doc came over and we managed to get my pads off without too much pain before he placed a thick ice pad over my skin.
“Relax, Justin. We’re going to do everything for you that we can.”
I just wanted to go back in time when everything was good in my life. I wanted to bed her to give us another try.