We lost.

A crushing defeat. The first game of the season, and we lost.

The scene in the locker room after the game is not a good one. Coach stands there surveying everyone with beady eyes. The guys mope around and get changed slowly. Some sit there slumped forward on the benches. Hardly anyone speaks, and the only sound is the movement of the squeaky locker doors on their hinges.

People shoot me glances. They wonder what happened.

My shoulder froze up, that’s what happened.

I thought I could keep going. I tried to power through it, but it wasn’t any good. I tried to make the pass, but my shoulder froze up in the middle of it, and I missed by a ridiculous margin.

My shoulder got injured in college. That’s how I met Lia. Gradually, the pain just sort of went away. Occasionally, I’d have a minor flare up. But I ignored it. I guess I didn’t really get it treated. I mean, sure, I did the exercises that the physical therapists told me to do, but it never really felt “fixed.”

Today on the field was the worst it’s ever felt.

Fuck.

This could be the end of my whole career.

I get changed as quickly as I can and I make a point of avoiding coach on the way out.

It’s only until I’m in the parking lot that I remember that Lia was here today.

Shit, she saw me at my absolutele worst.

I grab my cell phone and give her a call.

“Hey!” she says, sounding excited.

“Hey,” I say. “You still here?”

“Yup,” she says.

We agree to meet at my car.

I get inside, since if I don’t, people are going to start to recognize me. The last thing I need right now is to be the focus of some bummer post-game tailgate party. Fans will want to know what happened, even though I think it should have been pretty obvious, the way I was massaging my shoulder before that one throw…

“Hey there!” says Lia.

“Hey,” I say.

She gets into the passenger’s seat next to me.

“What’s wrong?” she says.

“Didn’t you see me out there?” I say, shocked that she wouldn’t know what’s wrong.

“You looked great!” she says. “I’ve never seen a game before, it was incredible to be so close…”

I suddenly start to laugh.

“I get it now,” I say, trying to contain my laughter. “You’re really not a football fan, are you?”

“Um, not really.”

I give her a look.

“OK, not at all. I honestly had a hard time following what was going on most of the time.”

I laugh.

“We lost,” I say.

“Oh,” she says. “That’s why the woman next to me wouldn’t even talk to me after the game, I guess.”

“Did she know that you knew me?”

“Yup.”

“That’s probably why. Fans are really not going to like me now that I botched the game for them.”

“Really? Don’t they understand that that sort of thing can happen to anyone.”

“Definitely not,” I say, laughing again.

Being with Lia makes the whole bummer of the lost game, the injured shoulder… it all just kinds of fades away. With her, it doesn’t seem so serious. It doesn’t feel like it even matters that much.

The important thing is that I’m with her. And how she makes me feel.

“That same woman mentioned something about you being injured,” says Lia. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” I say, explaining to her what happened. I tell her about the frozen shoulder.

“Wow,” says Lia. “And that made you miss that throw?”

I nod my head.

“I thought you would have gotten that old injury sorted out by now.”

“So you remember it?”

“Of course I remember it. That’s how we met. So long ago.”

“It wasn’t that long ago,” I say.

I tell her about the exercises I’ve been doing and what the physical therapists over the years have told me.

“Hmm,” she says, making a face like she’s thinking hard. “Something about this doesn’t seem quite right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, from what you’re telling me about your symptoms, you should have been able to resolve the problem, but it doesn’t sound like they were giving you the right exercises to do.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, I don’t really know. It’s not like I’m a physical therapist or anything.”

“That’s just because you didn’t have the money to go to school. It doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability to do it.”

She blushes. “I don’t really know what I’m talking about,” she says.

“Well, no one else has been able to help me. Why don’t you take a look at it?”

“You want me to look at it?”

“Yeah.”

“All right, but not here.”

“OK, let’s head to my house,” I say.

“Sounds good, but I’ve got to get my car.”

“Damn,” I say. “I wish we could travel together.”

“Aw, you’re going to miss me that much?” She says it in a funny and sarcastic kind of way.

“Nah,” I say, playing along with the joke. “I was hoping you could give me some road head after the big game.”

“In your dreams,” she says, flashing me a huge smile and getting out of the car. “I’ll follow you to your place. I don’t know where you live, remember?”

“Got it,” I say

I watch her walk away in the mirror. Her ass looks perfect as it swishes as she walks.

Damn, my shoulder is still hurting. The pain is flaring out down my arm. Maybe Lia can do something to help it. It’s worth a shot. Maybe she should have been the one to look at it back in college, instead of whoever it was. It’s not like they did it any good.

Then again, maybe it’s just a fucked shoulder. Maybe there’s no getting around the fact that it’s busted and there’s nothing to do about it. Some people just have crappy shoulders.

But it’s not like I’m feeling sorry for myself.

I was born to be a quarterback, and I know that.

I’ll get this figured out.

And if not, hey, I can always go to grad school for literature or something. Or become a mechanic. Or start racing motorcycles. There are a thousand interesting things to do, and some of them pay well, too.

If I can just get Lia with me… then the rest of it doesn’t even really matter.

Finally Lia shows up in her car. It’s an old beaten up car, quite different looking from the rest of the cars in the lot.

I smile when I see it, although I’m not sure why. I guess it reminds me of simpler times, back in college, when everyone drove cars like that. Well, everyone who didn’t have a ton of money coming in from their parents.

I drive slowly back to the house, making sure that she’s behind me the whole time.

I think mostly of Lia, and a little bit about football. I think about my shoulder, but it doesn’t overwhelm me or anything like that. My thoughts turn to Jack and to my parents. Damnit, why does he have to be such a fuckup? He’s a smart guy. And it’s not like he’s not applying himself. It’s just that he’s applying himself in all the wrong directions. I wish I could straighten him out somehow.

If he gets caught with that stolen equipment, and he almost certainly will, since his intelligence apparently doesn’t extend to the world of criminal endeavors, then he’s going to be going away for a long, long time. He’s got expensive stuff with him, and not only that, but he’s got so many priors at this point—the judge will take one look at him and throw him behind bars to rot.

I try to convince myself that it’s not my problem, but the reality of it is that it is my problem. My parents simply don’t have the energy to deal with it. It’s a constant heartbreak for them.

But what am I supposed to do?

It’s not like he’s just a simple drug addict. It’s not like I can just pay some treatment facility money and make the problem go away.

As far as I know, there aren’t groups for criminals who want to change their ways. There aren’t exactly therapists you can talk to to help sort out your problems with the law.

Or maybe there are. What do I know?

But the main thing is he doesn’t want to change. And… there’s something more. I’ve always known what I wanted out of life. Football, that’s a big one for me. Jack, he didn’t seem to have it together. He never had a plan…

I’m finally home. I pull slowly into the driveway, checking the mirrors again to make sure Lia’s there. I can see her smile through the windshield, looking radiant and perfect.

She parks behind me in the driveway, and we get out of our separate cars at the same time.

“Hey,” I say, smiling at her.

She smiles back at me.

“Nice looking place,” she says, looking up somewhat in awe at the house.

“Eh, it’s nothing crazy,” I say.

“It kind of looks crazy to me, crazy big. But then again you saw where I live.”

“Your place is nice,” I say.

“It’s OK,” says Lia. “It’s enough for us, and for when Will gets older.”

I nod.

“Well, I’ll show you the place.”

“Ah, the grand tour,” she says, imitating a highfalutin’ British accent.

I don’t know why, but it makes me laugh.

“You crack me up,” I say.

“It’s not that hard, trust me,” says Lia.

That makes me laugh even harder.

I take her into the house and show her through the downstairs.

“It’s really nice,” she says.

“Now you’re not going to be one of these women who sees that I’ve got a bit of money and suddenly wants to sleep with me,” I say, joking.

“Hey, how about a quick tumble here on the couch,” says Lia, giving me a wink.

“You know it doesn’t work if we’ve already slept together.”

“What doesn’t work?”

“Your grand plans to get all my money.”

“I’ve got to try, though, right?”

“The real trick,” I say. “Would be to get me to knock you up. That’s an old classic.”

I say it like a joke, and we’re both laughing. Laughing right up until I say that, that is.

She stops laughing, cold, dead in her tracks, while I’m still laughing.

A serious look comes across her face.

“What is it?” I say. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Oh, no,” she says. She looks as if she’s thinking of something, something far away and perhaps painful. “I was just thinking of something else.”

“Come on,” I say, anxious to ease out of the strange moment. “I’ll show you the upstairs. But you lead the way up the stairs. I want another chance to check out your ass.”

“You’re not supposed to say that,” she says, giving me a playful pat with her hand. She’s back, smiling and laughing again. “You’re supposed to engineer some scheme that will force me to walk up the stairs first.”

“I thought it’d be easier if I just said it.”

“You’re really clever, aren’t you? All that stuff about reading books, that was just to impress me wasn’t it?”

“You got me,” I say. “I’m just a dumb jock like all the rest.”

“I figured as much. But speaking of that… maybe we should take a look at that shoulder before we move on to any extracurricular activities.”

“Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?”

“That’s what they’ve always called it?”

“Come on, off with the shirt. Let me take a look at that shoulder.”

“Fine,” I say, groaning in pain as I take off my shirt.

“It’s still hurting?”

“It’s seems to be worse now,” I say, wincing.

Lia starts quizzing me on when and where the pain is. I answer the best I can, which is a little difficult. I start to realize that I’ve actually had the pain more consistently than I’d previously thought. It’s just that I tend to sort of tough it out and ignore it.

“Well you really shouldn’t do that,” says Lia. “Ignoring it is just going to make it worse. I know that’s what all you sports guys want to do, just tough it out, but it’s really the worst thing you can do for it.”

“It’s not like I had much of a choice. It’s either play or I’m out of a job. And it’s not like I didn’t try to get it looked at.”

“Quite, I’m going to see what I can figure out.”

Lia takes my arm in her hands and starts manipulating it, moving my arm so that the shoulder joint will move in specific ways. She watches my face carefully to see when I wince in pain.

I notice that as she does this, a new sort of demeanor starts to overtake her. She really acts like a professional. Not just in the way she moves my arm. But in the expression on her face. She has a serious, no-nonsense look in her eyes. She’s concentrating like I’ve never seen her concentrate before, in the way that most people simply can’t.

“Does it hurt when I do this?” she says.

“Yeah,” I say wincing.

“OK,” she says, sitting down next to me. “I think I know what’s going on with your shoulder.”

“You do? Is it bad? Is it a torn rotator cuff?”

A torn rotator cuff could mean my permanent retirement. I’ll have to sit out at least a season, and then get surgery. And then I’ll probably never recover properly. No one will want me on their team, and I’ll fall to the sidelines.

Then again, there are a thousand things I could do.

But I want to play football. I don’t want to go out like this, without a fight.

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t think it’s that bad.”

“Really?” I say, the hope seeping into my voice.

“Now,” says Lia. “Before you get all excited, remember that I am in no way a physical therapist, and I never was one. I very well could have no idea what I’m talking about. And you’ve seen a ton of certified professionals. So… yeah… keep that in mind. But, I did study a lot when I was in college.”

“If it works,” I say. “I don’t care whether or not you’re certified. Just tell me what your theory is.”

“OK,” says Lia. “Your shoulder is a unique kind of joint, right? It can move any which way, unlike your knee, which only moves on one axis.”

“Following you so far,” I say.

“OK, so the shoulder is basically a ball in a socket. Now what happens is that it should rotate freely, but sometimes because of muscle imbalances and other issues, it can start to move in a way that causes impingement and other problems. If you imagine a rubber tire on the pavement, the tire will actually roll along the pavement…”

“OK…”

“And that’s not what you want to happen. What’s happening is that the “ball” of your shoulder is rolling along just like a tire. But you want it to actually stay right in place.”

“Hmm,” I say. “And that’s causing it to pinch something?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, but basically, yeah.”

“So what do I do about it?”

“Do you have a laptop here?”

“Yeah, over there.”

She gets up and I watch her thighs and ass move as she goes over to the laptop. She comes back and opens it up. I watch as she navigates to a physical therapy website.

“This is a page that has some good exercises for this kind of problem… You need to strengthen some of your supporting muscles.”

“I work out all the time,” I say. “I’m definitely not weak. Maybe it’s caused by something else.”

Lia shakes her head.

“I know you’re very strong,” she says, laughing a little. “But there are many muscles in the shoulder that work as stabilizers. They work to keep things in place. And normal exercises, like the kind that you do, won’t strengthen these muscles. If you follow the directions for the exercises on this page, you might see some improvement as your shoulder starts to return to its regular functioning…”

“Wow,” I say. “This is incredible stuff. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this before. It’s really a shame you’re not working as a physical therapist.”

“Well,” says Lia. “I didn’t really have a choice. I had to take care of Will. But maybe sometime I’ll get there.”

“I know you will.”

“Hey,” says Lia, a funny looking coming across her face. “There’s something I need to talk to you about…”

“Can’t it wait?” I say, starting to rub her arms. My cock is already swelling at the thought of the fun we’re about to have with each other.

Lia shakes her head. “It’s really important,” she says. “And… I’ve been thinking all along that I need to tell you, but I didn’t want to ruin anything between us… So I’ve waited longer than I should have… But I just can’t keep this secret from you any longer.”

“What is it?” I say.

I don’t know what to think. I have no idea what she’s going to tell me. She looks deadly serious, and more than a little worried.