Chapter 2
“Ten inches.”
“Twelve!”
“No way…”
Sweet Jesus, they were at it again with their penis discussion. I turned off my shower and wrapped a towel around my body, and squeezed the water out of my long, brown hair.
“What do you think about the outside linebacker?”
“Who, Mazurski? Oh my God, Denise! Did you?”
The two cheerleaders dissolved into giggles. They were absolutely not supposed to date the players, let alone comment on their, um, relative sizes. Trish, their boss, would fire them immediately if she heard, and these two were really indiscreet. Some of the other cheerleaders dated players, but they weren’t idiots like Denise and her friend…I squinted at her. Abbi.
I cleared my throat and Abbi looked up at me. The water coursed down her perfect body and she lazily ran a sudsy pouf over herself. “It’s Katie, right?”
I nodded. “Hi, there. You know, Trish is right in the next room. She comes in here sometimes. If she heard you guys…”
Denise laughed. “She has a stick up her butt!”
I shrugged. “Just a friendly warning.”
“We heard that you went home with Davis.”
I wheeled around. “What? Who said that?”
“One of the security guards saw you in the parking lot after you had car trouble,” Abbi said.
Yeah, car trouble. I was supposed to hear today from the repair shop how much trouble my car was in.
“I was just getting a ride from him because of…the car trouble.” I kept any information I had about his injury to myself, just as I had when asked by the warehouse guys. They would have absolutely died to hear that I had been inside Davis Blake’s house, but I hadn’t said a word.
Both of the women giggled wildly again. It was very, very annoying.
“Denise! Abbi!” The head cheerleader, Rochelle, barked at them from the door to the shower room. “I hope I didn’t just hear you two discussing the players.”
“No, but she was!” Denise pointed at me.
“What?!” I started shaking my head.
“She’s not your concern,” Rochelle told them, ignoring me. “Get dressed and get out of here.”
I stayed late at the stadium that day, because Sam had been late, too—again. In fact, he hadn’t shown up at all. We were supposed to meet at 5:30. By seven, I had done sprints, push-ups, sit-ups, and rehearsed my portion of all our routines. I had called and texted him, too. I was supposed to meet my friend Lindy for a late dinner, so I decided to give up on Sam and get dressed to go. Hence, my conversation in the showers with the cheerleaders.
I quickly pulled on my clothes, listening with half an ear to the other women talking. The vast majority of them were not as guy-focused as the two in the showers. Most of them were discussing a BBQ that Rochelle was having over the weekend. I wasn’t invited, but I wasn’t a cheerleader, either. I was in a weird no man’s land with them: I wasn’t part of their squad, but I was around enough that they tolerated me. Some of them were even nice to me.
Trish and the other administrators had stringent guidelines posted up on the cheerleaders’ website for everyone who thought about becoming a Woodsmen Dame (the name had survived since 1953): you had to have a college degree or be pursuing one; you had to have numerous years of dance training, in several styles, if possible; you had to have experience, either on your college dance troupe or cheer squad or on anther professional sports team. Unstated were the following requirements: you had to have a great figure, beautiful face, pretty hair, and/or the ability to fake all three. Biggish breasts were a plus, as was height (long legs looked great in the sideline dances); perfect teeth were a given. So looking at this group of gorgeous women in their various stages of undress, well, it was enough to make even the most confident lady get a little down. I put on extra mascara.
My friend Lindy was in the midst of an all-out campaign to get me settled. It seemed like most of our friends from high school had gotten engaged and married in the last few years, or at least they had a very steady plus-one and were heading in that direction. A few were already pregnant. Lindy herself had just tied the knot in July, with me as the maid of honor. In fact, over the last few years I had been in 12 different wedding parties. It had been expensive, but really fun.
I was resisting Lindy’s efforts, but I had agreed to go out with her tonight, with her husband and one of his friends from work who she swore was perfect for me. I wasn’t so sure. The last two guys she had also designated as perfect had been far from it. One had been on what he termed a break from his long-time girlfriend, whom he talked about the entire night without taking a breath, and the other guy was marginally employed (as in, he did a little yard work for his parents and they gave him money) with no plans to change that situation. And then he made fun of Nutty. My hopes about this latest “perfect” guy were dim. Nevertheless, I put forth the effort as I got dressed in front of the big mirror, and one of the cheerleaders helped me straighten my hair in the back where I couldn’t reach it that well. She was nice.
As I walked out into the hallway leading to the parking lot, I heard Trish say my name. “There she is. That’s Katie.” Her normal conversational volume was more like a yell, so I heard her perfectly. I turned and saw her standing next to another woman I didn’t know, older and official-looking.
I cleared my throat. “Hi, there, Trish. Did you need me for something?”
She stared at me. “If the dog went, you have to pick it up!” she said while adjusting her headset. “We were slow on the first eight-count of the third song.” She walked away.
The other woman looked me up and down, then stepped forward, her hand outstretched. “Katriona Bell?” I shook her hand, but she didn’t say her name. “Please come with me.” She silently led me down another hall and up the elevator to the floor that held the executive offices. I had only been up there twice before, once was when I had been interviewed for the job as team mascot, and another time when there had been a social media threat about killing Nutty. Since I was the person in the Nutty suit, I took that incident very seriously, until they determined that the guy was in Denmark and never left there, and that he simply had a very strong chipmunk aversion. It wasn’t particular to Nutty and the risk was deemed negligible, but I planned to stay away from Denmark just in case.
The woman leading me knocked on one of the dark wood doors and put her head into the office. “Frank? I’ve got her.”
I gulped. What the hell was going on?
“Go ahead in,” the woman told me.
Inside the big office was a smallish man sitting behind a very large desk. And across from him was a very large man sitting with his right leg stretched out on an ottoman in front of him. Davis Blake.
The little man stood up. “Katriona Bell?”
“Yes.” I took another step into the office.
“I’m Frank Pauley. Please, have a seat.” He gestured at the chair next to Davis Blake. I sat, and immediately felt like a child. The furniture had apparently been purchased with football player-sized men in mind and my feet barely touched the floor. “Ms. Bell, we are hoping that you can do us a favor.”
I glanced at the quarterback next to me. Not only had he not said a word in greeting, but he hadn’t even looked at me yet. “Yes?” I repeated, cautiously this time.
“I’m sure you’ve heard about Davis’ injury.” Now we both looked at him. He looked at the wall behind the desk. “Davis needs some help, with day to day things.”
“Like he needs a nurse?” I asked.
Davis Blake finally acknowledged me. By snorting loudly at my question.
“No, not a nurse,” Mr. Pauley said. “Just someone to drive him to physical therapy, help with meals, errands, things like that.”
I glanced at the man next to me again. “And you thought of me?”
“Davis thought you might be able to keep…quiet about his condition. We’re limiting the information flow, and he was impressed by your prudence.”
“You mean you realized that I wasn’t lying when I told you that I wasn’t going to sell a video of you limping?” I asked Davis Blake. He didn’t reply. The wall above Mr. Pauley’s head was just fascinating for him.
“It would mean being available during the day. Are you?” Mr. Pauley asked.
“Well, I have a job,” I said slowly. Not that I was so attached to it, but it was a steady paycheck.
“Maybe you could take a leave of absence,” Mr. Pauley suggested.
I held back a snort of my own. “I’m the manager in the warehouse of a furniture store. It’s not really a ‘leave of absence’ kind of position. If I leave, I’m fired.”
“You could work here after.” Davis Blake’s voice sounded crackly from disuse.
“Here? Like, an office job for the Woodsmen?” I asked, trying to sound casual and not like I was going to jump out of my seat in excitement.
Mr. Pauley glanced at his computer. “I’m just reading through your curriculum vitae,” he told me. “You seem like you’d be a fine candidate for one of our departments. We have a very large organization, as I’m sure you know. I feel certain that we could find something when Davis doesn’t need your help any longer.”
I nodded coolly, inwardly screaming and doing backflips. If I could get a foot in the door to work at the corporate level for the team, I was going to take it, no matter how unpleasant helping him might be. It would be worth it in the end. “Can we go over more details about what working for Davis Blake would involve?” I looked from one man to the other, but Mr. Pauley filled me in.
It didn’t sound too hard. It was all things that I had done while taking care of my grandma, minus the bathing and other bathroom stuff. He might need help with his physical therapy exercises, and we reviewed the routine he was already doing. He definitely needed a driver to get him around until his surgery and for as long as necessary afterward, as I had already been told. I would grocery shop and pick up prescriptions, dry cleaning, etc. I would cook two to three meals a day, depending on Davis’ schedule. Most of his time, especially in the near future, would be spent rehabbing his knee. Mr. Pauley glanced at him. “He’ll have his surgery next week.”
“I kind of feel like you shouldn't be walking on it so much,” I said to Davis Blake.
“I’m not walking now.” Finally, he spoke.
“She’s right, Davis, and Ms. Bell, Katriona, I’m glad to see your concern.”
“When would I start?” I asked. “And, ah, what would the salary be?”
“You’d start immediately. I know that Davis would appreciate a ride home. Your salary would be,” he clicked his mouse and looked at the screen, then told me.
“Is that annually?” I asked. Davis Blake snorted again.
“Monthly.” Mr. Pauley smiled at me. “I take it that would be satisfactory?”
Sweet Lord, it sure would be! Try double what I made at the warehouse. “Yes, satisfactory,” I answered faintly. “And could I have something in writing? Something that includes the job offer with the Woodsmen for when Davis Blake has recovered?”
Mr. Pauley looked a little peeved. “We can do that, sure.”
When I left the office, I had a new job. I texted my friend Lindy from the hallway that something very important had come up and I was going to miss our dinner out. She texted back one word: “LIAR.” I could explain later. She would understand that this was a dream coming true. I would be working for the team, and not just as Nutty the Chipmunk! Getting my car squished may have turned out to be the best thing that had happened to me in a long time.
Davis Blake and Mr. Pauley came out of the office and we all walked slowly down to the players’ lot together. I looked around. There were only standard-sized vehicles parked there, nothing that you needed to pole vault into. “Where’s the truck?” I asked.
“I got a new car.” How had he done that so fast? I followed Davis Blake over to a moderately large SUV. He took a minute getting into the passenger seat while I held his crutches, then I got in on the other side and adjusted the mirrors down. We waved goodbye to Mr. Pauley. Well, I did.
“Did you drive over here yourself, with your left leg?” I asked as I pulled onto the highway. “Wow, that’s really dangerous. I know how weak one side of your body can be. I was a dancer and my right side was strongly dominant, so I did a lot to try to even out the imbalance. You don’t realize how your feet and legs are just like your hands! One does a lot more than the other. Right? You must notice it when you play.”
He didn’t answer me.
“Did you already have dinner?” I asked him.
“Yes.”
Ok. Silence was ok too. My mind wandered.
“You don’t have to call me by both my names.”
“Huh?” He had startled me.
“You call me ‘Davis Blake.’ Don’t do that.”
I thought. I did call him by both his names, even when I thought about him. “So, Mr. Blake?”
“How old do you think I am?” he growled.
“It’s just being polite! Davis, then?” He didn’t answer, but I decided to go with that. I had a sudden thought. “I just left the loaner car at the stadium. I was supposed to hear today about my hatchback.”
“They’ll pick up the loaner from the lot. Your car is totaled.”
I jerked, and the SUV did too. “Wait, what? My car is totaled? It can’t be fixed?”
“They told me today.”
Well, it wasn’t a total surprise. The monster truck attack had been the death knell, but I had known for months that the end was coming. But still. “Where…where is it now?”
“Probably at a salvage yard.” He turned to look at me after a moment. “Are you crying about your car?”
I tried to turn my face away from him and also keep looking at the road. “No!”
“Your insurance company will give you some money for it. Not very much. It was a piece of shit.” He shifted his weight in the seat. “I’ll give you some money for it, since I was the one who tapped it.”
“Tapped, yeah. That’s not what I’m worried about.” That wasn’t the only thing I was worried about. “I had some stuff in there, in the glove box. And a hula dancer on the dashboard.”
“A hula dancer. That’s why you’re crying.”
“It was my grandpa’s car!” I said loudly. “He brought the hula girl back from Hawaii, where he was in the service. We were going to go there…” I trailed off. He didn’t care about my travel plans. “Never mind.” I wiped my eyes. It didn’t matter that much, I told myself. I drove the rest of the way to his house without saying a word.
“I’m tired,” he said, when we walked in. “Come back tomorrow.”
“I need to go down to the warehouse and quit that job in person. It’s only fair, since I’m leaving them in the lurch,” I told him. “I can be over here by eight.”
“Seven.”
“I can be here by 7:30. At the earliest,” I countered.
He didn’t say a word, but took one heavy step up on the stairs.
“Hang on. Are you sleeping up there?” I asked.
“That’s where my bedroom is. I generally sleep in my bedroom in my house.”
I shook my head. “No, that doesn’t make any sense for you to go up and down all the time. Is there a guest bedroom on the ground floor? And a bathroom?” He nodded slightly. “Ok, go in there. I’ll bring your stuff down from your room.”
For the first time, he looked a little disconcerted. “You won’t know what I want.”
“Well, I’ll bring it all down, then. Ok?” He made a half-hearted gesture, kind of a shrug, but he stepped off the stair and went down a hallway. I went up to Davis Blake’s…Davis’ bedroom, giving everything a once-over as I did.
The whole house was dirty. Not just messy, although it was that, too. There was dust everywhere, and spiderwebs. The carpet looked like it had never been vacuumed. It was gross. My house was not hospital-standard clean, but I wasn’t a slob, and I certainly wasn’t dirty like this. I looked at the messy bed, the towels on the floor. Ew, yuck.
Hang on a minute. I was in Davis Blake’s, I meant, Davis’ bedroom! He had been so rude to me, I hadn’t thought about being star-struck. But standing in his bedroom suddenly triggered it. Here was the closet with all his clothes, and his huge shoes, and here was his bathroom with his toothbrush! And here was the drawer with his underwear. I found myself blushing. Oh, my.
I quickly gathered up things I thought he would need, filling a laundry basket. I hurried downstairs. Davis Blake—Davis! Just Davis!—was sitting on the edge of the bed in the dark guestroom. I flipped on the light and he blinked.
“Ok, here you go. Take a look and you can tell me what I missed.” I carried his toiletries into the bathroom. The room looked brand-new, totally unused. Untouched. I wrote my name in the dust on the mirror then wiped it away with my hand. “Need anything else?” I called.
He loomed at the door. “Just for you to leave.”
I stood up straight. “Look, I can tell that you’re not the most congenial of people, but let’s both make an effort to get along. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, and it’s better if we can be friendly. Ok?”
Davis (got it right!) didn’t answer. He stepped to one side, and I hopped past him. Well, never mind. Congeniality was out, then. “See you at 7:30.”
“Seven.”
I rolled my eyes. I would get there when I would get there.
In fact, I arrived at 7:15 the next morning. Davis was already in the kitchen, staring at his phone. “You’re late,” he announced, without looking up.
“Here are your keys back,” I answered, putting them on the counter next to him. “I made copies for myself. I told you I would be here at 7:30. In fact, I’m early.”
He scowled at me. Nothing like starting the day off on the right foot! “Breakfast?” I asked calmly.
“I don’t eat in the morning.”
“That’s a bad habit,” I said, opening up the fridge. There was even less food in there than the last time I had been over, but still a major quantity of beer. “Maybe that’s why you’re so cranky.”
I dug around. At one time, someone had frozen some bacon and I could quickly make that. It wasn’t what I would generally prescribe as a healthy diet for an athlete, but he could have that for today. I was going on a major food spree later, however.
Davis was staring at me when I looked up. “I’m not cranky.”
“This is how you usually act? All the time?” I whistled. “You must have a lot of friends in the locker room!”
“I get along with everyone in the locker room!” he said angrily. “They like me fine.”
“To your face, they do!” I laughed, then stopped. “I’m just teasing you. I don’t know anything about what the other players think about you.”
He made a disgusted noise. “It doesn’t matter what they think about me. It matters how they play for me.”
I was peeling an orange I found on the counter that looked ok. A little vitamin C would do him good. “Has everyone been calling to see how you’re doing?”
His eyebrows drew together and he didn’t answer. I figured he didn’t have to tell me that they hadn’t.
I put the plate in front of him. “While you eat, tell me what you need to do today.”
“Give me your phone.”
I unlocked it, and handed it to him.
“Really? You’re just going to give it to me, without asking why I need it?”
I shrugged. “Are you doing something bad?”
“I’m synching my calendar with yours,” Davis explained.
“Ok, so what’s the big deal?”
He shook his head and I shrugged again. I took the phone back and studied the calendar. “Looks like you’ll be with the doctors for most of the morning. While you do that, I’m going to go grocery shopping.”
“You can give me the receipts and I’ll pay you back. What car are you going to drive?”
I stared at him. “Um, yours. Remember, you told me yesterday that mine got junked? And you took back the loaner?”
“I would have expected you to have a new car by now.”
“Well, I did snap my fingers and wish for one last night, but when I checked the garage this morning, it was still empty.”
“Is that a joke?” he asked, his face rigid.
Sweet Jesus. This was going to be a long few weeks. “I’ll go this weekend to shop for one.”
“How did you get around this morning?” he asked.
“My neighbor took me to the warehouse, and the guys gave me a ride in the delivery truck over here. I brought my bike, so I can ride home. I don’t live too far and it stays light for so long. My other neighbor can loan me his pickup tonight if I need it.”
“Why would they do that?” Davis asked me.
“Huh? Who do what?”
“All those people driving you around, loaning you cars.”
I stopped scrubbing the bacon pan. “Well, I guess because they’re my friends. I’ve helped them too, when they needed it. I dog-sat for my neighbor who drove me, and I got Woodsmen tickets for some of the guys at the warehouse with my employee discount. And I—”
“I get it,” he interrupted me. “It’s a quid pro quo.”
“I’d just call it friendship,” I corrected him. “Whatever works for you.”
I started to help him out to the car, my hand on his back like I used to do for my grandma, but I quickly realized that he really, really hated me helping him. I stepped away and walked slowly along beside him.
“You can go ahead,” he bit out.
“Why?”
“Because it’s fucking stupid for you to have to wait for me.”
“I’m driving you, right? I’m in no hurry. If I was limping along, would you just walk ahead and ditch me?” He didn’t say anything. Of course he would.
I walked him into the building where he would do the physical therapy and have his knee checked and they would perform all the high-tech treatments to try to put him back on the field ASAP. The receptionist nearly had a heart attack when she saw him and several other employees had to come out to check something behind the desk as we waited. I gave a few of them quite the eye. There was no need to stare and make a scene. Yes, it was Davis, Davis freaking Blake, sitting in their waiting room. Now they needed to move on and fix his knee.
“Do you want me to stay?” I asked him.
“No.” He kept his eyes on his phone. I wondered what he was doing on it. Probably reading scouting reports or something. Or maybe that would be just too depressing for him.
I confirmed at the desk how long he would be and then walked slowly to the door. I waved, but Davis didn’t look up.
Ah, well. Not everyone was blessed with a charming temperament. Some people could throw a pass with pinpoint accuracy, but they weren’t able to say good morning.