Being a professional athlete is both a blessing and curse.

On the blessing side, I get to go to a job I love passionately every single day. I also get paid a hell of a lot of money to do it. I’m damn good, and being a football player fulfills my fiercely competitive nature.

But it isn’t all hot girls, fast cars, and piles of cash. Athletes at this level work fucking hard. Cutting food out of our diets, forgoing families because it’s just too tough to form attachments when you’re on the road this much. Keeping your ear to the ground, wondering every second if you’re going to get benched or cut.

And then there is the physical demands it puts on you. I work out seven days a week, sometimes three or four hours a day. And on top of that the massage and physical therapy I do, and keeping my body in shape is basically a second full-time job.

That’s why I’m in Freedom Park, getting ready to sweat like a beast with one of my teammates.

“What have you been doing in your spare time around Charlotte, my dude? Good to be back?” Connor fist bumps me and begins to stretch, both of us waiting for Anthony.

He’s one of the older guys on the team, a cornerback who I train with a lot since our positions are opposites on offense and defense. An easy going southern gentlemen from Tennessee, Connor is just good to talk to and have a beer with. He’s confident without being cocky, which is a rare gem in this league and frankly the only kind of player I want to surround myself with these days. I’m too old to kick it with the newbies trying to prove something.

“Not much, man … just trying to hit all of the amazing restaurants that have popped up since I left. And I’m working with Wish Upon a Star, they paired me up with the Gunter family, you might have seen Ryan on the sidelines at last week’s game?”

“Oh, yeah, awesome kid. So sad, though, man … why does life have to be such a cold bitch? And speaking of cold, but sexy as hell, bitches, that’s why Demi Rosen was down on the field on Sunday.” He nodded as he bent over to touch his toes, stretching his hamstrings.

“You know Demi?” I try not to look too eager.

Anthony walks up as Connor continues. “Man, everyone knows Demi. The finest lady in the entire city of Charlotte, and she’s locked up tighter than a clam protecting its prized pearl.”

“What does that mean?” I stretch an arm over my head.

“What’re we talking about?” Anthony shakes my hand and nods at Connor.

“Demi … Shaw here just met her for the first time while taking on a wish kid.”

Anthony begins to unpack his bag on the grass; a few weights, some resistance bands, stopwatch and mats. “Oh, she’s great, really does a wonderful job for those families. And my wife is just crazy about her. But yeah … she is kind of cold to newcomers. If you’re thinking what every other guy in the locker room usually considers when it comes to Demi, I’d drop that idea now. According to Lucy, she doesn’t date.”

Hmm, so she was single. But apparently, liked to stay that way. Is it wrong that I get just a little excited that the flowers in her office weren’t from another man?

“Damn shame too, that girl is wife material.” Connor shakes his head.

Once we’re done stretching, Anthony details the circuit training we’re going to be doing, each round of reps broken up by two minutes of full-out suicide sprints in this grass. We start, the workout surprisingly intense for being done in a sunny park. It’s nice to get out of the weight room, I rarely do workouts like this nowadays.

Around the third time I cut and turn to sprint and touch the line during suicide drills, a sharp pain rockets through my knee.

“Fuck!” I let up, hopping up and down as one does when pain radiates through your leg.

“You okay?” Anthony rushes over, his whistle still in hand. I think he’s a strength coach and trainer because he loves it, but I also think he secretly loves to be a slave driver.

Connor stops too, and I hate the sympathetic looks they’re both giving me. I stand there, shaking off my knee and trying to put pressure on it. It feels okay, not like anything popped, but I’m cautious.

“Yeah, just a little sore. My old bones aren’t what they used to be.” Except that it’s not just sore.

If I’m being truthful with myself, this is probably my last season. I’ve denied it for as long as I can … but dammit, I can’t even run a couple of sprint drills. With two rings already in the safe in my house, I was hoping to add a third before I was put out to pasture and retirement. It has to happen this season, or I don’t think I’ll be able to stand up on that winner’s podium ever again.

“Take it easy, Shaw, I don’t need you tearing something else on my watch.” Anthony’s gaze is suspicious, and he probably knows I’m downplaying the pain.

I nod, promising to do so. But all three of us know it’s now or never, and I’m sacrificing my body in whatever ways necessary to add that final victory to my personal record sheet.

* * *

One of the best things about the place that Cheetah’s management set me up with is the rooftop deck.

Most guys in my profession are happy at a loud sports bar, on the golf course, or partying in some VIP nightclub. But me? I’m a “sit and watch the stars” kind of guy if there ever was one. Growing up in the small wharf town my parents settled in in Rhode Island, my brother and I established a routine from an early age.

Almost every night after dinner, we’d take our lawn chairs and set them up on the dock behind our house, the water occupying the small inlet of the Atlantic Ocean we lived on lapping at the tiny beach of our property. We’d sit there, as kids drink apple juice, and shoot the shit as the stars lit up the sky. Over the years, friends were added, and when high school and college hit, so was alcohol. But after everyone left, and it was just me and him or another few close friends, we’d sit on those lawn chairs and talk about life.

Sitting up on the roof deck of my apartment now, watching the stars twinkle as I sip from a bottle of beer, only reminds me of one thing.

My parents at home on the shores of Rhode Island.

I hope that they’re doing the same thing right now, sitting up there among the stars. I hope they’re not in pain. That they are hand in hand looking down on me as I stare up thinking about them.

Five years ago, their lives were taken way too early by the same sea that we sat by as kids. They shouldn’t have gone out that day, the weather report had been spotty at best. But Mom was feeling like an afternoon sailboat ride, and Dad never could say no to her.

When the coast guard found their boat, they told us that our parents didn’t stand a chance against the storm. The waves were too great, and even though my father had been an expert boatsman, there was nothing he could have done.

Having to identify your parent’s bodies … that was a nightmare you never got out of your head.

Their deaths changed me as a person. Where I was once social, I tended to stick to small groups or simply be alone nowadays. Partying and women held no interest for me anymore, and it had been a long while since I’d taken a female to bed. I kicked myself every day for not giving my parents what they wanted most; me, settled and happy with a family. Hell, how they had wanted a grandchild to dote over.

When the sea had taken my parents, it had also taken my ego. A little bit of my spark. It made me realize, even if I’d had a great relationship with my mother and father, just how important spending time with family was. All of the other stuff was just minutiae. It meant nothing if you didn’t have people in your life that you loved.

And so, as I gaze up at the many galaxies, the noises of Charlotte after dark down below me on the street, I can’t help but regret not finding the time to fill my life with more people I loved.