Every muscle in Eli’s body was on fire, his blood pumped like oil through his veins and a man with three earrings and a neck tattoo was currently calling him a pansy bitch while he bench pressed an ungodly amount of weight.

Man, it was good to be back in training.

For the first time since the accident, Eli’s muscles were grinding and burning and screaming and not giving him inhumane flashbacks of getting dragged by the car. He’d thought about it, especially as his incision had pulled around the scar tissue a bit. But he hadn’t had those horrible flashbacks. It was just loose memories now. They weren’t in control of him anymore.

Eli couldn’t help but grin as he set the weights back on the stand and sat up.

“Good work today, Eli,” the man with the tattoos said, his voice going from gruff and aggressive back to his normal, soothing pitch.

“Thanks, Ricky.” Eli slapped him on the back. “Best physical therapist in the state, my man.”

Ricky blushed. He hadn’t been able to believe his luck when he’d been assigned Elijah Bird as his newest client. Ricky had been working with professional athletes to help them recover from injury for years now. But he’d never worked with anyone as high profile as Eli before. He was a huge, huge Elijah Bird fan. Not to mention he had a major crush on the man. Something that Ricky was sure that Eli noticed and was kind enough not to draw too much attention to.

“You’re doing great, though, really,” Ricky said. “Seriously, you’re improving really fast.” He averted his eyes as Eli whipped off his tank top and dunked his sweaty head under the spray of the sink at the edge of the physical therapy room. A physical therapist had to have boundaries. Even if his client was an Adonis.

“Yeah,” Eli said, scrubbing a clean towel over his face. “It feels good to be getting back in the game.”

“I think you’re gonna be able to start working out with your team trainers soon. Just see me every few weeks to make sure you’re not throwing everything out of whack. Or practicing bad habits or anything.”

“Yeah,” Eli’s eyes unfocused for a second and he pursed his lips. “Maybe. Even if I go back to the team, I was hoping you’d still train with me more regularly than that.”

Both Eli and Ricky paused over Eli’s wording. Was he saying that there was a chance he might not go back to the team? Ricky knew that Eli was doing well physically. It would be a hell of a month or two, but he could get back into star quarterback shape in time for the season. So he must be saying that he hadn’t decided for other reasons yet.

Eli held Ricky’s gaze, almost daring him to say something, but Ricky just shrugged. “Sure, man. It’s up to you. As long as you give me enough notice to make sure my schedule is clear for you.”

Eli nodded and smiled. It was one of the many reasons that Eli liked Ricky. He wasn’t starstruck by him. And he wouldn’t stiff other, lesser known, clients just because of Eli. Eli could respect that. And now he liked him even more for not sweating him about that slip up about the team. “Fair enough. I’m gonna run through my stretches and get out of here.”

Eli sat down and started diligently stretching every muscle in his body. Especially the ones in his stomach and ribs. Even if it made him grit his teeth. The last thing he needed was to get tight and crampy over his achy ribs.

The truth was, Eli had to admit to himself as he stretched, he owed Coach Best a phone call. Even though they’d talked last week about Eli’s health, Eli had yet to give him a decision about this coming season. Whether he was on the roster or not.

Eli couldn’t remember a time in his life when he hadn’t been sure about wanting to play football. It disconcerted him.

He didn’t bother showering off in the facility. He just wanted to get home and get cleaned up. He had a date with Tia later that afternoon and, despite the uncertainty of his future with football, Eli was in a great mood. He was juiced from his workout and going to see his girl. What could be better?

“Elijah!” a voice called as he crossed the parking lot toward his car.

Eli’s head snapped around toward his name on reflex. A flashbulb immediately went off in his eyes.

Great. He squeezed his eyes shut against the glare and pressed his hand against his car to steady himself. A member of the paparazzi. And he was pretty sure he knew which one. He blinked the bubbles out of his eyes and turned. “Hey, Sid.”

“Heya, Elijah,” the skinny, bushy haired man said. He bounced on the balls of his toes like a kid waiting in line for the bathroom. Sid Eskey had been following Eli for years. The most tenacious of all the paparazzi. And he’d caught some of Eli’s worst moments on camera. Drunken moments. With girls and parties and…god. It made a hot lick of shame singe Eli just to think about it all now. “You’re working pretty hard at that PT, huh? This mean you’re off the bench this year?”

Eli pulled his car door open and slid in. “You’ll just have to find out with the rest of the fans.”

“Come on, Elijah. I don’t get no professional courtesy?” Sid whined, but it was behind a smile as he snapped another two photos of Eli driving away.

Eli didn’t hate Sid, exactly. Even if he didn’t respect paparazzi in general. The man was snivelly, ruthless, and good at his job. Which meant that Sid Eskey was responsible for a huge amount of the gossip that got spread about Eli. But Eli knew better than to yell or rage or even act bitter toward the paparazzi. Don’t feed the sharks.

He pulled into his driveway ten minutes later and was surprised when he saw Tia’s car sitting in his driveway. He was supposed to pick her up from her house in an hour.

“Hey!” he called over the top of his car as they both slid out. “Did I get the time wrong?”

“No,” she said, her hair shining in the little bit of sun that was trying to peek through the flat gray clouds. “I just wanted to come ask you something before I got too nervous and chickened out.”

Eli cocked his head to one side and smiled. “Alright. Let’s go inside.”

He followed her in and closed the door firmly behind him, turning to her. “I want to pick you up and kiss you breathless, but I don’t want to mess up that pretty dress.” He nodded at the neat, yellow sundress she wore, and then at his own sweaty, messy body.

“Oh.” Tia peered down at her dress, a little frown on her face. And then she shocked the shit out of him by grabbing the dress in her hands and yanking it over her head. She tossed it to the side and stood in front of him in a pair of low heels and matching white silk underwear and a bra.

The air puffed out of Eli’s chest like a bellows.

Tia cocked her head to one side. “Oh, but you probably don’t want to get these messy either, huh?” She gestured to her pristine underwear. And then, standing five feet away from him in his front foyer, she slid out of her bra and stepped out of her underwear.

Eli raked a hand over his eyes and forced himself to stand in place for a second. To just look at her. Because, good lord, she was so gorgeous. Almost painfully so. Golden and peachy and curvy and soft. Her hair fell over her shoulder in a messy braid and she wore contacts again. As much as he loved all her glasses, when she wore contacts, he felt like her eyes could see right through him. He loved the thrill it gave him.

But, being just a mortal man, he had to touch her. The looking portion was going to give him a heart attack if he pushed it much longer. He was across the foyer in one giant step, making Tia laugh with surprise as he hoisted her right up.

Eli held her against him, kicking off one tennis shoe and then the other. He buried his face in her neck. “Are you sure you don’t mind the sweat?”             

“Mmm,” Tia said in lieu of a real reply, burying her own face in his shoulder. He couldn’t help but nip at her neck, her collarbones, as he carried her through the house. He was energized by the fact that his fatigue from his workout registered much more than the ache in his ribs.

The same couldn’t be said, however, for the ache he felt in other places. For Tia. She had full control over his body, like a conductor with an orchestra. Every place that she touched him was alive and begging for more, his skin like fire, his muscles heated. Her heels dug into his back where she pressed against him, her arms like vines around his neck.

He stumbled down his back hall and into his bathroom, turning the shower on with one hand and stepping them both under the stream, he with all his clothes on still.

Tia tightened against the chilly water, but laughed and took his mouth with her own. When the water warmed, and she went, at the same time, fierce and pliant against him, Eli could wait no longer.

He yanked his shorts, heavy and stubborn with water, down to his knees and plunged up and into the woman he loved.

The thought stilled him completely. And the force of his thrust stilled her as well. For a few seconds they froze there, in the dozy steam of the shower. She with her back arched, her head fallen back as she acclimated to his size, and he with his eyes slammed shut, his heart about to beat out of his chest.

He loved her. He felt that string that connected the two of them pull tight and tighter yet. This woman who’d held his life in her hands. This calm, serious woman who was soft in every place inside of her.

And when her eyes met his, clear and silver and burning right through him, Eli had the terrifying thought that he’d just rearranged his entire life. Tia was at the top now. He felt everything tumble away, down to the bottom of the pile. And there was Tia, held up in his arms.

He used his hips to pin her there, at the top of his life, where she belonged, where he needed her to be. Tia arched against him and let him take her there. And when they clenched and exploded against one another, they laughed, her with joyous relief and he with just joy.

She purred in his arms as he washed her hair with his shampoo. And he just grinned when she did his. They dried each other off and he jogged, naked, through his house to retrieve her clothes.

“What did you have to ask me? That you were scared you’d chicken out from?” he asked as he sat on the edge of his bed in his boxers, watching Tia braid her damp hair in just her underwear and bra. I love you.

The words were at the tip of his tongue but he held them back. He figured a guy was entitled to get used to the feeling on his own for a little while.

She turned to him and opened her mouth. Closed it. She stepped into her sundress and straightened it in the mirror, as if she were fastening on a little bit of armor.

“Well, I’m going to go see my parents this evening.”

“Oh, you wanted to ask if we could reschedule our date?” He tipped his head to one side, trying to get a read on her.

“No,” she shook her head and bit her lip, turning to face him completely. “Will you come with me?”

Surprise and pleasure raced through him. She wanted him to meet her folks. “Yes! Of course.” Eli sprang to his feet and dragged her into his chest, resting his cheek on her hair as he pressed her into him. And then a thought hit him. He stepped away from her and flung open his closet. “Crap. But I don’t think I have anything ‘meet the parents’ to wear.”

Tia pressed her hand over her smile. God, he was cute. All humongous and half naked and pawing through his closet to find something acceptable to wear. She leaned against the closet door and watched as he gripped at his hair, making it stand up, as he turned a slow circle, looking for something to wear.

“I think just a button-down shirt,” Tia prompted, doing her best not to laugh. “And maybe a nice pair of jeans? Or khakis, if you have them?”

“Right. Right.” He turned to a drawer and pawed through for the khakis. “You choose the shirt.”

Tia stepped into his closet and almost closed her eyes against the deliciousness of the scent in there. Exercise and fabric softener. Just the way he always smelled. She licked her lips as she turned to his shirts. “Hmm. This one.”

She pulled a navy blue button-down off the hanger and her eyes fell to his many pairs of shoes in a jumble below. “And these.”

She selected a nice pair of leather sneakers. Eli pulled on the khakis, shrugged into the shirt and stepped into the sneakers. And looked all out of sorts.

Genuinely laughing now, Tia dragged him out of the closet and sat him on the edge of the bed. She started buttoning up his shirt, straightening the collar, smoothing his hair. “You have nothing to worry about. Seriously. You would have had nothing to worry about when they were all there, healthy. They would have loved you. And now? You really have nothing to worry about.”

Eli cleared his throat. “What are they like?”

“When they were healthy? Or now?”

“Both.”

“Well, back in the day, my mom was a real firecracker. She had such a temper and was always the one disciplining me and Laura. She’s always been messy. And a great cook. She has a really loud voice and you could always hear her yelling about something from up the block. Usually about sports.”

“She’s a sports fan?”

“Yup. Huge Stingrays fan, actually.” She poked him playfully. “And she still likes to have a game on, even if she can’t follow it the way she used to. She, uh, doesn’t remember me or Laura. I think she remembers my dad sometimes. They live together in the home. So maybe that’s why. But she’s kind of in her own world.”

“And your dad?”

“He’s always been quiet. And funny. The kind of guy you want to stand next to at a party, or else you’ll miss all his jokes. He was really, really devoted to me and Laura. Never missed a game. That kind of thing. And he still floats in and out. Sometimes he remembers and sometimes he doesn’t. It’s worse when he does. Because it makes him so sad. He knows he’s missing things, but he just doesn’t know what. He always wants to know that we’re happy. We have to tell him a million times in a row before he’ll settle down.”

“God,” Eli reached out for her hands. “And they both went at the same time?”

Tia sighed. “No. My mother got a closed head injury about ten years ago, she fell off a ladder at an apple orchard. And the dementia kind of crept in, slowly but surely. We ended up having to get a nurse for her about five years ago, because her mental clarity had degraded so badly. And when she wasn’t all my dad’s responsibility anymore, when he didn’t have to hold everything together, he just sort of started to slide away.”

“Alzheimer’s?”

Tia shook her head. “We’re not sure. Most indicators are a yes, but whatever it is, he’s not all there.”

Eli took her hand and followed her outside. Tia went automatically to her own car to drive so Eli went around to the passenger side without questioning. He figured she probably had some sort of pregame ritual to get her ready for seeing her parents. He didn’t want to mess that up at all.

They were quiet on the drive over and Eli was about to ask if she was sure about him coming along when she reached over and took his hand in hers.

She led him into the nursing home and the woman behind the desk brightened immediately. “Tia! I’m so glad you’re here I—Elijah Bird? Oh my GAWD, are you Elijah Bird?”

The woman behind the desk sprang to her feet, her dyed red hair bouncing on her shoulders as she straightened her wire rim glasses. “It really is you! Oh my gawd.”

Eli grinned and stepped toward her, mostly so she’d stop screaming in the quiet front hallway of the nursing home. He held his hand out to her for a shake and she blinked at it. Bringing her own hand up to shake his in a quiet, reverent way.

“Nice to meet you,” he squinted at the name tag on her shirt. “Valerie.”

“Are they in the room?” Tia asked, interrupting the moment.

Valerie jumped, blushed and glanced at the clock on the wall behind her. “Um. Yes. They’ve all just finished their early dinner and they should be back in their rooms by now.”

“Thanks, Val. We’ll catch you on the way out,” Tia said, tugging Eli along behind her.

“Do they all do things on the same schedule here?” Eli asked, thinking privately that eating dinner at 4:30 and then retiring to your room seemed like hell.

Tia shrugged. “Usually. It helps for people like my parents to have a steady, expected schedule. Your body gets used to it and then you can trust it to tell you what’s next. Hungry? Probably time to eat. Tired? Time to rest. That kind of thing.”

It made sense to him. But this place was kind of giving Eli the creeps. He could vaguely smell that hospital scent he hated so much and the walls were all this falsely cheery yellow.

Tia stopped in front of a door marked Roger and Darlene Camellia. She gave his hand a squeeze and pushed open the door.

“Tia!” A young man in scrubs rose from where he’d been placing a set of shoes in a little cubby. The young man was baby faced with black hair and a crooked nose. Eli instantly recognized the look on the kid’s face. It was the same one that Eli himself wore every time he looked at Tia. Huh.

“Hey, Michael,” Tia said, stepping forward to give him a quick hug. “This is my boyfriend, Eli.”

Michael straightened up as his eyes frosted significantly. He swept his gaze over Eli and then froze, obviously recognizing him. Eli saw the first signs of a mega fan start to reveal themselves. The wide eyes, the open mouth. But then the kid’s eyes went back to Tia. And then back to Eli. His expression was stuck somewhere between wishing Eli was dead and wanting to fall at his feet in worship.

Eli decided on giving him a polite smile and then turning his attention to Tia. He swept his eyes around the rooms they’d just entered and was relieved to feel nothing of a hospital feel in here. There were wide windows that looked out onto a park and paintings on the deep green walls. Pictures hung here and there. They were in a sort of foyer area. Beyond it, Eli could see easy chairs and a television. And on his other side he could see a bedroom.

There were flowers in vases scattered around the place and a few bookshelves. Knickknacks warmed the space as well. Eli could tell that Laura and Tia had gone to great pains to make this place as homey as possible for their parents. His heart warmed to the woman in front of him even more.

He stepped up behind Tia and stroked a hand over her shoulder, ignoring the fire that was exploding out of Michael’s eyes.

“How are they today?” Tia asked.

Michael’s eyes lost their vengeful hell fire as he turned them onto Tia. “Good. It’s been a good day. I’ve got ESPN on for your mom and your dad’s been talking a bit, memories, that kind of thing.”             

“Is he coherent at all?”

“Ah. No, not really. But the things he’s talking about might make more sense to you than they do to me.”

“Okay. Well, we’re gonna be with them for about an hour, if you wanna take a break.”

Michael’s eyes slid between Eli and Tia again as he nodded his head. “Sure.”

“Nice to meet you,” Eli said as the kid slid out the front door. He didn’t hear anything in response.

“That was rude.” Tia’s eyebrows furrowed. “How weird. He’s usually so warm and friendly.”

“Trust me. It’s not that weird.” She looked up at him in confusion and Eli traced a hand down her braid. “I’ll explain later. Let’s go see your parents.”

It was always a shock to Tia. Even after the decade they’d slowly deteriorated and the few years that they’d really gone downhill, sometimes she still expected to walk into the room and have her father look up and say, “Hey there, ladybug!”

Just like he used to.

But of course, Tia stepped into the room to see her mother, salt and pepper hair in a ponytail and a baggy sweater over her jeans, leaning toward the television, watching the sports highlights of yesterday.

Her father sat quietly at a window, looking for all the world exactly the same. His hair was combed back and he wore a Harvard sweatshirt. He looked up when they came in. And there it was. The blank non-recognition in his eyes.

“Hi Dad. Mom.” Tia fought through the blinding sadness. She walked to each, holding her hands out in a double hand squeeze. She and Laura had learned the hard way that running up to them with your arms out for a hug was a good way to have a hysterical patient on your hands.

Her father looked up when she greeted him. He squinted his eyes and almost rose up, like he wanted to embrace her. But then he looked back at Eli, his eyes blurred, and he sat back down.

“Dad, this is my boyfriend, Eli. Eli, this is Roger Camellia.” Tia took Eli’s hand in hers and his chest squeezed when he felt the slight tremor of sadness run through her.             

“Mr. Camellia,” Eli said as he held his hand out to shake. Roger looked blankly at it.

“Elijah Bird,” Darlene’s voice rang out clear as a bell from the other side of the room.

Eli and Tia turned and were surprised to see that she’d turned away from the television and was looking at Eli with a shrewd, cunning look in her eye. She crossed her arms and rose.

“Three years ago you had 35 touchdowns, only ten interceptions, two of which came on drops.” She cocked her head to one side as Tia’s mouth dropped open and Eli started to grin. “You’ve got a big arm. And they say you’re a deep ball thrower at heart but your fifteen-yard out route is the best in the league. Or at least it was, when you could manage to keep your ass off of Injured Reserve.”

Tia stiffened but Eli’s grin could have split the sun. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

“Hi, Mom.”

Darlene blinked at Tia. “Hi.”

Her eyes weren’t clear, but she wasn’t belligerent or distraught either. She turned back to Eli. “Take a seat, Elijah Bird. I don’t suppose a high and mighty football player would know anything about tennis.”

Eli pulled up an armchair beside Darlene and leaned forward to the tennis match she’d just flipped to on ESPN2. “I know that Serena Williams is the best athlete in the world right now.” He turned and grinned at Tia. “And that she’s almost as fun to watch as me.”

Tia stood a few feet back and watched in stunned silence while Eli and Darlene talked sports.

“What are you doing here?” Roger’s voice asked, so quietly, from behind Tia.

Tia ignored the slicing pain at her father’s resigned confusion. “I came to visit you, Dad.”

“Oh.” His eyes went back out the window and he watched the trees buffet in the breeze.

Tia smiled gently at the quiet chatting of Eli and her mother. She turned to one of the large bookshelves and perused. She didn’t want something that would tug her into another world, that’s not why she visited here. She needed something she could rest her eyes on while she sat next to her father. So he didn’t feel pressure to chat with her if he wasn’t up for it. She trailed her fingers along the shelves and pulled a big coffee table book of photography down.

Her heart squeezed at the sight of it. It had sat in her childhood living room for as long as she could remember. It was such a prop from her childhood that Tia had never quite looked at it with an adult’s eye. She opened it now. It was portraits from around the world. Incredible photographs by a famous photographer. Each picture was astounding. Had she ever really looked in this book before? Each subject was captured in a moment, seemed to be flung between two emotions at once. The photographer took each photo at the perfect second when the subject felt more than one thing.

She sat at the small table beside her father and started leafing through, each picture as clear and heart rending as the last.

Her father leaned over the book next to her. “I always liked that one.”

Tia’s head snapped up at the clear tone and sound of her father’s voice. He wasn’t confused, for the moment. Her heart softened at the look on his face. Thoughtful, serious, awed by the beauty of the photograph before him.

She dropped her eyes to the image he was talking about and smiled through tears that pricked at her eyes. The photo was of an old woman in a straw hat, smiling back over her shoulder, a curl of dry dust rolled over shoulder, and Tia could almost feel the hot sun at the woman’s back.

Her father absently turned the page of the coffee table book and then another. Tia gasped as he turned to one that took up two pages. It was of a young man, maybe 17, holding a baseball bat out to the side as he grinned at the camera, a look of triumph and exhaustion on his face. The image was visually stunning, rich sepia tones and harsh detail, but that wasn’t what had Tia gasping.

“Dad, this is you! That’s a picture of you!” She would have recognized that face anywhere. Not only was it almost an exact replica of her own, her father just had one of those faces that hadn’t changed all that much over the years. Aged, sure, but changed? Not at all.

Tia looked back and forth at the image, amazed that her father had been hidden in the pages of the coffee table book all those years and she’d never known.

Roger grinned at the image. “Yup. That was at a neighborhood game, back home. We played on a lot out back all summer long. The photographer was passing through. None of us knew he was famous. Or about to be.” Roger smiled, his eyes dimmed and looking into the past. Tia could feel Eli’s eyes on her face from across the room but she didn’t look up, didn’t dare break the spell of her father’s memory. “I was the catcher. I’d just gotten Sunny Rosenfeld out at home. And for some reason I picked up the bat and just spun around. The photographer caught it. It was years before I realized the image was anything special.”

“Did you ever see the photographer again?”

“Yes, after your mother and I got married, we went to an exhibition in New York. I introduced myself. Your mother took a polaroid of the two of us.”

Tia’s mind raced, raced because she was so excited to be having a conversation with her father and racing because she knew it was only a matter of minutes or seconds before he faded away again. “That framed polaroid that used to be in your old office? Of you and a man with your arms around each other’s shoulders?”

Roger scrubbed a hand over his brow. “Old office? Ah…hmm.” He blinked around at the room. “What are you talking about, Greta?”

Tia’s stomach pulled tight. Greta was Roger’s sister, and she did, admittedly, look a lot like Tia. But still, even after that moment of blazing clarity and memory, he still didn’t recognize his daughter.

***

Tia was quiet as they left the retirement home and Eli completely understood. For his part, he’d been relieved at Roger and Darlene’s conditions. He’d found them easy to talk to. Confused at times, sure. But he’d heard that some people with dementia could be belligerent or despondent, either of which would have been much harder.

He had the feeling though, that the quiet confusion and resignation that emanated from her parents made Tia just as sad as if they’d been explosive.

He was beyond thrilled when she rested her head on his shoulder as they walked. She was bothered, sad, and she was leaning on him. Relying on him to comfort her. He wanted that. He really wanted that role.

So he tossed an arm around her and strolled through the large parking lot like a man on an afternoon walk through a park. “Your mom sure knows sports.”

“Yeah?” Tia smiled up at him. “I can hang with her on football, but whenever she starts talking other sports I get lost.”

“She definitely knows what she’s talking about.”

“She was making sense?”

Eli considered softening the truth, realized that it wouldn’t do anybody any good and opted for honesty. He tipped his head from side to side. “Well, she knows the mechanics down cold. But she was blurry on timelines and who was retired or still playing. But it was a good conversation. I like them.”

Tia suddenly smiled up at him with such sweetness, such a silver bright light that Eli’s heart caught dead in his throat. “Really?”

Eli sucked in a breath. “Yes, of—”

“Elijah!”

Eli stiffened and automatically turned toward the voice. A flashbulb went off in his and Tia’s face, catching their surprised expressions. He automatically shoved her behind him as they strode toward her car.

It was fucking Sid Eskey again. Twice in one day? Jesus. He must have tailed them to the nursing home. Eli was used to having his life picked over with a fine tooth comb. But this was Tia’s life. He felt a roaring protectiveness light up inside him. This was way over the line. Especially for Sid. Who was ruthless, but still one of the more human paps.

“Elijah, who’s your girl?”

“None of your business, Sid,” Eli called over the top of her car as he opened the passenger side door for Tia and helped her slide into the seat. He wanted badly to look at her face, to see how she was taking this, but he wouldn’t do that in front of Sid and his camera. He couldn’t afford having that moment stolen from him. So he just shut her door and strode around the car.

“Come on, Elijah? Don’t you have any loyalty to your old friend?” Eskey stood to make a lot of money on any exclusive pics of Eli with a new woman, depending on who he sold it to. And if they came along with a name? Triple the money.

Eli didn’t even dignify that with a response. He just slid into the driver’s seat of Tia’s car and slid the seat back to fit him. Sid stood in the window of the car and lifted the camera again.

Jesus, he was about to take a picture of them inside the car. Eli had had that kind of thing happening for a long time, but it sickened him to have it happening to Tia.

Without even buckling his seatbelt, Eli threw the car in reverse and was peeling out of the parking lot before Eskey could get another shot.

“Put your seatbelt on, Eli,” Tia’s voice was even and calm, but when he glanced over at her, he could see her face was tight with tension.

He buckled. “Tia—”

“Does that happen a lot?”

Eli paused, fumbling for words as he tried to get a bead on her. “Sure. Less lately, but I imagine interest in me is picking up again now that everyone is trying to figure out if I’ll be off Injured Reserve this season.”

Tia nodded and cleared her throat, looking out the window. “Will you?”

“Be off IR?”

She nodded again, still not looking at him.

“I’m not sure yet.”

She was quiet. And so was he.