First Step Forward

by Liora Blake

  I pointlessly slap a hand over my already closed eyes. “Don’t you dare. You know what that does to me. This isn’t easy for me, just for the record.”

  “Doesn’t have to be hard.” My hand drops, eyes fluttering open at the low, gravelly tone of his voice. He sticks his tongue out to brush his upper lip. “Or, it can be hard. Just a couple of tugs and I’ll be there. You pick.”

  “How can you even consider sex right now? With your knee?”

  He takes one long pull and shrugs. “Because you’re here. I missed you so fucking much. Plus, Hunt stuck a syringe full of good shit into my knee before we left so I don’t currently feel like someone just jabbed an ice pick into my leg.”

  I actually debate the merits of what he just said. Technically, I consider it for as long as it takes him to make another unhurried pass over his shaft. This debate of mine continues right up until he shifts his weight and winces.

  I sigh. “Do you need help getting in? If not, I’m going to go clean up the dinner dishes.”

  He nods. “Yes. I need help. You get in first.”

  Turning on my heel, I make a getaway while I still can.

  “Nice try. Holler if you start to feel unsafe. But you’d better be near drowning when I get in here.”

  He soaks for a while, long enough for me to finish tidying up the kitchen. I find a few pillar candles stashed in a kitchen drawer and decide to bring them into the bedroom with me, thinking a little soft light can’t hurt toward setting a soothing environment.

  When I rifle through his dresser drawers in search of a shirt to sleep in, I find a few of his old practice jerseys, all obviously retired, since some are from his college days. The college ones are especially broken-in and soft, so I slip one on and snuggle down into his sheets. Cooper’s bed, the hub of vice and sin. Oh, how I’ve missed you.

  From the bathroom, I hear the tub start to drain, along with a few groans from Cooper, a little too pained-sounding to be as erotic as I’d prefer. A particularly loud curse gets all of my attention. I crane my ear toward the bathroom.

  “You need help?”

  “No.” He curses again. “Not unless you want to come in here and really make me feel better. The hard way.”

  Cooper hop-walks his way out of the bathroom and makes it to the edge of the bed before looking at me. He tilts his head and grits his teeth.

  “Do you think it’s funny to torture me? Because I don’t. It’s cruel. I’ve never thought of you as cruel.”

  I shake my head, confused. “Huh?”

  His chin juts out toward me. I look down and realize what the problem is. The jersey. Too bad; it serves him right for doing the penis-fondling thing in front of me.

  “You like? I needed something to sleep in. This one is particularly soft.” I draw one hand down the front to emphasize my point, leisurely enough to inspire a sharp grunt from him.

  “I hate it. In fact, take it off.” He drops onto the bed, working to shimmy himself back toward the headboard. “But, go stand down there, at the end of the bed—in all this goddam candlelight—while you do it. And I want you to rub on your tits through the fabric a little before you strip it off. Maybe bite your lip, too. Like some cliché jersey chaser, but one I actually want to fuck.”

  With an eye roll, I pull back the covers on the bed and he shuffles in, adjusting a few pillows behind his back. One of his arms flops out, hand flexing to encourage me into that spot. I curl onto my side and put my head on his chest, but we don’t say anything for a bit. Instead our hands trace across each other’s skin, mine on his torso, one of his up under the jersey and against my lower back.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Cooper says.

  “Sure.”

  He takes a long inhale. “What would you say if I told you I was starting to think about retiring?”

  My entire body turns rigid, because this question feels like the verbal equivalent of quicksand. Say the wrong thing and I might very well end up with a relationship that suffocates under the weight of that choice. Kendra’s caution about what it means to choose him echoes in my mind and I try to pick my words wisely, even when all I want to do is bake him a retirement cake.

  “I’d say this isn’t a good day for you to ask me that.”

  He tilts his head down, chin bumping the top of my head. “Why?”

  “Because seeing you out there today, hurt and not moving, not knowing if you were OK? I hated it. I couldn’t see straight or think straight. So if I answered that question right now, it would be based on never wanting to see you that way again.”

  Cooper kisses the crown of my head. “Is it wrong that I love how much it got to you? Like, how good it feels knowing you were worried?”

  “Yes.” I flick his chest with my fingers. “It’s wrong and twisted.”

  The room goes quiet again. The candles are scented, but with something guy-friendly, so the air is heavy with spice and musk. Cooper takes a long inhale and the sound seems to mean he wants to talk, so I move to sit in front of him, cross-legged.

  “This”—he points to his knee, already swollen up to the size of a grapefruit with an ugly bruise darkening the area—“could be it for my career.”

  I nod. “I guessed as much.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of Smash.”

  His brow furrows. “Because I smashed my knee?”

  “No. Because of Smash. On Friday Night Lights.” Cooper crooks a questioning eyebrow.

  “I wanted to learn more about football. My original plan was to watch documentaries, but the kid at the old-school video store in town insisted I watch Friday Night Lights. When Smash hurt his knee, he was all worried about his scholarships because he was convinced he couldn’t play again, at least not the way he did, that he would be too slow to compete.”

  Cooper stares at me for a moment, a near blank expression on his face. Great. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned the whole binge-watching Friday Night Lights thing. I avert my eyes, taking a good, long look at the ceiling.

  “I know it’s a television show, but I figured that part might be pretty accurate.”

  Nothing. Just more of Cooper staring. Then he shakes his head slowly and pats the spot next to him. “Come here.”

  I crawl back to that spot and curl up under his arm. Cooper drops his head so that his lips are pressed to my hair. His next words are laced with equal parts fatigue and awe.

  “I can’t believe you did that. Went through all that just to understand what I do.”

  Shrugging, I drop my head to the space where his shoulder meets his chest. “Not a burden really—it’s a good show.”

  “Yeah? I’ve never seen it.”

  “Two words, Cooper: Tim Riggins.”

  “Based on how you just said that, I’m guessing I already hate this little fucker Tim Riggins.”

  I bite a little spot on his chest and then kiss it. “So, if you retired, what would you do?”

  A dark chuckle from him. “That’s the problem. I’ve never thought about it. Always figured that if I didn’t think about leaving the game, it would keep me hungry. But if I’m slow or one bad play away from IR every week, I don’t want that. I won’t be that guy, the one who they have to push out of the game kicking and crying. I want to leave on my own terms. And I could, you know?”

  I give him an encouraging sound. He takes it. “I’ve done everything I set out to do. Broken a few records, gotten a ring, been to the Pro Bowl. But what the fuck am I going to do, buy a car dealership? Be a motivational speaker? I don’t think so.”

  “What about coaching?”

  He snorts. “I’d be the worst coach ever. I’m like Belichick but worse, and probably not a brilliant enough strategist to make up for being a prick. And, coaches have to talk to the media all the time. Me and Bodie Carmichael, on a regular basis? Couldn’t do it. What does that leave me with? Who the hell am I without this?”

  I want to tell him I get it, how much I understand the panic that comes with staring down
the barrel of a new reality, one you didn’t want, and not knowing who you’ll be on the other side. But Cooper’s done nothing to deserve this. Fate and bad luck and the fallible human body are to blame. He’s done nothing but work incredibly hard and as much as it might tear me up, I’d give anything for him to be able to play as long as he wants to.

  Gingerly, I straddle his lap. He tucks a few pieces of my hair behind my ear.

  “I don’t have an answer for you, Cooper. Here’s what I do know, though. You’ll be the best whatever, no matter what you decide.”

  I poke him in the chest with my index finger, right over his heart. “There’s too much good stuff in here for you to be anything less than that. Sell widgets or thingamajigs. Work the concession stand at Hotchkiss High. Hell, if you became an apple farmer, you’d outpace me before I knew what to do. Doesn’t matter. All the traits you brought to this career, you’ll bring to the next.”

  His eyes go soft, tender to the point where I can see all the fear buried in there. He leans forward and presses his forehead to mine.

  “What if I just decide to be in love with you for a living? You think I could be the best at that?”

  I take a labored swallow. “Too easy. You’re already the best at that. Challenge yourself, Lowry.”

   24

  (Whitney)

  “I’m not sure if waking up to you all crazy-eyed and smiling at the ceiling is a good thing or not. You look a little bit nuts.” Cooper’s sleepy eyes warily assess mine. “You OK?”

  I nod and continue gawking at nothing with a goofy smile on my face. Spending this past week at Cooper’s place while he nurses his ACL injury has been a different—but not entirely unpleasant—experience. One of the upsides? Instead of sneaking out of the sheets for a workout before I wake, he stays put. Today, on my last day in town, I end up grinning at the ceiling as soon as my eyes drift open, savoring the feel of his big arm and bum leg draped across my body.

  One of Cooper’s hands sneaks up under my sleep shirt, coming to rest against my belly. “It sucks that you’re leaving today. I had a plan for us and we didn’t get to do any of it.”

  “You had a plan? Just one? Seems odd.”

  Cooper’s hands are big enough that he can easily pinch the flesh on the underside of my breast as a reprimand. Hard enough that I let out a little squeal, but not so much that my nipples don’t also somehow appreciate his brand of punishment.

  “You’re hilarious.” His fingertips skim the spot he just pinched, soothing the sting into another kind of ache. “I just had a bunch of ideas in my head about how it was going to be while you were here. The first time you came to visit, it was new; we didn’t know what this was. This time we could have done a bunch of boyfriend-girlfriend stuff. Instead, I ended up dragging you to my orthopedic consults. Wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  By tagging along on Cooper’s appointments, I learned that (a) Friday Night Lights isn’t too far off base with their story lines, and (b) the inside of the human knee is a terribly complex world, far more than I would have guessed.

  Cooper’s previous MCL injury, along with the hamstring strain he’s been nursing for weeks, merely set the stage for this new tear. Add in what he already asks of his body as a receiver—years of taking off downfield like a cannon-fired shot, launching sideways to elude tackles, and landing on unforgiving AstroTurf under the crushing weight of a linebacker—means those knees of his are taking the brunt. Even I could plainly see the brutal evidence of those demands on the MRIs the doctor showed us. Cooper is essentially a thirty-two-year-old guy with the knees of a decrepit, osteoarthritis-ridden senior citizen.

  Given all of that, he has big decisions to make. Surgery will mean he’s out next season. If he takes a wait-and-see approach, focusing on rehab, it may not work. Which means he’ll still need surgery, and the delay could leave him sidelined for yet another season. Two seasons in football are like dog years. He’ll be thirty-four, which is elderly by football standards.

  Cooper curls his body closer to mine, moving his leg so he can trace his hand lower on my belly.

  “Do you want to know what my plan was?” A kiss lands on my neck. “All the ways I intended to make this trip worth your while?”

  I grin at the ceiling again. “Sure. Lay it on me.”

  Cooper traces his lips against my jaw, then dips his face, kissing along my clavicle.

  “First, you would have gotten here in time for me to see you before the game. Early enough for me to have you before I had to get to the stadium. At least once, just to take the edge off. That way I’d know you were in the stands, properly fucked and satisfied, while I took the field loose and ready. We would have won the game—”

  “You did win,” I interject.

  He sighs and drops his head to rest on my chest. I slip my fingers into his hair, stroking my nails gently against his scalp.

  “I know, but I wanted you to see me at my best, not limping out on crutches.”

  “I saw you mountain-goat-slash-Spider-Man your way into the end zone. All those women in the suite thought I was certifiable, the way I was cheering. Me and my foam finger.”

  He lifts his head and looks me in the eye. “Yeah? You were cheering for me?”

  I nod. He bites his lip for a second before letting a full smile take over. Jesus. That smile, the one that’s sometimes so hard to drag out of him, it could be the end of me someday.

  “That helps. Knowing you saw me kick some tail before this happened.” His eyes track downward. Just a quick glance at his knee, then his eyes are back on mine. “After the game, I would have taken you out to dinner, somewhere nice. I wanted to show you off a little bit. You would have worn a dress, but something different from what you usually wear.”

  “You don’t like how I dress?”

  My eyes drift closed, waiting for his answer, knowing full well that I’m not exactly a walking advertisement for female fashion, while also hoping this isn’t the moment he chooses to reveal how much he wishes I would wear ensembles with more sequins and rhinestones. Or shoes that don’t require such sturdy laces. Like, I don’t know, stilettos. Maybe he prefers his women to sport crop tops on the regular, the kind with animal patterns or fringe. If so, we’re doomed.

  “I didn’t say that. I think you look great in everything.” Cooper unbuttons my pj top, pushes the fabric aside, and gives each of my nipples a flick with the tip of his tongue. “Or nothing. But as this was my plan, it involved you wearing a hot dress that shows off your body. Especially these.”

  He takes a breast in each hand and presses them together so he can suckle the flesh of both in equal measure without leaving one unattended for too long. When he releases his hold, I realize I’ve been arching my back again—trying to get closer, the way it seems my body always does, consciously or not. I understand then how hard it will be to go home this time. What started out a few months ago as a pleasant distraction from my real life has become something more. A life that, while being just weeks out from losing my orchard, is somehow also richer than any version I’ve tried to create before. Because it includes Cooper. The wildly driven, passionate, intense man who is currently kissing his way down my body.

  “I’d bring you home and that dress would mean we’d barely make it through the door before I had it shoved up around your waist. A few glasses of wine at dinner would have you climbing me like a tree, going at it like we’d never get to again. I’d give you all of that, and more, right back. Whatever you wanted, however you needed it.”

  My panties have disappeared, along with his boxers. No clue when that happened. Perhaps I actually tapped out for a moment, due to some sort of lusty fainting spell. Regardless, I’m bare and Cooper’s rigid length is nestled against my leg, the smooth head rubbing along my outer thigh. I snake a hand between my legs, knowing what I’ll find, just to see. The space there is slick, even more so than I expected. Cooper latches his hand on to mine, splaying his larger grip over my fingers to guide my movements.r />
  “Feel good, babe?” I murmur enough of a sound to tell him it does. “Yeah? Prove it.”

  It’s a challenge and a directive, so entirely heated that my body only turns even more eager. I draw my hand away and use those same slippery fingers to grasp Cooper’s cock, circling the head, slowly. Every slip of my hand mingles my arousal with his, that bead of wetness leaking from the tip. He grunts, low and long, pumping his shaft through my grip. Once, twice, three times. Then he rolls away, coming to rest on his back.

  “The only not-shitty thing about my knee being screwed up is that I love having you on top. Crawl on up here.”

  I scramble to my knees and throw one leg over him. Despite his ACL tear being the ever-present elephant in the room, the swelling has gone down considerably. Still, I force myself to pause, ensuring his knee is in as safe a position as possible, because I’m not feeling particularly prone to restraint at the moment. Instead, it feels like I’m a few filthy words and firm strokes away from coming unchained, and this position means Cooper will end up taking the brunt of that release.

  Grasping his length again, I rub my core across the underside and lower my body until he’s pressed to his abs, with me working over his length like we’re a pair of teenagers who’ve decided to do everything but. Watching my hips move over him, the slick trail I leave behind, combined with the pressure in every spot I want it, is nearly enough. Every hitch of his breath, each groan and curse Cooper gives up, only drives the edge closer.

  I slow my pace, one pass to tease us both. Cooper’s eyes fix on the space where our bodies meet. He croaks out an encouragement, a validation, quiet enough to be nothing but a manly whisper.

  “Keep doing that, Whit. So fucking hot.”

  I lean forward and kiss him. “Any more of these boyfriend-girlfriend plans you wanted to share with me? Was there a hot air balloon involved? A carriage ride?”