The Comeback Route

by Jamie Bennett

  “And for on-field employees on rehearsal days, like today,” I defended myself. “It’s in the Woodsmen Family Handbook.”

  “You read all that? Huh.” That seemed to be my dismissal, because he turned and limped the few steps to his truck.

  “Hang on. Hang on! You can’t drive, you’re going to make this worse.” I hopped ahead of him, putting myself between him and the vehicles. “Let me back the truck off. Down.” I winced.

  Davis Blake just stared at me. Maybe he was staring at me. His face was pointed toward me.

  “Fine.” He held out the keys and I put out my hand as he dropped them. “Be careful with it.”

  “You have a well-developed sense of irony,” I muttered. I could barely reach the door handle. There was a bar you could step on to get in, but it was a lucky thing I was so limber, or I wouldn’t have gotten my butt up in the truck.

  I started the engine and it roared and rumbled like a herd of elephants ran past. Music blasted out of the oversized speakers on the doors and base boomed up from the back. I covered one ear and flailed with my other hand at the buttons on the dashboard until it stopped. Then I carefully moved the seat forward so that I could drive this behemoth.

  The view was actually nice from so high. It would be easy to get through traffic. And if someone was in your way, you could just drive right over their car! Sweet Jesus. I put the truck into reverse and carefully eased back it off mine, flinching at the creaking and breaking noises I could hear over the deafening thunder of the engine. I threw it in park, turned it off, and leaped down to assess the damage.

  “Oh. My. Lord.”

  Davis Blake pursed his lips. “Let me know how much it costs to get it touched up, and I’ll pay you.”

  “Touched up? Touched up?” I was close to yelling again. “Touched up. My car is…” There were no words. “I can’t drive this, and I obviously can’t let you drive yours.”

  His mouth tightened. “I told you that I will pay for your repairs. What do you suggest we do now?”

  There were two of us, one car between us, and only one of us was fit to drive it. The answer seemed clear to me.

  Really, I didn’t know how he’d managed to get into the truck to drive himself over to the stadium. Even as big and strong as he was, he was barely able to get up into the passenger side with his hurt leg, and I found myself pushing on his butt to help him. I was pushing Davis Blake’s…no one would ever believe me. It felt like two very unripe, hard melons. Not that I was squeezing, I was only doing it to help him. Totally not perverted, at all.

  When I had hauled myself back into the driver’s seat, he was already on his phone. “I’m getting your car towed. They’ll meet you at my house with a loaner,” he said when he hung up, his words flat and expressionless. The last time I’d heard his voice was when he had been hurt on the field, but I’d listened to his interviews plenty of times. He didn’t usually sound so…empty.

  I took a breath, feeling better. Davis Blake would get my car fixed, and Lord knew it needed it even before it was pancaked. “Thank you,” I said. “Well? Are you going to say it?”

  “Why aren’t you driving?”

  I waited. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

  “Am I supposed to be saying something?” he asked, exasperated.

  “How about apologizing for wrecking my car?” I said helpfully. “And also, thanking me for not killing you.”

  “I’m sorry about your car,” he said slowly and carefully, like each word was painfully tugged out of him. “Thank you for not killing me.”

  He hit a button on his navigation system and it started directing us to his house, and we drove in silence for a few miles. Despite the fact that it had just decimated my own car, I was enjoying driving the truck. It made me feel big and powerful, like a goddess of the highway or something. I waved at a dog sticking its head out of a car window far below us. Davis Blake would get my car fixed, and this would all work out.

  “What do you do on the field so that you get to park in the players’ lot?” he asked me finally.

  “I’m Nutty.”

  “What is that supposed to mean? You’re crazy?”

  “No, I’m Nutty. Nutty the Chipmunk. You know, Nutty and Hank the Hunter?”

  “You’re that stupid animal that runs around? We all keep hoping that the hunter really shoots you.”

  I stiffened. “Lots of people like Nutty.”

  “Lots of people are idiots.”

  Well, he was sure pleasant. But I thought I understood. “Did you get bad news about your knee or something? It that what’s the matter?” I asked sympathetically.

  At first he didn’t answer. Then his voice came out angry and mean. “Are you looking to sell some information? A first-person account? I’ll give you a tip. They’ll pay more if you get a video of me limping to go along with it.”

  “No. I’m not going to sell information about you. I was just trying to be friendly.” First he wrecked my car, then he was a total pill. I closed my lips firmly.

  I took a corner a little too sharply—this truck handled a bit differently from mine, which could have fit in the back seat and ridden along with us. He made a little sound. A groan or a moan.

  “I’m sorry!” I said. “I didn’t mean to make your knee hurt. I’ll slow down and be more careful.”

  “I’m fine.” But his skin looked pale to me. He clearly wasn’t.

  “I tore my ACL,” I told him. “In high school. It got better. I mean, it was no picnic, but it did heal.” Eventually and not completely. I thought I’d leave that part out.

  Davis Blake looked out the window. “This is the second time. In the same knee.” He quickly swung his head to look at me. “The news is going to get out anyway. The team is making an announcement tonight, so you can’t use that.”

  That hurt my feelings. “I already told you, I’m not trying to get information from you. I was trying to be nice.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “Look, you’re the one who ruined my car, not the other way around. And I’m sorry you hurt your knee, but there’s no reason to take it out on a perfect stranger who’s helping you.”

  “Helping me?”

  I gestured around the cab of the truck. “I’m driving you home, aren’t I?”

  “I’m renting you a car, aren’t I?” he countered.

  “Because you demolished mine! Sweet Jesus, what is the matter with you?” I turned to look at him and then had to brake hard for a light. Our weight swung forward and he made another little noise. “Sorry. Sorry! That really wasn’t on purpose.”

  Davis Blake stared out of the window the rest of the way to his house and I focused on driving carefully so I wouldn’t hurt his knee again. And wow, his house! If his car could have given mine a ride, his house could have invited my house over to stay. In fact, his house could have hosted mine and four or five of my neighbors’ houses as well. It was right on the lake, too, and I caught a glimpse of the wide beach in the back. Probably he had a boat.

  When I turned off the car we sat in the driveway for a moment and he didn’t move. “Here we are,” I prompted him. I looked closely. His face was all tense, as if he was in pain. “Hey, are you on anything? I remember that my knee really, really hurt.”

  “No. I’m not on drugs.”

  I sighed. “I don’t mean that you’re on drugs, just something to help with the pain! And I’m not going to try to spread rumors that you’re an addict, if that’s where you were going next.” He didn’t answer and I sighed again. “Ok, never mind.” I opened the door and leaped down, then went around to his side. He was staring in the direction of the driveway below him, probably contemplating making his descent.

  “Here,” I said, patting my shoulder. “Lean on me and slide down.”

  “No.”

  “I’m really strong,” I told him, and braced my legs. He directed his mirrored lenses toward me for a moment. Then he eased down until he could reach my shoulder. He weighed a lot, bu
t I held steady. Sometimes I carried Sam around the field in his costume.

  He took a few deep breaths once he was standing on the driveway. “I thought you’d fall,” he said after a moment.

  “You thought I’d fall, and you leaned on me anyway?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he got his crutches out of the truck and started toward the house. I followed him to the front door, and he turned back toward me.

  “I guess I’ll wait here for the loaner car to come,” I said. “You really did call about that, right? You weren’t kidding or something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, you got me a car, or yes, you were kidding?”

  Davis Blake turned back to the door and unlocked it. “There’s a car coming.”

  He shut the door.

  Well. Well, well, well. I stared, open-mouthed, at the door and heard several locks click shut. Well!

  I had met plenty of the players on the Woodsmen squad. Some had been nice, some not as nice. Most of the single ones (and some of the not-single ones) had asked me out. I had never even been close to Davis Blake before, and certainly hadn’t spoken to him. He had seemed to be almost in another orbit from where I was whirling around.

  Now I was glad I hadn’t talked to him. Sweet Lord, he was a pill! He destroyed my car then made me wait outside. Fine, he was in pain, but…I thought about it. Maybe the news he had gotten from the doctors today was really, really bad. Maybe he wasn’t going to be able to play again, ever. That meant not only his job and his livelihood would be gone, but all his dreams were crushed too. Probably he had wanted to be a football player from when he was a little boy. The poor guy. Oh, now I was feeling sorry for him. And the hit that took him out and caused the injury was totally illegal, and came after the ball had been called down. The futility of it must have even made the whole situation feel worse.

  I settled down on the front step to wait for my car to arrive.

  Click. Click. Click. The locks opened, and the front door swung in. “Why are you still here?”

  I stood up from my perch on the step. My butt was asleep. “The car didn’t come yet.”

  “And you were going to wait all night?”

  I checked my phone. “It’s only been an hour.”

  Davis Blake sighed loudly. “Come inside.” He left the door open behind him as he swung on his crutches back through the dark entryway.

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