Rough Play: A Football Romance

by Kira Ward

  She glances at me. “Yeah, well, did you see that spread in GQ he did last month?”

  I nod slowly. “That’s why you brought me here. You just want to stare at him for three hours.”

  She blushes even as she begins to shake her head in denial. “I didn’t know it was his team they’d be playing.”

  “Sure you did.”

  I laugh when her blush grows deeper and she nods. “Yeah, I did.”

  The game begins again. The Cowboys get the ball almost immediately and run it down to the five-yard line, but then fumble, and The Giants recover. Magnus Fuller and his offensive line take the field. I watch on the mega screen as he mutters the play in the huddle. They break and he bends low behind the center. They have a mic on him, so I can hear him yell out the count. Then he steps back and the ball is in his hands. He scans the field, looking for his receivers. When he spots one, he pulls back, aware of the defensive players rushing towards him. With that incredibly powerful arm of his, he shoots the ball out across the field. Just as its about to pass in front of us, one of the defenders gets a hand up, but the ball is traveling at such a high rate of speed that the tip doesn’t stop it. It simply knocks it off course.

  Right into the stands.

  More accurately, it comes barreling right at me and Amelia. I see it at the last second, not even consciously aware of what’s happening. I act on instinct as I step in front of Amelia, blocking her from what I’ve seen take place dozens of times as a child sitting on the sidelines of my dad’s practices and the occasional game. The ball is going to slam into her and it’s going to hurt like hell. But I step in the way and…

  And darkness.

  Chapter Three

  Magnus

  They stop the game while the paramedics come out to deal with the injured bystander. Fucking irritating. We’re so close to taking over this game. Just one more play and we’ll be ahead again. These Cowboys, they always lose their momentum during the second half. They might score again, might even get a touchdown. But they wouldn’t get ahead of us again. No way.

  But this…any delay can get inside our heads and change the game.

  I pace on the sidelines, ignoring everyone as I work off the nervous energy the delay causes. I can see red hair on the mega screen, can see the straps of the paramedics’ gurney as they buckle the woman in. The crowd is silent, but they begin to boo as soon as the woman and her friend are escorted from the stadium. They think I’m responsible somehow.

  Damn woman should have watched out. Everyone knows that there’s always the possibility of getting hit with a ball at a football game. It’s like going to a hockey game and not expecting a fight to break out.

  Come on, people!

  Finally, the ref blows his whistle and we’re allowed back out on the field. I throw another pass, just like the last, and this one connects with the receiver. Just like I thought, we make a touchdown and the Cowboys barely manage two more field goals before the end of the game. We win, 56-47.

  I duck into the locker room the moment we walk off the field, jumping into the shower before most of the other guys. My shoulder hurts. My trainer keeps telling me I’m pushing my luck with some of those ‘hail Mary’ type passes, but I have to do what’s necessary to win the game. Who wants a quarterback who can’t win games? This is only my fourth year in the league. It was a huge break when Eli Manning was injured in my sophomore season and I was able to step up and prove my worth. My contract comes up with the Giants at the end of the season, and I want it renewed. I believe I have another ten years in me. But if I don’t take the team to the playoffs, I might as well start shopping around for a new team now.

  I finish in the shower and dress in an Armani suit sans the tie. Team policy is that we all dress in suits before and after games. Coach doesn’t like that I refuse the tie, but it’s my one little rebellion. I’ve never be comfortable in ties. Feels like a damn noose around my neck. Comes from my old man always talking about the suits at work telling him what to do, the resentment dripping from his words. And the way he looked at me the first time I wore a suit.

  “You’re one of them now, aren’t you? One of the fucking one percenters. Think you’re too good for your old man, right?”

  So, yeah, I don’t like ties. Wouldn’t wear a suit if I thought I could get away with it.

  The press secretary for the team herds me into the press room as soon as I’m ready to go. I almost groan as I listen to the questions shouted out to me the moment my wing tips enter the room.

  “How do you feel about the woman you hit, Magnus?”

  “Have you heard that she was admitted to a local hospital?”

  “Will you go visit her, Magnus?”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m here to answer questions about the game. Nothing else.”

  A sort of uneasy silence falls over the press room. Then, slowly, the questions change.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to take the Giants to the playoffs this year?”

  Dumb question. “Of course.”

  “Do you feel as though the Cowboys are a force to be reckoned with?”

  “We easily demolished them today.”

  “Do you think the Giants will pick up your contract at the end of the year?”

  “I’m hopeful, but that’s up to management.”

  “How’s your arm, Magnus? Do you think you’ll be able to hold out a few more years with the kind of passes you threw today?”

  “Yes.” I’m purposely short, trying to get the attention off me.

  They slowly wind down, running out of questions. Then some little squirt of a guy in the front row calls out to me.

  “Do you even care that you hurt a fan today, Magnus?”

  I sigh. “There is a certain risk fans take in showing up to one of these games. That woman knew the risks.”

  “But fans are the backbone of this industry. Without the fans, there wouldn’t be stadiums like this, there wouldn’t be the salary you and your teammates pull in, and there wouldn’t be all the endorsements you enjoy. Do you ever think about that?”

  That’s enough. I turn and walk out of there, no longer interested in answering any other questions. These things are supposed to be about the game. The game is all that matters. Who cares about some stupid fan that gets hit upside the head with a football?

  Chapter Four

  Cricket

  I wake in a strange room. I lift my hand only to find an IV needle imbedded deep under the skin. And then my head begins to throb and it all comes bursting back. The game. The rocket pass Magnus Fuller threw. The darkness.

  “Cricket?”

  My dad is beside me, his hand tucked in mine. My mom stands behind him, a worried look on her pretty face as she leans over my dad’s shoulder. And Amelia, looking quite distressed, is standing behind her.

  “Hey,” I say softly, feeling the echo of pain moving through my skull as the movement sets off something bouncing through my head.

  “How are you feeling, darling?” my mom asks.

  I try to touch my head again, but my dad reaches over and presses my hand back down onto the mattress.

  “Sit still.”

  “Hurts.”

  “That happens when you get hit in the head with a football moving at nearly sixty miles an hour.”

  “Jackson,” my mom chastises.

  “Well, it was going pretty fast.”

  “I’m sorry, Cricket,” Amelia says. “If I’d known—“

  “How could you?” mom asks.

  I close my eyes. Even the light hurts.

  “The doctor says you’ll have quite a headache for a few days,” my dad informs me, “but you’ve only got a mild concussion. You should recover in a week or so.”

  That was nice to know. But it didn’t make the pain any better.

  The door opens and I peek under my eyelashes, watching as a nurse walks purposefully toward me. She checks the IV dripping into my hand, then touches my wrist to check my pulse.

>   “Hurting, aren’t you?”

  I don’t want to answer, but it doesn’t seem necessary. She pulls a vial out of a drawer and draws up some of the liquid into a syringe, injecting it into the IV line. Before she’s even done, I feel a sort of tingle make its way from my hand, up my arm, into my neck. Within five or ten minutes, the pain begins to lessen.

  That was pretty amazing stuff.

  My parents hang around, but Amelia leaves. My dad turns on the television just in time for the evening news. The sports segment begins with a video of the football slamming into the side of my head.

  “Magnus Fuller fired off a rocket pass during the Giants’ game against the Cowboys this afternoon, connecting with a fan’s head after the pass was tipped by Cowboy defensive end Tyrone Crawford. The fan was taken out of the stadium via paramedics when she failed to gain consciousness after the incident.”

  “You’re famous,” my dad says.

  I groan. “Turn it off. It’s embarrassing enough without seeing it on the news.”

  “But this is your fifteen minutes of fame. Don’t you want to enjoy it?”

  I glare at him and he reluctantly switches it off.

  I can see it now. I’ll go to class and all my boys will joke about what a thin head I have and all the girls will swoon because of my close encounter—of sorts—with Magnus Fuller.

  Just what I need.

  Chapter Five

  Magnus

  I wake early the next morning, not because I want to but because my phone is ringing incessantly. I roll over, finding myself pressed up against a pretty blond who is as naked as the day she was born. She has a great ass, but I barely remember meeting her. I came back to the hotel and—oh, yeah. She was a part of the bachelorette party going on down in the bar.

  I reach over her and grab my cell. “This better be good.”

  “It’s Frank, Magnus.”

  I groan. Frank Pierce is my agent. It’s his job to make sure I keep on the straight and narrow, especially as we prepare for contract negotiations this coming winter.

  “What did I do now?”

  “You hit some fan with a football.”

  “It’s a dangerous game, Frank. People get hurt.”

  “Yeah, well, the press is making a big deal about this. And after that little scandal last month with that woman in Boston…”

  I groan again as I climb off the bed and make my way to the bathroom.

  “I told you, that girl lied about half the shit we did.”

  “But I told you to keep your nose clean for the season. And now the press is dubbing you as this playboy who really doesn’t care about the fans. They’re saying that your over-privileged, that you think you’re above common curtesy. They’re encouraging people to turn on you.”

  I huff as I stand over the toilet, relieving myself of my full bladder. “Why should I care about this thing?”

  “Because the fans pay your salary, Magnus.”

  “No, Steve Tisch does.”

  “Where do you think Tisch gets the money he uses to pay you? Ticket sales are a big deal, Magnus. You don’t want to alienate the fans. You alienate the fans, you lose popularity, you lose your endorsements.”

  My endorsements account for more than sixty percent of my income. The idea of losing that doesn’t sit well.

  “Fine,” I mutter, flushing the toilet and wandering out into the sitting room of my suite. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m downstairs. Get dressed and we’ll go to the hospital to visit her.”

  The press is thick outside the hospital like bees swarming a hive. Frank makes me walk through the thick of it to make sure they see me and know I’m there. Some of the questions they yell out at me are worse than annoying.

  “Do you have a heart, Magnus?”

  “Why didn’t you come last night?”

  “Magnus! Are you only doing this for the publicity?”

  “Do you even know her name?”

  The moment we step into the elevator, I can feel the judgment coming off Frank in waves. So, I relent a little. “What is her name, anyway?”

  “Cricket Monahan,” Frank replies. “She’s a high school English teacher.”

  “Cricket? What kind of name is that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s southern. We are in Texas, after all.”

  I clutch the flowers Frank shoved into my hands the moment I got into his car, staring up at the numbers, wishing they would pass faster. When the door opens, Frank leads the way down a maze of corridors to a patient room tucked into the back of the floor sort of all on its own.

  “Be polite. Turn on that famous charm of yours.”

  I roll my eyes, but Frank doesn’t see because he’s already pushing his way through the door.

  “Ms. Monahan,” he says brightly, approaching the bed like the king addressing a subject. “I’m Frank Pierce, Mr. Fuller’s agent. We spoke on the phone?”

  I step through the door just enough to watch what’s going on. The girl is propped up on the hospital bed, a nasty bruise dominating one temple and down onto her cheek. She has red hair that’s more of a deep auburn than red, big, round green eyes, and pale skin that’s lightly dotted with freckles. She’s actually quite attractive, something that catches me a little by surprise. Although I shouldn’t be—The dirty press wouldn’t make such a big deal out of the whole thing if she was some frumpy, bald woman.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Pierce,” she says politely in a soft, feminine voice.

  “I apologize for disturbing you during your recovery,” Frank continues, laying it on as thick as he can. “But, as you can imagine, Magnus was anxious to come by and make sure you were alright.”

  She doesn’t even look at me. She just makes this little snorting sound. “I’m sure he was.”

  Frank glances back at me. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” He walks toward me, grabbing my arm as I move out of the way. “Be nice,” he hisses.

  I watch him go, then go to the bed, the flowers extended. “For you.”

  She seems reluctant to take them, like the fact that they come from me implies that they are tainted in some way. She finally grabs them and sets them on a side table. When she turns back to me, her expression is masked, like she doesn’t want me to know what she’s thinking.

  “I’m sorry that you got hurt,” I say as politely as I can.

  Her eyes move slowly over my face, sticking solely above my chin. Most women, when they look at me, allow their eyes to wander just about everywhere. I can always tell the ones who are truly attracted because their eyes will find something they particularly like—my biceps, my pecs, my package—and they’ll find it impossible to avert their eyes. This one, though, she only stares at my face.

  Must be a lesbian.

  “It was just an accident.”

  I incline my head. “It was. If my pass hadn’t been tipped off—“

  “You didn’t have to come. But, I suppose, you couldn’t resist the press camping outside.”

  I don’t like what she’s implying. I cross my arms over my chest, staring down at her with the most intimidating stare I can muster. “You think I only came for the press?”

  “Why else would you be here?”

  Despite the fact that she’s right, I feel offended. “You were injured. I came to make sure you were okay.”

  “Why? Do you think it’s your fault?”

  I bite my bottom lip to keep from making a rude sound. “I think football games are inherently dangerous and all fans take their safety into their own hands when they sit in the stands. Especially in the seats you occupied.”

  She smiles softly, a smile that under other circumstances might be attractive, maybe even a little seductive. But not under these circumstances. “I saw the press conference last night. You didn’t even want to address the whole thing.”

  “I was tired. Football is a demanding sport.”

  She reaches up to touch the bruise on the side of her head, her eyes sliding clo
sed for an instant. I can only imagine the pain that came with the bruise. I’d had a few concussions in my career. Not as many as some quarterbacks, but my fair share. I knew the headache that came with it.

  She focuses on me again. “I’ve never been to a football game before. That was my first. A birthday gift.”

  She’s trying to make me feel bad.

  “I was just doing my job.”

  “Yeah, a multi-million-dollar job that you milk for all its worth. The least you could do is be a little humble.”

  “Humble? What would being humble get me?” I tilt my head as I study her. “I don’t control the industry. I didn’t chose my salary. If people want to spend thousands of dollars a year to distract themselves with some senseless game, who am I to argue? All you self-righteous people who criticize athletes for giving you what you want are a bunch of fucking hypocrites! If it weren’t for you, paying for the tickets and the memorabilia, buying the products I endorse, I wouldn’t rake in the salary I do!”

  She nods, touching her temple again as she aggravates the injury with the movement. “You’re right. But you don’t have to be so conceited about it. Spitting on Cowboys players, driving up scores when it’s not necessary and talking down about other players, even your own players, like you’re some sort of god and they’re all your servants…you don’t have to act like that. That’s on you.”

  Anger burns in my chest as I stare at her. No one has talked to me like that since I left home seven years ago. It pissed me off but it also…I don’t know. It was almost a turn on that she wasn’t afraid to step up to the plate, even in her current state.

  How sick is that?

  “Listen, lady, I didn’t come here to be lectured.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “The fuck if I know!”

  She smiles that smile again, the one that seems to grab my balls and squeeze. No woman has ever had this effect on me before and its beginning to drive me toward a cliff that I’m not sure I want to fall over. I want to smack some sense into her, but I want to kiss her, too—just to see what it feels like. Those lips are so full, so soft looking, so…fuck! What’s the matter with me?