Swagger

by Liz Lincoln

  Jerry leaned forward in his chair and waved at the screen. “Jerry Wardowski, his position coach. I don’t believe we’ve met. It’s a pleasure, Dr. James.”

  Leroy made a sour face and noncommittal sound.

  Marcus swallowed a sigh. His dad could at least be polite. Jerry was a good guy and a helluva coach. Not that Dad would care.

  Dr. Zeener got up from his chair and approached Marcus. “Let’s take a look at how the incision is healing.”

  Marcus pulled up the leg of his navy blue athletic pants, revealing his bandaged and swollen knee.

  “Swelling’s gone down nicely,” Zeener observed. “How does it feel?”

  “Not too bad.” It still hurt, but as an NFL player, Marcus knew pain was part of his job. It was hard to quantify pain level on a scale that would make sense to people who didn’t abuse their bodies for a living. Something in him always hurt. “Definitely better than last week.” That, at least, the doc would understand.

  “Progress is always good.” Zeener smiled. He had a squashed-looking face and an ashy complexion, but his expression was generally pleasant. As much as Marcus hated the situation, he didn’t mind Dr. Zeener.

  “What level would you give the pain, Marcus?” Leroy asked from the computer.

  Marcus swallowed his frustration. His dad knew he hated the one-through-ten pain scale doctors used. He had an unusually high tolerance for pain. When he broke his arm in two places in high school, he’d rated his pain a three. His dad scoffed and said it was an eight. But Marcus figured seven and up should really be reserved for things like surgery without anesthesia.

  So, as he’d done since that day years ago, he exaggerated. “Probably a five.” He lived at a baseline three, which in his head reset to zero. But if he said two, his dad, and probably Dr. Zeener with him, would think he was trying to be a tough guy or was taking too many of the Oxy they gave him. He’d only taken half of one the first night so he could sleep. Since then, he’d made do with over-the-counter stuff like he always did. He hated what narcotics did to his head.

  No need to mention that for a moment earlier that day, when he’d fallen at the coffee shop, the pain had flashed to an eight. It had been over before he hit the ground. Besides, for the next few moments he’d felt better than he had in months. Touching Bree’s soft hair while looking into her pretty brown eyes had loosened something inside him.

  Too bad that moment had been over almost as quickly as the pain.

  Dr. Zeener, with heavy input from Marcus’ dad, walked Marcus through mobility exercises, the same ones they taught him after his surgery.

  So he let his mind keep wandering to Bree. She’d been adorably awkward, and damn sexy in a fresh, geeky sort of way. He’d always been a sucker for geeky girls, probably because he too was as much geek as jock, though a math and video game geek more than science.

  He liked the streaks of Dragons’ blue and gold in her dark hair, and the freckles he’d noticed sprinkled over her pink cheeks added to her overall sexiness. It wouldn’t be any hardship to have to spend some extra hours in Bree’s office getting help with his physics assignments. He’d attempted the class at USC, but ended up dropping it because he couldn’t keep up.

  He liked the pride that had flashed in her eyes when she’d mentioned getting her PhD. And he’d really liked the way their brief touches made him feel a little off balance, like she might knock him right back on his ass. The way she’d blushed when he pointed out her Dragons gear was adorable and her wearing his jersey definitely didn’t hurt his ego.

  Yeah, he could have a lot of fun getting to know Bree. A regular hot-for-the-teacher semester.

  “Marcus?”

  Reluctantly he pulled his attention back to the exam room. “Yeah.”

  “Does it hurt more when you bend it like this?” Zeener asked.

  “It feels sort of stiff, but it doesn’t hurt,” Marcus said.

  Zeener moved his leg a few more directions, torqueing his knee gently to each side and assessing the pain and range of motion. Marcus went through the exercises while the memory of his physics instructor floated in his mind. Sure beat listening to his dad bark instructions from the computer.

  Marcus hadn’t wanted his dad to weigh in as an unofficial consultant. Between Freeman and Zeener, who specialized in athletic injuries, Marcus felt more than adequately cared for. But Zeener had allowed it as a professional courtesy, and Marcus felt like he had no choice. Plus, he’d been in enough pain at the time that he hadn’t had it in him to argue.

  Now he wished he could hobble over to the desk, slam the laptop shut, and get rid of his father. It made a shitty situation even worse. He was already pissed he was missing an entire season. Dealing with his dad’s open hostility was like pouring salt and lemon juice on the wound, with a chaser of vinegar.

  After they finished testing his flexibility, Zeener put on a fresh bandage.

  “Are you able to put any weight on it?” Leroy asked. It was a straightforward enough question, but Marcus heard the judgment there. Too bad he didn’t know if he was supposed to say yes or no.

  “A little. I can shuffle maybe a step or two until it gets to be too much.” Inevitably the wrong answer. “But two days ago, even one step was unbearable.”

  “Probably another week before you can get rid of the crutches,” Dr. Freeman said.

  “Then we’ll get you started on your physical therapy. Now that the ligament’s all fixed, we gotta get you back in shape to play ball again next year,” Zeener added.

  Next year. Fuck. That was a whole year off. The first week of the season wouldn’t even be complete until after tonight’s Monday Night Football game. A whole year without suiting up and taking the field, talking trash with his opponent, the roar of the fans filling his head. A year before he again got to feel the gears clicking into place as he and quarterback Matt Baxter connected for a pass. A year before he’d experience the adrenaline shot of crossing the goal line with the ball in his hands, knowing he’d brought his team six points closer to victory.

  A year until he could return to the thing he loved most in life.

  Fuck.

  “Have you talked to your coaches at all about retirement, Marcus?”

  Double fuck. Of course his dad was going there.

  “I don’t think—”

  “That’s not really—”

  “Marcus is still—”

  Both doctors and even Jerry talked over each other, in so many words telling Leroy James he was full of shit. Which was good, because Marcus probably would have used that exact phrase if he’d been able to get a word in.

  Leroy held up his hands in a defensive stance. “I just wanted to bring it up. Make sure my son has considered all his options.”

  No, he hadn’t considered that option because as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t an option. He was still one of the best tight ends in the league. Guys came back from ACL tears every year and had multiple good seasons after. Marcus had no reason to think he’d be any different.

  “Not happening, Dad.” Marcus shifted his attention back to Zeener. “So I can start PT the week after next?” He wasn’t letting his dad have a chance to respond.

  “That’s the tentative plan,” Dr. Freeman said. “Keep doing your flexibility exercises. We want that mobility.”

  “And test the weight bearing every day,” Zeener added.

  “Do you have any questions for us, Marcus?” Freeman asked.

  All eyes turned to him. Marcus shifted on the exam table, making the paper under him rustle. Yeah, he had a question. Why wasn’t there a fancy pill he could take or an injection or procedure? Hell, he’d even take a magic spell à la Harry Potter. Why couldn’t they fix him right the fuck now? He didn’t want to be out an entire season. Football was everything to him. He didn’t have a girlfriend, he wasn’t particularly close with his family, except his sister, who lived in Houston. He didn’t even have a dog because it would be too much work when he traveled for gam
es. All his friends in Milwaukee were teammates and their families.

  Football was his entire life.

  But he swallowed his frustration. Because what could they do, other than what they were already doing? Harry Potter wasn’t real, so there was no magic spell. Just hard work, the way he’d done things his whole life.

  Besides, he’d be damned if he was going to show even a millisecond of weakness in front of his dad.

  “Nah,” he said. “Seems pretty straightforward.”

  Straightforward, yeah. And shitty.

  Chapter 2

  Bree stood at the front of the room as her class filed out of the lab. It was a good group of students. Better than any she’d had as a TA her first year of grad school, before she got put on a research grant. It probably helped that she was twenty-seven now and not twenty-two.

  She checked the time on her phone. Eleven twenty-three. Plenty of time to grab lunch before her one o’clock meeting with Dr. Bryant. Which was by far the low point of any day. She loved physics, but she was tired of it being the old white men’s club.

  Marcus James crutched up the aisle between the lab tables, looking sexier than any man should, in a blue Dragons tee. Not that she was keeping track, but he seemed to be putting less weight on his crutches and more on his injured leg than he had last week.

  “Looks like your knee’s improving,” she said as she gathered her lab notes into her folder.

  “Yeah, I should be done with the crutches this weekend.” His wide mouth curved into that grin that made her stomach do funny things. Damn, but those smile lines.

  “That’s great. Must be a relief.” She couldn’t imagine not being able to do a job she loved. The past seven months, since Anna—Bree’s original advisor—left for a job in France, had been unpleasant, working with an advisor who was at times openly hostile toward her. But she still loved physics, found her research fascinating, and couldn’t wait to move forward in her field.

  “It is. I’m itching to get started on physical therapy. Get this knee back in football shape.” He stopped at the front of the room and leaned against the lab table she used. Though the wide black slate surface stretched between them, he seemed thrillingly close.

  He’s a student, Bree. Doesn’t matter if he’s two years older than you and the sexiest man you’ve ever seen.

  “I can’t imagine not doing physics for a year,” she blurted out, then immediately regretted it. She cringed. “Sorry, that was a dumb thing to say. Sorry.”

  He chuckled, and it was a friendly sound, no bitterness, like she might have expected. “No worries. It is hard. A month ago, I couldn’t have imagined it either. I mean, I’ve been injured before, out a few games. But my longest was four weeks. By the end of it, I was ready to hurt somebody if I didn’t get back on the field. This’ll be a test, for sure.”

  Bree gave him a sympathetic look. “Is there any chance you can get back to playing this year?” She was only asking, like, 15 percent because she was a fan and Marcus helped the team win games. OK, 20 percent, tops. Mostly she was curious and concerned because he was her student. And she cared about her students.

  Yeah, right. She couldn’t name more than two others in the class. She did know there were three Jacobs and two Ashleys, but she couldn’t match names and faces yet.

  She gathered up her things and stepped back from the table, tilting her head to indicate she was heading for the door.

  “Unfortunately, no.” He gestured for her to go first, then settled his crutches under his arms.

  She absolutely wasn’t noticing how strong his hands were as he gripped the handles.

  “It will be a good six months before I’m considered fully healed. Even if we go to the Super Bowl, that puts me a few weeks short.”

  The disappointment and frustration were clear in his voice.

  “Plus, healed and back to baseline for most people to go to the gym is different than being ready to go back to playing a professional sport.” He cleared his throat. “This is gonna sound like I’m bragging, and I don’t mean to. But we’re on a whole different level, physically, than most people.”

  “No, I get it.” Of course he was. He was the best of the best of the best. With probably a few more layers of best in there.

  “It must be hard using crutches,” she said. “When you’re used to being so fast.”

  He paused and she turned to look at him. Something in the air around them shifted, like a sizzle passed between them. His mouth curled in the faintest of smiles.

  “Slow isn’t all bad.”

  The words hung between them but she couldn’t respond. Even if she knew what to say, her throat felt too tight to squeeze out words. He hadn’t said much of anything, but combined with the way his eyes held hers and the tightness in her skin, the worlds felt heavy with sexual meaning.

  “Bree!”

  Her best friend Reina’s voice from down the hall broke the tension surrounding them. Bree blinked hard and pulled herself out of her fantasy world.

  She did not just have a moment with Marcus James. Her student and an NFL star. He made a perfectly normal statement, her crush-addled mind misinterpreted it, and she’d responded like a fool.

  Yep, that’s what happened.

  Reina rolled her wheelchair down the hall toward them. She had her pink Hello Kitty wallet in her lap, so she probably wanted to go eat. Bree held up a hand to signal to Reina to wait a moment.

  Before she could think better of it, she asked Marcus, “Do you want to grab lunch? I mean, if you don’t have anywhere you need to be.” It was no big deal to invite a student to have lunch with her and another grad student. It wasn’t like she was asking him on a date or something.

  He narrowed his eyes slightly as he considered her. She was about to regret asking when he said, “Yeah. Sure, yeah, that sounds good.”

  “Great!” Her voice came out overly chipper. No reason for her to be excited or nervous. She and Reina had lunch together almost every day. And they’d had other people join them plenty of times. There was absolutely no reason having lunch with Reina and Marcus would be any different.

  No reason at all.

  *

  —

  On the way to the sandwich shop, they picked up Reina’s boyfriend, a postdoc named Tomás. He was nearly as tall as Marcus, with brown skin and shaggy black hair. Marcus wasn’t totally sure what a postdoc was, but from their chatter during the short walk from the physics building, he gathered it was the step after graduate student. Marcus had already met Reina, a petite woman with dark hair and tawny skin who used a wheelchair, when he’d dropped by the office she shared with Bree.

  Barely two weeks into the semester and he already needed help during Bree’s office hours. She’d kept their one study session very professional, having him sit across from her at her desk and not meeting his gaze. While he understood, he couldn’t help being disappointed. But maybe she simply wasn’t attracted to him the way he was to her.

  Still, she’d invited him to lunch. And no one else from his class was there. That was something.

  They got their sandwiches and found a table on the restaurant’s patio. The view wasn’t much, just the busy street and the shops on the other side. But it was sunny and warm. The kind of weather that made suffering through frigid winters worth it. Tomás moved a chair out of the way so Reina could pull up in her wheelchair. Bree, who had thankfully carried Marcus’ tray for him, set it across from her friend and took the chair between them.

  If someone told him a month ago he’d be having lunch with three physicists, he’d have laughed his ass off. He was great with numbers and equations and had been pleasantly surprised to find how much math was involved in physics, but it still wasn’t his strong suit. So hanging out with scientists was a brand-new experience for him.

  “I can’t believe I’m having lunch with an NFL player like you’re one of us,” Reina said as they dug into their food.

  In the short time he’d known her, Mar
cus had figured out she was a very direct person. He could appreciate that. “What do you mean by ‘one of us’?”

  “Like you’re a regular person.” She grinned at him.

  Tomás leaned toward her. “I think they prefer if you pretend they are regular people,” he mock-whispered.

  “Oh!” Reina’s eyes widened. “Sorry, my bad. Yes, I’m so glad we’re having lunch with one of Bree’s average, everyday nineteen-year-old students who doesn’t have a job that makes him a gazillionaire and a celebrity.”

  “I’d like to thank you guys for not making this awkward.” Bree rolled her eyes, then turned toward Marcus. “I’m sorry. I clearly have horrible taste in friends.”

  Their gazes connected, and heat flared in Marcus’ gut. Which was pretty much how he reacted every time he caught her eyes. He wanted to take her hand and hold it between his own, see if her skin was as soft as her hair had been. But even if they were alone, he couldn’t do that. He didn’t know her well enough to ask for permission to touch her. And she would likely say no anyway. Teachers weren’t supposed to hold hands with their students.

  “No worries. I have some pretty embarrassing friends myself.” He couldn’t help it. He winked at her. And when she grinned, the heat spread through his chest, making the cheesy move worth it.

  He turned to Reina. “Tomás is right, we do try to blend in with the locals. We grocery shop and brush our teeth and everything. And I’m really more of a bazillionaire.”

  All three laughed at his mediocre joke, easing some of the awkwardness around the table. He was able to relax more, knowing they felt as weird with him there as he did about being there.

  If he was lucky, he and Bree could have lunch sometime, just the two of them. Maybe it wasn’t entirely appropriate, given their student-teacher relationship, but he wanted to get to know her. The little bit he did know, he liked. She was smart, she made goofy jokes in class that made him laugh, and she had a warmth in her that drew him.

  Plus, she was damn sexy. And even if he couldn’t hook up with her, it never hurt his ego to hang out with a beautiful woman.