Love To Love You (Love/Hate #3)

by Isabelle Richards

  I love how quickly she’s glossed over her insane schedule. I really need to push her to hire a new manager. Helen made sure she didn’t do this to herself. “Why do you need a rental car?”

  “I need something with a little more trunk space than my Spider, and I’m going to be into some pretty rough neighborhoods. If I take my car, there won’t be much left of it when I come out.”

  I make a T with my hands. “Time out for a second. If your car isn’t going to be safe, shouldn’t we be concerned that you’re not going to be safe? Especially if you’ll be coming and going at all hours. I’m not comfortable with this plan.”

  She smiles. “Don’t worry, I’m not going alone. I’ll be with a group of people, and I’ve arranged for someone from each location to escort us around. I have things planned so I’m going to the roughest neighborhoods during the day, and if anything happens, I’ll have my gun with me.”

  Heisman jumps on the bed and lays his head on my stomach.

  “I think you’re probably the only person who refuses to eat meat but has no problem carrying a gun,” I say.

  She shrugs. “I don’t see it as a conflict. You know how good a shot I am. I’m one hundred percent confident I could shoot to injure, not kill.”

  Ari is a ridiculously good shot. Aiden used to talk about her trying out for the US Olympic shooting team after she retired from tennis. She doesn’t go to the range anywhere nearly as much as she used to, but I can’t imagine she’s lost her skills. “Still seems weird, but it does make me feel better. Just be careful, please.”

  She gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “I always am. So will you sign for the car or not?”

  Heisman flips over. His legs sprawl out, exposing his stomach—his subtle way of asking for a scratch. “Why don’t you just take my truck?”

  Ari scratches his belly and his hind leg kicks with excitement when she gets the right spot. “What will you drive?”

  “I’ll take the Spider.”

  Snorting, she cracks up. “Oh, that’s funny.”

  I hate the way she gets about her damn cars. “What?”

  Her face falls. “Oh, you’re serious… honey, I love you, but I love my transmission too. I’d rather not put my mechanic’s kids through college by fixing it when you drop it.”

  Feeling ignored, Heisman paws me a few times. I rub behind his ears. “What are you talking about? I’m an awesome driver.”

  She winces. “Everyone says that. It’s like having a good sense of humor. Everyone thinks they’re funny, even when they most definitely are not.”

  “Bullshit. I’m a great driver.”

  She gives me a look that says, Do you really want to get into this? “You grind the gears. The way you treat your clutch is downright abusive. Plus, my pedals are so sensitive, you stall all the damn time. You’ll really embarrass yourself driving my car for a week. You just got out of the press. Can you imagine how much fun they would have when someone takes a video of you stalling a couple dozen times?”

  I tickle the spot behind her knee that makes her squirm. “I can drive your car just fine!”

  “Fine. You’re a real Mario Andretti,” she screams until I stop. “But I think I’ll get the rental anyway.” She looks at the clock, then jumps out of bed. “Crap. We’d better get moving if we’re going to get a run in before I have to leave.”

  I grab her and pull her back into bed. Kissing her neck, I say, “Maybe you should stay in bed? Get some sleep.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m going to sleep on the beach, remember?” She smacks my ass, then squirms out of my grasp and gets out of bed. “Now get up! Clock’s ticking.”

  She winks at me, then struts to the closet and gets changed. Guess we’re going running.

  *****

  She wasn’t kidding. She’s out of bed before me every morning and gets home after midnight every night. Her days are jam-packed delivering presents to foster homes or cooking meals and delivering them to impoverished families. She’s at Huckleberry House every chance she gets. She’s contacted the wives she knows with the Niners, the Raiders, the Giants, and the As, and gotten them and their kids to go to several battered women’s shelters around the Bay Area, bringing food, clothes, and gifts.

  Somehow she and Jeb managed to convince Coach to let the whole team skip morning practice on Christmas Day to deliver presents to children’s hospitals, then serve food at homeless shelters across town. When we get back to the field, we find out we’ve been scheduled for a “scrimmage” with a group of kids from a local sports organization for kids with special needs. It’s the most fun I’ve had on a football field in years. Sure, we really could have used an actual practice, but I think the spirit boost was just as effective. Coach had steam coming out of his ears when I saw him later, but I think even he had a good time.

  The thing that amazed me the most was that Ari did the whole thing under the radar. She had planned it all before the truth came out. Her only rule—no press, no social media. She didn’t want anyone to think her actions were anything but altruistic. Of course, pictures and videos start to surface, and the press eats it up. It’s nice to see her getting some love for a change.

  She spent the rest of the night with my parents, Charlie, and Spencer, while I stayed at the field until after midnight. When I get home, I find her in the guest bedroom closet, surrounded by the presents her father bought for her over the years and completely forgot about.

  I crouch next to her, careful not to step on any of the gifts. “You ready to open them?”

  She shakes her head. “Nope. Not yet. I just wanted to sit here with them. It kind of makes me feel as though he’s here with me.” She runs her fingers along one of the boxes. “One day I’ll open them, just not today.”

  I kiss the side of her head. “There’s no rush.”

  I pull her onto my lap, and we spend the next few hours talking about Aiden. We haven’t talked about him in a long time, and I think we both need it.

  She’s gone when I wake up the next morning. During her visits to the shelters over the past few days, she realized the things she brought barely made a dent in how much they need. She and a few of the other players’ wives are hitting the day-after-Christmas sales, hoping to pick up clothes and coats and shoes, then they’ll deliver them to the shelters most in need.

  At eleven at night, I get a text promising she’s making her last delivery and will be home within the hour. Exhausted, I go to bed with my playbook, figuring I’ll go over plays until she comes home.

  I must have fallen asleep reading, because I roll over and my stomach is pinched by the three-ring binder rings.

  “What the fuck!” I shout as I jump out of bed, throwing the binder across the room. As my brain catches up, I realize what happened, then I look over to see if I woke Ari. She’s not there. I look over my shoulder at the clock. Two thirty in the morning. Can she really not be back yet?

  I pull on some pants and go looking for her. Each step on the cold marble wakes me up a little more and leaves me questioning if I’ll ever get a full night’s sleep again. I search the house for her. When I get into the basement, I see the light on in the film room, and the TV is blaring. Ari’s on the sofa, surrounded by a pile of balled-up tissues, blowing her nose.

  Is she sick? She didn’t seem sick when I talked to her earlier, but with all the places she’s been in the last week, she totally could have picked something up. I hope she’s not sick. That would totally suck. Plus this is the worst time for me to get sick. Please don’t let her be sick. Please don’t let her be sick.

  She pulls the tissue away, and I can instantly tell she’s not sick. She’s crying.

  “Ari?” I say as I sit next to her, careful not to sit on her piles of tissues. I love her, but… there are limits. The TV is so loud, I wouldn’t be able to hear her, so I turn it off. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

  “No!” a whine at the highest pitch I’ve ever heard comes out of her.

  She snatches the
remote from me and turns the TV back on. I think it’s possible she may have blown out my ear drum.

  “I need to find out what happens,” she says between sobs.

  “What happens to what? The movie?” I look at the screen, and the show doesn’t look remotely familiar. She’s not much of a TV person, unless it’s sports—just one of the many reasons this is so bizarre. “What are you watching?”

  “Puppy Love for Christmas.”

  I do a double take when I see what channel it’s on. “The Stationery Channel? What the hell is that? Like the card store? What the hell are you watching?”

  She’s crying so hard, it’s hard for her to get words out, but she points at the screen and talks over her heaves. “There’s a girl… and that guy, and they meet… and he moves away and then moves back, but she doesn’t know.” She grips my hand. “But then on Christmas, he brings her a puppy, and it’s just like the one her dad gave her when she was a little girl…” She’s crying too hard for me to understand her.

  Heisman jumps on the couch and licks her face, which makes her cry even harder. Oh man, I’m in foreign territory here. Ari doesn’t typically watch chick flicks. When my sister made us watch The Notebook, I got misty-eyed, but nothing from Ari. Not even a sniffle. I have no experience with this whatsoever.

  If she were Charlie, I’d hit her over the head with a pillow, then tell her to suck it up and quit being such a girl, but I don’t think that would go over well in this situation. I debate the feasibility of sneaking out and calling Charlie for advice, then I realize I just need to man up. If Spencer can do this, so can I.

  “Ari, it’s two in the morning. Why don’t we record it and you can come to bed? You can watch it in the morning.”

  She wipes her nose. “I hate these movies. It’s poorly written drivel and the acting is atrocious and the plot is ridiculously far-fetched, but I can’t stop watching… or crying.” She wipes her nose and looks at me. “What’s wrong with me?”

  I look in her eyes, and I can see it. She’s just exhausted. She’s been through the wringer for the past few months and hasn’t missed a beat, hasn’t faltered once. Now that things are finally over, I think it’s catching up to her. Add in the holidays without Aiden, and I should have seen this coming.

  “Nothing’s wrong with you.” I put my arm around her. “You’re just running on fumes. You’ve been so busy taking care of everyone else, you’ve forgotten to take care of yourself.”

  She wipes her face on my shirt. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”

  “Of course you’re not crazy. Just a little tired maybe. Can we go back to bed?”

  She sniffles. “After the movie.”

  She cries quietly on my shoulder while we watch the rest of the movie. I know I’m tired, sore, and a little cranky, but I’ve got to say, drivel was being generous. This may be the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

  As soon as the girl, the guy, and the dog start drinking cocoa with Santa by the fireplace, the credits roll, and the announcer mentions the sequel—Puppy Love for Christmas and a Kitten Too—is coming up next. I snatch the remote and change the channel to one of the sports networks.

  “Oh,” she says, sounding relieved. “Boxing. This is supposed to be a great fight.” She looks up at me. “You always know what I need.”

  She puts her arms around me and chats about the bout as though everything is fine. I kiss the top of her head, and we watch boxing until we both fall back asleep.

  I wake up a few hours later and carry her to bed. I quietly get ready to leave, and thankfully she’s still asleep when I sneak out. Thank God we’re going away tomorrow. She needs a break. I text my sister on the way out the door.

  Chase: Do me a solid. Check in on Ari today. Make sure she puts saving the world on hold and gets some rest before the game.

  Charlie: You got it. Good luck tonight!

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Arianna

  People will never cease to surprise me. It’s Monday night football. Last game of the season. A win for the Niners means they finish the regular season undefeated, something that’s only happened a handful of times in NFL history. The town should have Niner-fever. But the stadium is half full at best. Jeb and I debate the litany of possibilities. Maybe the tickets we sent out got lost in the mail. Maybe amid all the Christmas cards and holiday packages, people haven’t bothered to open the envelope from the Niners. Maybe they thought it was junk mail and tossed it.

  Whatever the reason, my prediction that the truth would bring the fans back in droves was a colossal misjudgment. My heart breaks for Chase. He’s desperate for fan support, something to validate that he’s not killing himself week after week just for the paycheck. Something to prove that somebody gives a damn, because if they don’t, then what’s the point?

  I can only hope playing to a half-empty stadium is better than playing in front of seventy-thousand booing fans.

  The fans who decided to show up sure get their money’s worth. The low attendance has made Jeb so bitter, he decides at the last minute to give free all-you-can-eat frankfurters to everyone in the stadium during the first quarter. It wreaks havoc in the concession stands because they aren’t prepared for the mad rush and have no idea how to ring up the sales. I’m sure the accountants will curse him, but at the moment, the fans love him.

  The game is intense. Carolina showed up ready for battle. They need a win to clinch the wild card. If they lose, their season’s over. It’s a physical game, each team fighting for every yard. Both defenses have brought their A-game, and neither team makes it into the end zone. The score at the half is nine to three, Niners.

  The offenses come alive in the second half. I don’t know what happened in the locker room over halftime, but Chase takes the field and dominates in the third quarter. He drives down the field twice to take the lead twenty-three to six.

  Desperate to get back in the game, Carolina goes for broke in the fourth quarter. They pull a half a dozen trick plays. Flea flicker, laterals, a reverse, and ultimately score on a fake punt with three minutes left in the half. But their luck runs out when they fail to recover the onside kick.

  Chase’s plan is to eat up the clock. With the season on the line, Carolina’s defense will try anything to force a turnover. Their desperation makes them sloppy: two off-sides, a face mask, horse collar, and a roughing-the-passer penalty. The Niners sail down the field with minimal effort. They’re on the eleven-yard line and have yet to complete a play. The downside is there’s still plenty of time on the clock for Carolina to get the ball back and score.

  If Carolina were smart, they’d just let Chase score as fast as possible, giving them the most time to work with. But they’re not. They come at the Niners hard, holding them to three yards in the first two carries of the series. On the third down, the linebacker jumps the gun and hurdles over the line of scrimmage before the ball is snapped. Chase is bent over, calling the play, when the linebacker slams into him—helmet to helmet. Chase is on his back before the ball can even be snapped.

  The second they make contact, a harrowing feeling erupts in the pit of my stomach. That’s the kind of hit that has spurred national discussion about the dangers of contact sports. The kind of hit that scares parents out of signing their kids up for football. The kind of hit people speculate leads to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurological disease that medicine is only beginning to understand.

  The moment he hits the ground, there’s a collective gasp in the owner’s box. Katie grabs Pat’s hand. Charlie digs her nails into Spencer’s arm and grabs her head with the other hand. I run to the big screen TV in the back of the box, trying to get a better view of what’s going on down on the field. With his helmet on and the poor camera angle, I can’t tell if his eyes are open. His body is completely limp, but there could be a million reasons for that. He twinged his back. He got the wind knocked out of him. Posturing for sympathy with the crowd.

  Thirty seconds go by, and Chase doesn’t move. The center
waves to the Niner sideline, and McCowan and the team doctor run onto the field.

  One minute, no movement. Not a leg twitch or an arm bend or a head turn. Nothing.

  One minute turns into two. Two turns into three. Nothing.

  As each second ticks by, the panic in the box grows exponentially. Katie screams at Chase to get up. Everyone’s prayers are almost audible as we all wait with bated breath.

  My brain is on pause, frozen in the moment of the hit, preventing my mind from wandering to all the dark places of possibility. I stare at the screen, waiting for any indication Chase is okay. I don’t move. I don’t even breathe.

  Playing any sport comes with risks. Injuries can happen any time, even when the athlete is diligent about taking care of his or her body. I came down on my knee the wrong way, and my career was over. In a split second, you can go from being at the top of your career to being on the ground. What makes football different is that when a player goes down, he could pop back up or he could never walk again.

  “Oh, thank God,” Charlie breathes.

  Then I see the slightest movement in his hand. His fist clenches, and his thumb points up.

  Katie jumps from her seat into Pat’s arms.

  Jeb puts his hand on my back. “Do you want to go down?”

  This is the sort of thing Skip Davies rails on about me. There’s probably not another player’s wife in the league who can just go onto the sidelines or walk into the locker room. I have access few people in the world have, and lots of people don’t think that’s fair. Going on the field will be like throwing gasoline on a bonfire.

  Fuck Skip Davies. Yeah, I’m Arianna Aldrich, and that comes with a few perks. I’m sick and tired of apologizing for it. If he wants to burn me—I say bring it on.

  I turn to Jeb. “Let’s go.” I turn to my family. “I’m going down. I’ll text you as soon as I know anything.”