Even in high school, he was too bad, too much of a rowdy troublemaker for someone like my dad to approve of. Now that Dan is older and muscled, with a deep commanding voice, a real man, my dad approves of him even less. That’s why he gave him that trick with the plumbing, to try to confound him. My dad knew why Dan was there. He knew he was there to see me, and he wanted to distract him, to try to discourage him with a complex and unsolvable plumbing problem.
I still don’t know how Dan managed to fix that plumbing…
He sure knew how to work mine.
Shut up, I tell myself. Now isn’t the time for stupid dirty jokes. Your dad is dying.
I have this voice that runs through my head, my conscience, I guess. But all it tells me over and over is that my dad is dying. It’s not the most helpful thing in a situation like this, because I obviously already know that my dad is dying.
They cart him into the dialysis room a couple times a week and he sits there for hours staring at the wall, refusing all forms of entertainment. I go with him at first, but now he doesn’t even want me to go with him. He doesn’t like me to see him in this weak state, hooked up to a machine that he depends on for survival.
I call out of work and my boss is pissed enough to fire me over the phone. She knows my dad is sick and she knows I always cover for other people when she needs it. Well, fuck. Screw her.
She completely screwed me financially. But I can’t worry about things like that now.
The days are drifting by.
I got a couple of text messages and even a call from Dan. I didn’t pick up the phone. He left me a long voicemail about how much fun he had with me, and how much I meant to him.
I want nothing more than to tell him all the same things, but this isn’t the time for that. Can’t he see that? Can’t he see that my dad needs me, and I need him? He’s the last family I’ve got left, except for my Aunt Donna, who’s got to be in her 80s now, and I haven’t seen her since I was a little kid.
I don’t respond to anything Dan writes. Can’t he see I don’t have time for that now?
Eventually, he stops writing.
The days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into one month. The days have gotten colder and the strongest of the oak trees have dropped all their leaves. (There’s a species around here that holds onto their dead leaves for a long, long time).
The days are shorter and there’s less light. My car is having problems starting up, and I have to jam my foot into the gas pedal as I crank the engine in order to get it to run. There’s a problem with my power steering, and I have to keep filling it up with steering fluid every day, since it leaks out overnight. Eventually, the cost of the steering fluid is too great, and I just stop putting the fluid in, losing power steering altogether.
Losing power steering is like a metaphor for my life right now. I have no direction, and I can’t afford to get any. I have to be there for my dad.
I’m no longer spending all my time at the hospital, and neither is my dad. I drive him in for his dialysis appointments. I wait in the waiting room as the machine filters his blood, removing it from his body and replacing it over the course of a few hours.
I feel like I’m losing him. I feel like I’m losing everything.
There’s no one to talk to.
Dan’s stopped writing me or calling me, and who can blame him. After all, I was the one to never respond to him.
It’s all my fault, and it always has been. At least that’s how I feel. I start blaming myself for everything, falling deeper and deeper into some sort of depression.
I don’t notice when my period doesn’t come, but one day, I wake up feeling sick to my stomach.
Strange, I think to myself, before the pain suddenly increases, the nausea overtaking me.
I sprint to the bathroom, before my dad’s even woken up, and thrust my head into the toilet bowl.
The vomit pours out of me.
And I never vomit.
This is weird, I think, as the urge takes me again and I stick my head back into the toilet, letting out another stream of strange colored vomit.
Feeling better, I brush my teeth.
How disgusting, I think to myself, looking to the toilet bowl before flushing it.
Wait a second…
I suddenly think of my period. This is when I realize I didn’t have it last month.
Oh shit.
That’s not good.
My mind goes into hyper drive, trying to remember if maybe, just maybe, I’d somehow gotten my period and forgotten about it.
But, no, I definitely didn’t get it. I’m fairly regular, with it usually coming around the same day each month.
Oh shit.
Could I be pregnant?
Would the timing make sense? I was with Dan, what, a month ago, a month and a half ago? Was it three weeks ago?
I try to count back in my head to Thanksgiving weekend but I give up. Calendars and dates and times have never been my strong suit. I’m more of a literature person than a math or science person, and I knew this would come back to bite me in the ass someday.
When you think you’re pregnant in the movies, there’s always a helpful but sarcastic friend to help you out, to go buy the pregnancy test with you.
But this is real life, and I’m all alone. There’s only my dad, and I’m certainly not going to tell him. I’m not talking to Dan, and anyway, he’s hours away at college.
I pull out my phone and start searching the internet for answers. It turns out “Am I pregnant?” and “How do I tell if I’m pregnant?” are some of the most common searches there are.
In the end, after half an hour of frantic internet research, I decide to go get a blood test, paying for it with my own money, rather than using a home test kit. The home test kits apparently aren’t very accurate.
So I drive myself to the lab after first ordering the test myself on the internet.
I’m squeamish about blood, which is one of the reasons that my dad’s dialysis bothers me so much.
But it goes off without a hitch, and by the end of the day I have the answer, which pops up in my email.
“POSITIVE,” says the email. I don’t even read the rest of the words. They just swim before me in a blur.
All I know is I’m pregnant with Dan’s child, and I don’t even talk to him anymore.
I feel an affection for the child that will be. It’s combined with something I still feel for Dan, despite what happened between us. And, honestly, I’m not even sure what happened between us.
There’s no one to tell. No friend to commiserate with.
It’s just me, all alone, with my dying father at the other end of the house.
Dan
Six Years Later
Huge bodies are rushing towards me, trying to tackle me, trying to slam their hundreds of pounds of muscled flesh into me.
I dodge left, using a complicated footwork maneuver. Someone’s coming at me from the left now.
And someone’s coming at me from behind.
My vision is limited by my football helmet. I can hear my own breathing, and the sound of players rushing around me, colliding with each other as they try to tackle me.
My feet are pounding into the turf.
I’m aware of every muscle, every movement.
My consciousness has shifted to tunnel vision, something elite athletes like myself experience when everything is going just right.
It’s right now that I know I’m going to make the touchdown. There’s no doubt in my mind. Once the tunnel vision kicks in, everything starts to look like it’s in slow motion.
No matter how many of them rush at me in their bright purple and yellow jerseys, no matter how determined they are to stop me, I will evade them all.
Seconds later, it’s all over.
I cross the final line, and I throw the ball down in celebration, doing my little dance, using my knees and elbows.
That’s the game.
The crowd is roaring. Whistles ar
e blowing. The scoreboard has changed.
Coach’s voice is crackling in my ear through the electronic radio headset that we all wear.
That’s the game. We’ve won.
I’m sweating profusely, shaking slightly from the adrenaline that’s still coursing through me.
The team is slapping me on the back, congratulating me, swearing at me (for playing such a fucking good game), etc., etc.
Coach is scowling somewhere off a few meters away, looking the way he always does, disheveled and mean.
I pull off my helmet, shaking my head like a big wet dog, the sweat flying from my hair.
This isn’t college anymore. This is the pros. It’s my second year here, but I’m already breaking records and scoring more touchdowns than anyone thought possible.
Since this is the pros, here come the reporters, the professionals who are paid to shove microphones into my face and ask me inane questions.
“How does it feel to win?” says a woman in a blazer with heavy makeup.
“Good,” I say, still breathing heavily from the exertion of the game. “Really good. Couldn’t have done it without my teammates.”
Couldn’t have done it without my teammates… that’s what everyone says. That’s what we’re told to say. That’s what we have to say. Even if isn’t true.
I mean, sure, I couldn’t have done it without my teammates, in the sense that I need someone to throw me the ball. But I certainly could have done with better teammates. I can’t count how many times I had to correct for their errors, or how many times they continue to screw up, almost costing us countless games.
But I keep my face free of emotion, a vague smile plastered across it.
“What’s your strategy for the next game?” says the reporter.
Always the same questions, I think. Always the questions we can’t answer. Obviously, I’m not going to give away Coach’s top secret plays. Obviously I’m not going to say that Coach wants to try a certain fake out, or that Coach wants to switch Smith for McKinney, or that he’s thinking of trading Basher (that’s our affectionate nickname for him) next season because he doesn’t like the way Basher is always spitting tobacco everywhere during practice.
“Well,” I say, as if I’m really thinking it over. “The thing is that we’re just going to try to give it our all, you know?”
The reporter nods. The TV cameras are practically in my face.
Honestly, I just want to burst through them the way I can with players on the football field. But life isn’t always that easy, like it is on the field. In life, they’ll give you a hard time if you go around tackling people or dodging them or rushing through them like bowling pins.
“What do you have to say about your recent breakup with model…”
“Enough questions,” says Coach, cutting across the line of sight before the reporter can complete the question.
That’s one way Coach’s grumpiness can come in handy.
“Hit the showers,” he growls at me.
I head into the showers. I can’t even remember the model’s name that I apparently broke up with so I don’t have any idea what name the reporter was going to say.
There have been a lot of women, a lot of models, a lot of actresses, a lot of famous female sports players, mostly tennis.
I start stripping off my pads. I’m in the back, away from the rest of the team who are yelling and rioting with the excitement that comes from winning, the violence that comes from victory, the violence that becomes celebration.
I pull off everything, my jersey, my pads, my jock strap, and toss it onto the floor.
Naked, my cock swinging before me… naked and muscular… I head to the showers and turn on the water. I don’t bother with the hot tap. I just let the cold water rush over me, cooling me, cooling my anger.
The cool water feels good. I need it to wash away memories, to wash away my past.
I’ve been with countless women. Since I turned pro, there have been endless numbers of them.
But there’s still that one who got away.
…Chloe.
Chloe, sweet, sexy Chloe. Chloe from my hometown.
I remember that night together like it was not even yesterday, but merely earlier today.
She’s still the sexiest to me. She’s still the one I want the most. She’s still the one that I dream about and wake up in the middle of the night thinking about.
I know, I know, it sounds completely crazy. Normal people don’t do that, right? If I told someone, they’d tell me I was obsessed.
But I know it’s something other than obsession… something more powerful, something cleaner, something stronger and more intense.
My naked cock is getting hard just thinking about her, just thinking about that night so long ago. How many years ago was it now? Five? Six? I’ve lost track. It was my first year of college, and I’ve been in the pros for two years now.
I’ve matured a lot since those days…
Well, in some ways, that’s true.
My body has matured. I’m harder, more muscular, bigger. Coach’s programming of eating and weight training makes me leaner but bigger. I’m stronger and faster than nearly anyone else in the league, for my position, that is. But that still includes just about everyone. Who else can run like I can? Who else can dodge? Who else can blast through defensemen with such ease?
My mind has become hardened, too, like my body.
I worry about it sometimes. Not so much anymore, but I used to.
I don’t know if losing Chloe was the catalyst for this, but it did start something. I gave myself entirely to the game, to football, to the objective. For me, now, winning is everything. Winning isn’t just a goal. Winning is my life, and I don’t tolerate failure in any form, not from myself, not from my teammates, and not from the refs or the coach.
I’ve learned a lot in the intervening years since I saw Chloe.
The cool water isn’t doing anything for my hard cock. Isn’t that why they say “go take a cold shower?” so that you can get rid of your erection? But my cock is too strong, just like the rest of my body, and a little bit of cold water isn’t going to make my erection just disappear.
When I’m dressed, I dodge all the other players. I’m not in a raucous mood. Something serious has overtaken me.
Coach confronts me in the hallway.
“Hi,” I grunt, not really looking at him.
“We need to talk,” says Coach.
“Not now,” I say. “Not in the mood.”
“Damnit, Dan. You’ve got to respect me. I know you don’t respect anyone else on the team, but I’m the fucking coach and you’ve got to listen to me.”
He’s got a point. If not just for the contractual obligation I have. Coach has complete power and can kick me off the team if he wants to, something he’s threatened to do plenty of times already.
“What’s up, Coach?” I say, standing back, crossing my arms. I’m much taller than Coach, and I tower over him. My frame is massive and he’s gotten old and pudgy, short and pudgy, not a great combination.
His face looks mean. There’s no other way to describe it. It’s all scrunched up and pointed forward. He looks like he’s always looking for a fight, and he really is.
“You’ve got to work on your footwork,” growls Coach, putting a hand on my shoulder. It’s not a comforting hand, but a mean, controlling one.
He just wants to control me.
But I’m not like that. I can’t stand it when people tell me what to do, when they want me to do things their way. Sure, I’m on a team and all, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have some say in what I do.
“There’s nothing wrong with my footwork,” I say, knowing full well that I’m completely right.
“Your right foot was striking the ground kind of funny…” says Coach.
“Kind of funny?” I say, my voice rising to show my disapproval of what he’s saying. I feel like my eyebrows are rising but I’m not sure. It’s not like I can contro
l them or know what they’re doing.
“The toes…” mumbles Coach. “Have to be more forward facing even when you’re moving sideways.”
“Listen, Coach,” I say, my voice getting deep and rumbly. Fuck this guy, is all I’m thinking. Fuck him to fucking hell. He thinks he can bullshit me on shit like this. “I know my footwork.”
“You think you know everything,” says Coach, practically yelling at me. “But you don’t know shit.”
“We won, right?” I say. Isn’t that enough for him? Isn’t it enough that I won the game?
Coach shakes his head at me in the most annoying way I can possibly imagine, as if he’s talking to an inexperienced young person.
“What’s your problem, Coach?” I say. “It’s not enough that I win. It’s not enough for you that I know what I’m fucking doing with my own fucking feet…”
“No one talks to me like that,” bellows Coach.
I walk right past him, slinging my bag over my shoulder.
I’m supposed to do all kinds of team stuff after the game, but I just head out into the parking lot where I call a taxi with my cell phone and hop into it.
“You’re…” says the taxi driver, giving me a surprised look, astonished to see the player that just won the game.
I nod my head.
“Hell of a game,” he says, nodding appreciatively.
“Thanks,” I say.
I can’t think of anything else to say.
Lately, the words haven’t been coming to me as easily as they once did. Lately, things don’t seem to be going as they should. It’s like there’s some dark cloud hanging over me. Everything looks different and everything tastes different.
I’ve stopped seeing all the women I was seeing. Many of them just wanted to be with me for my fame, for my money, for the press opportunities. The others… well, they were all right. They weren’t all terrible people or anything.
But that spark…
It just wasn’t there.
I want a real connection. I want to be… No, I can’t even say it.
Her Boss: A Billionaire and Virgin Romance Page 21
