Crush

by West, Heather

  I thought of how I wanted her to lick at me with the tongue that traced those lips and how I wanted her to tell me she liked the way I tasted.

  And that was the last thought I had. Right after that, the game came back into focus. But it was too late. I’d been too unfocused and even my natural talent for the game and my body’s muscle memory wasn’t enough to keep the huge guy in front of me from ramming his shoulder into me so hard that I felt the air whoosh from my lungs in a heavy, gasping rush.

  I crumpled to the ground with the guy on top of me, my chest pulsing with pain and my lungs burning in hopes of getting some much needed air. I might have been okay if that was all that happened, but the force of the impact and where he hit—dead center on my chest—caused me to fall back awkwardly. My lower back and hips hit first and the rest of me followed; spine, shoulders, and then head.

  It was my head slamming onto the hard ground, the grass cool and crispy beneath me, that finally pushed me over. I saw blackness forming around the edges of my vision. I heard the crowd roaring, but I couldn’t tell if they were happy or not. The announcers yelling loudly, their voices echoing throughout the stadium, but I didn’t hear a word of what they were saying. And then there were other voices, closer, urgent. I thought they were talking to me, calling to me, but I couldn’t make them out.

  I couldn’t make anything out.

  By the time my vision went completely black, I thought I was hallucinating, because I could have sworn Ashley was leaning over me, her long blonde hair tickling my face and promising that I would be alright.

  Chapter Nine

  Danny took a hard hit. I don’t know what happened; he’d been doing so well. I could hear the other members of the audience around me, telling me how on point he was today, how great a player he was. And it was the truth. Danny slammed into every guy he could, taking them down as the Packers managed to score, their plays going so well that the other team was clearly caught off guard.

  There was no arguing that the game was a massive success and all they had to do was keep it up. But then something happened. I only saw it because I’d been fixated on Danny. My eyes had been riveted on him the entire game, unwilling to look away. It was because of how badly I wanted him, my body quivering with the memories of what we’d done together last night and how amazing it had all felt.

  It kept me watching him like a hawk, hungry and determined.

  That’s how I noticed that something had shifted in him. When the game had started, he threw himself into it like a man on a mission. It was as though he were taking everything that had been tearing his world apart lately—his mother’s death and maybe what was going on between us—and throwing it into this game. This was his means of exorcising his demons.

  But about halfway through the game, that shifted. He was suddenly less focused, less determined. It was as though his mind had wandered to other things and he was just on autopilot. I’d never seen him play like that, though I knew he was a good enough player that he didn’t really need to keep a constant focus on what was going on.

  Unfortunately, there were other players on the opposing team who happened to be just as good a player as he was. He could get away with playing the game without focusing, but not when the other guys were working their asses off to push farther and better than he was.

  It seemed like he was doing okay, despite his lack of motivation, but then he glanced over at me and I got worried.

  Not about the things that had been worrying me all day and most of last night as I tried to sleep. I no longer worried or wondered whether or not he wanted me. It was all there in his eyes. Desire burned brighter than anything I’d ever seen and it was pretty damn clear that if we were alone—or even somewhere like a dark or deserted hallway—he would have fucked me in a heartbeat.

  It was comforting to know, but I worried suddenly that he was too distracted.

  As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I watched the living proof that I was right. The other player was huge, probably six seven or six eight, and weighed god knew how many pounds, all of them densely packed muscle. And he had been gunning for Danny. Maybe the whole game. Maybe he’d noticed what I’d noticed: That Danny was distracted.

  As soon as the play started, both men took off. But Danny was on autopilot still, only half paying attention as he let his body do the work for him. The other player, however, was focused on Danny specifically. He’d zoned in like a hawk searching for prey and when they’d collided, it looked like Danny didn’t even know what had hit him.

  The crowd roared; half cheering for the other team, the other half booing for his collision with Danny. The announcers screamed about the play, arguing a penalty or fair game, and then everything was silent.

  Fear gripped me as I watched in slow motion as Danny’s head made contact with the hard earth beneath them. The other player got up off of him quickly, but it seemed like it was too late. The damage was done. Danny didn’t move.

  I grabbed dad’s arm beside me, my eyes wide and watery. I could feel tears trying to boil over and pour down my cheeks, but I was really too shocked to cry. Too terrified. We both sat there frozen for a long moment, watching as the game was paused and team members went over to Danny. They huddled around him, whispering to themselves, and the announcers talked about how they thought Danny might be hurt. Seriously hurt.

  “Oh, god, dad,” I muttered through thick lips and a heavy tongue. “Is he okay?”

  But dad, of course, couldn’t know. For a moment, he said nothing, then in a hollow voice, he told me, “He’s fine. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  But he didn’t sound sure. He sounded worried, terrified, and I knew that he wasn’t convinced that Danny was okay at all. In fact, he was scared.

  Worry raced through me like a pack of wolves devouring my sanity. I felt myself breaking inside, my heart worrying about the young man lying out there on the field, wondering if he’d be alright, and realizing that if I lost him, I’d lose so much more than a brother.

  I’d lose a man whom I had wanted all of my adult life.

  I can’t lose him, I thought and wondered if fate would be so cruel as to take both my mothers away from me and then the boy who made my heart feel as though the world was made up of only him.

  Danny was being hefted onto a stretcher by the EMTs on staff. I felt the urge to jump over the seats and the walls that prevented us from going into the main portion of the stadium where the teams played, running to him desperately. Dad must have sensed it, because he slapped a hand on mine, holding on tightly. He kept me in place as my body seized, preparing to bolt.

  “Let’s meet them,” he told me urgently, standing and pulling me with him.

  I stumbled as I followed him, letting him drag me down the aisles, heading towards the exit.

  “We’ll ride with him in the ambulance,” he told me, talking calmly though I could tell by the strength of his grip, that he was scared, too. “He’ll be fine, and I know he’ll feel better to see us there when he wakes up.”

  I said nothing, but let him drag me along as he rushed towards the exits. He wanted to get there before the ambulance took off without us.

  We ran into security on the way and I remembered that Danny was a big shot NFL player now. It wasn’t like he was some high school kid where we could simply say that we were family and go to him without question. Now he was an employee, a highly skilled, highly paid employee and people couldn’t just go up to him, claiming to be friends or lovers or relatives—no matter how many of those I fell under.

  We had to show our IDs, our tickets, and then get cleared by the coach—who recognized dad even if he’d never met me—before we were given the okay to go and see Danny. We only barely made it to the ambulance before he was carted away.

  I saw him lying on that stretcher just before they closed the doors, still unconscious. Was his breathing shallow? Was his skin pale? Did he look like he was just sleeping, or was this more? Was this sickness?

  Before the EMTs coul
d close the door, I screamed, “NO!”

  Startled, the stopped and stared at me. The coach did, too, as well as dad, but I ignored all of them. I just ran to the ambulance and climbed in, shoving past the EMT as he told me, “I’m sorry Miss, but you can’t be in here.”

  “I’m his—” I paused, for a moment, ready to say that I was his girlfriend and that I had ever right to be there. But dad was coming to the back of the ambulance, too, and the coach was behind him. They were talking a little bit. I realized that was a bad, bad thing to say, so I quickly switched to, “—sister.”

  The EMT glanced over towards my dad who was coming up directly behind him and the coach. The coach gave him a nod.

  “These are the Cassidys,” he told the EMT. “That’s his son in there,” the coach said, jabbing a finger towards my dad.

  The EMT relented then. For a moment, he looked ready to say that we couldn’t both ride along. I had a pretty good idea that only one person was allowed to come in the ambulance with the patient at a time. It was definitely cramped, that was for sure, but it looked like he wasn’t going to say something. Maybe it was something on my face or my dad’s face or maybe he was just tired of wasting time arguing, but he didn’t say anything.

  Closing the door behind us, the EMT banged against the side of the truck and we started moving, the sirens blaring overhead.

  My hand slipped into Danny’s limp one, clutching at him tightly. His hands felt cold which seemed like a really bad sign, but I reminded myself that it was only because he had been playing outside and it was starting to get cold.

  A storm had begun to roll in, quick and without care for the players who continued their game below. It became quickly clear that the teams would end up playing in the rain—thankfully it was too early for snow—and it was going to be a miserable back half.

  It’s a good thing Danny won’t be playing, my thoughts whispered, as though attempting to comfort me about the accident with meaningless gibberish. What did it matter if Danny did or didn’t play in the rain if he was suffering from a serious injury?

  I used my free hand to brush Danny’s hair off of his forehead. It was damp with sweat, lingering evidence of how hard he had been working out there, and how much worse this whole thing seemed.

  This game was dangerous.

  My gaze lingered on Danny’s face, features smoothed out in unconsciousness. He looked peaceful, younger somehow. Like all of the worry and the grief and the pain of his life was washed away in a gentle, peaceful slumber.

  Which was ridiculous because this “slumber” was anything but peaceful. I’d watched the whole thing and the way that guy slammed into Danny had been brutal. There was no way that Danny felt peaceful about the whole thing and I was sure that he was going to have a hell of a headache when he woke up.

  If he wakes up, a treacherous voice whispered to me. I tried to force back the thought, but I realized just how terrified I was.

  Had I lost him?

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked dad though I never looked up from Danny’s face and my hand never released its grip on his.

  It wasn’t dad who answered me, though. It was the EMT. “It looks like he’s had a concussion and we’ll address that as quickly as we can. I can’t say if there’s more serious injuries; I heard he hit pretty hard, but he’s getting the best help available.” The EMT briefly put a comforting hand on my shoulder, surprising me. “He’s in good hands, ma’am. We’ll take care of him.”

  I didn’t look up, but I nodded, grateful for the guy’s reassurance.

  They took Danny away and wouldn’t let us follow once we actually reached the hospital. They told us that the doctor had to take a look at Danny and if there was anything serious, they needed to address it right away—which meant we’d only be in the way. So we were redirected to the front desk and the waiting room. The nurse behind the desk informed my dad that he’d be notified as soon as the doctors knew anything.

  We both reluctantly took a seat.

  I was shaking badly, so worried for Danny’s safety that I wasn’t sure that I could sit still long enough to wait for the results of whatever tests or diagnoses or whatever they were doing. Dad’s hand found mine and he held it tightly.

  “Your brother will be okay, honey. Danny’s strong, you’ll see,” he told me fiercely.

  I didn’t say anything because the first thing that shot through my mind was that Danny was not my brother. He was my lover, my boyfriend, the person I wanted to spend every waking moment with. He was the man I wanted to crawl into bed with and do raunchy, inappropriate things with. The kinds of things that you couldn’t talk to your dad about. The kinds of things that made people blush and got them aroused all at the same time.

  I wanted to tell my dad that Danny was so much more than a brother to me and that he always had been.

  But of course, I couldn’t say anything like that, so I kept my mouth shut. Danny would be fine, and when he woke up, I wanted to make sure that his family was still intact.

  It seemed like we waited forever before hearing anything. Dad had gone through two cups of the worst goddamned coffee that you could find and I was flipping through magazines that were from like four years back, staring blankly at pictures, not registering anything as I turned one page after another.

  When the doctor finally came out, I felt like my heart had been strangled for the last thirty minutes as we waited. Both dad and I stood immediately when we saw the doctor, and dad asked, “Is he alright? How is my boy?”

  I said nothing, just waited on pins and needles until the guy spoke.

  “He’s doing just fine,” the doctor said, immediately relieving both dad’s and my worries. “He did suffer a concussion, but it was mild and he should be fine. I’m going to recommend he takes it easy on the football for a little while until he’s back up to one hundred percent, but otherwise, he’ll be able to go home in the next day or two.”

  Something in my heart eased as I instantly felt better. Danny would be fine. When I saw him get hit and how hard he’d gone down, I was really terrified that he wouldn’t get back up or that when he did, it wouldn’t be the same Danny that came home.

  “Can we see him?” I blurted out impatiently.

  The doctor glanced over at me with raised eyebrows, probably wondering who I was and how I fit into this equation. “Um, immediately family only,” he told me, his gaze darting between dad and myself.

  “I’m his sister,” I said quickly, not bothering to say that I wasn’t related by blood, much less that I was the sister who wanted to fuck her brother.

  The doctor nodded. “Okay. You can see him, but keep the visit short. He’s resting right now and that is the best way for him to recover.”

  As soon as I knew where he was, I was racing down the hall to his room. I saw him through the window first and seeing him lying there like that caused something in my heart to ache. It was pure, sweet relief to know that he was alright, but it killed me to even see him in the hospital. I suddenly, fiercely wished that he didn’t play football. Why couldn’t it be soccer or baseball or something? Anything that was less violent.

  I knew the answer to that of course even as I thought it. Danny loved football. He loved to play and he was damn good at it. He couldn’t give up football, no matter how much I wanted him to in that moment.

  With a steadying breath, I pushed open his door carefully and headed inside. He was sleeping, his features smoothed out as he rested. He seemed peaceful, which was good. The doctor had said rest was important, but I knew Danny. Rest was a fraction of what he needed. I headed into the room, letting the door shut carefully behind me—dad would come in soon, but I didn’t want to leave it open—and walked over to his bed.

  There was a chair in the room and I grabbed it, dragging it over to the bedside, doing my best to make sure that it didn’t scrape loudly against the floor. I settled into the chair and gently took Danny’s hand in mine, just as I had in the ambulance.

  “You’re g
oing to be alright,” I told him though it was pretty clear that he couldn’t hear me just then. He was completely out, but I took comfort in knowing that he would be fine.

  A few moments later dad came in and I jumped a little bit, my heart jumping in my chest. It shouldn’t have startled me; I knew he was coming. Besides, it wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong. He was my brother; I was allowed to be concerned and affectionate, right?

  Forcing a smile, I acknowledged my dad, then turned back to Danny. I just wanted him to wake up.

  Dad came over to stand beside my chair. He didn’t get his own chair or anything, instead letting himself stand there and stare down at his son in the hospital bed. He put a comforting hand on my shoulder, large and warm, then gave it a squeeze.

  “The doctor says he’ll make a full recovery,” he told me, smiling. “We’ve just got to give him a little time.”