Hail Mary - Nicola Rendell

HAIL MARY

NICOLA RENDELL

CONTENTS Also by Nicola Rendell Glossary 1.

Jimmy

2. Mary 3. Jimmy 4. Mary 5. Jimmy 6. Mary 7. Jimmy 8. Mary 9. Jimmy 10. Mary 11. Jimmy 12. Mary 13. Mary 14. Jimmy 15. Mary 16. Jimmy 17. Mary 18. Jimmy 19. Mary 20. Jimmy 21. Mary 22. Jimmy 23. Mary 24. Jimmy 25. Mary 26. Jimmy 27. Mary 28. Mary 29. Jimmy 30. Mary 31. Jimmy 32. Mary 33. Jimmy 34. Mary 35. Jimmy 36. Mary 37. Jimmy 38. Mary 39. Jimmy

40. Mary 41. Jimmy 42. Jimmy 43. Mary 44. Jimmy 45. Mary 46. Jimmy 47. Mary 48. Jimmy 49. Mary 50. Jimmy 51. Mary 52. Jimmy 53. Mary 54. Jimmy Acknowledgments About the Author

© 2016 by Nicola Rendell All rights reserved. Cover photo: Lindee Robinson Photography Cover model: Matthew Engelke Cover Design: Najla Qamber Designs Editors: Aquila Editing; Duckman Proofreading; Librum Artis Editorial Services Publicity: Ardent Prose PR No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written consent of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, brands, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. www.nicolarendell.com

ALSO BY NICOLA RENDELL Professed Confessed All titles are standalone romantic comedies.

For C.

“Stop insisting on clearing your head. Clear your fucking heart instead.” – Charles Bukowksi

GLOSSARY

Hail Mar· y noun 1. Football. A very long pass made in a desperate attempt to score late in the game. 2. Any attempt with a small chance of success. Origin: 15th century. Translation of the Medieval Latin “Ave Maria.”

1 JIMMY

She’s got a hell of a left hook, and her jab is no joke either. It’s hard to tell what she really looks like, with the big, blue rubber mouthguard between her teeth, and the black padded headgear covering her jaw and cheeks. But I know this: I want to get my hands on that body. Her tight pink tee is low cut and skin tight, and across her breasts are the words: “NOBODY’S PUSSYCAT.” A cold draft blows in from the window, making goose bumps ripple up her arms. A thin stream of sweat runs down into her cleavage, and then I watch her nipples tighten. Christ. With little bounces, she heads back to her corner and bends over for her water bottle. Stretchy black leggings and no panty line. Fuuuuuck. The buzzer dings and we square up. She holds her gloves up to her face, ready to go. They’re bubblegum pink with white cuffs; the girliest weapons I’ve ever seen. But never mind the gloves. It’s those eyes that have me. Shit, those eyes—a crazy, deep green. Packers’ green. Jets’ green. Green like cash. Green that could make a guy go right out of his mind. Pow goes a jab into my stomach and I double over, tasting my Gatorade from an hour ago. Before I can breathe, before I can even get up my gloves to slow her down, she pelts me hard with a cross to my sternum that knocks the wind straight out of me. I gasp for air and stagger back into the ropes. “Jesus Christ,” I moan. “Who are you?” Her eyes light up in this smile, this beautiful fucking smile that I feel way down inside. Then she bounces on her toes and smacks her gloves together out in front of her. Whap, whap. “I’m Mary!” she says around her mouthguard. “And you’re slow!” Cute. But, yeah…no. Nobody talks to me like that. Nobody. I hurl myself off the ropes, colliding with her in the center of the ring, skin against skin now. I press into her sexy shoulder with my bicep, feeling the sweat between us. She nails me in the gut again; a solid, low-slung straight punch, and I think, I can’t hit a girl, can I? No. Fuck, no. So I stretch my arm between us, the padding of my glove holding her steady right below her collarbone. She swings for me, but I’m a foot taller, and she doesn’t

stand a chance. “Jerk!” Obviously. But on the upside, now I can really get a good look at her the way I want to: close up, but not so close that she’s pummeling me. Her legs are solid, and I can even see that little curve of her hipbones, barely showing through her leggings. I let my eyes follow the line of sweat to her inner thighs, to that wet, hot place where everything comes together. Fuck. I want my hands on that place. I want to feel the softness and the strength. I want to know the taste of that sweat, the way that softness gives under my tongue. Ding goes the buzzer. I push her away, padded knuckles to her shoulder. She spins and gets into her corner, so I do the same. I grab my water bottle and squirt it into my mouth, watching her all the time. She’s fucking beautiful, this one. Fucking gorgeous. The woman of dreams. Of fantasies. From a pink Nalgene, she takes one big gulp, then two, and a little water dribbles down her lips, rolling in drops down her throat. Her eyes stay right on mine. Her chest heaves. Her eyes flash. Her lips tighten. And that’s when it happens. She peels off her T-shirt and tosses it to the floor, so that the only word showing is PUSSY. Ding. Her body is fucking perfect. I mean perfect. I moan into my mouthguard and look her up and down. Lean, but not thin. Sexy and strong, a fighter’s body. A woman’s body. A body strong enough to take everything I want to give it, and then some. She turns to set down her water bottle, bending at the waist, and that’s when I see it. The tattoo. It’s a ribbon of black lace that runs in a beautiful, feminine line down her back from right shoulder to left hip, curving down into her pants. Tough as hell, pretty as can be, and with the sexiest tattoo I've ever seen in my life. Stick a motherfucking fork in me. I’m done. “Nice ink,” I tell her as we square up again. “Thanks,” she says, leaning into my shoulder. “I’ve never seen one like it.” I hook my arm around her again and pull her in. I smell something familiar. I can’t place it. She slips free and moves behind me. For one second, all I can hear is her shoes on the mats. “I rebelled when I turned 30. It was either this or a tramp stamp.” “Of what?” I pivot so my face is close against hers. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” She smiles tight around the mouthguard. Her glove comes through the air, cutting through the noise of the gym. Whooosh. I get my right hand up just in time to block her from hitting my jaw. The impact rolls down my forearm like my bones are Jell-O. She lets another jab fly but misses me—barely—and I slip around behind her. The hair at the nape of her neck is curly and wet, and a long dark braid runs down

her back. That strip of wet fabric at the top of her pants, dark with sweat. “Why are we fighting?” I growl as I get closer. “Why aren’t we out drinking? Making trouble? Fucking around? Let me take you out.” She spins to face me, her eyes wide open, surprised. “You wanna drink with me?” “Hell yes, I do. And a lot of other things.” “You want me? Fight me.” She fires her bubblegum pink cannons at my stomach with a one-two combination that makes me feel like I’m nothing but a 283-pound heavy bag. I try to get in a left cross, but she’s way faster than I am, and comes up from under with a hook straight out of Manila. That one got me in my brainpan, in my marrow. “Fuck that,” I snarl. “Atta boy!” No way. Nobody atta boys me. I’m Jimmy Goddamned Falconi. I’m nobody’s boy. “Atta girl.” I nudge her in the shoulder with my chest. Around her guard, she says, “You fight like you’re in molasses. But you’re strong. You some kind of athlete?” At first, I’m about to laugh. For about one second, I think I might be on Candid Camera or something. I mean, I can’t walk to the bathroom on an airplane without someone asking me to sign a cocktail napkin. I can’t get through Costco without someone asking me to sign their shopping list. Some kind of athlete? I’m Jimmy “The Falcon” Falconi. Quarterback for the Chicago Goddamned Bears. I’m somebody. But there’s zero recognition in her eyes. No flicker of the fangirl. No sign she’s playing it cool, either. To her, I’m just a guy getting his ass kicked by a girl in pink gloves. “Hello?” She presses into my chin with a slow uppercut from the right. I snap out of it. I don’t even know how to answer her. I play quarterback for the Bears. Ever heard of them? Or maybe, Ever heard of football? America’s Game? Fuck. I wouldn’t even know how to start. I’ve never had to explain it. People just know. “Yeah, I like to work out.” “Then act like it,” she says, all piss and vinegar, and puts her guard back in her mouth. Wham comes that jab into my gut. Pow goes the straight to my pecs. I loop one arm around her and pull her body in close, hooking the back of her neck with the crook of my elbow. I pull her closer, tighter, both arms around her, to get a feel for her…but also to give myself a goddamned break. She struggles a little, trying to squirm free, but I see the smile on her face, the crinkle of the skin at her eyes. I pull her head closer to mine. I must be twice her weight; no way is she going to get free now. We are the welterweight and the super heavyweight. Wrong class, totally. But then she wedges her forehead in against my chest. I watch her wind up, her biceps flexing, and, boom-boom-boom. Every time she connects, I lose a little more air and groan, “Fuck-fuck-fuck!”

“Atta boy!” Fuck. That. So I keep her pinned, and she starts fighting harder, which makes me want to hang on to her more. I press my nose against her head. In her thick brown hair, I can smell her shampoo, her conditioner. Coconut. While I’m distracted by that smell, thinking of sunscreen and ukulele music and drinks with umbrellas and her on a beach, she slips out from under my arms and pops up in my face. Well, shit. “What, you chicken? Gonna hit me back? Or do you want to dance around for an hour or two? Because I can totally do that. I just have to go home to feed the dog.” Whap-whap go her padded fists. Oh no, no way. No way am I going to let a pretty little thing talk to me like that. I sniff hard and man up. I give her a jab. A hook. A cross. And she blocks me every damned time. Blocks me like she’s fought me before, or like she’s known all along what I’ll do when it comes down to it. Fucking wax-on-wax-off, one-two-three. Pow-pow go her gloves into my side, and fuck, I think I feel those in my spleen. Enough. Enough. Anger boils up through me like cheap vodka after a long night. I’m Jimmy Falconi. And I’m gonna make this girl know my name. I crack my neck side to side and get serious. I suck air through the holes in my mouthguard and get my fists up. I edge her into the corner and those eyes flash at me. She’s sweating hard, and her mascara is smudged. Her hair is mussed and her skin is slick. It makes her look dangerous. Angry. I’d like to smudge that mascara a little more. In bed. Immediately. But first, I’m going to show her who’s boss. The more she works herself up, the hotter she gets. That’s when something catches my eye. There’s something written on the white cuffs of her gloves. All fuzzy, written in black marker: On the right glove: HERE COMES… On the left:…TROUBLE! Whomp. She nails me in the jaw with a haymaker, and my molars shake. “Come the fuck on,” I growl back at her, with my glove pressed to the side of my face. She smacks her gloves together, and lowers her chin. “Are we sparring or chatting? Hit me!” Bounce, bounce, bounce. Butterfly, bee. Whap, whap, whap. “I’m not going to break!” I work my jaw open and closed a few times, thinking, Okay. Fine. Fine. I didn’t think it was going to go like this, but I can roll with a hostile defense, sure. Wouldn’t be the first time. I give her the old elevator stare—up, down, up again— and get stuck on her bellybutton for a little too long. But then I get a game plan together. I figure I can hit her in the stomach. Not too hard, not hard enough to

hurt her, but hard enough to let her know who’s in charge here. Which would be me. Me, pussycat. Me. Nudging the edge of her shoulder with my glove, I drive her backward. Our eyes lock and I get this…this…prickle all through me. This woman. This one right here. I want her so fucking bad. The fucking gym with its ten phones playing mariachi goes silent. The guys by the cooler egging her on go silent. It’s just her, and me, and the sweat dripping between us. Soft skin, sparkling eyes. She smells like a summer day, and she’s looking at me in a way that no woman has ever looked at me. Ever. Like she’s gonna own me and she knows it. Which is bullshit. She gives me a little lift of her chin and tightens her lips around the guard. She wipes her nose with her glove, and then lowers her head. “Come on! You going to fight, or are you just going to screw around?” With my left hand, I jab her softly in the stomach. With the right, a play-hook to the jaw. I raise her chin on my glove so her eyes come up to mine. Then I pull her close, my arm around the back of her neck again. “You wanna screw around?” I say into her ear. Bam, she gives me another hit to the stomach. “I haven’t even gotten started,” she answers. Fuck it. She wants to play? Fucking fine. I'll play. I'll play hard. I square up. But she gives me this eye. This champion eye. A winner’s eye. Cocky, like no eyes I've ever seen before. Tom Brady doesn’t have anything on this kind of cocky right here. My luck, this girl’s some UFC champion. Christ. But I can take her. Yeah, I sure fucking can. Probably. I decide on a straight jab: a no-fail straight jab that I plan just hard enough to send her reeling but not hurt her, not actually injure her. I know the punch. It works in bar fights and brawls on the field. An all-American move. As I wind up, everything slows down. I’m 6’6”, 283 pounds, and I throw a football for a living. When I wind up, I wind up. As I do, she ducks, fast as fucking lightning. Greased. Elegant. Lethal. So as my arm is powering through the air, as my momentum gets caught behind 12-ounce training gloves, she pops back up like a goddamned whack-a-mole. Those eyes flash again and she smiles so hard I can see her dimples. Dimples. Oh fuck. I watch her shoulder tighten, her tricep pucker, and that’s when she lets me have it for real. The punch comes from left to right, blocking out my view of everything. I don’t see the Mexican flag on the wall. I don’t see the graffiti mural over the windows.

Nope. The universe turns bubblegum pink. It doesn’t hurt, not at first, and as I’m flying backward, airborne, I have just enough time to think to myself, I wonder if this is what a knockout punch feels like… Before everything flickers to black.

2 MARY

I didn’t mean to hit him in the face at all, but he fights slow, like a big ox, and he didn’t even turn his cheek. So now here he is, in a big beefy heap on the floor. A really, really, sexy, beefy heap, with his arms out and his mouth slightly open. I fall to my knees and pull off my gloves, my headgear, and toss my mouthguard aside. I pinch the big ox’s cheeks, feeling his stubble under my fingertips. Now, I've been in close contact with a lot of guys in this ring. Big ones, skinny ones, mean ones, wimpy ones. Guys fresh from Cook County jail. Guys who train at 24-Hour Fitness. But I've never been this close to someone so… Just… So… Incredibly… Hot. Taking off his helmet and prying the guard from his mouth, the worst news yet hits me. He isn’t just hot, he isn’t just handsome, he isn’t just yummy. The guy is beautiful. Like, jaw-droppingly beautiful. Like the kind of guy who should be modeling flannel for L.L. Bean, or maybe doing ads for five-bladed razors, rubbing his sexy jaw while looking at himself in a mirror. I can see it now: “Gillette.” (Model rubs his jaw roguishly and then smiles.) “The best a man can get.” Yep. That kind of face. The owner of the club, Manny, steps over the ropes and drops a few packets of smelling salts onto Gillette’s chest. They look like the little salt packets you can get at Wendy’s. “Mary,” Manny says. “We’ve talked about this. You gotta stop knocking out the paying customers. I’m trying to run a business here. You feel me?” I give Gillette a shake. I don’t want to use the salts unless I have to. I wouldn’t know myself, but I’ve heard it’s a terrible way to wake up. “It’s been two whole weeks, Manny. Cut me a little slack.” Manny picks up Gillette’s massive hand and then drops it with a thump on the mats, like people do with corpses on crime shows. “I don’t think I got a plastic bag that big. Imma have to make a special trip to Home Depot. Dexter-style.” Placing my ear to Gillette’s body, I hear the strong thump-thump-thump of his

heart. “He’s not dead.” I pinch his gorgeous face in my hand again, feeling the strong, sexy muscles of his jaw under my fingers. “He’s just… resting.” “Oh sure. Like Al Capone. Like Che Guevara. Like my uncle Felipe. Resting. Pffffffft.” Manny straddles the big guy’s torso. He takes the first Polaroid for the Knockout Wall, which falls onto his chest. “I'll go mix some concrete. The lake isn’t frozen yet. Nobody has to know. I know a couple’a cops.” It is a little worrying. He should definitely be showing some signs of life by now. Some eye movement. An eyebrow furl. But there’s nothing at all. “Does he look familiar to you?” Manny asks, leaning in as the third photo lands face up on Gillette’s chest. He turns the big ox’s jaw side to one side. “Maybe like he’s in the movies?” I can’t imagine he’s that famous. “Gillette razors. I’m positive.” I crack open the little packet of smelling salts, which makes my own eyes start to water from a foot away. I waft it under his nose. No response whatsoever. Uh-oh. “I’m feeling like this isn’t the best way for you to meet a man. Why can’t you go on the internet like nice girls do?” Manny asks. I crack open a second pack of salts and give those a try. Nothing. Either this guy is immune, or his contract with Gillette has led to some serious head trauma. Whatever it is, it’s not good. Manny leans down. “The usual? You do compressions, I'll blow in his mouth?” It’s standard operating procedure. But then I look at that jaw. Those lips. That face. “You do the compressions this time.” Manny cracks his knuckles. “Mmmmkay.” But one last time before we go seriously Rescue 911 on this beautiful, beautiful man, I cradle his head in my lap and waft the smelling salts under his nose again. Okay, fine. I actually jam them up there so far I almost lose them in his nostril. “Come on, handsome,” I whisper. “Wake up. Please. I'll take you out for a drink. Just open your eyes…” I take a deep breath and give him a flat-handed slap on the right cheek. “Manny’s not insured for this kind of thing. Please.” That’s when his eyes flutter, and he inhales hard. I brace for the usual returnto-consciousness routine—they usually flail around like a rooster, or shoot straight up like Uma Thurman did after she got shot in the heart with adrenaline in Pulp Fiction. This guy, though, he’s different from all the rest. He doesn’t flail, he doesn’t startle, but wakes up lazy, dreamy, sultry, slow and sexy. Like a big lion napping in the shade. “Hey there, pussycat,” he says, smiling at me and putting one hand to his forehead, revealing a breathtakingly beautiful tricep. Oooooh boy. “Hello.” “You’ve got some power in those guns.” “I’m so sorry.” I adjust his head so it’s a little more centered in my lap. “I

thought for sure you’d duck…” Looking away from my eyes, his gaze falls to my lips. My cleavage. My stomach. And then back up again. “Don’t be sorry. You warned me.” God, the way he’s looking at me. My thighs clench, as though he’s pulling me on a string. “Did I?” He nods. “Here comes trouble.” He lifts his eyebrow. “And here you are.”

3 JIMMY

Joe Namath said it: “When you win, nothing hurts.” And I might be flat on my back with a headache like I just sucked down a smoothie too fast, but I’m fucking winning. Because look at that goddamned face. Fucking gorgeous. Freckles, those lips. Everything. Her body is hella hot, but that face. That face seals it. Also, those tits. I groan and pretend I’m rubbing my temples. Actually, I’m looking at the curve of her stomach—the crease across her bellybutton. The edge of the tattoo just wraps around her side, accentuating the line of her waist. God, yes. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I’m not allowed to fight my own weight class anymore, but I thought you’d be able to take it.” “Ouch.” “Oh no.” She puts her hand to her mouth. “I mean…sorry. Just…I’m really sorry.” I know she’s lying. She’s probably left a trail of unconscious guys from here to wherever she came from, but I’m not proud. I’ll be the next man in line. I sure fucking will. “What do you weigh? A buck fifty? And you knocked me out like that?” “One fifty-seven!” The way she says it, she’s proud of it, and I love that. A buck fifty-seven. Sold. “You can hit.” I explore the damage with my tongue. The hot, metallic taste of blood fills my mouth, and my saliva stings the cut on my bottom lip. I glance around. Nobody’s paying any attention at all. Further proof that she’s done this before. “Sorry. I wasn’t even thinking. Let me…” She dabs at my lip with a washcloth. I can smell the sweat, the salt, the heat. The sharp lingering smell of ammonia in my nostrils. A drop of her sweat runs down off her neck and lands on my chest with a plop. She takes my face in her wrapped hands, looking from eye to eye. “I don’t think you’re concussed.” Okay, so I know I’m not—I don’t know much, but I do know a concussion when I get one—but I’m going to go along with it because I need her to stay exactly like that. “Might be.” I follow her eyes with mine. “Head trauma can be very

complicated.” Slowly, a smile creeps up across her face, and a little dimple crimps her cheek. But she bites it back. “Your pupils look normal.” Coconut. I can smell it. Definitely coconut. Good thing I’m already flat on my back. She holds up one finger and moves it to and fro in front of my eyes. I don’t follow it. I leave my eyes right there, on this fleck of brown in her left iris. “If you can’t follow my finger, I think we have to call 911…” I sniff, the ammonia still stinging my sinuses. “If I let you knock me out again, can I get you to keep doing this all night?” She pouts and makes a fist of her wrapped hand. “Let me? Let me knock you out?” “Oh yeah. Let you.” She cocks her head, her eyes saying, Bullshit! “Fuck, yes, I took the fall. Sometimes you got to throw the fight to get what you want.” She lets go of my face, and my head lands in her lap. The curve of her thigh supports my neck. She gives me that look again, the one she gave me right before the lights went out. “Yeah? And what do you want?” “I think you know.” I let my stare fall to her cleavage. She presses her lips together, like she cannot believe I just said that. Booyah. Now who’s on her heels? I rip off the Velcro cuff from the glove on my right hand and shake it off. “I’m Jimmy.” I hold out my hand to her. She shakes it softly, and then her grip tightens and she pulls me up to a sitting position in the middle of the ring. She keeps her right hand knitted in mine, thumb over thumb, and gently supports my back with the other. “I really am sorry about that.” “I’ll deny it forever.” “There were witnesses.” She glances over her shoulder at the assorted groups of guys around the gym. “Are you familiar with the down-low?” “They took pictures. For the Knockout Wall,” she says, grinning. Fuckers. Great. Just great. JIMMY FALCONI KNOCKED OUT BY GIRL IN PINK GLOVES. I can see it on Bleacherreport.com right now. “Polaroids burn super easy.” Now she’s really smiling, and fuck is she pretty. Like, drop-dead gorgeous. The knockout with the knockout punch. “I’m glad you’re okay. If you never woke up, that would have been a lot of paperwork.” I grunt-laugh, which also hurts because of that one-two-three combination to my spleen earlier. I grab my stomach and flop back down on the mat. “Need ice?” “Let me die with dignity.” She gets stern. “Ten-four. We’ll remember you fondly.” And then she salutes me. All this and she’s funny?

Alright, Falconi. Time to head for the end zone. Time to bring the Super Bowl ring home. “Fine. I’ll give you the win if you let me buy you dinner.” Her eyes move over my face. “Dinner? There’s a blizzard coming. Also, you might need a stitch for that lip.” “No way. I’ll get some superglue. Fuck the blizzard. Come out with me.” “Tough guy.” I study that hollow at the base of her throat and then meet her eyes to hold her stare. “Dinner and drinks.” She stands and offers me a wrapped hand. Toe to toe, she sizes me up like we’re locked in some full-body arm-wrestling match. Christ. But she still hasn’t said, “Don’t you play for the…” like everybody else always does. So I ask, “You like any other sports besides knocking totally unsuspecting strangers unconscious? Like maybe…football?” I hold the ropes open for her and she steps through. Goddamn, those hips. That skin. The curve of her waist. The petals of the lace that barely touch her spine. And my mind kind of unravels in imagining where that tattoo goes and how sexy that ink must be on the skin of her ass. “Nope. Is that a problem?” she asks. “That I wouldn’t know my touchdown from my…whatever? Going to put a cramp in our conversation, champ?” “No problem at all.” Doesn’t matter if she knows me or not, because pretty quick here, I’m planning to have her saying my name. Over and over again.

4 MARY

Jimmy squirts some water in his mouth. He picks up his T-shirt from the bench and wipes off his face. He winces when he brushes against his split lip, but tries to cover it by smiling at me. And winking. You can tell almost everything about a guy in the way he acts immediately after regaining consciousness. It’s like an asshole-levels litmus test. And this guy has revealed himself to be a sweetheart, right down to the center. Honestly, I do feel really guilty for knocking him out. I pick up the Polaroid that Manny left by my bag and hold it out to him. “For your memory book.” He winces and groans. “Don’t remind me. Come on, Mary. Just dinner and a drink. What could possibly happen?” he says, grinning. “I can’t imagine.” I unwind the sparring wraps from my left hand. I flash back to the ring. You wanna screw around? “No?” Yes, I can. I felt it when he had his arm around me. That close heat, that anger, that delicious tension that only one thing can undo. “Nope.” “Neither can I,” he growls. “I have to shower,” I say. “I’ve got work in the morning.” He lifts his hands in the air between us. I catch sight of his groin muscles coming up from his gym shorts. Man, oh man, oh man. I feel that tension deep in my hips. Now it’s my turn to squirt some water in my mouth. I wipe the sweat from my eyes and grab another glance at the muscles. The Incomparable V. “Look, I’m not going to kidnap you. I’m going to take you out. And if I come on too strong, we both know you can leave me in a drooling pile on the sidewalk. So what do you have to lose?” I honestly don’t know why I’m making him give me the hard sell. Of course I’m going to say yes. I’d have to be insane not to… but there’s something about him, a kind of pride that I find just a little irritating. That cocky, aging, prom king glory that I want to take down a few notches. Make him work for it. So instead of Yes, I say, “Hmmmm. Where?”

He looks me up and down. I can tell he’s stuck between being totally offended— Is this girl really about to reject me?—and a little mad. Now he gives me that look again. That lusty, aggressive look. God, is he sexy. “Ribs. I’m taking you out for ribs and beer.” Oh boy. Yes. Yes, please. My favorite. “Barbeque? Could get messy…” He takes a step toward me, pushing me up against the water cooler. I shimmy along it, narrowing my eyes at him, laughing, and take a step back, and another, but he doesn’t let up. He presses me up against the cinder block wall, which is cold against my sweaty bare back. “Sticky. Messy. Time-consuming. Might take all night. You got a problem with that?” His voice is rough and quiet. Confidence like that, it’s not learned in front of a heavy bag. Cockiness like that is way down deep. I breathe him in and watch his abs contract as he does the same. He smells like man. Good old-fashioned, red-blooded man. Ivory soap, clean laundry, and sweat. With one arm, he cages me up against the wall. Pecs to die for and an eight-pack like I’ve never seen in my life. I bite my lip, and he watches me do it. I lean toward his ear and hit him with my best shot. “All night? Now you’re talking.” “Fuck.”

5 JIMMY

I strip down and grab a quick shower. Then I get dressed and wait for her outside the locker rooms. I’m not going to lie; I listen hard for the sound of the water splashing off her body. I can barely hear it, but it’s there. I imagine the suds slipping down her curves, all lathered up and soapy. All warm and sexy and slick. With her coconut body wash, or maybe some fancy soap with oatmeal or sea salt, scraping her skin a little, leaving her a little hot and raw. Naked, with all that pretty hair down her back in a tangle… Christ. I rake my hand through my hair. That’s when I hear something else. She’s singing. Just softly. I’m pretty damned good at tuning out background noise, thanks to my job. Lately, it’s been 70,000 people screaming variations on the theme of, “Fuck you, Falconi!” It doesn’t take long before I zero in on the song. No way. At first, I think that I can’t possibly be hearing that right. Just my imagination playing tricks on me, making me hear what I want to hear. Like when I got up in the ref’s face against the Buccaneers and he said, “Penalty confirmed!” when I thought he’d said, Penalty overturned. Wishful thinking, man. It’s a bitch. But no. This isn’t wishful thinking. She gets rolling into the chorus. Holy shit. I was right: Def Leppard. Pour Some Sugar On Me. I drag my hand down my mouth and turn away from the locker rooms. Is this girl for real? That’s when I see the Knockout Wall. The thing is massive. About a thousand Polaroids, stuck to the cinder blocks with duct tape. Each picture has a date written on it in Sharpie, with the printed name and signature of the fighter who got the KO. There are a lot of names—J. Zavala, T. Jesús de María, G. Nguyen, A. White—and lined up in a row next to the corner: M. Monahan M. Monahan M. Monahan

M. Monahan M. Monahan M. Monahan M. Monahan M. Monahan M. Monahan M. Monahan M. Monahan M. Monahan Holy shit… Could it be her? If there was any doubt, each one has a little “xoxo!” written in pink in the corner. My mouth drops open. Def Leppard, pink gloves, and the whole shebang. She’s the real deal. She sure fucking is. The victims of the Knockout range from massive to tiny. The first one is dated three years ago. Looks like she’s been leveling dudes quarterly ever since. Some of them are seriously beaten up, with black eyes and broken noses. Some of them just look like they’re sleeping. One of them is a guy with his glove to the camera, a flash bulb against red vinyl. What I don’t see is her face, anywhere. And for about one second, I think, That’s because none of these fuckers would dare hit a girl… Except, nope. Wrong again. Littered in and amongst the photographs, there are women. Not many, but a few. Mary is nowhere to be seen. Not that pretty face, those freckles, or those lips, so perfect that I can feel it in my balls. I look outside and down onto the street. It’s snowing hard already, and a plow blows down Clark, dropping sand behind it as it goes. With my hands in my pockets, I walk around the gym and notice a couple of guys watching ESPN in the corner. One of them has a bag of frozen corn on his face and a bloody towel in his hand. Another one is eating ramen. On the screen, they’re showing a clip from the Bears game last week—me getting sacked so spectacularly that my helmet flies off. As I land on the turf, my body bouncing, the guys from the gym all make sympathetic noises, feeling my pain. But they have no idea. At all. As The Fridge once said, “Playing professional football is like getting clobbered by concrete mixers for a living.” Just to really put the icing on the cake, they’ve got the replay of the after-game interview. I hate those. What’s a guy supposed to say? They’ll either ask you, How’d you win? In which case, you answer Teamwork, unless you’re a total and unmitigated asshole, in which case you’d say, Because I’m awesome, and that’s not my style. Or they ask, What happened out there? Which is what’s happening on the replay. The sideline reporter, a super skinny little thing in a blue skirt suit and heels that make her wobble like a flamingo, asks, “Jimmy, what happened out there?” The wind blows her blonde hair, lifting it like

shellacked straw. She holds the microphone up to my face. Behind me, a couple of guys from the Raiders growl, “Nice work, Falconi. We like having you on our team.” Not exactly what you want the opposing defenders to be saying. Welcome to my life. It’s been a shit-ass season. Game four and Cutler got his ass fired, so then it was finally my turn to come off the bench. Finally, after years of playing secondstring, I was the starting QB. And I’ve lost every fucking game since. Now we’re 4-5. If I can’t turn this shit around, my five-year plan is going to take a serious detour. Like, toward a different line of work completely. Or maybe, God help me, Cleveland. There I am, taking off my helmet, with grease paint all over my face. The sun is in my eyes, so I look not only exhausted, but also super confused. I wasn’t confused. I remember what I wanted to say was, We have fuck-all for an offensive line except for Valdez, so what do you think happened? And what is wrong with the fans here? I got hit with a rubber chicken on the twenty. Are you kidding me? But I didn’t. Instead, I watch myself running my hand through my sweaty hair as I say, “Just a bad day, Tammi.” She puts the mic to her mouth. “Had some trouble there with penetration…” She trails off. She really does sound like she’s talking about erectile dysfunction, and she might as well be. To complete the picture, there’s an ad for CIALIS right behind her. This fucking game. “We just played the hand we were dealt,” I tell her. When in doubt, resort to old sayings. Minimal sound bite trouble, very little chance of inserting an accidental expletive. Tammi looks at me sadly. “Hope it all starts getting better for you, Jimmy.” No shit. It better start getting better and fast. “Ready?” a voice says behind me. I spin around. The whistle comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. Fuck. She’s rosy-cheeked, and her hair is still damp from the shower. Her eyelashes are long and look soft in spite of the dark mascara. Fucking A. And as if she wasn’t naughty enough before, now she’s got a pretty diamond stud in her nose. But it’s perfect. It’s the lace tattoo all over again. A sweetheart sinner. Sign me the hell up. “You’re sure you want ribs?” She looks incensed. “Don’t back out on me now.” “No, you’re just…” “What?” She lifts her face, all sassy. “You think I’m too delicate for ribs?” Delicate. Not delicate. Pretty. Beautiful. Elegant. And wearing a sexy, white turtleneck sweater. I want my mouth on that neck so fucking badly… She sweeps her hair off to one side, over one shoulder. On the ring finger of her right hand is one of those Irish rings. I don’t know what it’s called, but I’ve seen them before. With the heart in the middle and the hands on each side? It’s silver

and old. The heart is facing toward me. I might not be Irish, but I’ve been around the block enough to know what that means. Game on. “You were tougher when we were sparring,” I say, studying the way her hair falls over her breasts. “Now you’re…” She leans in. She smiles. “Finish that sentence the right way, and the first round is on me.” Jesus Christ, she’s got me upside down. I pull up my pants a little and focus on forming complete sentences. “I’ll take you to Il Forno. They’ve got great wine…” She shakes her head and slings her gym bag off her shoulder, her pink gloves hanging from the strap and her wrist wraps poking out of the top. “Way too fancy. Baby back or bust. Give me beer or give me death!” She elbows me in the arm. Whoa. From a hook on the wall, she takes down a gray puffy coat with a fake fur hood and zips it up. Then a gray hat and matching mittens from her pocket. She pulls the hat down low on her head. It’s this stinking adorable thing that’s a little too big for her. It looks like someone she loves a lot knitted it for her, and she loves them too much not to wear it. She zips up her jacket and I get a whiff of fresh coconut. “Going to say anything or just…going to stare at me? Because I don’t mind, not at all. I only want to know the plan…” I cough. “You don’t fuck around.” I drag my eyes off her and glance over at the Knockout Wall. “Oh!” She walks over to it as she puts on her mittens. She’s in these cute brown boots that come almost to her knees and have salt stains on the toes. Jeans. Tight jeans. My mind immediately goes to what color underwear she’s got on, and I think, Pink. Fuck, I hope it’s pink. She twists one leg over the other so she’s standing there cross-legged with her hands clasped together. Pure fucking delight as she beholds the proof of her power. “Right? Not bad. That one.” She taps on one of the guys in the middle with her mitten. “He was almost as big as you.” She beams up at me. “Almost. What are you, 6'5", 280?” She knows her shit. “6'6", 283.” “No way, really?” She smiles so hard that it makes her nose wrinkle. I cock my head as we head for the steps. “Yeah. Why?” In my mind, she comes back with something like, You’re a beast, or, You’re huge, or, Is it true what they say about the correlation between shoe size and… But instead she says, “Means you’re the biggest guy I’ve ever taken out!” Then she raises one mitten up into the air for a high-five. “Whoop, whoop! Hollaaaaaaa!”

6 MARY

He takes me to a little hole-in-the-wall place around the corner. More precisely, a door-in-a-wall that I’ve walked past a hundred times without noticing. It’s sandwiched between a barbershop on one side and a Subway on the other, and it looks like a service entrance. Dinged blue steel, rusted on the bottom. Except now, looking closely, I see it has SWEET UNCLE EARL’S painted in tiny, tiny letters at eye level. “You ever been here?” he asks, and knocks with his bare knuckles on the metal, a very distinctive rat-a-tat-tat-tat. Actually knocks! “This is like a speakeasy,” I say. “I’ve never been to a place where you have to knock to get inside. Is there a handshake?” He sniffs in the cold. “Not for me, pussycat. Not for me.” Oh God, I find that confidence so hot. I pretend not to be kind of dying inside and adjust my hat. I don’t want to be too easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, so I fakeglare at him and sniffle. “I’m nobody’s pussycat, as you know.” “Tough, because I really dig that nickname.” I huff. It’s just for show. I love it too, especially when he says it. He warms his hands in front of his mouth. He smiles behind his clenched palms and the skin around his eyes crinkles. Into his fist, he repeats, “Pussycat.” The door swings open with an icy creak. We’re met with a blast of hot air, which smells exactly like a smokehouse, and I start salivating immediately. Inside the door is an old man in a white apron that reads BBQ IS MY RELIGION. It’s spattered with barbeque sauce, and his face lights up so warmly when he sees Jimmy, it makes me wonder if maybe this guy is more than just a Gillette model after all. “Come on in, champ! Just took a fresh batch out of the smoker.” As we walk through the door, it’s like some Chicago-style variation of Cheers. Everybody bursts out with a big joyous, “There he is!” as Jimmy steps inside. I find myself almost unconsciously making way for him, to give him space to fill the room, but he positions me right in front of him, one hand on each of my shoulders. Like he wants to put me first. An old guy behind the bar tips his hat at us and smiles. A rotund lady in a tiny apron gives him a kiss on the cheek and gives me a

warm pat on my arm. Instead of Jimmy, though, they all call him “The Falcon,” which is a bit strange. “What, is that your street name?” I ask, as we slip into a dimly lit booth. “The Falcon?” He waits with his fingertips poised on the table, and cocks his head at me. I take off my hat. “You know, like The Rock? Dwayne what’s-his-name? Like that?” I unwind my scarf and stuff it in my purse. Now Jimmy nods. He takes my coat and hangs it on the hook between the booths. “Sort of like that, sure.” He sits down and the bench groans underneath him. He bumps the table with his knee, making the candle flicker inside its tin-can holder. He is a massive human being. Massive and sexy and dreamy and…I have this flash in my head of him breaking my bed. Crack, bang, thump. The waitress comes by with a small, very rumpled notepad in her hand. I order a beer but defer to Jimmy on the ribs. He orders two racks with a side of corn and potatoes for both of us. It’s been a long time since anybody ordered anything for me. And I find, much to my astonishment, that I really like it. That take-charge thing, it’s sexy. None of this hemming and hawing and, Please, have whatever you’d like except maybe not the rib-eye because I’m not made of money. Nope, none of that here. Just bing, bang, boom. And on with the show. The Jimmy show. The thing is, I’ve hit a bit of a dry spell. About a year ago, I broke off my engagement to a man I haven’t seen since. And I’m happy. Happy as I’ve ever been. Over the last few months, I’ve slowly gotten back into dating. It hasn’t been great. The guys I meet are either on the heels of a divorce, with the vague label of “separated” on their Match.com profiles (liars!), or are just that much older than me, so that the only thing on their minds is marriage and kids. I’m getting to be that age where people start looking at me as though my uterus is starting to shrivel up like a prune and telling me all about it. When it comes to kids, I wonder if maybe there’s something wrong with me. I’ve started to think there might be. When I see little ones on the street with their parents, or children of my friends, whose faces now litter my Facebook feed, I try to find some little flame of warmth, or interest, or adoration. I try to look at their puffy cheeks and their little noses and feel something, anything. It’s like it’s not there. But I know I have a lot of love to give—show me a dog in a sweater vest and I can’t help myself at all. As if on cue, my phone buzzes in my purse. “Is it okay if I check my texts?” He looks utterly stunned. “I can’t believe you asked that…” “Well, I don’t want to be rude.” I smile. “With you taking me out and everything.” He blinks quickly, almost embarrassed. “Sure, yeah, of course.” I reach into my bag and find my phone at the very bottom of the purse-vortex.

On my home screen is a text from my best friend, Bridget. There she is, sort of sultry, with a new smoky eye she’s trying out. In her lap is Frankie Knuckles. He’s her dog, technically. Technically. Underneath is the caption:

Mama Mary, where are you?

Holding up the screen for Jimmy, I say, “My roommate is guilt-tripping me for not coming home.” I watch his eyes. I fully anticipate an understandable widening when he sees Bridget. The guy is only human, and Bridget has been known to make bus drivers forget their routes. But amazingly, he looks at her without any particular interest. Certainly nothing like the way he looks at me. Which is, you know, fantastic. “Holy shit.” Jimmy reaches out and unpinches his fingers over Frankie’s face. “That looks like an ewok.” He leans in, putting his enormous elbows on the table so that everything on it sloshes and slides like we’re at sea. I clamp my hand to my side of the table and try to right the vessel with my shoe. Victory. Not even a drop of beer lost. “Frankie Knuckles is his name.” “Jesus,” he says with a snort, looking at the picture. “What a bruiser.” Not exactly. He’s 13 pounds, allergic to wheat, afraid of aluminum foil, and carries a half-stuffed drool-crusted panda bear around with him everywhere he goes. “Do you like dogs?” I ask, as casually as I can muster. In my head, I swear to God, I hear the theme song from Jeopardy. This is a moment of truth. I’m not sure I’ll ever see this guy again, but I’d like to. I’m not sure I’ll ever know his lips on mine, but I want to. But this question, the dog question, this could be a deal-breaker. I find non-dog lovers to be very, very suspicious. I once heard Ted Bundy disliked dogs, and I thought, Of course he did. But this guy, Jimmy, he’s so perfect that we’ve got to be headed for a catastrophe. This might be it. Just my luck he’s going to say, I’m allergic, or I have twenty-nine cats, or I’m really into snakes. Please, no. “I fucking love dogs.” And the crowd goes wild! “Me too,” I say, smiling. It’s an understatement, but I don’t want to get pegged as crazy dog lady quite yet. With a non-greasy finger, I type in my passcode. “He’s a Brussels Griffon. And everybody says he looks like an ewok, but I’ve never actually seen Star Wars, so I can’t weigh in on that.” He scratches his head and glances at the bar. “Never?” “Never.”

He clears his throat. “I mean, I don’t want to be rude, but do you live under some kind of rock? Are you a hermit? Because I could totally be into that, but you know, full disclosure…” Oh Lord. I could be into that. I swallow hard. Wait. What was the rest of that sentence? Right. Star Wars. “I just never saw it growing up, and now it’s sort of a thing. I’m not morally opposed to Darth Vader or anything. Just…never got around to it.” Jimmy shrugs his massive sexy shoulders. He’s in a navy-blue thermal Henley and a gray Bears hoodie zipped halfway up. I’m pretty sure I can smell Bounce fabric softener tangled up with the Ivory soap smell. It’s hard to tell through the hickory smoke. It’ll require further up-close investigation. I’m definitely on board with that. “Fair enough,” he says. “I guess it’s possible to not have seen Star Wars. Maybe? Did you grow up in Amish country?” My giggle comes right from the depths of my stomach. “I grew up mostly in Vermont. My aunt was an apiarist.” I feel like a jerk immediately. He probably thinks I’m quizzing him on his vocabulary… “Holy shit. Bees?” And the crowd goes wild again! “So many bees. We didn’t have cable, but I can talk your ear off about honey.” He slides his lower jaw off to one side and looks me up and down. “Honey, huh?” I snatch up my beer and take a gulp. He grins. “It’s okay. I see your lack of Star Wars and I’ll raise you. I’ve never seen The Princess Bride.” “Well, that’s ridiculous. Even we had that one on VHS. Auntie Cheryl said it was a feminist film. She feels like Buttercup was inspired by Gertrude Stein.” He snickers into his beer. Did he just laugh at a second-wave feminist reference? I might love him already. It’s then that Sweet Uncle Earl himself comes over with a basket of steaming potato skins and shakes Jimmy’s hand. I’m not at all sure why they all love him so much, but if it means free potato skins, then I’m definitely down. They give each other that manly arm-to-arm handshake that I find incredibly sexy, but then Sweet Uncle Earl says something about the game and I tune out. As quickly as I can, I reply to Bridget: Busy. At dinner. Ribs! Without me? That’s it. Friendship over. I'll file the divorce paperwork via Legal Zoom, I guess.

Sorry! The password is b3stfriends4ever K. Who are you with? Is he cute? Will you just stop? It’s Movember. You know what that means…

Yes. I know what that means. I live with her. I know she has a thing for facial hair. A thing verging on a fetish.

He is very cute But doesn’t have a moist achy Moist ache MOUSTACHE

Did you learn to read in Britain? Moist ache LOLZ Mustache. It’s mustache.

“Moist ache” tickles me so much that I’m almost telling him about it before I remember to think first, talk second. Moist Ache. It might be a little too much too soon. Unless it’s to do with brownies, people are weird about the word “moist” and I’m not sure that he needs to know he’s gotten himself a nickname already.

It’s okay. We’re here binge-watching Stranger Things.

She is the worst best friend ever.

Good thing I have Legal Zoom on my phone.

LOL. Be careful. Roads are fucking awful. Have fun with Moist Ache <3

When I look up from the messages, I see Sweet Uncle Earl is gone and Jimmy is watching me. Either the space heater in the corner has seriously malfunctioned or I am blushing uncontrollably. I realize I must have been smiling like a lunatic because right now my cheeks burn. I drop my smile, put my phone into my bag, and reach for my beer. I take a long thirsty gulp. He shakes his head like he can’t believe me, and again I feel the heat in my cheeks. When I put down my glass, now —not surprisingly—about half full, I say, “What do you do for a living?” I can feel some foam on my lips and I quickly lick it off. Again, he gives me that weird look. He glances over at a television behind the bar, which is showing some football clips. A guy with the ball gets hit really hard by some other player in a different colored shirt. The headline says: “WILL FALCONI HAVE ANOTHER SACKTACULAR?” There’s a long pause as he looks from the screen to me and back again, so I take a potato skin from the basket and cut it into two pieces. For someone so sexy, he’s a little bit awkward with me, and I like that. It’s really very endearing. “I’m in…sports?” he says finally. So, I don’t know why he’s got a question mark at the end of that, but maybe he’s between jobs. Maybe he’s a sportswear model. I have a vision of a dimly lit photo shoot, with him doing pushups in an empty gym while he drips with sweat and grits his teeth. Groan. “You know,” I take another sip of my beer, “you look like the guy who models for those five-bladed Gillette razors.” He starts to laugh, smiling, looking at me down through the bottom of his glass. “That’s because I am.” I slam my beer on the table. “I knew it! When I was waving those smelling salts in front of your face, I just knew I’d seen you somewhere before.” Again, he cocks his head and again he looks at the television. Before I can say anything about it, though—like, possibly, Do you want to go sit at the bar to get a better view of the TV?—he says, “What about you? What do you do?” As I chew my potato skin, he gets this adorable smile on his face and then takes a manly swallow of his beer. I watch his Adam’s apple rise and fall and feel a little

faint. I point at my full mouth and then give him a single finger in the air. He reaches over and takes the other half of the potato skin from my plate. In the time it takes me to swallow, he’s already eaten it and is back with his pint glass. “I’m a physical therapist.” I wipe my mouth. “But I like to take a sort of integrated approach. The mind-body connection is very powerful.” He coughs through a laugh and looks away. I try to stay on course. I feel that stirring through my body for him again and shift on the bench seat. “Mind-body. Interesting,” he says, smiling down at his paper napkins. I nod. “Sometimes, when we think in a certain pattern, it ends up making the physical injury worse. So I like to help my patients break those patterns, if we can.” Incredibly, he looks very interested by this. Surprised, even. “Who do you work with?” “All sorts of people,” I say, thinking through my client list. “People with chronic pain, the elderly, people with acute injuries, athletes…” And then, for some reason, he cough-chokes on his pale ale.

7 JIMMY

Barbeque is a full-contact sport. There’s a stack of napkins about four inches high between us, and a little plastic basket of wet wipes by the candle. I have to take my sweatshirt off to keep it clean, but somehow—and I don’t even know how because God knows I’m watching her closely—she manages to make her way through rib after rib, dripping with sauce, and not ever, not once, get any on her sweater. I feel like that might be the true sign of a total badass. A woman in a white turtleneck sweater who can make it through a night at Sweet Uncle Earl’s without any problem at all. That’s fucking incredible. And we talk. Like strangers do, getting to know each other. She does this adorable thing when she’s thinking, looking off over my shoulder. It fakes me out the first time or two, and I actually do look over my shoulder. But then I get used to it and take the pauses to really study her hair, the curve of her shoulder, the fullness of her lips. Goddamn. But beyond being beautiful, she’s also really good company. The conversation is easy and smooth and never once comes back to football. The few dates I have gone on lately were all about football. Or money. Or money in football. Which brings me to the question: Who am I, if I’m not money or football? Jesus, I think, picking up another rib. I have no fucking idea. At all. “Have you read anything good lately?” she asks. I sink my teeth into the meat on the top while a big drop of sauce slaps down onto my potato salad. This conversation has to be happening to someone else. I don’t think anybody has asked me what I like to read in damn near twenty years. The thing is, I do have an answer. Here goes nothing. “Actually, I just finished American Lion.” She blots her face delicately. “Oooh! It’s so good, isn’t it? You know what’s also super good is American Sphinx. That Jefferson, he was a piece of work! And I saw this book, Six Frigates, that looks really interesting too…” Seriously, I’m about this close to telling her she can share my Kindle account so we can talk about James Madison all day long. “Are you a non-fiction woman yourself?” She beams. “Oh yes. All sorts of things. Fiction. Non-fiction. I do love my TV,

though.” She lifts her shoulders, eyes twinkling. “My roommate and I watch an awful lot.” I’m a little in the dark here. My television watching is limited entirely to ESPN and… “I watch a lot of How It’s Made with my niece.” Parting her lips slightly, she’s looking at me like I’m bluffing at a poker table. “No.” “Yes?” I say, thinking I might have just revealed myself to be a complete and utter nerd. But then she closes her eyes, with a rib perched between her fingers. “Today on How It’s Made: plastic pasta drainers, gumballs, hunting knives…and…” Oh Jesus, is she adorable. I freeze with my napkin in my hand. She holds a finger up from the rib to tell me to wait for it, wait for it… “…gluten-free apple hand pies!” It’s so exactly right, so perfect, that a huge belly laugh shoots from my mouth and fills the room. Sweet Uncle Earl gives me a look from the pass-through hole in the kitchen to say, “Man! Look at you!” and smiles and smiles. “They always throw in that product placement at the end.” I suck some sauce off my fingers. “Kills me. All I want to know is how they grow bananas and I get meatless luncheon meat or some shit.” She smiles hard and takes a big bite out of her rib. Patiently, carefully, she chews and chews, savoring every bite. It’s really kind of nice. I’m used to eating meals with guys who act like their eating time is cutting into their prison yard time. But she savors every last morsel. As she swallows the last bite of her potato salad, I see she’s got a smudge of sauce on her lip, and I signal to her mouth. Her tongue pokes out, trying to find the spot, but misses it by a mile. So I put down my rib and take a wet wipe from a packet. Then I lean over and blot at her lip for her. As I do, her eyes follow my fingers, and I stay there probably a shitload longer than is necessary. “Am I good?” she asks, after I’ve lingered there long enough to feel the wet wipe drying out. I scrunch it up in my palm but leave my thumb on her cheek for just a little while longer as I say, “Yeah. You’re perfect.”

8 MARY

Two beers and a full rack of ribs later, he pays in cash and offers his hand to help me out of the booth. He doesn’t let go when I stand up, but instead holds it tight, knitting his big, sexy fingers around mine. My heart gives a flutter, and the heat comes back up into my cheeks. As we walk to the door and everybody calls out, “Good luck, Falcon!” his other hand slides down my back, firmly guiding me along. His arm is warm against my back, his legs strong against mine. It’s not sweet, or cute, or gentlemanly. It’s electric, and starts a deep rumble inside me. He lets my hand go only long enough to help me with my coat, and then snatches it up tightly in his again. We step out into the softly falling snow. “Thank you for dinner.” He shakes his head. “I’m not done with you yet.” I’ve been told I've got moxie, but this guy can take my breath away with a glance. “No?” I ask, shifting my palm upwards so that we both flatten our hands against each other’s. Mine is tiny next to his, my fingers barely stretching to his second row of knuckles, my palm swallowed up whole by his. “Fuck no. We’ve only just started, Mary. I haven’t even kissed you yet…” Oh my God. But before I can react—say, swoon straight into his arms, or give him a breathy Where have you been all my life?—a plow comes down Clark at roughly seventy miles an hour. The roar of the engine fills the air and the blinking yellow lights shine through the falling snow. The curve of the plow is such that it’s sending all the snow off to the right-hand side, where there’s only one car parked: My old Wrangler. Cherry red, 1989, original hardtop. Very questionable cooling system. But, oh, how I love her. She’s got 199,997 miles on her, and her engine is held together mostly with different sorts of tape. And now she’s about to get buried. There’s nothing to be done to stop it, and I know that. But still, because I’ve never in my life been a woman to stand and watch, I start hustling down the street saying, “No, no, no, no, no,” and, “Stop, stop, stop!” and kind of cringe-watching

through half-closed eyelids. His hand slips back around mine as the plow buries the side of my car in about three feet of dirty snow, all dotted with chunks of asphalt like chocolate chips. The pile is thick, solid, and goes right up to the door handle. “Shit!” “Oh fuck. That’s yours?” “Jimmy! Why? Every damned storm! Why?” I shove him on the chest and he fake-stumbles backward. “You’re not supposed to park on the opposite side during storms. I get alerts on my phone about it all the time.” I take him by the massive arms. “What is the opposite side? The opposite side of what?” He laughs. “I have no fucking idea. I park in a garage.” I shake him, hard. He doesn’t budge at all at first, but then plays limp and lets me shake him so that his head rolls slowly back and forth. Even his throat is sexy. Finally, I stop shaking him and just stand there gripping his shoulders. I wonder, briefly, if he’d even fit through my apartment door. “What do I do?” I say, softly. “I don’t think Uber is…” But I find myself trailing off because he looks so … delicious here under the street lamp, with snow falling on his cheeks, getting caught in his eyelashes. The snowflakes make soft patters on our jackets, and somehow, his eyes are an even richer blue out here in the cold. His gaze moves up and down my face, and he walks me backward up against the brick façade of the building. I haven’t even had time to zip up my coat, and now he’s taking full advantage, slipping his hand around my waist and hooking one finger over the belt loop of my jeans. He presses his hips against me, and without even thinking, I find myself sliding my hands into his back pockets, the fingers of my right hand underneath his wallet, against the firm, strong curve of his ass. “You’re so fucking sexy, Mary.” I swallow hard. My purse slides down my arm, slippery because of the fabric of my parka, and dangles at my elbow. His other hand comes to my face, his thumb moving slowly up and down my cheek. “Do you even know what you’re doing to me right now?” “I think you better show me.” I press back against him as best I can. That’s when he leans in, nudging my forehead with his, a little bit like we did in the ring. But this is very, very different. Soft. Tender. Yet somehow just as intense. His stubble scrapes the edge of my cheek, and I let my eyes flutter shut. Into my ear, he whispers, “Get ready, because I’m going to kiss you.” “I’m ready.” I take the buttons of his Henley in my fist and pull him closer. “You fucking better be.” Inhaling hard against my cheek, he places his thumb to my jaw, keeping my face steady in his huge, warm hand. Harder and harder he pushes me against the wall. I let my purse fall onto the snowy sidewalk so that I can pull him close with both

arms. Through half-closed eyes, I notice the traffic light turn to yellow, then red, as he kisses me deeper and deeper. The kiss says, This is who I am. This is how I am. I grip his head with my palms as his fingers find their way down past my panties at the small of my back. The rush of cold sends a prickle up my spine. He isn’t careful about his split lip, like he doesn’t feel anything but me, but this, but us, in the middle of a snowstorm on a street corner. As the traffic light turns to green, I feel dreamy and far away. I’ve forgotten to breathe. It’s that kind of kiss. A take-your-breath-away, forget-where-you-are, kiss. Finally, I gasp for air, but don’t part from him. I bring one hand around the back of his head. Under my cold fingers, I feel the short hair at the nape of his neck, the warmth of his skin at the edge of his collar. At last, he pulls himself from me, and I’m left speechless, breathless, lost in his arms. For a second, we just stare at each other. Then he draws me up against his chest, sheltering me from the cold. I rest my cheek against him, the ridges of his thermal shirt pressing into my skin. With an effortless movement of his thumb, he draws my face up so I’m looking right at him. Those blue eyes sparkle in the neon lights from the building behind me. “I’ve never been kissed like that.” He inhales deeply and his grip on my body tightens. Then he leans in closer, and runs his tongue along the edge of my ear. “I’m going to make you feel a lot of things you’ve never felt before.” Oh my God. Once I’m able to speak again, I whisper back, “Maybe. Never know. Maybe we could teach each other a thing or two.” I lift myself up on my tiptoes and run my tongue along the edge of his ear to that place where it meets his jaw. I smell the very smallest hint of cologne, a clean, sharp, woodsy smell like nothing else in the world. “Fuck, Mary,” he groans. “I like you, you know that?” It’s so simple, so beautiful, that I don’t even know how to answer. I think this is what they call chemistry. Explosive, nuclear chemistry. I pull his mouth to mine again, and get lost for another round of green-yellow-red. His forearm lines the curve of my back, and he growls a little as he presses my hips back against the wall with his. He is intoxicating. Double India Pale Ale, move aside. Jimmy is here. When he lets me go again, he takes my face in his hands, the way I did when I was trying to bring him back to consciousness. His eyes shift back and forth between mine, finally settling on the left. “I’m going to take you home now. And we’re going to fuck. You’re going to make it up to me for knocking me out. You’re going to let me do what I need to do.” He nudges my cheek with his nose. “You with me?” It’s a full-body shudder that starts in my thighs and ends in my fingertips. “Please. Do it. All of it.” “I will.” He nips my lower lip. Then he adds, “I’m going to be a gentleman and

say I’ll come shovel you out tonight. But I won’t.” “Won’t you?” I whisper. “Hell, no. The only thing I’m going to be doing tonight is you.”

9 JIMMY

With her hand in mine, I hail a cab on Fullerton. She isn’t saying much, and I like that. I like talking to her, getting dirty, watching her lose her words. Because I’ll tell you what, I’m planning on her losing a shitload more than that before I’m done with her. Losing everything to me. That’s the fucking plan. The cabbie pulls off to the other side of the road a little way up from us and puts on his hazards to tell us he’s waiting. As we head for the crosswalk, I kick aside a drift from one of the plows, but it’s unsteady footing, icy and slick. As she begins to slip, her grip on my hand tightens. “That’s enough of that,” I tell her, and scoop her up into my arms, newlywedstyle. She squeals and hangs on tight. She fits fucking perfectly in my arms, and I love the way she feels tight against me. Her fingers slip past my collar, and her fingernails dig gently into the back of my neck. “I can walk,” she says, mostly to my mouth. Then she raises her eyes. “It was just slippery.” I don’t answer right away. I don’t want to come on too strong. I don’t want to scare her, but I don’t want there to be any fucking mistake at all about what I want or how I plan to get it. “I know you can. I’m sure you can do pretty much everything.” Her eyes glisten, and I hoist her up a little higher in my arms. The walk signal starts flashing its hand as we get to the other curb. “I’m no shrinking violet.” “Good. Because I’m going to need you to come strong for me tonight.” Her body reacts before her face does, her back arching under my hand, that bend so delicate under my palm. “Multiple times. Loudly.” She presses her face to my chest and moans out what sounds like, “Who are you?” “And you’re going to tell me what you like and how you like it. We’re not going to fuck around. Communication, pussycat. That’s the key.” There go her words again. I’m getting to know that glaze in her eye, disoriented with desire. “And what about you?” Now we’re even with the cab, but I’ve still got some things she needs to know. “I

don’t come until you do. At least twice.” She’s got no answer for that, so I bring her chin up toward me, stretching her pretty neck out with my thumb on her jaw. “You hear me?” She nods. She breathes. She blinks. “That’s how it’s going to go.” “I think I can handle that.” I laugh, sending a plume of steam out of my nose. This girl has no idea how badly I want her. How badly I need her. How fucking hard I am already to get inside her. “Yeah? You think so? You think you can handle me?” Her eyes widen a little. “I think so,” she whispers. Then I let her slip from my arms, such a fucking shame, but I’m not about to let her open her own door. As she gets into the cab—on the street side, the safe side—I say into her ear, “We’ll just see about that.”

I live in an old converted warehouse that takes up a whole block. I had it gutted, putting in new lofts that are so recently renovated, my guys tell me they need to let the concrete floors cure a little longer before they put on the final sealant. It’s all pretty much perfect. Except for the elevator. It’s an old industrial piece of shit that goes about one foot every ten seconds. The guys who did the renovation called it retro. I call it scary as hell. I’m not proud. I’ve bookmarked “unusual elevator noises” and “should elevators shake for no reason?” and “elevator accident deaths” on every device I have. Usually, I take the stairs, but not tonight. Tonight, I need to get her up against the wall as soon as fucking possible. With one hand on the small of her back, I pull my keys from my pocket, stick the master key into the elevator, and fling up the old metal rolling door. I swing her inside and press her up against the wall as I hit “4” with my clenched fist, and then kiss the breath right out of her. The door clatters shut. The single Edison bulb sways back and forth. Her little hands paw at my shirt, and she fumbles with my belt. I pull back to get a look at her, so I know what she’s like when she’s really getting needy. She’s greedy in the eyes, and flushed in the cheeks. I press into her a little harder, and tell her, “Get me started in here and there’s no fucking stopping me…” She undoes the buckle and doesn’t say a motherfucking word. Her eyes do, though. Those big green beauties answer, That’s the idea. I am painfully hard, so when she unzips my zipper, my cock comes free. I groan and pound the steel wall behind her head with my fist. Her eyes flit over to my hand and then back to me. There’s just a little bit of fear in there, and I like the look of that a lot. Without looking down at me to see if I’m cut or big or dripping precum already—all three definitely true—she fists me in her strong, small hand. “I want you to take me here first.”

“We’re not going to have elevator-ride sex the first time, Mary.” She laughs. Her eyes get narrow, and then she whacks the button board with her fist. The elevator grinds to a stop. “Fuck you, pussycat.” “Atta boy,” she says, eyebrow up and nothing but trouble. This woman. I’m telling you. “The harder you push me, the harder I want to fuck you. Just get your head around that.” She gets my belt off me, glances up once, and whispers again, “Atta boy.” The need to drive into her is so strong I can hardly see straight. I flatten my forearm on the old steel panel and knead my other palm into her ass. It fits so perfectly in my hand, it’s like she was made for me. She hooks one chilly finger over the edge of my boxers. “But before I let you inside me…” The way she says it winds me up. Let me. Like it’s not already mine to take. I grab her ass hard. “…I think I should probably know your last name.” It’s like a bucket of ice water on my head. It had to happen sometime, but I really hadn’t planned on it happening like this, now. But whatever. I’ll just kiss the shit out of her if she starts talking about football. I lock in on those eyes and say, “Falconi.” Still nothing. No recognition at all. And I’m fucking glad, because the last goddamned thing I want to talk about at this moment, with these sexy fucking thighs wrapped around me, is football. We’ve got way more important business to attend to. I position her in the corner of the elevator and take my cock in my hand. “Wait…” She tilts her head. “Jimmy Falconi…why do I…” Oh hell. I go in for the hard, teeth-clashing kiss. I kiss her so hard that I force her head back against the metal panels, making the whole elevator rattle like one huge tin can. She yanks her face away, studying me. “Why do I know that name?” I brace for impact. The thing is, for some reason, I love that she has no idea who I am. Dinner was awesome, just two people out for ribs. Talking books, flirting. And I don’t know who I am if I’m not football, but with her on the other end of it, I’d sure as hell like to find out. But she really is completely in the weeds. She squints, looking like she’s figured me out finally. “So you model. But do you also own a car dealership, maybe?” I stifle a laugh. Car dealership? I’ll take it. “Maybe.” I kiss her even harder and then give the elevator button a whack to get it moving again.

I carry her to the apartment, forcing her up against the door hard so I feel the ripple right down her legs. Blindly, I put the key in the lock. It swings open behind her. I kick it closed. “Now you’re all mine.” “Or you’re all mine,” she says, giggling, swinging her hair over the back of my

forearm and biting her lip as she looks up at me, smiling. Hell. Yes. I press her up against the wall for one more kiss. One more, before I let her feet touch the floor. Because I need her naked, right fucking now. As soon as she’s standing, I yank her sweater over her head and pull her jeans down off her ass. But not her underwear. Those I leave exactly where they are, because they’re pink, like I’d hoped, and so fucking sexy. They’ve got this black ribbon woven into them. I love that she wears panties like this for no reason. Sexy for herself. I dig that so fucking much. I take a second to trace the scalloped lace edge across her abdomen. Then I kneel in front of her and unzip her boots, rip off her socks, and unpeel those sexy jeans from that perfect body. She pulls my sweatshirt and my thermal over my head, and then I stand up again in front of her. Now it’s her turn to kneel, in a little ball in her own clothes. She undoes the laces of my boots and pulls them off me, all the time looking up my body with such fucking adoration, need, and desire. Shit, now I’m the one who’s speechless. “How did you get so fucking sexy?” I ask her as she straightens up again. I move her hair back over her shoulder so it falls down her back. Her breasts are full, and a creamy white. I wrap her in my arms, reach around behind her, and unfasten her bra so that her breasts come free right against my chest. Kneeling again, I take her left nipple in my mouth and watch her neck arch. And she says, to the ceiling, “You’re not so bad yourself.” Her skin is silk under my tongue. I smell her already, and it’s like that scent— that deep, wet scent—triggers something in my head. That smell, it makes a man feel alive. It makes a man feel invincible. Wiser men than me have said, I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in pussy. But this pussy? This body? This woman? Primal. Instinctive. Necessary. Taking her by the ass, I hoist her up and set her on a table by the door. A lamp goes flying and her eyes jump up to mine, surprised. “Oops.” “Fuck it,” I say, right up against her lips. “We could break every single thing in this apartment and I wouldn’t give a shit. Because right now, nothing matters more than this…” With two fingers, I start to press inside her as she fists me in her palm. She’s tight and wet and all the best things on earth. Her jaw relaxes a little as she purrs for more and more, and I see she’s got her tongue pressed upwards, against the roof of her mouth. As I hook deeper into her, finding her G-spot, her tongue falls again. “Oh God, Jimmy. Yes…just…yes…” I like the way she talks. But right now, I need her speechless. So I go a little further inside. As I finger her, her walls part a little, and I get a sense of her most secret curve. It’s beautiful. It’s soft. It’s hot. And I know one thing for sure: I need my cock inside it. “I don’t want to finger you, Mary. I want to fuck you.” She gasps a little. I let the words sit there between us. For one second, I keep her in suspense. Then I pull her off the table, flip her

around, and pin her up against the wall like I’m going to search her. Which I am. Hell yes, I am. As her head falls gently down between her arms, her hair spilling down against the wall, I feel her up and down. Her ass, her pussy, her stomach, her nipples. As I work on her, I watch her hands slip down the wall until her palms are flat and her elbows are bent. She looks at me over her shoulder. Her eyes are wide, excited, full of anticipation. She’s not laughing, not giggling. She’s as serious about this as I am. I place myself right at her opening, but don’t push into her yet. Right up against her ear, I ask, “Are we gonna fuck around with condoms or are you going to let me inside you like I need to be?” The little gasp of surprise is pretty much fucking priceless. She cranes her neck around to face me and blinks twice. She looks down at my cock in my hand, watching me work the length. “Do you have one?” I press my cock down between her ass cheeks, feeling her wetness on my shaft. I lick her ear. I nip her neck. “Of course I do.” Her wheels are spinning. I can almost hear them. “We should…” “Fuck should…” I flip her back around to face me so that her body hits the wall with a slap. “What do you want to do?” I cage her in with my arm and pin her against the wall with my body. Her breathing comes out slow and deep, making her ribcage collapse a little. She grips my cock at the base while also cupping my balls in exactly the way I like, letting the low one hang a little bit and keeping the high one tight. “Fuck, Mary,” I grind out through gritted teeth, my stubble brushing along her cheek. “If you can’t tell what I want,” she says finally, her voice strained, “I’m doing this all wrong.” Her grip tightens, and I part her legs with my knee a little more. “I can tell. But say the word.” “Do it. Please.” She lets go of my cock and slowly inches her fingers around my hips until she’s gripping my ass with both hands. She’s so much smaller than I am that my cock presses against her stomach, sliding softly past her bellybutton. “You’re sure?” I ask her, fucking possessed by the way my dick looks against her abs. She swallows. “Yeah.” I pull my eyes off what’s going on between us and zero in on her stare. “Hang on tight,” I say, planting my hands on her ass. As I hoist her up again, one perfect, soft ass cheek in each hand, her legs hook around me. “Please,” she whispers. “Just like this.” And so I follow her lead as much as I can, slowing when she tightens, speeding up when she relaxes. Penetration is smooth, easy, slick, and perfect, but halfway in, she thumps her head against the wall. She lets out this little moan that almost sounds like pain. I stop cold. “You okay?” “You’re huge, Jimmy.” She looks down at the two of us together, adjusting her

hips just a little, side to side, so my fingers dig deeper into the backs of her thighs. “You’re so huge.” Jesus. But I don’t want to hurt her. Not by accident. “I can stay like this if that’s what you need.” She shakes her head. Her legs tighten around my hips and then relax. “Don’t stop. Give it all to me. I can take it.” Christ. All. Mighty. Inch by inch, I give it to her. It’s like she’s made for me, pulling me inside, welcoming me into her all the way. I’ve been with enough women to know that things just got pretty fucking simple. I’ve never been with a woman who makes me feel like this. I shift her hair to the side as my cock compresses against her cervix. She gasps again, but softer now. Darker. “That okay?” I ask into the curve of her neck. She doesn’t answer, though. She just gives me that tongue on the roof of her mouth again, and a long, slow moan with her neck arching back. I’ll take that as a yes.

10

MARY

He’s just so deliciously… I study him as he thrusts deeper and deeper into places that I have never had a man find, making me feel things I've never felt before. His eyes are closed, his long lashes resting on his lightly freckled cheeks. I give him a squeeze from inside, and he returns it with a powerful drive that makes me groan his name. …dominant. That would be the word. But also… Tender. “Bed,” I whimper, hanging on to him, almost clinging. “I think I need to be in bed.” “Fucking told you,” he says, pulling out of me as he lifts me up onto one shoulder in a fireman’s hold, one big arm wrapped around my waist. I get a perfect view of his yummy, sculpted ass and his meaty, solid thighs. The hallway is long and clean, with a simple, blue oriental rug on the polished concrete. He turns left, and I see a blur of a kitchen. Then his hands move up to my ribcage, tighten, and he tosses me onto the bed. Dark blue sheets. Very bachelorish. Again, that smell. Better-than-Bounce. There’s a big row of windows on one wall of the bedroom, and he whacks something on the side table so that a panel of dark shades winds down from the ceiling. This guy. This guy. He drags me to the edge of the bed, taking one ankle in each hand. He positions my heels at his shoulder, bends my knees, and then guides himself back inside me. As he opens me up, I can’t help but writhe. He watches me the whole time. He’s brutal and gentle, somehow both at once. “That’s it, just like that,” he coaxes until his thighs press into the back of mine. He places a soft kiss to my calf. “I want to give you a little more than you want. But never more than you can take. Get it?” He thrusts in a little more. I nod, my head pinned by my hair at my back, so I feel the nod as a little twinge of pain. He pauses, all the way inside me. “Tonight, we fuck.” He drives in hard and

deep, ramming into my cervix and making me groan into his chest. “We fuck like animals. We fuck to get to know each other. We fuck to find the same language. But tomorrow…” He slips out slowly, so slowly, but so fully that I whimper and paw at him to come back inside. Then he does, loosing himself back into me so hard that I come right up off the bed. Behind me, the headboard smacks against the wall, and he drives a knee into the side of the mattress, scooting the whole king-size bed and me on top of it backward. The soft thudding of the bedframe on the wall goes silent. “What about tomorrow…” I pant, gripping his forearms, feeling a tight stretch down the backs of my thighs as he presses my legs closer to my chest with his shoulder. “Tomorrow…” he trails off as my legs fall open for him. His eyes move down my body and then narrow. His lips part slightly as he traces a long line down from my collarbone to my bellybutton. Nobody has ever looked at me with so much pure, plain desire. Even though he is already inside me, I want more, so much more. More than I even knew I could imagine. “C’mon, Gillette. Don’t get lost now,” I say softly. His eyes lock on to mine as he climbs on top of me and drives into me again. This time harder. So hard that the force makes me bite his shoulder. And then, in an intense, sexy, all-business voice, he says into my ear, “You know what? Fuck tomorrow. Give me everything you’ve got tonight.”

Stamina. The man has unbelievable stamina. As he fucks me, I squeeze him back from inside as best I can, showing him that even though he’s got me on my back, writhing and begging, I’m not weak. I’m not passive. I want to draw that power out of him and make him feel what he’s doing to me, too. He goes and goes, but then, surprisingly, begins to slow, and pauses for a second, gasping and saying, “Fuck.” He turns his head away from me slightly, his cheek to the pillows. I try to shift his head so I can get a sense of his face, his expression, how he’s feeling. But he doesn’t let me see his eyes. All I can see for sure is the ripple of his jaw muscles as he clenches them. He groans and stays buried inside me. “Are you okay?” I whisper, running my fingers through his short hair. “Just staving off an orgasm is all,” he says gruffly. “Do you do yoga? Because holy mother of God.” I smile up at the ceiling, holding his head tightly in my arms. “Did you almost come? Did I almost break the stallion?” He snickers and mutters, “Fuck you,” through another kiss to my chest. “It’s okay. It’s okay to be open about these things. It’s good to communicate, right?” He snickers again. “Fuck you twice.”

But I don’t give him a hard time about it. I like him soft, vulnerable, just the way he is now. And, actually, it’s flattering to make a man like this, a beast like him, suddenly weak and still. So I savor the moment, the feel of his stubble on my breast, his lips to my skin, his big body relaxing down on top of mine. I get used to the way he breathes against me, and I let my own breath fall into the same rhythm. After a moment, he finds his way again, coming into a push-up over me. He pins my thighs together with his so that he’s the one on the outside. It’s a whole different sensation this way, warmer and softer somehow. The friction of him entering me and then pulling out echoes in my clit. “Okay?” I whisper, trailing one finger trail up the back of his thigh. “Yeah. Just stop squeezing me, pussycat. I can’t fucking take it.” So I try to relax. I really do. But honestly, it just feels so good… “You are killing me.” He smiles, but then gives me a pump that makes me scream into the pillows. “You’re gonna have to pay for that.” As he speeds up, he unleashes into me with a new urgency, an aggression I've never seen before. He brings his hand to my throat, but gently, though. Not enough to scare me. More than you want, but never more than you can take. “You trying to punish me?” I whisper. “Fuck, yes. You can’t be this hot and not pay for it.” Using my arms around his neck like a lever, I bring my lips closer to his. “Make me pay, Jimmy Falconi. Make me pay,” I say, just as I give him a good solid squeeze. “Jesus Christ,” he groans. It’s then that he pulls out of me. I find it so delightful that I let loose a squeal. “Again!” “Stop it,” he says, with that big smile. “But fuck, that was close.” He shakes his head, grinding his teeth. I watch the rising and falling of his chest, the tightness of his biceps, the veins that run down from his abs to his groin. Remember this, Mary. This is the sexiest man you’ll ever be with, and you know it. He comes up onto his knees, straddling me, his ass just touching my thighs, his balls heavy and warm against my skin. Then he takes his cock in his hand. Gently, slowly, he brings the tip. To my clit. I look down and see a drop of cum about to slip from his opening. His eyes meet mine and then go back down as he slides his cock along me so that his cum lands exactly… on…the spot. Right on my clit. “Fuck, that’s hot, isn’t it?” he says. “Look at us,” I whisper. He glances up at me, still working himself into me. “Fuck. Right? This is exactly how it’s supposed to be. Always.” He rises up on his knees between my legs and keeps working his cock into me. His free hand moves up my body to my breast, but he’s focused intensely on what’s going on between my legs. It’s then that I feel it, the first breeze in the hurricane, the first ripple in the water. I’m right on the edge. I take his hand in mine and he looks up. He says, “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m close.” “Don’t rush it. Promise you’ll just let it happen. We have all fucking night, and I want to see you come exactly like you are,” he says, pressing my clit gently with his shaft. “Promise?” I look down our bodies. I love the way his huge thighs look on each side of me, how that cock looks so raw and ready. “Promise.” He dips himself into my opening and then goes back to my clit. He keeps his eyes locked on mine, like he’s learning that new language he told me we’d find. He makes a slow, focused clockwise spiral with the tip of his cock, and that’s when the shudder begins. “Fuck yes, just like that,” he says, drawing it out of me a little more with every word. I feel that wobbling in my brain, that shiver up my spine, that tensing of my walls that means I’m even closer than I thought. “I’m really close, Jimmy,” I whisper. “I’m really…” “You gotta ask permission.” The way he talks is so, so sexy to me. It gets at some deep down part of me. “I’ve always wanted someone to say that,” I tell him, gripping his hand hard. “To decide for me.” The first wave is coming, that warm rush is coming up through me already. “Nobody ever has?” I shake my head, and my hair shifts against the pillow. I dig my nails into his thigh and drive my head back into the mattress. His free hand comes to my stomach, his fingers splayed wide at the curve of my waist and his thumb softly touching my belly. “You like that? You like me talking like that?” “Yeah. A lot.” “Good girl. So ask. Fucking ask my permission.” “What do you want…” I suck in a breath as he moves his head up and down along me. “…Me to say…?” “Whatever the fuck gets you there. That’s what I want to hear.” The room starts to tunnel in, just a little. The edges twinkling with gray. “Please, let me come…” Now he gets more urgent, really massaging my clit with his tip. My breath starts to go jagged, and I hang on to him for dear life. But he doesn’t give me permission right away. He works me up and up and up, until I’m at the top of that roller coaster and there’s no going back. I know I’m talking to him, but I don’t know what I’m saying. “Please,” I plead, trying so hard to do what he’s asking me to do. “Please…” Then, without even guiding himself inside me, he rams into me hard and fast. “Come. Right fucking now. On this cock.” I scream out, making something that sounds like a sob but is the very opposite. He pounds into me, drawing my orgasm out from the inside.

And somewhere far away, as I’m tumbling down into the dark with him inside me, I hear him say, “Just make sure you remember that this is only the beginning, pussycat. Only the fucking beginning.”

11

JIMMY

Her orgasm is so passionate, so unapologetic, so beautiful, that I lower myself back down onto her before she’s even all the way through. I need to be closer to her, face-to-face, and I go for good old-fashioned missionary. Nothing better. Good traditions, man. They die hard. “Yes, yes, yes, yes,” slips over into, “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” and her vise grip on me loosens. But here’s the thing. I don’t even think it’s the squeezing that is making me want to blow my load right now. It’s her. It’s how beautiful she is. How sexy. How flaming hot. And that pussy? Perfect. And when I’m inside her, whether she knows it or not, she is totally the boss of me. I try to slow my breathing. I try to regulate my pace. None of it is working. I want to shoot my load in her so badly, it’s like a different part of my brain saying, Her. Now. Breed. Mate. Fuck. Devour. Holy shit. I need to keep going. I know I can keep going. But that threshold is coming up fast. It’s time to bring out the big guns. The playbook. I imagine it in my head, a copy of this old-school Sports Illustrated thing I’ve got on the coffee table. She starts running her tongue around my ear and I have to grind my teeth. The book is Blood, Sweat, and Chalk. I imagine opening it up and flipping to a page. The Wildcat Speed Sweep. The simplest of plays, but ruthlessly efficient. “Oh my God, Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy…” Her breath comes out in hot gasps. What? Again? Holy shit. I pull back and look at her. Yes, again. Into her ear, I say, “Keep going. Don’t stop, beautiful. Give me everything.” I put both hands behind her, pinning her body with mine and gripping her by the ass as I drive harder and harder into her. From an unbalanced line to the right, the quarterback takes a shotgun snap. “Yeah, just like, oh shiiiiiiiit…” She drags her fingernails hard down my back, and up, and back down again, the tight, thin lines of pain following her fingers. I shut my eyes and bury my face in her hair.

The QB can either fake the ball to the flanker… A huge groan comes out of me as she shifts her hips an inch and my vision starts to get hazy. I’m in the tunnel, but I’m not gone yet. “Are you going to come?” she says, turning to face me. I pump into her again. Am I? Holy fuck. No, no. C’mon, man. The flanker then runs the ball behind the blocking of the heavy side… “Not yet,” I groan into her ear. “Not fucking yet I’m not.” “Please. Please. Don’t let me go alone. Come with me.” “Oh shit, Mary.” I try to push it down. “Don’t stop,” she hisses, all dark and sexy. “Give it to me. Do it.” And she gives me a solid, ball-busting squeeze. Awwww, fuck it. Who am I kidding? She’s got me. By the fucking balls. “Can I come inside you?” She nods immediately. “Yes. We’re good. Don’t you dare pull out. Don’t you dare…” Hell. I had a whole bunch of shit I wanted to say, and all of it just got replaced by the hottest words any woman has ever said to me: Don’t you dare pull out. So that’s that. I can’t stop it. I can’t fight it. And I don’t want to. Now it’s me and her. My cock and her pussy. My cum shooting into that beautiful fucking body, on and on and on.

12

MARY

I open my eyes and watch the snow falling outside. It’s chilly in here, so I pull up the covers. But I realize he isn’t next to me. I roll over and place my hand to the mattress where he was, where I can see the outline of his body in the sheets. Cold. My heart drops as I sit up. A one-night stand, that’s bad enough. But getting left first thing in the morning, that’s a whole different feeling entirely. Except I see he’s left the fireplace on, a pretty gas thing that looks almost real. And I smell coffee. Then I hear the little alarm at the front door, the sensor going beep-beep-beep. “I hope that’s you.” I pull the covers up further. I have no idea what I’ll say if a woman in a Merry Maids uniform comes around the corner. That was not how I imagined this morning going at all. But then his face appears in the hallway. “Morning.” He smiles. He kicks off his snowy boots and pulls off his hat, which is this sexy navy beanie. He’s in flannel pajama pants, and they’re caked with snow. In his hand is a waxy paper bag, like from a bakery, crinkled at the top from where he’s been gripping it in his fist. That huge, sexy, gorgeous… He stares at me, looking at my face, my neck, my body, and gets this smile on his face, this absolutely cocky, fabulous smile. “What?” He clicks his tongue. “Nothing!” I eye him. Somehow, it’s like he’s up to something. Or knows something. Very suspicious, and super adorable. I’m not bothered. I’ll get it out of him. Yes, I will. “You went out in that?” He gives me this tough-guy chin flick. “Hell, yeah. Don’t worry, though, I always go out prepared.” He pulls down his flannel PJs to reveal a pair of thermal long johns underneath. “Eh?” He turns slightly and looks at me over his shoulder, then turns the other way, catwalk-style. “What do you think? Sexy, right?” Actually, yes. Very. They do positively spectacular things for him, revealing every curve and every little detail of that unreal bulge. His thighs and ass are so muscular, so touchable, I actually find myself clenching the sheet as I look at them. I squint and see on the waistband, KIRKLAND. Costco brand. This guy. “Get back in

bed already, will you?” I fling back the covers on his side. “I need your long-johned self in here to warm me up.” With the bakery bag in his hand, he springs for the bed—more for me than his empty side—and I squeal as he lands. The bedframe groans and, again, the headboard hits the wall. “I’m going to put felt back there. Or maybe one of those rubber bumper things.” “Because…” I tease. “Because not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, I’m going to bang you and this bed straight through this wall,” he says, sinking into a kiss. His mouth is cool on my tongue, and minty fresh. His skin is cold against mine. I pull him close and wrap my legs around him again. He inhales against my cheek and moans, or maybe that was me. I reach up and pull the covers over our heads and he laughs into the kiss before letting go. “These are for you.” He puts the paper bag beside me in the quilt tent we’ve made. It’s warm against my skin. I uncrinkle the top of the bag and look inside. Fresh, hot, beautiful donuts. Two of them. He takes one out and holds it out for me. I sink my teeth into it, and as I do, my eyes flutter closed. The glaze is sweet, the dough perfect. I moan involuntarily and realize my fresh donut moan is pretty much exactly like my Jimmy moan. His eyes move over my face as he takes a bite of the donut too. Then he brings his thumb to my lip. I feel a crumble of glaze on my skin and try to lick it away. Doesn’t work, apparently, because he dampens his finger in his mouth and does it for me. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.” It’s sweet of him to say, but I feel like I need to brush my teeth, and I have no idea at all what’s going on with my hair. But the way he’s looking at me, I feel beautiful. I do. So beautiful. He puts the bag aside and takes me solidly in his arms, rolling us over so I’m on top. My tangle of hair spills down onto his chest. “Dug your car out.” He smiles up at me, watching, tracing the edge of my collarbone with his finger. “Already?” “And,” he adds, stretching out a little more so I can see every sexy inch of his abs, “I stole your keys and drove it back here. Who says chivalry is dead?” “Not me.” I drag my fingertips down his pecs and onto his rib cage. He nods, kind of crumpling his chin to get a good look at me. “I figured, you know, since it’s a weekday…” “Oh my God,” I hang on to his chest. “What time is it?” “Almost eight,” he says, in this dirty, sexy way that tells me he’s got plans. Lots of plans, and they have nothing whatsoever to do with the outside world. “Shit.” I kick my way out from under the covers and jam the second half of the donut into my mouth. “I’ve got work. I’ve got to run.” I scramble for my stuff, which he’s folded up neatly and put on the chair by the bed. I grab my panties first and yank them up my thighs. Before they’re even on properly, I’ve got my jeans in hand and am shimmying into them.

He sits up with his legs parted and his elbows on his thighs. His hair is kind of a mess. He’s pretty much the sexiest creature on the planet. “Am I going to see you again?” he asks. I freeze with my fingers in my belt loops, at my knees, still with my mouth halffull. “If you want to.” He makes a swipe for me with his big arm and snags me, dragging me onto the bed. “I’m not even going to justify that with an answer. The real question is: How late are you?” “Can you be quick?” I say, gripping the Incomparable V muscles tightly. “You’re a heartless woman.” I dig my hands into him. This is business. I hate being late. Absolutely hate it. But I think I’d hate leaving right now even more. “Seriously. I’ve got two minutes.” “Fuck yes, I can be quick. I can run forty yards in six seconds. Two minutes is an eternity.” He pulls down his long johns, and I kick off my jeans. He’s hard already and doesn’t even have to guide himself inside me. As he enters me, he lifts my chin with his finger to face him. “And yeah, I want to see you again. As soon as fucking possible. I should warn you, though…” My eyes start to roll back in my head as he begins to find his rhythm. “Warn me about what?” “That when I see something I want.” He kisses my ear. “I always get it. Always.” “And what, that’s me?” I say, giving him a little squeeze. He pulls the covers up over us. “That’s right, beautiful. That’s you. So you and your Kegels better get ready to be swept right the hell off your feet. Starting with dinner tonight.”

13

MARY

I white-knuckle it home at roughly one mile an hour, following directly behind a snow plow driver in a big red truck with a Bears sticker on the back window. It’s like I’m floating. I can still feel the warmth of his hands on me. The things he did, the way he did them, and the way he talks. I’m going to need some more of that Jimmy Falconi as soon as possible. In fact, I’m so lost in thinking about him, I almost miss the Wrangler’s big moment. I glance down at the odometer, and that’s when I see it: 199,999, on its way to the magic number. “We’ve done it, honey,” I say, smacking the dash. “Time for a commemorative photo.” I look side to side and see a desolate Mobil station with snow snakes blowing around the pumps. I pull into the little driveway and get my phone ready, positioned between my fingers, slipping a little in my mittens. We aren’t there, though. Not quite yet. This moment is a big one, and I’m not about to get on Halsted and miss it because I gun it through a yellow light. So very slowly, I go around and around the pumps, watching the six revolving counters start to tip to six new digits. Inside the convenience store, a friendly looking old Sikh man watches me with his mouth open. I make another loop past the diesel pump, and wave. I make another, and he waves, but tentatively, sort of holding his hand in the air. And then, right there by the snow-covered ice machine, it happens. The big rollover to 200,000. I snap the photo. “Yaaaay!” The man inside the convenience store raises his thumb and forefinger in a circle, the universal symbol for everything okay? I give him the big thumbs up and drop my phone, about to head for the exit. Except then I see him. And suddenly, nothing is okay. He is in a gray topcoat, and I can see he’s wearing a dark gray pinstripe suit underneath. He’s rubbing his hands together, coming around to the side of his Lexus SUV. My ex.

I’m not afraid of much, but I am petrified of that man. His name is Eric Cavanaugh, and he’s a stockbroker at the Chicago Board of Trade. He swipes his card and punches something into the keypad, but it’s ice cold out here, and there’s no keypad on the planet that would work properly in this weather. In a millisecond, I watch that old, petrifying anger flare up as he smacks the side of the pump with the flat of his hand in a way so disproportionately vicious for the situation it brings everything back all at once. I slink down in my seat, as low as I can, and turn my head down and away to hide. I steady myself. I walk back from twenty in my head, but it doesn’t help. I think of my peaceful place. Doesn’t work. I stare at my keychain, trying to get out of my thoughts. But I’m in it. The fear is taking over. He’s already started roaring at the pump, same as he used to roar at me. Yelling bloody drunken murder outside bars and in our apartment. The look in his eye, that unstable, insecure look of a man who’s confident on the outside but a boiling catastrophe inside. Like an overheated chocolate lava cake: it looks beautiful on the outside, but is just waiting to send you to the emergency room. One year ago, I donated his engagement ring to the Cook County Sewers and Water department, courtesy of a high-efficiency toilet and a very, very liberating flush. But the fear? It’s still there. I haven’t seen him since I left him. I haven’t Facebook stalked him or driven by our old apartment. When I left him, I left him, every string cut. I actually thought he might have moved because not even once have I seen him in Lincoln Park. I peek up above the wheel. He’d have died to know I got a tattoo. He would have shaken his head and said, “What a shame.” Been embarrassed by the nose piercing, too. Horrified by the boxing in general, I know that for sure. “Maybe you’re a dyke,” he once said to me after three whiskeys and half a bottle of wine. Anger like that, it’s both born and bred. I peer through the gap between the steering wheel and the horn, only to see him storming toward the convenience store where the poor clerk is about to get his day blown to smithereens. I’m just glad he’s got a bulletproof panel between him and Eric, and a direct line to 911. Because God knows, he’s going to need it. As soon as he disappears inside, I put my foot down and peel out of the little parking lot, making a fast right on Clybourne that gets me an angry honk from a cab. I glance back in my rearview at his Lexus with the fancy rims and impeccable paint job. A wafting smell comes back to me as a memory, that powdery smell of drywall in the air, and that noise of crumbling bits and pieces falling down between the studs. I did learn a few things from him, though. Like putting cold cucumber slices on your eyes for twenty minutes can almost hide the fact that you’ve been crying all night. That neighbors won’t call the cops, no matter how loud the yelling gets. That holes punched in the drywall need a patching mesh for the joint compound to take. And that I would never ever let that kind of anger back into my life again. The thing was, it was a hard habit to break. My dad, when he was alive, he had a temper to rival Eric’s. That same brutish, brutal, brooding way about him. I thought

I deserved it. I knew how to suffer through it. Until one day, it was just… Enough. All of it. And that was the day I showed up at Bridget’s door with a suitcase, and no fucking idea what to do next. “Fuck you,” I growl back at him and the memory of him. “Never ever again.” But that poor lovely Sikh man in the convenience store. What am I doing leaving him there in the eye of the storm? I will not let another innocent person get their heart ripped open by Eric Goddamned Cavanaugh. If I can stop it, I have to. So it’s time to dig down in the dregs and the memories. It’s time to scare the living shit out of him and get a little bit of retribution in the bargain. I scan the street and pull off in a bus zone. Grabbing my phone, I go to Google Maps, where I pinch out and see the Mobil station. I push on it and hit CALL. One ring. Two. Then three. Before the man even says hello, I hear Eric bellowing and feel the hot bile in my throat. “Mobil Station on Harrison,” the attendant says meekly. “This is Anand. How can I help you?” In the background, Eric screams, “You motherfucking imbeciles! How’s a guy supposed to get gas? Your card machine is down and you don’t have an ATM? Are you fucking kidding me right now?” God, how I hate him. To assuage my fears, I imagine his princess-cut Tiffany’s ring, the one I never liked, in an enormous pile of dirty toilet paper at the water purification plant out by Navy Pier. It helps. A little. Then I buckle down, because there’s a bully to terrify and I am fortunate enough to know exactly how to do it. I straighten up in my seat. “Listen carefully, Anand. Hold steady. See that guy yelling at you?” “Fucking ineptitude is running rampant in this motherfucking city! And what is that thing on your head?” Nope. This ends here. I smell the drywall in the air already. “Yes, ma’am,” Anand says, his voice quivering. That’s the fear. I know that fear. I scratch my nose with my mitten and explain as calmly as I can. “Tell him that you are very sorry, but you were distracted because you have a rat problem.” “Ma’am? We do not…” “Anand. Listen to me. It’s imperative you say the word rats. Just yell it if you have to. Doesn’t matter how. Just do it.” I take a deep breath as Eric’s screaming gets louder. “Please.” “Rats, ma’am?” says Anand. Instantly, there is silence in the convenience station. One Mississippi. Two. Then finally, Eric whimpers, “What did you say?” But a whole octave higher than before. The goose bumps, the pinch in my cheeks, the tears of delight welling up in my eyes. Score one for the girl who’d had enough. And then, like an absolute champion, Anand says, more loudly, “Sorry, sir, for the inconvenience, but I was distracted because we are having a very, very serious rat problem. In fact, I think there is maybe one right there by your foot, sir.” Everything is silent. Until the ding-dong of the laser bell in front of the door

announcing the Eric the Asshole’s glorious departure. “Yes!” I whisper. “Anand! Yes!” Anand exhales. “Thank you, ma’am.” But we’re not out of the woods yet. I’ve seen him lose his shit on inanimate objects, and ideally that will not be happening to poor Anand’s pump number three. “Is he leaving?” “Oh my…” says Anand. I can almost hear the smile in his voice. “I think I forgot to put the salt on the ice, ma’am.” “Did he fall down?” “Most spectacularly!” Anand chuckles. “Now he’s up again. Poor fellow tore his pants. Yes. Yes, ma’am, he’s leaving.” I close my eyes and let the relief wash over me, the delight at finally getting him in the soft spot, out of nowhere, just like he used to do to me. Resting my forehead on the cold steering wheel, I remind myself that it’s nothing more than memories. I am safe and it is over. He will always stay gone. I will always be free. He is just a smudge in my past. I survived it and came out stronger, and now, here I am. “Truly. Thank you, ma’am. Please feel free to come here anytime for a free fillup. Or coffee. We have very nice flavored coffees. I can give you coffee for life. Rats!” Anand chuckles warmly. “Rats. May you be eternally blissful, my dear.” I shake my head, smiling and feeling a wave of tears of relief spring to my eyes. “My pleasure, Anand. May you be eternally blissful too.”

14

JIMMY

After she leaves, I crawl back in bed. I don’t really have time to be dicking around either, but I also don’t want to do anything but lie down back where we were. For one minute. One little minute… The two of us are alone on a beach in Belize. She’s in a bikini, drinking something with an umbrella in her glass. The sun is shining on her body, and there’s a little bit of sand accentuating the curve of her hip. Her bikini is blue and white striped. Her cleavage is a vision. I reach over and rub a little sunscreen over her shoulder. But then it all gets a little weird. Her pretty mouth is moving, but I can’t hear the words. “What?” I ask her. She cocks her head. “Who the fuck is playing the theme from Monday Night Football?” I say, but then again, I don’t know if I said it at all. Mary doesn’t answer. Instead, she takes a banana from a bowl of fruit on the table between us and unpeels it, slowly running her tongue right up to the… Oh. Fuck. Right. I sit up in bed and rub my face. My phone whirrs and rings from the floor, in my pants. Dun-da-dun-dunnnnnn. Dah-dun. Dah-dun. I lean out of the warm bed, snatch it up, and pat through my pockets. Dun-dun. Da-dun. I wonder if it’s my dad, but that doesn’t seem right. Maybe it’s my brother, the asshole, calling to say he can’t take care of my niece because he’s got to go play poker, or get his car out of the tow yard, or he’s on a bender, or he’s just busy fucking up someone’s life for fun, and would I mind finding her a babysitter. As I hit the answer button, I growl, “What the fuck, Michael? One of the bookies break your fingers so you can’t text again?” “Falconi?” says a voice. That’s not Michael. Oh fuck. That’s… “Coach Radovic here.” Goddamn it. I put my fingers to the bridge of my nose. “Sorry. Yeah. Morning, Coach. Thought you were someone else. How’s it going?” I roll out of bed and pad into the kitchen toward the coffee pot with my hand to my forehead. Way to start it off right, Jimmy. Well fucking done.

I hear the ping-ping-ping of a spoon in a coffee cup on the other end of the line, and then the trademark noise that is Radovic’s alone: the swish-swish of his tootight warm-up pants rubbing together between his thighs. I’ve got a theory he might even sleep in them. “All right, Falconi. So…” Radovic says, but then there’s a blink-out on the line, and after some rustling, “Aww fuck, hang on. Got another call. Don’t go anywhere.” “Yeah, sure, of course,” I say, realizing after I’ve said it that I’m talking to myself. I pour my coffee into a mug and add about half an inch of cream. Then I sit down on the couch, with my legs on the coffee table. I turn on the TV, muting ESPN. On the screen is normal morning stuff, wrap-up from the weekend, and Monday. Broncos win, and there’s a slow-motion reel of their new QB throwing a killer 50yard pass. Browns lose, which just confirms one of the eternal truths of American football: God hates Cleveland sports. Highlights, lowlights. A spectacular sack in which Eli Manning is sent flying backward five yards and lands with a fucking astonishing bounce, like a stuntman. “Shiiiiit,” I hiss, feeling that impact in my own vertebra. On the crawl at the bottom of the screen, there are lists of injured players, substitutions, all the normal stuff. This guy out, this guy in, injured reserves. Fractured tibia, concussion. Broken big toe. That broken toe shit blows. In the silence, I get pulled back to last night. I glance at the lamp I knocked off the front table and hear her saying please, please, please in my head. The way that edge of her shoulder looked under my fingers when I took her from behind. And this morning, that rough quickie? Jesus Christ. I look at my phone to make sure the call is still ongoing, and I see the seconds tick past. I put it back to my ear and focus on the TV. Now they’re looking ahead to the weekend. The crawl at the bottom of the screen announces, “BEARS NEED WIN TO HAVE PRAYER OF PLAYOFFS.” Assholes. But of course, they’re right. If we don’t come back from 4-5, we’re fucked. The thing is, I don’t play for “gridiron glory” or any of that shit. It’s all for my niece, really. The investments, the planning. I’ve got a spreadsheet on my computer figuring out exactly how much she’d need—really need—to take care of her forever. Answer? A hell of a lot of money. Sometimes, she’s the only reason I keep playing. She’s definitely the reason I shop at Costco. That and the roast chicken. Even though I’m past my prime, I’ve stuck with it. To make things good and secure for her. To give her what her deadbeat, shithead, son-of-a-bitch dad can’t. Except, yeah. I’m not going to lie. There’s a part of me, deep down, that would like to be able to look myself in the eye and see a guy who didn’t just grind along in the muck for 15 years getting concussed and bruised and tackled without ever seeing a hint of glory. I’d like to say that Jimmy Falconi actually did something.

Like won a Super Bowl ring with the Bears. The last four games have felt like I’ve got some mental block. I’ve seen more sports psychologists than I can count. They tell me I’m over-thinking it, underthinking it. Over-throwing, under-throwing. Everything and nothing is wrong. I’ve been poked and prodded, had my throwing style modified, even been hypnotized. Whatever the problem, everybody’s agreed on one thing: It’s the kind of shit that can end a career. “WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO JIMMY FALCONI?” says the crawl. The camera pans to Chris Berman, who says something, looking awfully doubtful, and then what does he do? Shrugs. Christ. Radovic comes back on the line and clears his throat. “Here’s the deal, son. We’re bringing in a new physical therapist, someone who might have a different approach.” Is that it? Fucking hell, please tell me that’s… Ding-ding-ding goes the coffee cup. But…” says Radovic. Knew it. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck… “But new PT or not, you get one more chance,” he slurps. “On Sunday. And if you can’t pull out a win, we’re gonna have to let you go.”

15

MARY

Our apartment building is one of those places with a grimly fancy foyer, complete with old-fashioned brass mailboxes built into the walls, all with cheap refitted locks that don’t quite work right. I decide to take the elevator because my thighs are still trembling. Still. Lord. The elevator whirrs upward in a slow grind. On all the walls are moving pads. Just think of the fun we could have in here. As soon as I step out onto our floor—which, due to a really lovely Indian family down at the end of the hall, always smells just like chicken tikka masala—I hear Frankie Knuckles snuffling under the door of our apartment. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I say, hustling down the hall and hearing him swipe furiously at the bottom of the door with his claw, the same way he hunts for his tennis ball when it gets stuck under the fridge. Scratch-scratch-scratch. Pause. Scr-scr-scraaaaaatch. Fumbling with my key, I finally get it in the lock, but the door swings open before I can turn the key. It’s Bridget, with a green mud mask on, ankle jeans, and fuzzy slippers. She’s got her red hair tied up in a red bandana and is wearing a blue flannel shirt, tied at the waist. There are very definite hints of Rosie the Riveter. At my feet, Frankie celebrates my return to his little world as if I have been gone for six months instead of a single night. He gets up onto his back legs and thrusts his arms out, spinning in a wild circle. “How was Moist Ache?” Bridget asks, patting down the green mud around her eyes with the tips of her fingers. “Oh God, Bridge.” I swoop past her, picking up Frankie. “He was just unbelievable….and then this morning…” Oh nope, not that. Don’t go there, Mary. I can’t tell her about Eric. She’s like the Doberman of friends. She’ll go right over to his place and egg his apartment door. We don’t need that. Not again. So I say, “Never mind. I’ll fill you in later. I’ve got to get the hell out of here.” I plant a kiss on Frankie’s cheek, and he flops around in my arms like a big fish. “I missed you!” I tell him and blow a raspberry on his stomach. He kicks in the air and stretches out, out, out, until his little hind legs look like they belong on a chicken. As I scratch his chest, he gives me his signature Frankie Knuckles smile, that shows off a snaggle tooth by lifting his right cheek. “Sorry I didn’t come home.

Mama Mary was bussseeeeeee.” He flings his head one way and then the other, wiggling his tail against my arm. I lift him up to my shoulder like a baby. He gives a tiny burp. “Pullllease.” Bridget locks the door. “We were fine. Did our toenails and everything.” Oh God. I grab Frankie’s front paw between my thumb and forefinger. And sure enough, he’s got one pink toenail. “You really are just unbelievable. What are they going to say about him at doggie daycare? You know he’s putting the moves on that Bichon Frise. How’s he going to explain this?” I tease, grabbing an apple from the bowl on the counter. The kitchen looks like some sort of holistic chemist’s lab slash bartending school. Bridget likes her martinis strong and her cosmetics natural; she’s got a mortar and pestle out with about fifty aspirin in it. She’s always about aspirin masks and this-that-and-the-other thing. Don’t even get me started on the time she tried to make her own leg wax. “What? He was sleeping! Look how pretty it turned out.” She takes his paw in her hand and does a move awfully reminiscent of the showgirls on The Price Is Right. “Next thing we know, you’ll be buying him rhinestone collars.” She winks. “Christmas only comes once a year!” I set Frankie down and he trots after me. As we go, he snatches his half-stuffed little panda up off the floor and flings it into the air to kill it for the seventhousandth time. He gives it a death shake and growls into the black and white plush, the broken squeaker clicking between his teeth. Once inside my room, Frankie jumps on my bed and buries his panda in my pillows. I unwind my scarf and throw it to the floor, and then riffle through my drawers for my fresh work clothes. Not exactly a uniform, but sort of—soft, clean yoga pants and a long-sleeved Tshirt with the company name I work for on it: Healing Therapies LLC. I spin around, reaching for my makeup to give myself some semblance of togetherness. When I look in the mirror, though, I notice I have a souvenir. A big, purple, Jimmy Falconi’s mouth-shaped souvenir. Well that explains that shit-eating grin he gave me when I was still in bed. Bastard! The hickey is so clear and obvious, I could take dental impressions from it. I lean in and gently depress the edges. My God. “Got any remedies for this?” I say, leaning out into the hallway and pointing at my throat. Her face lights up. “Oh shit!” Her mouth drops open. “Hoover or Dyson? Because there is no way a mouth did that…” A mouth. That mouth. That man. I try to dust a little powder over it. No luck at all. Bridget peers at it closer. “Does he have a friend? Did he take a class?” “Seriously. You have a remedy for everything. Remember when I sprained my finger and you made a potato poultice? And you’re telling me you don’t have a fix for this?”

She leans in, then shakes her head. “I vote for an extra-large bandage.” She blinks about ten times, touching her own neck in sympathetic hickey pains, and then a slow smile creeps up her face. “Who is he? Who is this mysterious Moist Ache with the magic mouth?” The two of us huddle together in front of my vanity mirror. It really is kind of startling, and just looking at it—at the shape of his mouth on my skin—sends a rush all through me again. “Scarf? I think that’s the only answer.” Bridget nods. “Something chunky and fluffy. Not even Maybelline can help you now.” I fly back into action, putting on a fresh bra, fresh underwear, and my clothes. I sit on my bed and put on a pair of extra-thick socks. It’s a huge mistake because in the world of Frankie Knuckles, socks mean walks. I try to be nonchalant about it. I don’t make eye contact. But it’s way too late. He watches me unroll the second sock and sticks his tush up into the air. “No, little man, we’re not…” His tail wags so slowly it hardly moves at all. “Frankie. Quiet time.” I use a reassuring, low, Cesar Milan-like voice. “It’s bedtime. Not…” But the eagle has flown. The secret sock signal has been registered in his tiny walnut brain and there’s nothing I can do to take it back. With his collar jingling, he tears off out of my room, doing a sort of Looney Tunes skid on the hardwood floor, moving his feet in running motions but not getting any purchase. Then he makes a 180-degree turn and zooms off toward the bathroom. I hear him thump against the tub and he tears off the other way, ears back and out of his mind. Zomgzomgsheputonhersocksitstimeforawalk! I let my face drop into my hands. “You know you’re supposed to put your socks on in private,” Bridget says. I peer at her through my spread fingers to see her looking at me with a frown. A frown so dramatic that it makes her face mask crack a little. “Can you take him?” “Bridget. We’ve discussed this.” “Pleeeeeeeeease.” “He’s impossible. You know that.” “You know you wanna!” Of course I do, but here’s the thing about Frankie: He’s the only therapy dog I know who had to drop out of school due to a morbid fear of Crocs. But he does have a vest, which is helpful at Halloween and the occasional dog-sitting quandary. Bridget clasps her hands together. “He missed you. Take him with. His feet smell so much like corn chips right now…” Lord. I’m such a sucker for that dog. But we have been through this more than once. “I don’t even know where I’m going. Do you know what happens if there is an unsuspecting stranger wearing the shoes? Do you even know what happens to him when we pass a shoe store?” In the background, Frankie zips back toward the

bathroom and then zooms toward the kitchen again. I hear him slide into the trashcan. She twists the knot on her flannel shirt. “Please?” He runs back toward the bathroom and emerges dragging a full-size bath towel behind him. It doesn’t go quite as planned, though, and he ends up getting rolled up into it like a burrito. “Fine, yes, okay,” I say, unrolling him from the towel, which he then grabs to begin a pick-up game of tug-of-war. She claps her hands together in front of her. A little crumble of clay falls from her face and lands on the floor. “But if he starts growling at my clients, I’m calling you. It’s bad for business. A lot of my clients think Crocs help plantar fasciitis.” Bridget scoops him up in the towel and swaddles him, then pulls out his paw to wave it at me. She does her Frankie voice, which sounds awfully like her impression of Oprah. “Thank you, Mama Mary. Thannnnnk you. What’s your man’s name, by the way?” This is Bridget all over. She always asks the important questions through the dog. We are like some old married couple bickering through a Brussels Griffon. “Moist Ache. You know that already,” I say as I take Frankie’s travel carrier from the closet. It’s basically a big purse with a little modification on one end for his head to peek out. Frankie zooms at full speed into it, turns around, and pokes his head over the edge, panting. I hand him his panda. “Jimmy.” I clear my throat, realizing I’m just a little hoarse. “Jimmy is his name.” Again, I feel that rush through me. Scream until you’re hoarse. And now here I am. Bridget makes a pshaw sound. “What kind of internet stalking can I do with that? Last name?” Frankie gets his head situated over the edge of his carrier, breathing hard into his panda. I hoist the carrier bag up over my arm, and grab one more apple for the road. “Jimmy Falconi.” I sink my teeth into the apple. Bridget’s mouth falls open at the very same moment that her mess of pretty red hair falls out of its chopstick bun. I have no idea what that look is for, but I tighten my scarf, put on my hat, and head out the door, and as I’m hustling down the hallway with Frankie bouncing along next to me, I’m almost sure I hear her say, “The Jimmy Falconi?”

Just as I put my hand on the door handle to go out onto the street, my phone chirps at me. I pull it out of my pocket and see the face of Dr. Curt Curtis, my boss, and owner of Healing Therapies LLC. He’s been out of the Army for twenty years, but still rocks the buzz cut, and the jaw line, and a passionate love for clipboards. Once a colonel, always a colonel. No matter what we’re talking about, he sounds like he’s

on the battlefield. I hit ACCEPT. “Mary, what’s your ETA?” booms his voice from the phone. I scramble to turn down the volume. I’ve tried to tell him there’s no need to talk as if he’s giving orders through a walkie-talkie. It hasn’t sunk in. But wait. What is my ETA? It’s a good question, seeing as I don’t even know where I’m going. “Had a little car trouble.” I bite off a piece of apple for Frankie. With my shoulder, I shove open the front door to our apartment building. A mailman skids along with his hands out, narrowly avoiding me and doing a spiral around a parking meter. “Just leaving now!” “Jesus!” he booms. That’s his favorite word. Jesus. It’s his all-purpose exclamation. Good news? Jesus! Bad news? Jesus. Really bad news? Jeeeeeeesus. Just depends on the moment. “Had a long night!” I slide toward my car along the salty but still icy sidewalk. “Where am I headed?” “New patient. Just got the call yesterday afternoon. It’s a shoulder. Looking at the chart, I decided you needed to take it. Might be that there’s a little mind-body connection going on, like you’re so fond of talking about.” Dr. Curtis isn’t exactly closed-minded about such things, but the closest he gets to any kind of holistic, natural approach to anything is a celery stick in his Bloody Mary. So sometimes, just once in a blue moon, there’s a case that he feels might be a bit bigger than therapy bands and stretches. “Roger,” I say with a little twinge of excitement. “Just tell me where I’m headed.” “To Soldier Field. I’ll email you the file. You know how to get there?” “Soldier Field,” I reply slowly, almost sounding it out. “Baseball? South Side?” Curtis groans. “The football stadium. Where the Bears play. Da Bears?” “Oh! Right! Of course!” Still, I have no idea whatsoever. I mean, I know the Bears. Of course I do. But as for where they play? No idea at all. I can almost hear Curtis smack his forehead. He’s a die-hard Bears fan. He has a standing order for two dozen Buffalo wings for every game day, and a flag in his front yard that says I BLEED BEARS BLUE. HOW ABOUT YOU? Normally, I’d ask for info on the patient, the injury, the prognosis. But the file is on its way, and I’ve got some serious windshield fog to deal with. “Having some operational problems, Colonel. Will report back to base after the appointment.” He pauses, waiting for me to end radio transmission. But I don’t. Instead, I decide to ring the gong of the day, in a way. Because it just felt so right earlier, and feels so right still. “May you be eternally blissful.” “I don’t read you, Mary! Repeat.” Curtis hollers. Okay, fine. It’s not really his cup of tea, so I go for the old trusty, “Over and out, Colonel!” and end the call. I buckle Frankie into his harness clip that fastens to the seatbelt, and tell my

phone, “Okay, Google! Take me to Soldier Field.” She beeps at me. “Soldier Field is the home field of the Chicago Bears. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league’s National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Their head coach is Mike Radovic and their current starting quarterback is…” “No, Google! Open Maps. Driving. Maps! Give me driving directions,” I bark at my phone, trying to enunciate as much as I can with my lips almost frozen. “Driving directions!” Bloop bleep. Finally, my phone gets with the program, and Google Maps chirps back, “You are on the fastest route. You will arrive in 20 minutes.” And we’re off.

16

JIMMY

In the parking garage, I hook snow chains to the tires of my old Toyota 4Runner. For a day like today, I could definitely take the Yukon, but there’s just nothing better than hauling ass down Lake Shore in chains. I’m only bummed I didn’t have time to stick chains on her Wrangler, but everything in its own time. This truck is my favorite, and I’m super fucking attached to the old JOE MONTANA FOR PRESIDENT bumper sticker that I put on the back when I was a kid, so I’m not about to change it up. This thing was my dad’s first, and then mine. The day I got the keys might have been when shit started to go south with me and my brother, but I suspect it was a hell of a lot earlier than that. Like, say, birth. Or maybe he was already busting my balls in the womb. That would be his kind of thing. The ass. This 4Runner is a part of me, a reminder of who I was before I became The Falcon. I was nothing but a kid with an arm, from a dirt-poor oil rigging family in the Permian Basin. Which is still basically what I am—some guys feel comfortable with money, but I never have. Never will. Unless it means I get to spoil the living hell out of that woman. As I’m chaining up the tires, I send her an array of texts, which is a first for me. Being the first one to text. And not only do I do it once and play it cool with, like, a, Hey. Thanks for last night. No way. This time, I go balls-deep in it, talking to her like she’s standing here with me:

Where should I take you for dinner? Italian? Greek. Ribs again? I could make you an omelet. That’s pretty much all I know how to make.

But I can make the shit out of it. Cheese and everything. Avocado? But no answer, not even any sign that she’s read the messages. I think about telling her something dirty, but no. That’s not right. Don’t be an asshole, Jimmy. She hasn’t been gone an hour, and what? You’re going to blow up her messages? Play. It. Cool. This one is a keeper. Did I just think that? Oh Jesus. I did. But I cannot get her out of my head, which is also unusual for me. I’m not exactly a playboy… Okay, fine, I am. Kind of. A serial first-dater, anyway. But she’s different. I can feel it. I mean, maybe that’s my dick talking, but it’s never talked quite like this. Those orgasms. Fuck me. We’ve got the spark, the chemistry, whatever it is. It’s undeniable. I’ve never felt it before, and it feels fucking amazing. As I hook the chain on the back wheel, my phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s her. driving!

I find myself smiling at my phone, moving my thumb over the message. See, I even dig that. Admittedly, it’s dangerous as fuck, but it’s nice. It’s cute. It’s considerate. Sweet. With one hand, I open the hatch, toss my bag into the trunk and hop into the driver’s seat. As I head for the garage door, I listen to the chains banging on the dry concrete. When I get onto the road, though, it all pays off. I watch a guy in a Tesla slide off into a fire hydrant, doing just enough damage to fuck up his day but not enough to involve the insurance. The worst. I wind my way out of town, past snowdrifts and plows pulled off to the side of the road. I turn up the heat and put the radio on full blast. I get on the highway and gun it toward Soldier Field. Toward work. Toward the game. The thing that was amazing about being with her was that it was as if I was completely outside of all of this stuff. For a few hours, I had a break. I was totally free to just…be. To get lost inside her, to get away from everything. But now, the butterflies start again, and it feels like a bowling ball knocking down all the pins in my gut. On the highway, my phone buzzes again, and I put it on my leg. This time, it’s not from Mary. It’s from Michael. The dickhead with my DNA.

Looking forward to watching you fuck it up again on Sunday, James. I’m making bank by keeping you off my fantasy football team. If we’re the yin and the yang, he’s the dark one. The underside. The kid who got in trouble; the one who was too violent for team sports. And if it were anybody other than my identical twin, I’d have told him to fucking take a hike. Twins, though, it’s complicated. Really complicated. Especially because of Annie. I moved the two of them with me to Chicago because I couldn’t fucking handle the idea of leaving him to raise Annie without me keeping an eye on him. The shit gave me nightmares before it had even started. If my mom were still alive she’d be able to help, but she’s been gone for years. My dad is just as bad as Michael. So it all comes down to me. I peer at my screen, at the little thumbnail I use for his contact photo, which is her face. Christ. That little girl has my number every which way. She’s wearing a little tiara I bought for her, and her face is covered in SpaghettiOs. The cutest stinking thing I've ever seen, and how in God’s name she is related to that absolute asshole… I reread the messages. Goddamn it, how I hate him. Without fucking fail, the guy makes me feel like a total pussy. And a failure. Nobody else on the planet makes me feel like I’m five years old, but he does. He’s an asshole, a deadbeat, but he’s always known exactly how to get to me. I’m not jealous. I don’t want his life: a temper, a gambling problem, and a slow creeping case of serious alcoholism. But I envy him for having Annie. That much is definitely true. Normally, I’d answer with some shit about how he should stick to what he knows: Jim Beam and the slots. It never works. When you’re a losing quarterback at the end of your career, man, there’s a lot of cheap shots to be had. But today, I’ve got a different reply. And it feels damned good to say it.

Driving.

When I get to the locker room, I find Valdez sitting on the bench in front of my locker with his leg up on a chair. We were at OSU together. He’s approximately the size of a polar bear, and also the owner of the world’s most unfortunate tattoo. After playing six seasons for the Raiders, he took the plunge and got a huge number 18 tattooed on his back. And I mean, fucking huge. Like, bigger than the number on his jersey. He might have done it in an ill-advised trip to Vegas with me, but we don’t really talk about that

because about six seconds after they turned off the tattoo gun, he got traded to the Bears. On the upside, it meant we got to finally play on the same team again. On the downside, 18 wasn’t available. So he’s 81. I said, “At least they’re both multiples of nine.” I still don’t think he got that. He nodded like he did, but I’m pretty sure it went right over his head. That’s okay, though. He’s got a heart of gold, is tough as shit, and loves Angry Birds. And he looks like a bear, eats like a bear, so we call him Bear. “Dude, what the fuck?” he says as his iPad screams, “Kakawwwwwww!” I drop my bag. “What?” “We had darts last night. You never showed.” The birds on his screen make annoyed grumbling noises and he holds his enormous finger out in the air. “Fuck.” I slump down next to him. “I…fuck. I’m sorry, man. I got a little busy.” Valdez wrinkles up his massive face and scratches his ear. Then he reaches over and grabs his very favorite snack, a honey stick, which he snaps open with his teeth and squeezes in his mouth. He considers me while sucking on the honey and blinking slowly. I’m serious. The bear behavior is really hard to ignore. “You meet someone?” This is the other thing about Valdez. His mom is a palm reader from Guatemala, and nothing gets past him ever. “Dude, stop. Will you? I’m totally good as a bachelor.” So good, in fact, that I declined an invitation to be on The Bachelor. “Pffffffft.” He wiggles his tattooed ring finger. “A wife is the best thing that can happen to a guy. Next to kids.” I don’t know about that, but Valdez is a true believer. He may look like a thug, but he’s pretty much the most wholesome guy on the team. Never looks at another woman, and never misses dinner at home if he’s in town. His one treat to himself is darts, over a pitcher of Old Style, with me. And I stood him up. “I feel like a total douchebag.” “I wasn’t gonna say it, hombre. But yeah. Total douche.” He sucks some honey from the straw and gnaws on the end. “I can only forgive it if it has to do with a good woman.” Christ. Among his other pursuits, including raising money for the Cook County Humane Society and serving at a soup kitchen in Riverdale on Saturdays, he’s dying to get me married. I mean absolutely hell-bent on seeing me walk down the aisle, any aisle, even if it’s the hallway at City Hall. He and his wife have set me up on more dates than I can count. All perfectly nice women. Some with big hair, some with small hair. Big boobs, small boobs. Nice, though. Super nice. But none of them quite right. Probably because none of them knocked me unconscious before they even knew my name. My type might be one in a million. “I fell asleep on the sofa,” I explain, because I don’t want to involve Mary in this. If I did, if he had any idea how she makes me feel, he’d be booking a photographer and asking me if he can be the godfather to a kid we don’t even have.

Valdez only has one relationship speed: warp. But Mary and me, we’re new. Just starting. Too early to say, but not too early to hope. I flash back to last night, to her at the end of me, on her knees the second time, gripping my forearm as she came, the way her head landed on the pillow, the way she whimpered as she shuddered. Fuck. Screw taking her out for dinner. We’ll get takeout, and I can feed her grapes and lick whipped cream off her nipples. “Bullshit.” Valdez runs his tongue around his mouth and then gnaws on the plastic straw. “I can see it on you. Like a glow.” I look at myself in the mirror on the other side of the room. And actually, I can kind of see it. Weirdly. I don’t know what it is, but I look…happy? I’m usually happy-ish. But now, I’m damn near beaming. “New soap,” I tell him. Valdez lets fly with a pelican bomber. “Riiiight. You’ve got six hundred bars of Ivory and you’re saying new soap? Okay, Mr. Costco. Okay.” The guy is a ballbuster, and as usual, can see right the fuck through my ass. I mean, I guess I’ll have to tell him eventually, so I try to get the story lined up in my head. I went to that boxing gym, you know the one with all the guys with neck tattoos? And there was this girl, who flattened me… See, that’s… We talked about bestselling biographies of American presidents, and she did this impression of How It’s Made that… Ummm… She ate a half a rack of ribs just as fast as I did… Well okay, yeah, that one might actually seal the deal for him. But before I can get the story started, I hear the jingling of keys and a woman’s voice saying, “I’m looking for Mr.…” I freeze. I know that voice because it’s totally stuck in my head. Jimmy, Jimmy, please, please… And the thing is, her voice is a little ragged now. From screaming my name. Ever so slowly, I move my eyes to the nearest mirror. There she is, in the doorway, scrolling over something on her phone. She’s got snow boots on, with red laces, and her yoga pants tucked into the tops. Today she’s wearing a puffy short vest, so I can see every last inch of her perfect fucking legs. And that beautiful Y between them. Yoga pants, God bless them. Namaste, motherfuckers. Namaste. But wait. What am I doing, getting lost in those legs again? The real question is: What the hell is she doing here? Her eyes dart around the locker room, and she adjusts her scarf. It’s my fault that she’s got to have it so tight around her throat. Mine. All mine. Jesus Christ, this woman is turning me into an animal. She can’t see me, but I can see her; this place is full of mirrors and I’ve got a fun-house advantage.

She unzips her vest and I try to read her shirt backward. It’s just a goddamned jumble. CLL SEIPAREHT GNILAEH. What is happening? What the fuck does that even say? Is that English? I try to sound it out. Call Separate Ghinleah. No. What? I come around the corner and slide one eye out past the locker so I can get a direct line of sight. HEALING THERAPIES LLC. Uh-oh. Her eyes meet mine. I can almost see the thoughts streaming through her head. Why is the model who sells Fords and Fiats in the Bears’ locker room? Is he stalking me? Fantastic. Her mouth drops open. How the fuck am I going to explain this? I kind of liked being anonymous, and I haven’t talked about a book with anybody since I was drafted. Plus, you were just so cute having no idea at all who I was that I couldn’t say anything, but I really was planning on doing it tonight over dinner. Smooth. So smooth. I take a step toward her, and then another, but I’m not looking where I’m going, and I’ve gotten myself into a serious situation. My legs have gotten tangled in someone’s gym bag. I try to take a good, long, steadying step, but that just makes the shoulder strap tighten and gets the bag wedged under one of the benches. It pulls my foot back, and now the shit is really hitting the fan. Like something out of a slow-motion blooper reel, I feel myself falling, falling, my arms out and pawing at the air like a haunted house mummy. Her mitten comes up to her mouth. My shoulder ricochets off the corner of the locker bank. Now I’m falling, and turning, and flailing… Somewhere behind me, I hear Valdez holler, “Stand clear! Save yourselves! Quarterback going down!” Just behind Mary is my guard, Macklin, with his hands cupped to his mouth saying, “Ohhhhhh shiiiiiiit.” With my other foot, I try to get back on solid ground again, but I manage to step into the other strap and flail, flail, flail until I’m going headlong toward the industrial carpet with the Bears logo woven a million times into the nylon pile. Boom. I land hard and knock the wind out of myself, and so to add insult to injury, I’m there tangled up in a gym bag gasping into the floor. I feel an old familiar pain in my groin, one I haven’t felt for years and years. “Fuuuuuuck,” I say, into the carpet. Her snow-crusted boots inch closer, and then she drops down into a ball beside me. Her hand touches my back and she whispers, “Jimmy?” “I’m good.” I suck up some drool. I’m really winning this. Totally. Frankie Knuckles now comes to see to me, checking for signs of life by smashing his nose into my ear and giving me a cold, wet, sneeze. I try to face him, but as soon as I move, I feel it—the hot-poker pain in my balls. I roar into the carpet.

“Are you hurt?” “Groin,” I snarl. “Oh no.” I try to roll over, but my legs are all tied up, so I just stay where I am, feeling the slight rug burn on my cheek and wondering if a person can actually die of embarrassment. I look up at her, and her hair slips down over her shoulder. The dog stares down at me, a few inches from my eye. “What are you doing here?” I ask her. As I do, swear to God, the dog’s eyebrows come down like I’m talking to him. She blinks. “I’m…your new physical therapist, I think?” Well. Fuck me. But that’s when Radovic stomps in, with his warm-up pants swishing and his blue Crocs making small farting noises under his feet. He believes in three things: a no-huddle offense, Crocs, and Red Bull. And he has an absolute gift for stating the obvious. “Falconi. You’re on the floor.” Told you. That’s when Frankie Knuckles turns his scruffy head to look at Radovic, zeros in on his shoes, and absolutely loses his shit.

17

MARY

“That’s a terrible therapy dog,” says Coach Radovic, sucking down some Red Bull and standing in the middle of the training room in his socks. I managed to snatch the Crocs off his feet before he got his ankles mauled, and hid them on the top shelf of Jimmy’s locker. Now I hear his toes crack and he burps a little over my shoulder. There’s something in his eyes that tells me he might be a few eggs short of a dozen. I’m pretty sure the guy wasn’t poached from NASA. He slugs back a big gulp of Red Bull but doesn’t swallow, so his mouth is full and puffy like he’s swishing with mouthwash. I guide Jimmy to a massage table and help him sit down. He makes it look like a children’s pool floatie. His feet hang off the bottom, his head hangs off the top, and his shoulders are about five inches too broad on either side. He gives me this look, this mischievous look that absolutely melts me. Stay professional, Mary. Do your job. I adjust the headrest to maximum extension and position his head on it, letting my fingers linger on his sexy, thick, perfectly trimmed sideburns... Mary! I know I’m here for his shoulder, but the groin injury is acute. I can’t ignore it. That groin. Oh God, this is a disaster. Focus. He’s just a patient. That’s it. So simple. A patient with a groin injury that he got because he fell down trying to get to you in the locker room of the Chicago Freaking Bears. Just an ordinary morning. “I think I should probably get you on the floor,” I tell him. “For leverage.” And Jimmy grumbles something like, That sounds good to me, under his breath. Are you there, God? It’s me, Mary… But I can tell he’s in pain, and I’m not totally sure that the floor is going to make any difference at all. “Let me take a look at your groin.” Jimmy’s eyes meet mine. Radovic is standing so close that I can hear the air from his nose whooshing off the top of the aluminum can in his hand, along with a low whistle from his nostrils. The guy could definitely use a neti pot. “Coach, I think Dawkins wanted a word with you,” Jimmy says, shifting his head

to look past me, at the same time revealing the veins and muscles in his neck, like columns. The guy is just pure sex appeal. Two hundred eighty-three pounds of delicious at my fingertips. Radovic swishes off, hollering, “Dawkins!” at the top of his lungs. Now we’re alone. Jimmy tucks one arm behind his head, the same way he did this morning in bed, and smiles up at me. He’s in sweatpants, a hoodie, and wellworn tennis shoes, and his hair is an adorable mess. “Well. Hello again.” “At least this explains where I thought I’d seen you before,” I whisper, pretending to look busy with my clipboard. It’s an old Army trick that Colonel Curtis taught me. Clipboards make everybody look official. He said that’s how he got promoted to sergeant. Or something. “So you’re not just a Gillette model.” I pretend to jot down some notes. Really, I’m writing his name very, very slowly on the form. “And the car dealership?” “Falconi Ford and Fiat,” he smiles. And winks. Suddenly I am transported to the Dan Ryan Expressway. That is the face. “You’re on billboards! Winking like that!” He snorts. “Possibly.” “I can’t believe I didn’t know you were the quarterback,” I whisper. “You’re actually famous!” He shakes his head. “It was awesome. I kind of wish you didn’t know now.” But I do know. There’s no getting around it. James Falconi, 34, 283, 6'6" is my patient. “Code of Ethics for the Physical Therapist, Principle 4E: Physical therapists shall not engage in any sexual relationship with a patient…” Oh geez. But it’ll be okay. I’ll get in and out, and then I’ll hand it over to Dr. Curtis. It’s one session. We can keep our hands off each other for one session. We can pretend last night didn’t happen for one session. Maybe. “Nice scarf,” Jimmy says, running his tongue along his teeth. I open my eyes up wide, painfully wide, and blink at him as I pull it tighter to my throat. “My roommate asked if I’d been attacked by a vacuum. She tried to guess the brand!” There are those dimples. And then he shifts his hand down from behind his head. He scratches his throat and then, just as if it happened by accident, runs his fingers along my thighs. Not an accident. I make a little whimper. Then I clear my throat. I bend down and grab a piece of gum from the side of my bag. With care and focus, I unfold it. As if when I put my gum in my mouth, it’ll be time to get down to business. Right. Business time, like the Flight of the Concords say. Conditions are perfect. I put the fresh Juicy Fruit on my tongue and straighten my shoulders. “Okay, Mr. Falconi.” I glance at my phone, which I have clipped onto the clipboard above his notes form. I read aloud, “Recurrent rotator cuff injury affecting job performance?” Jimmy swallows hard, clearly embarrassed. “Yeah,” he says, wincing and

holding on to his leg. “But right now, this is a fuckload more painful.” His hand slides down to his thigh, and his huge thumb rests over his balls. Mentally, I steady myself. I’ve worked with all sorts of patients. I can be objective. I can be professional. It’s just a groin. I look at his pants. No, that is not just a groin. I know that from first-hand experience. It’s the groin of groins. I’m torn between wanting to help him and bolting for the door. I wonder if I can get the hell out of here, even temporarily, so I can pull myself together. Maybe I’ll say I got food poisoning, or maybe Frankie will do me a solid and start dry-heaving because of the panda stuffing he’s been eating. Could happen any minute. Only, it’s not going to. We’re here. I’m here. He’s here. Frankie is sleeping off his Croc rage. And if I bolt now, Dr. Curtis will never forgive me. Keeping one hand on his arm, I reach over and pull a cart full of therapy gear— tape, bands, balls, creams, lotions—over toward the table. “Let’s have a look,” I say, feeling for the injury through his pants. His eyes meet mine, and then I take a deep, steadying breath as I hang on to his arm. “I have to,” I whisper. “Fuck. I know.” He looks past me, checking that the coast is clear. “Is this hot? Do you find this hot?” “Don’t you dare.” I bite down hard on my Juicy Fruit. “But yes.” “Christ.” He adjusts his balls in this way that just oozes masculinity. The alpha wolf. “I can’t get you out of my head.” “It’s been two hours!” “That’s a long-ass time to be stuck on a loop.” How am I going to do this? Examine his groin right here in the middle of everything while he is flirting so shamelessly that I’m blushing already? The situation is impossible. But I really don’t have another choice. “Could you move your…” I cough meaningfully and glance down at his bulge. Jimmy slides his hand down into his pants and cups himself, moving his…his package…aside. It’s the only word for it. Here we go, Mary. Be professional. Just do your job. Focus on your training. It’s just a groin. With my fingers, I delicately examine the place where there’s trouble. I can feel it’s a spasm, probably not a tear. But I really can’t get a sense of what’s happening without getting right up against his skin. “Is it okay if I move down a layer?” I ask. Jimmy pretends to cough into his elbow, and I’m pretty sure I hear him growl out a, “fuck yes, it is,” into his arm I take a tub of arnica cream from the training cart and scoop a dollop into my palm, warming it up. Jimmy picks up the waistband of his boxers, making a space for me. I see underneath that these, just like the long johns, are courtesy of Costco. In a totally feeble attempt to make conversation, I say, “I’m a Costco girl myself.” I shift the right leg of his boxers up toward his groin so I’m touching his skin

directly. Jimmy’s dark blue eyes follow me back and forth. I purse my lips to tell him, Stop it. He looks right at me. Stop what? This man. I want this man. He sniffs. He gets this cocky look on his face. “I’m a fan of bulk. I like things big. But sometimes, it’s a tight squeeze in my apartment.” Oh God. I rub the cream into his huge thigh, feeling the flicker of the spasm now very clearly under my fingertips. “Fuck,” he groans and drops his head back on the massage table. “Does that hurt?” He doesn’t answer, not at first. There’s some commotion behind me, players making a racket over something, ribbing each other over something, and Jimmy takes the chance to say, “Careful. You know what you do to me.” If I didn’t know before, I can see it now. Slowly growing in his sweatpants, showing me exactly what he wants. “You should probably grab me a towel,” he says softly. “Because this train is leaving the station…” Right. Good thinking. I snatch a fresh white one off the pile to my left. He drops it casually on his lap. Again, our eyes meet. While under his waistband, I widen the area where I’m applying the Arnica. His eyes shut and he winces, so I lighten my touch. And that’s when the back of my hand brushes against his hard-on. He groans, “Oh shit…” His eyes lock on to mine. I glance at the towel. A family-sized terrycloth tent begins forming, in spite of our preventative efforts. He flares his nostrils. I stop moving my hand and hold my breath. He gets this look in his eye, that intense, driven focus that I saw last night when he was inside me trying not to come. This time, though, he’s using his powers to stop himself from giving us both away. Which is incredibly sexy in and of itself. Slowly, the flagpole is lowered to half-staff. “Well done,” I whisper as I explore the muscle gently. I press my body up against the table to get a little leverage on the spot. I don’t think it’s torn but… I move my fingers down between his legs, along his perineum. “Fuck, you’re not making it easy.” “Sorry.” “Don’t you dare apologize.” I look away from that handsome face and raise my eyes to the fluorescent bulbs above me. Being this close to him is intoxicating. Unethical, and utterly intoxicating. I have a quick but not at all unpleasant flash of me asking everybody to leave us alone and then climbing up on this table on top of him. Mary! “It seems to be in spasm, not torn,” I tell him. “So that’s good. That means it

could get better relatively quickly. Unless you do something to aggravate it…” “You want some aggravation?” I will not answer that. I cannot. Because I want it. I want all the fury and aggression. I want him. I want him now. But instead of letting any of that on, I swallow my own groan and take a gel ice pack from the cart behind me and wrap it in a towel. “Will you put that in your pants for me?” He nods and takes it in his huge hand. Our fingers brush against each other, and he growls again. He lifts his sweatpants open a little wider, and I see the head of his cock has come out of his boxer briefs, which probably come twelve in a pack, every plaid sexier than the last… Oh God. He grunts a little and then slips the ice pack in and lowers his waistband. From the table, I take four Advil and a bottle of water. I help him sit up and watch him drink, completely possessed by his lips on that bottle. Those lips that marked me. That mouth that bruised me. “I think you’re going to be okay,” I tell him. “But you need to rest that leg before we can do anything for your shoulder.” Dark, low, and demanding, he says, “Rest with me.” My knees actually wobble and I have to brace myself on the side of the table. “You should probably go home.” With one finger, he traces a line up the back of my hand. “Go home with me.” My God. This guy. It’s madness. I can’t. And yet, I can’t not. There’s something about him vulnerable on this table that is incredibly sexy too. The beast brought down for just one second. “I’m going to hand your file over to Dr. Curtis,” I tell him quietly. “I can’t do my job feeling like this. It’s not right. It’s against all the rules.” Jimmy glances past me toward Radovic, who I can see reflected in a mirror. “You have to help me, Mary.” Just a low growl. “I’m fucked if I don’t play. Break the rules for me. Please.” I shake my head. “No way, Jimmy.” He looks sad in the eyes, a little wounded, and it breaks my heart. The soft, quiet moment, though, is soon ruined by Radovic, who drops his can of Red Bull on the ground and crushes it under his foot. The guy is a brute. He reminds me of a wild boar, maybe. Frankie Knuckles pops out of his carrier and gives his socks a long warning growl. “Miss Monahan,” Radovic booms, taking another can from his fanny pack. “I just got off the phone with Curtis.” “Oh, good,” I say, straightening my shirt. “He’ll take good care of Mr. Falconi. I’m sure of it.” But Radovic shakes his head. “He says you’re assigned to Jimmy for the rest of the season. So welcome to the goddamned Chicago Bears.”

“Well, if I’m going home, I’m going to need a ride. I’m hurting too much to drive.” Jimmy smiles up at me, that all-American prom king smile. “Got a car, Miss Monahan?” Is this happening? Am I awake? Did I just get poached from Healing Therapies LLC by the Chicago Bears without my consent? From the clipboard, my phone dings, and a message from Dr. Curtis lights up:

Well done! A whole season with… DA BEARS!

Followed by an explosion of football emojis. Answer? Yes. I did. Yesterday, everything was so simple. Things made sense. I had my regular job. I hadn’t knocked a meaty sex god unconscious. I hadn’t had my world rocked by a man who shops at Costco. I hadn’t begged for mercy in bed. Yesterday, I was in charge. Now, I’m at the whims of the football gods, and Jimmy Falconi’s eyes. Rest with me. Go home with me. “I don’t think you’ll fit,” I tell him, considering the sheer size of his legs. The girth. The length… “My Wrangler isn’t used to a guy your size.” “My Wrangler. I’ve never heard that one before,” he says, sitting up and draping his huge arm around my shoulder. “But I moved your Wrangler this morning, pussycat. Or did you forget already?” It is the land of the double entendre. I cannot escape. “Come on,” he pleads as he slides off the table. “Play hooky with me. It’s got to be better than wanting to fuck in public and not being able to do anything about it. Right?” Absolutely, positively true. He is so alluring. So sexy. So cute. So hot. And yet so absolutely off limits. His eyes taunt me a little more. But the pain from his groin flickers on his face. That pain, more than all the sexiness and the double talk, pulls me closer. I want to help him. I want to be with him. And now he’s my only patient. First and foremost, he’s got to rest that leg. Doesn’t matter what happens with him and me and the things he does to me. He’s got to rest. That’s what matters now. “Come on. I’m taking you home.” “Fuck, yeah,” he growls. I brace his stomach with my palm. His stubble brushes past my cheek, and his fingers tighten on my shoulder. There are various calls of Fuck you, Falconi! and Get better soon, man, as we head for the hallway. Frankie trots along beside us and Jimmy takes the empty

carrier from me, slinging it over his shoulder. It’s adorable, and it makes me think immediately of what he’d look like holding a diaper bag. Mary! Halfway to the door, we are met by a guy who looks exactly like a grizzly bear, four hundred pounds at least. On his hoodie is the name VALDEZ. “You know, if you two are going to pretend not to know each other, you should really stop smiling so much,” he says, and squeezes some honey from a stick into his mouth. Jimmy grabs a few of the sticks from his hand and tucks them into the pocket of his hoodie. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Valdez.” When he says it, he leans in to me just a little more. “Sure, Costco. Sure. Just…” Valdez looks me up and down, then turns back to Jimmy. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” And he trundles off. Which is when Jimmy pulls me along underneath him, bringing his lips close to my ear. “He got married to his wife after knowing her for a week. That is what he would do.” I stare up at him. “You’re such a piece of work, Falcon.” “Hey, hey!” He beams. “Now you’ve got it.” Frankie marches along beside Jimmy. Five percent of his weight but every ounce the Big Man on Campus. “I have a code of ethics, Jimmy,” I say, looking up at him. At his pecs and his neck and that jawline, good God. He pulls me closer, as if he needs more support. “I love when you say my name.” I feel my defenses weakening, but I’m staying strong. I am. I have to. “I don’t sleep with patients.” Jimmy whacks the auto-open button on the wall and the double doors roll apart. The cold air blows in from outside, and a few snowflakes too. Frankie takes off and attacks a snow bank. “Sleep?” Jimmy asks, turning one of the honey sticks over and over in his fingers, the way people do with pencils. I find it mesmerizing, hypnotic, and get lost in the size of those hands of his. “Who said anything about sleep?”

18

JIMMY

She is all business. She helps me into the car, and doesn’t really say anything at all. I can almost hear her gears spinning. Grinding. Grind. Fuck. This woman. Anyway, I can tell she’s nervous. Maybe even a little angry. It’s not what I want her to be feeling right now. At all. I pop open the honey stick and work about an inch’s worth onto my tongue. In my lap sits Frankie Knuckles, with his front paws on my knees. As we get on the highway, I help him look out the window, supporting his little barrel chest with my hand and making it so he can put his feet on the windowsill. We pass a semitruck going slow on the shoulder. The thing has a bulldog on the side, just a logo, but he doesn’t like it. He lets out a low, small growl and puckers up his lips. A little puff of steam appears in front of his face from his hot breath on the cold glass. I wipe it off with my hand and he growls at the passing bulldog again. Mary grabs his panda from her bag and glances at me as she hands it to him. She looks incredibly anxious, and that’s not how I want her. There’s a big difference between on edge and on the edge. I reach over and put my hand to her thigh. “Mary, nobody will find out. Fucking promise.” “But you know! I know!” She thumps her chest with her mittened hand. “It’s bad enough I knocked you unconscious—talk about something a PT should never do to her patient! God!” Then, in a sort of protest, she turns the windshield wipers on high and they squeak against the flecks of snow. “I wasn’t your patient then, and I wasn’t your patient last night.” “You are now! And as a physical therapist, I should really recommend you not go punching anything, Jimmy. You’ve got shoulder problems and you’re working out at a boxing gym?” I wince. “I don’t have them all the time. It actually feels fucking fine, until game time.” Her eyes slide over to mine, but she doesn’t face me. She turns up the heater and snuggles down into her scarf.

Right. I know it’s not ideal. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a semisuccessful, aging NFL quarterback, you’ve got to roll with the downs, good and bad. When you see an opening, you’ve got to fucking take it. “No way am I letting you slip through my fingers. And anyway, I’ll bet you can fix my shoulder. Nobody has ever fixed my shoulder.” I roll it in the socket. The weird thing is, it feels fine. “Jimmy! I’m not a mechanic! You’re not a Honda! I can’t just fix things like that,” she says, attempting to snap under her mittens. She growls a little and then grips the wheel. “This is my job. I take it very seriously.” “Which I totally fucking respect.” Clearing away the steam for Frankie again, I give Mary a second to cool down. I don’t know her that well, but I get that I just hijacked her entire schedule, which would pretty much piss anybody off. And she’s a tough cookie. Probably doesn’t like the idea of anybody wanting to take care of her, or look after her, or protect her, or put chains on her tires, but that’s too fucking bad. Because if I have my way, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I pop open a second honey straw and hold it out in front of her mouth. “I don’t want any honey,” she snaps at the highway. “Be as mad as you want, pussycat, but don’t say no to a good thing.” She huffs and then snatches the straw out of my fingers with her teeth. I’m not a cheater. I play clean, but this is a different kind of game. This is the end run, the secret pass. Shit I know we can get away with, if she’s with me. “All right. Let’s be logical. Are you going to say anything?” She glances over again and grips the wheel a little harder with her mittens. “No.” She gnashes on the end of the honey straw. “Am I going to say anything?” Her pretty, big eyes narrow slightly at the road, and she shifts her hair to one side, playing with the bobby pin that’s holding her bangs off her face. The silence is fucking deafening. “You think I’m going to blow this? I realize I don’t look that smart, but do you think I’m an idiot?” Her shoulders relax a little. “No,” she answers, hanging on to the wheel with one hand now, and working some more honey into her mouth with the other. Man, oh man, those lips. I love to watch those lips suck. Christ. “So, relax.” I grip her thigh a little more firmly. “This is insane.” She takes the straw in two fingers and draws out a taste with her teeth. Dude. I try to give her honey to distract her, and now I can’t even put my subject in front of my verb. “Cat got your tongue?” she says, giving me side eyes. “No, just…do you make a lot of men speechless?” She turns to me slowly, smiling around the straw and biting it with her molars. “Hundreds. Thousands even.” She rolls her eyes. In my lap, Frankie Knuckles curls up. I take his panda and do a little puppet show for him, making it walk up and down my leg. His tail swishes against my jacket.

Next to me, Mary swallows hard. I can hear it over the heater. The doubt. The hesitation. The uncertainty. “I’m not giving up, Mary. Not yet.” I make the panda dance over the gearbox onto her leg. “You are impossible.” I go on with the panda puppet show and make it dance up and down, animating it with my fingers so its head bounces back and forth. I do this very same thing for Annie and her purple giraffe. She looks to me, and to the dog, and back to me again. Then she refocuses on the road, softer now. Not so freaked out. Not so stressed. “There, now. See? This is exactly how I want you,” I tell her, running my palm up her leg. “Yeah? How’s that?” “I want you calm. I want you ready. I want you mine.”

Back at the apartment, I direct her to the garage and hit the button on my keys. She pulls inside cautiously, like maybe she’s dinged the roll bar on low exits a time or two. “Where is everybody? Where are all the cars?” she asks, heading down the ramp as the door rolls shut. “Just us in here,” I tell her, watching for her reaction. “You’re kidding me.” I take the empty honey straw from her lips. “Nope. I own this place. Want to move in?” She sort of gives me that look again, the you’re impossible look. “Take your pick. Pretty sure units six and nine are wide open.” She answers that with a dead-arm punch. I pretend mortal injury and she gives me a side-glance and smirk. She pulls in right next to my Yukon and cuts the engine. “This whole building is yours?” “Yeah. Another investment.” She furrows her brow at me. “You make a lot of investments.” “Mm-hmmm. Never know. Might meet someone who I want to get serious about. Might want to take weekend trips to Belize.” Boom. I don’t even wait for an answer. I pop open my door and make super dramatic groans, “trying” to get out of the Wrangler, and within a few seconds, she’s run around to help me. Her arm slips around my waist and her palm comes to my abs again. Perfect. I pull her close and feel the wool of her hat on my chin. I feel kinda bad about it. Kinda. Not exactly guilty, but I’m also not really used to playing the wimp. But anything I can do to get her close to me seems fair. As soon as we step into the elevator, Frankie trotting behind her, I shift her up against the wall and hook one finger over her scarf to get a look at what kind of damage I did. “Fuuuuuck,” I whisper.

“I can’t believe you did that to me.” She touches the hickey lightly. “I don’t even know when it happened.” Oh, I do. I remember it fucking exactly. Took me damn near a minute. “When you were coming the second time,” I tell her. “That’s when. I think somewhere between no, no, no, and, Jimmy, oh God, Jimmy.” Another smack to the shoulder, but this one way sweeter than the dead arm. She brings her hand to my bicep. I flex for her. She moans a little, trying to swallow it but having no fucking luck at all. The hickey is fucking epic, because I wasn’t only kissing and sucking, but biting, too. “I feel a little bad for defacing the beauty.” The laugh comes out of her nose in a soft, warm breath. “You don’t. You love it. I can tell,” she says, and leans her hips into my hard-on. Hell yes, I love it. I just wish I’d given her more than one. But it’s early in the season. And there’s plenty of time to play. “You’ll heal.” I lick the spot again. “I’ll heal you.” The noise she makes, it’s the noise I’ve heard women make when they take the first bite of something they adore. I love that noise. The elevator door opens and Frankie runs out first, sniffing the baseboards in the hallway and inexplicably growling at an outlet. She pays no attention, so neither do I. I walk her backward up against one of the empty apartment doors, holding on to her hips and moving my fingers past the waistband of her pants. “Is this where you start telling me what we’re going to do?” she says, running her finger up my neck, along my jaw, and then along the edge of my ear. “Because I really, really like that.” Fuck yes. I press into her a little more, a little harder, a little more possessively. “Yeah. That’s right now.” She moans a little, up against my chest, and I feel her fingers slide just past the elastic of my boxers, little ice cubes warming up against my body heat. I slip my hand along her hair and move it from her ear. I kiss that place above her jaw. “Last night, we fucked. But today, it’s going to be different. Today I’m hungry…” Now I can see her heartbeat in her neck again, that little pulsing quiver of the blood running through her veins. “Hungry for what?” she says, all quiet and dark. I like leaving her hanging, not answering her questions. Pinching her jaw in my hand, I tip her head to the side and palm her pussy from the outside. I swear to God, I can feel her wetness all the way out here. This fucking woman, I am telling you… “Last night, I was so fucking gone in you I forgot where I was.” I cup her pelvic bone, compressing her lips. I feel the seam of her panties against the heel of my hand. “You’re going to have to pay for that.” Her mouth opens slightly; her eyes get a little bit shiny. I draw my palm up her stomach and then go back down, this time right up against her skin. I slide my middle finger along her opening. She grips me tighter, and her hips buck back a little, but she’s relaxed. Not nervous anymore. Not mad. Just ready and wet and

exactly how she needs to be. “What are you going to do to me?” “I’ve got a list.” I tap on my forehead. “It’s called Anything I Want.” That’s when I kiss her. Kiss the shit out of her; kiss away the words, the questions, and even the air. Her lip is pinched between our teeth, so I kiss her harder and let it pinch a little more. I drive the Y of my hand around her throat. The longer I kiss her, the better it gets. The more she dissolves. The more the little wildcat tames. “I’m going to make you mine, Mary Monahan. No matter what the fuck you say about rules or jobs or any of that shit. Because there is something going on here, and I know you feel it too.” That’s when she brings her hand around behind my head and runs her fingers through my hair. “This isn’t going to be ordinary, is it? You and me?” she says, almost in a moan. You and me. Fuck. I actually feel the shiver run through her body and into mine. “Make no fucking mistake. When I hurt you, if I hurt you,” I tell her, “That’s me. Worshipping you.” “Jesus, Jimmy…” I need to get inside her. I am too far away. She is a fucking drug, and I am hooked. “The earth will pivot on this. The sun will rise and set on this.” Her breathing gets heavier. Her pupils dilate, and I watch them open up in spite of the bright halogens above us. Her grip on my side gets a little stronger, and she pulls me even closer. “The things you do to me,” she says, as I put another finger in her and she hisses into my ear. “The things you do.” “Last night wasn’t even close to what we can do, Mary. We can make the world disappear. We can make everything else just a whisper.” Her eyes flutter, and she leans her head back on the door, opening her throat to me. I lick along the spot where I bruised her with my mouth, and then move my tongue down to the hollow of her neck. Deep in my cock, I feel that pressure for her, that need. This woman, she’s not some cheerleader I’ll never see again. She’s not some fan. Our lives have crossed over on top of one another, and that seems as good a sign as any to go for it. Take the plunge. See what happens. See where this feeling goes. “You get one chance to get away from me, Mary. Just one. Say the word right now, and I’ll let you go.” But she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she presses her pelvis into me and lets her bag drop to the floor. Which is all the yes I need. “I’m going to take you into that apartment, and I’m going to show you what you do to me. Out here in the world, we’re normal. But in there, when the door shuts, you know what happens?” She shakes her head. “No.” “You become mine. All mine. Every inch, every scream, every need. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you. Whatever I need, it’s mine.” She doesn’t moan. She doesn’t nod. She fucking simpers out a thousand words

without saying one. Please and thank you and more. All the sexiest words in the whole fucking language. “Good girl,” I say, giving her a third finger and hooking tight into her G-spot. “Good fucking girl.” “Oh my God.” Down the hall, Frankie Knuckles trots back and forth, still sniffing. I dig him, yeah. Kind of a lot. But right now, we need to get serious. “First thing. Call your roommate to come get that dog,” I tell her as I run my fingertip back and forth inside her pussy. “Okay,” she whispers up at the lights without opening her eyes. “Because until the sun comes up tomorrow, there’s nothing in this world besides you and me.”

19

MARY

With his palm at the small of my back, he lets me inside his apartment. He unzips my vest and locks the door behind us. As Frankie goes exploring, Jimmy presses me up against the door. “Call her. Right now. No fucking around.” “Okay,” I say, fumbling in my purse, pawing through my stuff without looking away. I can’t look away, not from those eyes, that face, not when he’s got my chin balanced on his finger. My heart speeds up, and I feel myself getting wetter and wetter. My knees are actually weak, and I let his body support me. “But you need to get off that leg.” He nods down at me, and then brings his lips to mine. The kiss is strong, uncompromising, direct. After he makes me forget everything in my head, he adds, “That’s the plan. Eventually.” He heads off down the hallway, letting his jacket fall to the floor. He limps only slightly and is as easy in his body, as confident in his stride, as any man I’ve ever seen. The king of everything, and he knows it in his bones. Just as he rounds the corner of the hallway, heading for the kitchen, he peels off his shirt. In the light from the windows, I get a little bit of satisfaction, an offset from what he did to my neck; his back is laced with my nail marks, going back and forth, up and down, side to side. “You look like you got mauled,” I tell him. He turns and looks at me over his shoulder, lifting his chin. “Nobody’s pussycat, my ass.” And my toes curl completely involuntarily in my boots. When I am able to refocus my eyes, I fire off a text to Bridget. Favor. Bridge. Favor. Hello? Bridge. Christ! I was peeing.

What favor? Come get Frankie.

This is followed by a very considerable pause in which I see her start typing, and then stop. Instead of a message, a photo of Jimmy pops up on the screen. He’s in his uniform, smiling at the camera, grease paint on his cheeks. The sun is shining; his hair is a mess. There’s a grass stain on his jersey, and dirt on his arms. And he’s sweaty, in white pants, so I can just see the outline of his cup. “Oh God,” I whisper. If that’s how he looks during a game, I am definitely going to be watching.

That why? Yes. Bitch. Love you! *horny face* Where are you? Another good question. I undo my snowy boots and step out of them, padding into the kitchen in my socks. Underfoot, the tile floor is warm with radiant heat. Outside, the snow is really coming down—big flakes, regularly spaced, falling slowly as if we’re inside a snow globe. He’s there, in the kitchen. On the table, he has a bottle of honey and is scooping some white sugar from a bag into a small bowl. “What are you doing?” That five-pound bag of sugar in his hand looks about as big as a can of soda. He’s that big. He hooks his arm around me and pulls me into his thigh. “I’m in charge, beautiful. You just enjoy.” A shiver starts down in my stomach and goes out through my fingers. It’s a thing that happens to me when I’m excited or nervous. This sort of full-body tremble. “Cold?” “No,” I say, as he feeds me a grape. “Not cold. Just…excited.” He whistles softly. “That’s sexy. I can make you tremble like that without even

really touching you?” His eyes tighten as he practices his superpower. And it happens again. “Fuck!” He feeds me another, letting his thumb stay between my lips. I wrap my arms around him. “She’s coming to get him. I just need to know the address.” He takes my phone from me to type it in. But unfortunately, his own face is smiling back at him from the chat window. “Someone’s been snooping,” he says, looking pretty pleased. “Not me. My roommate. She’s a fan. I recommend lying low unless you want to sign an autograph.” Keeping one arm around me, he answers Bridget by typing with one thumb. The thing is like a phablet when I hold it, but it’s just tiny in his hands. He types in the address and gives the phone back to me. “No autographs,” he says, pushing me up against the counter. “Because today, the only thing I’m putting my mark on is you.”

When Bridget pulls up in front of Jimmy’s building, coming to a stop cockeyed on the dirty snow bank, I bundle Frankie into the passenger’s seat, where she has a little box seat that hangs from the headrest. I buckle him in by his harness and when I look up, I’m met with her phone in my face. It’s an internet meme. At the top: HEY GIRL. IS YOUR NAME GOOGLE? Then a picture of Jimmy pouring water from a bottle down onto his face at a game, raking his hand through his hair and smiling. Behind him, everybody looks totally pissed off, royally angry—guys the size of draft horses scowling at something in the distance. One of them has a huge clump of sod hanging from his helmet. But Jimmy looks as fresh as can be, smiling at the camera. BECAUSE YOU HAVE EVERYTHING I’M LOOKING FOR. “I may never forgive you for this,” Bridget says, adjusting her Jackie O glasses and shaking her head grimly at the snowy street. “Jimmy Falconi! And you don’t even know your field goal from your touchback.” “He’s really nice, Bridge. You’d like him. He shops at Costco and makes sensible investments. And he likes dogs.” Lowering her glasses down her nose, she glares at me. “Any chance I could run up for an au…” I shake my head. “Already covered it. Nope.” She groans and turns up the heat. “Have fun. Don’t get pregnant.”

“Advice for the ages,” I tell her, and slam the door. And then she’s off. I make my way back into the building, his building, marveling at how much of it there is. I count twenty mailboxes and calculate that’s probably four apartments per floor. In the heart of Lincoln Park. Lord. Because I’m still feeling a little wobbly, a little drunk on him, I decide to take the elevator. The motor grinds along as I ascend one floor, then two, then three. As the door opens, a prickle of anticipation takes hold of my body, from the backs of my thighs to the tips of my fingers. When I get to the end of the hallway, though, I see a Post-it stuck to the door. My heart drops. I haven’t been gone five minutes and, what? He had to leave? But as I get closer, I can make out the words. And they most definitely don’t say he’s gone. Instead, the note says: NAKED. NOW. I press my fingers to the words, to his clear and confident writing, and the door opens up under the pressure of my touch. Inside, I hear music, something sultry and low. I am struck with that floating, drunk feeling again, like I’m dreaming. Only I know I’m not. This is real. This man is going to have his way with me, and I need him to do it. Opening the door, I step through and see another Post-it on the floor RIGHT NOW. So I do what he wants, because it’s so easy, so deliciously alluring, to listen to someone else for a change. To let him call the shots. To do just exactly as I’m told. I peel off my pants and my shirt. Which leaves me standing there in my lingerie and my socks. Now, maybe twenty feet in front of me, halfway down the hallway, I am met with another Post-it. SOCKS TOO. I laugh and step out of them by hooking my toes over the tops. BRA. That hits the floor. PANTIES. And those, too. And I do as he says, just as he says, leaving each piece of clothing on its Post-it. Then there I am, naked but for my goose bumps. He steps out from his bedroom and takes me by the hand, drawing me toward the bed. “You’re so fucking beautiful.” With one finger, he traces a long line up my arm, across my collarbone, and then slowly back down my other arm, past the crook of my elbow, down to my palm. He comes around behind me and pulls me into him, one palm on my stomach. “Relax.” “I am,” I whisper. My voice comes out almost as a chatter. I let myself fall back into him, tipping back on my heels. When he has most of my weight in his arms, he turns me slightly to face the full-length mirror in the corner of the bedroom. He

towers over me, his shoulders so much wider than mine, his hands so much bigger. The contrast is startling, overwhelming. And beautiful. Still holding me tightly, he whispers, “Touch yourself.” I look at him in the mirror. “Here?” “Yeah. Right there. I’ve got you.” There is something about the mirror that makes me feel almost vulnerable and exposed. He traces up and down my fingertips. “I don’t think I can do it standing up.” “I just want to watch you,” he says, coaxing me along. “Please, Mary. Just let me watch you. Let me hold you. Let me feel it.” I focus on the strength of him behind me. His eyes meet mine in the mirror. Reassuring, open, curious. Slowly, I inch my fingers downward past my bellybutton and become acutely aware of his hardness against my thigh. “I want you inside me.” In reply, he presses into me a little, solid against my ass. It makes his eyes close and slows his breathing. But he stays strong. “Not yet. Just do this for me…” He places his hand over mine and guides my fingers down, down, down, to my clit. We start slowly. He bends down, letting his chin rest on my shoulder. His stubble presses into the curve of my neck, and I feel his breath, easy and smooth, warming my skin. I make a small circle around my clit, and realize he’s having me teach him exactly what I like. As I let my hand slide deeper to touch myself inside while I rub my clit with my palm, he groans into my ear. I open my eyes and see him watching me. Watching everything. His left hand drops from the embrace, and he grips me by the front of the thigh. I lean back into the curve of his chest, letting my head fall against his shoulder. I think back to last night, how he made me come with the head of his cock. The way his cum dripped out onto me. The thought of it makes me shudder again, pure pleasure and heat. He holds me tighter and says, “I’ve got you. Keep going.” I let myself get lost in new fantasies with him. Him taking me in the back of the Wrangler, on a beach somewhere, or in a forest. In the shower. God, I love the shower. I groan into his bicep, and my knees start to tremble. Still holding me tight, he walks me backward and sits down in the big leather chair in the corner of the room. We can still see ourselves in the mirror, but now he’s got me in his lap, his legs spread, but not so wide that I slip down between them. I let myself go limp in his arms and keep going. “Will you come for me? Just like this?” “I don’t know if I can.” I’ve gotten so used to my vibrator, and my bed, and my routine. Last night seemed out of left field. I don’t think lightning strikes twice. “Just try. Come on. For me.” He gazes down at me in this possessive, intense way that makes me willing to give everything to him. He picks me up from his lap slightly, and I feel him positioning himself at my opening from behind. He slides into me slowly, gently, lowering me down onto his cock until I am cradled in his arms and feeling him deep inside my body. “Oh God…”

“Yeah?” he says quietly, lifting his hips a little to get even further into me. “Better?” That is not the word. The word is heaven. The angle is out of this world, the pressure on my G-spot totally new and unexpected. It is the most beautiful thing, being cradled in these big arms, with him inside me, too. “I love this.” Pressing back into his shoulder, I let my body relax. “Fuck. Me too.” He kisses the edge of my ear, the lobe, tracing the clamshell curve with his tongue. “I could do this all day,” I whisper against his jaw. “That’s the idea. You don’t have to come, just let me see you. Let me feel you like this.” I tease my clit with the cup of my palm, parting my first two fingers around him, using a feather touch on his balls below. He growls into my ear, “I love being inside you, Mary Monahan. It’s that fucking simple, you know?” Oh God. Yes. It is that simple. That basic. That urgent. “There you go. Let go. Let me feel you. Let me feel all that power.” When he kisses me, I moan into his mouth that I’m close, so close. He doesn’t pull away from the kiss but instead nods into me and braces my head with his hand from behind, kissing me even harder to say, Let go. Gone. Our eyes are open as I come, and he’s smiling into the kiss. I’m not, though. I’m whimpering and roaring as he kisses me deeper and deeper, until I just can’t keep my eyes open anymore. I don’t know how long I’m gone. I hear my own voice echo through the bedroom. I hear him tell me I’m beautiful, so fucking beautiful, as he eases even further into me, heightening the orgasm even more. Before I’ve even come back into myself, he picks me up and puts me on my knees on the chair, with my ass in the air. He presses me forward so my torso drapes down over the back and my knees are bent at a right angle. From behind, he drives into me, slowly at first. Saying, “Yeah, just like that. Fuck yes.” Then he takes hold of my hips, and begins taking me so hard, so unbelievably hard, that I can do nothing but let go all over again. He fucks me just like that, ruthless, brutal, and primal. “You can’t squeeze me after you come. Have you noticed that?” he says, ramming into me again. I turn and look at him over my shoulder. Everything is still flickering and wobbling, except for him. He’s crystal clear. “No?” He shakes his head, so satisfied and smug. “Nope.” Right. I’ll show him. I bear down on his cock, using my whole body to do it, gripping the pillows on the chair as I do. His face gets angry, dark and almost unkind, and he snarls, “Knock that shit off, beautiful,” while driving into me even harder, gripping my hips, digging his fingers into my thighs. “And let me fuck you

like I want to.” Shit. Shit, shit, shit, that is so unbelievably sexy. “Give in to me.” He gives me another thrust. “Right now.” “How?” I whisper back. “Just fucking do it. Hand yourself over,” he says, driving in. “Give in. Let me take you.” I turn my head away from him. My whole life I have fought, negotiated, jockeyed for what I wanted. I never trusted enough to let go. I never wanted enough to know how that felt. “I’ve got you. Just let me take you.” I want to know what it’s like to be someone else’s completely. To be nothing but at their pleasure. Not to fight, not to struggle, not to tease. But just… To let go. To open up. To be his. “That’s a good girl,” he tells me as I soften more, and he drives in harder, so that the chair rocks back and forth underneath me. “Are you mine?” “Yes.” “Have you let go?” I focus on him inside me. Just him. Not me. Not the chair, or the room, or the world outside. Just him. And it happens. I just give over everything to him. I let my back bow slightly. My arms go slack. He supports my body and takes me exactly like I need to be taken. “I’m yours.” Finally, on a plunge so rough that I gasp for air, he grinds his palms into my ass and groans out, “Oh shiiiiiiiit…” He comes first with his voice, letting out this primal roar, and then gripping my hair in his fingers. My face comes away from the back of the chair. My neck bends back, and he powers into me again and again. “There it is…” he says, and then finally comes to a stop deep inside me. With my cheek against the leather, I tangle my fingers up in his as we both breathe hard, me into the curve of my shoulder, watching him, and him into the clenched fist he’s put to his mouth as he watches me. “Fuck, Mary.” He draws in a quick, hard breath. He blinks and shakes it off. “Fuck.” After a long minute, when he’s lost his hardness a little, he pulls out of me. He reaches out for my hand, and I take it. He leads me to the bed and lays me down. He gets in beside me and pulls the comforter over us, and then slips his hand under my waist and drags my body into his. I am the small spoon inside the ladle. I am the Hers to the His. I listen to his breathing slow to something approaching normal. I watch the snow fall outside, and whisper, “That was amazing…” No answer. I turn my head slightly and see that his face is relaxed, his eyes closed. His lips are pressed gently to my shoulder. But he’s sound asleep. Tuckered out. And holding me tight.

20

JIMMY

Naps. They’re the best. But this nap, with her in my arms, is the nap of naps. “Told you I’d rest,” I whisper into her ear. “Hi.” She reaches over and runs her hand through my hair, softly touching my cheek with her thumb. “Sorry about falling asleep on you. But that orgasm,” I say into the ink of her tattoo. “Seriously. I couldn’t even see straight. Which is all,” I place my lips to the side of her neck and then give her a long line of kisses down that lacey strip, “your fault.” She laughs a little, and I feel it in the hand that is on her stomach. I inhale against her skin and catch a little bit of vanilla in with the coconut. Part of me wants to stay here forever. Just like this. But the other part of me… …has plans. Savoring one last second of our bodies tangled together, I roll to the side and stretch out my hand. “You. Kitchen. Now.” She gets up on her elbows in the bed, and her hand slides down between my legs, gently pushing on my thigh. “Rest.” “It feels way better already.” I’m not even lying. “I don’t know what’s in that cream you put on it. Maybe you’ve got the magic touch.” She rolls her eyes, tugging me toward the bed, but I don’t budge. “It’s only arnica, and there was nothing magic about it. The quote-unquote injury isn’t that bad.” I flex my quad, and her hands shifts a little as I do. The twinge is gone, the spasm passed. “I prefer to think you have magic fingers.” And by way of answer, she gives my leg a little squeeze. Taking her other hand more firmly in mine, I help her up out of the bed and guide her toward the kitchen. I can feel her, hesitant, unsure. What are you up to? I can almost hear it in her careful steps on the bare floor. I take her in my arms, and press her up against the edge of the dining table so tightly that she’s almost sitting on it. “Lie down.” For one second, she hesitates. Her eyes move over to the honey and the sugar. “A guy’s got to eat, doesn’t he?” I flip over the bottle of honey and let it pool at

the neck, drizzling down to the closed lid. Her eyes widen. “Yeah.” “And I’m a big guy….” “Yes,” she says, looking at my cock. And my body. “Yes. You are.” “So, get on that table. Because I told you. I’m hungry.” She lies down on the oak tabletop, scooting toward the head of the table by planting her hands and sliding her body along. At first, she keeps her head raised, watching. But as I pop open the top of the honey bottle, she lowers it and I hear a small, perfect, excited, “Oh. My. God.” I start at her mouth and put a little drizzle between her parted lips. Then I lean down and kiss her until she isn’t sweet anymore. But greedy again. Warmed up and needy. Just how I like her. So then, trailing one finger down her stomach, I move to her pussy. I part those lips with my fingers, exposing her clit. She gives that shudder again, and I say, “Ready?” Before she answers, her breath catches in her throat in a sudden nervous swallow. “Yes. Ready.” And I smile to myself as I watch her grip the tabletop with her little fingers. Bracing for the cold. She gasps as I drizzle honey down her slit, letting it trickle all over her lips, dripping down onto her ass. And then I pull a chair over and sit down between her legs. I hook her knees over my elbows and pull her down to me so that her hair makes a long dark streak on the oak behind her head. She tasted like heaven without the honey, but now it’s fucking overload. That salty, hot, perfect sweetness. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She raises her head, watching me, rising from the table a little, that sexy curve of her abdomen tightening as she comes up off the wood. I plant my hand on her chest and push her back down. With my tongue, I dip into her, where she tastes dark, not sweet. Like really fucking good chocolate, that kind of salty and deep. The idea of my cum still inside her makes me fucking insane. So hot, so dirty, so primal. I open her up wide with two fingers, sucking harder. Her hand flies through the air and claps onto the back of my head. I thrust my tongue into her a little deeper. She is fucking drenched, with both her and me, so wet, in fact, that she’s spilling out of herself down her thighs. So I lick that up too, and get her sticky all over. “God, that’s hot.” She hangs on tightly to my shoulder. Her forearm presses against my cheek, and her skin feels so cool and delicate against the roughness of mine. Then I pull back from her, only an inch, and let my breath warm her clit. I love this view. When she exhales, I can see the feminine ripple of those abs. Her breasts have fallen down to the sides slightly, so from down here, I can see the curve of her neck and her throat. With my tongue just touching her clit, I start with a slow counterclockwise circle. She fights me at first, because I know she’s still sensitive.

Her thighs come together, trying to push me away. I don’t let her push me anywhere. With a soft tongue, I warm her up again. Her grip on my face loosens, and she lifts her hips a little. Last night when I did this, her toes curled after three turns. Booyah. Fucking magnificent. This time, it happens after only two. If her clit is like a clock, then she’s all nerves at two o’clock, and putty at seven. As I tease her at three o’clock, her back comes up off the table and her nipples tighten more and more. I move away from her pussy long enough to lick a long line up each thigh, totally fucking overtaken by the softness of her skin. Around and around I go until I can feel her getting close again. That’s when I stop and stand up. “No, no, no, don’t stop,” she begs, pawing for me, “Please. Jimmy. Don’t…” “I love to hear you beg, but you know what I like even more?” She gives me a low nun-huh. “Making you beg,” I say, stepping away. As I do, she comes up on her elbows to watch me. I go to the fridge and take the bottle of champagne, with its bright yellow label, from the door. It’s ice cold. It’s been in there for a year at least. Taking my place between her legs again, I part them just a little more. I put the bottle midway between her spread thighs, a few inches between her and the glass on each side. Slowly, I push the bottle closer, closer, closer to her, until it’s almost touching. But not quite. Lifting her head, she props herself on her elbows. I open her lips with my fingers and press the side of the bottle against her, making sure the cold green glass is right against her clit. She arches her head back and then grips my forearm with her left hand. “Oh God, that feels so good.” Where her thighs touch the bottle, I watch little drops of condensation form, and then I turn it a little more to keep her cold and on edge. Using my teeth, I peel away the foil from the top of the bottle in a long strip that I let fall to the floor. I undo the wire cage and work the cork out, spinning it slightly in my palm until it comes free. Every time the bottle shifts, she moans. Every time a new cold spot on the glass touches her clit, her body bucks a little. I grip the cork in my hand and work it free, every little rock and motion bringing her closer. Pop fills the room, and a puff of gas spills through the air. I take the bottle away from her pussy, and she whines this long, sexy, desperate whine. I don’t give in to her, though, not yet. Instead, I take a long swig and give her one too, making sure to support her head. She lingers there with her tongue on the bottle, watching me, and then pulls away. “Drinking champagne in the afternoon,” she says with a smile. “I could get used to this.” “And that’s not all.” I place the bottle just above her breasts and let a thin stream slide down her body. With long, careful licks, I clean it off her. Mostly. I leave a pool in her bellybutton, and then drag her all the way to the end of the table so her ass is almost hanging off. I lower the bottle down between her legs, rolling it up her calf now, and I

position the neck toward her opening. Her eyes flit from me to the bottle and back again. There’s that shudder. Gripping the bottle by the label, I place the mouth at her opening and let her lips slide down over the smooth glass rim. “Oh fuck,” she says, sitting up a little further and watching. “Jimmy...” I slide it in another half-inch so that the top of the bottle, where the wire cage was, is inside her. Her eyes are wide, almost fearful. “You want more?” I ask her. Her toes give her away, curls before she answers, “Yes.” So I give her a little more, and a little more, and together we watch the neck of that bottle, that green glass, so slick, cold, and hard, disappear right inside her. Deeper. So sinful, so fucking sexy. Holy shit is it hot. I go as far as I can, until the whole neck of the bottle is inside her and her lips are stretching open wide at the neck. “That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire fucking life.” I bring my mouth closer to her pussy while holding the bottle tight. I give her clit a little attention. The smell is fucking crazy-making. Champagne, honey, and her wetness, all mixed up with me. I press in a little deeper, and she growls this dirty, filthy growl and grips my shoulder with her nails. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.” I tip the bottle up, and then down, and slightly side to side. I push a little harder. She’s too fucking tight for it all to go inside her, but this is fucking perfect already. “You make me want to do terrible things to you, pussycat.” She laughs a little. “Do them.” Fuck. Fuck. Back and forth I rock it. I spin it a little. I listen to her hiss and gasp. But before she can get used to it—while her toes are still curled—I slowly ease it from her. The glass neck is hot to the touch. Holding it up for her, I say, “Feel what you’re like inside.” Her palm encircles the neck. She grips it and releases. Grips and releases. Then her eyes sparkle. “Oh my God.” “See? I told you.” I shake my head. “Hot.” I stick my thumb in the top of the bottle and give it a little shake. With the bottle in one hand and parting her lips with the other, I run a thin, foamy river down her stomach that spills down between her folds. As soon as the bubbles hit her clit, her body tightens and she does that thing she does, with her tongue to the roof of her mouth. My favorite. “When I was in high school, I did this with Pop Rocks,” I tell her. “But this is way fucking better.” She can’t even speak, but just nods, her chest dropping as she exhales. Along the edge of the table, her fingertips whiten as she bears down harder. I see all the

gorgeous curves of her collarbone, her shoulders, her ribcage, now shiny and glistening with champagne. I lower my face between her legs. I keep pouring, catching some on my tongue while most of it pools below her pussy on the table. I make a little well with my tongue under her clit and work the champagne up into a froth. As I do, her hands form tight, pretty fists. “Jimmmmmyyyyyyyyy.” Rather than working her in circles now, I pinch her clit softly with my fingers, pulling it out from her body. I felt her do it earlier on the chair. That’s when she falls back onto the table with a groan. “I’m going to make you come again,” I tell her, licking her wetness and the champagne from my lips. “Just so we’re clear on the plan.” “I don’t think I can, not so fast…” “Mind games, bullshit. Yes, you can.” She tilts her head, furrows those pretty brows. “I think it’s…” “Stop it. Leave it to me. I know you can.” She smiles a little. “Okay. For you, I’ll try.” God, she looks so good. That pink flesh, her clit so swollen and ready for me. So willing. “But if it’s too much, tell me what you’re going to say…” She blinks at me. “Give me a word, Mary. So I know if you can’t take it anymore.” I can hear her swallow. Her eyes shift around as if she’s looking for the word on the floor. “Mercy.” Yeah. See? This woman. She gets it. It’s so simple, so fucking sexy, so fucking perfect. “Mercy?” She nods. I dip back inside her, following my tongue with my first finger and the second. Mercy? “People say that to God, you know.” Again, her grasp tightens on my shoulder. “I know,” she whispers. Hell to the motherfucking yes.

This orgasm is long and low and makes her thigh muscles tremble against my cheeks, and only when she’s on the very tail end of it does she try to push me away, thrashing, and whispers, “Mercy. Please.” I pull away immediately. My mouth is covered in her, and that smell, fuck, that smell. Placing my hand to her stomach, I feel her breathing, rapid and excited. “Don’t you move.” “Don’t leave me.” Her eyes are damp. She looks like she might cry, so wide open and vulnerable it makes me want to get right on my knees. Fuck the dining room chair. I want to get on the concrete for this woman. But not yet. Not fucking yet. Before I can even tell her what I want, she’s doing it. She’s wriggling down and

taking me in her mouth, turning on her side, holding the base of my cock with her hands, taking the head deep into her mouth and cupping my balls all at once. It’s fucking overload. She looks up at me, and I nod down at her. “Yeah.” I run my hand down her back. “Fuck yeah.” Starting with the head, she works downward, tenderly kissing me. With each kiss, she gives me a little more tongue, until she works her way back up and takes me in her mouth again. Deep. Deeper. Our eyes lock. Deepest. The end of my cock is at the opening of her throat, all the way inside. And holy fuck, she stays there. Her body kicks back, but she stays there. For one second, two. I look up at the ceiling and close my eyes. Three seconds. She pulls away but comes back in for more after a gasping breath. “Fuuuuuuck.” I catch sight of myself in profile from the light in the fireplace. The curve of her body, on its side, perpendicular to the bulk of mine. Her tongue moves up and down my shaft, and she fists me, giving me a long, wet suck where my balls meet my cock. And then, fuck me, she takes my left ball in her mouth. My long one. My sensitive one. I don’t know how long she stays there. How long does it take a guy to die and be revived? Ten seconds? A minute? Whatever it is, it’s plenty of time to lose my fucking mind. Finally, she pulls away and says softly, almost under her breath, “Honey. Please.” I reach blindly for the bottle, handing it to her, but she doesn’t take it. “Do it for me, handsome.” Keeping my eyes right on hers, I flip open the lid and run a bead down the top of my shaft. She sits up a little higher, looking from me, to it, and back again. Then she makes a grabbing movement with one hand, looking at the honey. “We can do better than that.” I hand the bottle to her, and she doesn’t just put it straight on to me, no. Instead, she puts it on her fingers then on my balls, rubbing the sticky sweetness into me. She stretches out her hand toward the kitchen, smiling at my cock and balls. “Sugar, please.” Fuck. She sprinkles sugar down over me, and a coating sticks to the honey on my balls and the base of my cock, while the rest falls to the floor. “Def Leppard never saw this one coming,” I tell her. That giggle. That sweet little giggle. I’m so fucking gone for this woman right here. Alternating between my cock and balls, she cleans me, the honey and sugar gathering along her lips, the granules of sugar scraping me just a little as she sucks them from me. I feel the sugar under the soles of my feet as I rock backward. And again, I think of her on a beach. In summer. But honey and sugar in winter? That’ll

hold me over until then. This woman is so fucking gorgeous. The light is perfect in here. Her hair so fucking perfect—this thick, dark mess. The angle of her nose, the curve of her chin. That face. That face. It’s almost like the idea snares me, a fast-moving obsession. The thing I’ve never done, never even wanted to do. “Will you let me come on you?” Her eyes dart up to mine. “I’d rather swallow you.” Hell. “On your face. I need to put myself on those cheeks. I need to see you dripping with me.” Her tongue slows on my frenulum. And then she pulls me from her mouth. “Why?” she says, the underside of her tongue sliding over the tip. To mark her, to deface her, to worship her. All that and everything in between. “Because you’re too fucking beautiful. I have to ruin you a little.” Her eyes shut, and her lashes press to her cheeks. Then there’s that smile, that beautiful up-to-no-good Knockout Wall Hero smile. What does she do then? She fucking nods, making my cock bob in her mouth. “Yeah?” Nods again. I gather up her long, cool hair in my hand, moving it back from her face in a makeshift ponytail. With my other hand, I work my cock into her mouth. Harder and harder. I came so fucking rough earlier it takes me a little while to find it again. But I do. Deep in those eyes. And then she does it. She lowers her face below my cock, mouth slightly open. Waiting. The need to mark her tears through me hard and fast. To put my seed on that face, to make her wear me, to make her wet with me, to cover that beauty with the very core of me. I start stroking myself like I would if I were alone. I fist myself hard, as hard as I’d jack off in the shower. Harder even. More aggressive. Her eyes widen, and she smiles. “Look at you. So brutal.” I keep going and going, speeding up and imagining that it’s not my hand at all but her body. Her womb. Her cunt. Fuck. Her lips part, and her tongue slips out. Waiting. Her hand cups my balls and she works them gently between her fingers. And it hits me. Here I am, thinking I’m in charge? I’m not. I’m nothing. She’s everything. She’s fucking got me. By the balls. Completely. “You’re sure,” I say, doubling down on myself. She nods, her hair shifting along my thigh. “Come on my cheeks. And my lips. Come everywhere.” It’s coming. I feel it stirring low in my abdomen.

Then she lifts her eyes up my body and grips my abs with her hands. She drives her nails into my pecs. “Close your eyes,” I tell her. She does, immediately. “Jimmy. Please.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, I’m releasing. I come in three heavy spurts across her eyelids, solid aggressive pumps that shower her pretty cheeks in my cum. The third shot is the strongest and the most intense, so strong that I have to brace myself on the table. But I’m not done. There’s another wave coming, and what I’m seeing just feeds the need to fill her with even more of me. I slam her back onto the table with my palm to her chest and drive inside her. Her makeup is running and her fucking face is dripping with me, and now I’m filling her back up with me all over again. With a fourth shot, and a fifth, but I know right then I could come for hours and it would never feel like enough. Never.

21

MARY

For a long while, I stay there, holding him close to me. I slip my tongue out and taste him, dragging my upper lip back into my mouth with my teeth. He stays exactly where he is, clutching me to him with his arms crossed over one another, hands to my shoulders in a big X of an embrace. I link us together with my legs around his waist and hold him, keeping perfectly still. He murmurs, “Thank you,” into my breast once his breathing slows. “Thank you so fucking much.” “I think I should be the one thanking you,” I say, but I lose the words to express what it really does to me, being taken like that. No rules, no permissions, just outand-out passion like I’ve never experienced before. My eyes are still closed, and his cum is starting to dry. But before I can ask him to clean me, he pushes himself up off me. His hand stays knitted in mine, and I hear the faucet turn on. I know that what just happened should be demeaning. But it isn’t. It’s beautiful. It’s him opening himself to me, and me letting that happen. And I really, really love how this makes me feel. There’s a warm, soft, folded towel on my cheek. With careful, slow strokes he cleans himself off me, moving the cloth outwards from my eyes and then doubling it over to a fresh warm side. He traces underneath my eyes and over my lids. Down my nose. Down my cheeks. I’m enjoying it so much, this tenderness, I don’t open my eyes until he says, “There you go. Perfect.” He is inches from my face, smiling. “Seriously. Thank you.” He puts his lips to mine. It isn’t a sexy, wild kiss like earlier. This one is soft, and slow, and kind. “Can you come again? I need to see it again.” “Give me a breather, you animal. I think I’m still coming now.” And I’m not lying. That pulsing is still there. Not the big pleasure waves, but the rush of endorphins, the warmth and the heat. My clit, it’s got a pulse all its own. “Let me take care of you,” he says, turning his attention to the honey and champagne all over me, which he cleans away with the same careful tenderness. “Just tell me what you want. It’s yours.” I don’t answer right away. I want to savor this for as long as is humanly possible.

He scoops me up in his arms, cradling me above the table. But I warn him, “You need to rest that leg, mister.” “I’m not feeling any pain.” “Jimmy.” He hoists me up higher, closer, and grips me a little tighter. “Just tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen. Then I’ll rest.” Honestly, what I want to do is crawl in bed with him. That’s it. Just to be close, just to be warm. “Want me to order takeout? Pizza?” “Yes, definitely, but first,” I say, “can we take a bath?” There’s that smile again. “A bath.” “A bubble bath,” I tell him. “With lots of bubbles. Do you have bubble bath?” He nods. “I do. It’s Mr. Bubble. Is that okay?” Of course it’s okay, but it’s a little…well, it’s adorable. But I’d have thought that the closest thing he had to bubble bath was some sort of men’s body wash. “What are you doing with Mr. Bubble?” “Sometimes my niece comes to stay. She’s a fan. But is that weird? That I have Mr. Bubble? That we’re going to use Mr. Bubble?” Now, I’m not particular, but I am something of a bubble bath connoisseur. And in my experience, there is no superior bubble to Mr. Bubble. “I think that’ll be just fine.” I smile up at him. “Fantastic,” he says, and he carries me off toward the bathroom, cradled in his arms again, where, I’m realizing, I absolutely love to be.

The master bathroom is neat and organized. On the counter is a single bottle of cologne, a single toothbrush, and a 64-ounce bottle of sensitive skin moisturizer. While he’s testing the water, I peek into his linen closet. Everything folded neatly and about a hundred rolls of Costco toilet paper in a basket on the floor. On the hook on the back of the door is a little girl’s robe, pink with embroidered penguins, hanging next to his. “How old is your niece?” I ask him. He turns to face me, still with his hand in the water. His smile is so warm, his happiness so pure, I can feel in that look how much he adores her. “She’s three. Her name is Annie. She’s the cutest human being on the planet.” He opens the cabinet under the sink and takes out an extra-large bottle of Mr. Bubble, gallon sized. I see a few other things under there too in a pink plastic basket. A rubber ducky. Some sort of octopus with a motor, and a big fluffy bath puff in bright purple. “You don’t have kids, though, do you?” I ask. And I’m not asking because I’m afraid, I realize. It’s just it would seem so natural. I can see him as a dad. He looks me right in the eye and reaches out for my hand. “Not yet. Do you?” I shake my head and watch the tub fill. “I’m on the fence about them.”

A little laugh comes from his nose. “I know. I don’t think I’d be nearly so close with Annie if my brother wasn’t such a shithead.” There’s a growl in his voice “But I’m glad I am. She’s a real treasure.” He pours a long, luxurious stream of Mr. Bubble into the bath, changing the tone of the water falling into the tub to a soft, foamy hush. But before any time at all has passed, he says, “Okay, you get in first.” I look at the tub. It’s not even close to half full. Well stocked with bubbles, but still, barely filled. I look up at him puzzled. “I’m all for water conservation, but…” He grins. “I’m a big guy. I’ve flooded this bathroom more times than I care to admit. We can always add more water. But let me tell you, better to start with too little than too much. That’s what I say. I may own this building, but leaks are a real bitch. After you.” He extends his hands to me like he’s helping me from a carriage. I step into the huge, luxurious tub. The water comes right below my knees. I lower down into a crouch, hardly covered by the water at all. But then he gets in, and the water line goes up, up, up as he situates himself behind me. Now more than ever, I’m aware of his massiveness. The water displacement, I think it’s called, is absolutely astonishing. With me in a ball, it takes all manner of adjustment and repositioning his legs before I slide back into him. “Are you comfortable?” I ask, turning to look. He can’t possibly be comfortable. The ultra-modern faucet, with all the smooth lines of a paring knife, is poking him in the shoulder. But he just grins and pulls me closer. “Never been better.” And there, in the tub, we talk. Just like we did at dinner last night. Easy and smooth. We talk about the groin, about the shoulder. He tells me about the home game on Sunday, versus the Jets. And then the away game the week after, which is at Denver. “That means in Denver?” I ask, watching him over my shoulder. “Right,” he says, giving me a proud eyebrow. “You’re getting it. In Denver. They always put the away team first. Bears at Denver.” Makes sense, I think. Sort of. I’m not sure why in wouldn’t have worked, but that’s okay. Football is a whole new language, and if it means knowing what he’s up to, I’m more than glad to learn it. I let my body ease back into his, and his hands come together around my waist, under the waterline, pulling me close. I put little clumps of bubbles on his knee and blow them off. “I like being with you. A lot.” I knit my hand into his. “I haven’t really been with anybody in a while. Nobody serious.” One of his hands moves up my body and draws my head back into his chest. He gives me a soft, warm kiss on the head, taking a deep breath as he does. “I’m having some feelings, Mary,” he says against my hair. “Just want to be upfront about that.” I laugh, which makes a clump of bubbles fly from his knee. “I know. And I’ve only known you what….” I turn to face him a little better, the skin of my thighs

squeaking on the tub as I do. “…One day?” He gives me a sort of cocky nod. “Sure. But you know where you can go in a day?” I shake my head. In the silence, I can almost hear his heartbeat, and mine, over the husssshhhhhh of the disappearing bubbles. “All the way to the moon.”

22

JIMMY

For the second day in a row, I wake up to her next to me. She sleeps in a little ball, a corner of the comforter in her fists. I reach across and move her hair from her forehead. What I said in the bath last night, I meant it. I’m having some feelings. A stirring that I thought I might have lost the heart for. And I know it’s fast, but they’re there. Since I've met her, she’s hardly left my side, and not even once have I thought, I wish this girl would go home, or, she’s getting on my nerves, or, she eats like a bird, or, why does she talk during movies? In fact, totally the opposite. We fell asleep on the couch last night in front of the TV, a bowl of popcorn between us, me with an ice pack on my leg and her in my hoodie. She’s easy-going, sweet, funny. Smart. And sexy. She moans a little something into the pillow and nods at something in her dream. She smiles a little into the crook of her arm and then, in a sleepy, sultry voice says, “More honey. Please. Right there.” I ease myself back into the pillow. Damn it all. How great is that? Carefully, I roll out of bed and put on some pajama pants. I turn on the fireplace and get some coffee started. I look in the fridge and think about what kind of breakfast I could throw together for her. Glancing around, I wonder if I’ve got a tray to serve it to her on. I don’t think I do. Which is bullshit. Amazon Prime, here I come, I think, grabbing my phone. I type in breakfast tray, and a whole spread pops up on the page. I zero in on the best choice, fourth from the top, cherry with curved handles. But before I can hit BUY NOW, the buzzer at the door shatters the silence. And it’s not a short buzz either. Instead, a finger placed on the button and left there. Only one person I know buzzes like that. I hustle down the front hallway, and then quiet it by hitting TALK. “Yeah.” “It’s me, dickwad,” says an unfortunately familiar voice. That’s Michael. He sounds just like me, if I had sociopathic tendencies, smoked a pack a day, and had a small but not insignificant criminal record. “What do you want? It’s seven in the fucking morning.” “Going to make us stand out here in the cold or what?”

I think about it. Yeah. Actually. Maybe that’s exactly what I should do, because what I don’t want is him coming up here and fucking things up. The guy is like a slow-moving hurricane. Seems like it’ll all be okay until it’s too late to save yourself. So I stare at the intercom and put my forehead to the wall. Wait, did he say us? Oh fuck. He’s got Annie out there. I press my thumb to the DOOR button for three seconds and open the front door to the apartment. I stack up the Post-its from last night and begin a high-speed scramble to get rid of any evidence of what we did. I’m not embarrassed, but Michael will use any excuse to make me feel like shit, and having women’s underwear on the floor when he comes in here with my niece would be a pretty fucking good one. With her clothes bundled in my arms, I creep into the bedroom. She moans as I do. “What time is it?” “Early. My brother is stopping by. Just stay here.” She blinks. “Your brother?” “Yeah, I’ll get rid of him. He’s got Annie with him. I don’t know what he wants. Sorry.” Again, she blinks and wipes her eyes with the tips of her finger. “Okay. I don’t mind meeting them, though…” “Just stay where you are. Okay? He’s not…just stay here.” I shut the door behind me, and I hear his footsteps in the hall. Rap-rap-rap goes his fist on the door, and I open it up. “It was unlocked.” I go toe to toe with him. “Like always. Unlocked. How many times do I have to tell you?” “A lot. I’m not the smart one, remember?” he says in a long-practiced seething voice that puts my hackles straight up. It’s like looking at the worst part of myself. The dark part. The angry part. The part that comes out in a losing game. The reason I don’t drink much. The reason I fucking meditate. The part I wish I wasn’t. But the part that, because of him, I can’t ignore. Holding his hand is Annie. She looks cold and small. The coat he’s got her in is way, way too light for this weather. No hat. No gloves. And I know for sure he’s not giving her enough to eat. Before her mom split, her cheeks used to be chubby and full, but now they’re almost sunken. I lift her up from the ground and she wraps her arms automatically around my neck. She doesn’t say anything, but squeezes hard and long. Fucking breaks my heart. “How’s everything with my little Jellybean?” I ask, smoothing her tangled hair as best I can. She hangs from my neck and wipes her nose. Shrugs. Doesn’t say a word. That nickname used to make her laugh. Not today, though. Today she looks scared in the eyes and tired. Her hair is a little bit dirty and messy around her face, like she was sweaty as she was sleeping and it still shows.

Without asking Michael to come inside, which I know full well he will, whether I ask him to or not, I turn and carry her down the hallway. “Everything going pretty well? How’s that dollhouse I bought for you?” Again, she says nothing. Just tightens her grip a little more and presses her face to my shoulder. I carry her into the kitchen and open the fridge. I move aside the milk to get to the yogurts. Full-fat, like I like…and like she needs. With her legs dangling from the swing my arm has made for her, she watches me. “What flavor do you want, Jellybean?” We do this every time. There’s only one flavor she likes, which is the expensive one at the store: banana cream pie. “Banana?” she asks. “Banana it is.” I set her down on one of the stools and unpeel the foil from the container. While Annie is busy with her yogurt, using a little plastic-coated kids’ spoon that I bought especially for her, I ask Michael, “What do you want?” He wanders around the kitchen. Opens a drawer, then a cupboard. “Cash. What do you think?” I close my eyes. In addition to being a drinker and an asshole, he’s also a serious gambler. And he might only be two minutes younger than me and make me feel like I’m five years old, but I don’t want the bookies on his ass either. Because shit like that could turn Annie’s life right upside down. But the guy is a born troublemaker. Never worked an honest day in his life. Never finished college. And I know that’s my fault. I was the good son. He’s the bad apple. The further I went in football, the worse he got. Until he ended up like this. “How much?” “Make it ten.” I mouth “Fuck you” to him, so Annie can’t hear. He laughs. “Don’t pretend you don’t have it. You might not be able to complete a pass, but I know they give you a paycheck.” Turning my back on him, I take a banana from the bowl and slice it onto a plate, which I slide in front of Annie. As she takes one slice with her fingers, I grab Michael by the arm and pull him around the corner. I get right in his face, up against the thermostat. “You know what? No. Nope. I’m done. Fuck you. Deal with the bookies yourself.” But Michael only smiles. “Yeah? How do you think that would go for your Jellybean? When I have to foreclose on the house? How do you think that’ll feel?” Glancing into the kitchen, I watch her place a little dollop of yogurt on her slice of banana and try to maneuver it into her mouth. A glop of it falls sadly onto the granite counter. “I can take care of Annie. Sort your own shit out, Michael.” Again, he shakes his head. “I’m her dad, dickhead. I’ve got rights. We’ve been through this, or don’t you remember?” Yeah, I fucking remember. It was when her mom left for good and Michael went on a week-long bender. What I tried to do was get custody. But my case wasn’t strong enough. I’m an uncle. He’s the dad. And not having the heart to watch her

suffer means it never got bad enough for social services to come take her away. The fucking system, man. It exists for a reason, but sometimes I just don’t know what it is. “And she needs to go to the dentist.” I hate him. He is a master fucking manipulator. He knows that little girl is my weak spot. He knows it and fucking digs the knife straight in. I pour myself a cup of coffee without asking him if he wants one. “I’ll have to go to the bank. Might surprise you, but I don’t have 10K hanging around like some effing money launderer.” Michael shrugs. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll wait here. I’ll have a beer.” He peers over my shoulder into the fridge “It’s seven in the morning.” “Five o’clock somewhere.” He shoves me aside to grab a cold one from the shelf. He opens the goddamned thing with his teeth like a barbarian and then drops down onto the couch, where he puts his feet up on the coffee table. Now, I’m not a religious guy, but I do fucking look at the light fixture above me and think, Don’t let her come out. Not now. He will fuck it up. He fucks everything up. And she’s a good thing, a perfect thing. He’ll see us and do everything he can to ruin it. “Listen,” I say, now standing between him and the television. “I’ll get the cash. I’ll bring it to you today.” “The fuck you will.” He presses the power button, and the cable and TV come alive. “Move your ass, James. I’ve got some poker to watch.” That’s when I hear the sound of the bedroom door passing over the carpet. My heart drops. She cannot conceive of what she is walking into, and neither can I. Michael is capable of the most horrible, hurtful one-liners of anybody I’ve ever met. She comes out almost timidly from the hallway, as if she doesn’t want to interrupt. I reach my hand out for her and she comes to me. Fortunately, she’s dressed, but it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here. Michael’s eyes go from her, to me, and back again, and he gets this horrible grin on his face as he gives her the up-and-down. I level him with a stare over my shoulder. Don’t you fuck this up, you piece of shit. Mary looks to me, waiting for an introduction, looking embarrassed. She studies Annie with a kind of panic in her eyes, almost like she doesn’t know what to say, or how. “This is Annie,” I tell her. “My niece.” Mary, still clearly confused and worried—you could cut the tension in here with a fork—puts on a big smile. “Annie, this is Mary.” Annie looks at her blankly and chews her yogurt like she loves to do. And Mary says, “Hello,” extending her hand. It’s so sweet, so awkward, that it just makes me fall for her a little harder. Annie extends her hand too, a natural mimic. Only her palm has yogurt all over

it. Mary doesn’t flinch and shakes it warmly, smiling down at her. But my attention is on Michael. The guy is whip-smart and cold as ice. I watch him scan the kitchen. The dining table. He picks up a container of Icy Hot from the coffee table. He looks at the empty bowl of popcorn and the melted ice bag. He stands up from the couch and comes into the kitchen, tossing the warm gel in his hands. “Hello,” Mary says, sweet and kind and polite. Everything Michael loves to destroy. “I’m Mary.” Michael lets her hand hang out there, cold and unshaken. He flings open the fridge, taking a second beer from the door. Then he looks at her, slams the fridge shut, and says, “I don’t care who you are. He plays house with all of them. I stopped trying to remember names years ago.”

23

MARY

I’m horrified. It’s very clear that this guy is Jimmy’s brother. Same eyes, same hairline, close to the same build, but this guy looks like a bar brawler, not an athlete. Cruel, not kind. And the words take my breath right out of my lungs. I look to Jimmy, who’s put his face in his hand. Then I watch the brother open the bottle of beer, hooking the edge of the beer bottle over his molars and biting down. Now, I’ve been in some tense situations in my life. And I don’t understand this one well enough to know what’s going on here. But I do know I want to get away from Jimmy’s brother. Right now. You don’t have to be a trained canary to know when there is trouble in the mine. I back up into the bedroom, and Jimmy follows me, closing the door behind him. “Ignore him,” he says. “He’s an asshole.” But those words, whoa. It makes me feel like I’m one of a long line of Barbies or something. A long single file line of women running down the hallway and out onto the street. “You know, I’m going to let you two sort it out.” I start gathering up my things. “I need to go home to feed Frankie, anyway.” Jimmy winces. “Let me explain.” “Are there lots of women?” “Not anymore.” “But there were?” His sigh is long, pained, and slow. “People change, Mary. But I made some mistakes. Yeah.” I gaze up at him. The fog of the last few days starts to clear. I don’t know this guy at all, do I? I’ve been “playing house,” just like the brother said. And now he’s got me working for his team? All the conflicts of interests and no idea whatsoever what I’m doing, except a slow bubbling panic that this is a very, very bad idea. “Don’t jump to any conclusions,” he says. “Okay? Until I can explain?” “Of course I won’t,” I tell him, trying to suppress the growing, panicky doubt. “So I’ll see you at the ballpark later…” I see him smile and trail off. “Stadium,” he corrects.

“Right.” I try to smile up at him, doing my best not to look horrified at how close we felt last night compared to how very far away I feel now. “Stadium. I’ll see you there.” With my bag over my shoulder, I head for the door. I step into my boots, which he’d hidden in the closet. It all makes me feel very uncomfortable, and ashamed almost. Secrecy is bad enough, but secrecy here, in his own house, is a different kind of awful. I hear the low voices of Jimmy and his brother talking in the living room. I glance over my shoulder as I’m putting on my coat. I can just see Jimmy’s eyes, watching me, looking worried and sad. “Call me,” he mouths. “Of course,” I mouth back as I watch him pick up little Annie in his arms. She clings to him hard, burying her face in his shirt. The brother says something about money, about the mortgage, about bets. I see such hatred and anger in Jimmy’s eyes, suddenly, in the set of his jaw and the tenseness of his neck, that it makes my heart drop. Of course he’s more complicated than I imagined. Nobody can be as sweet as he is all the time. Who is he really? What’s he all about? Is he really and truly too good to be true? My questions unfurl out in front of me, and more and more doubt creeps in. That I opened my heart too fast. That I’ve been stupid. That yet again I trusted someone with the softest parts of myself, which I should have left protected. But fortunately, he’s not your ordinary man. He’s a celebrity. There is information out there about him, I’m sure. So as I head out the door, I grab my phone. I punch the button for the elevator to open and step inside. I press the G for the garage and then say, “Okay, Google. Who is Jimmy Falconi?”

James Theodore “Jimmy” Falconi (34 years old) nicknamed “The Falcon,” is an American football quarterback. He has played in the NFL for 12 seasons. After winning a college national championship at Ohio State University, Falconi started his NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals, where he played for the next five seasons. After a shoulder injury, he was traded and spent five years with the Dallas Cowboys. While with the Cardinals, he lost three NFC West championships, and has been plagued by injuries since.

I scroll down through the Wikipedia page past a whole litany of incomprehensible statistics, most of which are nearly a decade old.

Early life: Falconi was born to Frank Joseph Falconi and the late Sarah Lee Zambrisi

Falconi in Odessa, Texas, in the Permian Basin. Falconi has an identical twin brother, Michael Steven Falconi.

His mom is gone. My heart tightens in my chest because I know that terrible pain all too well. As for Michael, I wouldn’t have pegged them for twins, but I can see it now that I know. One has lived pretty clean. The other? Probably the very opposite, and it shows. Rough around the edges, a beer belly, and an anger that petrifies me.

Falconi expressed an early interest in sports, and his father, a roughneck oil rigger, enrolled him in youth football because the soccer team was full.

And now more statistics, an absolutely astonishingly detailed explanation of what games he lost, what games he won, and how. I literally have no idea how to process any of this information, but I am astounded at the sheer quantity. Football fans, they’re the real deal. I’ve got a guess that Dr. Curtis could probably recite almost all of this verbatim to me if I asked. Then, as I scroll down a little further, there’s a ringing in my ears. I know it’s what I was after all along, but just seeing it there on the page makes me panic. To think that a man I’m sort of interested in—okay, fine, very interested in—has a “Personal life” section on his Wikipedia page. Oh boy. “Here we go,” I say, and take a deep breath like I’m diving into a pool.

Personal life: Falconi has been embroiled in a variety of relationships with cheerleaders…

Oh no.

…actresses…

Why, oh why, am I reading this?

…and supermodels.

I close my eyes. What I should do is close this window right now. I should let him explain. I should not jump to any conclusions. But it’s right here. All this information, his whole life, at the flick of a finger… I open one eye just a crack, to read:

Falconi has been outspoken about wanting to remain a bachelor, saying that he loves women too much to pick a single one.

A strangled croak bubbles from my mouth. His brother, even though he looks kind of like an axe murderer, wasn’t kidding. All his pretty, pretty girls are probably busy blowing up his Facebook fan page at all hours of the day. I hurl myself into the Wrangler. The feeling is somewhere between dread, fear, and wanting to cry. He seemed so nice. He seemed so sincere. I flip over to Facebook and to Twitter. On both, he has that little blue check next to his name. I scroll through his feed and see a litany of hashtags in tweets to him from lady fans: #GoDeep. #GreatpAss. #AGameOfInches What am I doing? What in the world am I doing? Me, with a social media verified celebrity and fangirl hashtags? Am I out of my mind? I’m only Mary Monahan, MPT. He is Jimmy “The Falcon” Falconi. What was I even thinking? I flip through the pictures. There’s a whole bunch of super sexy action shots of him catching and throwing balls and being generally gorgeous. People have tagged him in memes all over the place and shared them everywhere. (“HEY GIRL… I’M FREE AFTER THE GAME. WANNA NETFLIX AND CHILL?” which has six thousand likes). But there’s also a smattering of him with assorted women. One in this killer black dress with a V-neck that comes damn near to her bellybutton and is so skinny, so beautiful… I peer at the screen. Oh my God. That’s Kate Moss. I slam my phone into my lap and let my head hit the seat behind me. I can’t compete with that. I can’t compete with international supermodels, for the love of God. I can’t. I just can’t. It’s like apples and…I don’t even know. Raisins. Apples and raisins. No, not even. Those are both fruit. Apples and sesame sticks. Apples and chicken soup. There is nothing about me that is in his league. Nothing at all. But then, like I've lost all self-control, which of course I have, I pick up my phone again and go back to Wikipedia, my face hot and my anger rising.

In 2013, he declined participation in ABC’s The Bachelor, stating that involvement in the show would not only be a distraction but would also mean, “I’d have to pick one woman. And I've got no plans to do that.”

My lips start to tremble a little as I fire up the Wrangler. Stupid, Mary. So, so stupid. You’re an idiot. First, you think he’s a Gillette model. Then you think he’s a Gillette model with a car dealership. Then you think he’s a professional athlete who is a perfectly nice guy! What is wrong with me? What was I thinking? The Bachelor! Of course he’s a playboy. Of course he is. Just look at him. No mortal woman could resist. Of course he’s that guy. He owns a whole building and runs around in tight white pants for a living. I’m sure he has women throwing themselves at his feet every week, asking him to sign their jerseys or hold their water bottles or whatever dreadful euphemism they’ve got. I throw the Wrangler in reverse and the gears grind at me. “Oh, I hear you,” I growl back and put her in first. I peel out of the parking lot, tires squealing on the dry concrete. I rumble up the exit toward the garage door, but then it hits me. Why. Why is my life like this? Why? I am stuck, here, in his parking garage, in his building. I look at my phone, at his texts from yesterday, and think for one second of messaging him. But I can’t. I feel disgusting. I feel horrible. I cannot trudge back up those four floors to ask for help. I place my head to the steering wheel and breathe. I can’t face him. Not now. I couldn’t possibly. My phone has slipped a little and flipped to a new meme. Jimmy holding not just one but two footballs, palming each one and curling them upwards like dumbbells. And the caption? HEY GIRL… WANT TO TOUCH MY BALLS? No. Just, no. I have to get out of here. I stare at the closed door and grip the wheel a little tighter. There’s only one solution to this one. I thrust open the door with my shoulder and go around to the trunk. “I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do,” I mutter to myself, pulling back the carpet over the spare tire. “I’m not going to that ballpark today. No way in hell is that happening.” And then I take a screwdriver in one hand and the jack in the other.

Back at the gym, I wrap my hands carefully, trying to regain my calm and forgive myself for thinking that a guy like that and a woman like me ever had a chance in hell. I pull my hair back into a ponytail, adjust the height of the speedbag, and get to work. About a minute into my workout, Manny comes over and stands on the other side of the bag, watching me and eating a piece of beef jerky crusted in red pepper

flakes. “Boy, you’re pissed,” he says, watching the bag as I settle into a calming triplet rhythm, the belly of the bag glancing off my upstrokes with three rebounds at a time. “I’m not.” “Pffffft.” Manny crams the rest of the jerky into his mouth with a huge, sausage-like finger. “You never hit the bag like that unless it’s tax season or you had a real bad date. Was it the guy from the ring? The big gringo with the pecs and the jaw?” It knocks me clean out of my rhythm and I whack the bag hard so it ricochets off the frame half a dozen times. Wiping my nose on the edge of my wraps, I go over and grab my water bottle. With the back of my forearm, I wipe the sweat from my forehead. “It’s not taxes, I’ll say that much,” I tell Manny. He sits down on the bench right next to me. He smells vaguely of aftershave, and I notice a shaving nick on his cheek. “Get under your skin, did he?” I gulp down a few mouthfuls of water. “A little.” Manny opens up his sandwich bag of jerky and offers me a slice. I pluck one out with my fingertips. It’s about as soft as a roofing shingle, and so hot I feel it in the back of my nose. “Oh my God.” “Extra-hot today,” he says. “Pretty good, right?” My nose stings and I hiccup like my whole stomach is roaring, What in God’s name have you done to me? As tears start welling up, I glance up at the big clock over the window. Jimmy and his shoulder are expecting me in an hour, but now I’m resolved for sure. I’m not going. So I open my phone to my favorites and give Dr. Curtis a call. “Hooah!” he bellows. “Morning, sarg. How’s it going?” I swallow my beef jerky, shut my eyes, and let go of the little glimmer of hope I’d had, the misguided lunacy that has overtaken me for the last few days. “Colonel. I need a change in the battle plan. Copy?”

24

JIMMY

The trip to the bank is like something out of an episode of Law and Order. Michael hovers over my shoulder in line so closely that I see the rent-a-cop place his hand to his gun. By the time we get to the window, things are so tense that the lady behind the glass says to him, “Sir, please. Step back,” as her hand moves under the counter for her emergency buzzer. Michael is no stranger to the wrong side of the law, and he knows that move as well as I do—of course, I know it from Forensic Files and he knows it from a totally misguided stint in his 20s that we still don’t talk about, but whatever. Knowledge is knowledge. So he does step back, angrily snatching a handful of lollipops from the complimentary candy bowl. Then he shuffles off to the waiting-area chairs where he left Annie. I watch her looking at the lollipops expectantly, but what does Michael do? Shoves them all in his pocket and sits down a seat away. Asshole. The guy is a total, unmitigated asshole. Annie lets her head drop and her legs go limp, dangling from the chair. A clump of slushy snow falls to the linoleum, and I hear Michael bite down on the lollipop like a cube of ice. I hate him. I hate that motherfucker so hard. Michael has never worked an office job because he can’t get along with, you know, people, so he’s made his living as a kind of traveling bar bouncer. The guy that hauls drunks out to the street and tells them never to come back unless they’d like to take a bite out of a curb sandwich. Suits him to a T. The teller adjusts her glasses and says, “Just one moment, sir. Let me get logged in. Computers are slow this morning.” According to her nametag, her name is MARGE. She is an explosion of yellow. Yellow glasses string, yellow shirt, yellow earrings, yellow hair, painted yellow fingernails. I take a Dum Dum for Annie, strawberry, and one for me. Mine has a question mark for the flavor. I watch the teller log in to her computer as I put the lollipop in my mouth. Coconut. God help me. What a fucking disaster that was this morning. I could just feel the temperature of everything plummet between Mary and me. And now, here I am, sucking on

sweet coconut that doesn’t come close to her at all. Refocusing on the world around me, I zero in on the teller. She finishes typing something in and says, “How can I help you today?” She fiddles with the string of yellow beads that decorates her glasses chain. “Marge, I need to withdraw ten thousand dollars from my primary checking.” She stares at Michael across the room and whispers, “If you are in a hostage situation, blink once, sir.” I spin my lollipop in my mouth. It makes me think of Mary again, and how I wish we were warm and quiet in bed. Makes me wish Michael would just vanish forever. “I’m fine. He’s my brother.” “Sir. This is a safe space. I have training.” She taps her name tag, drawing special attention to the little part that says MANAGER. “Seriously. Thank you, but we’re good. I need ten thousand, and I’ll get out of your hair.” Which is when she nods, and touches her crunchy curls, and says, “Families, eh?” No. Shit. Marge obliges, but is sure to discreetly pass me her business card, “Should anything be amiss.” And then she hands me ten grand in a white envelope, and we’re on our way. Out on the street, I give Michael his cash. He doesn’t say thanks or fuck you or sorry I ruined your day. He just strolls off down Damen Street like he won the goddamned lottery. Annie trots after him, trying to catch his swinging hand with hers. After three tries, he finally notices what she’s doing and lets her hold his hand. But he doesn’t squeeze it, doesn’t pick her up and snuggle her close. Instead, he grabs his phone with the other hand and they disappear around the corner. With a lump in my throat and anger in my gut, I return to my building, cracking my knuckles the whole way. I’m not a guy who feels a lot of hate, but goddamn it, do I hate him. And I’m stuck with him, by DNA and blood, and bound to him by Annie most of all. You can’t tell a guy to fuck off when you’re the only adult for a thousand miles that loves his kid. At least I can’t. I’ve tried. Rather than taking the elevator, because I just can’t fucking stand the idea of being in there without her, not so soon after yesterday and the disaster of this morning, I bound up the steps two at a time. I go straight to my bedroom, but before I even grab my training shoes, I take one long second to press my face to the place where her head was on the pillow. I haven’t heard a word from her, and I feel fucking awful. But I get to see her at work. So at least there’s that. Driving up the exit ramp, I slow as I approach the door and think, Christ, what the fuck happened here? The first panel is bent outwards. There’s a folded piece of paper in front of the electric eye, blocking the laser beam. Up higher, the door has been sort of dismantled, almost, maybe with a crowbar. The bars are bent and the door is stuck

halfway up. It takes me a minute to piece it together, but only that long. Fuck. Just high enough for a Wrangler to get underneath. Well, that seals it. I scared her away and then she had to break out of the goddamned parking garage. I’m officially an asshole. I let my head fall back onto the headrest. What a fucking day this has been already. In my parka, my phone buzzes. I do a quick fumble-around to find it—patting myself down until I do. It’s a text from her that says: Dr. Curtis is going to be doing your PT today. I think you and I need to take a little step back. Fuck.

25

MARY

When I arrive back at our apartment, I trundle up the stairs feeling defeated, tired, and in desperate need of a shower. Inside, I see that Bridget has cleaned up. I find her on the couch with cotton balls tucked between her toes. She’s also wearing leg warmers and looks a whole lot like Pat Benatar, circa 1981. “Hi!” she says when I walk inside. Then she gets a look at me. “Uh-oh.” I sniffle. I’m in that snot-riddled stage of a meltdown where my ears are ringing and my sleeve is all covered in tears and gunk. “Why didn’t you tell me he’s a playboy? You’re my best friend. You’re supposed to warn me about things. Because I don’t know how the world works, apparently.” She cocks her head. “Well, because he isn’t…” Around my feet, Frankie makes a kind of figure eight to get my attention. I pick him up and snuggle him, and he jumps into tear-cleaning duty. Bridget has given him a haircut, and his fur is smooth and soft under my fingers, but his muzzle is wet from sloshing in the water bowl. “Google disagrees. Vehemently! So does Wikipedia,” I say, trying to turn my head to keep Frankie from sticking his tongue up my nostrils. It’s not working, so finally I just let him give me the full treatment. “Please! You can’t believe everything on the internet!” “Oh! Says the girl who organizes her day based on BuzzFeed lists!” I set Frankie down and toss his panda for him, but only halfheartedly. Just a pathetic little underhand that goes two feet. He attacks it with all the zest of a full-hallway lob. From the door of the fridge, I grab the bottle of orange juice and then a glass from the cabinet. “I saw him with Kate Moss, Bridge. Kate Moss. With her skinny body and her…” I gesture in front of my eyes. “…cheekbones. Kate Motherloving Moss. I can’t compete with that shit. I use Suave shampoo. I buy my clothes at Marshalls. We’re not playing in the same league.” Now I just give up any pretense of delicacy and swig the juice right from the plastic bottle. Bridget looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. And by about the third swallow, I realize why. I hiss and suck air through my teeth, coughing out the words, “There’s something wrong with this orange juice.”

She takes the bottle from me and turns it label side out. On a piece of tape is written SCREWDRIVERS in her neat, tidy, girly letters. This day is off to a roaring start. As the vodka hits me, I have to steady myself on the island while I take hold of an apple. I can’t say that Smirnoff is altogether a poor choice for how I’m feeling, even it if is barely 8:00 in the morning. Bridget plants her hands on the counter top and lifts herself up to sit next to the apples, crossing her legs and dangling one heel over the other. She’s wearing these wildly patterned leggings with an old-fashioned wigwam thing going on, and of course, Bridget being Bridget, she makes them look freaking adorable. Her hair is on top of her head in a pineapple, and she’s clearly trying out a new shade of pink lipstick. I hear the lyrics to Hit Me With Your Best Shot in my head. She grabs her phone from the charger by the toaster and says, “Bless your heart. You’re such an internet stalking noob.” I huff. Because I’m an in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound kind of girl, I take another swig of screwdriver. And then Bridget holds up her phone. “ESPN MAN OF THE YEAR,” says the headline. “Oh sure. What year? Context, Bridget. Context!” I wipe off my mouth with the back of my hand. “This one!” She taps on her phone repeatedly, which makes the screen zoom in on Jimmy’s face smiling back at me. Deep inside, I feel a clenching for him. A need for him. A wanting so total, so simple that I…but what’s he holding there? I peer closer, clutching the bottle of Tropicana to my chest. Oh, you know. Just a tiny puppy in a bumblebee outfit. “I want to know how they decide these things. Did he pay for that Man of the Year status?” “They vote.” “Who’s they?” I ask. “What’s our data pool here?” “Just read it, won’t you?” Bridget swipes her thumb over the screen again, and a new image pops up. At first, I don’t take the phone from her. I just lean in and squint. There’s Jimmy, in a tux, with Annie on his shoulders. They’ve fuzzed out her face, but she’s in a pink ballerina costume and has these chunky little legs that remind me of pastry dough. Then she scrolls through and I see words like donations to charity and Cure for Bone Cancer Half-Marathon. “And he’s like a total Pinterest celebrity. Open the app! His screen name is TheFalcon.” I shake my head so violently that my too-long bangs come right out of my braid, so I have to blow them away from my face. It doesn’t work. “No. Enough. Too much data.” “Finnnnnne, but you should see his decorative gourd board.” Bridget whistles.

“He’s got taste. A guy who looks like that, with an appreciation for seasonal décor? I don’t know what more a girl could ask for.” Someone who doesn’t have a brother that terrifies me, for one. Someone who hasn’t been asked to be on The Bachelor, for two. And someone who hasn’t gone to public events and walked on red carpets with Kate Moss, for three. But I can’t deny that there is something about him. Something lovely. Or maybe that’s just me putting all my eggs in the Jimmy Falconi basket. I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m also starting to see double and the room is getting a little spinny. With my Tropicana in hand, I slink down onto the floor of the kitchen, feeling the handles from the drawers digging into my back. Bridget shakes her head at me and recrosses her legs. “I’m making you some eggs, bruiser. Drinking at eight in the morning. What will people say?” I unpinch my fingers and flip back to him with the bumblebee puppy. A few facts swim through the Smirnoff into the front of my mind. One: the man is adorable. Two: the man is a huge celebrity. Three… I put the lid on the Tropicana. I peek at Pinterest. TheFalcon. 381K followers. The man isn’t for me.

Mrs. Friedlander lies on a yoga mat on the floor. She is the frailest, sweetest little person I’ve ever met. Like a tiny injured bird. She says she’s 80, but I’m almost sure she’s older. She’s wearing old purple sweatpants, the kind you used to be able to buy at Mervin’s and Target. She’s wearing thick tube socks, doubled up, and an oversized sweatshirt that has Dorothy Zbornak of the Golden Girls silkscreened on the front, larger than life, with the caption-bubble: DON’T MAKE ME CALL SHADY PINES! As usual, Golden Girls is also playing on TV. She has an almost preternatural sense for finding reruns. I’ve seen her sort of tune in to the ether, hovering her old gnarled fingers over the remote, like a state fair gypsy with a crystal ball. And then she’ll say something like “Lifetime!” or “Hallmark!” and punch in the channel number. “You seem a little sad today, sweetie,” says Mrs. Friedlander. I carefully help her bend her knee toward her body. Before I started working with her, she’d hobbled around under a dowager’s hump so bad it was painful to see. But now, she’s nimble and healthy and able to almost touch her toes, which she’ll do for pretty much any visitor who comes by. “I’m okay.” I sniffle. “Really.” “Don’t kid a kidder!” she scoffs. And on TV, Blanche swoops into the living room wearing lots of floaty fabric and saying, “How to do I look?” “What’s troubling you?” she asks me as we move to her other leg. For as long as I have worked for Healing Therapies, I have made it a strict rule to never ever talk about my personal life with patients. It’s not that it isn’t allowed; it

is. Lord knows Dr. Curtis relays his stories about Vietnam to every single patient who even passes by our client list. I’ve tried to tell him that reliving the minute details of the fall of Saigon might not be exactly what our patients are hoping to hear, but it’s okay. That’s his thing. For me, though, life and work have stayed separate. Until Jimmy. Until today. “I met someone, Mrs. Friedlander.” I glance up at the rows and rows of pictures on her mantle of her and her husband together from before she became a young widow. “Why, congratulations!” I rub my nose on my sleeve. “I have a bad feeling about it. I think he’s bad news.” She does some deep breathing as I stretch her leg. “My Harold was a bit of a bad boy,” she says in a far-off way. “Kept his cigarettes in his shirt sleeve like James Dean.” And then she smiles and smiles. “Bad boys aren’t bad forever. Men can change, honey. I promise. You never met a man so nice as my Harold. He said I was the one that tamed him. Like a wild beast.” And she’s lost again, smiling and staring off at the memories that surround her every day, everywhere. Now Dorothy is on the screen, talking to Stan. He’s showing her his new toupee. I feel like this is excellent proof of my side of things. Men are like Stan. They are the way they are. And that can be a good thing or a bad thing or a thing with a horrible toupee. I have no faith in change. My dad didn’t change. Eric didn’t change. Dr. Curtis hasn’t changed. Never will. Solid as a piece of marble; consistent from end to end. And Jimmy Falconi, for whatever else he is, is a man. A huge, sexy, yummy, cocky, Pinterest-obsessed man. I might have taken a peek at his gourd page. It’d make Martha Stewart jealous. “Do you like him, this new beau?” She does tickle me with that old-fashioned way she has. “I thought so. Until I learned some things about him.” “Let me give you a little piece of advice,” Mrs. Friedlander says, holding my hand with hers. “Don’t believe anything, honey, unless you see it for yourself.” I look her hard in the eyes as I bend over her to help her stretch her arm across her body. “I want to like him, Mrs. Friedlander. I really do.” “Honey, the world will fill you full of ideas. But it’s here,” she presses on my chest with a shaky finger, “that you’ve got to go when you’re not sure of anything else.”

26

JIMMY

I’ve worked with some intense motherfuckers in my day, but this guy Colonel Curtis is straight out of Apocalypse Now. As I lie on the floor looking up at him, I realize the guy even has a version of the same goddamned name. Colonel Kurtz. Colonel Curtis. Christ. He smells like an Old Spice factory and has a buzz cut so high and tight, I’ve got this weird feeling he probably stopped by the barber this morning to get it touched up. Or he’s one of those guys who does his whole face and head at the same time in the shower. Hardcore. He’s got me doing these fucking therapy band repetitions that are so boring, so mind-numbing, that I have to resist the urge to nod off, which I would if I didn’t feel so fucking nervous about Mary. It’s been crickets since this morning. In spite of the fact that I’ve said: Please. Mary. Give me a chance. My brother is an asshole of epic proportions. He talks to everybody like that. Not women. There are no other women. Not now. Just you. Mary? C’mon. Nada. Not a word. Not a read confirmation, not a blinking typing sign. Not even a middle-finger emoji. Zip. He glares down at me and snatches the blue band, replacing it with a green band slightly thicker. “Give me ten more.” “I don’t think this is helping.” I can bench press two hundred and twenty pounds and this guy’s got me doing chest stretches with a rubber band. “It’s not a strength problem, Colonel Kurtz.” “Curtis!” “Curtis. I can throw, but just sometimes I can’t.” “Is that your professional opinion? Because that’s very good work. Sometimes

you can. Sometimes you can’t. I’m pretty sure I saw that in the Journal of Physical Therapy.” I do a few more repetitions and look at Curtis’ precise, short sideburns. I wonder if he’s got a ruler. “You’ve got your business and I’ve got mine.” He whacks his clipboard with his pen. “Copy?” “Yeah,” I answer, and close my eyes. “Copy.” I stretch the band wide and feel it pull tight across my chest. From where I’m lying, I can see up his pants, sort of, and see he’s got those sock garter things on. This guy is legit. The kind of guy who watches documentaries on weapons advancements in World War II for fun. “Where’s Mary?” I ask. “Classified information, Mr. Falconi,” he barks and gives me this look, this piercing stare that says he knows a whole lot more about the situation than he’s letting on. And that he’s not pleased at all. “Did you talk to her?” I finish the ninth rep and open my arms back up again. Curtis grinds his teeth. “I’m not at liberty to say,” he growls, dropping to a crouch. “I believe Google might have informed her of a few things.” He glares. Oh fuck. Great. Well, that explains the radio silence. I can’t even imagine what she’s thinking now. Bad things. Really bad things. Probably realizes that there was a time when what Michael said was exactly right. That’s not now. That was then, but she doesn’t know that. Once an asshole, always an asshole, on the internet at least. He grinds his jaw back and forth a few times. I can see in his expression that he wants to give me the business but is too professional to do it. His beady eyes dart from side to side, and he mutters in a low grumble, “But let me tell you something, young man. That girl is like a daughter to me.” I blink up at him with the band stretched to its max. “Understood,” I say, and find myself adding, “sir.” He gives me a quick, angry nod and hands me a football. “Get in throwing position, please.” I roll to my side and get up. Front foot out, I palm the ball in my right hand and keep it solid with my left. Curtis gets behind me like we’re dancing the tango. I get a whiff of original Listerine. He puts his hand on my throwing shoulder as I go slowly through my pass motion. But then Curtis tightens his grip on my arm and gets right up near my ear. “And if you break her heart,” I hear a crackle of emotion in his voice, “I’ll deflate your balls so fast, you won’t know what hit you.”

Once Curtis has finished with what every other physical therapist on the planet would call “exercises” but what he calls “drills,” I head for the weight room. I get on the leg press machine and move it to five pounds, lifting it with only my right

leg, which is feeling a lot better than it did yesterday, but would be feeling a whole lot better if Mary were here to rub something on it. And then I do the thing I haven’t done in a thousand years. I Google myself, typing in j i m… Jimmy Johns Jimmy Johnson Jimmy Fallon Jimmy Falco Jimmy Falcone Jimmy Falconi I press on my name. And what pops up but pretty much the worst moments and memories of my life. Even my fucking heart explodes. I haven’t done this in years, and there’s a reason for that. In bits and pieces, articles and posts, the sum total of what I must look like comes together in a mere matter of seconds. Jimmy Falconi is a manwhore. I thumb through the images and feel sick. I’ve been in this league a long-ass time. There are a lot of pictures of me with a lot of different women. But they’re old. They’re from ages ago, from long before Annie was even born, back when I didn’t have anybody I cared about enough to do better for. But I did for Annie, as soon as she came along. Except, of course, she’s only three. So it looks like I’m a manwhore right up to the present. I scroll through the search results, and it’s a lot of trash talk and sports forums, ranking me as one of The Worst Quarterbacks Ever. Really? Ever? Apparently. And that bothers me so much, right down in my gut. They’ve got me right between Kyle Boller and Mark Sanchez, the bastards. This game, I’m telling you. Take a team to a Super Bowl, you’re a hero. Narrowly miss five national championships and you’re the worst. I close that window and decide to do a little defensive work of my own: “Mary Monahan physical therapist Chicago.” The first thing that comes up is a link for her work. A professional-looking photo of her smiling up at a camera, with a foam roller in her pretty hands, smiling so hard that her nose wrinkles a little. But the second thing is her Facebook page. I thumb through each and every photo. Her with Frankie Knuckles. Her with someone who might be her mom, or maybe an aunt. Her with a girl who is tagged as “Bridget”. Them together on a beach, at what looks like some sort of seafood place. Mary has lobster claws in her hands and is laughing so hard I can feel the joy right through my phone. Them together as snow angels with Frankie in the middle on his back. I notice that there are no pictures of her with any guys, except for a few with the Colonel. One of her holding a cake. One of her in an apron that says “LETTUCE PRAY” over her chest. Below that is a cartoon of a head of romaine with a halo over the top. Image after image makes me fall for her a little more, a little harder. I’d like to be with her when she’s cooking. I’d like to make snow angels with her. I’d like to go out for lobster with her. So, so badly.

But now more than ever, the difference between us is startling. Hers is a sweet, honest, quiet life. Mine is a fucking spectacle. I’m more than that. I know it. I am more than football and more than the internet says. I just need to prove it to her. And fast. Before she decides I really am no good for her at all. So I hustle back into the trainer’s room and pretend to be doing wall stretches. When nobody’s looking, I grab the clipboard that I saw the HR woman using yesterday to write down Mary’s address and information to pay her. The sheet itself is gone, but the page that was underneath it is still there. God bless that lady from HR for writing so hard she’s probably a serial Bic pen breaker. I can see the vague but still-there shadows of the address on the paper. Behind me, I hear Radovic sucking down a Red Bull, so I stick the page in my pants and then say, “Fuck!” as I clap my hand to my groin. Radovic spins around, Red Bull sloshing from the can. “Go home, Falconi. For fuck’s sake. Go rest. Be here at ten tomorrow.” He shakes his head. “Remember what I said though…” He stares hard at me. “Fuck this up and you’re done.” Crunch goes the can. I gather up my shit and limp lamely out into the parking lot. My leg is actually totally fucking fine, but I’ve got way, way more serious shit to worry about today than leg lifts. I could give her space. I could give her time. I could leave her alone. But that might mean I lose her. She’s already thinking I’m a first-class player. (Who the fuck makes those internet memes anyway? I’ve never in my life said the words Hey, girl. Christ.) And I am not going to lose her. Not like this. So I look up florist on Google and click on the one with the highest ratings that also says OPEN NOW. A man answers. “Blooms in Season. How can I help you?” I clear my throat. “I want all the roses you’ve got.” “Sir?” “All the roses. Red. Long stem. No baby’s breath and no bullshit.” “It’s going to be very expensive, sir… Five dollars a stem.” “That’s absolutely fine,” I say. “How many do you have in the shop?” There’s a rustling. “Thirty-six.” Well that’s not going to cut it. But it’s a start. I place the order and then go back to the list of florists. Call. Order. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

27

MARY

After Mrs. Friedlander, I head to an appointment with a new client referred by Bridget. She was supposed to be Dr. Curtis’ patient, but I’m covering while Curtis is with him. The new patient is named Miriam. She has five children, none of whom are walking yet. I think she must notice me staring at them, trying in vain to do the math. “Twins and triplets. And another set of twins in here.” She rubs her belly. “That’s… a lot of children.” I’m at a loss for what else to say. Just one is a source of so much anxiety for me, I can’t even articulate it. Seven children? The woman must be a saint. “I haven’t slept in three years,” she says with an almost scary smile on her face, like she’s been practicing it in the mirror. Oh man. I try to make sympathetic expressions and sounds, but I’m not totally sure I’m succeeding. One of the littlest ones begins climbing up the banister like a monkey and gets his foot stuck, screaming hysterically and thrashing back and forth on the steps. Without missing a beat, she grabs a tub of Crisco from the pantry, scoops out a handful, rips off his sock, and butters up his plump little foot. She yanks it free and sticks his sock back on. “Do you have kids?” she asks as I stare, horrified, at the little child, who has now removed his sock again and is licking his foot. “No,” I blurt out automatically. “I don’t.” I try to temper my enthusiasm. “I have a dog. Kind of. Half a dog.” She looks at me, mystified. “I share my dog with my roommate. Now, shall we see what’s going on with your neck?” Her mirror face reappears, and she gazes at me blankly. I can almost feel it coming. “I bet you’d make a wonderful mother!” And there we have it. “I’m not so sure about that,” I smile. “I can barely remember to buy enough eggs for the week.” “Neither can I, but you’ll get the hang of it,” she says. “Let me just put on some Dora the Explorer. They should conk out here pretty quick. I dosed them with Benadryl.”

Oh God. This is not the kind of pro-children data I need. I look around the house, at the madness and the chaos, and listen to a baby screaming in a back room. They say that when you have your own, it’s different. But I’m not sure that I’m really cut out for mothering. Not if it’s like this. In my purse, my phone buzzes. I know it’s him. He’s been at it all day long. I glance down into my bag and see: Dinner. Please. Let me explain. I didn’t make any of those memes…. in the preview window. Followed by: Kate Moss and I are just friends! I clench my eyes shut. That cannot be my life. Miriam returns, baby monitor in hand and her neck stiff as a board. I reach down and silence my phone, just in time to see: Okay. I’m going to leave you alone now. Please don’t ignore me forever. “Ready?” I ask Miriam. She tries to nod, but can’t because her neck is in such spasm. So she smiles her mirror-face smile instead and says quietly, “I’ll tell you, Mary. I love my kids. But think long and hard before you have them.” “I don’t even have a boyfriend,” I tell her, and find myself smiling that same forced smile she’s been giving me this whole time.

When I return home, I find Bridget outside with Frankie Knuckles, who is in the very early stages of his poop dance. It’s a complex round-and-round ritual that can last as long as five minutes, depending on if he’s interrupted, or if there’s a breeze, or if—God forbid—another dog comes within fifty yards. He’s seriously considering a small space by a leafless bush in a planter box. Back and forth, back and forth. Round and round. Bridget has dressed him in a hoodie to keep him warm, which she Bedazzled herself with the words #1 STUNNER. Even though Bridget is in her parka, I can see that underneath it, she’s dressed to the nines. She’s got her boots on, her riding boots, the ones that mean business. Or a date. She treats finding a man like most women treat finding a new bra. Gotta try them all on, and preferably wear them around a while before you decide. I, on the other hand, prefer to think that there is one perfect bra out there, destined for me. It happens to be a wireless T-shirt bra from GapBody. As for the man… I glance at my powered-off phone, and leave it off. “Where are you headed?” I ask, taking a bag from the roll attached to the treat pouch hanging from her pocket, in preparation for the finale of the ballet. “Out. How are you?” I try to get the bag undone, but with my mittens on, it’s just impossible. So I pull them off and, through one of them in my teeth, I say, “Crappy. But Mrs. Friedlander is better.” She nods. And then glares. “I think you should give him a chance.”

“Of course you’d say that. You’re a Bears fan. You get it. He’s your kind of guy.” “Pfffft. No. I prefer my men metrosexual, slightly maladjusted, and bearded, as you well know. No, I just think…you’re all upside down. I’ve never seen you like this. It must mean something.” Doubtful, I think, picking up a turd. Very. “This is real life, Bridget. People don’t fall in love in two days. There is no such thing as insta-love.” She shakes her head at me, and then looks up at the street lamps. “Oh, ye of little faith.” I bag up the poop and drop it in the garbage, where it gets caught on top of a pizza box. “I’m fine as I am. Yes, he’s sexy. Yes, he’s sweet. Yes, he owns real estate. Yes, he does charity half-marathons for the humane society…” “Is this supposed to be a list of cons? Does he have herpes? I don’t understand the problem…” I hold up a finger. “End of conversation. We have amazing sex, but we’re a bad match. It was madness. It’s over.” Bridget takes out her long-wear lipstick and does some touchups in the window of a nearby kabob restaurant. “Well, if you’re so sure, come out with me,” she says, sliding her lips together and dragging Frankie away from an empty bag of sour cream and onion chips. “Tonight.” “Karaoke?” I ask her, clapping my hands together. “Because that would make me feel better. You, me, nachos with jalapeños, Backstreet Boys? I’ll be fine.” She pouts and drops the lipstick back in her purse. “Speed dating. Come on. See what the dating pool is like. And after that, you can tell me if you really think Jimmy Falconi is such a…” She looks at the steaming bag on the top of the full trash can on the corner. “…Such a bad idea after all.” Speed dating. I’ve never done it. But, I think, as I watch Frankie kick frozen mulch into the street, maybe it’s worth a try.

The big event takes place in a bar that is, unfortunately, Charles Bukowski themed. On all the walls are painted quotes that are decidedly not the stuff of romance, including: “I DON’T HATE PEOPLE. I JUST FEEL BETTER WHEN THEY’RE NOT AROUND,” and, “LOVE BREAKS MY BONES AND I LAUGH.” Charming. And speed dating itself is every bit as strange as I feared it would be, and has a musical chairs feeling that makes it hard to say anything at all lest the buzzer sound in the middle of a halfway decent conversation. Bridget is, of course, the belle of the ball and has done this so many times she checks Facebook in between rounds, in the space where I am gulping back vodka tonics and shoving my face full of cashews. She’s also got a row of complimentary glasses of wine lined up in front of her in a general arrow shape pointing back at her. It’s just that kind of passive aggressive subliminal messaging that she’s really good at. Like when she stuck my

American cheese singles—the very best for making grilled cheese—on the top shelf of the fridge with a note that said, “This was in the cheese drawer.” Right now, at table 7, I’m here with my mostly tonic vodka tonic, and talking to a man named Owen, who specializes in the study of common minnow. I don’t know how he’s done it, but he’s managed to get to me twice. And now he’s really getting down to brass tacks. “Do you know the minnow?” he says, swizzling his Shirley Temple. He reaches into the book he’s got with him—The Common Minnow—and pulls out a bookmark. Of a common minnow. “Not really.” I smile. “It’s a nice-looking fish though.” He slides the bookmark across the table to me. “There. That’s a little gift. They’re very interesting. Very complex. They are the harbingers of ecological overall health. When the minnow starts to decline, everything declines. Like the bees. Do you know about bees?” Don’t even get me started on bees, Owen. There’s just no way I’m telling this guy that my aunt was an apiarist. He’ll probably get down on his knee right now and swear his undying love to me in the name of the minnow. “I’m a bit allergic. But I do love honey.” Oh God. What is wrong with me? Owen the Minnow Man goes on, and on, and on, crunching his ice from his Shirley Temple and talking minnows until the buzzer sounds. Across the room, Bridget eyes me from behind her glass of cabernet. I roll my eyes. And she looks at me like, What did I tell you? The next guy is actually cute enough, a rugged beard with hints of white near the jaw and mouth, but has a sort of dimness in the eyes. I give him the benefit of the doubt and decide on early-onset cataracts. It isn’t cataracts. It’s a simple-minded brutishness that starts with him asking me, “So, how do you like it?” I’m so gobsmacked, my mouth drops open. “How do I like what?” “It,” he says, making a boinking motion with his finger into his fist. “Hard? Soft? You got fetishes?” He swills his Old Style from the can. “Because I can get into pretty well anything. Feathers?” He gives me the thumbs up. “Furry butt plugs?” Here he pretends to be Caesar, holding his thumb parallel to the ground and then very, very slowly raising it up again. “I’m down. I mean, whatever. You can just lie there if you want.” Ohhh no, he didn’t. I clench my hand and briefly allow myself the pleasure of imagining what it would feel like to hit him right between the too-closely-set eyes. My aunt had a theory. It was a simple one. Never trust a man whose eyes are too close together. Still, I can’t be suckerpunching this guy in the middle of speed dating. “Top or bottom?” he asks. Or can I?

So it’s time for a subject change. And what does my subconscious throw out there but: “Do you like football?” What? Mary! Why? Why? Why? He glowers. “Football. What the fuck do you wanna talk about football for? Aren’t we here to get laid?” He looks side to side like he might possibly have come to the wrong event. I wedge the toe of my boot against the foot of the table to prevent myself from kicking him in the shins. “How about those Bears…” “Fucking Bears,” he says, taking another swig. “Fucking Jimmy Goddamned Falconi.” The anger is absolutely instantaneous, like an ungrounded light switch getting flipped in my head. I can actually feel it, like I could when I’d turn the lights on in an apartment I once had and I could feel the current in my cartilage. It’s not an emotion that I’m familiar with, not at all. It makes my eyes wobble and my face hot and my nostrils flare hard and fast. “He’s doing his best.” “The fuck he is! Me and the guys at work got bets that this game will be his last. And good fucking riddance!” He whacks the table with his fist hard in exactly the way Eric used to do. It inspires such a sudden rush of fury and fear that I clench my fingers against my thighs and start counting back from twenty. “I’ve even got a bumper sticker that says ‘Fuck Falconi,’” he snorts. “Not bad, right?” There is a time for calm. There is a time for quiet. There is a time for meditation. And then, there is a time for something else entirely… And so, in one smooth movement, I cross my legs, bringing my right thigh up over my left, wedging my leg between my knee and the table. And that’s when I do it. I tip his Old Style, my vodka tonic, a basket of bread, and a small menacing bowl of hot pepper oil right into his lap. “What the fuck!” he bellows, leaping back from the table so that his chair goes clattering and flying behind him, landing sideways in the middle of the room. All the awkward conversations around us come to a sudden stop. “Sorry!” I pretend demure horror. “I’m so sorry!” The hot pepper oil seeps into his pants, making a big oily hot glop right over his fly. I scooch out of the banquette. “I’ll go get some paper towels.” But as I pass him, I take one second to add, “You know something? I think he’s doing a wonderful job. He’s working through injuries. People can change. Players improve. I think we’re lucky to have him.” The Brute doesn’t answer. Just picks up his chair, rights it, and sits back down, staring at the seat where I was sitting, looking at me exactly the same way he did when I was sitting there. Nothing special, nothing exquisite, just another woman on another bench seat. In other words, exactly the opposite of how Jimmy Falconi looks at me, in even

the quietest of moments. Or even when he was coming back to consciousness in the ring. I hustle past Bridget with a glance and go to the bathroom. Delightfully, this bathroom doesn’t have paper towels—only high-speed hand dryers—so good old Close Eyes is going to have to lump it. I take the moment to myself and let the anger subside, my fingers perched on the wall pressing into the grout lines between the tiles that make a wainscoting. I let my head drop down slightly and take a deep breath, focusing on the quiet in the bathroom. I realize that I’m about two inches from the word FUCKING painted elegantly on the drywall at eye level. The scrolls and twirls of the f are luxurious and old-fashioned, and the tail of the g makes a smooth kind of repeated infinity sign. The most elegantly typeset expletive I’ve ever seen. I step back and see the quote: “STOP INSISTING ON CLEARING YOUR HEAD. CLEAR YOUR FUCKING HEART INSTEAD.” I put my forehead to the wall and breathe. Bukowski is right. He’s so exactly right. Because while this is head-crazy, these two days, this passion, this desire, it’s heart-sane. It makes sense, even though it shouldn’t. It is what I want, and what I need. I’ll kick myself forever if I chicken out now. I turn and face myself in the mirror. I think hard about how I felt when Old Style insulted Jimmy. How it wasn’t even something I had to think about, defending him. Believing in him. Yes, the thing with his brother was infuriating and scary. But I will not let a guy like that get between us. Bullies have taken enough from me already. I will not let Jimmy Falconi join the list of things I’ve lost. And so, I take my phone from my purse. I open up the chat window where he has been talking to me, pleading with me all day, and type in: I want to see what happens with us. I’m sorry I got scared.

There are so many things I’d like to say besides that, but I just don’t know how. Not here. Not like this. This will have to do for now. Just as I put my finger over the SEND button, a woman bursts into my stall, with her skirt halfway down and her nylons in a twist at her thighs. “Sorry!” she shrieks at the top of her lungs. And plop goes my phone into the toilet.

With my phone in a plastic bag that the waitress gave me, Bridget and I pluck our way home through the snowdrifts. The plan of attack is clear. A bag of rice under a warm light and a handful of prayers to the iPhone gods. It’s the only recourse. But as soon as we get into the stairwell, I smell it, even over the vague scent of tikka masala: roses. I glance at Bridget, thinking that the smell might be her. But she doesn’t wear rose scents. I remember that she once said that rose makes her smell like she belongs on display in a funeral parlor. She’s chattering about the Brute and the Minnow Man, and also about a guy she met named Dylan who does graphic design and is “actually growing his beard for Movember, like for real,” as she checks the mailbox. As we head up the steps, the smell gets stronger. “Do you smell that? Roses?” Bridget looks up from our electrical bill. “No. I smell the smell of burning money. We need to invest in more blankets. This is obscene.” I inhale deeply. And then, as I open the door to our hallway, I see them. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of roses in vases, lining the hallway all the way to our door. Bridget and I just stand there, until slowly I turn to face her. She meets me with that told you so look that she’s perfected so well. I kneel and get the card off the nearest bouquet. On it, it says: To Mary Give me a chance. Please. Jimmy “This might be worth something!” Bridget presses it to her chest. “I can hawk it on eBay. Might offset the electrical bill, you know?” The roses are splendid, overwhelming, and beautiful. There must be… I try to make a quick calculation. At least ten bouquets, with two dozen each. Hundreds. But it gets even better. Because, in front of our door, I see it. The pot of Chicago gold that I like better than any other snack. A five-gallon tin bucket of Garrett’s Popcorn. I peek under the lid and see it is a 50/50 mix of caramel corn and cheese corn. I slap the lid back down. “Is it?” Bridget says, eyes wide in anticipation. “The mix.” Bridget squeals. “I call dibs on maid of honor!” She pulls off her leather gloves by one fingertip in her teeth and plunges her hand into the caramel. Ripping off my own mitten, I dig right in to the cheese. There is nothing better,

ever, anywhere, than Garrett’s cheese. My eyes close almost involuntarily in a kind of culinary orgasm all of its own. I drop my weight against the door and shovel another handful in. I chew and return to reality. I take out the little shiny gold card emblazoned with the Garrett’s logo on the front. This one is his writing. I remember it from the Post-its. Mary Cheese and caramel go together. Like you and me. Dinner. Tomorrow. 7. Alinea. “Alinea?” Bridget says, with her mouth full of caramel corn. “Holy fuck.” He wanted to sweep me off my feet. I’d say I’m already airborne.

28

MARY

I take the L to Belmont and tighten my scarf against the cold as I walk down the block, past a bistro with only one woman sitting at the bar, and a cupcake shop painted lime green inside. As I get to his building, to the cleanly tuck-pointed brickwork that belongs to him, and the windows that are his, and the still-empty shops on the ground floor with signs for things like TOKYO NOODLE, COMING SOON, I make my way to the front door. His front door. All his. Eric had money. Lots of men have money. Lots of women have money. But there is something different about this. The idea that he bought this building, and renovated it, and will rent it, is somehow so much bigger and better than having, say, some four-million-dollar penthouse on the Gold Coast. He took a bad thing and fixed it up, to make it something good for him and a lot of other people. For a whole street to be better. Not just his own life. I stand nervously in front of the buzzer. Before I can overthink what I want to tell him, or how, I depress my finger on the button for apartment number four, which has a little sign next to it that says, “BUILDING MANAGER.” Not his name, nothing flashy. Just the handwriting I now recognize so well, understated and strong. My heart pounds wildly in my chest. A few cars pass behind me, splashing slush onto the snowdrifts. No answer. I press it again, this time feeling even more anxious. Because yes, I want to do this. I would kick myself forever if I didn’t see where it went. Still no answer. I back out onto the sidewalk and look up toward where his windows are. They’re all dark. Nobody home. From my purse, I take my little paper day planner and tear off the back page, the one with the whole year printed out in tiny font. I grab a pen from the bottom of my purse and pull off the lid with my teeth. Jimmy Having some phone trouble. Thank you for all the presents. I feel spoiled rotten. See you tomorrow at the stadium. And yes to dinner.

xxoo I fold it into a square and tuck it into the spot where the door latches. I don’t want him to miss it, though, so I bend the edges open so they’re flat against the door like the square wings of a paper butterfly, impossible to miss. I draw a small heart on the bottom right-hand corner, and then I turn to go. With the wind in my face, I head down Belmont. My eyes sting from the cold, and I get bombarded with foggy clouds of diesel from passing busses. At the zebra crosswalk, I help a little old man with a cane through the uneven ice, the slush from the day that is now freezing into dangerous pools in all the gutters. Up ahead of me, the L clatters past, and I double-check that I’ve still got my pass in my pocket, ready to use at the turnstiles. But to my right, a little boutique catches my eye. The sort of place with only two mannequins in the window, both in gorgeous cocktail dresses. Those old-fashioned bulbs, same as the kind Jimmy has in the elevator, dangle down at irregular intervals from the ceiling. I watch the shop girls inside, one of them holding a cup from Starbucks and laughing. The snow falls softly onto my eyelashes and my cheeks, filling the air with the very same sound as was all around us the first time we kissed. This shop isn’t really my kind of place. I haven’t had any reason at all to go out anywhere fancy, not in the last year. After I left Eric, I donated all the dresses he bought for me to the Glass Slipper Project so girls could use them for homecoming and prom and quinceañeras. I never thought I’d need a real cocktail dress again. Until now. These dresses in the window are daring and sexy, not modest. These are not country-club dresses. These are the kind of dresses that would look better with a leather cuff than they would with a string of pearls. Elegant. Sultry. Naughty. Daring. Gorgeous. I open the door and am met with the smell of rich scented candles, musky and warm. Sandalwood and pine. House music plays over the speakers above, and the shop girls turn and smile at me. One of them steps forward and says, “Hello.” The Monroe piercing above her lip glistens in the spotlights on tracks above. I take off my hat and mittens and stuff them in my purse. “I’d like to try the dress in the front window if that’s okay?” Her eyes widen a little as she leans in, looking at my eyes. “The green one?” I glance at it. I’d actually meant the black one. But the green one, a deep, rich green, is even more daring. It’s backless. It’s risqué. It’s a gamble. “Let’s give it a try.”

29

JIMMY

I get to Alinea at 6:30, way too early, but I’m so nervous I don’t even know what the fuck else to do with myself. I haven’t felt this way about a date since I was going to my senior prom with the head of the cheerleading squad, whose dad was known for running guys off their property with a shotgun loaded with bear shot, and I didn’t even like her. This is a whole different kind of nerves. Mary Monahan nerves. Nerves that say, This is something, Jimmy Falconi. So don’t you dare fuck it up. I’m showered and shaved, in my best suit and best shoes. I’m in the Yukon this time, and take a second to make sure it’s nice and clean for her. I even gather up the change from the cup holder and stick it in the glove box. The valet takes my keys, and I slip the little number card into my pocket, where I still have her note from last night. I haven’t heard from her at all today, and it’s been kind of hard. I like having her within a finger’s touch, but it also gave us both some space to get a handle on this thing. At least for me, that meant thinking about doing it right. Thinking about how I want things for us to really start. It’s important for me to set the right tone with this so she knows she isn’t just some girl. In the hostess’ eyes, I see that glimmer of recognition I’ve gotten to know pretty well. But this place is super fucking classy, and she’s polite enough not to call any attention to me at all. She looks at the reservation book and then glances up at me. “Two for Falconi?” she asks. I smooth my jacket. “Yeah.” All right, so yes. I pulled some strings. Normally you have to wait six months for a reservation at this place, but the owner is a fan. I’ve never actually been here, but once he said to me, “Listen, buddy, if ever you want a table…” So today, I did it. I pulled the quarterback card, and now here we are. Well, here I am. Nervous as fuck. “Is this okay?” she asks, pulling out my chair for me. “Perfect. But I’m going to sit here so I can see her when she comes in.” The hostess smiles and pulls out the other chair, so I take a seat. Then she tucks in the other chair tidily against the table and walks away. Out in front of me, at sparkling tables, under halogen spots, there are all sorts of different groups of people. A cluster of middle-aged guys talking seriously and

quietly about business, I’d guess. Or maybe politics. A father and daughter off to one side, I can tell from the identical small bump in their noses. An older couple, her short white hair styled in that pretty way older women have, like they know they’ve earned the right to be however they want. One of the chefs comes out in his white uniform and starts decorating their table, right on the bare, clean marble. With sauces, first, and then tiny, fingersized portions. I am utterly fucking mesmerized. It’s art in progress, and by the time he’s done, it looks more Pollack than edible. Fuck. It hits me then. This might not be her kind of place at all. “Give me beer or give me death,” were her words. And now here I am taking her to a place that serves art for food. The chef says something about lobster slow-cooked in butter and an asparagustruffle tower. Goddamn it. I might have overshot the mark here. There’s a big difference between wanting to spoil her and making her feel really uncomfortable. I rub my forehead. If she seems the least bit uncomfortable, we’ll get the hell out of here. If she seems like she feels out of place, or out of her element, I’ll have her eating ribs so fast she won’t know what hit her. But then, the front door opens, making the long dark curtains sway. My breath gets caught in my throat. Her makeup is darker than I’ve seen it, and her hair is smooth and beautiful in long, shiny spirals. The hostess steps aside and removes her coat for her. I watch her shiny, dark hair catch the light as the coat comes off her shoulders. “Oh fuck,” I groan. Every single person in the place goes dead silent. A fork drops. A pan clatters. Because Mary Monahan is a vision. She’s in a dark green satin dress with no back at all, showing off that beautiful, elegant, extraordinary tattoo, and that body, the very small of her back showing at the base of the long, long, tantalizing V. The hostess says something, and Mary turns, now walking toward me. She’s in sexy black heels, and her hair is spilling down over her shoulders. I used to wonder what it would feel like to be in zero gravity, what it would be like to be floating and weightless and a thousand miles above earth, where there were no rules and where everything was different and brand fucking new. Where champagne floated in droplets and your feet never touched the floor. Well. Now I know. As she nears the table, I stand up and pull out her chair for her. Her body slips past my suit coat, and I feel the warmth of her skin against my chest through my shirt. She doesn’t smell like coconut now, no. It’s something floral and warm. “Hello,” she says, her voice still a little bit hoarse. I can’t help myself and slip my hand along the side of that satin, feeling the curve of her body as she sits down. As she scoots forward, I can see straight down into that satin paradise, where I see the very top of her ass, hidden from the world. But not from me.

“You look fucking spectacular.” She looks up at me over her shoulder, and I see a blush come up to her cheeks. “It’s not too much?” Too much? Please. There I was, worrying that she’d be out of her element. “Did you hear the fork drop when you walked in?” She looks away shyly, unfolding her napkin as I take my seat across from her. “That was completely a coincidence.” But I can tell she knows. And I love that she knows. She’s a showstopper, a forkdropper, and train-of-thought stealer. Nobody’s pussycat but mine. I cannot take my eyes off her. “I think this every time I see you, but you really are the most beautiful woman in the world.” She closes her eyes, embarrassed. The front of her dress is just as sexy as the back, but it’s almost better because she’s wearing this incredibly naughty, thin leather choker. And the hickey—it’s either healed or she’s done some mega makeup magic, because I can’t see it at all. Her neck and chest is a sea of creamy white, perfect, flawless skin. And a plunging neckline that fucking wrecks me. “Where have you been all my life?” I say, getting lost in the curve of her cleavage and the way that that green makes her eyes shine like real emeralds. She fusses with her napkin, looking at her lap. And then her eyes meet mine, which is when she says just one word. The perfect thing. “Waiting.” Yes. A hundred fucking thousand times. Yes. “This is really just…amazing, Jimmy.” She looks around and pressing her lips together, gives me a little laugh. “So fancy.” I take her hand in mine. “The owner once told me that it’s okay to play with your food here. I figured we can do that, can’t we?” She gives my hand a squeeze and her thigh presses against mine under the table. I see a blush come up onto her cheeks, this pink flush. “Yes. I think we most definitely can.”

Over dinner, she tells me about how she grew up and where. She was raised by her aunt, who, she said, is a lesbian of the women need men like fish need bicycles school. “But I think she’d really like you.” She sips her white wine from a huge, elegant glass that makes her hands spread out in the sexiest way. “Yeah?” Nodding and watching me through the stem, her laugh echoes softly. “She’s a big Bears fan. I think she’d forgive you for being a man since you’re a Bear.” “Are your parents around?” Looking down, she straightens her napkin in her lap. Fuck. “Sorry.” She shakes her head. “No, no,” she says, touching the edge of the table. “I never knew my mom. Or my dad.” She sighs, fluttering her eyelids. “He was a little bit

like Michael.” “I gotcha. Not the Man of the Year?” “Exactly. I was damned lucky to have my aunt.” Her eyes are a little sparkly now. “And I think Annie is damned lucky to have you. Even if you are a total internet celebrity. That gourd page, Jimmy.” She shakes her head. “Not exactly what I would have expected from a football player. Your miniature pumpkin game is so strong.” My snort makes the old couple glance over at me. “You Pinterest stalked me?” “I everything stalked you.” Oh shit. Yeah. I like that. A lot. “Well, let’s just hope I’m worth your stalking skills after Sunday.” Her eyes get serious, and worried. “You really think they’ll fire you? I don’t see how that’s fair. Or possible.” I know it’s not fair, but it’s more than possible. “We’ll just have to see. But no need to worry about that now,” I say, smiling at her. I’ve had a lot of practice of reassuring people of good things when there’s nothing but a shit load of trouble coming down the pike. Like, pretty much every huddle pep talk I’ve given in the last five games. But she doesn’t push. We don’t get stuck on work, which I appreciate. A whole hell of a lot. “If you could do anything,” I ask her once they finish plating the entrées, “What would it be?” She looks thoughtfully at the table, at the spread of tiny little towers of food. “I don’t know.” She lifts her eyes to me. “I’m pretty happy as I am. Manny is looking for someone to partner with him at the gym, though, so I’d like to help with that. If I had the money.” God, the gym. It seems so long ago, but it’s only been a few days. That’s what falling hard and fast will do to a guy. Warp time completely. And I don’t mind a bit. “What about you?” she asks, and balances half a quail egg on her fork. She places it into her mouth. Every single thing she does seems sexier than the last. “Win a Super Bowl and get the hell off the field.” For the first time since I’ve known her, she actually talks with her mouth full, just long enough to say, “Yeah?” “Maybe have a family,” I add. “You know. One day.” It’s like it catches her off guard. She blots her lips with her napkin. “Kids?” “Yeah. Kids. Maybe. One day. If I find the right person. You know. One day.” I stare right at her. I couldn’t be any clearer about this if I spelled it out in Scrabble, or if I dragged my finger through the sauces on the plate and wrote the word YOU. But she looks a little nervous. So I ease up on the gas. Not long after, one of the businessmen starts to get belligerent. Nothing crazy, nothing out of control, but as he starts to raise his voice, I watch Mary stiffen in her chair and tighten her hands into fists in her lap. Her eyes keep darting over, wide and afraid. Within minutes, though, the manager comes and says a word in the

guy’s ear, probably something along the lines of, This isn’t a bar, sir, and we’d like you to leave. The guy whacks the table so hard it sends a wine glass tumbling. Out of pure reflex, I stand up, my chair squeaking on the floor. But the manager has it in hand, and the guy is gone before he can cause any trouble. Mary, though, she’s rattled. Her wine is shivering in the glass, and she’s gripping the edge of the table tight. “You okay?” I ask her, sitting down again. Her eyes flit to the door and back to me again. “I just can’t take that sort of thing, Jimmy. It’s like I freeze up inside.” “Anger, you mean?” She nods. “Anger, violence. Tempers.” She shivers, blinks hard, and then raises her eyes to me. “My ex was that way. I can’t have that in my life.” The thought of it—her hurting, her in danger—it makes me insane. Whoever he was, it’s a damn good thing that he isn’t around now. “You don’t have to worry about that with me, pussycat.” “I know,” she says softly, smiling and rotating her glass by the stem a quarter turn. “And I’m really, really glad.”

When the bill comes, I make sure that the amount is hidden behind the candle. Something tells me she’d kill me for dropping this kind of cash on dinner. But as far as I’m concerned, money is made for nights exactly like this. As I put my wallet back in my jacket, I pull out a white envelope and slide it across the table to her. She places one finger on it and looks at me, puzzled. “What’s this?” I slide it closer. “Open it.” What I really wanted to do was to get two tickets to Belize, but I can’t pull off that kind of romance until the off-season, so for now, this will have to do. She opens up the envelope, watching me all the time, and pulls out two tickets for Sunday’s game. “To come see you?” Her smile is bright and big. “If you want. If you’ll have me.” “Yes!” she says. “Of course! I wouldn’t miss it for the entire world.” She sets down the tickets and places her hand over mine. “I really am sorry I bolted when your brother was there. There was no excuse for it. And I’m sorry I busted your garage door.” “Hang on.” I pat down my jacket where I find the other surprise I grabbed for her. Across the table, I slide a spare key to my apartment and the garage door opener too. She gives me a sort of back it up, buddy stare. “Take it. You don’t ever have to use it. But at least you’ll have it. Right?” Her eyes move to the table. She touches the edge of the key and the button of

the opener, just gently running her fingertip along the bump at the top. “I’ll take this,” she says, taking the opener. “But not the key.” It sits here, on the table, between us. I want to just press it into her palm, make her keep it, but I don’t. I take it back, and put it in my pocket, and reach out to hold her hand again. “Deal. So now here’s what’s going to happen.” She gets serious and tucks the tickets into her lap. Her chest rises and falls with anticipation. I want to put my tongue on that collarbone. I need my hands on that skin. But no. Nope. I remember that text like it’s seared into my brain. We need to take a step back. “We’re not going to go to bed together. I’m going to see you home. I’m going to kiss you before you go. And then I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her fingers press into mine. She takes a deep breath and nods. “Thanks,” she whispers. Then she leans forward, making the candle flicker with her breath. I watch the seams of her dress shift against her stomach. She has no fucking idea how she overwhelms me. That dress is making me feel like I have a concussion. “Can I just ask what color underwear you’re wearing?” She narrows her pretty eyes and hesitates. “I’m not. Which you well know. Because I saw you looking down my dress. And there’s no room for a bra in this, so I’m naked as you know me under here.” Fuck me. Fuck it. “I want you. So bad,” I say, back in that growl that only she seems to be able to pull from me. “Jimmy.” She tilts her head slightly. “Slow.” Christ. I fold my napkin. I get my bearings. “I know. I’m good. Just had a moment of weakness there. I’m only human.” And that’s when she gives me that smile. I watch her fingers move along the edge of the table, trailing over the very corner with the tips, same as when she touches me. If she wants to go slow, I’ll go slow. Painfully slow. Agonizingly slow. Torture. I’ll do it. For her. I stand up and offer my hand, and she takes it. Again, as we leave, the whole place goes silent. “That has nothing to do with me,” I whisper in her ear. Outside, I hand the valet my number card and he takes off down the street. But I see her eyes are worried. “I think I’ll take a cab home, if that’s okay? You and me alone in a car. We know how that goes.” I take her face in my hands, bringing my fingers around to the back of that pretty, slim neck. The kiss is intense, just as strong from me as from her. I want her. I need her. Inside her, over her. Everywhere. But not yet. Not now. The strength it takes to pull away, it’s more self-control than I thought I had, but I do it. I let her go, just as a cab pulls into the valet slot, waiting. “Thank you for coming out tonight. This was really…” God, I don’t even know the word. Awesome? Nice? Lovely? Have I ever even said the word lovely out loud? I open the door for her, and she slides into the back seat.

“It was perfect,” she says, finishing my sentence and smiling up at me. “Just perfect. See you tomorrow?” “I’ll be looking for you. I’ll be the guy wearing number 6,” I tell her and then shut her door and give the roof of the cab a thump with my fist.

30

MARY

I have a temporary tattoo of the Bears logo on my cheek and a parmesan pretzel in my hand. I follow Bridget down the web of stairways and tunnels through the stadium until we find our seats. Which are right behind the Bears players, front row. It’s almost like we’re on the field. We’re that close. “If I could find a man to spoil me half this rotten…” Bridget says, biting into her bright blue cotton candy. “You Geminis. You’ve got all the goddamned luck.” So, what I don’t tell Bridget, and I certainly didn’t tell Jimmy, was that I’ve never actually seen a football game before. I know nothing at all about it, which I’m pretty sure makes me totally un-American, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. “See, home games are great. They wear those white pants.” She nibbles her cotton candy. “Look at those tushes. God.” It’s true, they’re exquisite. But the one I’m looking for isn’t immediately obvious. I scan the sidelines, taking in the hulking mass of muscle and burly men that mill around, some stretching, some talking, some drinking water from tiny cups and crumpling them in their hands. I see Radovic pacing back and forth. He’s still in the warm-up pants, but now also in boots and a big duffel coat, complete with a Russian fur hat, high on his head, so his forehead looks enormous. “Where’s Jimmy?” I ask her. She pauses with cotton candy spilling from her mouth like a cloud. “You are really just so cute. He’s the big man on campus. You’ll know when he gets here. Promise.” Within seconds, Bridget’s prediction is confirmed, as fog machines start making haze around one of the tunnels that leads onto the field. It’s surrounded with balloons in an archway, in Bears’ blue and orange. They announce one player after another, their entrance met with roars and cheers and claps louder than anything I’ve ever heard in my life. And then the PA announcer booms, “And number 6. Quarterback Jimmy Falconi!” Which isn’t met by cheers. Nope. Instead, a low boooooooooo fills the stadium. I stare at Bridget. “What? Why are they booing?” She leans into me, deflating our down parkas against each other. “They love him

when he wins. They hate him when he doesn’t.” The anger inside me is so intense I have to sit down for a second. Assholes. Seventy thousand assholes. May someone topple their Old Styles straight into every single one of their laps… “I can’t watch this.” But then Jimmy jogs past me, looks up and winks. For that one instant, there is nobody else in the world but him and me. He looks adorable, and sexy, and beautiful. And deep inside me, I feel some greedy, primal corner of my soul say, “That man is mine.” He disappears into the wall of players. I swallow hard and double-check that I’m not actually drooling. I’m not, fortunately. Yet. “Settle in, girl,” Bridget says, nestling into her parka. “Because we’re not going anywhere until one of us has to pee so bad it hurts.”

I think the thing that startles me most about the game is the noise of the players colliding with each other. That bone-crunching, muscle-tearing, lungcompressing force of grown men running at full speed, and at full testosterone octane, into one another, over and over and over again. Bridget keeps trying to explain the rules to me, but she’s such a fan that she can’t finish a single informative sentence before getting caught up in the game. I really can’t make sense of any of it. But every time they start playing, when they crash into each other, all I can think of is sprains, bone bruises, broken tibias, and rattled brains. Jimmy’s, most of all. At one point, after a few minutes in the half—quarter? third?—he goes back to throw. He gestures down the field at a very tall guy with braids. But before he can throw, a guy roughly the size and dimensions of the Kool-Aid man tackles him so viciously I feel like I’m going to throw up. But Bridget says that’s the game, that’s football. That’s just how it goes. “If you’re going to date the quarterback, you’re going to have to learn to love it.” Date him? Am I dating him? I watch him jog down the sidelines and huddle together with Valdez. I look at his beautiful buns. The narrowness of his waist. I watch him pull off his helmet and rub down his face with a towel. And that’s when he glances over at me and smiles that HEY GIRL smile right at me. Gulp. Yes. I’m dating him. I definitely am. Later, when the Jets are on offense, a term I’ve learned from Bridget, I sit down and pull out my phone. I Google RULES OF AMERICAN FOOTBALL. I scroll. And scroll. And scroll. “This game is insane!” I’ve never seen anything like it in my life except for once when I asked Wikipedia about THE LINE OF SUCCESSION TO THE BRITISH THRONE. But this? This is much, much worse because it’s so chock-full of jargon I can’t make sense of anything whatsoever. And whatever is happening with those X and O

diagrams, I can’t even say. But Bridget doesn’t answer. Because right in front of us, the Bears have taken the field. They get in position—that has to be the term—along some sort of imaginary line that seems very important. The big guy, Valdez, tosses the ball between his legs to Jimmy—this seems to be SOP, in Curtis-speak. Players crash into each other everywhere around him. And then he turns with the ball in his hand and glances at me. It is as if everything on the planet stops. Someone has hit PAUSE on the Netflix stream of reality. His eyes meet mine, and I stare back at him. You can do it. You know you can do it. The world suddenly roars to life and goes back into full speed. Jimmy holds the ball close to his chest. And then, by some miracle, finds a gap in the players, through which he runs. And runs. And runs. The crowd goes absolutely freaking insane as he sprints across the finish line. Bridget’s arms shoot up into the air, and random strangers everywhere seize each other with such utter, pure joy that I feel goose bumps all over me. And the Bears take the lead. 6-3, says the scoreboard. Then there’s all kinds of commotion, people taking different positions. I’m really not paying attention to any of it because on the enormous screen at the end of the stadium is a slow-motion replay of Jimmy running. That body, oh, for the love of everything, that body, in slow motion, in white pants. Every time his foot hits the ground, a ripple moves up his thighs, his ass. That ass that I’ve gripped and scratched and had my hands all over. Now on the field, a fairly clean-looking, slim guy jogs out. He’s got a different helmet and looks thinner and shorter than the rest of the players, more like a soccer player. Jimmy isn’t on the field, but is pacing the sidelines with his helmet halfway on his head. I can’t see his face, but I can tell from his posture he’s nervous. And suddenly, I am too. The slim guy wallops the ball from a little stand, and it goes end-over-end through the air. As it passes through the big metal U, everybody explodes in joy again. I look up at the scoreboard, feeling proud of myself. That’ll make it 9-3, if a kick is worth three. Which it was, when the Jets did it. But inexplicably, it goes to 7-3. “What! I don’t…a kick is worth three!” Bridget turns to me. Deadpan. “And an extra point is worth…” “An extra point?” “Heyooooooo!” she says. “C’mon. A minute until halftime. Let’s go tinkle.”

We stand in line for the bathroom near a bratwurst stand, which smells so good I have to dab at my saliva with my pretzel napkin from my pocket. The line is immense but quick-moving. I watch various people pass by in different jerseys

from different players. As we advance closer to the door, with Bridget wiggling her knees because she has to pee so bad—I warned her not to get that extra-large hot cocoa, I warned her —I hear a ruckus behind me and turn around. For about one millisecond, I think it’s Jimmy in a flannel-lined coat with a Carhartt cap on, screaming in a stranger’s face. But it isn’t. “Oh my God. That’s Jimmy’s brother,” I whisper into Bridget’s ear. “Man. That guy could use some anger management classes stat.” No kidding. Michael is snarling at another fan, and their respective friends are pulling them apart. The other fan, I notice, is wearing a FALCONI jersey. Of course. I can’t hear what they’re screaming, but I’ve got a feeling that whatever Michael is saying, it doesn’t fall under the category of brotherly love. That’s when Michael lets loose with a totally amateur ham-fisted suckerpunch that, much to my utter astonishment, connects with the face of the guy in the jersey. The guy goes staggering backward, a stream of blood pouring from his nose. “Oh fuck,” mutters Bridget, taking a tighter hold of my elbow in the crook of hers. “Don’t get involved.” But as Michael loads up for another punch, I realize what I need to be worried about right now hasn’t got anything to do with me or Jimmy or Michael. Because as the crowds part for the fight, the gap reveals little Annie standing there, watching it all. She gets shuffled off to the side by the commotion and lands on her tush on the hard, cold concrete. She doesn’t react to whatever pain she feels from the fall, but just stares, round-eyed, at her dad. The Bears fan lands a straight jab to Michael’s stomach, and Michael screams, “You motherfucker!” Which is when big tears spring to Annie’s eyes. I push through the crowds, shouldering my way through streams of people going in both directions, parting around the fight mostly, though some stop to egg them on. She is in the middle of a world of feet and boots and pants. Of snow and icemelting salt and kitty litter. I kneel to the cold ground and scoop her up. As I wrap my arms her, she jumps, startled. Then her eyes soften as she recognizes me. With her on my hip, I hold my other hand out to keep the people away, and bring her to safety over by an out-of-order water fountain. “Hi,” I say. “You’re Annie, right?” She nods. “I’m Mary. I met you the other morning at your Uncle Jimmy’s house.” She doesn’t smile at all. Instead, her eyes lock on to her dad as he launches himself onto the Bears fan on the ground. I let myself see it through her eyes: A man in her uncle’s jersey getting the living hell punched out of his face by her father. I turn so she can’t see it so easily, and place my hand on her small, bony shoulder, so frail though her thin pink jacket. She buries her head into my scarf and squeezes me with her legs. I look down and see her tights are dirty and there’s a hole over one knee. She’s wearing pink moon boots, patched with duct tape. The

seams of the boots are coming open, and I see her little toe poking out. I swallow my horror and press my head to the side of hers. Her little arms tighten around me. “It’s okay.” I bounce her gently on my hip. “I don’t like yelling,” she says into my ear. “Too loud.” I hold her close, gripping her tiny body to warm her up and reassure her. There’s evidence of a healing scrape under her eye, and a smudge of something at the corner of her mouth. “I don’t like the yelling either.” She presses her face into my scarf, and I turn to see how things are panning out with that useless excuse for a man who happens to look just like Jimmy. He hasn’t fared well, but neither has his opponent. Michael’s face is all bloody, and two security guards are hauling him off. He doesn’t say anything about Annie at all, but keeps on screaming bloody murder about how, “The Bears will never stand a motherfucking chance.” And then I see four uniformed cops come down the concourse. Two of them take Michael away in one direction and the guy in the Falconi jersey is hustled off in the other. At no point, not even for an instant, does Michael turn to look for Annie. Neither of the cops looks back. It is as if she wasn’t here at all. Annie sniffles and holds me a little tighter. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’ve got you.” I carry Annie back to the bathroom line with me and introduce her to Bridget. “This is Jimmy’s niece,” I say. “Annie.” Bridget’s eyes flash at me, and then I see her bite her lip in anger. I nod, raise an eyebrow. Bridget shakes her head. Bastard. What an absolute bastard. Annie might be terrified, but she’s strong. And yet, there’s a limit. She looks from me to Bridget, both of us total strangers, and starts to cry. Through sobs, she says, “I want to go home.” I make sure that Annie’s gloves are on tight, and take my own hat off to put on her head. It’s too big, but at least it’s something. “I have to take her out of here,” I tell Bridget, who nods, looking utterly pained, just like I feel. I don’t want Jimmy to see an empty seat where I was, but I know I can’t put this little girl through more trauma. She needs a quiet place, maybe some hot cocoa and a nap. She doesn’t need to see her uncle getting pounded like a heavy bag or be surrounded by the population of a mid-sized American city screaming at him either. Bridget’s face shifts from worry to panic, and she begins patting down her jacket for her phone. She yanks it out of the little front pocket where she always keeps it when she’s on call. “Fuck,” she groans, wincing as soon as she realizes she just dropped the f-bomb in front of Annie. But I’m pretty sure it’s not the first time she’s heard it. “Fudge,” Bridget says. “I’ve got a mother in labor. I need to go.” Bridget blinks at me. What do we do? The plan comes together immediately in my head. “You Uber. They’ll pick you up out front. Does that work?”

Bridget nods distractedly as she opens up the app. “Perfect.” “And we,” I tell Annie warmly, “are going home. What do you say?” She sniffles and then says, “Yes, please,” near my ear. With Annie clinging to me, I use my thumb to type out a short message: Your brother got in a fight. I have Annie. I’m taking her to my apartment. Good luck, my love. You’re doing great. Followed by a smiley. And a heart. “Want to say anything to your uncle? To wish him good luck?” That’s when, for the very first time, she smiles a little. She pulls off her glove and with a steady, tiny, finger—a bit dirty under the fingernail—she reaches out and presses on the football emoji, and then tucks her face in next to my neck again.

I remember after I went to live with my aunt, after my parents passed away, she would always happen to be thinking about making cookies when I got sad. I’d have a meltdown or cry over something or other, trying to make sense of it all, and she’d say, “Well, you can’t cry now, lovebug. We’ve got oatmeal raisin cookies to make. How about that?” Annie clings to me all the way out to the parking lot and doesn’t let go until I’ve set her down in the front seat. Wait. What the hell am I doing? That’s never going to work. A long stream of news stories about the dangers of front seats for children flood through my head. So I pick her up again and flip the seat down, so I can get her squared away in the back. She picks up Frankie’s panda and gives it a squeak, which isn’t a squeak. Just a click. “That belongs to my dog,” I say. “You’ll really like him.” She eyes me suspiciously. I can tell she’s a thinker, the kind of girl who gets lost in her thoughts. A lot like me, maybe. “Your dad is going to be okay. He’s just got to deal with a few things.” Right. Like the finer points of the Cook County jail system, I’m pretty sure. And a night in the drunk tank, I hope. I shut the passenger’s door and go around to my side. She has the panda pressed to her chest and is watching me like a hawk. I hop in, buckle up, and turn to her. “You know, it’s a good thing you were there today, because I was about to go home and make some cookies.” “Cookies?” she says, her eyes big and wide, and for the first time, she almost looks happy. I reach back and place my hand to her tiny knee in its tiny dirty tights. “Yes. Chocolate chip. What do you say?” Then I see that little adorable smile. A smile that really does look so much like Jimmy’s it takes my breath away. She squeezes Panda again, and this time by some

miracle he does squeak a little. She presses him to her chest. “Okay?” I ask as I turn on the engine. “Cookies? Sound good?” She beams. “Yeah.” I turn on the engine and adjust the rearview so I can see her. I think back to my very first date with Jimmy. “And a little birdie told me you like How It’s Made. Is that right?” Her eyes light up and sparkle, and I feel something—something I have never ever felt before—right underneath my heart.

Frankie Knuckles follows Annie around like her own personal watchdog, and doesn’t even try once to take Panda from her. “He likes you,” I say, crouching down to put a pan of cookies in the oven. She helped me make them—I was on mixing duty, she was on rolling duty—so they’re all adorably tiny balls. Lilliput-sized. But she doesn’t answer. Just smiles and then stands in front of the oven door watching the dough balls turn shiny in the heat. I set the timer and take Annie by the hand, leading her into the living room, where I help her up on the couch. Under my palms, I feel her skinny frame. Her ribs, even. Not an ounce of extra fat on her. When I was that age, I was so plump that I sat on a dishwasher door and broke it. But she’s just a feather. I’ve kept her in her boots because it’s cold in here, and now I grab a blanket from the back of the couch and wrap her up in it. I take off her boots and, automatically, she tucks her legs up under her body and shivers. Like I remember my aunt doing for me on really cold days when I’d been outside playing, I run my hands up and down over her arms to get a little friction going. At first, she’s rigid like a board, but she slowly starts to loosen up and smile a little. That’s when Frankie leaps up next to her and brings his nose to her face for a kiss. There is a sudden burst of static electricity, a snap that pops through the air. Frankie stares at her, she stares at Frankie, and he sneezes right in her face. Her laugh is huge, contagious, and pure. And it has the added benefit of making Frankie lick her even harder. Inch by inch, all over her face, her nose, her eyelids. When he gets to her ears, she squeals at the top of her lungs and flops back against me, giggling so hard she can hardly breathe. She drops Panda in the fray and wraps her arms around Frankie’s barrel chest. He looks at me like, Well that’s it for me, Mama Mary! I can die a happy man now! And then maneuvers himself for a belly rub. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and while Annie is busy with Frankie, I take the chance to give it a glance. It’s Jimmy replying to me from earlier. Is she okay? That bastard.

I snap a quick photo of her with her arm around Frankie, and caption it: “We’re all ok!” I see him typing, and then he says: Thank you so gucking much, Mary. Fucking. Did you win? I didn’t know if she should watch you on TV. So we made cookies instead.

The timer dings, and I hustle back to the kitchen, snatching out the cookies right before they start to burn. Perfect timing, thank goodness. The poor thing has had a hard enough day without the smoke alarm going off. I set them down on a cooling rack and take off my oven mitts. My phone buzzes again. I have to go bail the bastard out. And yes. We won! My heart feels so full, so relieved for him I could almost cry.

We will be here. I knew you’d win. I just knew it. xoxo Poking my head back into the living room, I see that Annie has a little bit of Mrs. Friedlander in her, and has landed on How It’s Made without any help at all. On the screen, an infinite line of lollipops fills a conveyor, and I see her smile and pull Frankie a little closer. From the fridge, I grab a bottle of milk and two glasses from the cabinet. Taking my seat back next to her on the couch, I pour out a glass for each of us. As a machine spins the lollipops, and another machine puts the wrappers on, her mouth drops open. She is utterly, totally, wholly engrossed. The upset of the day is gone. Her dad, bloody on the floor, no longer in her head. The worry and the terror that must be part of her life, not here. For this moment, it’s just her and Frankie and lollipops. I hand her a glass of milk, and she takes it in two hands, guzzling it down like it’s the very best thing she’s ever had. “Thank you,” she says, a magnificent milk mustache going halfway up her lip. “You betcha.” I grab another afghan from the other end of the couch and drape it around her and Frankie.

Again, I feel that pinch in my heart. This isn’t some little girl, the child of a stranger or a client or even a friend. This little girl is different. She’s quiet and contemplative and has Jimmy Falconi’s eyes. And I really, really like her. I settle back onto the couch, under the blankets with her. As the cookies cool and the sun sets and the wind whistles in the windows, we learn everything there is to know about lollipops. And saddles. And garden hoses. And all-natural vegan bean burritos.

31

JIMMY

By the time I get to Mary’s place, it’s dark and I’m in a foul fucking mood. The bowels of the Cook County correctional system is not the place to be celebrating a win, but it had to be done. And they’re keeping him overnight to sleep off whatever godforsaken combination of Jack and Fireball he’d been downing since breakfast. Thank God for that. When I park, I send Mary a text to tell her I’m here. As I walk toward the building, her head pops out of a third-floor window. “Hi!” she calls down to me. “Catch, champ!” And drops her keys. I’m so awestruck by her, so distracted, that I miss the catch completely. They land in a nearby snowdrift, and I pry them out. It’s the first time I’ve been to her place, and it feels a little bit magical. Grim in the stairwell, but still pretty magical. Because this is her turf, and I like that a lot. I walk up the steps, thinking of her laugh in here, thinking of wrapping my arms around her and kissing her on the cramped landings. As I walk up the steps, I study all the stuff attached to her keys. A Chinese coin with a square hole in the middle is on the ring, along with a little plastic-encased photo, an inch square, of her friend Bridget snuggling Frankie Knuckles. There are what look like office keys, and a locker key, for the boxing gym I’m guessing. And then there is a small silver circle, engraved with the words: “Unfold your own myth.” – Rumi There is still so much I don’t know about her. So much I want to know. So much I need to know. Looking into her eyes today, before I ran for that touchdown, it was like the world stopped. It was just like I said to her that day when I was so wrapped up in her. The sun will rise and set on this. When I get to 3A, I knock softly. I hear the sounds of the television inside and Frankie snuffling at the bottom of the door. She opens it up and I’m in heaven. There she is, and with her comes the smell of freshly baked cookies. And roses everywhere. Vases on every table, every flat surface, even sitting on cutting boards on the radiators. “Someone must like you,” I say, taking her into my arms. “Pretty, aren’t they? He’s a real gentleman. And he can throw!” She gives me a huge squeeze. Not a lover’s embrace, but an unapologetic bear hug that says everything. Congratulations and Sorry your brother is a shithead and I’m so happy you’re here.

Pulling her to me, I close my eyes and press my face down into her hair. My shitty mood vanishes instantly. “Hi,” she whispers in my ear. It’s as if I dissolve a little in her arms, pulling her close, feeling the curve of her against me. “What a day. How is she?” “Good!” Mary says quietly, wrinkling up her nose. “We found How It’s Made and everything was better.” I peek my head in toward the television and see Annie passed out. Frankie is next to her, making a nest in the blankets, scraping and scratching and going around and around in a circle. Her hand slides off her stomach onto his back. He freezes, mid-nest, and flops down on the sofa with his head on her leg. “I’m so glad about today,” she says, pulling me close with my shirt in her hands. “I knew you could do it.” I walk her backward and press her up against the fridge. I bring her lips to mine. Now it’s her turn to dissolve a little, and she tips forward, letting her weight fall against me. Her hands move up my forearms, and she grips me by the wrists as we get deeper and deeper. After a long, long, long kiss, she pulls away and smiles, the light from the television making her eyes shine. Keeping my voice low, I tell her, “I’m so fucking glad you were there today.” I think about what could have been. Children and Family Services, and the fucking disasters that the system entails. “And just seeing you in the stands.” I kiss her softly on the forehead, letting my lips linger there before placing my chin to the top of her head. “That first touchdown is all yours. I took one look at you, and boom. Magic. I felt like it was…” She smiles up at me, waiting for the end of that sentence. What was I? Happy. Excited. Cared for. All the human things I haven’t felt in so, so long. “…I don’t even know. Fucking teleported to somewhere that was quiet and warm. Where I was happy. Where I could do anything.” On her tiptoes, she gives me another kiss. This one is sweet and soft, lips to lips. Then she lowers back down and takes my coat from me. She hangs it on a hook by the door, over the top of her jacket. “Well, teleport yourself to the couch.” She drums her fingers on my chest. “And I’ll make you a grilled cheese.” I make my way to the living room. Her apartment is a bit messy, in the very best way. Just a little bit of chaos, which somehow feels like home. Lived-in, livedthrough. On the wall are IKEA pictures of poppies in black IKEA frames. There are dog toys here and there, and the very reassuring feel of Mary everywhere. I notice some knitting needles and yarn in a basket by one of the chairs in front of the television, along with a copy of Knitting For Dummies poking out. I scoop Annie up into my arms and hang on to her tight. From the kitchen, I hear butter hissing in a pan, and the sound of the fridge opening and closing. On the screen, olive oil labels get stuck to the bottles as they spin away.

Leaving Michael in the drunk tank flashes back to me. The way he punched the bars, the way he scowled and glared and roared. Truthfully, I probably could have gotten him out. But I didn’t. Because he deserves to be right there, in the puke and the noise. Not once, not even once, did he ask about Annie. In my arms, she rolls over and sticks her thumb in her mouth. I brush her hair to the side of her forehead with my fingers and look at the scar on her cheek. Deep down, I feel my gut tumble. That scrape was my fault—she got it when the little kid’s baseball we were using popped up off the ground and whacked her in the eye. And I remember thinking when it happened, maybe they’ll think Michael did it. Maybe the daycare that I pay for will finally understand what her life is like, and that the screaming and hollering is hurting her so much more deeply than any graze on the skin. I hear Mary’s footsteps and watch her come into the living room holding a plate with two sandwiches and a little bowl of ketchup on the side. Ketchup. This woman totally has my number. I dip the top sandwich into the ketchup and take a huge bite. With my mouth full, I say, “I’m tired, and when I’m tired I have no filter. So maybe I’m being too forward.” I jam another big bite into my mouth. “But if you serve grilled cheese with ketchup, I think we’re meant to be.” She snickers and curls up next to me, watching me in the flickering light of the TV. Part of me realizes she’s probably going to say something like Slow down or Oh Jimmy, that’s so silly. But she doesn’t. She takes half a sandwich for herself, dips the corner in the ketchup, and says, “Maybe we are.” Fuck. I busy myself watching how they make rubber gaskets. I think she actually just said that. I think she just said we’re meant to be. I glance at her and then at Annie, at How It’s Made and at the cookies she also brought with her from the kitchen. “Were you okay with her?” I whisper. I can’t see her, because she’s snuggled up against me, but I can feel the nod on my shoulder. That nod, that sweet, enthusiastic nod. “I don’t have much experience with kids. But she’s special. I really wish she had better than she does.” Jesus. Me too. In every way and every day, I wish I were her dad instead of Michael. But I’m not, and so I have to take what I can get. “At least for tonight, she’s happy and safe.” Mary reaches out her hand and takes mine in hers, squeezing hard. My God. It isn’t just Annie that’s happy. It’s me too. To have her to come home to, that is happiness. That is safety. This is what I’ve needed. This was the empty place. Nothing fancy. Nothing crazy. Just her. This. Us.

32

MARY

After changing the battle plan with Curtis again, and assuring him that no, he didn’t need to do some sort of special ops nighttime ball deflation maneuvers, thank you very much, the next two days are all Jimmy, all football, all the time. I report to Soldier Field at 9 a.m. sharp, and I work with Jimmy for two hours in the morning. We break for lunch, and we do another two hours in the afternoon. I learn his training routine, which is absolutely grueling. I learn that he can run forty yards in 6.4 seconds, and according to some metric that I don’t understand at all, that’s pretty slow. I learn that when he isn’t worrying about Annie, now back with her dad, he lives, eats, and breathes football. It is a nonstop, constant, near-obsession that could make a man absolutely insane. And he is ruthless with himself. For every caught pass, there’s a missed one he remembers too. For every touchdown in practice, he focuses on the interceptions. I’ve noticed a pattern, though. When he’s not thinking about the game, when he’s not stressed, when he’s not run ragged, he makes almost all the passes he attempts. If I can get him focused on anything else, I wonder what’ll happen. If I can get his thoughts out of the loop, I wonder if things will improve. After I finish helping him stretch his legs—as erotic as anything I've ever been a part of, because those thighs, my God—I follow him out onto the practice field. A handful of massive guys are thrusting themselves up against these big metal-andvinyl contraptions. I try to pull up the Wikipedia page in my head. Sleds, I think they’re called. Maybe. Seems just nonsensical enough to be right. Standing close to him, I study his arm as he throws. I’ve got him with his shirt off now, and therapy tape crisscrossing the offending shoulder. “What do you think about when you throw?” I ask. He cocks his head at me. “Ummm. Making the pass?” He throws smoothly and easily to Valdez, who tosses it back. I watch his huge fingers grip the laces as he turns the ball around in his hand and then gets ready to give it another toss. “Stay there,” I say, and get down on the Astroturf, looking up his body. He pauses with the ball in his hand. “God, you’re sexy.” “As you were, soldier.” Then he smiles and tosses the ball in that smooth, easy, beautiful movement

again. “Okay, now really throw it. Let me see those big guns.” He snickers a little and tells Valdez to “go deep.” Oh God. Taking the ball in two hands, he brings it back. I finally understand the meaning of washboard abs. His feet are placed perfectly, his shoulders squared. Just as he’s about to loose the ball, I tell him, “Championship point, Jimmy. It’s do or die…” And he totally blows it. “Well, that was a cheap shot.” He coughs and picks up another ball. But as I look up that body that I like so much, and look at that face that makes me melt, it slowly starts to occur to me. I don’t think it’s in his shoulder at all. He’s healthy and strong, and all the xrays in his file show his shoulder healed perfectly after surgery. When he was just the backup quarterback, Bridget says, he could pretty much make every single pass, no matter how difficult. In a pinch, he was their man. But then he became the starting QB, and everything went to hell in a handbasket. So I stand up, I pretend to be busy with my clipboard. We talk about ordinary things. How my Wrangler needs new tires. How he’d like to buy me new tires. How I’m not going to let him buy me new tires. How we’ll just see about that. All through the conversation, only half-focused, he makes a series of dead-accurate, perfect throws, over and over again. That’s when I give him a little show. I bend at the waist and pretend to be doing something in my bag. But I can see him watching me. Making a sort of holy fuck face that positively melts me. Another perfect pass to Valdez. Sixty yards, easy. But then, between my legs, I see Radovic. He’s back in the Crocs because Frankie didn’t come with me today. He zeros in on Jimmy and crushes his can. Jimmy gets ready to throw, and I say, “Red Bull incoming.” He steadies himself, he focuses, he gets that look on his face that he doesn’t even have when he’s trying to stave off an orgasm. It’s his under-pressure throwing face, his focused face. The face he has when everybody’s watching him, and he starts to believe that he’s not going to make this play either… He lets it fly. And he blows it. One more experiment. “Do you want to have dinner with me?” I ask him. His scowl at seeing Radovic vanishes, and he gives me that huge, big smile. “Hell, yes.” Perfect throw. I nod and zip up my bag. Under pressure, with those old thoughts grinding through his head, he psyches himself out. Distracted, he nails it. Every time. I watch the spiral whizz through the air, seventy yards easy. “I’ll cook for you. Be at my place at 7.” He groans a little. “I like when you boss me around,” he mutters and tosses another perfect pass. I take my place next to him and put my hands on his shoulder, massaging it a little. Valdez tosses the ball back to him and he catches it, easily and smoothly. I

feel his bicep bulge under my hand, and this time it’s my turn to groan. But then, he freezes. I watch his eyes widen and follow his gaze. At the far end of the practice field is a young guy coming through one of the entrances. I can’t see him that clearly, but Jimmy can. “Fuck me,” he says, palming the ball. “What is it?” I squint. The young guy, who can’t be more than 23 or 24, shakes Radovic’s hand. “That’s Sam Brenner, hot shot QB from Northwestern.” He closes his eyes. “Fuck.” One of the guys from the maintenance team goes up to him, and the kid signs an autograph. What in the world is a college kid doing here, I wonder? And just look at how cocky he is. Look at how he struts and acts like this place is his. “Who is he?” “He’s…” Jimmy stops short. Because that’s when Radovic turns, picking something up from a nearby table. He unfurls a brand-new jersey. Number four. Jimmy stares me hard in the eye. “That’s my fucking replacement.”

33

JIMMY

I play it cool. I walk Mary out and tell her, yeah, I’ll see her at seven, and then head back into the locker room. There I find Radovic, waiting for me by my locker. “What the hell is that all about?” I ask, glancing out toward the practice field. “What is Brenner doing here?” As if I don’t fucking know already. Radovic sniffs and stands up from the bench. I notice a tiny hole in the seams of his sweats from his thighs rubbing together all the time. “Just signed his contract today.” Knew it. But it gets worse. Radovic says, “We’re taking him with us to Denver.” He glances at my shoulder and then my groin and then to my shoulder again. “He’s fearless, with an arm like a cannon. Doesn’t crack under pressure and is too young to be afraid of getting hit.” In other words, exactly the opposite of me. I once read that the ideal age for a guy to go to war is between eighteen and twenty-two, because they are full of testosterone and have no clue at all about things like consequences, have no responsibilities, and have only the vaguest idea of what I like to call the future. So Brenner, unlike me, is amped up, cocky, and doesn’t think too hard about anything. His MO is to throw the shit out of the ball and see what happens. Just Radovic’s kind of guy. He gives me a totally awkward pat on the shoulder, and then swish-swishes away. I close my eyes and hang on to the door of my locker. Hang on so hard I hear the hinges groan. From a strategic perspective, it makes sense. They scooped the kid before the draft. His dad was a Bear, also number four. What it means for me is that now, waiting in the wings, is a legacy quarterback gunning for my job. Fantastic. That’s the thing about this league. You can win a game, but you’ve got to keep winning them until there aren’t any more to win. It’s not enough to turn it around with one more game. It’s a streak or it’s shit. Brenner comes strutting into the locker room and gives me a chin flick. “Hey, gramps.”

Motherfucker. “Glad to have you with us.” I can’t even force a smile. I pull my sweaty shirt off over my head and toss it into my locker. In the mirror at the back, I see Brenner eyeing the tape on my shoulder. “That doesn’t look so good,” he says. And, of course, adjusts his balls. “It’s fine.” I put on a fresh shirt and then a hoodie. “Yeah? You think? Not from what I hear.” This little shit. I am not going to stand here and defend myself to him. I will not. I've been in this league too goddamned long to have to stand up to little pimplefaced assholes in jeans that come down their ass. I grab my bag, hurl it over my shoulder, and head for the door. If I get shit for leaving early, I get shit for leaving early. That’s a whole lot better than leveling this little dickwad with my fist. As I’m leaving, Radovic passes right by me, as if I don’t even exist, talking to Brenner about getting him a locker and checking out his equipment and getting him on the roster for Sunday. Fuckers. I’ll show them. I will. But in the meantime, I need to calm the hell down. I need to find my Zen. I need to go to Costco.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if they hooked me up to a heart monitor when I walk into the front doors of Costco. Would my heart speed up, or would I kind of go into a trance with one beat every three seconds, like I’m sleeping? Because I fucking love this place. The smell, the shit they try to sell you, the samples. The rotisserie chickens. All of it. I show my card to the guy at the front. I come here so often they don’t even notice me anymore, which is pretty much fantastic. I head into the front section, past the shovels and the ice melt, and stick my wallet back into my pocket. Pushing my cart along, I try to calm down a little. Of course they hired Brenner. They’d be stupid not to. Of course they’ll bring him on the road. Right now, the third string QB is even worse than I am. Really, I should be surprised that they didn’t hire some hotshot sooner. I should be. But I’m not. I’m pissed. I grab a 90-ounce tin of peanuts and drop it in my cart. I hate this game sometimes. I just fucking hate it. So I focus on the good things going on right now. On Annie, who’s doing well in daycare, in spite of her dad. And on Mary. The minute I think of her, I feel okay. Like it’s all okay. Like football isn’t the only thing that matters. Because now I’ve got her. A place for all my attention. I push my cart toward the towels and notice a nice women’s robe, Turkish terrycloth, in light pink, $39.99. I pick it up and hold it out in front of me and think about it. What would she do, I wonder, if I started buying her shit at Costco? Fuck it. I’ll find out later, I think, and drop it on top of the peanuts in my cart. As

I work my way through the aisles, the calming influence of bulk products passes through me. I pass the books, grab a copy of Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, and keep on going. The thing is, I don’t need much. I’m well-stocked, but by the time I make the loop, I’ve got all kinds of shit in my cart that I didn’t think I needed. A ream of printer paper, because Annie likes blank white pages for coloring. Seven hundred markers, also for Annie. I get three tubs of body butter—coconut, vanilla, and mango—and tuck those in next to the robe for Mary. And then I get to the checkout, loading all my shit on the conveyor. The checker rings everything up. I recognize her, and she doesn’t treat me any differently than the lady who was in front of me. I box up my stuff and we talk about the weather, about a storm that’s supposed to be coming in soon. Then I hand her my debit card. She hits TOTAL. And says, “Sorry, sir. It’s declined.” “What?” I ask her, staring at the card. “That can’t possibly be right.” “Let me try again. We’ve had so much trouble with these new chip readers.” She types something in with her long purple fingernails. Scans it again. And the little blue screen says: Declined. I stare at my stuff, all boxed up in a hothouse cucumbers box that I got from the pile. That can’t possibly be right. I think back, mentally going through my bank account. I have thirty thousand in there if I have a penny. Behind me, a long line is forming. It’s not busy in here, but Costco is a welloiled machine; there’s no slack in the system for shit like this. The checker waits, watching me. I reach into my wallet and pull out my credit card, which goes through without a hitch. She’s super nice about it, but I can just tell she’s thinking, Is Jimmy Falconi broke? Christ. I push my cart out of the way, next to the little restaurant area, and lean on the wall. I take out my phone, pull up my Wells Fargo app and log in. I’m so flustered I fuck up my password the first time, but I get it right on the second try and wait while the little spinning in-progress wheel goes around and around over the PLEASE WAIT WHILE WE RETRIEVE YOUR ACCOUNT INFO screen. Primary checking account balance: $0.91 “Fuck,” I say, clicking on the account info. And there, in transaction after transaction, hundreds of them, are the words INTERNET GAMING AND BETS–GRAND CAYMAN. Michael got into my account. “That motherfucker.” And cleaned me out.

34

MARY

After doing a few rounds with Manny himself at the gym, which is a little bit like fighting my grandpa—if my grandpa was a welterweight bareknuckle boxer from Mexico City—I come home to a dark, quiet apartment and a note from Bridget that reads: At my parents’ fixing their stupid wifi. Again. I'll raid their wine cellar and see you in the a.m. I tear off my sweaty clothes, throw them in the hamper, and then jump in the shower. This time, I even dry my hair, which, little does Jimmy know, pretty much puts him in the elite dating ranks since blow-drying the curls takes so long that I have to carve out a chunk of my afternoon to do it. But he’s worth it. He most definitely is. At a quarter to seven, I hear the thump-thump-thump of footfalls coming down the hall, and I freeze. There aren’t that many people in this building, and none of them sound like the abominable snowman. It has to be Jimmy. I look out the peephole, wiping my hands on my apron. There he is, waiting patiently. I open up the door, but it gets caught on the lock. “I didn’t know you heard me. I was just going to wait until it was time.” “The glasses shook in the cabinets.” I shut the door slightly to undo the chain and then open it wide. He steps inside. I can see right away that something is very, very wrong “What happened?” He takes off his coat and hangs it on the peg over mine. “The worst fucking day of my life.” I stare up at him. “Please don’t tell me you have to leave. Not yet. You won last week, and you’ll win again. That college kid has nothing on you.” His gaze gets dark. “If you can believe it,” he says, walking me backward against the coats and scarves, “that wasn’t the worst part. But I don’t want to talk about it.” He pushes into me. “I need you. Right now. I need to forget all about today.” Behind me, I can hear the pasta water starting to boil. I can smell the meatballs, which need to be turned. “But I have dinner…” He stops me with a glance. A piercing, hard, greedy stare. “Mary. Seriously. I need you. In bed. Right now.”

Yes, sir. “Dinner can wait.” “Fuck. That’s what I need to hear.” He pulls at my pants with his huge hands. He leans down and brings his lips to my ear. “Is Bridget home?” I shake my head. “Nope. She went to see her parents. She’ll be gone for the night.” “Good,” he says, pressing into me and pulling me into his body at the same time. “Because it’s been three whole fucking days since I’ve been inside you, and I’m not going to wait one second longer. Meatballs or not.” My knees are weak, and if not for the coats and scarves behind me, I think I’d slide right down to the ground. “Whatever you say.” “Good girl. And I’m going to need your vibrator.”

In my bedroom, with only the strange pinkish light of the winter night sky coming in from outside, he lays me on the bed, stroking himself and looking down at me. “I fucking missed you.” “Are you okay?” I reach up to pull him down for a kiss. His cock presses into my thigh as he leans down over me. His hand comes up behind my head, and his fingers knot gently into my hair. “I’m better now,” he tells me, but his voice is darker than normal, more ragged and tired. Taking him in my hands, pushing his own hand away, I stroke him. I get lost in that soft skin, the way the veins bulge, the smoothness of the head. His hand slides up my thigh, and his fingers touch my opening. When he touches my wetness, he groans. As his finger curves along my clit, I support myself against the bed. “Vibrator,” he orders. “Right now.” I roll and reach under the bed skirt, looping my finger over the extension cord to pull it out. As I do, he slaps my ass once, and then again, in the very same place. It feels raw, sharp, and hot. The outline of his handprint takes shape in the sting. “God,” I gasp, and he flips me onto my back, climbing on top of me and pinning my hands up above my head. He goes right into me, no permission asked, no foreplay, just pushes into me strong and aggressive. Like I belong to him. It’s as if he’s not even here with me at first. His eyes are closed and then so are mine for three insane drives that make me roar into the pillows. In one smooth movement, he flips me so that I’m sitting up on top of him and he’s flat on his back on the mattress. “Turn it on,” he says, after getting me settled on him, after I stop panting and gasping and whimpering as I open all the way up. “Come for me. But don’t stop at one.” I take the Hitachi and switch it on, the head whirring an inch from my clit. “How many?” Another drive into me, deeper again. “How many can you give me?”

I watch him in the half-darkness. “I don’t know.” “I want three to start.” He moves his hands up my breasts and giving me a little pinch on both nipples, he then guides the Hitachi to my clit. As soon as it hits me, I’m moaning. “And I’m going to stay inside you the whole fucking time. I’ll fuck you straight through three orgasms and back again. How does that sound?” “It sounds…” Well I don’t really know how it sounds, suddenly. The vibrator is working its magic on me, and I’m melting and throbbing, while he drives into me again and again. “You have no fucking idea how badly I need to see you come right now,” he says, just as I’m starting to tip over the edge. “How badly I need you to give yourself to me.” “Yeah?” “Since the minute you left, I’ve needed it. Since the last time I was inside you,” he says, thrusting into me, gripping me by the hips. “I’ve been thinking about it.” “Oh God…” I feel the contractions begin, the waves of pleasure making me grip him hard. “Go. Let me feel you.” He steadies me with his palm on my chest, between my breasts, and I let my weight go down, and forward. “Can I come?” I pant. “Fuck yes, you can.” It happens just like that, with me on my knees. It is huge and loud, and even as I’m coming, I hear him laughing a little, that warm, beautiful laugh. “Hell, yes. More. Keep going.” He sits up then, making me slide down toward his lap. I keep the vibrator to my clit, not pushing hard—because I’m so sensitive—but staying on the spot gently, letting my lips be a buffer of a kind. “Orgasms are just like waves,” he whispers. “Just let it go. Just let them come.” Again, he drives into me, sending me spiraling with the precision touch of my G-spot. I focus hard on giving him what he’s asking for, a second orgasm, So soon after the first. “Come on this cock, beautiful. Do it. Fucking do it, right now,” he says, with an edge of darkness in his voice. “Remember when you gave in to me on the chair? Do it again. Because you’re all mine. All fucking mine.” He grips my shoulders from behind, pulling me down even further onto him. “You know you can play shy. You know you can tell me to step back, but I can’t. And I won’t. And I never will. Because you’re all fucking mine and that’s how it is.” All fucking mine. I close my eyes. I think about his cock inside me. That throbbing, unbelievably big, gorgeous… “Oh fuck, Jimmy….” “Told you,” he says, speeding up the pace.

“Coming,” I tell him softly as everything starts to flicker and tremble. “I’m coming.” In one easy movement, he forces me back onto the bed with his palm to my sternum. As I hit the mattress and my head tips down toward the floor, the orgasm widens out somehow, amplified by the depth and the angle and the force, the bedshaking, furniture-rattling force of him taking what he wants. What’s his. Me. I scream his name. I let loose growls and groans that I didn’t even know I had in me. “That’s right. Let the whole fucking building know that Jimmy Falconi is inside you.” Oh God. But as I come down off two, tears spill down my cheeks. Like it wasn’t just a simple orgasm, but something from way down inside me. Hearing him talking like that—throwing caution to the wind, just laying it all out there for me—it dismantles me. “I get so emotional with you,” I tell him, moving the vibrator from my clit. One of his big hands sweeps aside my tears and I kiss his palm. “It isn’t just sex.” “Fuck no, it’s not. Not with us,” he says. “You feel it too?” “Yes. I feel it.” My words are barely audible, even to me. But he can hear me, I can tell. “And it scares me to death.” “Don’t be scared.” His voice is rough and confident. “I have been waiting so fucking long to meet someone who makes me feel exactly like I do with you. Like I’m safe, and loved, and needed. And like I’m not so alone after all.” “You’re not…” “Neither are you. Because I will protect you, and I will look after you, and I will give you everything you need. Knowing I was going to be with you was the only thing that was good about today. You. Just you. You get that?” “You know I do.” “I think I’m going to have to show you. What I want. From you. Right now. In my heart, what I want is you…” Our eyes meet. He rams into me and snarls, “With my baby inside you.” “Oh shit,” I gasp. The pure human need for it makes so much sense; I can’t even answer him. “If we were just wolves in the wilderness, you know what I’d be trying to do all the fucking time?” He rams into me more deeply, and I groan out an, “I do.” Because I really and truly do. The things he does to my brain aren’t rational. The things he does to my body are almost automatic. Right now, we aren’t logical. We are pheromones and need and desire. “I’d be trying to mount you every fucking chance I got, Mary Monahan. That is what you do to me. That is what is going on in my head.”

It is exactly what I need to hear. It is the fantasy I had buried, the thing that was ridiculous and inconvenient and insane. Until now. “Tell me you want it.” “I do. I want it. I need it.” “Good girl.” I do want it. I feel ripped open and scared and astonished. I feel utterly, completely free. “Do you trust me?” he says as he drives into me yet again, but this time not so aggressively. More carefully. Tenderly. “Yes.” I don’t even need to think about it. And it’s then that his fingers tighten around my neck. It makes me panic a little, but not much. Because I do trust him. And I want everything he has. “I’m going to cut off your air, just a little,” he says, close to my ear. “So you can give me a third.” “The way you talk makes me insane, Jimmy.” My voice is strained and breathy. “Good. That’s what I want to hear.” He tightens his grip. I feel my pulse behind my eyes. He doesn’t look away from me, but is serious and focused. “I don’t want to let go of you ever, Mary.” “You don’t have to.” “Will you come on the road with me?” he asks, low and guttural. I swallow hard. “You don’t need me.” “The fuck I don’t.” His grip tightens even more. “I need you more than you can possibly understand. I need you with me. I want you with me. By my fucking side, in my bed, in my life. On the road. The plane. Not just to fuck. Not just to get dirty. But I need you to let me love you. I need you to let me unleash on you. I can’t be polite about it much longer.” Right then, with all this heat between us, and his huge hand around my throat, I can feel it all change. It stops being polite, if it ever was. Everything shifts. With my eyes looking into his, I feel it. He is serious. I am serious. This is serious. The most serious thing I’ve ever been a part of in my life. “Come again,” he says, bearing down a little more. The heel of his palm presses into my sternum “Let me love you. Don’t make me wait.” That is when it happens. The hardest, most outrageous, most fantastic orgasm of my entire life. I am screaming his name at the top of my lungs, and he is growling, “Give me everything you are.”

35

JIMMY

Saturday morning on the team plane, and I don’t see her anywhere. I spent all day yesterday patching up my money situation. And I’m far from broke, but I am thirty thousand lighter, and this much closer to beating the living shit out of my brother. I learned that what happened was this: After I won on Sunday, he went way into the red with his bookies. Then he went on a bender and managed to get into my accounts—it’s damned easy when you know someone’s social security number, their birthday, their mom’s maiden name, and everything else there is to know about them. But for now, it’s okay. Kind of. In the fucked up logic of being Michael’s brother, when he’s flush with cash, he’s happy and Annie’s safe. But there’s no question that it’s time to get attorneys involved, and cops. I didn’t do it yesterday because when the shit hits the fan for Annie, I need to be there to help. And I can’t do that from Denver, that much is definitely true. What I did do, though, was manage to convince him to let her go stay with Valdez’s folks for the weekend so that he could go to Horseshoe Hammond and spend all my cash, which he still hasn’t admitted to having. But I said, “Just let her spend the weekend with Mr. and Mrs. Valdez. And then you can do as much blow as you want. Hookers, even. I don’t give a shit. Just leave Annie out of it.” So at least that much is off my mind. Thank God. I scan the rows, past the offensive linemen in what would be first class, and past the defenders in business. I head into coach and scan the aisles for her. It isn’t all guys, but mostly. I see one of the photographers in the back, her shock of blonde hair in a tight spike on her head. One of the team doctors is in the rear of the plane, reading as usual, and adjusting her glasses. But no Mary. Fuck. I don’t know what got into me in bed with her, but I was absolutely out of my mind. After the shit I said to her, I’m sure she’s totally fucking spooked. But I just couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop myself. I watch the clock. Tick-tock-tick-tock. All the guys get settled, and Radovic comes on with his freebie briefcase from Dicks Sporting Goods and his Bears warm-ups gathering up in his crotch like wads of grocery bags. “How you feeling?” he asks, looking at my crotch. “Fine, Coach. Lots better.”

He leans forward, pressing his lips together, staring at my shoulder. “Mmmm.” “I’m totally good,” I say, trying to be completely uninterested in whoever is coming through the door. “Groin’s never felt better.” A few seats away, Valdez cackles. My heart is pounding in my chest. I don’t know how many chances she’s going to give me to act like a gentleman. I might have blown it. But then, I spot her. And holy fuck. She is so fucking beautiful today. She’s always pretty, but today she’s dressed up in this sexy brown turtleneck that matches her hair. Black leggings, brown boots. As soon as she steps on the plane, the whole fucking place goes silent. Dead-ass silent. Like she’s the Princess of Wales, entering the ball. My eyes meet hers, and I glance at an empty row of seats in front of me. As she moves toward me, guys say hello and give her the eye. No, you fucking wolves. No. She’s mine. She’s all. Fucking. Mine. I try to shake it off, that feeling of possessiveness. It’s not going away. At all. If anything, the closer she gets, the worse it gets. And when one of the tight ends gives her the up-and-down and a silent whistle to her ass, I grip the sides of my seat so hard the plastic squeaks. She puts her suitcase in the overhead compartment, stretching out and getting up on her tiptoes to do it. That ass, that body, and fuck, she smells so good. I manage, somehow, to remember to pull my head out of my ass and grab her suitcase for her, shoving it into the overhead compartment. “Hi,” I say. She smiles at me. “Hi.” She gets settled in front of me, her dark hair threading through the gap between the seats. I sit down too, and lean forward, pretending to be busy with my carry on. She puts down the armrest and turns her head to face me. But she can’t really turn all the way, so I’ve got a perfect angle on her pretty profile. Those. Lips. One of the team trainers glances over at us, and I lean back. Time for Plan B. Time for some secret code shit, because she is a Bears employee, and I said I’d protect her. So that’s what I’m going to do. But fuck, it’s tempting. Too tempting. From the back of my seat pocket, I take the in-flight magazine. This is a chartered plane, not our plane, so it’s stocked with regular stuff like a regular Southwest flight. I flip to the back of the magazine and open up the crossword. 1 Down: MILE 2 Across: HIGH 7 Down: CLUB? “Pretty decent puzzle in this one, Miss Monahan,” I say, “if you’d like to take a look.” Her profile appears, the soft skin of her cheek close enough to touch. “The what…?” “Page 85,” I say, and slip the magazine through the gap next to her.

I hear the pages flip, flip, flip, and then I’m almost sure I hear her laugh a little. She reaches over and grabs a pen from her purse. Game. On. The flight attendants close the door and everybody buckles up, which is a very serious logistical operation since about 80% of the guys on this plane need seatbelt extenders. But we always travel with the same crew, and they’re on it, strolling through the aisles with a bag full of the things. I can just make mine fit, barely, if I cram my ass backward and suck in my stomach. But a pretty flight attendant, who I used to kind of dig, gives me one anyway, saying, “I wouldn’t want your lap to get pinched, Mr. Falconi.” Suddenly, a furious green eye appears in the gap between the seats. I see it in my periphery, which is pretty decent; they don’t call me the Falcon for nothing. “I’m good, Cindi.” “Mmmmkay.” She pops her gum. “Just tell me if you need anything…Jimmy.” That green eye widens as Cindi goes on to the next aisle. Mary’s nostrils flare. And I literally cannot help myself. I lean forward again, and say under my breath, “You don’t like that, do you, pussycat?” Then she snaps her head away. Just after we’re airborne, and they’ve dimmed the cabin lights, the crossword comes back to me. 3 Across: ANIMAL Hell yes, all for her. Just for her. So I write: 11 Down: I MISSED 9 Across: YOU When I pass it back to her, she drops her head back against the headrest and lets it rest there for a second. 4 down: I MISSED 13 across: YOU TOO. But in the margin, she’s written, Even though it was only one day! God, what a cutie. When we level out at ten-thousand feet, Brenner, the guy who wants my job, stands up and comes to her row. He’s got that look in his eye—every guy knows it, the slow I want that stare. “Hey, gorgeous,” Brenner says, leaning over her seat. “Hello, Mr. Brenner,” Mary answers. I feel this fire in my gut. I grind my teeth and stare at him. He pays no attention to me whatsoever. “You having a good flight?” “Yes. Thanks,” Mary answers. I see her smile, from the side, and I feel all sorts of anger. Not at her, but at him. Because I want those smiles to be for me, just for me. All for me. Only for me. I dig my nails into my palms. I try to swallow my completely irrational jealousy.

She’s just making conversation, but Brenner is trying to make a play. The guy is 24, cocky as shit, and right now, dangerously close to getting kicked in the nuts. If he makes a move… I envision him flat on the Southwest carpet with his head jammed under one seat. They make conversation about Colorado and altitude and blah, blah, blah. Until finally Mary says, “I’m sorry to cut this short, Mr. Brenner, but I need to go to the bathroom.” His eyes light up. “Yeah? Need any help?” I growl. “Sit down, you douche.” But fortunately, it’s swallowed up by the airplane noise. Not exactly conduct becoming of a team captain. Mary heard it, though, and her pretty hand slides through the gap. She slowly extends one finger to say, Wait. “I’m good.” She scoots from her seat and slips past him. He steps aside and gives her the old up-and-down again. “Oh, here’s your magazine, Mr. Falconi.” She hands it back to me. Brenner, obviously suffering from impending blue balls now, and thank God for that, wanders back to his seat, and I flip open the magazine. There, at 13 across. Holy fuck. FOLLOW ME.

36

MARY

My heart is pounding, and I stare at the lock on the door. Until a few nights ago, I don’t think I ever forgot to lock a bathroom door, either on purpose or by accident. But now it’s becoming a habit. I clutch my hands to my knees. I don’t exactly know what I am doing. But I know this: It took pretty much all the strength I had not to spend all day with him yesterday, not to text him ten thousand times. But I did it. Because I have this feeling that if he can focus on me, take his eye off the game, he might just break his losing streak in Denver. At Denver. So I managed to play hard-to-get for an entire day. But every girl has her limit. And the Mile High Club is mine. I know it’s reckless, I know it’s risky, but I need him. I want him. Right now. Nervously, I bounce my feet on the floor of the bathroom and listen. There is some noise out there, an attendant beating the living hell out of a block of ice, it sounds like. But then I hear them. His footsteps. I once saw a documentary about the millions of monarch butterflies in Mexico landing on trees and turning green into orange and gold and black. That’s how I feel. My hands are cold, my face is warm, and my entire body is fluttering with a million rare Falconi butterflies. Jimmy says something to the flight attendant, that woman Cindi, with the super thick makeup and the too-bright lipstick. She asks, “Need some more peanuts, Jimmy?” Oh that woman. I have to say I might have let Brenner hang around a little longer than was necessary just so he’d feel what it’s like too. I think it worked. I could feel him whack the back of my chair with his knee. But the truth is simple. It’s him and me. And nobody else matters. It’s me he’s coming to see. In this bathroom. On the Chartered Bears 767. I don’t know what my life has become, but I like it. And then there he is, opening the door and squeezing in, sideways, because he’s so big. I don’t say anything as I scoot up against the side of the tiny stall to let him in. His eyes meet mine in the metal mirror first, and then he locks the door. “Hi,” I whisper. He doesn’t answer at first, just takes my face in his hands and flattens me with a

heavy, serious, dominating kiss. “Fuck. Hello.” “We need to be quick,” I say into his ear. “Part of me just wants to kiss you and kiss you and kiss you until the seatbelt sign comes back on.” It’s so sweet, so kind, and so very honest, that it kind of knocks the wind out of me. “That would be okay with me.” He clicks his tongue. “But that’s not what we’re going to do.” My swallow gets stuck in my throat, and all I can do is hang on to him. Gently, he bends me forward so I’m watching him in the mirror. I see him glance at the lock to make sure it’s on OCCUPIED. He peels down my leggings and my thong. He keeps that hand on my bare hips while he undoes his belt, button, and fly with the other. He pulls his pants down just far enough to let his cock come free. He’s already rock hard. He mouths, “Ready?” I nod back at him. With that strong, slow power, he pushes into me. A groan comes out of my mouth and immediately he claps his hand to my lips. “Quiet, okay?” Holy mother of God, it feels so good. My knees start to buckle and he tightens his grip. But I do manage to nod, pressing my lips into his palm. “Can you come without a noise?” he says into my ear. I nod again into his palm, gripping the edge of the tissue dispenser with my fingers. He slows down just a little. I put a kiss to his fingers. Yes. He drives into me slowly at first, gently, but speeding up and getting more urgent as we go. I get up slightly on my tiptoes to give him a better angle, and now he’s the one to groan. Just a little. I scramble for purchase wherever I can find it, and hang on tight to the soap dispenser, the faucet, anything. I let my head fall to my chest, and let him fill me so completely, so utterly, that I feel it in my bones. I clasp my hand over his at my hip, and feel him dig his thumbs into the muscles of my ass. I glance up and see him looking down at me, head slightly cocked, smiling at the curve of my body. Then he loops one massive arm around my waist and pulls me deeper. I grab his other hand and put it back to my mouth. In the mirror, I see him shake his head at my ass and mouth Fuck. His fingers find their way to my clit, and my knees buckle all the way. But he’s got me, and he keeps on going. And going. I come hard and fast, totally overtaken by the passion that is just his, and I whimper into his palm, being as silent as I ever have in my entire life. As soon as I’m able, I glance over my shoulder at him. But he is biting back an orgasm already, his eyes tightly shut and his neck curved slightly down. I know that face. I love that face. He’s so close. So very close. The Fasten Seatbelt light comes on and a ding fills the bathroom. But he doesn’t

notice at all, because he’s gone too.

37

JIMMY

Mary leaves the bathroom first, and then I give it a few minutes and follow her. Half the guys are unconscious, and the other half are watching things on their iPads. In her seat, I find her snuggled down with an iPad herself. I have no idea at all what is on the screen: a girl with a shaved head and a nosebleed. Mary looks up at me and smiles. This secret, lovely smile that’s just mine. All mine. Only mine. I sit down and take my tablet from my bag. Through the crack between the seats, I see a kid in a trucker’s hat doing something with Dungeons and Dragons. And then I squint, there’s some kind of a monster coming through a Plexiglas wall. “What on earth is that?” I press my eye to the crack between the seats. Mary’s face appears. She pulls her earbuds out. “Stranger Things. It’s so good,” she says, beaming. That pure, honest joy. So fucking contagious. Normally, I’d spend the entire flight watching highlight reels of Denver’s defensive line. That’s what I should be doing. But this woman, she makes me want to do everything differently than I’ve done before. What I really want to do is unbuckle my seatbelt, slip in next to her in row 14, and put my arm around her while we Netflix and chill together. But sometimes, you’ve got to wait for what you want. So I have to settle. I open up Gogo wireless, which is on this plane for promotional purposes and calls itself The Official Internet Service of the NFL. We all kind of rolled our eyes at first. Everything in this business is the official whatever of whatever, but Gogo is totally shit. I open it up, and then open Netflix. I open up Stranger Things and look at the thumbnail image. For about .5 seconds, I think, Is that Winona Rider? I need to be working. This is nuts. Because I’ve got plays to plan, a defense to sort out, and an offensive line that’s a few yards short of a first down in the IQ department. Good guys, but not the smartest. But then, in front of me, I hear Mary give a little terrified squeak. I lean out into the aisle and see her with her arms wrapped around her legs, beaming and watching, as happy as anybody I’ve ever seen. She’s got one hand over her mouth, and her chin on her knee. Completely oblivious to me and the world.

So I hit play. I’m pretty skeptical of most sci-fi shit. They never quite get it right. And yeah, she might like it, and I might like her, but she’s also never even seen Star Wars, so I don’t know if I can trust her judgment on this. But dude. It’s totally. Fucking. Awesome. By two minutes in, I’m tapping her on the shoulder. She turns around to face me through the gap, and I show her my tablet. “That kid with the teeth?” I tell her. “My hero.” “Oh my God!” she says, beaming. “It’s so good, right?” I look at her and to her hand gripping the side of her seat. That hand I held, that body I adore. That face that makes me weak. “Damn near fucking perfect.”

I lose her for a second when we get to the hotel, which is a cookie-cutter Doubletree in a town called Aurora. It’s situated across from an OfficeMax, a Barnes & Noble, and a Panera. American as apple pie. It’s also cheap, and impossibly far from all the interesting shit in Denver that could get us in serious front-page trouble. Bars, clubs. Or the kind of trouble that could find us. Girls. Groupies. Fanatical Broncos fans with silly string. Across the painfully ordinary lobby, I see that long, pretty braid and that sexyass body. She’s standing next to Valdez, so I take advantage of the fact that, at least until tomorrow, I’m still both the starting quarterback and the team captain. I hustle to the front of the line and take my place on the other side of him. The Guatemalan palm reader is strong in him today, and he looks from me to her and then back again. Then he looks straight ahead at this weird modern painting behind the check-in desk, and smiles. A spot opens up, and she says, “Go ahead, Bear.” “After you, señorita.” Valdez waves a massive hand out into the air. She laughs a little and shuffles forward with her rolling suitcase behind her. He leans over and says, “I told you, brother…” “Shhh,” I hiss, holding up a finger and listening past the noise. The manager is making small talk with her about the weather, this and that, and then hands over her keycard and says the magic words, “Room 435, Miss Monahan. Enjoy your stay.” I turn to Valdez, smiling. “Say what?” “I was saying, a good woman, she can change everything…” Mary walks away, glancing over her shoulder at me in a way that lights up my entire fucking body from head to toe, in a way that makes me feel like I could do anything, everything. “Yeah, man. I think you might be exactly fucking right.”

Then I step forward. I intentionally choose the girl on the right because I’m going to have to flirt a little for what I want. She says, “Hello,” and gives me a very slow blink. “Hey…” I lean in. “…Amanda.” “Hello!” “So you know, football players, we’re pretty superstitious.” I take a pen and turn it over and over in my fingers. “Yes! I’ve heard! I had one of your friends ask for a dozen green bananas to be brought to his door at nine o’clock tonight.” That would be my tight end, Jorgensen. The man believes in bananas. Who am I to judge? “Right. My lucky number happens to be 437.” Total lie. I don’t fucking believe in luck. I believe in hard work, athletic tape, and grease paint. But I can be superstitious for a minute. Sure. She blinks again and looks at me a little blankly. She can’t be seventeen, if she’s a day. “My lucky number is ten!” she says. “Ten is good. But 437, it’s never failed me. And if you could book me into that room, you’d make me the luckiest man on the planet.”

38

MARY

As I put my suitcase on the rack in the closet, I hear a knocking. I check the door to the hallway, but there’s nobody there, so I latch it and lock it. I unzip my suitcase and take out my clothes. We are only here for two nights, but I have never liked living out of a suitcase, no matter for how long. I put my pants and shirt into a drawer next to a 2007 phone book and slide it shut. But there’s that knocking again. And now a note comes in from under the door that links my room to the next one. My heart starts pounding, leaping from my chest with as much delight as I remember from the moments when my high school boyfriend would come to pick me up for a date. That sudden, cool, startling excitement. The note says: “It’s me. Open up.” I undo the deadbolt and pull it open. And then there he is, leaning up against the doorframe and smiling. “How did you do this?” I whisper. “Who did you bribe?” He puts one finger to his lips and shakes his head. Then he leans in and whispers into my ear, “Nobody can know. Okay?” I nod. “Because this is mega against the rules.” I nod again. “But I couldn’t stay away from you. And no fucking way was I ending up on a different floor.” He takes me in his arms and walks me backward, laying me out on the bed. It’s a big king with crisp white sheets, much fancier than I’d have expected for a place like this. It smells like bleach and detergent, but through it all, I can smell him. That deep, warm smell that is his and his alone. He tells me, “I’m sorry it was so rushed on the plane. I fucking hated that.” “Me too.” “I’m so fucking glad you’re here.” He kisses me slowly and carefully, pinning my jaw with his hand. “Do you have plans tonight?” he asks, barely letting any air out of his mouth at all. “No,” I tell him, smiling. “Do you?”

With his tongue, he explores my neck, my collarbone, the place he marked me. “Normally, I go over plays. Sometimes I stay up half the night watching highlight reels. But not tonight.” “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,” I say. “I want to take all your attention.” He laughs a little. “Going to make me take my eyes off the prize?” Just the opposite, actually. Just a little misdirection to keep him loose, to change it up. To get rid of those old patterns that were making things so unnecessarily hard for him. No way am I letting him work all night. “We need to take it easy,” I tell him. “You need to go slow. I don’t want you aggravating this.” I reach down between his legs. His balls are huge and heavy, and I give them a little tug. Immediately, he groans into my shoulder, pressing his lips to my sweater. “Got it?” He nods and then lifts his head. “Yeah.” “Because I am officially employed by the Bears, Jimmy Falconi. You are my only patient. I take this very seriously.” “Want to get in the bath with me?” I glance out the window at the Barnes & Noble across the street. The thing is, every time Jimmy gets inside me, he acts like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. Urgent, furious, aggressive. But tonight, we need to do it differently. I want him off his game a little. I want it to be anything but ordinary. Anything but expected. “You can’t leave the building, can you?” I ask into his ear. “Fucking lockdown. Prisoners of Doubletree.” “What about me?” He gets up on his elbows and kisses up the line of my jaw. “You can leave, I’m sure. But I don’t want you to.” I glance at the bookstore again. “Give me twenty minutes. I’ll come to your room.” “What are you up to?” he asks. “And why am I not inside you yet?” Good Lord. But I don’t answer. Instead, I pull him to me for another kiss. I feel him hard against me, but I like being in charge. Making him wait. Making him groan. And groan he does, into my mouth, while gripping my body tightly in his hands. Against the instinctive force of every fiber inside me, I manage to push away from him and slip from his grasp. “I’m going to go get something. I’ll be right back.” “I’ll be here,” he whispers, and then stretches out that sexy body, crossing one foot over the other over the edge of the bed. He fluffs up the pillow and tucks it behind his head, and then softly—so softly—he says, “Waiting. Ordering room service. Hoarding bubble bath from the maids.” I grab my purse and lean down to kiss him. I head out the door and trot down the hallway. Radovic is only a few rooms down from us. This is going to be tricky. And such a thrill.

With my hip, I open up the door into the steps and jog down four floors to the side exit, which opens out onto the huge, mostly empty, parking lot. To Barnes & Noble I go. Because we need resources. We need a guide. We need to go slow. I know just enough about it to know I need to know a whole lot more, and the internet isn’t going to cut it. It’s time to go old school. It’s time to go way back. It’s time for tantra.

39

JIMMY

I put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on my door but leave it off hers—too obvious, way too obvious. I glance out the window, but don’t see her anywhere. So I make the best of the gap in the action and call room service. I order two burgers, which isn’t unusual for me. Nobody in a kitchen would think twice about a professional quarterback eating for two. I can’t order champagne, which blows, but I can order a fruit bowl. “Heavy on the strawberries,” I tell the lady on the other end of the line. “The more the better.” And then I wait. And wait. But still no Mary. The knock at my door is officialsounding, and I know it’s room service even before the guy on the other side of the door bellows, “Room service!” I let him in. He sets everything up on the desk. I tip him five and sign the bill. “Good luck tomorrow,” he says, under his breath. “What, you’re a fan? In Broncos country?” He beams. “Grew up in Naperville.” He glances around and then does a few select moves from the Super Bowl Shuffle. “I’ll be rooting for you guys!” He gives me a two-handed handshake, followed by the old bro-move: The Shoulder Grip. From his pocket, he pulls out a little diary and flips it open to a blank page, handing me a pen. “Would you mind?” I scrawl my name across the page, and he smiles, hiding it back in his jacket. “Go Bears!” I dig it. It seems like a good sign, being in enemy territory and signing autographs for fans. As Valdez’s mom would say, Bodes well for the future. After the room service kid leaves, I look under the warming covers and start to salivate immediately. So I glance out the window again. Still nothing. Back to the burger, mine anyway. They’re pretty sad-looking because they’re special order for pre-game nutrition—only half a bun and roasted potatoes instead of fries. Everything gets switched around when a team comes to a hotel, I’ve learned. They empty all the mini bars and don’t even give us access to porn. But I don’t really care about that. Never particularly have, and now I most definitely

don’t. Because I’ve got my own entertainment right next door. Only she isn’t. Still nowhere to be seen, I wait. I look out the window. I don’t see her at all. I sit down on the bed. Fuck. What if something’s happened to her? Where the hell could she have gone? I get up and look out the window again. There, way in the distance, I see her. I’m not going to lie, my fucking heart turns over in my chest. Tall and slender, and just so pretty, with her hair shining in the low winter sun. She makes her way distractedly to and fro down the parking lot, paying zero attention to the outside world but very close attention to whatever’s on that page. As she gets closer, I see she’s got about ten different books with her. “What the hell are you up to?” I ask the window. Whatever she’s doing, it’s interesting, and she’s completely engrossed. She puts her hand to her mouth and smiles. Her walking slows a bit, and she sort of veers off toward some parked cars. I watch her turn a page and then sweep her hair off to one side. Her hand moves to her mouth like she’s thinking. Thinking about what, for God’s sake? “Just get back here,” I say to the glass. “Let me get my fucking hands on you.” And then, as if she can hear me, she glances up. I give her hands to say, What the hell, beautiful? She lets her purse slide down her arm and closes the book. And smiles up at me. She taps the book with her finger, and heads for the side entrance. I listen for her closely. Her footsteps coming down the hall, her door opening and latching shut. Then I hear the sound of the plastic bag on her bed. I grab the bowl of strawberries and I open the two doors. There are books spread all over her bed. At first, I can’t make any sense of it at all. It’s like this crazy mashup of sports imagery and Kama Sutra. I look at the titles and see words like Champion and Sexual Fulfillment. She wriggles out of her coat, looking mischievous, devilish in the eyes. “Do you trust me?” she asks, reaching up and running her hand along the back of my neck and into my hair. “Yeah, fuck yeah.” “Like really trust me?” I glance at the books and see Peyton Manning’s face over the top of the Buddha’s. “I think so?” “Good,” she whispers, pressing me down onto the bed. “I know you want to dominate me, to make me submit…knock me up…” Oh fuck, the way that sounds…I pull her closer and hook my thumbs over her pants to start pulling them down. But she stops me, gripping my wrists. “But tonight, I want to do something different. Tonight,” she whispers, and puts one pretty finger to my temple. “Tonight I want to get in here.” “I need to fuck you. Hard. Right fucking now,” I tell her, low and mean in her

ear. “I don’t want to fuck around with New Age bullshit. I want my cum inside you just like before.” But she straddles me and pulls off her turtleneck and shakes her head, kneading her fingers into my chest. She lowers her weight down onto my body, but we’re both still half-dressed, so all it does is make me more insane. There’s a new fire in her eyes. And she whispers, “You’re not the boss of me, Jimmy Falconi. Not tonight.”

She pulls herself off me and goes to close the drapes. The room is thrown into darkness, sending the shadow of her body up mine. Like she’s in my head, she goes to the door and checks that it’s locked, then does the very same in my room. When she returns, she’s holding up a finger, telling me to wait. She comes to my ear and whispers, “I’m going to strip for you. You can’t touch me.” “The fuck I can’t.” I drag my hand up her ass. “No. Not tonight. You obey me tonight.” My words get caught in my throat and I swallow hard. I yank her to me. “I’m not that guy. I can’t go slow. Not with you.” “Yes you can, Jimmy. You can do anything that you want.” Then she backs away and grabs the desk chair, putting her foot up on it and slowly—so fucking slowly—working the zipper of one boot down. She does the same to the other calf, and then slowly slips out of her socks. The light from the setting sun shines through the gap in the drapes, sending a long, clear beam of sunshine up her body. Over her curves, over the valleys, highlighting that perfect line of her cleavage. Standing in front of me, she begins to undo my belt. There is a determination in her eyes that is fucking killing me. Like she’s got some kind of secret, and I’m going to have to work to learn what it is. So, gently, slowly, like she asked, I touch her. With the tips of my fingers, up the curve of her spine. Goose bumps follow along, tightening her skin. And her nipples. “Fuck,” I whisper. And what does she do? Winks. With her hand hooked over waistband, she signals for me to get up and off the bed. I do, and I’m towering over her at last. She undoes my fly and pulls my chinos down to the floor. But doesn’t touch my cock, not once. Instead, she gets up on her tiptoes. “In bed. Right now.” “Yes, ma’am.” “Good boy.” “Fuck you.” “Get in bed. You know you like it. So just do it already.”

Yeah. Okay. Fine. It’s fucking hot. I didn’t think I’d like it, but that throb in my balls, that pulse in my cock, it’s undeniable. I love it. So I do exactly what she says.

40

MARY

I didn’t have time to read nearly as much as I’d like to have read, but I got the idea. And I’ve got a plan. We are both naked now, him laid out on the bed, and me on top of him. On my knees, I kneel forward and kiss his neck. His cheek. Tug at his lip with my teeth. His hands, so massive and strong, move up to my back, but they don’t hold me there. He’s listening. Which is exactly what I need him to do. He’s incredibly hard in my hand, the skin of his cock soft in my palm. I position him at my opening. “The point of this isn’t to come.” I say it so softly I can tell he didn’t hear me. So I lean forward and say it again in his ear. “The orgasm is not the point. If you come, you ruin it.” “Fuck that.” “Just try it. Please.” He bites his lip. He digs his fingers into my hips. “Okay.” And then I begin lowering myself onto him. Millimeter. By. Millimeter. We watch it happen together. I hear his breath get caught in his throat. I look up to see his eyes rolling back slightly, behind almost-closed lids. Another millimeter and he groans again. All the while, I stay as relaxed as I possibly can. “You know I want to squeeze you, but I’m not.” “Okay,” he gasps, trying to pull me down onto him. And God knows I want to let him, but I also want to do this, this new thing, with him. Another quiet afternoon, the two of us, being naughty, while all the world swirls around us. In other words, my new favorite thing. After a minute, only his head is inside, and my thighs are burning, but the very best burn. I have never seen him look so helpless, but also in such utter pleasure. He moves his hands to my hips, and instead of pulling, he supports me. Holding me up and letting me come down onto him even slower than before. After another thirty seconds, he’s beginning to part my walls, and his hands start to grip me, to pull me faster.

“Slow,” I say. I feel him in a way I’ve never felt another man. Every inch of him, every curve. There is no friction, just connection. “Jesus, Mary.” “I know,” I whisper back. Oh God, I know. It is the opposite of the ruthless way I’m used to him getting inside me. And it hits me that rather than him taking me, I’m the one slowly, powerfully, carefully taking him. Which is really, really sexy. I try to remember some of what I read. About magnetisms and polarity. I reach out and put my hand to his heart. His eyes flicker to my hand, and as if he’d read the very same book, he does the same thing to me. His breathing slows, and when I’m about midway down, he arches his head back into the pillows. The muscles of his pecs pull tight, the fibers of his shoulder stretch and curve. I bring my lips to his chest and suck gently on his nipple. His hand comes to the side of my head and holds me there. Just that. Just holds me. Carefully, and warmly, without any force at all. Once he’s all the way inside me, I let my body weight drop completely onto him. Instinctively, he starts driving into me slowly from below, but I press onto his thighs with my hands to tell him to stop. “Just be inside me. Just like that.” I don’t squeeze him. I don’t tease him. And oh God, does it feel good. I let myself relax onto him, to pull him in as deeply as I can. But with no urgency. The truth is, we really do have all night. If we need it. Once I’ve been there for a few seconds and we’ve both calmed down, I look him in the eye. “I need to know what you’re most afraid of in the world.” He furrows his brow. “Is this the time for that?” I nod. He gets serious, focused, and is trusting me just like he said he would. Finally, he says, “I’m not afraid of anything.” I lean in and kiss him. Hard. All the while keeping my body relaxed on top of his. So that we are one thing, him inside me and me around him. He wraps his arms around my back and breathes in, long and slow. “Please tell me,” I say softly. “I want to know.” That big stern face gets a little shy, almost. A bit vulnerable, and he looks at the edge of the bed. I tip his face back up to me, that strong jaw resting on my fingertip. “I’ll go first,” I say, forcing myself to relax a little more around him. He nods, squinting for a moment, like he’s trying to see if I’m kidding around. “Yeah. You go first.” What are you most afraid of, Mary? Tell him. Don’t lie to him, because he’ll know. Tell him the truth, like you want to. “It’s okay.” He shifts my braid over my shoulder. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.” He

undoes the tie at the end and helps my hair come down loose over my shoulder. I let myself get lost in those eyes. In the way he feels inside me. The way being with him makes me feel. It takes a lot of courage to say it. It’s not a thing I like to talk about, or that I’m proud of. Or even that I really want to say at all. But I need to tell him. And I want to tell him. If anybody should know about this, it’s him. And so with a deep breath, I tell him. I don’t sugar-coat it. I don’t laugh about it. I just say it. Right now, safe with him, violence isn’t the thing that frightens me most. There is something deeper. “You’ll be pissed,” I say, like I wasn’t the one who had this idea in the first place. I’m now almost regretting it, almost kicking myself, for heading down this path at all. But here we are. And this is it. If I lie to him now, I’ve blown it. And I refuse to let that happen. So I say it. I just blurt it out, fast and steady as I can. “I’m terrified of having children.” I brace myself for the inevitable, the line that everybody loves, the one they think is such a compliment. But you’d make a wonderful mother. He doesn’t say it. Instead, he studies my face and brings his thumb to my cheek. “Why?” There are a million reasons, but only one that really rings true. “Because I don’t want to give up my life.” He blinks. His eyes flicker. And again, I brace myself. You can get a nanny! Or There’s always daycare. Right now, I feel so vulnerable, so utterly petrified. He has to feel it too, how wide open I am. How I have just voluntarily ripped myself open. His face shifts from confusion to something peaceful and calm, and then he says, “I can see that.” What a beautiful, honest thing to say. He holds my hand in his, still hard and strong inside me. “I understand that.” “You do?” “Yeah. I really do.” I breathe out slowly. “Is that a problem?” I don’t even know what’s happening to me, but my lips are trembling already. I think about what he said to me last night and how utterly into it I was, and am, but how this is different. “For me? For us?” He shakes his head, not a hint of hesitation. “Hell, no.” I let myself ease down into him a little deeper. I think he’s still just as hard as before, but he has become such a part of me, so much one with me, that I can’t really tell. We just are, here together. “As hard as I try, I can’t get my head around the idea. They seem like the end of the world to me.” He nods again, but doesn’t speak. And so I fill the silence. “What a horrible thing to say…What kind of woman thinks that?” He smiles. “You do. That’s all.” He sits up slightly, still inside me. I wrap my

legs around him, marveling at how natural it feels, how simple this really is. Sex for sex’s sake. Not to come. Not to roar or scream or groan into the pillows. Just to be here together. Just us. In the middle of the day. “If you don’t want them, you don’t want them. I totally get that.” Without any warning, tears start sliding down my cheeks. I feel so free, having said it. Finally having it out there. “They fucking terrify me too,” he says, holding me tightly in his arms. He presses his jaw to my chest, between my breasts, and I hold his head there. One of my tears falls from my cheek and lands on the back of my thumb, then rolls off into his hair. “Do they?” He nods. “Yeah. Scare the living shit out of me.” I smile down at him and run my fingers through his hair. “They’re like unsocialized adults. Scary. Annie’s not, but that’s only because I know her.” Annie. God. I forgot about Annie. Here I am talking about how kids make me want to run. But it’s about honesty. It’s about the truth. And that’s the truth, what I told him. The simple truth. “Women take the brunt of it,” he says matter-of-factly. “You give up the most. Doesn’t matter what anybody says.” Again, the tears start. But it’s not a sad crying. It’s pure, easy, delightful relief. He wipes my tears from my cheeks, and whispers, “Okay, then. My turn.” “Yeah.” He wraps his hands around my waist, and I can almost feel his fingertips touch at my spine. “I like this, you know. A whole fucking lot.” “Me too,” I whisper back. “I don’t think it would’ve been like this with anybody but you.” He takes a steadying breath. “I’m fucking petrified I will lose tomorrow. That my whole career will go down the drain. All my life, I’ve been worried about tomorrow. The game that could change everything. If we win tomorrow, we go to the championships. And if we win the championships, we go to the Super Bowl. I have lost tomorrow’s game so many times, Mary. In my head, and in the past. I’m not going to get another chance.” “Do you think you’ll lose?” I lean forward a little. As I do, I involuntarily tighten around him and he groans. So I relax, relax, relax again. Until we are back to being one. “I think I’m going to lose, yeah,” he says with misty eyes. “Don’t you dare tell that to anybody. But I do think I’ll lose.” “Why?” “I don’t know,” he says, pressing his forehead to my ribcage. “Because I can’t fucking remember how to win.” “You won last week,” I reassure him. He looks up at me. “Yeah.” “So…”

“That was different. Somehow. This is bigger. This is worse.” It’s the same thought pattern I’ve heard from him before. Not to celebrate the victory, but to worry about the potential for screwing it all up the next go-round. It’s not an uncommon way to think about things really, but if I could erase that from him, I would. So he could see how remarkable he is. How sweet. How talented. “What happens if you win?” I ask. “What happens when you win?” He shakes his head. “It won’t happen. Don’t tell them I think that.” “Nothing you say to me leaves this room. Ever.” His nostrils flare. And now it’s his turn for tears. It breaks my heart, this massive hunk of a man reduced to tears in my arms. But also it’s an honor. This isn’t sex. This is love. Love the likes of which I’ve never even imagined. Irrational, sudden, head-over-heels love. The kind of love that gets people married. The kind of love that changes everything. Forever. “I think you can. I think you will,” I tell him. He blinks a few times quickly to clear away the tears. “You do?” “Yes, I do.” I’m not lying to him. I don’t think I could, even if I tried. Not like this. Not now. “I believe in my heart you can win. And I don’t know why you don’t believe it too.” He presses his lips together again, and dissolves one more time in my arms. “I’m so afraid of fucking up, Mary. I’m so afraid they’re going to trade me. And I only just found you.” “I know you are.” I press my forehead to his. He stirs inside me, swelling almost, pressing on parts of me I didn’t even know I had. Like the more we talk, the more we share, the closer we get to something absolutely perfect. “You’re not going anywhere. Not if I have anything to do with it. You just have to believe it too.” “Yeah,” he says. But I can tell he doesn’t buy it. “Believe it, Jimmy Falconi. Believe it.” We stay just like that for a long, long time, until finally, all wrapped up in one another, he starts thrusting into me slowly, so slowly, from below, in a rhythmic hypnosis that feels different from any other experience I’ve ever had. “I love this,” he says, drawing my neck to him for a kiss. “Me too.” One slow, gentle thrust, and then another. “So fucking much.”

41

JIMMY

When we wake up, I don’t have the usual rush of adrenaline that I do on a normal game day. Instead, I feel calm, almost drunk. On her. I make sure she’s covered up, nice and snug, and then get up and head for the bathroom. I wipe the sleep from my eyes and start the shower. I hold my hand under the water and let it warm up. I learned a long time ago that if you want to get a hot shower on game day, you better start early. There’s no hotel on the planet that can keep up with 60 guys killing time in the shower, nervous as shit and wishing it was tomorrow already. Out of habit, I shower fast—another rule of the road—and when I get out, she’s there waiting for me. With a roll of therapy tape in one hand and a pair of nail scissors in the other. “Come on, champ. Let’s get you ready to play.” After I dry off, she starts with my shoulder, making careful meticulous curves over my muscles. Making me raise and lower my arm, and sticking the tape down gently but firmly with her fingertips, until my shoulder is a web of crisscrossed tape. And then she lowers down onto her knees. There was a time, not so long ago, when I’d have made some crack about while you’re there… But not now. Because last night, fuck. Last night changed everything. She gently positions the tape on the insides of my thigh in three orderly stripes. I watch her take such care with me it makes me fucking speechless. Makes me weak, so I have to brace myself on the sink. Her fingers press the tape to my skin, and then she looks up at me. “How’s that?” “Perfect.” She reaches for a bottle of Advil and hands it up to me. I put four in my palm and dry-swallow them. Below me, she shakes her head. “Brute.” “You know I’m soft, though.” I put my hand to my chest. “In here.” The corners of her eyes wrinkle when she smiles. “You’re going to be fine today. I’m going to be right there with you.” I shift her hair off her forehead and cup her chin in my hand. “Okay.” “Now, one last thing. Is anybody else going to see this spot?” she says, pointing

to the athletic tape high on my leg. “No, just you.” She turns and takes a tube of lipstick from her bag. She applies it carefully and thickly in the mirror and then gets back down on her knees and places a soft and lovely kiss on the tape on the inside of my thigh.

She heads down to the busses first, and I agree to follow. I gather the books from her room and stick them in my suitcase, which I zip shut and shove into my closet. Then I look at my phone. Exactly one minute has passed. So I reopen my suitcase and take out The Heart of Tantric Sex and thumb through it. It’s got a kind of crunchy, hippy feeling that I like a lot. Not too slick, not too fancy. Just really fucking sexy. There is also a tenderness to what it’s saying, which I like too. I like porn as much as the next guy, but this is different. She is different. Sometimes Valdez does this thing where he lets a book fall open. He calls it “casting the sortes,” I think; I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure that’s it. He usually does it with the Bible, because that’s his jam. It’s like palm reading for the bookworm, he says. It’s all in the words somewhere, you’ve just got to find them. So I try it. I close my eyes and let my finger fall to the page. That’s when I see I’ve landed on Chapter 15, The Power of Love, and the line “Love will set you free, if only you’d let it.” Damn. Goose bumps slide up my arm. “Love will transform your world if you believe that it can.” I get lost in the words. In how true they are, and how possible, until there’s a heavy knock at my door and Valdez booms, “Come on, buddy! We got a game to play!” Quickly, I steal the dust jacket from The Mind of the Champion and put it around the tantra book and put it in my bag. But then something on the bedside table catches my eye. She left her ring in my room next to the alarm clock. I turn it over in my fingers. The thing is absolutely tiny, barely big enough to get to the first knuckle on my pinkie. I could put it back in her room. But I’m late, and Valdez is waiting, and having a good luck charm never hurt. Ever.

42

JIMMY

The fucking Broncos. Seriously. We start off fine, with a halfway decent kick return that gets us into good position at the forty. It’s a clear, cold, fall day. A day for victory. A day for good goddamned things. But the first thing they do is get a touchdown. In the first twenty seconds. Assholes. With that in my craw, we take the field. I focus. I calm myself. I think it through. Valdez snaps to me, and the fullback comes through, between my left tackle and guard. Classic Wishbone. The triple-option… But then, one by one, every option goes tits up, as they say. First, Valdez gets in a rapidly escalating tussle with one of their defenders, which starts with the defender screaming, “You fucking Guatemalans!” into his face mask and getting worse exponentially from there. Because you know who else is Guatemalan? My fucking fullback. There goes that option. I’ve got to think fast and modify the play a little, waiting for my halfback to come around on my left. But he doesn’t. Because his wife is Guatemalan. Fucking fuck. And my other halfback gets knocked down in a spectacular horse-collar that happens so fucking fast that the refs don’t even see it. Bastards. It’s like my whole offensive line has suddenly become Latin American social justice warriors. Before we can even get the first down, the defense is all over me, swarming me like huge, predatory bees, blue-and-orange hornets. As I regain some semblance of balance, with the bright cold sky above me, I hear Radovic on the sidelines, screaming, “What. The. Fuck!” I glance over and see him flattening another can of Red Bull and looking at me with his hands out, furious and red-faced in a way that only professional head coaches can get. Two seconds from a coronary but too hardcore to drop dead on the field. One of the defensive ends helps me up and slaps me on the ass. “Welcome to

the motherfucking Mile High City, Falconi. We missed the shit out of you.” Bastard. I’m also fucking winded, because Radovic has me doing a no-huddle offense, which is perfectly fucking fine at sea level. But I can hardly see straight up here with the birds. They might call me the Falcon, but I need oxygen, and bad. And so the end of the first quarter, I’m getting that old anxious feeling that we are royally, epically, completely, professionally fucked. As the Denver offense executes a slow but steady march down the field, Mary appears next to me with a bottle of oxygen, which she loops over my face. She turns it on, full blast, and suddenly, the world starts to clear. But from there, even though I’m feeling better, it gets worse. And worse. Our defensive line can’t hold the offense. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like the bastards have been drugged and I find myself actually watching from between my fingers for a play or two. Mary comes by and hands Valdez and me a bottle of water. She looks me in the eye and flares her nostrils, sets her teeth. “What!” I say. “It’s not me!” “Jimmy!” she growls. And slams my bottle of water on the bench before stomping off. Which is when Valdez lets out this Santa Claus laugh. “Shut up,” I say, but his smile is so contagious that I literally cannot help myself. “You’re cute, you two,” he chuckles. “Super cute. Got all the fire to stay married for seventy years.” “Will you just…” “You know I’m right, man. You fucking know it.” On the field again, and no luck. One blocked play after another, one incomplete pass after another. One foot out of bounds on an otherwise perfect punt return. Goddamn it. At the half, in the locker room, Radovic makes his speech. He’s frighteningly calm, like a dying man or a mass murderer. After the short speech, which is about as inspirational as a kick to the nuts, I stand up and go to my locker. Inside, there’s a note. JANITOR’S CLOSET. NOW. I wad it up and rub the sweat from my face. Then I walk out into the hallway. It’s cute and all that she knows exactly nothing whatsoever about football, but I’m going to have to explain to her that twenty minutes is about enough time to catch your breath, and I just don’t have time for secret liaisons in secret closets, no matter how fucking sexy that sounds. I look up and down the hall but don’t see anything that looks like a janitor’s closet. Until I see her pretty little finger poking out of a slightly open door, curving to tell me to come closer. I slip into the closet, which smells like Lysol and has a paper towel supply that would make Costco Corporate jealous. I get right up next to her ear and say,

“There’s no time for…” But she’s kissing me before I can finish that sentence. Wrapping her legs around me, pulling me to her by the jersey, slipping her hand down the back of my uniform pants and grabbing my ass, dragging her fingernails deep into my skin. God, she is the sweetest fucking thing. In the midst of all the chaos, it’s just her. And me. And, I notice, an endless array of mops. “Jimmy.” She looks me clean and hard in the eye. I wipe a smudge of grease paint off her cheekbone. “Mary.” There’s that nostril flare. The fighter in the ring that I first fell for. Fuck, I want her so bad. I want her slow and fast and dirty and wet. I want her every single way she’s willing to give herself to me. But she’s not giving me anything. Because that’s when she grits her teeth, blinks once, and says, “Stop thinking so much,” before shoving me back out the door.

With the taste of Juicy Fruit in my mouth and the smell of coconut in my nose, I take the field again. And again. And again. Their fucking defense is killing us, but miracle of miracles, ours is holding tight. At the two-minute warning, it’s 7-0, Broncos. We take the field one more time. I glance over and see her with her mittens pressed together, like in prayer, in front of her lips. She’s looking right at me, and today her hair is loose around her face, like it was last night. She looks so beautifully out of place there on the sidelines. Not wearing sports gear, but a tweed jacket. Not wearing tennis shoes, but boots. I am close enough to see her take a breath, and then she wiggles her knees back and forth, nervous. Stop thinking so much. The guys get in formation and I call out the 525 F Post Swing. Valdez is looking at me from between his legs and gives me a quick nod. It’s a solid decision. A tough play, but a fucking ballbuster if it works. Love can change everything, if you let it. The last few possessions have gotten the defenders riled up like crazy, like rabid dogs held back by chains. They know that stupid Guatemala thing gets to my guys —and they will not knock it off. So before I call out for the snap, I say one last thing, just on impulse, “Stop thinking so much, and long live Guatefuckingmala!” It’s so unlike me to yell some shit like that, that the defense is shocked into movement and force a false start. The crowd grumbles like one big angry beast all around us. I look over at Mary. She’s beaming, and Radovic is stunned, also beaming, with his Red Bull in midair. His big bushy eyebrows creep up into his hat and he gives me a well done! nod.

Five yards and the first down, we creep down the field. I call out the run-and-shoot, spreading out the offense, but the defense is too good and stops us cold. No gain. Second and ten, I try for the zone read. No dice, motherfuckers. The defense is on the ball today. And we get moved back for a face mask. Again, we reposition. The shadows are getting long, and we’re in a shady, cool patch of the field, still in Broncos territory. Third and fifteen, fucking do or die. I get low down in the huddle, looking at my guys. I can see the doubt in their eyes, even though they don’t mean to show it. And I don’t blame them. Last night comes back to me, with her. What are you afraid of, Jimmy? Why? Of losing. Of fucking up. You won’t. Her face. That tenderness. The way she held on to me. I shut my eyes. I give myself two seconds to visualize something other than this goddamn game. I see her. On my couch. With the fireplace going. I see snow outside, and her wrapped in a blanket. I see her with me not just this week, but next week. At Thanksgiving. And the week after that. And the week after that, on down the infinite calendar for forever and ever. I open my eyes. The play clock ticks down. Down. Down. Radovic roars from the sidelines and the defenders start digging in their heels. It’s time, Falconi. Fuck yes. Now or never. Love will transform your world, if you believe that it can. Do I believe it? Fuck yes, I do. I can feel it in my fingers. I can feel it in my blood. I call out the 525 F Post Swing again, all disguised in Bears-speak, but the same play. If I can get a ten-yard pass, we’re in the money. We need this. And then I’ll worry about what’s next. I call it out. Nice and loud, but at the end, I throw in an “Omaha!” Manningstyle, to piss them off and make them remember that they used to be good. But now they’re just the Donkeys again. Nothing but a bunch of second-rate players in used outfits with socks that don’t match. That’s how they started, and that’s how I’m gonna make them feel again… The snap is good, but they’re wired up and angry, which gets the defenders into a rugby-style scrum down in front of me. It’s exactly what I need. My tight end runs a shallow cross as my full back takes off with a speed that I’d forgotten he ever had. I play fake once, twice, and the defenders are narrowing in. Then he’s there, in the end zone, the sun glinting off his helmet. Stop thinking so much. I glance at Mary. Her eyes are locked on me, and she mouths, “Do it.” I don't know if I can be a husband, or a father, or the kind of man I want to be. But I know this: I can throw the living shit out of the football. So I do. I stay present and Zen myself right into the spiral. I do what I’m here for—a hard-as-hell throw,

the throw that got me my nickname in the first place: a high, arching pass that nobody else in the game has, and I haven’t had myself for at least a year. But now I do. The Falcon is back. I stagger away from the line as the defensive line scatters around me. Everything slows down. The crowd goes quiet in my head. I clap my hands to the back of my helmet, watching the ball spiral through the sky. A millisecond becomes a minute, and the ball flies 85 yards in the time it takes me to inhale. I hear my own breath, and also her voice. That voice. That hoarse, beautiful voice screaming, “Yes!” At the very, very top of her lungs. Yes. Please, yes. I watch Benitez crouch and then leap into the air, all six foot five of him three feet higher into the sky. His feet go up, up, up, dangling in the air like he’s suspended from above. His arms go up, his hands extend in the shape of the ball, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. I hold my hands to the sides of my helmet. Don’t think so much. I focus on Benitez. On his hands. On his gloves. On his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth. And then the ball flies into his hands. And he makes the goddamned catch. Holy. Shit! I turn and see her jump into Radovic’s arms. The Red Bull goes flying, and he twirls her through the air. On the PA system booms the announcer, “That’s Jimmy Falconi with the touchdown for the Bears.” Fuck yes.

43

MARY

Football from the sidelines is violent, loud, aggressive, dirty, and also absolutely awesome. With the scoreboard now saying 7-6, I listen to Radovic talking something over next to me. They call Jimmy over and the three of them get in a tight huddle The sidelined players go quiet. Valdez says to me, “You got any fucking idea what’s going on?” I look up at him. He really does look exactly like a bear today. He’s been sweating so hard that the black greasepaint has run down his cheeks, giving him panda eyes. He produces a stick of honey from somewhere inside his jersey. “No idea. At all.” “So here’s the deal…” He pops it open and sucks some out. Then he hands one to me and I do the same. “…the idea is we kick it into that thing there. If we do, we get a point. But,” he says, bending around and pretending to tie his already-tied shoe. “Jimmy’s on fire. So they’re going to let him go for the conversion. If we do it, we win. If we fuck it up, we’re fucked.” Desperately, I try to remember the bits and pieces of the game that Wikipedia has taught me. “Two points?” “Bingo. And it’s all up to your man now.” I suck hard on my honey, gnawing on the straw. “Can he do it?” Valdez cups his hand to his ear and leans down to me. I repeat it into his huge, sweaty, dirty hand, “Can he do it?” He doesn’t look at me as he flattens his honey straw. “Their defense is good, but lemme tell you something. When that motherfucker is on,” he stares down at me, “he’s on.” I nod. I blink. And then Valdez grabs his helmet and runs back out onto the field. I focus on Jimmy. They’ve lined up in that same pattern, generally, as before. Close in to the end zone. I can feel the nerves on the sidelines. I watch a hulk of a guy, must be seven feet tall if he’s an inch, gnawing on his nails. I watch Brenner, who was so super smooth on the plane, look up at the sky and press his palm to his mouth.

Valdez throws the ball between his legs, and Jimmy catches it. His feet tread lightly, confidently but carefully backward, depressing the turf as he backs up. The opposing players, the biggest, beefiest, meanest ones, start coming for him. Oh God, this game. It’s exciting, sure, unless the man you love is the guy everybody’s trying to hurt. A guy hollers to him from the back of the end zone, the same guy who caught the touchdown. But he gets walloped in a tackle from the side and goes flying out of bounds. So what does Jimmy do? He glances at me. Just once. And then tucks the ball into the crook of his elbow. And runs. His glutes flex and his quads tense, he gets down low and puts his helmet first. Wham. A mass of men descends on him like wolves. He gets lost in the tangle of legs and bodies and jerseys. I can’t see anything. I can’t see how anybody at all could see anything. One of the refs goes right into the tangle of men, and the crowd of 70,000 goes silent. Slowly, body after body is extricated. A couple of Bears players throw their arms up in the air in what I’m learning is the sign for score! The crowd roars at them. But the refs haven’t stepped in. More bodies unpeel from the pile. Inexplicably, a shoe pops out. A helmet. Man after man from the pile rolls off. At the bottom, I see him. My Jimmy, stretched out flat on his stomach, his arms out like he was about to dive into a pool. In his huge, sexy, gloved hands, is the ball. Underneath that, the bright orange paint. Around me, the tension transforms into the purest, most contagious happiness I have ever seen. Grown men burst into tears, and Radovic flings his hands up high in the air, sending his Russian fur hat flying. The scoreboard confirms it. 7-8. Bears win!

The locker room is utter, joyful chaos. I peek in from the door, but I don’t go inside. This is their time, their thing, their celebration of so much work, and so many games, and so much hope spilling out. I wrap my arms around myself and start thinking about how in the world to get back to the hotel. It’s an empty and sad feeling—not a bad one—but a little like when you finish a book you love, or a movie, and you just wish so much you could experience it all over for the very first time again. As I head for the exit sign at the end of the hall, I hear a heavy thump-thumpthump coming up behind me. My heart leaps, and I turn. It’s him, in full gear—no helmet, but still in his pads and paint—jogging toward me. His arms are wide open and he scoops me up into them. He’s sweaty and gritty

and just absolutely perfect. My legs spin through the air and his stubble scratches my cheek. Without putting me down, he charges through a side exit into an empty stairway. “I told you that you could do it,” I tell him, planting a big kiss on his cheek. Under my fingers, his arms feel slick with sweat. “I told you!” The happiness on his face shows me exactly what he must have looked like as a kid, that same innocent, utter joy that children have, that Annie had when I handed her a warm cookie. “You know what happened? I stopped thinking about everything. I focused on you. And we won the motherfucking game, Mary. You did it. You did it.” “Nooooo.” I shake my head at him. “Believe me. I was watching. It was all you.” That’s when he kisses me, a breathless, smiling, gasping kiss. Then he pulls away. “And now what? You’re going to run off?” “I was going back to the hotel,” I say, smiling up at him, “You go back to the team. You’ve got a lot of celebrating to do.” He presses me up against the wall as a trickle of sweat runs down his throat into his jersey. “No, beautiful. It’s you I want to celebrate with. Only you. I think you’re my good luck charm.” “Stop.” I feel the blush in my cheeks, the weakening of my knees. “I won’t stop.” He drives his hips into me. His pads pressing into my thighs, and his cup hard against my abdomen. God bless whoever created these uniforms. Bless, bless, bless. “I’ll tell you a secret,” I whisper in his ear. “I really don’t want you to stop. Never again. Keep it coming. Just like this.” He laughs a little and kisses me once more. Up above us, we hear the clatter of someone coming into the stairway and he steps back from me. “Wait for me in your room,” he whispers. “Because there’s a chapter in that book you bought just calling our name.” “But, Jimmy, you have things to do. The team…” “Mary Monahan. Just let me have my way. You fucking know I’ll get it eventually,” he says. “Eight o’clock. You. In bed. Got it?” The butterflies flutter through me, coming out in a shiver. “Got it.” He winks. “Good girl.” And then he’s off.

44

JIMMY

The post-game interview goes by in a blur. They ask me questions about how I did it, and I say, “Just focused today, I think. Extra focused.” They ask me about the possibility of the wildcard, and I say, “We’ll just see what next week brings.” They ask me what happened out there, what turned it around at the half, and I say, “If I could tell you, I would.” And they laugh, roar with laughter, and I laugh back, smoothing the buttons on my dress shirt and touching her ring in my pocket. But the thing is, I’m not kidding. If I could tell them about her, I would. I’d say there’s a woman who’s got me upside down. There’s a woman who makes me see the world a little differently. There’s a woman who’s got me on another planet. And I’ve got no fucking plans of ever coming back to earth again. And the whole time, all I can think about is her smile. Her skin. Her words. The confidence in those eyes that make me believe, really and truly believe, that I can do every fucking thing I’ve ever wanted and more. When I get back to the hotel, I make like I’m exhausted. I tell Radovic I’m going to take it easy, watch some Stranger Things and hit the hay. “Stranger things than what?” Radovic asks. I’m so tired that it takes me a second. Explaining it to Captain Obvious would take longer than just pretending it doesn’t matter. Which it doesn’t, at all. “Yeah, no, never mind.” In my pocket, my phone buzzes. I hope like hell it’s her asking me where I am, telling me she’s waiting for me. I position my phone to make sure Radovic can’t see any of the messages—like maybe, I don’t know, a nude selfie of her in front of the mirror. But no such luck. Of course, it’s Michael. Fuck you, Jimmy. I bet against you and what? You go and win At first, wham, I feel the rush of anger. The desire to throw my phone across the room into the fucking fake trees by the window. But just as fast as the anger comes

up, I get it to go back down. I hope he lost his fucking shirt on that game. I hope the bastards took every single goddamned penny of that ten grand I gave him, and every penny he stole from me besides. I stick my phone back in my pocket without a word. I look back at Radovic. He’s nodding and, holy fuck, smiling, which is something I never ever see him do. It transforms his face completely. “All right, son,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder. “Keep on doing what you’re doing. Whatever it is, it’s working.” It’s not an it. It’s her. But he’s right, for once. “That’s the idea.” Then I head for the stairs.

I let myself into my room, which is dark and still. So dark and still, in fact, that I think she might not be here at all. Then I hear the sexy, soft sound of her skin on the sheets. “Hello,” she whispers. I close the door and lock it behind me as I drop my bag. The sound of a lighter flint cuts through the air, and a small flame springs up, illuminating her face. She picks up a candle from the bedside table and lights it. I watch her smile, fucking breathtaking, candlelit and beautiful. Then her hair slides in a curtain down along the side of her face. “Hello,” I whisper back. She lights another candle, and then another. “Where’d you get those?” I ask, watching her face come warmly to life in the shadows of the flames. “Barnes & Noble is kind of all-purpose. Even got us some chocolate for later. So, how about that?” “How about that indeed.” I pull her close, and get particularly caught up in the place where her ass meets her legs. God. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be with the team?” she says softly. “Because I am okay. I don’t mind being by myself.” Fuck that. “You don’t get it, do you?” I ask, taking the sheets and comforter in my hand and slowly pulling them from her body so she’s naked on the mattress. “I don’t think I do, no.” I can hear the smile in her voice before the candlelight lets me see it. “There is nowhere that I’d rather be than inside you. Right here. Tonight.” She rolls up onto her knees on the mattress. The light flickers against her profile, sending gorgeous shadows up and down her curves. “You were so amazing out there. You know that?” And then she begins undoing the buttons of my dress shirt. “And you look really sexy in a suit, by the way.” “Some guys do post-game in their sweats. I’m not one of those guys.” I watch her small, elegant fingers undo button after button, and then her hand slides in along my chest.

I scoop her up by the ass and slide her knees to the edge of the bed so we are body to body. “Before you, Mary Monahan,” I say, dragging my fingers down her arm, “I was a fucking catastrophe. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t think.” “I didn’t do anything at all.” Bullshit, I think. I move my fingers down her back, trailing one all the way down the curve of her hips, down her thighs. I smell her, wet and hot, but I don’t touch her pussy. Fuck knows, I want to. But I won’t. Not for a long, long fucking time yet.

45

MARY

He falls to his knees in front of me and begins kissing my body, inch by inch. He starts at the tips of my toes and moves up my feet. His eyes are closed, his face relaxed, and the light from the candles showing his beautiful chest, just peeking out from behind three undone buttons, which was as far as he’d let me get. Up my knee, he kisses, and then up my thigh. With his tongue, he traces a line over my hip bones. He kisses my bellybutton, and I pull him close. His tongue moves slowly, carefully, underneath each breast. He sucks on my nipples gently, tenderly, reverently. I take his cheeks in my hand, trying to get him to come up and kiss me, really kiss me, because I desperately need to taste him again. But instead of moving up, he nestles his face between my breasts, cheek to chest, and takes my fingertips in his mouth, one by one. “I don’t want this to end. Ever,” he whispers, before moving on to my ring finger. “By the way, are you missing something?” Oh my God, my ring. I try to remember where I left it, but he’s already reaching into his pocket. He slides it on, heart out, the way I have been wearing it. But that’s just not right. Not anymore. Not now. “Turn it over,” I tell him. His eyes flash and his grip tightens on me. “Yeah?” “Yes,” I say, running my fingers lightly through his hair and letting them rest for a moment on the back of his neck. “Because I feel it too, Jimmy Falconi.” “You’re sure?” I nod at him and hold my hand out. “I’m not going anywhere.” “Promise?” he asks as he puts the ring back on my finger the other way, with the heart facing me. I have never worn it that way. And I’m so happy I could cry. “Promise.” And he gives me a long, lovely kiss in the center of my palm. He straightens up at the side of the bed and looks at me for a long moment, moving his hand down over my abdomen. His belt tonight isn’t the belt I’m used to, but a dress belt, shiny black leather and a brushed silver buckle. I undo the button on his suit pants, and then he lets

me get back up on my knees. I slide his pants down over his ass. His belt buckle pings off the edge of the bed, filling the room with a sound that reminds me of a wind chime. This part of him, this vulnerable, quiet, sensitive part of him, is what I like best of all. Because I liked him in the ring, and I liked him on that kitchen table, and I like him on the field, but this Jimmy Falconi—the slow, quiet, deliberate hero—this is the man I like most. Now it’s my turn to cover him in kisses. I start right above his boxers, feeling him solid and hard against my chest. Up and down his abs I go, and his hand finds its way to the back of my neck. Not aggressive, but just resting there. His skin is warm from a shower, soft and smooth everywhere that it should be. Rough in all the right places, too. Sex with him, it isn’t tangled limbs and awkward movements. It’s like we fit together. Like we were always waiting to find each other, to make sense of everything. I undo the little button on his boxers and cup his balls in my hands, first the left and then the right. He braces himself against my shoulder and lets his head tip backward. But then he gently guides me back down onto the bed, positioning me on my side and bending my knees with my ankles in his huge solid hand. I watch his every move. His shirt falling from his shoulders and him climbing on top of me, making me feel so tiny all over again. He anchors me with his hand to my waist and without breaking my stare, pushes inside me. I grip his forearms, and he whispers, “Let’s get back to that place where we were last night.” “You feel so good,” I tell him. “So good.” Already, I am fluttering inside for him. I try to stop it, I try to slow down, but I literally cannot help myself. The need is burning right through me. I want to make him sweat. I want to make him groan. “That heat and fury I saw on the field, I want that inside me. Right now. Everywhere.” “Fuuuuuuuuuck,” he whispers. “I want it all from you too. I want you like this.” He drives in slowly. “I want it to last for hours, but I also want to fuck you senseless on the bathroom floor.” “You can have it all. I want you to have it all.” “You know what I thought about on the field today?” he asks, lowering himself down onto me, caging me in with his arms. “What?” I let my tongue linger on his earlobe. He nudges me with his nose. “You. And me. At Thanksgiving. At my place.” And then he drives in a little deeper. We stay like that for a long second, linked up, until finally, I break the silence. “Mr. Falconi, are you asking me to spend the holidays with you?” He nods gently, sweetly, into my chest. “I want some traditions with you. And I don’t want to wait.”

46

JIMMY

Two days later, we are back in Chicago, and I’m at Costco with Valdez. It’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the place is an absolute zoo. Utter holiday madness, and—good news for Valdez and me both—sample paradise. We head down the main aisle, past flat-screen televisions, all of them showing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, like a claymation kaleidoscope. I grab a box of laundry detergent. As Valdez trundles toward a sample cart of red pepper dip, I pick up some fabric softener sheets and turn my attention to the roses. I decide on these pretty, almost antique-looking pink ones, darker at the edges and lighter near the stem. I’ve already showered her in red roses, and now it’s time to mix it up. As I place them in the cart, Valdez shuffles back to me with three quarts of red pepper spread and his mouth full. He drops one of the two-packs in my cart and then heads off toward some cocktail wieners. I watch a guy in a Bears hat say to his wife, “Do you know who that is?” And then the guy’s eyes land on me. Fuck. But instead of setting his teeth, he breaks into this great huge smile and says, “Jimmy Falconi, holy shit!’ He comes over like he’s known me forever and gives me a huge handshake. “Well done last week, champ. You made us all so proud. I don’t know what you did, but goddamn I hope you can do it again.” I say all the usual things, but this time, I mean them. I had good luck. Things lined up right. It was just a really good day. But what I don’t say is that it’s her, it’s all her. At least for now, I can keep that to myself. The guy makes his goodbyes, and his wife beams. I maneuver my cart toward the books, feeling like a new man somehow. Taking a deep breath, I look around and center myself. I might have spent part of yesterday reading Rumi. Possibly. Fine, all right, the whole day. And the shit is awesome. Pure, utter, old-school awesomeness. So letting Rumi talk to me a little, I get back in the moment. Today, it’s not about buying chicken breasts or protein powder or nine pounds of

asparagus. Not about the game, either. Today, it’s about her. And me. And Thanksgiving. For about 50% of the Thanksgivings I’ve had since I left college, I’ve been on the field. The other 50% I’ve either gone to Michael’s or to Valdez’s. Last year, Michael’s idea of Thanksgiving was putting down five hundred on the dog races and getting hammered while Annie and I watched My Little Pony. This year, though, I haven’t heard from him. He’s pissed I won, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. But never have I done Thanksgiving all by myself. I can make a mean omelet, but now, I need to learn how to do turkey and all the trimmings. For her. Wheeling my cart down the aisle past the books, I spot The Joy of Cooking. Shit. It’s like Costco can read my mind. I open it up and flip to the index to look for turkey. I draw my finger down the page.

dressings for… (Noted.) galantine of (What?) hash, 263 (I don’t think…) loaf, cooked (Oh Christ!) roast (Bingo!)

It’s all pretty straightforward, although some of it is a little bit mysterious. I’m going to need to do some Googling—truss?—but that’s okay. Everything I might need is spelled out for me: rack, pan, everything. So off I go toward the turkeys. But as I’m barreling past the peanut butter endcap, something else catches my eye. Another Costco subliminal message. There is a jewelry case full of sparkling diamonds, and in the center, rows of engagement rings. At first, I can’t believe the thought even crosses my mind. Me. Jimmy Falconi, thinking of that? But then it all gets really fucking simple. When you know, you know. And when you know, you can’t just stand around saying you know all the time. You’ve got to do something about that shit to make it real. Valdez shoulders up beside me with a sample chocolate truffle in each hand. He puts one in his mouth and hands the other one to me. But it’s not a truffle. It’s a chocolate-covered macaroon. Of course it is. “So?” Valdez says as a little bit of melted chocolate seeps into the corners of his mouth. “What do you think?” I stare at him and chew my macaroon, which tastes so much like her it kind of

makes me crazy inside. “Are you going to ask her?” I look down at the rings lined up neatly on a gray velvet display rack. “How do you know when you should do it?” I swallow hard and wipe my mouth with my thumb and forefinger. Valdez chews and stares at me. “How do you know you’re thirsty? How do you know you’re hungry? How do you know you’re alive? You just know, man.” He pokes me in the chest. “You just know.” A ring on a spinning display platform glistens underneath the glass. It’s a beautiful ring. It really is. But… “I can’t ask her with a Costco diamond,” I tell him. “Fuck no, you can’t.”

47

MARY

As I begin measuring out a cup of Karo syrup for my pecan pie, Bridget says, “You do know he’s going to ask you to marry him, don’t you?” It startles me so much that I look up at her, and I just stand there, stunned, with the Karo spilling out of the half-cup onto the pecans in the mixing bowl. Marry me? What? “Oh, come on,” I say, trying to fix the excess Karo situation that has now gotten seriously out of hand. “No way. No way!” I set the sticky bottle on the countertop. I try to estimate just how badly I just over-poured. Badly. I sure hope Jimmy likes his pie sweet and syrupy. “Are you kidding me? Watching this happen to you, it’s like being in a soap opera. If you’re this head over heels, I can’t even imagine what he is. So of course he is,” she says, and steals a pecan from the bowl, putting it in her mouth and chewing slowly as she nods knowingly. “Mark my words.” She wags a finger in the air. “Mama Bridget always knows.” It’s ridiculous. It’s impulsive and fast and kind of overwhelming. Do I even want to get married? I stir in some melted butter and brown sugar, folding the pecans together. “It’s so fast,” I tell her. “I know,” Bridget says, sliding down off the counter and filling a glass of water from the tap. “But I can feel it in the air. Like Phil Collins.” At my feet, Frankie Knuckles sits patiently. I rest the spoon on the edge of the bowl and get him a chicken jerky treat from the bag by the fridge. Frankie shuffles his paws and looks up at me hopefully, as if it’s entirely possible that I’m going to drop everything from the counter down onto the floor at any second. “Sit,” I tell him. He lifts his paw for a high five. Every damned time. But for today, it’s good enough. Better than nothing. And I cannot resist that face. Ever. “So?” Bridget asks. “What’s the plan, lady? If he sticks a ring in your stuffing,

what are you going to do?” I rinse off my drool-covered fingers in the sink, and think it over. I won’t lie. My hands are clammy. I have been hoping, hoping like a little schoolgirl with a crush on her first boyfriend, that he would. That he might. One day. “He doesn’t even know my ring size, Bridge.” I measure out two cups of flour for the crust. But wait. When we were in bed and he flipped my ring over, he put it on his finger, on his pinkie. “Oh my God, yes he does…” I bite down on a syrupy pecan. Bridget clicks her tongue against her teeth, winks, and then pinches me on the side. “How will it feel to be Mrs. James Falconi?”

48

JIMMY

Thanksgiving morning. I pull the bird out of the fridge. The thing is rock solid, like marble, and I think, Uh-oh. I look at the clock. It’s 10 a.m. She’s going to be here at 4. Fuck. There is nowhere on the bird that is even the slightest bit thawed. Somehow I just figured it would have to have thawed by today. I’ve had it for two days. What, do people all over America start thawing their turkeys a week ahead? I knock on the breast. Apparently they do. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I say at the bird in the sink. I turn on the hot water and a frosty haze rises from the plastic. Goddamn it. The Joy of Cooking has let me right the fuck down on this one. But there, on the tag, is the only thing standing between me and having to resort to baking chicken breasts and making profuse apologies for my total inability to pull this shit off. On the tag it says: NEED HELP? CALL 1-800-BUTTERBALL. So I do. Amazingly, magically, there is an automated menu that seems readymade for people exactly like me. “Press or say ‘1’ for a burning bird. Press or say ‘2’ for an undercooked bird. Press or say ‘3’ for a frozen bird.” “Holy fuck! Three!” I holler into my phone. And it transfers me, playing the Charlie Brown Christmas theme as I wait. And wait. While I wait, I set the table. I fold up the napkins nice and neat and put down all the silverware in what I’m pretty sure is the right order. I’m not totally sure what to do with the spoon, so I put it horizontally above the plate. I feel like I’ve seen that at restaurants. Maybe. Whatever. I like the symmetry and I’m going to roll with it. I study the instructions on the tube of rolls and try to figure out how in God’s name I’m going to cook those at 375, while I’ve got to cook the bird at 450, and apparently warm the potatoes at 250. What. The. Hell.

That takes like…three ovens. Or one oven with three heat zones. How is this even possible? That’s when the dismal Charlie Brown theme goes silent in my ear and the line clicks over. At first, I think the call has been dropped. “Hello?” I say, a little louder than I’m sure is at all necessary. “Hello? Butterball, hello?” “Well, hello. I’m Edith. Happy Thanksgiving from Butterball.” “Edith.” I pick up the bird by the mesh handle. “I’m fucked.” On her end, a dog barks. “Frozen bird?” “Like cryogenically frozen. We’re talking fro-zen, Edith. I’m not sure if this is normal. Maybe I grabbed the display bird.” She laughs. “There’s no such thing, honey, and you’ve come to the right place.” I hear the clatter of dishes and kids giggling in the background. Whoa. I think she might be in her own kitchen, on call for poor bastards just like me. “When do you have guests arriving?” “At four,” I tell her. “And it’s really, really important.” I pop open the ring box and set it down in the banana bowl. The thing is perfect for her. Just fucking perfect. Two carats set in rose gold. The best Lord’s Jewelers had. “This has to be perfect. I mean, down to the last detail. I’m asking a girl to marry me, Edith. I cannot have a frozen turkey on the table. Are we on the same page here?” “Congratulations!” I hear ice cubes tinkling in the background on her end. “Yeah, thanks! But we have to figure this out. I can’t make chicken for Thanksgiving. I think that’s un-American or something.” Edith, though, she’s a bad ass, and with a confidence that would make Joe Freaking Montana himself jealous, she clears her throat and says, “Honey, there’s a lot of reasons to panic in this life, but a frozen turkey? It ain’t one of them.”

At 2:30 p.m., the intercom buzzes. I freeze with a dishtowel in my hands. It can’t be her. She’s punctual, but an hour and a half early? The bird isn’t even in the oven. And I don’t know how I’m going to tell her that we won’t be eating until nine. And that’s Jimmy Falconi with the Thanksgiving Day fumble. I just hope she’ll still have me. The kitchen is a fucking disaster, and I still haven’t decided how I’m going to ask her, so the ring is in its box right there in the banana bowl. I snatch it up and stick it in the napkin drawer. As I walk to the door, I smooth my shirt and wipe off some flour from my stomach. I hit the intercom button and say, “Happy Thanksgiving, beautiful,” and hit DOOR. I look at myself in the mirror by the closet. I look…nervous. Fine. I am nervous. I make sure my sleeves are rolled up to the same height on both sides. I straighten my apron. And then I try to calm the hell down. My heart is pounding in my ears. Everything changes today. Everything starts

right here. The elevator clatters up, up, up, whirring and rumbling and finally dinging when it gets to my floor. I hear the door clatter open. I straighten my shoulders and wait. To see her. At the end of the hallway. At the beginning of our life together. Maybe I’ll do it as we sit down to eat. Or maybe over cheese and crackers. Jesus, maybe I should just run and get the ring right now and get down on my knee in the doorway. But before I can have another thought, I see it isn’t Mary. Or Frankie. Or even Michael. It’s Annie, all by herself, shuffling down the hallway in her pink boots, holding her purple giraffe. Her mittens dangle out of her coat on a string, one much lower than the other, almost dragging on the floor. It’s not that strange for them to show up unannounced. “Hi, Jellybean,” I say and get down on her level, reaching out for her. I wait for Michael to darken the end of the hallway, but instead of the noise of his footsteps, I hear the elevator door rumble shut. “Annie? What’s going on?” She doesn’t run to me. She doesn’t even smile. She slogs down the hallway leaving a trail of dirty snow behind her from her boots. It’s not until she’s almost toe-to-toe with me that she looks up into my eyes. “What happened?” I take her in my arms. She wipes her nose with her sleeve. Her lips pucker and then start to tremble. And tears start spilling down her cheeks.

I get her snuggled up tight on the couch in a quilt my mom made by hand before she passed away. I turn on the How It’s Made Thanksgiving Day marathon. She finally smiles when thousands of fresh blueberries roll along a conveyor belt. The story has been hard to get out of her. At first, she cried so hard that she couldn’t talk at all. But then she started telling me bits and pieces. “Fight” and “money” were clear through the sobs. I thought maybe something had happened to Michael, that his life had caught up with him, and somehow she’d found her way here. Like maybe he’d ended up in jail on a DUI, and whatever woman he’s hanging around with these days had the sense to bring Annie to my building. But even as I was thinking it, I knew that it was nonsense. And then finally, she said, “Daddy left.” That motherfucking deadbeat. Pushing my anger down into my chest, I stand up and get her a tangerine from the fruit bowl. She’s a big fan, which is why I keep them around. Angrily, I drive my finger into the bottom of it, into the soft, loose peel. I focus everything on that goddamned peel and rip it off, trying to give my fury a place to go. Then I steady myself again and hand a slice to her. I crouch down in front of the sofa and make

sure the blanket is doubled up over her feet. “Did he say he was coming back?” She looks at me sadly. And shakes her head. “He just left you? On the street?” She blinks slowly. “He pushed the button.” The rage is so intense that I actually crush the tangerine so it drips juice from my fist. When I get my hands on that motherfucking piece of a sorry excuse for a shitbag… That’s when I catch Annie staring. I know she’s trying to take her cues from me. If I get mad, she’ll melt down. She’s like a tiny emotional barometer. So, as calmly as I can, I wipe the tangerine juice off on my pants, take my phone from the coffee table, and shoot Michael a text. Where the fuck are you? No answer. Nothing. Zip. She’s safe, for your fucking information You shithead Still nothing at all. Annie smiles a little bit more, her tear-stained cheeks brightening as How It’s Made moves on to tennis ball felt. Just looking at her makes my heart swell, filling me with so much love I feel dizzy. She deserves so much better than she’s gotten. So much better than she has. So much better than Michael for a dad. The thing is, I don’t give a shit about my brother. I’d prefer that he not be, say, dead in Lake Michigan. That would be awful for Annie. But right now, I honestly don’t give a shit where he is or if he’s okay. I just want to know what the fuck the deal is with Annie and what I do from here. Answer me or I’m filing a missing persons report. Waiting 24 hours? That’s bullshit. They’ll be on your ass like stink on shit. That’s when all my previous messages suddenly show as READ and I see he’s typing. The rage inside me is so thunderous, so fucking profound, I cannot see or hear or think. He is alive. He is able to type on his fucking phone. And that means he abandoned Annie on purpose.

Take her. I can’t do it. You fucking win.

You can’t do this, Michael. It’ll crush her. It’s already fucking done. Peace out, you motherfucker. Take good care of her. I know you will.

I stare at the words. I don’t know how he got to be so hard, so awful, so mean. But he’s always been that way. Born bad. The kid that our minister in Odessa would pray over a little harder than all the rest. No fucking wonder at all. With a flip of my finger, I move to the phone icon and call him. “The pay-as-you-go Verizon customer you have called cannot…” Which is when I just know, I can feel, that he’s gone. Forever. Phone disconnected, Annie offloaded. He’s got nothing to stay here for. And I know I’ll never have to see his face again. Which is good news for him, the piece of shit. I hit END and turn my phone over in my fingers. On the screen, huge bolts of bright green felt spin and spin. The logical half of me is fucking elated. I tried to fight for her in a failed battle in family court. I have tried to tell him I’d take her so he can spend his life getting riproaring drunk and losing his shirt on dog fights or whatever-the-fuck. But the other half of me, the half that is like Michael and my father and my uncles and my grandpa, he is so fucking angry, so fucking furious, so fucking enraged…

49

MARY

I press on the intercom button once, and then a second time. Instead of him buzzing me in, my phone vibrates in my purse. I place my pie on the top of the intercom box and pull it out of the side pocket. Code is 7441. Come on in. My heart flutters in my chest as I punch in the numbers. I wonder what in the world he could have planned for me. What if Bridget is right? What will I say? I look at my bare ring finger on my left hand. Yes. The only thing to say is yes. Because I adore him. I do. I love every moment we spend together. And I want to know more and more, unraveling out through time. For today. For tomorrow. For everything that comes next. Up the elevator I go, and then down the hallway. From about ten feet away, I can see it’s ajar, but no Post-it. No message. Nothing naughty. Inside, I hear a television. I don’t smell anything particularly like Thanksgiving. The apartment is mostly dark and very still. The first thing I see is a raw turkey on the island, and next to it, six very, very over-risen crescent rolls. The oven light is on, but not the oven itself. My heart sinks. What is going on here? What happened? I place the pie on the counter and turn the corner into the living room. There I see Jimmy on the couch with Annie in his arms. “Sleeping,” he mouths to me. His brother isn’t here, I can feel that in the air. It’s just the two of them. His eyes hold mine in the flickering light of the television, and I see his face is stern, tired, serious. “What happened?” I mouth back. Looking down at Annie, he untangles her hair a little and she sticks her thumb in her mouth, curling up into a little ball. He stands up with her in his arms and then sets her back down again, making sure she’s covered up tightly, taking special care to make sure her head is on the pillow. He signals toward the bathroom, and I follow him. He’s already got the doorknob in his hand as I walk through, and he

latches it shut behind us. “What happened? Is she sick?” Pinching the bridge of his nose, he grinds his teeth from side to side. “The motherfucker left her.” “Oh, Annie.” The poor little thing. The poor sweet little girl. “She’s fine, or she will be,” Jimmy says. What he doesn’t say, and doesn’t have to, is that he isn’t fine. Now he’s like a caged animal, pacing around. “She fucking showed up on her own, and her jacket wasn’t even zipped. Can you fucking believe that asshole? It’s fifteen degrees out there and she’s walking around with her mittens dangling and her jacket undone. The bastard.” “Is Michael okay?” “Fuck Michael.” I take a step back. Being in here reminds me of footage I’ve seen of when lion tamers get stuck in the cage with the lion. I know I am safe, but I don’t feel it. Because he is furious. Furious in a way I hoped I’d never see him. Jimmy shakes his head, gnawing on his lip. “He split. He finally did it. On Thanksgiving fucking Day,” he says, this deep, dark snarl down in his voice. He smacks his fist hard into his palm. “Can you even fucking believe it?” That sound, the fist hitting his palm, startles me, and I step back farther. He’s so wound up, he doesn’t even notice. And again, he’s pacing, the muscles of his jaw twitching, his neck tight and tense. He is a volcano right now, and in his eyes, I can see the kind of fury and heat and anger that I never ever wanted to see again as long as I lived. Mary. It’s okay. It’s not the same. You know this. It’s him. It’s Jimmy. It’s just Jimmy. But this isn’t the Jimmy I know. This isn’t a Jimmy I’ve ever seen. And this Jimmy is terrifying me. I take his hands in mine. “It’s fine. You know that. I think she’s lucky to have you.” But nothing I’m saying is getting through to him. He’s probably been stewing for hours and wouldn’t let Annie see him explode. The stewing. The churning. The explosion. This is not the same. This is a different man. You are different. Everything is different. He starts pacing again, working his hand into a fist once more. “Jimmy, just calm down,” I say. “It’s going to be okay.” It’s like I can hear the snap in the air. He takes two strides and gets in my face. “Fuck that, Mary. It’s not going to be okay. Ever. Not for that little girl there.” He points toward the living room. “Her dad left her. On the fucking street. On Thanksgiving. When she was three years old…” Which is when he winds up with that huge hand of his, his muscles pulling at the fabric of his shirt, and lets loose with a punch into the drywall, straight through to the studs. I hear the pieces crumble down between the boards.

The smell of gypsum, that absolutely unmistakable powdery mineral smell, fills the room. Jimmy extracts a bloody hand from the hole. He turns to me with this fury in his eyes, this anger… And now it’s my turn to hear a snap. The fear is so sudden, so instantaneous, so primal and simple, that it almost feels peaceful. I will not be a part of this. I cannot be here. I will not be here. I feel like I am watching myself from above. I feel like I am not me at all. And then I watch myself pick up my purse and back out of the room. And take off running down the hall.

When I get back to my building, I walk up the steps in a stunned haze and trail my fingers along the torn patterned wallpaper as I make my way to our apartment door. I fumble for my keys and turn the deadbolt, suddenly feeling weak and desperately in need of my bed. From the sounds coming from the television and the vague smell of something baking, I know that Bridget hasn’t even left for her parents’ yet. I walk through the front door and drop my purse on the ground. She pokes her head around the corner of the hallway, her hair high in curlers. “What the hell are you doing here?” It’s then that my lips start to tremble and the world starts to get fuzzy and blurry. She wraps her arms around me. “What happened?” “He got so angry, Bridge,” I say into the sleeve of her robe. “He got so angry, and I just couldn’t be there.” My sobs come out jagged and hard. “I just couldn’t be in that room with him. He punched…” I clutch into her somewhat damp terrycloth and find myself crumpling to the floor. “Did he hit you?” “No!” I scream-sob. “No. But Bridget…” She pulls me closer and smooths my hair over and over. “It’s okay. I know… You’ve got a thing with all that.” A thing. It’s not just a thing. It’s a totally all-encompassing terror. I’m crying so hard that I can hardly breathe now, and I feel her guiding me toward the kitchen. I slide down one of the cabinets into a ball, and Frankie comes over, crawling up into my lap. He puts his paws on my chest and licks my tears. “Come on, you,” she says to Frankie and gives him a bully stick. “You go work on that. She’ll be okay.” I sniffle hard, so hard that I make a kind of horrible honking, and Frankie tilts his head, whacking me in the shin with the stick. Bridget slides down onto the floor too, and hands me the container of screwdrivers. I take a big gulp and then another. She nods at me the way nurses do when they’re watching patients take a dose of

something therapeutic. “Drink up,” she says, taking one of the curler pins from the hot rollers so that one long curl of her hair spills down her shoulder, like we’re in a different century altogether. “And tell me what the hell is going on.”

“I can’t handle it, Bridget,” I say, just like I’ve said again and again. “I can’t be with a man who gets angry like that.” Bridget rubs her lips together and takes a mixing bowl from one of the nearby cabinets. She unwinds one roller after another, placing them in the bowl nestled in her lap. “I can’t leave you here,” Bridget says. “There’s no way I’m just going to go to Mom and Dad’s with you like this.” I put my forehead to my knees. “I’m okay. I’ll watch Stranger Things and cry myself to sleep.” But then the tears start all over again. That kid with the teeth is my hero. “Bridget, I fell so hard for him. How could I be so stupid? I don’t even know him.” A ringback tone fills the kitchen. Bridget has her phone on speaker. For one instant, I think she must be calling Jimmy. Interfering, as ever, and making a mess when she really shouldn’t… Except it’s her mom that answers. “You better get here quick, honey. Your father is circling the stuffing and you know I can’t hold him.” My heart aches…for the stuffing I’ll never make for Jimmy, for the pecan pies I will never see him eat, for the pumpkin pies I will never make for him. For all the things I was so close to having and will never have with him again. “Is there room for one more?” Bridget asks. “Don’t tell me you got a flat tire and met a man. Again,” her mom says in that strange, clipped Gold Coast accent of hers. “Mom!” Bridget snarls. “Once. One time!” “Twice, Bridget Shaw. Twice.” Bridget flares her nostrils. “It’s Mary. She’s up shit creek and I can’t leave her here.” “Well, why the heck didn’t you say it was Mary?” her mom asks. “Of course she’s welcome. Of course! But be quick about it, dumplings. I’ve got a hungry man here, and he wants to get back to his football. Say, Mary. Are you still dating that dashing quarterback?” Cue silent ugly-cry sob.

50

JIMMY

As Annie sleeps, I try to call Mary over and over again. After the sixth try, that flame of anger rises and I toss my phone across the couch. Which is inconvenient, because if I want to call her a seventh time—which I most definitely fucking do— I’m going to have to move Annie. So instead, I just take a moment. A new episode of How It’s Made begins, and of course, because the world is an asshole, it says this episode features citronella candles, frozen orange juice, pasta makers, and…boxing gloves. “Fuckers,” I whisper at the screen, which makes Annie stir in my arms. I feel fucking terrible for what happened. Never in my life have I actually punched a wall, not until today, when the shitstorm that is Michael blew up my life. With my palm, I touch Annie’s forehead to see if she’s hot. She is hot—she’s a hot sleeper, like me, and is now a hot little ball of hair and sweat—so I move one of the blankets off her, and then another. The logistics of this shit are nightmarish. I don’t even own a houseplant, that’s how much I travel. And now, I’ve got a kid. I’ve got a kid. Annie is mine. Fuck. All sorts of things—details, ideas, plans, legal forms—fill my head. First and foremost is to legally adopt her; no way is Michael taking her back, jerking her around. He’s done enough damage. She should probably see a child psychologist as soon as fucking possible, because if there’s any chance of undoing god-awful parenting and the fact that she got left by first her mom, and then her dad, the sooner she starts talking it out, the better. I also wonder if she’s been to a doctor in a year. If she’s up to date on her vaccines, if she’s even growing normally. He never fed her enough, no matter how much money I gave him. Bastard. None of it, though, is any more important than Mary. Because I know I can take care of Annie, but I don’t want to do any of it without her by my side, and I won’t ever get the chance if I lose her today. I let my head fall back onto the couch cushions. “A worker double-stitches the seams of the boxing gloves….”

Cradling Annie in my arms, I stretch out to grab my phone. I’m heartbroken to see she hasn’t texted me and hasn’t called in the two minutes since I had it out of my hands. I saw the fear in her eyes, the terror when I pulled my hand out of the wall. I remember what she said to me at dinner, about violence and anger. About her ex. I remember saying, “You don’t have to worry about that with me.” But I know I lied, without meaning to. The anger. The fucking Falconi fuse. I have tried so hard to keep down for so many years. I max out at two beers because of the anger. I meditate because of the anger. That shit follows me around like the proverbial black dog. It’s part of me, and one I know how to manage. But not today I didn’t. Not today. Which means I’m the only one to blame if I’ve lost her. I can’t let myself think that. I can’t go there. Not yet. For now, I have to focus on what’s in front of me, which is Annie, and a game tomorrow. Christ. So I pick up my phone and call Valdez. In the background, there is chaotic noise, people laughing and clinking glasses. “Happy Thanksgiving, man!” Valdez says. “Bear, I need a favor.” “Ándale, sure. You name it!” In my mind’s eye, I see his mom. The plump, pretty, soft-spoken lady that once made me four dozen empanadas for my birthday. María Del Carmen. María. Mary. Fuck. It might just be that everything will remind me of her, forever. “I need to know if your mom can look after Annie this weekend. I need someone to spoil her rotten,” I say. “I need to know she’s safe.” He doesn’t even ask her. “Of course, hombre. Of course. She’d be honored. Listen, you wanna come over? We’re about to sit down and play some Chutes and Ladders.” A wave of sadness rips through me for the big family he has. The love. The chaos. The wife… “I’m good. But thanks.” “You okay?” Valdez asks. No, I’m not. I’m definitely fucking not. But I say I am and end the call. Scooping her up in my arms, I cradle Annie to my chest while I make a kind of bed out of the sofa for her, an envelope of blankets. I lay her down inside and make sure her head is on the pillow again. Sound asleep, her thumb moves to her mouth. I situate her giraffe next to her and cover her up. Once in the kitchen, I try not to let myself look at the turkey or the rolls or the sorry excuse for sweet potatoes that I was going to try to make. Instead, I take out a two-pound bag of chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs and arrange them on a plate. I stick it in the microwave for thirty seconds and then sort of slump down over the sink. Which is when I see her pie, a beautiful pecan pie in a glass pan. With a handful of the pecans arranged in a heart on top. I hear a rustling from the sofa, and Annie sits up. Her hair is a mess on top of her

head, and she’s clutching the blanket in her little fingers, glancing around. “Daddy?” The microwave dings, and I open the door. “He’s not here tonight, Jellybean.” She looks confused, but then slowly it all comes back to her. I crouch down in front of her, my knees cracking, and I clean a little bit of drool off the corner of her mouth. “You’re staying here. With me.” She crumples her brow. “Where’s Mary?” Jesus Christ. I cannot handle this. My nose stings with welling tears. I will not cry in front of her. I will not melt down. I shake my head again. And she frowns so hard that her bottom lip comes out. The pain inside me is like a bloody gash on my heart. I haven’t known Mary long enough to know how to reason with her, but I’ve known her just long enough to be more sure about that woman than anything I’ve ever known in my life. I take Annie’s tiny hand in mine, and I see her studying my own furrowed brow. “How come you’re sad, Uncle Jimmy?” Sad. Fuck, yes. Sad. Heartbroken, on Thanksgiving. I look into her gray-blue eyes, and steel myself to lie to her for her own good, for the very first time. “I’m okay, Jellybean. Let’s get you something to eat.” I hoist her up in my arms, and she clings to my neck, pressing her face to my cheek. With my one free arm, I get her Dino Nuggets arranged on a plate. “You want ketchup?” She leans back and looks at the plate, then she shakes her head. “Honey.” “Honey,” I say. Of course.

51

MARY

After dinner, Bridget’s parents fall asleep next to one another on the sofa, her mom in a tidy ball under a chenille afghan, her dad sprawled out with his mouth wide open and his feet up on an ottoman trimmed with gold tassels. Bridget and I clean up together in the kitchen, and I immerse myself in the rhythm of soap, rinse, soap, rinse, dry, of bone china plates so thin you can see light coming through the scalloped edges. The china put away, and the big balloon glasses drying upside down next to the sink on a dishtowel, the two of us listen to the noise of the waves on the lake. Bridget asks me if I love him, and I shove a cold roll in my mouth. She asks me what I’m going to do now, and I fill my mouth with whipped cream so I don’t have to answer that either. And we drink: vodka tonics and then wine and then port, which —added to the screwdrivers—leaves me more-than-a-little tipsy by the time we get to the pumpkin pie. We don’t even bother with plates, digging into the center of the custard with the fine silver that belonged to her grandma, the forks strangely small with pointed tines. And then my phone buzzes. Again. “He’s persistent,” Bridget says. “I’ll give him that much.” My phone dances around on the kitchen counter, scootching closer and closer to an untouched bowl of cranberry sauce. “I’ll leave you to it.” Bridget takes the pie and shuffles out of the kitchen in her socks. “Answer the phone, Mary. Hear him out. Don’t be a chickenshit.” With a deep breath, I pick it up and answer. “Oh fuck, thank God,” he says. “At first, I thought you were just mad. Then I thought something had happened to you. Then I was sure something had—” “Jimmy.” He stops short. “I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t know what happened to me.” I steady myself on the edge of the table as the world spins gently around me. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Like I first learned to box to protect myself. Like I can’t stand yelling. So much you don’t know. So much we don’t know about each other. And this has all been so fast, Jimmy. So fast. I just...” A door creaks on his end, and when he starts talking again, his voice is echoey

and strange. He’s either in the bathroom or the hallway. Both places full to the ceiling with memories already. “I totally get that.” I open my eyes and the kitchen wobbles. I pick up a fork and make a crosshatch pattern in the cranberry sauce. “You do?” “Of course I fucking do,” he says softly. “It’s been intense, but Mary… I don’t want to be any other way with you. I want to love you so hard that it takes your breath away.” “Do you?” I spin the fork around in a small circle. “Love me?” “Fuck yes, you have to know that. You have to know I love you fucking senseless. To the moon and back. I love you. I do.” It’s been so long since I've heard those words that they don’t sound real. He said something like it in bed, that he wanted me to let him love me. But he didn’t actually say it. Not the three words. Not until now. After a moment of thinking silence, he says, “I bought you a ring, you know that?” My heart feels so full I think my ribs might burst. I suck in a quick breath. “You did…?” “Fuck yes, I did. And it’s here. Waiting for you. When you’re ready to come back.” I look out the big picture windows at the moonlit shore. I listen to the wind. “Will you come back? Please.” I want to love you so hard it takes your breath away. “Come back. Come home,” he says, with a quiver in his voice. Home. He has swept me completely off my feet, so even now I feel like I’m floating, ungrounded and almost lost. I don’t even know what day it is, really. I’ve lost track of everything except him. But I know I can’t just traipse back to his house. I am too rattled, too upset, too unsteady—never mind the drinks. It’s just been too much to face all over again, at this hour. And especially because we now have to be strong for Annie. No way am I walking back into that apartment tonight to face that hole in the wall, and him, and the fact that I was totally chickenshit, and I see that now. “You have to give me some time, Jimmy. Just a day or two.” He lets out a huge, slow, peaceful breath. “I’ll give you whatever you want. Whatever you need.” His voice is crackly with tears. “Just don’t give up on me. Not yet.” I feel the tears too. I want to be with him. I know I want to be with him. I know that I bolted like a scared rabbit. I look around the kitchen, at the calendar pinned to the wall. I see a turkey-shaped sticker stuck to today. “Jimmy…” I put one finger to the calendar. “What day is it?” “Thursday. Thanksgiving.” “No, I mean… is it the 28th?” “Yeah.”

If I thought my heart was in the storm cellar a minute ago, it’s now boring downwards through the earth. If today is the 28th…that means… I blink over and over again at the calendar. I take it off the wall and look back, at the Monday after Halloween. “Are you okay? Are you still there, Mary?” “You’re sure?” I stare at the Birds of The Great Lakes calendar. A rather menacing-looking loon peers back at me from the photo as if to say, Oh yes. Yes indeed… “Yeah, I’m sure. Why? We play the Colts tomorrow. In Indianapolis. 29th. So today is definitely the 28th.” Running my finger down November, I count the weeks. Then the days. My period…is almost a week late I stand there, absolutely stunned, for I don’t know how long. Jimmy says, “Listen. I don’t want you to come to the game tomorrow. I’m fine, and I want you to have all the space you need.” “Jimmy…” But I don’t go on. What am I going to tell him? I’m almost a week late, which is unlike me but not always and so, you know, maybe there’s something to say? Possibly? Or that it’s possible all this emotion and upheaval just made me late, so don’t worry, but maybe keep it in the back of your mind that I might be… Pregnant? No. I can’t do that to him. Not yet. Not tonight. He’s been through enough for one day. And tomorrow, he might need a good distraction, but not this kind of distraction. “Will you stay in Indianapolis or will you come home after the game?” “Home. Fuck,” he says, his voice crackling again. “Yeah. I’ll be home. Tomorrow night, late.” The words are already formed in my head before I say them. So clear, so obvious, so simple, I don’t know why I haven’t said them a hundred times before. “I love you, Jimmy. I’m sorry about today.” He exhales, long and relieved. “I love you too. So fucking much, Mary. So fucking much.” And then he’s gone. But it’s all happening to someone else again. I realize I’m standing here, tipsy, and very possibly… Carrying Jimmy Falconi’s baby. Which is when Bridget walks in with Frankie in her arms. “Everything okay?” “Bridget,” I say, planting my hand on the loon’s face on the calendar. “We need to get a pregnancy test. Right now.” And for the first time in as long as I’ve known her, her mouth drops right open and not a single word comes out.

In an instant, we are in the car. Bridget gets in the driver’s seat and rolls down all the windows, and the cold air blows through the Wrangler, a classic Bridget Shaw sobering-up move. “Are you okay to drive?” I ask her, because I most definitely am not. I’m also so furious with myself. How did I not know? What will happen to the baby with all this wine, all this port? And the screwdrivers? The baby. Oh my God, the baby. Our baby. His baby. Inside me. My heart picks up, and I realize I’m not terrified. I’m not worried. I’m absolutely over the moon. So happy, in fact, that I can hardly talk. Panicked and petrified, but totally and purely in love with it all. It’s like it’s split open my cold heart. “Hell yes. I’ve been drinking like this since I was 21. I’m good. So buckle up, gorgeous. Time to see if the NuvaRing failed you or not.” Off we go, down her parents’ long, winding driveway, and barrel toward a nearby White Hen. “What’ll you do if you are?” she asks, with her hands at nine and three. She glances at my stomach. Almost instinctively, my hand goes to my belly. “I…” “Never mind!” She guns the engine. “No point worrying about it until we know for sure.” Inside, the White Hen is shockingly bright, and it makes my puffy eyes sting. Bridget charges in first, with my hand in hers. The guy at the counter jumps as we go through the dinging eye, jolting himself awake with a snort. “Evening!” he says. Bridget takes utter and complete control of the situation, looping her arm around mine and dragging me down the first-aid aisle. There, down at the bottom, is a First Response test boasting that it’s the ONLY BRAND THAT CAN TELL YOU SIX DAYS SOONER! “Sooner than what?” I ask, peering at it, trying to see the suspiciously fine print in the corner. “Never mind! Doesn’t apply to you.” She snatches it up and opens the box, pulling one of the plastic-wrapped tests out and putting it in my hand along with a neatly folded directions sheet printed on tissue-thin paper. “Oh my God, I can’t do it here, can I?” I glance at the window, at the back side of a blinking OPEN 24 HOURS sign on the window. “What, you want my mom hovering, asking you if you’d want some more mulled wine? Go on!” she says, and pushes me toward the bathroom while she heads to the front desk to pay. The little bathroom is too bright, and smells overwhelmingly of apples and cinnamon air freshener. My hands are shaking so hard that I have to use my teeth to open the pouch. I pull down my leggings and my underwear and attempt to read the instructions. I first try to read them in Spanish—for an embarrassingly long

time—before I realize that’s not English, not English at all, and flip the sheet over. I place the directions on my leg and go down, step by step, with my finger moving along each line. I start peeing and stick the end of the stick into the stream. I count out five Mississippis, and then stop peeing. I hold the stick downwards and put on the cap exactly like it says. And now I prepare to wait for three minutes. Three minutes. I grab my phone from my purse and look at the time. 10:51 p.m. Part of me knows I should call him. I need to call him. He needs to know. But part of me is just still so utterly flabbergasted that I don’t even know what I’m thinking, or what to do, or where I am. But I do know this: I am so happy, so elated, so excited, that I have to blink back a new wave of tears. 10:52 p.m. says my phone. I don’t stand up from the toilet. I glance at the test, but nothing seems to be happening yet. So I close my eyes. And wait. I think of Jimmy on that couch with Annie, that sweetheart of a little girl who has had the worst and best day of her life, even though she doesn’t know it. Because she is lucky, so unbelievably lucky, to have ended up with Jimmy. Who is kind and caring and would never ever let anything bad happen to her ever again. Or me. Or our baby. As if it were a flipbook, it all spreads out in front of me. Every moment, every appointment, his hand in mine. Him, too big next to me in waiting rooms; him, talking up half the delivery room, wearing a paper cap. I open my eyes again. Still 10:52. I grab a handful of toilet paper from the big industrial dispenser, and the time flips to 10:53. But then, as I reach between my legs to wipe, my heart stops. I feel a very familiar sensation. I look at the paper. And see a tiny, faint smudge of blood. The sob of disappointment shoots from my mouth before I can stop it, and Bridget storms in. “Are you?” With my hand to my mouth, still on the toilet, I shake my head and lose sight of her behind tears. I am suddenly, unexpectedly, utterly crushed by the thing I only thought I had for a moment, and had no idea at all how much I’d wanted all along. I hadn’t feared it at all, but had wanted it with a want so deep down, so bone-sure, that I misunderstood it completely. “No,” I sob. “I’m not. But oh God, Bridge. I wish so badly that I were.” I drop the test to the ground and crumple the instructions in my hand. And then the tears start coming in a flood. I feel my thighs slide to the side of the toilet seat, and to my left, Bridget’s jeans against my bare skin. Her arms wrap all the way around me, and I let my wet face fall into her perfect loose curls.

52

JIMMY

By my count, I’ve played in almost a thousand games, if you go all the way back to the days in Odessa when I was five years old and my helmet felt so heavy on my head that I thought I might topple over like a Pez dispenser. But hands down, this game, this one beginning right fucking now, is probably the biggest and the most important of all. And she isn’t here. But I can feel her with me. I taped up my leg just like she did. On the sidelines is Curtis, not Mary, but I can hear her voice in my ears as I lower down into the huddle. I love you, Jimmy. And I’m sorry. We’re facing the Colts, who have a defensive line about as friendly as a cellblock in Attica. I don’t know where they find these guys, but it’s uncanny. About half of them have spider web tattoos on their elbows, and the other half look mean enough to have killed the tattoo artist before he even loaded the ink in the gun. At the start of the fourth quarter, we’re tied, 7-7. So far, it’s gone fine. A few shit-ass calls and a few gimmes. The biggest problem, though, is the fucking catastrophe spilling from the sky. What weathermen call a “wintery mix” and what we call “bullshit.” It’s do or die. And Valdez, wearing a tight thermal shirt under his jersey, rubs his hands together. “You ready?” Fuck yes. Ready as I’ll ever be. “Yeah.” Together, we jog out onto the field. Snap goes the ball. I make a pass completion to Martins, who bobbles it, but catches it before skidding out of bounds. It’s a yard-by-yard game, and so we inchworm down the field. But at the third down, I fumble, and one of the defenders scoops it up right in front of my eyes and takes off running, his footprints the only sign he was here as he bolts out into the snow. There’s a moment there, at about the fifty, when I can just barely see him, when he almost loses his footing. But the guy’s got momentum with him, and surprise, and all the adrenaline of a game-winning nab fueling him.

It isn’t ten seconds later that the crowd erupts in cheers. I look up at the sky, at the snow in the night, lit up brightly by the lights. “What, you fucking praying?” Valdez says. And I realize that yes, holy fuck, I am. “I don’t know what else to do.” He laughs and gets on one knee, making the sign of the cross up at the lights. “We’ll make a Guatemalteco out of you yet, ése. Just you wait and see.” But whatever it is, the Virgin of Guadalupe, or God, or Joe Namath, or hope and luck and everything in between, it works. They miss the extra point kick, just barely, and it bounces back onto the field, ricocheting off the upright. We take the field again and I glance up at the play clock. I get the first down on the first try, but then the defense closes ranks. In the next two downs, we make it a total of negative two yards. The play clock ticks, ticks, ticks. 20. 19. 18. And Radovic takes a time out. We hustle to the sidelines while the grounds crew clears away the snow from the sidelines with small plastic shovels too light to dig up the turf. In the huddle, we don’t say much. It’s obvious what we have to do. Running is almost fucking out of the question, it’s so slick. So it’s the one pass that you never want to make. The one pass I know I can make if conditions are perfect. The Hail Mary. We get in formation. Through the snow, the crowd roars at us, trying to make it so we can’t hear ourselves think. But the wintery mix is on our side, and dampens the catcalls and the fuck yous and the boos that rumble up around us, never quite getting to our ears. As we get into position, the world becomes so strangely, so perfectly quiet. It is the same sound as when I kissed her that first night, not very long ago at all, on the street. For a long moment, before the snap, I’m in every winter game I’ve ever played. There is snow, there is steam, there is ice. There’s the groaning one-ness of the offensive line, a mass of muscle on each side of me. The fullbacks chatter like birds. The tight ends are serious. And Valdez’s eyes are right on mine. We spread out, the old run-and-shoot, and my wide receiver takes off running. I back up. I pump fake. And then I let loose with a long, say-your-prayers throw. Hail Mary. Full of grace… My wide receiver leaps, his arms extend. The ball lands between his palms, and as he pulls it to his chest, a puff of steam surrounds his face. We did it. Holy fuck. But then I’m airborne. And everything is dark. And silent.

53

MARY

The catch is good, and the Bears have pulled it out with a Hail Mary pass so magnificent it took even the announcer’s breath away. I have been watching so closely that my eyes sting from not blinking. So finally, I do blink. Just once. That’s when Bridget screams like she’s been stabbed. I open my eyes and see Jimmy lying on the field. Motionless. Clusters of Bears and Colts, too, gather around him, suddenly brought together by something horrible, something awful, something unthinkable, that has happened to my Jimmy Falconi. They replay the hit, over and over, in nauseating slow motion. Jimmy let go of the ball, and from his right, one of the Colts hit him low and hard, so hard that his feet came right off the ground and he flew through the air like a rag doll. The announcers are eerily quiet, the crowd hushed. They flash to cold, huddledtogether faces of fans, bundled up in duffel coats and scarves and hats, all of them looking terrified. They zoom in on the Colts’ head coach, with his hand clenched in a fist, pressed to his nose. Eyes closed. Praying. “Oh God, Bridget, please tell me this is normal…” I say with my face in my hands, on my knees on the rug in front of the television. “Please tell me this happens all the time…” She says nothing at all, except for a very, very quiet, “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” over and over under her breath. A cluster of team medics run out from both sides of the field. The circle of players around him opens up. Helmets come off. Valdez, right there beside him, falls to one knee and makes the sign of the cross. Still, Jimmy is motionless. “He’ll be okay,” Bridget tells me. “Quarterbacks take hard hits all the time.” A minute passes. Maybe more. The announcers say grim things about concussion statistics and quarterback injuries this year. All I can think is that he isn’t a number, he isn’t a new case in a line of many. He’s Jimmy Falconi. The man I love. And he isn’t moving.

But as the people gathered on the field make way not for a golf cart but for an ambulance, and as the medics slide him across the icy ground onto a backboard, I know that what Bridget said isn’t true. This isn’t just a hard hit. This is the nightmare that I never imagined. Automatically, I put on my boots and grab my jacket. Bridget is in a ball on the couch with her knees to her chest. Wincing. And as the announcer says, “The NBC Sports family just wants to say that we are praying for Jimmy Falconi and his loved ones. We’ll keep you updated…” I’m grabbing my keys and running down the steps. To get to Indianapolis as fast as I can.

At Indiana University Hospital, I find Radovic in the waiting room. His eyes are puffy and he’s pacing back and forth. I take him by the shoulders. “Where is he?” He holds his hand out in front of his mouth and closes his eyes. I see a sob sneaking up behind his lips. “Please don’t tell me he’s gone,” I say, feeling so far away, so lost. Broken and empty. Radovic shakes his head violently and points at the hallway, still speechless. At the nurses’ station, I find a nurse in purple scrubs with a clipboard. “I’m looking for James Falconi.” The woman glares at me. “Honey. You and half of America.” “No, but seriously, I need to see him,” I tell her, grasping her forearm. She narrows her eyes, her fake lashes fluttering. “You family?” I hate lying. But sometimes, you’ve just got to fake it a little bit. “I’m his fiancée.” I rip off my glove and show her my Claddagh. “We’re Irish.” The nurse is clearly too tired to mince words, or rings, or ask why it’s on my right hand. Instead, she says, “All right then, come with me.” She leads me down a long hallway and across through a nurses’ station. I see x-rays of shattered bones on screens. MRIs. Doctors milling around quietly. Somewhere, I hear the noise of a respirator kicking on and off. “What happened to him?” I ask the nurse. She looks at me over her shoulder, her long, dark braids swishing down her back. “It’s a concussion. He’s unconscious.” “Is he paralyzed?” I say, standing aside for a team of doctors zipping past with someone on a gurney. “Too early to say.” She opens the door to his room. “He won’t wake up.”

They have him in this contraption to keep his neck still. I grip cold metal bars surrounding his bed and force myself, absolutely force myself, to remain calm.

“Jimmy,” I whisper. His face is still and stoic. He’s got his greasepaint on his cheeks and a red flush of windburn on his nose. I step closer and take his still hand in mine. “Jimmy, I’m here.” The machines beep back their dismal, heartbreaking reply. I look from screen to screen to get some sense of his vitals. Everything is normal, it seems. His heartbeat strong, his pulse oxygen just right. But he is not here. He is not with me. As the nurse leaves us, I grab his chart and thumb through, trying to make sense of it. But like she said, it’s too early to know anything at all. So I put the chart back on the hook and move to his side. Wetting my thumb in my mouth, I rub at the greasepaint. It only makes it worse, smudging it badly and leaving my thumb black and slippery. From my purse, I take a tube of hand lotion and dab a little on a tissue. With gentle, careful strokes, I rub all the blackness from under his eyes. “I think you should really wake up now,” I tell him, after a long minute or two of nothing but his machines beeping, beeping, beeping, during which I get stuck in the loop that is the worst-case scenario. What will happen to Annie? Does he have other family? It doesn’t matter. I’ll take her, of course I will. We’ll make it work. But the tears start coming. Because I don’t think I can do it, not without him. I hear footsteps approaching, and turn to see Valdez filling up the doorway. He looks at me worriedly, and then back at Jimmy. “What’s the story?” he asks. I whisper, “I don’t know.” I grip Jimmy’s hand hard in both of mine. Valdez steps inside the room, cautiously placing one massive foot in front of the other, as if trying to be as quiet as possible. He puts a duffel bag on the floor with FALCONI printed on the outside. “That’s his stuff. I didn’t know what else to…” Valdez says, shifting his eyes from me to Jimmy, overcome with sadness. “It’s okay,” I whisper, reaching out one of my hands for his. “It’s okay. He’ll be okay.” “You don’t know that.” Tears fall from his big deep-set eyes. His hand is rough and cold in mine, not at all like Jimmy’s. Jimmy’s breathing is eerie and regular. I bring his knuckles to my lips and give myself just a few seconds of utter, profound, heart-breaking terror before forcing myself to be calm once again. Valdez lets go of my hand and turns to go. Outside the room, he’s met by Radovic. I watch them wordlessly come together, holding on to each other so tightly that it untucks Radovic’s shirt. Off to the right, Curtis watches me worriedly, his arms crossed and his jaw set. Using my foot, I pull the duffel closer, take it by the handles and put it on my lap. I know I shouldn’t snoop, but I don’t know what else to do. If I don’t keep my mind busy, I will fall to pieces. And I know enough about major head injury to know that he can hear me, he understands, he’s not sleeping. He’s in there. Somewhere. I keep his hand in one of mine, but with the other, slowly unzip the bag. Inside is one of the books I got for him at Barnes & Noble, The Mind of the Champion.

Glancing around, I realize that unless I plan to read to him from Better Homes and Gardens, this is the best way to keep myself occupied for the time being. If I just start babbling, I know I’ll lose it. And I will not let that happen. So it’s going to have to be this. “Okay, so, let’s see,” I say, opening up the dust jacket. The first things I see are diagrams. Tantra diagrams. “What…?” I peek under the dust jacket to see Tantra for Lovers. “Oh, you,” I whisper, smiling utterly in spite of myself. With a glance over my shoulder to make sure the coast is clear, I thumb through the pages to one he’s marked with a dog-eared corner and a small neat line of pen next to one of the paragraphs. If there is such a thing as true love, trust yourself to know it. Do not doubt it when you feel, in your heart, that you have found the one who can heal you, and laugh with you, and teach you. Believe in what you feel, first and always. Let the light of your lover’s eyes guide you home. I wipe the tears away, and then something else in his bag catches my eye. A red velvet ring box. With the tip of my finger, I trace the lid, and then the seam where the two halves meet, the superfine brass hinges that hold it all together. I lower my head to the cold edge of the bed. “Please, please wake up, Jimmy. Please. Last night, I didn’t tell you this, but I thought I was pregnant.” I sniffle at my lap. I watch my tears patter on my jeans. Then I take the ring box and touch the soft, fine velvet with my fingertips again. I place it on my thigh and let his duffel slide down to the ground at my feet. “I even took a test. I’ve never taken a pregnancy test before.” I start to cry all over again, because I’m strong, but I’m not strong enough for this. My voice gets squeaky and changes pitch as my nose stuffs up and a tear lands on the box. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m so sorry I didn’t call…” It’s then that I feel a squeeze of my hand. It’s so faint at first that I think I’ve imagined it. I think it can’t possibly be real. But slowly, it gets firmer and more solid. My breath gets caught in my throat, and I lift my head. I stare at him. “Can you hear me?” I whisper. “Jimmy. Can you hear me?” His mouth moves into that beautiful, all-American smile. “Don’t be sorry,” he says gruffly, opening one eye. “Oh my God. Jimmy,” I gasp, looking for more signs of movement. I pull my eyes away from his face and look to his toes. They start moving, his feet shift, he stretches his legs. He entwines his fingers in mine and places his other hand over my palm. “Are you pregnant?” I shake my head at him. I can’t even speak. I’m so happy I can’t even move. But somehow, behind the sobs and the gasps, I manage to say, “I wish I was.” His big chest rises and falls, and the heart monitor speeds up slightly. “Fuck. So

do I.” He smiles even harder, and straightens up in bed. “Will you do me a favor?” “Anything, let me call a nurse…” I reach for the little call box dangling on a reinforced wire from his bed. “Not yet.” He squeezes my hand and looks me in the eye. He reaches across his body and takes the ring box from my leg. Then he pops it open, revealing the prettiest, loveliest, biggest diamond I’ve ever seen in my life. He takes the ring from its plush velvet pillow and then holds it out to me between his thumb and forefinger. The ring moves down over my finger like it was made for me. It is too generous, it is too fancy, it is too everything. It is too perfect for words. “You have to stop crying before I can ask you.” There’s a little laugh in his voice. But I can’t. The joy, the happiness, the relief. The pure, simple gratitude for him, and this moment, and everything that waits for us. I sputter a sob and clap my hand to my mouth. “Are those happy tears or sad ones?” Somehow I manage a jagged, “Happy,” behind my palm. “So then, marry me, Mary Monahan. Let me make you so happy you cry every day, now until forever.”

54

JIMMY

Three months later.

As I walk through the revolving door of Chicago City Hall, I take off my Super Bowl ring and hand it to Valdez. “Got them?” Valdez says, taking my ring and putting it in his pocket as he adjusts his tie. I pat my own jacket pocket, where under my palm there are two small circles, her ring tiny compared to mine. Hers is rose gold, mine is white gold. Hers is fine, and mine is thick. But they were made by the same jeweler, engraved with our initials inside, and that quote from Rumi, modified. You have unfolded me. A one-of-a-kind pair. “All set.” Valdez takes me by the shoulders, straightens my lapels, and smooths my shirt collar. This is the same suit I was wearing that night I took her to Alinea. The note she left me in my door saying she’d meet me is still in my pocket, along with Annie’s final Certificate of Adoption from the state of Illinois. As Valdez fixes the rose pinned to my jacket, I fix his. Our eyes meet in the old familiar way that they would when he’d look at me before the snap. Serious. Focused. And intense. This moment feels just as important as the last snap of the last game, when the Bears became world champions at last. “You ready?” Valdez asks. That’s when I see her standing on the steps. To her left is Manny, who’s giving her away and is wearing a baby-blue leisure suit that would’ve made Elvis himself proud. To her right, Colonel Curtis in full uniform, with his hair extra high and tight. In front of her is Bridget, touching up Mary’s makeup. In one hand, Mary holds a bouquet of white roses. In the other, she is holding Annie’s hand, who’s looking up at her and talking. Mary smiles, laughing at something Annie said. She looks down her cheek, without tilting her head, and says something back. Annie nods a huge nod so that her shiny corn silk hair bobs up and down along the back of

her dress. Manny crouches down and puts a tiny wrist corsage on Annie’s hand, a single pink rose as big as a cupcake. “I’m ready,” I say, just as Mary spots me and gives me that big, perfect, beautiful, knockout smile. The smile she gave me when I woke up in the hospital. The smile she gave me from the sidelines as confetti fell from the ceiling of the Superdome. The smile she gives me every morning when she wakes up. The smile she gave me in the ring that day when my life changed forever with a single punch. She raises a finger to say one second and plucks her phone from her tiny purse. She looks so fucking beautiful; it takes my breath away. And the way she is with Annie is like something out of a dream. Her eyes meet mine as she puts her phone away. I start to walk across the busy lobby toward her, Valdez at my side. But then my phone buzzes in my jacket. Mary smiles again and lifts her eyebrows. There’s something there you need to see. I take it out. I open it up. And find a picture. Of a pregnancy test. With two perfect, beautiful lines. I don’t know if I hang on to my phone or drop it, because before I can think another thought, she is in my arms. “Are you?” I say against her hair, into the curve of her neck. “Yes!” she squeals as I twirl her off the steps. “I am.” “Is that okay?” I ask her, all choked up and really not even trying to keep it together anymore, because holy fuck the joy. She laughs into my cheek and then pulls back to look into my eyes. On the steps behind her, Annie reaches out for us, and I hoist her up in my arms. Mary’s eyes sparkle up at me, reflecting the light of the hanging chandeliers. She glances from me to Annie and back again. “I never knew I wanted it until you, Jimmy. But now I can’t think of anything else.” And just like that, she makes me the happiest man that ever was.

THE END To get an alert when Nicola releases her next book, please visit http://bit.ly/NicolaAlerts

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, to the real Frankie Knuckles. I saw you spin at the Manhole in Chicago one winter, and then at the Paramount in Santa Fe the next. You were a familiar face on two very strange nights, a very unexpected thread running through two different parts of my life. The Frankie in this book is named for you and your memory. Thank you to my husband, who is my rock and my very favorite person on the planet. Lars Vyordich forever. To my parents, thank you for everything, as always. I wish you could be on this wild ride with me; I am so grateful to you for giving me the courage to do it. To Neda Amini, I am so lucky to have you at the helm. You are patient and wonderful, and I would be so lost without your guidance. Najla Qamber, you are incredible. Thank you for working under the gun and bearing with me and my font issues. Thank you also to Lindee Robinson and Matthew Engelke for taking my crazy idea for a cover and making it into something perfect. To my editing team: Eagle, Abbie, and Kiezha. If I frame the house, you all make it ready for sale, and there is no book at all without you. To my extraordinary betas. To Snofner, both Ben and Vince understand your fickle heart. Kate, you were my first reader and the first sign that this book was going to be a success. And to the team of betas at Duckman, all of your feedback helped me make this book what it is. To Sarah, Christina, and Serena, thank you for being my cheerleaders and watchdogs. Long live the triplets. To the Peaches and the Motherbitches! Thank you, ladies, for being so fabulous to me. To the bloggers who have supported my work in so many ways. There are now simply too many of you to thank by name. I find that both delightful and astounding. I look forward to celebrating many more releases with you all in the years to come. A special thank you to Rachel Blaufield for featuring my work on USA Today’s HEA, and for calling my words “flammable.” Celia Aaron, thank you for being the E to my I, and for being my shoulder to lean on. Dani Wyatt, you nailed it. I am so glad to have you in my life. Sybil Wilson, let’s never end our fever dream. Lauren Blakely, thank you as always for being my fairy

godmother, and for your much-needed bursts of wisdom. Thank you also to the group of authors who supported Confessed; each one of you took the time to read my work and it remains absolutely astounding to me. Mara White and Ava Harrison, you have become like my big sisters in all this, and a better pair I couldn’t wish for. Jana Aston, thank you for answering my questions so patiently. Delaney Foster, as always, you are my delight. And Samantha Stroh Bailey, thank you for being you. Finally, to my readers. We are on this ride together and I couldn’t have better company. Thank you for supporting my stories and the work of all the authors you love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicola Rendell writes dirty, funny, erotic romance. She likes a stiff drink and a well-frosted cake. She loves to cook, sew, and play the piano. She realizes that her hobbies might make her sound like an old lady and she’s totally okay with that. She lives with her husband and her dogs. She is from Taos, New Mexico. @AuthorNRendell AuthorNRendell www.nicolarendell.com/contact