Sugar Rush (Offensive Line #1) (17 page)

COLT

November 16th

Children’s Hospital

Los Angeles, CA

I’ll never get used to this. I’ll never stop doing it, but I’ll never get used to it.

My stomach is tight, sick with the heavy hospital scent filling the lobby. I can’t ignore it. Not like they probably can. They live it because this is their home. Tied to machines by wires and tubes that beep and whir all night long, lulling them to sleep.

The kids aren’t the hardest part though. Kids are resilient. They’re hopeful. They’re stronger than any adult will ever dream to be. It’s the parents that kill me. That tired look in their eyes. The creases in the corner of their mouths. Frown lines. Worry etched in every feature, even when they’re smiling. Gray hairs. Trembling fingers. To give a kid life only to watch it be stripped from them breath by breath, I can’t imagine what it must be like to watch. It gives me a better understanding of my mom and how she must feel every time I take a hit.

I remind myself to call her when I’m done here.

“You’re Colt Avery, aren’t you?”

I look to my left to find a girl with white, blond hair, big green eyes, and some kind of blue uniform on. I think it’s the kind they wear in the gift shop. She’s looking up at me timidly.

“Yeah. Hey.” I offer her my hand.

Her cheeks flush red as cherries as she takes it delicately in hers. “It’s so cool to meet you.”

“Thanks. You too…”

Her blush deepens. “Garnet.”

“Garnet. Nice to meet you.”

“You’re here to visit the kids?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Oh my God, that’s so sweet. You’re really sweet.”

“It’s an act,” Tyus tells her bluntly. “He’s a jerk.”

I shake my head. “I’m not a jerk.”

“You are.” He addresses Garnet in a conspiratorial whisper. “He uses stray dogs for target practice on his property.”

“What property?” I demand.

“Wouldn’t the cops like to know?”

“You’re an asshole.”

Tyus shrugs, looking away, already bored with the conversation. “You’re the dog hunter, man. I don’t know why you’re mad at me.”

“Gentleman,” Beverly, our hospital liaison calls to us. “We’re ready if you are.”

I nod to Garnet. “Have a good one. Please don’t tell people I’m a puppy killer, okay, kid?”

“I’m nineteen,” she blurts out after me. “I’m legal.”

I pause, looking back at her passively. “For what?”

She hesitates, her mouth hanging open. She’s more shocked than anyone that she said it, but there’s no going back now.

I cast her a wry smile to soften her embarrassment. “It was just an expression. But happy nineteenth birthday. Kid.”

Beverly, a middle aged woman with a big ass and a bigger smile, quickly leads us out of the lobby, but not before giving Garnet a disapproving, motherly look.

Other people recognize us as we cruise down the long, wide corridors. They smile and wave, but no one else engages us. Tyus, Trey, and I are wearing our home jerseys over regular street clothes, making it easy for everyone to tell who we are. In addition to our agents, we’re followed by an intern from the team pulling a small cart full of Kodiak swag. Jerseys, shirts, blankets, pillows, photos, posters. He has a digital camera dangling from his neck and a wad of Sharpies sticking out of his pocket. I reach over and snag one as we walk down the long hall.

“Is this your first time at one of these?” I ask him.

He looks up at me gratefully. I don’t think anyone but Berny Shaw, Trey’s agent, has talked to the guy since we got here, and that was to tell him he was standing too close to the automatic doors. He was obliviously triggering it over and over again. “Yeah. They told me to make sure I had enough pens.”

“How many do you have?”

“Twenty.”

“For three of us?”

“Yeah. Is that not enough?”

I smile. “We’ll make it work.”

He nods, his face relieved.

Beverly stops at the end of a hall before it branches to the right and left. She turns to face us, a black clipboard hugged tightly to her chest. “This is where we have you scheduled today. I’ve warned everyone that you’ll meet as many of them as you can, but we know you’re very busy so we didn’t make any promises that you’ll get to everyone down this hall.”

“I’m here all day,” I tell her. “I’ll get to everyone.”

Her smile tightens slightly. “That would be… we would love it if you could. I don’t know if you gentleman have been here to do this before, but I want to thank you for… just, thank you for all of this. Your time and your talent. They’re very excited. You have no idea.”

“We’re happy to be here,” Trey assures her smoothly.

Tyus claps his hands together, swaying slightly from his left foot to his right the way he does when he’s getting ready to come off the sidelines. “Let’s get this started.”

Beverly casts us one last smile before leading us to the first door. It’s open, but she stops to knock lightly on the frame.

“Hi,” she calls sweetly. “Bentley, I have some visitors for you.”

She waves us in behind her.

The room is hot, probably to keep Little Dude’s temperature up. He can’t be older than seven and he’s thin as a rail. Not a hair on his head. There’s an IV in his arm, a yellowing bruise surrounding the insertion point. A heart monitor on his left, beeping incessant and even.

I’m immediately thinking leukemia. 

It’s not my goal to guess their illness the second I walk into their room. It seems like a pretty messed up game to play. I can’t help it, though. I make these visits at least twice a year, something I started doing in my college days at North Carolina State, and after a while you start to notice the patterns. The symptoms and the signs. The skinny kids who can’t stand to eat thanks to the nausea inducing radiation treatments that send their hair falling from their scalp. The easy bruising. Chills.

It’s a rough truth, but your body tells your story like a book to anyone paying attention, whether you want it to or not.

I put on my game face and stride confidently into the room. I offer my knuckles to Bentley. “What’s up, little man?”

He beams up at me, bumping my big fist with his small, bone white knuckles. “You’re Colt Avery.”

“That’s right. You a Kodiaks fan?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Like, a hundred percent sure? ‘Cause I got some gear here that I wanna sign for you, but if you’re really a Raiders fan or something, then I don’t know…”

Bentley sits up excitedly, straining to look around agents. His eyes light up when he spots the swag cart. “I’m a hundred percent sure! A hundred and fifty percent sure!”

I turn to the guys standing at the end of the bed. “What do you think, Tyus?”

“Trey Domata!” Bentley shouts, suddenly aware of who else is standing in his room. “Your pass against the Seahawks was sick.”

“You’re talking about the one to me, right?” Tyus asks cockily, smiling with the right side of his mouth and putting up his hands like he’s taking the pass all over again. “Seconds to go on the clock, in the red zone, he hits me in the corner, and bam! Touchdown, baby. Game over.”

Bentley’s face is confused. “You guys beat the Seahawks thirty-one to twenty-one. You were ahead the entire second half.”

Tyus’ hands lower slowly, his smile strained. “Nah, man, the Seahawks game was…”

“You’re thinking of the Chargers game,” Trey tells him. “You made the game winning catch. Sixteen to fifteen.”

Tyus looks at him blankly for a half a second before he chuckles awkwardly. “Right, yeah. That’s stupid. I can’t believe I mixed those up.”

“All these wins, it’s hard to keep track. Right, Bentley?”

Bentley shakes his head adamantly. “No way. I remember all of them. I’ve watched the entire season. You beat the Saints twenty to three. You lost to the Ravens twenty-three to seventeen. You won against the Browns thirty to thirteen. You beat the Dolphins twenty-four to twenty-one. You lost to the Steelers twenty-seven to twenty-four.”

“Okay, okay,” I laugh. “You’ve proved it, dude. You’re a fan,
two hundred
percent. I don’t think even our agents could quote our record that well.”

“After the Steelers you lost to the Broncos,” Sloane pipes up with a smile. She winks at Bentley, making him blush. “Twenty-two to twenty, right, B?”

“Yeah,” he replies quietly, a smile on his pale lips.

“It was the Giants next,” Berny adds, looking to Bentley. “What was the score on that one, kiddo? I’m old. I forget.”

“Thirty-nine to thirty.”

We all look to Tyus’ agent, Darren.

He grins. “I’m up? Oh man, after the Chargers it was the Seahawks for the win.”

“Quit tryin’ to steal the man’s thunder,” I scold the room. I nod to the intern. “Pass me a football and a blanket.”

We go around the room, the three of us signing the gear and chatting with Bentley and his mom. She’s a redhead with pale skin barely darker than her son’s and tears in her eyes. She laughs and smiles, but she’s barely holding it together. The excitement on Bentley’s face is killing her softly. When Kevin, the intern, lifts the camera to take a picture with us surrounding Bentley’s small body inside that huge bed, I pull her in under my arm. I bring her into the picture because she needs to have it. She needs to be able to remember how she feels right now; relieved and light, even just for a minute.

And we did that. We brought that to her and her kid, and that’s a better payoff than all of the endorsement deals in the world.

LILLY

November 22nd

Canter Apartments

Los Angeles, CA

“It’s looking like another beautiful day for football at Charlie Windt Stadium here in Los Angeles, California.”

“You’re right there, Allen. It’s perfect every time. They must special order it.”

“Either that or it’s some of that Hollywood magic they’ve got out here.”

“Are they supposed to be funny?” Rona asks curiously.

I snort. “They certainly seem to think they are.”

She plops down on the couch next to me. She’s dressed for work. Khakis and a green cardigan. Her dark hair is held back by a white bandana tied off center on the top of her head. She looks friggin’ adorable.

“How long until kickoff?”

I check my watch. “Another twenty minutes.”

“Ugh, I’m gonna miss it.”

“Do you want me to DVR it?”

“I don’t care that much,” she laughs. She settles back against the seat, eyeing me cautiously. “So what’s the deal? It’s Sunday. Why aren’t you watching your boyfriend play from your parent’s house?”

My heart hammers at the word;
boyfriend.
It makes me excited and so insanely uncomfortable.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I protest weakly.

“Oh, come on. He’s there opening the bakery with you almost every day. He’s not seeing anyone else. You’re his girlfriend.”

“Or he likes scoring free scones in the morning.”

“Or he likes the way you dry hump.”

I close my eyes on a sigh. “Why do I tell you anything?”

“I wonder that every single day. When are you going to give it up to that boy for real?”

I open my eyes to glare at her. “We’re taking it slow. Leave me alone.”

“You’re taking it
really
slow.”

“Compared to you and Matthews, yeah.”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s not even comparable. Kurtis was a onetime thing.”

“That’s happened three times!”

“Okay, yes, that’s true, but I mean the essence of the encounters has a very singular feel to it. Like every time feels like it’s the only time.”

“That sounds so insane, you know that, right?”

“No. It’s solid. It’s science.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“How is it, though? The singularities?”

Rona grins mischievously. “Fucking awesome. That man can… oh my God, that man can
everything
. Literally everything and so damn well. I can almost get past the fact that he doesn’t talk.”

“Like during sex?”

“Like during life,” she says emphatically. “I have spent hours with him and I know next to nothing about him. I feel like we talk so much, but then at the end of it I think back and I can’t nail down more than a few things that he said.”

“So he’s a good listener? That’s good, right?”

She curls her lip back distastefully. “I don’t know. I think it’s less about listening to me and more about not having to talk. If I’m flapping my gums I’m not asking him to say anything, and I think that’s how he wants it. He’s not big on letting people in.”

I nod in agreement. “Colt said no one knows jack about him. Sloane’s agency represents him and his agent, Hollis, is the only one who knows anything. Even his address. It’s not stored anywhere. Hollis just knows it and he keeps it quiet.”

Rona laughs in amazement. “I don’t know where he lives either. The man has been inside me and I don’t know his zip code.”

“Damn, son. That’s a hard truth.”

“Sure as shit is.” She rolls her head toward me impatiently. “So, you didn’t answer me. Why aren’t you watching this with your dad?”

I pluck absently at the edge of the pillow on my lap. “My mom called this morning. She said they had a rough week. They’re both exhausted. She asked Michael and me for a raincheck.”

“Sorry, Lil,” Rona says softly.

I shrug, the movement jerky. “It’s cool. If it’s not good to be over there then we shouldn’t be.”

“I know but… it’s happening more often, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I whisper, not meaning to. I clear my throat, digging for strength. “It is.”

Rona reaches across the couch to put her hand over mine. She squeezes it gently.

“Life is a motherfucker.”

I chuckle despite myself, grateful for the brevity. “It is indeed a motherfucker.”

“—Avery is going to show us some of that super speed of his today?”

“You know he will. In fact, Becky was down on the sidelines with him earlier and he said he’s got a surprise today, even for him. Now, normally we see him down there devouring a Snickers bar, but today he says he’s trying something different.”

“I can’t wait to see this. He’s always an entertainer, Dean. Always on. He’s got great charisma and the fans love him.”

“Well it looks like we’re getting close to kick off so let’s go down to Becky and see if we can’t get him to show us what he’s got to fuel his Sugar Rush today. Becky?”

“Oh shit,” I mutter, my stomach turning.

“What’s wrong?”

“I made what he’s about to eat.”

Rona’s eyes go big. “You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I forgot to. I gave it to him last night. I made him promise not to open the bag until he was ready to eat them at the stadium.”

“What is it?”

“Candies,” I answer weakly. “Chocolate candies.”

“Then what are you so worried about?”

“Colt, we’re dying to know,”
Becky, a white-toothed blond is saying.

Colt is standing tall over her, his cheeks smeared with black, his body huge inside his pads. He smiles at her and the camera. It’s the model smile. The one he always gives to the lens. To the masses.

“What do you have with you today?”
Becky asks.

He lifts the bag so the camera can see. The Mad Batter logo is brightly displayed in green and purple writing on the white paper.

“Holy shit!” Rona squeals excitedly. “Lilly, this is amazing. Do you know how many people are watching this?!”

I frown. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

“I don’t know what it is,”
Colt answers with a charming, helpless shrug.
“I asked the beautiful women down at Mad Batter to surprise me. They made me promise not to open it until game time.”

“Well, we’re almost there. Can we get a sneak peek? If they’re as good as you say I might have to steal a piece.”

“You don’t want to do that,” I whisper.

Colt nods agreeably.
“Sure, let’s crack it open.”

I raise the pillow slowly to my mouth. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck.”

Colt opens the bag, thrusting his hand inside. He gets ahold of a handful of candies and pulls them out. They’re hidden in his palm. The camera angles to get a look at them but he holds them back slightly, his face unreadable.

His smile is slow. It comes on him by degrees, starting at his eyes and trickling down to his mouth, to his chest until it rumbles like thunder that bursts out of him in a boisterous laugh. This is not his model smile. This is the smile I’ve come to love, the one that gets inside me and grows on my lips as well, even now as I’m dreading what’s about to happen.

“We’re dying to know,”
Becky reminds him.
“What are they?”

He chuckles, picking one out of his palm. He holds it up for the camera to zoom in on. The dark of the chocolate is reluctant to come into focus but when it finally does, its shape is undeniable.

It’s a dick.

The shape suddenly blurs into a pixelated mess thanks to the beauty of modern television. Colt pops it in his mouth, along with the handful of white, milk, and dark chocolate dicks that he pulled out of the bag. He chews them happily, smiling at the camera.

“Thanks, Lilly!”

Rona lifts the remote, pausing the feed on Colt’s happy, dick eating face. She turns to me slowly.

“He wanted something from the bakery to eat on national television and you chose to send him penises?” she asks slowly, softly.

“I didn’t know he’d eat them on live TV!” I protest defensively. “I figured with his Snickers endorsement he wouldn’t be able to endorse anything else.”

“Like cocks? Chocolate cocks? From our bakery?”

“I thought—“

“No, no. Not done,” she interrupts calmly. “Where did you get the molds for those? I know I’m not in the kitchen as often as you, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have cock molds laying around.”

I hide behind my pillow again. “I ordered them off Amazon.”

“Of course you did.”

“Free shipping.”

Rona sighs, tossing the remote to me. “How fucking frugal of you.”