Forgiving the Football Player Read online

  Back in the day, Pax fought for survival. The money kept his mama and sister fed and clothed and a roof over their heads. Even if they didn’t know where the money came from. They thought he got good tips from delivering pizza. Pax’s fight money kept his mama from having to work the night shift. Until he got his signing bonus, nights like this paid the bills.

  Back then, Elton and Easton’s older brother, Davis, ran the ring. The money helped him afford the tuition at Rice. He had no problem with underage fighters. Now he was a lawyer in Dallas. Pax had run into him once in a bar, looking completely changed in an expensive suit with a receding hairline.

  And now, it provided something else. Escape. And penance. That was the thing he kept chasing, the thing he could never quite catch.

  The fight ended with one man on his hands and knees, spitting blood on the concrete. Easton stepped into the ring even as the other fighter went in for another hit. But when E raised his hand, the man lowered his fists and stepped back. He’d always had that way about him, the ability to tame horses and dogs that no one else could touch. Guess it extended to humans.

  Easton helped the man up from the ground and Pax recognized the signs of a concussion in the glazed look and dilated pupils. As E gently led him toward what had been his bedroom and likely held a makeshift medical area, Elton nodded to Pax from the mic.

  Pax edged his way back to El’s office, knowing that Elton would want him to make a grand entrance. Pax hated theatrics. But tonight, he’d play the game.

  With the office door shut, Pax dropped his hat to the floor and nudged off his combat boots. He put his palms flat against the door and pressed his forehead to it. This stance felt familiar, and at one time, he might have prayed. Not tonight. And not for a lot of nights before. If God was still up there, Pax doubted he’d listen to a man like him.

  Pax didn’t need a cue. He heard the musical lilt to Elton’s voice as he shouted Pax’s name. The roar of the crowd picked up, but even more when Pax stepped out of the office. Easton appeared and helped Pax make it through the crush of bodies, a strong grip on his arm.

  Hands slapped against Pax’s skin and someone tugged at his hair. His lip curled away from his teeth, but for once, no one seemed frightened by his glare. In all his years playing for the NFL, he’d never felt so much like an object. It only added to the anger in him that was already brimming to fight.

  The other man in the ring didn’t look intimidated, which meant he was stupid. He also had small, mean eyes that reminded Pax of the opossums that often skulked around the backyard of his house growing up. The thought made him smile. The other man narrowed his eyes, only making them look beadier and more opossum-like. Pax wanted to laugh, but instead he ripped his T-shirt off his body and dropped it to the dirty cement floor.

  The noise in the room became a deafening roar. Easton and the bouncer from the front worked with Elton to keep the crowd out of the circle. E looked concerned, but El’s eyes had that laughing light, and Pax suspected he was already counting tonight’s take in his head.

  Pax watched the other fighter’s eyes trace over his tattoo. He never posed with his shirt off and almost never took it off in public, which meant a select few had seen his ink. It certainly hadn’t been printed in any magazines or on the internet, so he hoped that El really had gotten rid of all the phones or cameras. He didn’t see any, but it only took one. The tattoo took up an impressive amount of his torso and back, rising up over his heart, just as he’d designed it.

  If Pax closed his eyes, the sound of the crowd could almost be the sound of a sold-out stadium. But this was closer. Louder. Laced with greed and something basic and ugly. Despite his revulsion, that darkness called to Pax too. He felt his blood heat. The muscles in his shoulders twitched, ready to be released.

  Now, if only he could hold back enough to get beaten without making it look like he threw the match. He needed to fight but more than that, he needed punishment. Penance for his past. Pain for the pain he caused. It would never be enough. But it was a start.

  Elton rang a bell, and the fight began.

  Chapter Two

  When her cell phone buzzed on the desk, Priscilla didn’t need to look to know that it was Adele. Rolling her wheelchair back a little from her desk, she stretched her arms above her head before answering. Her back had kinks in it from too much work this week. She should really schedule a massage.

  She picked up the phone. Before she even got in a hello, her best friend’s words poured over the phone. “Cilla! Did you see it? Tell me you saw it.”

  Cilla bit back a smile. Adele always had a flair for the dramatic. But calling at almost midnight? Likely meant whatever the “it” was could be significant. Then again, with Adele, it could have meant a cute guy who smiled at her in the frozen food aisle of HEB. Or that Brad Pitt got engaged to some actress Cilla wouldn’t have heard of. Because she did not care.

  “Whatever it was, I didn’t see it. Little busy running a charity over here.”

  This wasn’t even an excuse. Her laptop was open, and papers covered her desk from end to end. Recently, she had gotten a position she had been dreaming of: the event coordinator for Wheels Up, a charity focused around children and teens using wheelchairs. Specifically, she was working on details for the first Wheels Up Winter Games, which was happening on Saturday. Five days. Only five days to get everything in order.

  The thought alone made her sweat. It was her suggestion, her brainchild, her baby, but this was not her first night up working late. She might need a vacation at the end of it all. The thought sent a wave of sadness through her. The last time she’d been on a vacation, had been Before. She had walked on the sand, feeling it between her toes. Feeling her toes. She looked down where they sat on the footplate, toenails painted a cheery Christmas green. They looked like feet. But they felt and did nothing. Useless.

  Adele’s voice dragged her back from the brink of bitterness. “Put me on speakerphone.”

  This meant a lecture. Probably about Cilla being too holier-than-thou with her charity work. Then Cilla would bite back with a comment about Adele being too caught up in celebrity gossip. Tonight, she wasn’t in the mood. “Ugh. Right now, Adele? Really?”

  “RIGHT NOW, PRISCILLA.”

  She knew Adele meant business when she used her full name, rather than Cilla. Priscilla had always sounded, well, prissy to her. Which was exactly how her richer-than-God parents meant for it to be: fancy and untouchable. Cilla had a softer sound to it, but also was the name of the mythical monster in Homer’s Odyssey, Scylla. Soft and also fierce. That was Cilla.

  “You’re on speaker. Now what?”

  “Open up to any local news site. Actually—open up CelebNow. They’ll have the best pics.”

  Cilla groaned, since she knew Adele couldn’t see her eye roll. “You know I don’t care about how the stars are just like us, Adele. They aren’t. Too much money and power. Only giving back when it makes them look good.”

  “Just open the website, dang it!”

  When the picture at the top of the page loaded, Cilla dropped the phone. It clattered to the ground a few feet away from her wheelchair. She could hear Adele’s muffled voice shouting her name. But Cilla’s world had collapsed in on itself a little bit. Like a glass jar had dropped down over her head, sounds were muffled, the air grew thin, and her breathing rapid.

  What was Pax doing home?

  Seeing Paxton when she wasn’t prepared had that effect on her. Still. After all these years. Six, to be exact. No, three. She saw him at a distance at the funeral for the twins’ parents. But once she knew he was going to be there, she refused to get out of her car. Elton and Easton totally understood. And she kept their freezer stocked with meals for weeks after, even coming over to make dinner herself. That was really the only way she could be sure they’d eat. They understood that she couldn’t face him.

  Because the moment Pax saw her, he would read her face like a book and know that she still loved him. He still held her
heart in his strong and brutal hands. Even if he didn’t want to hold her anymore. Hot tears filled her eyes.

  Her hands shook, and her heart stuttered to a stop. That was Pax. Her Pax.

  Every so often, she caught sight of him on TV or on the pages of a magazine, but it didn’t impact her the same way. That wasn’t the real Pax. That guy walked around in Pax’s body, but didn’t have the same fire in his eyes, didn’t have a dimple when he really laughed. That was a wax figure. A robot. A shell of the man she had known and loved since he was just a boy.

  She could walk right by the posters and the cereal boxes with his photo and the T-shirts, no problem. Houston had its own football team, but Pax was a local boy. Both Katy and Houston claimed him and plastered his face on just about every surface possible. Despite the fact that he played for Dallas. Once, she’d seen his face covering the whole side of a bus. That didn’t bother her. She knew the real Pax would have hated it.

  This photo though, taken in what she recognized as Elton and Easton’s barn, was the real Pax. She could read the pain on his face, obscured by a mask of anger. She could almost feel it, an echo of her own pain. And he was here, not two miles away, fighting in the twins’ barn, acting like just as big of an idiot as he had back then. Dang him for coming back.

  Dang him for not doing it sooner. And for leaving in the first place.

  She had a right mind to track him down and wring his neck. And then wring theirs. Oh, Elton and Easton were going to get it.

  Adele’s voice came through muffled against the floor. “Cilla? Cilla!”

  “Hang on!” she shouted. “I dropped the phone.”

  Normally it wasn’t hard for Cilla to do something simple like pick up her phone. But it had fallen under the desk in a way that required a bit more maneuvering. She had been in this wheelchair for six years. Most things were now no big deal. The basics of operating a wheelchair were simple. Put your hands on the wheels and roll. It was instinctive the first time she did it. Now she had arm muscles she never did in high school and a lot more agility in her chair than she did at first, way more than people expected. Plus, her daddy and mommy dearest made sure she had the chair she wanted. No expenses spared.

  Most people in her position didn’t have that luxury, which was part of why she was so passionate about Wheels Up. For kids who wanted to compete in athletic events or do more than get from point A to point B, insurance only covered a decent lightweight chair. Sometimes the co-pays were enormous, or families couldn’t replace them as often as needed. And forget sports wheelchairs for playing basketball or tennis or racing. Because it wasn’t a medical need, those costs came out of pocket. Most families struggled with the cost, especially when they often had medical bills on top of medical bills.

  Cilla wanted other people to have the opportunities that she did. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that it was a charity Pax founded and kept funded. Nope.

  While Cilla had mastered the basics quickly, some things took skill and a lot of months of messing up. Like putting on a pair of panties. Getting into a car. Taking a bath or shower. Navigating around places that weren’t accessible or that did the bare, federally required minimum. Picking up a dropped phone was somewhere between getting a soda from a high shelf in the fridge and putting on shoes.

  She finally managed to snag the phone. Before she spoke, she took a few calming breaths and swallowed back her tears. Pax came home. It was fine. She would be fine. He didn’t deserve any more of her tears.

  “I’m back,” she said to Adele.

  A flurry of knocks sounded at her door. “Priscilla!” Her mother twisted the knob, but it was locked.

  Cilla sighed. “Yes, Mom?”

  “I heard you shouting. Do you need help? Are you alright, darling?”

  “Hi, Mrs. Worthington!” Adele shouted, still on speakerphone.

  There was a pause behind the door. “Adele?”

  “She’s on the phone, Mom. Go back to bed.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  “I need you to go back to bed!” Cilla whisper-shouted. Next her dad would come thundering down the hall, probably with shotgun in hand, ready to take out whoever hurt his little girl. Things like that happen in the movies, but also in Texas. No matter that she was a grown woman, and no one could hurt her more than Pax already had.

  “Goodnight, Priscilla. Goodnight, Adele. Get some sleep, girls.”

  Cilla rolled her eyes. Her mother always talked like she was still twelve. Maybe it really was time to start thinking about getting her own place.

  “Night, Mrs. W!” Adele called.

  Priscilla sat with the phone in her hand until her mother’s footsteps had faded down the marble floors to her room. Cilla sighed. “Sorry about all that. I saw the picture.”

  “Did you see his tattoo?”

  “Tattoo?” In her brief look, Cilla had seen that he had something inked over his chest but didn’t really pay attention. She had been too overwhelmed by the raw emotion in his eyes.

  “Look again, Cilla. This is big.”

  It was big. A massive tattoo of some kind of dragon covered most of his stomach, chest, and side, disappearing around to his back. But what really held her gaze was the way each ab muscle was ridged over his stomach like armor and how defined the V of his hips was before disappearing into his low-slung jeans. Pax had always been a big guy, even when he was in high school. The kind of guy who made the other high school guys look like little boys. Now he was even more massive, and he looked like he had been hand-carved. His muscles were chiseled in a way that made her feel a fluttering in her gut. She shouldn’t want to look, much less want to touch.

  But it was the soft heart under that big, buff exterior that had always drawn Cilla. Not many people got to see that side of him. Did that side still exist? The pain in his eyes told her that it did. Even if the pain was of his own making. Her own heart squeezed at the thought.

  “Well?” Adele said, clearly impatient.

  “It’s a giant tattoo. Yes. He dropped what must have been hundreds—thousands?—to have needles put poison underneath his skin permanently. And he’ll look ridiculous when he’s eighty-five, getting a sponge bath in a nursing home.”

  Adele groaned. “Cilla!”

  “Yes?”

  “No, not your name. The other Scylla!”

  It took her a moment to realize that Adele wasn’t just repeating her name but saying the name of the beast from the Odyssey. Cilla looked again at the tattoo and she gasped. She enlarged the photo. Yep. There it was, a tattoo of Scylla on the beautiful canvas that was Pax’s body.

  For the first time in her whole life, she understood the beauty of tattoos. This wasn’t some drunken decision on a whim. It was art. The intricate detail, the way it moved over the canvas of his body. She wanted to see it in person, to run her hands over every inked line, tracing it from front to back. When he moved, she wanted to watch the way his muscles made the artwork—because that’s really what it was—come to life.

  The largest of the beast’s six heads rested in the center of his chest, just over his heart. Cilla swallowed and put a hand over her chest in the same place. Back in the day, before the accident and before Pax left her, he used to put his hand over his heart. “You’re right here, Cilla. Always.” That had to mean something. Even if Scylla was an ugly, toothy monster, it meant something beautiful.

  When she collected her voice, Cilla said, “It’s nothing. Probably just a monster or dragon.”

  “Girl, don’t even try to deny it. That is Scylla from Greek mythology. That tattoo is for you.”

  “It’s just a coincidence.” The lie tasted stale on her tongue.

  “You are the one who’s always saying there are no coincidences. No accidents. God’s got a plan. You can’t say that to me all the time but not see how it applies to your life. To this. That tattoo means something. And Pax is never photographed with his shirt off, which is why we’ve never seen that tattoo. He’s been hiding it, hiding
his feelings for you. He loves you, Cilla. Just like he said. And that big, ugly monster tattooed over his heart is the proof.”

  Priscilla closed her eyes. She couldn’t allow herself to think that it meant something to Pax. That she meant something to him. He had made it abundantly clear by leaving town. No goodbye. Not by text or email or any other way. Vanished, like he’d never been here at all. Except for all the pain he left behind.

  When Cilla lay in a hospital bed, coming to terms with the fact that her spinal column had been crushed and she would never walk again, never jump hurdles again, never do an endless list of things again, the worst pain wasn’t physical. It was the fact that Pax had up and gone when she needed him most.

  The car accident had left him with what was probably a concussion. Her parents told her that he left the hospital, AMA, without being treated or seen. He was supposed to be at Texas A&M the next morning. The start of his new life. What they’d always said would be the start of their new life. In a way she couldn’t blame him for going. In another way, she totally could and absolutely did.

  At least outwardly. Though she never would have admitted it, Pax had never left her heart. He had worked his way in too deep. No matter how many times she tried to tell herself that she was over him or dated other guys—which often failed for reasons that had nothing to do with Pax—her heart belonged to him. Always had. Always would. No matter how secretly mad she was at him.

  Maybe the monster was proof of something. Maybe it was just a monster. But the comparison of Cilla to Scylla was more apt than most people knew.

  On the outside, no one would guess. If anything, being in the chair made people see her as some kind of martyr and it really raised her hackles. Even—or especially—from strangers, Cilla got a lot of bless-your-hearts and you’re-so-braves. People assumed a lot of things about her because of the chair. For whatever reason, though, the biggest assumption was that Priscilla must be a nice girl. Sweet, even-tempered, gentle.