Bulldozer (Hard to Love 3)

In the background I hear a lot of cheering and whistling.

“Isn’t that Shaw’s sister?” one of his teammates whispers.

“Hendricks is gonna get his ass kicked,” another adds.

“Hendricks, go put yo cup on. I saw Shaw walking around the locker room,” yells a different one. “Ice-man gonna getcha.”

Grant misses all of it. I push the headphones off his head because we don’t have much time. “Go to Green Bay and come back to me.”

“What?” He looks startled.

“I still have time. I was in a car accident last night––” He sucks in a breath. “Relax, I’m fine. But I could have died and I didn’t.” Staring into the eyes of the man I love, I feel relief. That’s when I know down to the bone that this is the right choice. “Let’s just be together. We’ll fly back and forth until you’re ready to retire,” I say super fast, feeling strangely both excited and at peace.

“You mean it?” he murmurs.

My poor heart. He’s torturing it with that sweet, hopeful look on his face. “Yes. You’re my one,” I tell him, taking his face in my hands and smacking his lips with a hard kiss. “Nothing is going to change that. I’ll take the good now.”

Searching my eyes, he smiles. “You’re all over the place, and it doesn’t matter. Is Sam here?”

“Upstairs, with Calvin.”

Grant’s beautiful face shapes into pure determination. “I love you. Do you trust me?”

Nodding fast, I say, “With all my heart.”

He kisses me hard and fast. “I’ll take good care of it.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Time: the most powerful force in the universe. Some people believe it’s love, but I disagree. Love can be steered, stalled, silenced. Not time. Time doesn’t give a fuck about anything other than itself. Time will roll right over love and march on without missing a beat. You can beg, borrow, and steal, make a deal with the devil, and still it won’t falter.

Watching the man who owns both my heart and soul lying still on the fifty-yard line of Met Life Stadium tells me it’s run out. I don’t bother with prayers. Time won’t hear them. It’ll just play deaf and dumb.

Trainers, doctors, and EMTs congregate around Grant’s motionless body. Every player on the field, regardless of their jersey, takes a knee to pray. Seventy-five thousand people in the stadium and you can hear a pin drop. That and the blood rushing through my veins.

One stupid play. That’s all it took for my life to come crashing down. One of the players on the offense made an illegal block in the back and led with the helmet. It was a mistake. An accident.

Camilla’s hand wraps around my bicep. Her voice sounds underwater. I glance down at Sam who’s fighting tears, his full lips pressing together tightly.

“Watch Sam,” I tell her. She’s still talking, her lips moving, and yet I can’t hear a thing. I turn and Sam starts to follow me but Camilla grabs a hold of him.

“Mom!”

I stop and turn back. “Stay with Camilla. Okay? Can you do that for me?”

“Is he gonna be okay?”

“I don’t know, baby,” I answer honestly. Because how can I not? I won’t abuse what little trust we’ve built. “I’m going to go check on him.”

He nods and I take off. Calvin tries to stop me on the way out of the VIP box, his brows squeezing together in deep concern. “Amanda, you have to wait. Let the doctors do their job. I’ll get you in to see him as soon as they’re done.”

Wild horses couldn’t stop me. With sudden and inexplicable superhuman strength, I slip free of my brother’s grip on my wrist and run out into the corridor.

My legs feel weighed down by dumbbells, my lungs filled with cement. The sprint down three flights of stairs to field level seems to take forever, feet stinging as my ballerinas slap against the concrete floor, and within that time all my fears stare back at me. Mocking me.

They seem so juvenile and insignificant now. So ridiculously small now that I’m faced with the cold reality that I may never get the chance to show Grant how much I love him, to tell him he’s everything I never knew I could have and so much better than a fantasy. So much more than I deserve. And I don’t. I don’t deserve him. Why is it that clarity always comes too late?

As soon as I reach the tunnel that leads to the locker rooms, security stops me. I start shouting, pointing to the stretcher that’s carrying the love of my life, my heart, my sanity. I tell them he’s mine and I’m his but they ignore me. They either don’t believe me or don’t care.

EMTs rush past me, gunning for the ambulance waiting at the end of the tunnel. An assistant coach, one I recognize from all the team functions I’ve attended with Calvin, waves me through. I thank him with a shout and book down the tunnel, arriving just in time to watch them load Grant into the ambulance. Then they move aside, making room for me.