His Tight End

“Apologies. Mrs. Meyers. We’d like to get you up to X-Ray. I think your wrist is broken, but all in all, I’d say you're going to be fine.”

“That’s it? I…” I have to stop because my nausea from this morning is back with a vengeance. I look around frantically for something, anything to throw up into. Brandon, my hero, realizes what I am looking for and hands me a pink tub after dumping the contents of it onto the bed. I feel so much better now.

“Is it possible that you are pregnant?” the doctor asks, taking the tub from Brandon and setting it down in the sink.

“No, why?” I ask.

“We need to be sure before going into X-Ray, as well as what I prescribe to treat the break.”

“No, I’m on birth control.”

“We’ll do a test to be sure. I’ll send a nurse in.”

“Okay,” I say, and he leaves the room.

“It is possible,” Brandon says.

“What?”

“The antibiotics last month. When we were in Alabama for the division championship. Antibiotics are known to fuck with birth control.”

“I totally forgot. We should have used a condom or abstained.”

“Yeah, right,” Brandon says, chuckling.

“So you’re not mad?”

“Hell no.”

“Well, I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

A few minutes later, the nurse comes in and draws some blood.

“The doctor will come back shortly. He rushed the results.

“Thank you.”

“Great game today. We were watching at the nurse’s station. You’re an inspiration to little girls everywhere,” the nurse says, and then she’s gone.

“No one’s ever told me that before,” I say to Brandon.

“You are an inspiration. No woman has ever played professional football before. You’re a pioneer.”

“I just love the game,” I say, shrugging. I feel overwhelmed at being an inspiration to girls everywhere. That’s a lot of pressure, but I think I can handle it.

“I know, baby girl, I know,” he says, kissing my forehead.

We sit in comfortable silence until the doctor comes back in.

“You’re pregnant. Congratulations. We will get that wrist x-rayed and go from there.” He leaves the room.

“Brandon?” I ask, looking up at him.

“Yeah, baby girl?”

“We’re gonna have a baby. What about practice?”

“Depending on when you’re due, you’ll still get to play next season, you might miss one or two preseason games, but I am sure Coach will understand.”

“Do you think Coach understands anything?” I ask.

“He’ll have no fucking choice,” Brandon says, chuckling.

“Well, that’s true,” I say, laughing.

Six hours later, we leave the emergency room, my right wrist broken. After twenty minutes of trying to get out of my uniform, I give up and have to ask Brandon to help me. That might have been a mistake. After all, we were at least another twenty minutes later than I anticipated because we couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves. The team postponed the victory party, but we are meeting them now at the hotel for a late dinner/early ass breakfast before our plane leaves at five-thirty in the morning. I imagine Portland has a few parties for us tomorrow.

“Oh my God, guys, I’m starving,” I say as I sit down at the table.

“So that wrist broken?” Brett asks.

“Yep. A clean break. No big deal. It doesn’t even hurt,” I say, looking over the menu.

“That’s good. You should be good to go before practice starts back up in March,” Jamal says.

“What’s going on with you and that reporter?” I ask.

“Nothing. Yet.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask, and he just smiles at me.

We eat our meal, even after I am still starving. I could have told them about the baby, but I am not ready to share that news with anyone yet. On the plane, I sleep fitfully, getting sick two more times. If I didn’t know I was pregnant, I would definitely think that I was.

When we got off the plane, there was a crowd there welcoming us home. I love the roar of the crowd; it’s one of the best parts of playing the game besides actually playing.

At home, our parents are waiting for us. I haven’t seen my parents since the first game of the season. They weren’t able to get out here as much because both of my sisters were pregnant and needed help. While I totally understood, it would have been nice to have some family in the stands.

“Mama, Dad,” I say, hugging them. I am shocked to see them.

“We saw what happened. Are you okay?” my mom, DeeDee, asks.

“Just a broken wrist. No big deal

“It looked like more than that,” my dad, Leland, says.

“Really, I just got the wind knocked out of me. Totally fine now.”

I greet Brandon’s parents, and we discuss going out to lunch. At the last minute, I beg off, saying I need to get some sleep. Brandon goes with them, and I crawl into bed.

The last few months have been a whirlwind for me, and I am suddenly glad for a bit of downtime.