Spiked

It was the exact thing I’d insisted on not doing the first time we’d been at the Manhattan together— sit around waiting for Jacob’s attention. As soon as I thought this, I felt selfish and stupid. After all, I’d more or less had Jacob’s attention for the last few weeks, since football was off the table. But now, it was about to be on the table again, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was only a sample of what was to come. Of course I wanted Jacob to heal, for him to play— but as I sat in silence and replayed our relationship, I couldn’t help but realize that until he was injured, Jacob had been…well…Jacob. The Harton hero. He’d shown up in my class, called me out to the bar, slept with me, then vanished with other players the following morning. He hadn’t reappeared in my life until he was injured.

Until he had nowhere else to go.

But he didn’t know you then, I reminded myself. And you didn’t know him, not really— you just wanted him.

It was a small consolation, though, especially when Piper was inside fending off Adams’ attempts to rope me into a threesome. I would never say it aloud to Jacob, but Adams wasn’t all that different than he had been back when we first met. If he returned to that version of himself…

No. He needed to play. He needed to heal— really heal. I lifted my eyes to Jacob, watched him and the other players going through plans and shit-talking the Clemson team and laughing, already celebrating their future win with Jacob at the helm. I thought of him standing in the bathroom mirror, perfecting a stone-faced expression. He might hurt himself further at Clemson— but that meant there was no risk for me. No risk that he’d return to his old self, no chance I’d be cast aside in the same way I once was.

I put down my long empty bottle and pretended to stare at my phone until, ages later, Jacob returned to my side, looking flush with enthusiasm and perhaps the slightest bit tipsy. He kissed my forehead briskly. “What are you staring at?” he asked.

“Nothing, just an article,” I said.

Jacob laughed. “Everyone else is playing games on their phone, and you’re reading. This is why you’re perfect, Sasha Copeland.”

I smiled, and felt something in me melt. What had I been thinking, entertaining the idea of him re-injuring himself like it would be a good thing? I swallowed as we left the bar and started toward his apartment.

“I have to tell you something,” I said, leaning against him. His arm was around my shoulders and I felt tucked into him, encompassed by his body in a way that still delighted and frightened me, a little.

“Anything,” he said.

“I know your arm isn’t healed. I saw you in the bathroom mirror Thursday night, practicing keeping a straight face when you move it.”

We continued walking forward, but Jacob’s torso stiffened beside me. “It just got a little sore when we were having sex— I was putting more weight on it than I should have.”

“Jacob—“

“It’s fine, Sasha. Or it will be.”

“But what if it isn’t?”

“It is.”

“You told me yourself that you could injury it permanently, though, if you play on it too soon. Are you really going to play at Clemson? Or are you just trying to make your parents and the school happy and shut Adams up?” I asked, stopping so fast that his arm slipped right over my head, tousling my hair. Jacob stopped and turned to me, every line of his face begging me to end the conversation.

“If I don’t get back in the game soon, the NFL will forget I exist. They’re not going to bring in someone who’s still on the bench with an injury. It’d be a stupid financial risk, if nothing else. I need to play and get drafted.”

“But what if you get injured worse? Even if you’re drafted, you’ll never get to actually play in the NFL,” I protested.

Jacob’s jaw tightened. “They’ll have to pay out my contract either way. It’ll still be a better career move.”

I was stunned. “You’d never play again, though.”

Jacob shook his head, face pained, body seeming to grow larger with frustration. “Of course I know that. That’s all I can think about, Sasha. But I’m trying to salvage what I can out of a lifetime of playing this game. I’m not getting an actual education here, you know that— I’m taking Swahili as my foreign language, for fuck’s sake, and I’ve literally never been to a single class. So getting an NFL contract now is the only chance I’ve got. If I can play again, great, but if I can’t, at least I’ll have some sort of income for the next few years. If I lose that, I’ve got…I have nothing. I have literally, nothing, except a future where my parents spend every day reminding me that I should have gone into the draft my junior year, just like they told me.” He put a hand to his temple and shook his head. “Fuck, I should’ve listened. I should have just done it. I wanted to be a better player, but…”