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Lyric crossed her arms and just stared at him. Goddammit.
“I hear hospitals are full of bacteria. I’d sure love to hear some horrifying statistics of deaths caused by drug-resistant MRSA.” He smoothed down the hair at the back of his neck. Did his damnedest to keep his voice, and his hands, from shaking. “Or better yet, how many meteorites strike hospitals every day? What are the chances of me being hit by one on the way back to Cherry Cherry?”
She shot him a look that told him she wasn’t going to let him distract her, and that’s when he got desperate. Even went so far as to consider pulling up some of those sexting pictures she seemed so okay with and showing her things that would make him blush.
But before he could do any more than swipe his thumb across the screen, Lyric had picked up her chair and set it down beside his.
“We’ve known each other a long time, Heath. You just spent four hours getting me here so I can be with my father—after buying the pimp-mobile to end all pimp-mobiles and chewing me out of the tightest duct-tape dress known to man.”
He shrugged, even as he made sure he was looking anywhere but at her. “That’s what friends are for.”
“Exactly. You helped me over and over again today. Now I’d like to repay the kindness.” She was all business, no sympathy anywhere to be seen. He knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t coming from a place of pity, but that knowledge didn’t make him feel any less pitiful.
He glanced out the door at Jeannie, who was typing furiously on the desktop computer in front of her. The last thing he needed was for this to get out before his agent and the team had agreed how to handle it. Then he leaned into Lyric, his pulse hitting marathon runner speed as he forced himself to say out loud what he never had before. “My knee is better, but I’ll …” He swallowed the flood of spit in his mouth. “I’ll never play football again.”
Oh God. Hearing himself say it out loud made it real like nothing else could. Not the surgeries. Not the meetings with one specialist after another. Not even the phone calls and texts from his agent that he’d been dodging for days. Saying it out loud made him realize that the one thing he’d always been able to count on, the one thing that made him him … was gone. He had nothing, he was nothing, without football. Just that scared little boy dodging his father’s fists, waiting to be noticed as something more than a punching bag.
Lyric took her time digesting what he’d told her. Then she leaned back and crossed her mile-long legs in front of her. “Good.”
“Good?” he sputtered, certain he’d misheard her. He’d just spilled the greatest tragedy of his life, and all she could say was good?
“I heard that every game is like a car wreck to your body. Have you never heard of post-concussion syndrome?”
Of course he’d heard of it. He was a huge Will Smith fan. She didn’t seem to get the gravity of the situation. He. Couldn’t. Play. Football. EVER AGAIN.
“What if you were injured and couldn’t be an astronomer?” He had to make her understand that his life was over.
“What kind of injury are we talking about?” She looked intrigued. “To be honest, I can’t imagine any kind of injury that I would sustain that would end my career. Even if I lost both of my legs and my arms, with today’s advances in technology, I could still work. I guess maybe some sort of traumatic brain injury would prevent me from analyzing the necessary data, but because of the brain damage, I’m not sure I would know enough to miss it.”
He closed his eyes, shook his head. And tried not to be annoyed—and endeared—by the fact that Lyric was a scientist first and a human being second. Or maybe third.
If he’d wanted a shoulder to cry on or a cheering section for his pity party, he should have chosen someone else to hear his deepest, darkest secret. Somehow, that knowledge didn’t make him feel as bad as it could have.
“But this isn’t about me. It’s about you.” She looked like she was getting ready to take notes on some kind of mental notebook. “We just need to figure out what you should do now. So … besides football, what are you good at?”
He racked his brain and came up with absolutely nothing. Breast signing wasn’t actually an employable skill. Neither was drinking beer or charming women. Not that he really needed money, but he couldn’t just sit on his ass for the rest of his life. Sloth wasn’t really his style.
“I know …” Her eyes lit up. “You’re really good at sex.”
“I am?” He cleared his throat. “I mean, I am. Yes. But how do you know?’
Her face clouded for a second, but then she pushed the darkness away. “Everyone knows, Deuce. It’s not exactly a well-kept secret.”
It felt like there was more to the story, but before he could explore it, she’d already continued. “Which means … porn. You could totally get paid for having sex.” When Lyric was excited, her voice tended to carry … like all the way to Mexico.
Jeannie looked up.
He caught Jeannie’s eye and hunched his shoulders. “Tourette’s. It takes a little time for the meds to kick in.”
Slowly Jeannie nodded and went back to typing.
“Why don’t we talk about this later?” He wasn’t much of a praying man, but he was willing to hit God up right now if it meant Lyric would change the subject.
“What about Hugh Hefner?” Lyric’s eyes scrunched up in concentration.
“What about him?” He’d never met the man.
“He’s really old. You could take his place.” She was dead serious. “Someone has to be the next Hugh Hefner—why not you?”
