Page 67 of The Sweetness of Life

“I don’t know how you do it. There’s no way I could walk around in shoes like these for eight to ten hours a day.”

She giggles. “Meg, Lexi, and I once ran a stiletto run in New York.”

“Why?” Just the thought is appalling; then again, I look at and admire her spectacular legs. Rocking heels all day has left them toned and solid.

“Why not? The race raises money for ovarian cancer, and we made it a girls weekend.”

“At least it was for a good cause.” I grin at her.

As I drag my thumb across the arch of her foot, she sinks farther into the couch. I continue to press into her feet and up her calves, her head falls to my shoulder, and she lets out a low hum every so often on a tender spot.

“When I leave here, I’m gonna have to go on a diet. I’m so full.” She rubs her stomach, looking as if she wants to curl up and go to sleep.

My mind sticks on leave here. I didn’t know she was looking to move away from Charleston, but then again, I guess I don’t really know much about her at all.

“How do you do a diet working in the food industry? You cook food all day long.” I tickle the bottom of one foot, which makes her giggle and jerk her leg, giving me the perfect view up the skirt of her dress.

“Not nice.” Her blue eyes shine at me knowingly, but she slowly returns her leg to my lap. Much to my pleasure, her dress stays pushed back. It’s too tempting not to touch, so I run my hand up and down her leg once. She doesn’t stop me, and she doesn’t take her eyes from mine.

“We do cook all day, but I’m not eating it. Sure we taste as we go, but we don’t eat big meals, and we never have food lying around like I’ve had here.”

“Well, I second that. We usually don’t have food like yours lying around, either. We’ve really enjoyed it.”

“Thank you, that means a lot,” she whispers.

I nod and look at her feet, admiring her pink toenails.

“Tell me about the video. What happened to you that day?” She props her elbow up on the back of the couch and leans her head against her hand to watch me.

“Most of the game was played under the shadow of the clouds, and the clock was ticking down on the third quarter. The quarterback from the other team lined up behind his center and shifted to lean on his left leg and wiggle his fingers. He scanned the defensive line, his eyes narrowed at how we were aligned with his team, and he called out, ‘Set!’ It was the way he said it, with a slight dip in his voice, and if I hadn’t been paying attention, I would have missed it because it was that quick. His linemen dropped into their stances, and all of his teammates gave a slight turn of their head to hear the call—a call they should have already known from the huddle. That was when I knew: the bastard was calling an audible.

“Everyone has a tell, and I’m good at recognizing them. Hell, for years the guys have been I should head to Vegas and clean house, but gambling isn’t my thing. Anyway, I knew what was happening, so I kept my eyes on their quarterback, and I watched every breath he took, every twitch he made.

“‘Green twenty-two,’ he called out, shifting his weight over and slightly back to the left leg, freeing his anchor foot. ‘Green sixteen.’ His elbows lifted out from his rib cage, opening his frame. When he remained tight, they ran the ball up the middle. When he was loose, he was planning for a first down pass. But this—the open frame—it only means one thing, and adrenaline spiked through me. ‘Hut hut,’ he called, rocked forward on his toes, and quickly reached for the ball. He was going to sprint backward and pass the ball—and not just any pass . . . Hail Mary style.”

“Isn’t that risky?”

“It is, but they didn’t really have another choice at that point. Prior to this play, he’d attempted four other passes to the same running back, but they were desperate to put some points on the board.”

“So, you guys were winning?”

“We were.”

“What happened next?”

“I watched him and went after the guy I figured he would most likely pass to. I took off, and just as I was closing in on him, he turned and looked for the ball. I remember feeling the guy coming up behind me, but that’s it. What you see in the video, I don’t remember. I woke up in the hospital nine days later.”

A sharp inhale comes from Shelby, and I leave the game in my head and focus on her. Wide eyes meet mine, and I briefly wonder what it would have been like to awake from that coma to her beautiful face.

“The theory is that I already had a slight concussion going into the play, making this one amplified times ten.”

“You didn’t know you had a concussion?” She frowns at me, concern etched across her face.

“I suspected, but when you’re in the middle of a game, headaches can come from a lot of things, and there’s just no time to think about them. Plus, we’re conditioned to suck it up and play through it. The phrase, ‘Are you injured, or are you hurt?’ is thrown around a lot, and when you’re being paid to perform, that is the law when it comes to pain. On average, there are one and a half concussions per NFL game. They happen, we deal with them.”

“Really? I’m not sure how I feel about that. Aren’t there long-term problems with concussions?” She frowns.

“There are, and unfortunately, a lot of players are suffering long-term consequences because of them. The league has tightened its view on concussions, and they are taken a lot more seriously now than they were even five years ago. I’m still experiencing what they call post-concussion syndrome, which is nothing compared to what some other ex-players deal with. The severity of the injury could have been much worse considering the impact. I do have some attention difficulties, but mostly I suffer from migraines. They told me the symptoms would be gone by now, but they aren’t. I haven’t figured out what sets them off, but damn if they aren’t debilitating.”