Daylight, page 8
Once I’ve taken care of all of that, I turn off the lights and crawl into my side of the bed.
“Am I going to bother you with my laptop on?” I ask Alex.
“No, you’re fine. I’m setting my alarm for five o’clock. I’ve gotta meet Joel for a workout and then we’ve got a banquet in the morning. Is that going to bother you?” He asks.
Yes.
“No, I needed to be up at six so the time difference is not a big deal.” I shake my head. I could tell him it would bother me because I cherish sleep so deeply and then he would orchestrate some crazy way to wake up without an alarm clock, or wear headphones to sleep and rupture his eardrums twice in one day.
“You sure?” He asks.
“Yes,” I nod.
“Alright. Goodnight, Elle,” he says through a yawn.
“Goodnight, Alex,” I say back, turning off the bedside lamp on my nightstand.
I plan on doing a quick check of my emails before going to bed, just to make sure there’s nothing I’ve missed. My work email is just how I’ve left it since earlier this afternoon, which is eerie for it being the day before a game. It hits me that I’ve probably been taken off of contact lists, which makes me sick to my stomach.
I close out of my work inbox, unable to stomach the thought that this is all truly coming to an end. I switch accounts to check my personal account, and can only hope I find something better in there.
Just at first glance, nothing jumps out at me. It hasn’t been checked in a few days, so there’s a bit of a backlog to go through. Most of it is junk, but I still check all of them just to be sure.
Just as I’m ready to call it, a name I haven’t seen in my inbox for ages is staring me in the face.
Carrie Manthaw.
I click on it and all I can hear is my heart pounding in my chest. The subject line reads, “Just Checking In”, and with Carrie, she’s never just checking in. There’s always something more. I take a deep breath before reading what she’s sent. It shouldn’t make me so nervous, but it does. For so long, she held everything I’ve ever wanted. Now, I can’t help but feel like I’ve let her down.
Dear Eleanor,
It is in the air supply that your time with the league is coming to an end. Let’s catch up. I’ll be in New York for a bit. Let me know when you’re around.
Hope all is well with you. Don’t take this too hard.
Sincerely,
Carrie
I exhale, hard. I feel like a thousand weights were taken off my shoulders and ten thousand more were just added.
Chapter Twelve
Alex’s Point of View
Last night was weird.
This morning is weird too.
I must have woken up before my alarm went off, as Elle is still sound asleep and there isn’t a blaring siren going off in my ear.
The weird part, though, is that somehow, throughout the night, Elle ended up in my arms, our legs tangled, our bodies flush under the covers.
This isn’t the first time we’ve fallen asleep in the same bed and woken up in a compromising position, but the circumstances of this feel different than years past. I need to get out from this entanglement of limbs, the panic in my chest starting to rise.
I slowly grab her arm to move off of my chest and she stirs beneath me. As I’m about to delicately move her off of me completely, the door handle to her room starts to move up and down. I shoot up in bed, my heart racing.
She wakes, and her first instinct is to hide under the covers. The handle quits moving and is followed by two soft knocks.
I’m ready to beat someone’s ass for pulling a prank on me so early in the morning. It’s not until I’m halfway to the door that I remember this is Elle’s room and no one knows I’m in here.
That makes me slightly more weary to go to the door, but I do it anyway. I don’t waste any time looking out the peephole, I just remove the lock and latch and whip the door open.
I’m met with an empty hallway. There’s no one out there on either side and as far as I can tell, every door is shut.
“Just ignore it. No one is out there. No one is ever out there,” she sighs from the other side of the room.
“What do you mean, no one is ever out there?” I ask.
“Every couple of months that happens to me. I’ve never caught anyone. I figure it’s just kids fucking around,” she yawns.
“I didn’t see anyone when I looked out the door though?” I ask, locking it back up.
“Kids run fast,” she shrugs. “It was unsettling the first few times, but I’ve gotten used to it. Hence the blanket defense.”
“Huh,” I shrug, brushing it off. I move back to the bed, crawling back in. I have no idea what time it is, I just hope I can close my eyes for at least another thirty minutes.
“You’re a changed man, Bradford. You didn’t hog the bed,” she murmurs groggily.
“Kind of hard when you’ve got me pinned down all night,” I counter, reaching to the nightstand for my phone. It’s ten minutes before my alarm would’ve gone off, which makes me irrationally irritated at whatever stupid kid decided to ding-dong-ditch the hotel room. Silencing the alarm to make sure it doesn’t go off now that we’re both awake, I toss it back to the nightstand.
I didn’t bring any belongings with me besides a wallet and a phone, so once I get out of bed I’ll be ready to go.
I’m meeting with another quarterback, Joel, for a workout before our team banquet. Before I do either of those things, I’ve gotta get back to my hotel room before the five-fifteen check-in. I hop out of bed, grabbing my two whole belongings I have with me.
Elle gets out of bed, following me as I walk toward the door.
“Alex, I want to tell you now so I don’t get outed on live TV again, but I’m so damn proud of you. Win or lose today, you led as best you could and you did a good job doing it,” she stands up on her tip-toes to plant a kiss on my cheek.
“Thank you, Elle,” I say, my voice suddenly thick with emotion. “I appreciate it. Truly. Thanks for letting me throw my tantrum here last night. You didn’t have to deal with that.”
She rolls her eyes. “That was hardly a tantrum. You’re always welcome to share your feelings with me. Now, you better get going before you get busted!” She chuckles, ushering me out of the door.
As the door closes behind me, I let my back rest against it for a second. In just ten minutes, I feel like I’ve gone through twenty different emotions.
My feelings for Elle have never been so all-consuming before. It couldn’t be a worse time for either of us to pursue a relationship of such nature, but dammit, I want it so bad.
Just as I’m moving from Elle’s door, a door down the hall is opening. My fight or flight should’ve kicked in, but instead, I stand there, incapable of moving.
Like deer in headlights, Alonzo Hayes and I make the world’s most awkward eye contact. We both know that only the press and management stay on this floor.
It’s like the land where time stood still. Neither of us says anything, neither of us move until we realize we are open and exposed in this hallway. I jerk my head toward the elevator before saying anything.
“Hey, man,” I say awkwardly.
“Alex-” He cuts in, but I shake my head.
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Lonzo. I get it,” I assure him. The man who is usually fearless on the end of my passes looks shell-shocked.
“I was so careful, I just… damn,” he sighs.
“I mean you told me you were gonna ask me to cover for you last night… I guess this tracks. Who is she?” I ask, my curiosity getting the best of me. He obviously knows my situation, but I won’t hold it against him if he wants to keep his business personal.
“Uh,” he takes a deep breath, looking to the ceiling. “He’s one of our PR guys.”
“Oh,” I say, my eyes having gone wide. “Oh. Damn.”
“Yeah…no one knows. I’m not sure how it’d be perceived, or anything. A gay black man in the NFL? Not in a million years,” he shakes his head, a sad laugh leaving his mouth.
“Damn, Lonzo. I’m sorry,” I sigh, unsure of what to say.
“You and O’Connor?” He asks, changing the subject. I shrug. He cocks an eyebrow at me in return.
“Been into her since college. Nothing has ever happened between us. Strictly platonic best friend,” I say, my cheeks going red at the admission.
“Eternally friend-zoned. I know it all too well,” he shakes his head. As the elevator doors open, we nod at each other, a signal of the other’s silence on what went on behind closed doors.
We walk down our quiet, empty hallway together and it appears that room checks haven’t happened yet. We won’t be able to leave for our workout until they do, but that just buys me more time to get ready. As I’m changing into workout clothes, Joel texts me saying they just hit his room, and he’s a floor above us. Lonzo and I made it back just by the skin of our teeth, apparently.
The banquet is at seven, and a lot of us went straight from room checks down to the hotel gym. Putting that combination together, that means we all collectively decided to go to the banquet straight from the gym. Probably not the wisest decision, it definitely scored us some looks of disapproval from the wait staff. I declared it an act of good morale.
The tables are set up in long rows, so Lonzo and I squeeze into the last two spots at a table with some other offense guys. While I’m friends with everyone on the team, I’m not friends with everyone on the team. I don’t have any close relationships outside of Lonzo and my buddy from college who got traded here this season, Mike Tyler.
I chalk it up to still being so new to the team. This being only my second season in Chicago— the pros, in general— I’m still considered young blood. With time this will likely change, and closer relationships will cultivate. Right now, though, it feels as though everything is very surface-level.
We go through a buffet, the options endless. Any protein, grain, or green you could imagine was available to fit everyone’s specific diet regimen. The chatter and laughter were flowing, which helped take the edge off a bit. I’m not nervous for today, but I’m always anxious. And the anxiety I feel about the game is intense.
Coach Portwell talks to us while we eat. Not one for motivational speaking, he did a pretty good job given the room full of staring heads. He’s really taken me under his wing the last couple of years, and it’s been my saving grace. Having a coach who understands you versus one who works you to the bone makes all the difference, and realizing that years ago might have been the deal breaker in my relationship with my father.
In his speech, Portwell references a game in which our kicker, James Cannon, made a game-winning field goal. James and I were going back and forth about the game, reminiscing on the earlier season.
My attention is redirected to the other side of the table when one of my teammates calls out my name.
“Yo, Bradford, you’re trending on Twitter! Whose room did you go to last night?”
Chapter Thirteen
Elle’s Point of View
Someone took a picture of Alex and I walking into the elevator together last night. You can’t make out any details of the other person in the picture— me—, but it’s very obviously Alex in the picture.
Alex is the league’s most eligible bachelor. The fact that the internet is having a field day over the fact that he could be seeing someone— which he’s not— is insanity.
It’s not a super big deal for me, not until someone with an internet connection finds out what hotel I’m staying at and puts two and two together. It’s not that we were even doing anything wrong, not really. We were breaking league rules, yes, but it’s not like we were hooking up.
The game hasn’t been a nail-biter. Chicago is sweeping the floor with San Francisco, and they are certainly basking in the glory of kicking the home team’s ass to head to the Super Bowl.
I watch as Maria Tyson, my co-worker who essentially took my job, leaves the field to take her break before the game ends. It sucks, standing on the sidelines with no purpose. I’m only here to do Alex’s postgame.
I kick at the turf beneath me, a sense of dread washing over me. What am I going to do? The more I think about it, the more I realize the entire situation is asinine.
Getting put on probation and losing my job for a display of pride? The more I think about it the more I want to punch something. It is so unfair and so barbaric.
My gaze flickers from the turf to the game unfolding in front of me as the clock runs. I force myself to watch Alex play in the last minute of the game. Really watch, focusing in on him. It’s redundant at this point, recanting my pride. But when I watch him on that field, that’s all I feel. An overwhelming, enthralling sense of pride. It’s incredible, where he’s taken the team, where they’ll be in two weeks— the Super Bowl. It’s what every professional athlete dreams of, the championship game.
I watch the way he maneuvers the field. He’s so calm and collected under the pressure of the ball, truly a force to watch.
He hands off the ball-
I thought he handed off the ball-
That was a hard hit-
Calm and collected, unfortunately, does nothing against a ruthless defender and a hole in the offensive line.
I can’t see what’s happening. Personnel from the sideline start rushing to the field, and I feel my vision go cloudy.
Teammates and trainers swarm the field, and that’s when I know something is wrong. I can hear his yells of agony from my position on the sidelines, the silence of the fans eerily settling over the stadium.
Something is terribly, terribly wrong.
My head starts to spin.
I bite down on my tongue in an attempt to stop the tears from escaping my eyes. The silence in the stadium is nauseating.
Alex, Alex, Alex.
“Eleanor, go. Maria is on her break and we need coverage. Don’t fuck it up,” a putrid voice rings in my ear, planting me back on earth.
I shake my head once. Eddie looks me in the eye. “Eleanor, you’ve got this. Do it for him,” he says steadily.
Fuck.
There was only one time in college that Alex was injured badly. It was toward the end of his sophomore season, he fractured his hand pretty badly and had a pin put in his middle finger. Whatever this is, this is worse.
He came home from that week twelve game against Rutgers with a swollen hand but told me he wasn’t super concerned about it. He said, “I can’t really move my fingers, but I don’t want it to be a big deal.”
He’s always put himself last. Just when he’s finally-
“Elle,” Eddie urges, pulling me from the montage of bad thoughts swirling through my mind.
I swallow down the bile in my stomach and quickly dab away the tears at the corners of my eyes. Counting to ten, I ground myself.
This is about to be the worst coverage of my career.
Like a robot, I go over the situation and the play that leads to the injury. Of course, it was the final drive of the game.
Portwell is going to take a lot of heat for not pulling Alex from the game when they had an established lead. I push that thought to the back of my mind.
When I think my report is done, the studio asks me one last question. I know this one is being broadcasted because of the crystal-clear audio on their end. “Eleanor, we know you’re close with Bradford, how do you feel personally?”
Since when did I turn into the subject of an interview?
“Um,” I start, internally flinching at how badly I was just caught off guard, “I think that it is devastating to watch any athlete of his caliber take an injury like that, even more so given the circumstances of where the team is headed next week. My thoughts are with him,” I say, and as soon as I get the off-air signal, I click the speak button on my earpiece.
“What in the fuck was that?!” I exclaim, my blood boiling.
“A question.” The voice in my earpiece comes back. It’s distorted so I can’t put a name to it, but if I had to guess? Peter Koury. The same one who asked me the question on air. He’s a special kind of disgusting who would put a reporter into a situation like that.
“I’m done. Terminate my contract. I just— I cannot do this with you anymore, Peter,” I say, tearing my earpiece out. “Thanks for everything, Eddie. I think this is the end of the road for us,” I say hurriedly, needing to get out of here. I need to find Alex.
As I head down the press tunnel, my phone starts buzzing in my pocket. My stomach flips.
I don’t know if it makes me twice as alarmed or relieved to see his name flash on my caller ID, but I answer it immediately.
“Alex,” I answer, tears stinging my eyes.
“Hey, sunshine,” his voice is gravelly.
“Alex, where are you?” I ask, dodging through hordes of people trying to exit the stadium.
“The locker room. They’re getting an x-ray ready for me,” his voice comes out shaky.
I’ve never been to this stadium before, I have no idea where to go to find access to the locker rooms from where I’m at now. I look around, a pit in my stomach forming.
Fans must have taken it upon themselves to decide that once the quarterback went down like that, the game was over. It was over long before Alex went down, but after the hit, they started leaving in droves. I stand in a sea of red and gold, with no fucking idea where I’m supposed to go.
“Are you okay?” I ask softly.
“No,” he answers. I feel my heart break in half.
“I’m coming to find you, Alex.”
Chapter Fourteen
Alex’s Point of View
The last 48 hours have gone by in a painkiller-induced haze.
While my team prepares for the biggest game of their lifetimes, I’m sitting in pre-op waiting for the surgical reconstruction of my ACL.
Fun fucking times.
The initial pain was excruciating. The team doctors hooked me up with a morphine IV right after the hit, and my mind has been foggy ever since. My coach has been checking up on me pretty much hourly, he’s the one who brought me to the hospital today.
