Dirty Play:Sports Romance(17)

"What is it with you and winning? Damn it, Wes. Winning isn't everything."

He slammed the fork on the counter. "Yes it is. You don't get it. You  don't understand my life, or what it's taken for me to get here. You  live in a happy black and white land where you get to save people and  put them back together. It's my job to tear them down. To trample and  stomp. To tackle and defeat. That's my life. I've fought for everything I  have. Every victory. Every dollar. Every single damn thing.  Everything."

"Hey, hey. I'm not judging you." I saw the flames in his eyes. The vein  on the side of his neck was throbbing. "Tell me. Just tell me. Explain  it. All of it."

He hunched back in his seat, letting an expansive breath escape his  chest. "It's not a great story. Let's just let it go. I don't want to  fight with you."

I pulled his right hand into my lap. Something desperate had made him do  what he did. And I knew enough about my connection to him that I wanted  to understand it. I wanted to know what would drive a man who had  everything to risk it all. Put his health at stake. I still had no idea  what he had taken, and that scared me.

I traced the side of his jaw. "No. I'm not letting it go. I care about  you. And if we're doing this, then I'm here for all of it. Not just the  sex and the beautiful clothes." I smiled. "Although, those are nice  perks."

"The truth comes out."

"It always does." My thumb rubbed his bottom lip. "You can trust me. Talk to me. I want to know why you have to win."

"Huh. I think that's the first time someone has asked me that. Doesn't everyone want to win? Isn't an instinct?"

I shook my head. "Not at the risk of everything. There's something  driving you. I see it. I feel it. It's even with me. You wanted to win  me over."

"And I did." He winked.

"Yeah, you did. And here we are. So, I'm asking you, where does it come from?"

He closed his eyes. "This is fucking hard."         

     



 

My heart pounded. I wanted to pull him to my chest and cradle him and  tell him he could trust me with everything. Even if he had done  something I thought was completely unethical. But that wasn't really the  problem. Whatever he had done to regenerate his hand wasn't the core  issue. It came from something far deeper. There was something Wes wasn't  telling me.

"Where does all this come from?" I pressed him for an answer. Some kind of explanation.

I had seen two sides of him. There was the competitor. The cocky bastard  who wanted people to fall at his feet. The man who dominated me in the  bedroom. The womanizer. The reckless millionaire who threw money around.

And then there was this man in front of me. The one who had cooked  dinner for me after I had a hard day at the hospital. The one who made  sure I had everything I needed. The one who sent flowers and kissed me  like every kiss was making him whole again. That man was the reason I  was here. That man was the reason I slept under his sheets and wore his  jersey.

I waited, trying to be patient. Trying to understand why it was so hard for him to open up. He wasn't used to this.

"You're not from Texas, Doc."

I shook my head. "No, this has all been a culture shock."

"What you have to understand is that football is life here. My dad  shoved a helmet on my head and a set of pads on me when the ball was  still bigger than my head. He had me run drills on Saturday mornings at  6am when most kids were still sleeping. I threw the ball until it was  time for dinner. He hired a private coach when I was eight. I was  scouted by the time I was twelve." Wes's eyes hardened. "It didn't  matter to him if I liked football or not, I was going to be a champion."

"But did you like it? Did you want to play?" I tried to imagine a  younger version of the strong man sitting in front of me, spending his  every waking minute on a football field instead of playing Chutes and  Ladders or watching cartoons.

"I didn't know what I wanted. He didn't ask. I never had a choice. By  the time I was in high school, I was already getting scholarship offers  for top schools. It was a no brainer. Football was in my blood by then.  It was my life and I kept riding the train."

"But you love it now?" I questioned.

"It's who I am. I can't separate it. I don't even think about it. I live and breathe football. I always have."

I touched his hand, the one I had so carefully put back together. I  didn't know what lengths he had gone through to heal it in record time,  but I was starting to understand pieces of his story.

"But your dad isn't making you do those things now, is he? You're your own person, Wes."

His eyes hardened. "He made me into a winner. A champion. And that's who I am. I'm who I am because he pushed me. He made me."

I swallowed. It sounded like brainwashing. It sounded like a child being  robbed of precious years of imagination and happiness. It sounded like a  tyrant parent living out his own dream vicariously through his talented  son. The entire story pissed me off.

"I know it's not the same as playing for a national team or having the  world watch my every move." Although lately, it seemed like the press  was following me around. "But when I'm in surgery, I know that feeling. I  want to win. I want to succeed."

"No, that's not the same."

"Just hear me out." I ran my fingers along his arm, swirling over the  ink that ran the length of his bicep. "When I'm in there, I know I can't  win every time. People count on me. The patient. Their family. The  surgical team under my direction. But we can't win every time. And I  have to live with that. That has to be okay. Because if it's not, I  can't be a good surgeon. If every time something went wrong and I  believed we were failures, how would I ever walk back into the next OR?  How could I ever give someone else hope?" His eyes were on me, and I  prayed he understood what I was saying. "Being a good surgeon means  accepting loss. And I think it's the same thing for you, too. Everything  can't be a win. There is a line drawn that isn't worth crossing. Not  for winning. Not if it means being unethical. Not if it means it will  let more people down. Not if it costs you your health, or possibly your  life."

He gently brushed the hair off my shoulder. I sighed, believing I had struck a nerve with him.

"I don't think we're wired the same way." His words smacked me in the face.

"You didn't agree with any of that?"

"You were right about one thing. Being a surgeon isn't the same as being  a quarterback. You don't know the weight on my shoulders." He stood and  took our plates to the sink. "You don't know what I'll do to win."         

     



 

I looked at the empty counter, feeling the disappointment sink in. Our  first fight had transformed into an emotional story, and now I couldn't  believe I'd never felt more disconnected from him than I did at this  minute.

Maybe I didn't have the warrior's spirit to win like he did, but I wasn't going to give up. Not yet.





Seventeen





Wes





I washed the dishes and tried to ignore Lennon's eyes needling my neck.  She didn't know what the hell she was talking about. We were from  different worlds. Surgery and football had nothing in common.

"I've got to go over some plays." I turned off the kitchen light and  sank into my recliner. "Coach has changed up some things." I started  flipping through the binder the messenger had sent over.

She sat on the couch, holding her wine glass, and started switching  through the channels. She landed on a show about a president and his  mistress.

"Could you turn that down, please? I'm studying."

"Sorry." She practically muted the TV.

I didn't like this. The fight. The tension. The fact that I had done  something to piss her off, when it was none of her business. I did what  was necessary to win. And the Wranglers weren't going to win with Cosech  on the field. He'd made that clear last game. We had run the ball  almost every play and barely won by a field goal. My return was the only  way to punch our ticket to the Super Bowl.

"I think I'll study in the bedroom." I kicked the recliner in place and headed to my suite. This was awkward as fuck.

"Why don't I just leave for tonight? You can study. I'll give you some space."

I turned in front of the double doors leading to my room. "Hell no."

"I don't want to pressure you, Wes. Me sitting here while you're pissed  feels like pressure. I don't want to make this worse. We can talk  tomorrow."

I dropped the binder on the table. "That doesn't work for me."

"Why not?" she questioned. "We have to agree to disagree on this, and maybe we both need our space right now."

"Because I want you in my bed tonight."

"Sex isn't the answer." She rolled her eyes. But I saw the spark. I saw  the lust. I saw my opportunity to finally show her what Wes Blakefield  could do with two fully operational hands.