Talons

Chapter 76: The Play

Rhea’s POV

The football is snapped to me and several huge men charge in my direction. I do the most logical thing and I toss it to the left of where I’m standing. Everyone hits the ground in laughter, obviously not expecting me to use common sense.

“Babe,” Mike says, still laughing hysterically at my actions. “No one is actually going to tackle you.” I probably should have corrected him when he called me that, but everyone calls me some variation of baby, so I ignore it.

I nod at Mike, he is the one who fitted me with two little flags around my waist. Apparently the defense will try to pull them off, representing a tackle, but it is hard to ignore instinct. They wanted the ball, so I made it available.

We set up the play again, and the ball flies into my hands. I start to panic as bodies crash into one another, trying to get to me. I see no one to pass the ball to; so, out of self preservation I run.

Brent and Brice are my defenders, they try to keep up with me, but I’m faster, so only Derrick can match my pace, and if I weren't having trouble moving in the oversized padding, he too would have been left behind.

I cross the touchdown line and start jumping up and down while clapping. Everyone is just staring at me, mouth agape, except coach Jim, who is looking at me as though he wants me on the team.

Brent jogs to me, and tells me that I celebrated too girly. He shows me a more ‘manly’ touchdown dance, and I duplicate it, making him double over in laughter. 

“Where were you last year?” he asks, and I shrug. 

“I guess I needed to be broken to come out of my shell,” I say, not realizing that Mike has also approached. I turn to look at him just in time to see his face take on a hurt expression, but I look away.

"Don’t you think you are being a little harsh?" Sylvia asks, and I sigh before asking her if she would like to end up in Raven’s shoes forever because that is how I see Mike and I becoming. He is a habitual cheater, and he won't change, not for me at least.

“Let's do that again,” Derricks says, clearly embarrassed that I outran him. I nod, and take my position.

The ball is snapped, and I run, dodging players as they try to grab for me. I’m vaguely aware of Derrick coming up from behind, so I spin around Brice, who is my defender, and start to sprint, but I feel a body crash into mine full strength. 

I literally tumble multiple times on the ground, and when I stop rolling, I know my shoulder is dislocated. Colton had given me the same injury the time he gave me my ‘belated birthday punches’ and I remember the feeling well.

I hear shouting and cursing from all around me, and I can hear Brent and Brice telling Mike and Derrick to stop fighting. I then hear coach Jim order Derrick to run the stairs and he sends Raul to make sure that Derrick actually completes the clear punishment. 

I can’t move because the pain is severe, so I wait for someone to come near me. If I were human I probably would have passed out, but in all honesty this sort of pain is normal to me now. 

Mike gets to me first, although I’m not sure if it's because people hung back to give him that right, or something else. He asks me if anything is broken. 

“Not broken, but my shoulder is definitely dislocated.”

After making sure I can move my head, and wiggle my toes, Mike gently removes my helmet. Brent and Brice are bent over me with concern written all over their expressions, and Coach tells me that he will get me to a hospital, but there is no need for all that. “Doesn’t anyone know how to snap in a dislocation?” I ask, but there is no one.

I sigh, and ask someone to help me sit up. The pain is intense but other than wincing I don’t make much noise. I ask Brent to help me remove my padding, but Mike doesn’t allow it, and he insists that everyone turn around as he removes the pads himself.

I don’t really dwell on Mike’s nonsense because the longer I wait, the more the area will swell, and the harder it will be to pop back in. 

“This has happened before,” I say, and everyone stares at me in absolute bewilderment. I know they are expecting me to be screaming, but Sylvia and I learned how to stifle our cries long ago.

I take a deep breath and will my dislocated arm up, wincing as the motion sends pain searing through my arm. , with the dislocated limb, I reach toward my opposite shoulder, and I feel and hear a dull pop.

I take a relieved breath and allow my body to plop backward. Mike is sitting on the ground behind me, so I end up falling into his lap. I really want to be annoyed, but at the moment, I can’t.

“Can someone get me ice and something to immobilize my arm?” I ask, and a man I recognize as coach Jim’s beta steps into view with exactly what I need. 

“How did you learn to do that?” he asks, and I tell him a version of the truth. 

“I hate hearing those stories,” Mike whispers, but I ignore him again. 

The beta instructs me to go back to my room and rest, which I want nothing more than to do, but before I can stand, Mike lifts me bridal style. 

“Please put me down,” I ask, embarrassed and uncomfortable in many ways. “I’m too heavy for you to carry.” I know it was a low blow, but those words came from his own mouth.

Mike’s POV

When B stepped into the room, my heart, which had originally been racing, stopped. She had left a chubby cute little girl and had come back something completely different. Her body is amazing, and based on the way the proportions match, I can tell that it is all natural.

She must have taken what I did to her and turned it into motivation to make me eat my words, and that is exactly what I'm doing. 

I glared at Brent and Brice after one of them commented on being happy B didn’t become their sister. I know she is no longer mine, but I feel like a lot was left unsaid between us, and we never broke up. As far as I am concerned, she is still my girlfriend, we are just having a fight right now.

When B starts speaking Spanish to Angel it takes everything in me to not get up and kiss her. I don’t know what she is saying, but it sounds sexy, and once again, I feel like an i***t for letting her go.

She had taken care of me when I was too broken up to take care of myself, and no one other than Brice and Brent knows how far she went.

If I had been smart, I would have valued her more, I would have cherished her more, but I was an i***t that let my d*ck think for me, and that bought me a summer of depression and bitterness.

After finding out that B was on vacation, my heart started to hurt badly. I don’t know why I thought she would have been sitting at home crying over me, but it was clear she was not. I couldn’t even look at the pictures because I did not want to see her smiling face, knowing that, for the first time ever, I had cried over a woman.

With tutoring over, I hang back wanting to talk to B, but it looks like Angel had the same idea. We both try to outwait one another, but B clings to Brent and Brice, following them to the field.

After they leave, I take the opportunity to warn Angel that B is off limits, but he tells me that he heard about my relationship with B from Gavin, and he didn’t care.

Ignoring his words, I rush to the locker room, and sprint out to the field. B is alone, and I take the opportunity to apologize for all my poor behaviors. She doesn’t accept, which hurts, but at least she listened.

Somehow, B ends up running drills with us, and after shocking everyone with her forty-seven yard pass, she gives us all a good laugh when she chucks the ball to avoid being ‘tackled.’

She shocks us again, by running the ball to complete a touchdown and while she is doing the celebratory dance Brent showed her, I approach just in time to hear her say she had been broken. I know she is talking about me, and I feel terrible about it.

We run the play again, and just like he had done with me, Derrick spears B in a way that sends her tumbling. I remove my helmet and use it to bash against his, and a fight ensues between us.

When Coach orders him to run the stairs, I swear that I saw him smiling, and if I didn’t know any better I would say that he did it on purpose.

B is just laying there, and everyone seems too scared to approach, so when I get to her, I’m the first one to see that she is conscious. She tells me her arm is dislocated, and with no one to snap it back in for her, she does it herself.

Coach Morgan, appears out of nowhere, and immobilizes B’s arm, asking her how she learned to treat herself. I’m disgusted when she says that her childhood bully had dislocated her arm in the past.

I hate hearing stories like that, and I feel the need to protect her from being hurt in any way ever again; even by me.

I scoop B into my arms, and she asks me to let go, telling me that she is ‘too heavy’ to carry and I wince at her word choice. 

I had been the one to tell her that she was bigger than Ashley, so I had been the one to put that thought into her head. 

Don’t get me wrong, B isn’t a light girl, she has a lot of muscle, but she probably weighs one hundred fifty pounds max, even when she was less fit she was never heavy to me.

"B, please forgive me. I will literally do anything."