Page 10

Brutus nodded, rubbing his cheek.

"I guess... look, I've shared locker rooms with guys who've come from rough upbringings before, know what I mean? In college, I shared a dorm room with a guy who grew up in Liberty City, Miami. Heard of it?"

"I've seen the documentaries," Castellanos said. "That part of Miami, you either grow up to be a rapper, a football player... or you may not grow up at all."

"Pretty much. And the stories he told me..." Brutus took a deep breath, shaking his head. "Sorry. Fucking therapy, gets me into my feels too often."

"That's not a bad thing, once you learn how to handle those feels. Lots of men, including the ones I work with, don't," Castellanos said. "You just need practice."

Brutus nodded, shaken up. He hadn't told anyone just how much the past month of weekly sessions with a psychiatrist had affected him. "I just... what do you know of my story?"

Castellanos sat down next to him, leaning against the other tire.

"Brutus Townsend, thirty years old, only son of Jake 'Juggernaut' Townsend and Bethany Parker-Townsend.

Your dad played defensive end for Los Angeles throughout the nineties, and while he was a dependable player, didn't exactly light up the stat columns the way you have.

Your mother was an Olympian... heptathlon, I think. "

"You know my bio well," Brutus said, impressed. "And yeah, my dad's Juggernaut Townsend."

"When I heard you were getting assigned to me, I read your Wikipedia," Castellanos said simply. "Anyway, with your parents being athletic superstars, you and your sisters were bound to be competitive athletes, right?"

"Billie's still competing, she does jiu-jitsu," Brutus said with a little smile.

"She'll be going for her black belt soon probably.

She got into it after playing football herself all the way through high school and then after college, played pro for a few years.

Just make sure you never, ever call it the 'Lingerie League' around her.

I've seen her smack the crap out of a guy for that. "

"Sounds like he deserved it."

"Yeah well... pro women's football doesn't pay the bills, so she put the shoulderpads aside and moved on.

But football's been my birthright even before I knew it," Brutus admitted.

"I could read an offense and knew how to predict a quarterback's check down progression before I could ride a bicycle. "

"I ride a bike," Castellanos said suddenly.

Brutus looked at her in surprise. "Growing up, money was tight, so I learned to pinch pennies until Abe screamed. Anyway, I knew how much of an average soldier's paycheck gets eaten up by car payments, insurance, all that shit. So when I got to my first unit, I bought an electric assist bicycle."

"An electric bike?" Brutus asked, humming. "That's... actually kinda cool."

"I can go forty miles on a single charge, and get up to twenty miles an hour," Castellanos said with a bit of pride. "Best of all, I charge up the battery in my room. Anyway, you were saying about football."

"Yeah well... my life's always been about football," Brutus admitted.

"As a kid I lifted weights not because I wanted to look like The Rock or some super hero from the comic books, but because it would prepare me for football.

All of my routines were about building football strength, not looks.

You know why most guys do bicep curls, right? "

"Curls for the girls," Castellanos said wryly.

Brutus laughed.

"You didn't?"

"I've never done more than three sets of direct bicep work a week, and that's only so I can keep my bicep tendons strong. Football doesn't require biceps," he explained. "Summer camp always was at a university, sometimes one my dad would guest coach at, but always, always included the pigskin."

"But you want more."

Brutus looked at Castellanos, surprised. The only person he'd ever told that to was his therapist. "What makes you say that?"

"A vibe I get from you," Castellanos said. "Look, if all you cared about was football, you'd have never gotten the rep you have, the so-called Bluecat Bad Boy. By the way, who came up with that nickname? The PR department?"

"Some asshole at ESPN," Brutus said. "But it hurt me. So you're looking to be more than either a poster boy of the league, flashing a pearly white smile from time to time and not doing shit other than football. But something about that, and about what you've just told me, eats at you."

"You're insightful."

"Comes with the background, learning to read people.

That rep, you're caught between trying to live up to it, and not wanting it.

If you were at peace, you wouldn't get worked up about the fans, or be here.

You'd have paid your fine and done the easiest job possible to get out of trouble with the league. Am I right?"

Brutus nodded reluctantly, surprised that someone saw so deeply into him so quickly.

"My agent thinks I'm nuts to have insisted on doing my internship with a real unit and not just done a spring football camp for one of the service academies or some PR work with one of the more famous units.

No offense, but the Three-Three isn't well known. "

"Compared to the 82nd or the 101st, for damn sure we're not," Castellanos admitted. "Sort of comes with the territory of our missions. We're... utility players. Can't go into it more than that. So you want to be known as more than a football player."

Brutus didn't answer, just looked at the ground in between his feet for a bit before getting up. "Come on. I bet the Army doesn't like us sitting around on our asses."

They kept going over the truck, but Brutus felt different than before. Knowing that the woman with him had been through so much, yet didn't judge him for his privileged upbringing, affected him deeply.

"So the last items I'll do," Castellanos said, "since it involves the radio. You haven't been through the classes."

"Can I watch though?"

"Sure. Can you take the clipboard?"

Brutus took the passenger seat and watched while she started working on the military radio in the center console. After a moment, he spoke up. "My ankle."

"What?"

"You asked me this morning why I sucked so hard in the run."

"I wouldn't say suck," Castellanos replied, shifting to get a better view of the radio's controls. "You weren't at the same level as you were with the other events."

"I was almost last."

Castellanos laughed, causing Brutus to look at her askance. He didn't like people laughing at him, but he held his tongue as the beautiful woman's laugh sounded so genuinely amused. Finally, she slowed. "You're comparing yourself to infantry soldiers, Brutus."

"And?"

Castellanos took a deep breath. "Okay, let me explain. Infantry is filled with physical psychos. It's like... like IQ tests. You know how they score those, right?"

"Yeah, had to take one before the draft," Brutus said. "My point is, 'average' is supposed to be a hundred, right? But what happens if everyone starts scoring a hundred and fifteen?"

"Nice. But that's exactly it," Castellanos said. "So infantry is literally saying that 'average' is a B plus in school, or an A. But if everyone's scoring an A, what's that mean about 'average'? It doesn't mean shit."

"Yeah well... I don't like being almost dead last," Brutus admitted. "I never have."

"You'd never have made it as a pro football player if you did," Castellanos pointed out. "Now what's this about the ankle?"

"The game that... I popped off," Brutus said reluctantly, "I fucked up my ankle. Those last two plays, I tried to plant my foot and it rolled. Then went and got yeeted onto it. Didn't help I had a three hundred and forty pound assist on those plays."

"I remember the team saying something about that. Their first attempt to let the whole thing blow over."

Brutus nodded, sighing. "Yeah well, the press doesn't know about it, but it was more than just a rolled ankle. It was a more serious injury."

"Jesus Brutus, why didn't you say something?" Castellanos asked heatedly, turning in the driver's seat to glare at him. "The fuck, man?"

"What?" Brutus asked, just as hot. "I've had problems with my ankles for the past three seasons, ever since Trent Jackson tackled me on an interception and stopped me from getting a pick six.

I've had every ortho and their brother take a look at the MRIs, and they all tell me the same thing.

Surgery isn't going to improve the situation.

So I wear heavy duty ankle braces during practice and games under my socks, rehab the fuck out of my ankles every day, and 'suck it up' for the field.

It adds to the whole Bad Boy thing anyway, I play a third of my games pissed off because of the pain. "

"I get that, using the pain to motivate you," Castellanos said, "but look, you slowed down. So how did they feel right now?"

She was upset, angry, but also concerned about him. It made him more calm, and Brutus took the opportunity to let go of the anger and try to be in the moment, to be open with her.

"During the test, it felt like I was getting kicked in the ankle every step," Brutus admitted.

"Just like every other time I've run for significant distance in the past three years.

So in the off season, I do exclusively non-impact cardio when I'm doing anything but sprints.

Even then if I can I do water sprints in the pool. "

"Makes sense," Castellanos said. "Still Brutus, you should have told us. Told me. We've all got security clearances, I know shit that I can't tell you. We would have kept the secret."

"It's not that, I just... it's not my system to ask for the easy way out," Brutus said. "I do what needs to be done, bottom line."

"Yeah well," Castellanos sighed, "More importantly, as your team leader, my job is to take care of my troops.

I keep my team healthy for their jobs, because here's a little inside info related to the fitness test. Nobody's ever won a war in track pants and t-shirts, and the last time anyone ran two miles uninterrupted in combat, they were going the wrong way. "

Brutus laughed, nodding. "Okay, I can see the logic in that."

"Good. Now here's more logic," Castellanos said.

"I will bust the chops of any soldier under my umbrella.

Ask any of them, and they'll tell you I'm three times stricter on them than Sergeant Orkin is.

But at the same time, tell them how I am when someone says some shit about anyone on my team.

That includes you, Brutus Townsend. I'll tear anyone's head off if I need to. "

"A mama bear, huh?" Brutus asked.

Castellanos nodded.

"Cool."

"Yeah well, my job is to keep you able to perform your duties. Now, are you wearing your ankle brace right now?"

"No... for just walking around I'm okay, and these boots help a good bit," Brutus said. "You military types do well with those."

"Okay. Well on the upcoming days, we're going to have some pretty physically active days, so wear the brace inside your boot. In the meantime, I'll pull Lieutenant Parker aside, talk to him on the down low. We'll see what can be worked out."

"So the press never finds out," Brutus said, and Castellanos nodded. "You don't need to."

"Bullshit." Castellanos handed him the clipboard. "Now, you just did this truck with me, get started on truck sixty five right next to us while I go chase down the lieutenant. I'll be back before you get into anything you're not trained to do."

Castellanos left, and for a second Brutus was tempted to run after her, ask her not to do it.

But instead he stopped, and went over to the truck sixty five and popped the hood, getting started.

The truth was, he'd been having ankle problems since his high school days.

Nothing was going to fix it, and any run over a hundred yards was painful.

Two miles? Absolute agony, especially being so close to the end of the season and the grind of the past seven months. Taking February off for rehab wasn't enough, not by a long shot.

Just survive this week, he told himself. Then you can spend the next four months resting, rehabbing, and popping glucosamine powder like it's Kool-Aid.

He looked over, where Castellanos was talking to Lieutenant Parker, and he felt better about the upcoming week than he thought he would.

Maybe this week wouldn’t be so bad after all.