Page 4 of Faking the Pass
Something I Never Allowed
P resley Lowe—two hours earlier
“I appreciate everything you and Dad have done for me this week, but really, I need to go home and be in my own house. I’ll be fine.”
My mother paused in the act of sliding a fresh batch of doughnuts onto one of the many food platters lining the kitchen island and slid me a chiding glance that made me feel nine years old again.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Presley,” she said. “It’s only been five days since your surgery. You can’t possibly take care of yourself yet. You can’t even button your own shirt. Wil, talk some sense into your son.”
Dad, wise man that he was, didn’t contradict her. “Your mom’s right, Pres.”
A former player himself, my father towered over my five-foot-two mother. Physically.
Her will stood tall though, and she’d rocked an enormous stage presence back when she’d been the frontwoman in a popular 80’s rock band—thus her younger sons’ musician-inspired names.
Our oldest brother Wilder had been named after our father.
“I’m a thirty-four-year-old man and a professional athlete,” I argued. “I think I can manage showering alone and scrambling a few fucking eggs.”
“Presley,” Mom fussed. “My goodness, I’ve never seen you so grumpy.”
“Sorry. Getting your throwing arm dissected and your season cut short will do that.”
Taking in a breath and letting it out, I tried to chill out.
“I promise I won’t overdo it, okay?”
Looking over at my younger brother Dylan, I silently pleaded with him to support my argument.
He shot me a good luck buddy grin and turned back to the NFL pre-game show on the big screen opposite the kitchen island.
This was our family tradition. Before every home game, we ate a big meal at our parents’ house here in Eastport Bay then headed to the stadium in Providence to start warming up.
Of course Dylan would be going alone today. I was out for the season.
Supposedly.
I planned to do everything in my power to defy the doctors’ and trainers’ dire predictions and get back to the team as quickly as possible.
Which was the main reason I needed to get back to my own house where I could work out in my home gym and have control over my own meals.
Perfect nutrition was paramount to recovery.
Not that my mom’s homemade doughnuts weren’t fantastic—there was just no room in my life for them right now. Not if I was going to get back on the field and lead my team to another Superbowl.
“But Dad and I are happy to help you,” Mom protested as she dropped a spoonful of batter into the pan of hot oil on the stovetop. “And the surgeon said you might need help for a couple of weeks post-op. It hasn’t even been one.”
I knew what was going on here. My mother was enjoying having one of her “babies” under her roof again.
My three brothers and I had long since moved out, and one of us—Merc—was living all the way on the West Coast, playing wide receiver for San Francisco.
My injury during last week’s season opener had unexpectedly put her back into full-time mothering mode, and I suspected she was enjoying it a little too much.
“What can I say? I’m an overachiever,” I teased and gave her a big smile as I reached for a protein-rich deviled egg with my good arm. “You raised four strong men.”
She laughed. “I raised four hungry bears. If Mercury and Wilder were here, we would have run out of food today. Next time I’ll have to cook an extra dozen eggs I think.”
She seemed to relish that prospect. I wasn’t sure how she’d survived our teenage years when it seemed like all my brothers and I ever did was eat, but she’d never complained.
All four of us were football players, though only three played in the NFL like our father had.
Our oldest brother Wilder had opted for a career in the military out of college instead of going through the draft. Then, badass that he was, he’d become a Navy SEAL.
As Dad liked to say, out of all of us, Wilder was the real hero. Now discharged from the military, he ran a highly successful security company based here in Eastport Bay.
“Protein is important for healing,” I said to Mom, tilting my head toward my bandaged shoulder. “I’ll buy the eggs next time.”
Now Dad spoke up. He was definitely not afraid to contradict me .
“Your mother and I can afford a few eggs. Save your money for retirement, son. Speaking of…”
I cut him off. “I’m not ready to talk about retirement. Not by a long shot.”
As if on cue, the game-day hosts on TV started discussing last week’s Nauticals game and the punishing hit that had resulted in a sack and a nasty fracture of my right collarbone, abruptly ending my season.
I’d be damned if I let it end my career.
I turned to look at the screen where film of the brutal hit played in slow-motion and the announcers speculated about my chances of ever returning to the field.
“Lowe has been miraculously injury-free during his twelve seasons in the NFL, but unfortunately it only takes one sometimes,” one of them said.
The other nodded. “Especially for a quarterback whose arm is his calling card. And it’s his throwing shoulder. I guess only time will tell if he can overcome it and play at his former level again. At his age—”
“Change that channel, would you baby?” Mom asked Dylan in a loud but pleasant voice. “We’ll all get plenty of football later today.”
Still trying to protect me.
My brother immediately picked up the remote, and the image on the screen changed to an aerial shot of Eastport Bay’s coastline, Oceanview Avenue in particular—Rhode Island’s version of Billionaire Row
Several of the famous Gilded Age mansions with their expansive green lawns and sweeping Atlantic Ocean views could be seen from above.
The camera’s perspective switched to a street view of one of the stately homes, Bellevue Manor, and the line of limousines arriving in front of it for some special event.
An excited female voice chattered about the celebrities who were expected here in town today. Dylan was about to change the channel again, when our sister-in-law Jessica walked into the room from the back hallway, holding her two-year-old son Theo.
She glanced at the screen. “Oh! That’s the wedding Wilder is working today. Leave that on, Dylan, I want to see it.”
She smiled at the parade of famous faces going in, dressed to the nines and waving to the cameras.
Made sense. Jessica, who went by the stage name Jade in her music career, probably knew a lot of those people personally.
“Any video of the bride yet?” she asked eagerly.
“Nah, we just turned it on,” Dylan said, getting up from his chair to tower over her and the baby. “Want me to take him so you can watch?”
“Sure.” She handed the toddler to his favorite uncle.
The kid was supposedly tall for his age—like father, like son—but he looked tiny in Dylan’s arms. Well, most adults looked tiny compared to the guys in my family.
“Who’s the best boy?” Dylan crooned to him as Theo grabbed his nose and squeezed it. “Is it Theo? I think it is. I think it’s Theo.”
My younger brother was pretty great with kids. He had one of his own, a six-year-old daughter who’d come along unexpectedly when he was a senior in college. He didn’t have her full-time, but whenever I saw them together I was in awe of his apparently natural parenting skills.
“Actually a slightly less good boy today,” Jess corrected him.
Turning to me, she scrunched her face in a comical wince. “Uncle Presley, I’m sorry to inform you that your phone is not waterproof.”
“Did Theo spill his sippy cup on it or something? That’s no biggie.”
Not used to having small children around, I had left my phone on the coffee table, directly in the kid’s line of sight. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen the device in a while.
Jessica rolled her eyes upward then brought them back to meet mine.
“Not exactly. We’ve been working with him to, you know, get him interested in the toilet in preparation for potty training?
And well… he’s interested,” she said. “He’s mastered the part about some things belonging in the potty.
There’s just a little confusion about which things.
I’m not sure how he got it without me noticing, but he kind of… flushed your phone.”
What?” I barked a laugh. “Like, all the way down the pipes?”
“No. No, it didn’t go down, but it did… drown.”
“Bye bye!” Theo yelled at the top of his lungs, and we all laughed at his unintentional comedic timing.
She pulled the dark, lifeless phone from her back pocket. “I dried it off as best I could, but I think it might be dead. Oh, and there was nothing else in the potty at the time, in case you’re wondering.”
“Thank God for small favors,” I said.
“We’ll replace it of course,” Jess rushed to add as she sheepishly placed the doomed phone on my open palm.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I have a backup at home. I’ll contact the carrier tomorrow to tell them to transfer service to it.”
“You want me to run by your house and pick it up for you?” she offered.
“I’m about to go home and put Theo down for his nap, but I could bring it by tonight.
Or Wilder can stop by your place after the game—he’s heading to the stadium in Providence right after the wedding, but afterward, I know he’d be happy to pick up your other phone and bring it here for you. ”
“It’s okay. I’ll get it myself. I’m going home tonight after watching the game with Mom and Dad,” I said.
“Oh.” Jess wore a look of surprised concern.
Darting a glance at my frowning parents, she asked, “Are you sure that’s okay, Pres? Do you want someone to stay with you at your place?”
“Definitely not.”
My tone had been maybe a little too emphatic, so I adjusted it. “I mean, no thanks. I’m good. I’ll be fine on my own.”
To deflect the uncomfortable attention from myself, I pointed at the TV behind her.
“There’s the bride.”
It was a long-distance shot, but you could see a blonde in a poufy white dress getting out of a limo and making her way toward the mansion’s front entrance.