Page 6 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

OUT OF THE BLUE

Sebastian

There wasn’t any joking dished out, like you might expect. Every player knew what that request meant, and they looked away like they hoped it wasn’t contagious.

Well, damn. I would’ve liked to play out the season, at least. Looked like I wasn’t even going to play the Chargers on Sunday.

I said, “Be there as soon as I’m dressed.”

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but I wasn’t having it. Nobody was going to rush me on this one.

I could have said, “It’s not fair,” or thought it, but I wasn’t eight years old. I’d kicked well, sure, but kickers got moved around the league like pawns on a chessboard. That was how it was. It wasn’t your glamour position, but fortunately or unfortunately, it was what I was good at.

Five minutes later, I was tossing my duffel to the floor and taking a seat in Bob’s office. I crossed one ankle over a knee for good measure. What the hell.

“You’re waived,” Bob said. “And the Portland Devils want to pick you up.”

No reprieve, then. I said, “And yet I’m at eighty-three percent for the season, and I’ve done better than that lately. Made a fifty-three yarder at the whistle last week.”

“You’re on a streak, yeah,” Bob said, “and the Devils lost their kicker yesterday. Tore his hamstring in practice.”

“Lousy for him,” I said. “Who’s replacing me?”

“None of your business,” he said, “but you’ll find out soon enough. Colt Hammersmith.”

“Colt Hammersmith can’t kick for fifty-three,” I said.

“Maybe not,” Bob said, “but he’s consistent.”

“Because they don’t put him out there for the long ones,” I said.

“I think this has more to do with the salary cap, and you looking to shore up that offensive line so the QB isn’t getting sacked into next week every other play.

Robertson’s getting a serious case of happy feet, and you don’t want him injured or losing his mojo for nothing.

Who’re you planning to pick up? Left tackle? ”

“If you’re so smart,” Bob said, “you’d think you’d be smart enough to shut up.”

“Not that smart,” I said. “Not so far.”

“See Aaron,” Bob said. “He’s got your paperwork.”

“When do they want me up there?” I asked. “They’ve got a bye this week, don’t they?”

Bob stared at me. “Thought you were smart. It’s the NFL, Robillard, not soccer. Serious money on the line, and no time to fuck around. They want you up there yesterday. Well, Monday morning. See Aaron, and get your ass up to Portland.”

“Right,” I said, and stood .

“Good luck,” Bob said. “Do good up there.” And, to my surprise, stood and shook my hand.

“Thanks,” I said. “This is suddenly warm of you. Odd.”

“You kidding?” Bob said. “If you crash and burn, I look bad for picking you up in the first place. Go kick some field goals and prove me right.”

I saluted, and at last, he smiled. “Good kicker can last past thirty-five,” he said. “Forty, even, if he takes care of himself. I’ll see you around. But when you’re playing us, I’ll hope you miss.”

Alix

I stepped out of the limo onto the sidewalk in front of the church and looked up at the creamy building, its Baroque towers and dome so ornamented, it looked like an actual wedding cake.

A flight of stairs rose before me, and I asked my grandmother, who was being helped out of the car by my dad, “Do you want me to take you in the back way, so you don’t have to do the stairs? ”

“No,” she said. “I think I’d better come with you and your father, don’t you?”

“You’re sitting down in front, Marguerite,” my father said.

“I retain the use of my faculties,” she said. “I know where I’m sitting. I’ll go in with you.”

I shivered. It wasn’t the gorgeous, impossibly bright winter’s day my mother had hoped for, but one of those glowering, gloomy gray ones, where the air feels colder than it should because there’s so much moisture in it.

I wrapped the cape around me more tightly, as if it would help—it wasn’t warm, and it wasn’t the feathery one I’d liked, but it was slightly more helpful than nothing—offered my grandmother my arm and hitched up my skirts with the other hand, and walked slowly up the shallow steps with her and my dad, feeling once again like this was happening to somebody else.

My dad opened the heavy wooden door, and the swell of organ music I’d heard from the street was suddenly all around me. In my head. In my bones.

The wedding coordinator, Emily, led us to an anteroom, looking extremely relieved.

We were late, I guess. White flowers stretched out in all their perfection on a table—my colors were white and white, either classy or another failure of imagination—and I looked at the stack of programs, the text engraved on heavy linen cardstock, and then at my bridesmaids.

Five of them, exclaiming at the sight of me.

Ned’s sister Ali said, “You look beautiful. Like a princess. See what I did there?” and laughed, and I tried to smile.

All of it—the overloud organ music, the suffocatingly sweet smell of Asiatic lilies, the overheated little room with too many bodies in it, my bridesmaids giving off those overly enthusiastic “Oh-My- Gawd” sorority-girl vibes—seemed to be pressing into me.

Emily, the wedding coordinator, was taking off my cape and hanging it up, then fussing over the drape of my gown, and I was having a hard time breathing.

I said, “Sit here at the table, Oma, if you don’t want to go sit in front yet.” There was only one chair, or I’d have sat with her. Suddenly, all I wanted was to be at the little house in the hills with her, sweeping her patio, then going inside for tea.

My grandmother didn’t sit down. Not yet, anyway. Instead, she told my father, “Niles, please take the ladies into the entryway for a minute.”

Emily said, “We’re very close on time.”

My grandmother stared at her impassively. “Please take the ladies into the entryway. Niles, give us a minute.”

There’s no authority like the authority of a very old princess, because Emily’s face changed. “Of course,” she said. “Two minutes, and I’ll come check with you. ”

My grandmother didn’t answer her. Instead, she watched everybody leave, sank into the chair, her back as straight as always, and said, “Now. What are you feeling?”

“Nauseated,” I answered honestly.

“Better or worse than the hotel?” she asked.

“Worse.”

“You know,” she said, “weddings can be expensive. This wedding, in particular.”

“I know,” I said. “Don’t you think I know? I get it. I’m getting with the program. I am with the program. I’m ready to go.”

“Do you know what’s even more expensive?” she asked.

“What?”

“Divorce.” She gazed at me, her hooded blue eyes level. “There’s a word for it, isn’t there? Something your mother used, back when she was going to college for all that finance education. About money that’s gone, so you shouldn’t base your decisions on it.”

“Sunk cost,” I said. “That’s the term.”

“That’s it. I always liked that idea. Sunk cost. It’s not just about money.

It’s about thinking you can’t stop doing something because you’ve worked on it so long and so hard.

Trying to persuade yourself that this is what you want, because otherwise, you’ll have to admit it isn’t working for you and start over.

Tell me, what are you worried about? Is it just the marriage, or … ”

I said, “It’s cold feet. I know it is.”

“What’s cold feet?” she asked. “Be sensible, now, and tell me. It never has to leave this room.”

“It’s all been feeling … like it’s closing in on me,” I finally confessed.

You’d think it would make me feel better to tell somebody, but instead, the panic was rising.

“School. Work. Stuck in an office for seventy or eighty hours a week as a new financial analyst. Moving into Ned’s place.

Being married. I’m ju st … it’s not … it’s so much.

It feels like too much. And I know, I know, I’m turning thirty.

Plenty old enough to know my own mind. I always have known my own mind. How old were you when you got married?”

“We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. If you’re not ready, if it’s not right—you walk out the door now. You leave. Your father will explain.”

“I can’t. Ned?—”

“You can.”

“No. Ned doesn’t deserve that. At all.” I was rubbing my sweating palms against the dress, leaving marks, I was sure, but I was past caring.

A knock at the door. Emily, that would be. My grandmother said, “Answer it.”

Oh, my God. I was still in a dream, but it was a different dream. I pulled the door open, and there Emily was, bright and shiny in her dressy blue jumpsuit, asking brightly, “Are we ready to begin?”

“No,” I said. “Not quite. Please go find Ned.”

“He’s already standing at the front,” she said. “Can it wait?”

“No,” I said. “I’m afraid it can’t.”