Page 115 of Unstoppable Love

Of all the goddamn fucking plays. Of all the games. Of all the shitty things to happen, my busted leg and knee were the worst possible things I could think of happening.

“Mr. Kelley, we’re ready to disembark now.”

My flight attendant was a man half my size. How in the hell was he going to get me off this goddamn plane and back into my wheelchair?

“You’re helping me?” I couldn’t stop the snide tone in my voice. What’d they expect?

The team rushed me to surgery, told me to keep my ass in Buffalo as long as I needed, but there was no way in hell I was staying there.

The first thing I thought when I woke up, the first person I called as soon as I could was Ava.

Sure, it’d been three in the morning her time when all that happened, but she didn’t only not answered, she hadn’t called back.

I hadn’t heard from her all-damn day, or Isaiah when I tried to call him. I’d spoken to my dad, and when I asked if she’d stayed there, he’d only said, “She had a long night.”

Like I hadn’t.

The attendant’s smile was more of a snarl. “I can do my job, sir.”

Sir. Like I was now an old, washed-up has-been and not one of the top five quarterbacks in the country.

“Fine.” Thank God for the private plane my team had sent for me, though. I was able to sit in a reclining chair, casted leg fully propped up the entire ride.

Screwed. I was so damn screwed. In my lap, my phone buzzed, but after a quick glance to find another teammate’s name on the screen, I hit ignore.

There was only one person I wanted to talk to, one person I wanted to see, one person who would make this shitty, completely shitty situation not be so damn overwhelming.

“All right,” I muttered. “Let’s do this.”

I pushed up in the chair, wincing from the pain searing straight down my leg and biting back a cry of pain, and swung my broken right leg over the side of the recliner. My damn fucking leg. My right leg. The one where I planted my foot for a pass. It couldn’t have been my left? That would have at least been different. That one might not be causing whispers I’d seen all day on my phone about a career-ending kind of injury. Over before he really began. Kelley has one serious, long road ahead of him. One good season, and to go out like that? Shame. What a shame…

Shame? Please. It was a goddamn fucking joke, was what it was. Worse, I wouldn’t know for months if the announcers who’d taken far too much joy in discussing my ruin were right or not. Not with another surgery on the horizon and rods in my damn leg.

“Fuck,” I grunted as I leaned all my weight on my left and grabbed the crutches.

“Sir, we have the chair.”

“I’m not being pushed out of this damn plane like an invalid,” I growled. The attendant stepped back and grabbed my overnight bag that Marlin had stayed and packed for me. He’d brought it to the hospital, was there when I woke up, and after handing me my phone and telling me he’d called to give Ava a heads-up on what was going on, left.

I hobbled up the aisle of the small plane, every step and swing shooting a stabbing pain to my leg. Doctors had told me to give it another day before traveling.

I’d told them to fuck off.

They offered me pain medication, which got them another fuck off. Probably didn’t need to be a dick to them, but their careers weren’t getting dissected on social media by every single reporter and every man over the age of thirty who could have made it to the NFL if they just didn’t have one small thing happen.

Goddamn I was becoming a cynical bastard. Crazy how quickly that happened.

I hit the ramp to the plane, the small ramp in the distance, and leaned my shoulder against the wall. Fuck, this hurt. I was panting, and my sweatshirt was already sticking to my back. Behind me, the attendant had my bag, and there was a wheelchair to my right.

“Fuck it,” I muttered and glanced back. “Any chance you’re still willing to give me a push?”

It wasn’t an apology for being an ass to him, but at least he nodded.

“Absolutely, sir.”

I collapsed in the chair as soon as it was opened and allowed the man to bend over and flick up one of the foot braces. Sweet relief swept over the stabbing pain, leaving a muted roar instead of the needling sensations.

After shoving my crutches between my hip and the chair, I took the bag from him, and he hauled my invalid ass up the exit ramp. The airplane was private, and the airport was small, so we were through the one strip of twelve boarding areas and in an elevator heading to baggage claim quickly. My crutches clicked and clacked against the metal chair, and my fingers tapped the armrests.

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