Page 48 of Quarterback Sneak

Every ounce of him was exhausted except for one part, which had no issue rising to the occasion. He started to sit up, felt a rush of dizziness, and lay back down. “Okay, maybe not quite yet.”

“I think you need to relax and just heal. You’ve been really sick.”

“So you keep reminding me.”

Her face fell and she lowered her lashes. “You could’ve died and it was my fault. It’s amazing you’re still talking to me.”

“I get that you feel guilty about what happened, but you can’t dwell on it. It could have ended badly but it didn’t. I’m alive.” Sam clasped her wrist and rested her hand on his heart. He hated to see her upset and needed to hear her laughter, something to take his mind off his own troubles. “You’re being too tough on yourself. It was an accident, a comedy of errors. In the end, everything played out fine, so jump off the blame train and climb aboard the love boat.”

“Yeah, you say that now but weren’t you a tiny bit teed off about this? I mean, it’s because of my mistake you spent the night in bed with a needle in your arm. You’re still wearing the bandage.” She studied his face, hazel eyes searching.

“To be honest, I was too sick to care.” Not entirely a lie. In the past twenty-four hours, the only thing that mattered to him was staying alive. He ran his mouth along the inside of her wrist, kissing the tender spot.

“Stop trying to distract me.” Ivy pressed her lips together and snatched her hand back. She was pissed. The question was, why?

“I’m trying to have a serious discussion with you. While you insist on playing the martyr, your fans won’t be as discriminate.” She grabbed up the remote from the arm of the couch where Howler had left it. Jaw tight, she fiddled with the plastic buttons.

He twisted, the icepack slipping at the movement. “Is that what this is about? Because I’m not mad at you, I’m some sort of martyr? Believe me, I’m no saint, or perfect as you keep insisting. I am clever enough to recognize a smartass comment. You’re obviously upset. Care to tell me the real reason why?”

She arched her neck, visibly stretching. “I am annoyed you are not the least bit mad at me. You are way too cool about this and it drives me nuts.” Ivy punched the unmute button on the remote and a deodorant commercial began, the cheery music in direct contrast to the tension resting between them.

“Berating you will do neither one of us any good. Yes, I could have been hurt badly. Was I? No. You have to stop beating yourself up for this. Focusing on the negative harms more than heals.” He had to tell himself this often enough when he had doubts. Despite everyone’s assumptions, his life had been far from perfect. He had been lucky in a lot of ways, and in others, he had failed miserably.

A male reporter’s voice cut through the air. “We now return with breaking news. We’re outside the courthouse where Jonathan Craddock is awaiting his sentencing for embezzlement and fraud. A prominent Seattle accountant, he’s facing multiple charges for his involvement in a Ponzi scheme—”

Sam stared at the screen, and released a long sigh. After many months, part of the nightmare with Craddock might be over. The bigger question was, how long until the government lifted the freeze on Sam’s funds? Money wasn’t everything but financial security had its benefits.

“—Craddock’s client list includes Seattle Pioneers quarterback—”

Her startled gaze met his, lips slightly parted. “Are they talking about you?”

Taking the remote from her fingers, he hit the mute button. How much to admit without divulging every dirty detail? It was humiliating enough—piled on all the other humiliations he’d experienced in the past few days. If he could just wipe his mind clean and forget about everything, perhaps his headache would go away. “Yes.”

Ivy continued to stare at him, expectant. She was waiting for an explanation that he wasn’t ready to give because he simply had no concrete answers. Closing his eyes, he took the coward’s way out and offered a yawn, not looking at her. “It’s been a long and exhausted process. I’m just glad it’s almost over and I can put that mess behind me. Now if I could only get my grant proposal back, I’d be a happy man.”

“Any luck?” Ivy paced her office at Vicenzo’s, arms crossed.

Beth sat hunched over Sam’s laptop, her brow furrowed in concentration. She clicked the mouse and typed something into the command line. “Not yet. Man, Sam must be devastated by all the shit happening to him.”

“I can’t tell. He’s always so freakishly calm.” Ivy stared out her office window and watched the ten-story cruise ship approach Pier 66. Exhaustion weighed her down, her stomach a knot of apprehension over Sam’s predicament. She could relate better than anyone how it felt to have someone you trusted steal from you. At least her humiliation had been relatively private. His was splashed across the news. Her biggest frustration was that there was nothing she could do except offer him support.

“He’s probably in shock. According to the internet, he lost a helluva lot of money and now they’re reporting both California offers, as well as Seattle’s, are dead in the water. You’ve got your wish. Mr. Perfect ain’t so perfect anymore.”

To hear her own inner musings spoken so bluntly and with such truth, made Ivy more miserable. She clutched the jade pendant and bit back the sob rising unbidden to her throat. “I’m a terrible girlfriend. I tried to pick a fight with him because he wouldn’t get mad at me about the soup. You’re right, I wished he wasn’t so perfect, but come on, this is bordering on the ridiculous. In the past week alone, he landed on stinging nettles, twisted his knee, got food poisoning, and might lose his contract. The guy’s having a really crappy week and I’m a crappy girlfriend. He deserves somebody better than me.”

Beth had the audacity to laugh. “Man, you’re high maintenance. So the guy’s had some bad luck; it’ll get better. The best girlfriend you can be right now is a supportive one, unless this whole thing is a turnoff. I mean, strip away his past and all you have is an out-of-work boyfriend with a bum knee.”

“It’s not like that. I’ve dated my fair share of loser boyfriends, Kevin being the worst. Although he has suffered a setback, Sam still had an education and his charity. She rubbed her thumb over the smooth heart and blinked back tears. “I wish I could fix this one little thing for him.”

A server entered the office. “Chef, there’s a woman here to see you.”

Ivy glanced at her watch and bit her lip. She’d been away from the house for far too long and she must get home in case Sam needed her. “Is she a vendor, or a sales person?”

“Neither. It’s Cassandra Smith, the reporter from Channel Eight news.”

Her stomach sank.

“Isn’t she the one who was rude to Sam?” Beth asked.

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