Protecting The Quarterback. Kristina Knight

TWO

      THE VIDEO PACKAGE rolled across the screen, and Brooks glanced at her phone as her text alert buzzed. It was the assignment editor for the sports department. Nash says no interview. Again.

      Damn it. Two months had passed since the awards show, and the man continued to dodge her requests for a sit-down.

      “What are the ramifications for the college program now?” The sports anchor in the studio asked, his voice sounding hollow through her earwig.

      Brooks refocused. She would get Jonas Nash to sit down with her, but she would not let the promise of a story with him jeopardize this one.

      “In the immediate, they’ve lost Bobby McCord, the head coach, and this is only a week after a Spring Game in which the offense looked off-balance and the defense couldn’t seem to make a play,” Brooks said to the sports anchor on the other side of the television screen. “My sources tell me a job search is in the works, but finding a coach willing to take on a program that has lost its star running back and defensive end because of a doping scandal, and before the collegiate authorities have handed down their sanctions, is going to be tough.”

      “Thanks, Brooks. We’ll have more on this breaking story as it hap—”

      “Was it hard turning your own boyfriend in as the head of the steroid ring?” The news anchor, a man Brooks had never liked, butted into the conversation between her and the sports anchor. Brooks blinked.

      “Bobby McCord was not my boy—”

      “But you’d been dating.”

      “No,” Brooks drew out the word. “We had dinner—twice—but that was months ago—”

      “Did you give him any warning about what you were about to do?”

      Brooks tried to separate the boiling anger she felt for the anchor from her job to report the facts about one of the biggest sports scandals so far this year. She’d done nothing wrong. Three weeks of serious investigation had led her to discovering Bobby headed up the steroid ring within his program. Three weeks of paperwork and following leads and working with the authorities. Still, the questions the anchor had asked made her clench her fists.

      “We asked Coach McCord for an interview after he’d been arrested, but he declined. Of course we will keep in contact through his legal team, and will bring you the latest on this story as it develops,” Brooks said, smile pasted on her face until the director turned off her camera. Then she heaved a sigh of relief and closed her eyes.

      Where had all that come from? She knew Alan Gentry didn’t like her, but she never imagined he would try to implicate her in a story like this.

      One of the other reporters clapped a hand over her shoulder. “Nice work on the McCord piece,” he said as he passed.

      “Thanks.” Brooks unclipped her microphone, leaving it on the high stool where reporters sat during newsroom live shots. She pulled the earwig from her ear and let it dangle over her shoulder, picked up her phone and began paging through her emails as she walked slowly back to her desk, trying to figure out what Alan was up to. It didn’t make sense.

      Their station was the first to break the story about steroid use in the program.

      “You done for the day?”

      Brooks drummed her fingers against her desk. She could make a few more calls, maybe try Jonas’s agent for the hundredth time, since going straight to the quarterback was getting her nowhere. She could confront Alan, but that would accomplish nothing. Or she could go home, have a glass of wine and celebrate being the first sports reporter to break this story. It was another feather in her cap.

      “Yeah,” she told the other reporter, who she knew was on until the eleven o’clock news. “I’m going to call this a day.”

      She gathered her things, put her earwig into the box in her desk and then slung her backpack over her shoulder.

      A definitely good day. And tomorrow, she would go back to her journalistic pursuit of Jonas Nash.

      * * *

      “FIVE MORE LIKE THAT. Smooth and steady, buddy,” Tom Jenkins, the head trainer for the Kentuckians, said in a low voice. Jonas rested the heavy bar on the palms of his hands as he adjusted his grip. Before he was injured he’d bench-pressed at least twice as much weight and not felt a thing.

      Okay, he’d have felt something but that something was a grain of salt in a paper cut compared to the sensation he felt now. It was as if he could feel the tendons in his shoulder straining with each press. As if they might rip off the rim of his shoulder socket. Again.

      Or maybe he was just afraid. A candy-ass desperate to be on the field.

      Scared shitless to actually be on the field.

      “Smooth and steady, my ass,” he said through gritted teeth.

      “Three weeks ago you were barely lifting the bar with no weights. This is improvement.”

      “Training camp starts in just over a month, it’s not enough.” He lowered the bar again, preparing for the final lift.

      “You can only go as fast as your body will let you, you know,” Tom said around a yawn. The first rays of sunlight shot through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the weight room. They usually used the room for rehab in the early afternoon, but because of the clinic, he’d asked the trainer to meet him earlier.

      “I know what my body can do.”

      “You know what your body could do,” Tom corrected. Jonas bit his tongue to keep the smart-ass reply in check. As much as he hated to admit it, Tom was right. Before that hit, before the strain he’d been feeling became a partial labral tear, he’d been one of the most accurate and strong quarterbacks in the league despite being part of a losing team. Now he was under the mediocre mark and it scared him.

      “Same time tomorrow?”

      “We aren’t done.” Jonas sat on the edge of the bench and wiped an already sweaty towel over his face. “I want to work on throwing with my left.”

      “Jonas—”

      “I know what my body can do,” he said, cutting Tom off before he got started on all the reasons why Jonas shouldn’t try to teach himself how to throw with his left arm.

      “You can’t just decide you’ll throw left,” Tom still managed to say before Jonas cut him off again.

      “Sure I can.” He was Jonas Freaking Nash. He’d be on the field, fear or no fear. It was the only place he knew he belonged.

      “You’re never going to throw with your left the way you throw with your right. It’s about grip, not just strength. It’s about how you set your feet, how you roll your hips.”

      “Then teach me.”

      “No quarterback has gone from lefty to righty or righty to lefty in the month before training camp, and those who have done it never played at your level.”

      “There’s a first time for everything. Might as well be me.” Had to be him. He was the leader of the Kentuckians. He had his coach with him again, the defense was coming along. The guys were excited about the start of a new season, new coaches, new playbook. His name and number were the same, but Jonas had changed, too. No more tabloid quarterback. No more Hollywood starlets.

      A memory of Brook’s voice on the phone whispered into his mind, but he pushed her away. It was time he concentrated on football again.

      This might be his last chance.

      The trainer grabbed a whiteboard and oversize marker from the stack near the Nautilus machines and handed them to Jonas.

      “Write your name. Not an autograph, just write it.”

      Jonas followed his directions. Tom handed him another whiteboard.

      “Now