SPIKED (A Sports Romance) (26 page)

“I know one thing you can do,” Landon said, starting to grin a little.

“Oh, and what’s that?” I asked, feeling like maybe he was flirting now.

“Come and work for me,” he said.

I laughed. “I’m done with the kiosk, Landon.”

“I don’t mean at the kiosk. I mean at the center.”

“Doing what?” I asked, throwing up my hands. “Wiping down treadmills? Sounds glamorous.”

He stepped back. “Is that really what you think my center is? Some glorified gym?”

“Yes,” I said, annoyed. “Maybe with some physical therapists or whatever. But how is it not a gym? How am I going to pursue my dreams by working at a sports center?”

He crossed his arms, looking more than a little insulted. “Sports
medicine
center,
”
he said, carefully enunciation each word. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

I planned to ignore him, but when he reached down for my hand and tugged me to my feet, it was like my body moved on its own volition.

I followed him downstairs, letting go of his hand just as I stepped out of the stairway. I paused when I saw my brother sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of something bubbling—Alka-Seltzer? -- on the table in front of him.

“I told you to drink that, not stare at it,” Landon said.

“You okay?” I asked, before my brother could answer. I searched his face for a softening of his eyes, evidence he was going to tell me the truth. This was his
opening
, as Landon put it, and he could finally tell me about his diagnosis.

He tried to grin, but it came out feeble, weak. “Yep. Guess I should’ve stopped after the sixth beer last night.”

I tried to laugh, tried to pretend I bought into his cover story, but it was too half-hearted to be believable. “There’re some crackers above the fridge,” I said.

But instead of getting them himself, Landon walked over and fished them out of the cupboard. Without a word, he navigated our kitchen, pulling out a plate and ripping open the crackers. He grabbed a fresh glass of water, setting it in front of Matt, beside the crackers.

Until that moment, I’d forgotten how our home had become like a second home to Landon. How he’d walk in without knocking, how he knew where to find the best snacks and the can opener and how to get our wonky TV to tune in to channel thirteen by smacking it on the side.

“Do you need anything else?” Landon asked. “I’ll stop by the store for Gatorade on the way back.”

“On the way back from where?” Matt asked, ignoring Landon’s question. “Where are you two going?”

I stared at the plate of crackers.

“Relax, Matt,” Landon said, his tone light. “I’m going to give her a tour of Prestige. She dared insinuate it was a mere gym. And you need to sleep off your
hangover.”

He emphasized the last word, as if to challenge Matt. As if to remind him not to question Landon.

Matt’s eyes flitted between us, as if to measure the distance, the emotions that traveled back and forth.

“I’ll have her back in an hour, along with the Gatorade.”

He talked about me like I was some car he was borrowing. Like I had a deadline for return, else I become a pumpkin.

We left the house, walking out to Landon’s silver Audi. He held the door open for me, and when I twisted around to slide in, I couldn’t help but notice my brother in the window, watching.

Landon fired up the car, the engine purring as we headed out of the drive.

Prestige was at the Western edge of the Orting valley, closer to the freeways that picked up miles out of town. I watched as the subdivisions gave way to the farmlands, watched as the cornfields swayed in the summer breeze, trying to process my brother’s new reality.

Trying to process the version of Landon who swooped in with Alka-Seltzer and crackers and promises of Gatorade. It was a tender, nurturing side I hadn’t expected to see.

“I’m sorry I said those things this morning,” I said, when I couldn’t take the silence any longer.

“You apologize a lot,” he said, glancing over at me.

“And you apologize so little,” I replied, grinning at him. I wanted to stay mad, wanted to keep the distance between us, but after seeing him with Matt, after knowing how much he’d probably helped my brother in his greatest time of need, I couldn’t bring back the anger.

“There’s very little I regret about my choices,” he said. “So I rarely find the need to apologize.”

My grin faded and I turned back to the window.

“I didn’t want to leave you like that,” he said. “Back when I left town.”

“Then why did you?” I asked, desperate for an answer. One minute we’d been together in his bed, naked and poised at the edge of the cliff. And right when I thought we’d jump, he instead pulled the blankets up around us, and cradled me against him. To cuddle. I’d been so fired up, so desperate to finish what we’d started.

I’d never felt so rejected in my life. Before or since. And I still didn’t understand why we’d gone from so hot to cold.

“I had my reasons,” he said finally.

I sighed and sank further into my seat. Maybe I never would get my answers.

“I was nothing then,” he said, after a moment. “I had nothing to offer you.”

“I didn’t need you to offer me something,” I replied, propping my knees up on the dash. “I just needed
you.”

“I wasn’t ready for anyone to
have
me. I had a chip on my shoulder bigger than this town could handle, and the burning desire to prove myself. If I’d stayed, I would’ve made you miserable.”

I glanced over him, the glare of the sun throwing his eyes in shadow. “That’s not true.”

“It
is
true. Maybe you can’t see it, but I know it. I’m not the kind of guy who stays satisfied for long. It’s best you know that now.”

I wanted to argue, but there was too much truth in his words. And we were pulling up at Prestige, anyway.

“Wow,” I murmured. I’d seen it a time or two as I barreled by at fifty miles an hour, but never pulled into the winding drive and parked under the soaring carriage entrance. Three guys—built like Mack trucks—walked past as we came to a stop. One of them waved at Landon as he disappeared through the automatic doors.

I sat up abruptly. “Wait, was that-“

“Carl Bennett,” Landon confirmed. “Wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks.”

“Oh,” I said, unable to come up with anything else.

Landon put the car in park and pulled the keys from the ignition. “Training camp starts next month. He’s trying to gain an edge. They drafted a first-round rookie in his position and he’s determined to keep the kid on the practice squad.”

“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t. How would Landon’s glorified gym give Carl Bennet an edge?

“Come on, let me show you around,” Landon said, as if he knew he needed to show me exactly how and why his center would do just that.

We got out of the car, and it chirped behind us as Landon hit the alarm. I followed him through the front entry, cold air blasting around us, replacing the sticky-hot summer air. Sweet relief.

A long, curved front desk sat at the end of the cavernous space. Four receptionists were talking with… patients? Athletes? I wasn’t even sure what to call them.

A fifth receptionist—who was quite striking with her light blond hair and blue eyes--nodded and smiled a little too widely at Landon as we passed by. She reached over and hit a button, and a door ahead of us swung open.

I tried to suppress the tightening in my belly as we went past her. I hated that instead of paying attention to what Landon was showing me, I was stuck wondering if he’d slept with that blond receptionist.

Landon walked ahead, his shoulders squared in his navy sports-coat. He strode these halls as if he owned not just them, but the world. “This is the secured side of the building. It takes up about sixty-percent of the square footage, and has a few specialized wings.”

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to a long set of windows. Lining one long, window-filled wall were a dozen treadmills, elliptical machines, and stair-steppers. The room was perfectly positioned to take in the view of the snow-capped Mt. Rainier in the distance.

“That’s our programmable atmosphere room. It has a few options. Beyond temperature we can also adjust oxygen levels to mirror different elevations. For the last few weeks some of the Sounders players have been coming in. They’re playing a match in Denver this weekend. We can set the oxygen to mirror the mile-high city. It allows them to prepare their body for thinner oxygen. It helps diminish he edge the home team has. Soccer players run an average of six miles during a game. Doing so with thinner oxygen is a challenge, even for an elite player.”

I scanned the room. “What are the stair steppers for then?”

“Climbers.”

“Oh.”

“Last week a team of six reached the Summit of Mt. Rainier. They trained in that room.”

“Wow.” I grinned, glancing over at Landon. “And they stared at the mountain while training. That’s kind of cool.”

“Cool doesn’t begin to cover it,” he said, turning away from the window.

I followed him further down the hall, resisting the urge to ask questions about every room we passed. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” he said, content to keep me waiting.

If there was one thing I knew about Landon, it was that he was used to having the upper hand.

We hit another set of double doors, and this time Landon pulled a key card out of his pocket, swiping it at the readers. It chirped, and then the doors swung open.

He stopped at the first door on the left, where a placard read
lab.

I raised an eyebrow, glancing over at Landon, but he simply swiped his card again and pushed the door open.

What lay beyond took my breath away.

The lab was enormous, bigger than the ones I’d used as a student. Monitors lined one wall, and long, low tables, stretched across the middle of the room. Refrigerated units with glass doors spanned another wall. The rest of the room was filled with gleaming white cabinetry, each unit labeled with something else—beakers, microscopes, saline…

Eight or nine people in white lab coats were clustered around one table, talking and tapping notes into a tablet computer.

“This…” my voice trailed off.

“Is more than a glorified gym,” he said, flashing me a smug grin. “What we do here is nothing short of science.”

I nodded, finally getting it. What he’d built was so much more than I could’ve imagined. So much more than I could even wrap my head around.

“What are they working on?” I asked, nodding toward the…
scientists?
Were they doctors?

Landon glanced at a board hung on the wall next to the door where we’d entered. “Today, specialized sports drinks.”

I wrinkled my nose.
Sports drinks?
Was this where Landon planned to grab some Gatorade? “Um, what?”

“We’re creating sports drinks specific to individual athletes. Every person sweats differently. Their body processes food and drinks and workouts differently. We create a specific recipe to replace the
exact
vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes
that
athlete expends during the length of a game. It shortens recovery times. “

I stared at the people in the room. All of this for a
drink?

“Gatorade’s been doing it for years. Ever see a world cup game? When an athlete goes down, and the trainers rush out with a crate of Gatorade… that’s not the stuff off the shelf. It’s a mix created specifically for that player. Sometimes they play in extreme heat. It allows them to hydrate in a way not possible with water. It limits cramping.”

“You do that
here?”

“Every week. There are other labs, too. We run blood samples to search for any vitamin or enzyme deficiencies. We run independent tests for the NFL and the MLS to check for PEDs.”

“PEDs?”

“Performance Enhancing Drugs. Sometimes it’s best the league isn’t the only one running the tests. We’re the official lab for second opinions.”

“Wow.”

“This is what I meant,” he said, gesturing around us, an unmistakable note of pride in his voice. “When I said I want you to work for me. There’s a place here for you. It’s science, not the mall.”

But all of this… it was too much to hope for. “I don’t want to be your pity hire.”

“You’re not. It’s hard to fill these jobs all at once, and we’re still short a few staffers. We created the internship program to boost our hiring. Besides, it comes with strings.”

“Strings?”

“You have to go back to school. The internship program is for college seniors. You’ll get the same pay scale as anyone else with your equivalent background. I’m not doing you favors here. I need a real employee. There are a few departments that could use an extra hand, so you can decide which one seems most appealing.”

“Oh,” I said. Could I do this? Could I really work for him in this way?

It would mean I didn’t have to leave Matt behind…

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“That’s all I ask.”

We continued down the long halls, and I looked at the rooms behind the glass with new eyes. Landon was right—I
had
thought he’d built some glorified gym. But this… this was state of the art science.

“How did you build all this so quickly?” I asked, as we turned into a wing we hadn’t walked down before. “The cost of the center must be astronomical. And the athletes you attract…”

“I befriended a couple of rich pre-med students. They had trust funds they were desperate to throw at something. We partnered with a well-known division 1 quarterback for the first center and we collaborated with a more established doctor. It was a pilot center, and it didn’t run nearly as smoothly as later ones have. But it got me my start and I grew it from there with hard work and determination.”

He paused before a door, tapping his card up against the reader.

“And how did the quarterback end up doing?”

I followed him through the double set of doors, into a smaller, more quiet hall.

“He won the Heisman his senior year. And was sure to credit Prestige Sports Medicine for helping him get there. He was later drafted by the Cardinals and convinced us to launch our second center in Arizona. Half the team comes to us.”