Fair Game: A Football Romance (32 page)

“Watch your heart, Kimber. It’s fragile right now, ya know?”

“I know. It’s just nice to have someone show me some attention.”

“Look!” Mom says, pointing at the door of the restaurant where Taye and Garcia are dragging Mattie along with his arms draped over their shoulders and his head lolling against his chest.

“Oh, thank God, Taye, you’re okay,” Mom says, rushing to them.

Kimber starts to move, and my arm shoots out to stop her.

“No shoes, remember? Stay put.” She nods and covers her mouth with her hand when the guys lay Mattie down on the ground and start checking him over.

“Where’s Major?” I ask when I realize he’s not with them. I kneel down and kiss Taye on his dusty cheek. He turns to me and brushes a tear off mine.

“He’s getting Belle. She’s in bad shape, Vie. You need to find a doctor or call an ambulance or something. It took two of us to get Mattie out here, but he’s got a pulse. I’m not sure about Belle.”

My eyes leap to the door to search for them, and within seconds, Major is striding toward us carrying Belle, who is limp in his arms.

Taye’s words bounce around in my head. Bad shape, ambulance, and no pulse. Fuck, where’s my phone?

“Violet, go around and ask for a doctor,” Major says, laying her on the ground and checking for a pulse. I’m frozen. She can’t be dead. They’re getting married on Saturday. That’s why we’re all here . . .

“Violet!” he yells and I jump.

“Okay, I’m going,” I say, snapping to my senses.

“Is there a doctor here? Hey, does anybody have any medical experience?” I yell and push my way through the little clumps of people gathering outside. Mom is yelling too. She sounds frantic—do I sound frantic? Maybe I should be more insistent. Belle could be dying.

“We need a doctor! A girl is dying over here, somebody please!”

“I’m a doctor. Where is she?” A voice comes from a few feet away.

“Over here by the entrance. Come quick. I don’t think she’s breathing” I say, turning to lead him to Belle and Mattie.

When I can see our group again, Major’s doing chest compressions on Belle and Mattie’s moving his head back and forth, moaning. God, he’s doing CPR. That’s bad, very bad.

“There, right there, hurry!” I yell and the doctor jogs around me, dropping to his knees on Belle’s other side. He feels for a pulse, gives her a breath and switches places with Major when he’s finished his round of compressions.

I feel nails digging into my flesh, and when I look down, my mother is holding Taye’s hand and clutching my bicep with the other. She’s pale, or maybe it’s just the ashes and soot covering her beautiful brown skin, or maybe both. She’s in shock.

“Taye, you need to sit her down somewhere,” I say to my brother.

“Come on, Mom, let’s go sit down over here. We won’t be far, just a couple of feet away,” Taye says in a soothing voice, leading her to sit on the bus stop bench on the sidewalk.

I kneel down next to Garcia, who’s examining Mattie’s very obviously broken leg.

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask.

Mattie grabs my hand and squeezes it so hard I whimper.

“Is she okay? Is Belle going to be all right? I tried to cover her, but the beam fell so fast, I couldn’t stop it—urgh!” He yells out midsentence when Garcia manipulates his broken leg.

“What are you doing? You’re hurting him.”

“I’m a medic. His bone needed to be aligned. It’s broken clean through, and if the quake’s damage is extensive, we won’t be seeing a hospital anytime soon.”

Mattie continues to yell out in pain, and I think one or more of my fingers are broken when I hear someone to my left say,
I got a pulse
.

Oh God, thank you, Jesus, she’s alive. I look over at Belle. Major has stopped compressions and is talking with the doctor, who I now recognize as the silver fox Mom was drooling over earlier.

“Mattie, she’s breathing, she’s alive,” I say, leaning down into his tortured face. “Do you hear me? She’s breathing.”

His screams turn into loud groans as his head lolls to the side, seeing Belle a few feet away.

“Move me over there. I need to be next to her,” he says between gritted teeth.

“Man, we gotta keep you still. If we move this leg wrong, you could lose it,” Garcia says.

“Move me! I don’t give a fuck about my leg. Move me!” he yells. Garcia closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“We really shouldn’t.”

“Move him. I’ll help,” I say, placing my hands under his shoulders.

“Stop, you’ll never budge him. Major!” Garcia yells. “I need some help over here.”

Major sees me ready to drag Mattie across the parking lot and jumps to his feet. Striding toward us, he points a stern finger at me and then at Belle, indicating I should go to her.

Major and Garcia move Mattie as carefully as they can and lay him next to Belle, who is still unconscious. Mattie reaches out to take her limp hand.

“Belle, don’t you leave me, you hear me? Don’t you dare go anywhere. We’re getting married Saturday. We have all these people here. You can’t disappoint them.”

My heart breaks as I listen to him beg her to wake up. These two don’t deserve this. They’re both such good people. Mattie’s a fierce, independent Marine and Belle’s a sweet, compassionate veterinarian. “We have to get them to a hospital. There won’t be any ambulances available after a disaster like this. They’ve probably all been called out already,” Major says, and Dr. Silver Fox agrees.

“We’re going to need two SUVs.”

“No. I’m not leaving her. Take us both. I’ll sit in the back seat—whatever—just don’t separate us,” Mattie says.

I look at Major and shrug.

“What do we do? You have that big built-in thing in the back of yours.”

“It comes out. I’ll go pull around. You stay with them, Doc.” The doctor, who is carefully examining Mattie’s knee, nods absentmindedly.

“Belle? She just squeezed my hand.” Mattie says, flinching when he tries to move to see her face.

I kneel down next to her and place my hand on her cheek. “Belle, honey, can you hear me?”

She moans, but her eyes are still closed.

“Don’t move. You’ve been in an accident. We’re all here for you. Mattie is holding your hand. We’re going to get you to a hospital. Just be still. It’s going to be all right,” I say, and I say a silent prayer that I’m right.

People around us begin to part and move away when Major pulls up next to Belle and Mattie. He jumps out and rounds the vehicle to the back, opening it and unlatching several levers until the built-in is free. He slides it out effortlessly and opens several of the drawers, snatching clean, pressed shirts.

“Let’s get her in first,” he says, spreading out the shirts in the back of the pristine SUV. I can’t help but wonder if he’s doing that to protect her from the floor or the floor from her. It’s a weird thing to be thinking at a time like this, but it’s a weird thing to be doing.

Dr. Silver Fox and Major carefully lift Belle into the back, and Major wads up another shirt and places it under her head. Mattie is watching from the ground, wary of anyone taking off with his fiancé.

People are starting to disperse when another smaller aftershock rumbles through the ground. This is unnerving. I haven’t had enough time to recover from the initial quake, and these aftershocks are shredding my nerves.

The doctor crawls in by Belle’s feet and crouches down as Garcia closes the door. Then they work at getting Mattie into the back seat, standing him on his good leg and backing him up against the open door. Garcia runs around to the other side and crawls across the back seat. Hooking his arms under Mattie’s, he pulls and Major steadies the leg. They hoist him in, and Mattie cries out in pain.

Mom is crying—sobbing, really. Mattie is like a son to her. He and Taye have been best friends since they were in grade school. I look around for my brother and find him sitting with Kimber on the ground. I hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t helping with Mattie or Belle.

“Mom, go make sure Taye and Kimber are okay. I’m going to get my car so we can follow them to the hospital.”

She nods and shuffles toward them, and I call to Major and Garcia, asking them to wait a second so we can follow.

“Just a minute,” Major says, jogging to me.

“I’m walking you to your car. People are starting to realize what’s happening, and if they can’t get to their car, they might get pushy.”

He takes my hand and leads me right to my car.

“How did you know where I was parked?”

“Watched you walk in. The text, remember?”

It feels like a lifetime ago that he sent me that naughty text.

“Shit, I don’t have my purse. I left it inside,” I say, turning to the restaurant.

The sound of my alarm echoes off the buildings, and I look back at Major, who’s holding my keys out for me to take. He also hands me my purse.

“What the?”

“I had it tucked in the back of my pants. You were going to leave it at the table when we got up.”

I roll my eyes and kiss him chastely on the lips.

“You’re a life saver. Literally.”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told. Get in and lock the doors. I’ll walk along and guide you through the parking lot until we get the others.”

I get in and lock the doors. Major walks alongside me as I slowly ease the car down the street the short distance to our group.

What a fucking nightmare. I grip my steering wheel, keeping one eye on Major while I turn up the radio, but it’s just static. Shit, that’s worrisome. How big was this damn earthquake? I crack my window and call to him, “Hey, there’s no radio reception. What do you think that means?”

Major looks at me with unreadable eyes. “It means this is bad, Violet.”

He points to where he wants me to drive my car. When I’ve pulled up next to his SUV, I unlock and hop out to help Mom and Kimber. Mom is still looking like shit. I ease Kimber off the ground and whisper to Taye, “Is mom okay?”

“I don’t know, I’ve only seen her like this once, and that was when Dad died.”

“Maybe it’s like PTSD or something? Reliving tragedy?”

Taye shrugs and helps Kimber into my car.

“Mom, you need to get into the car now. We have to take Mattie and Belle to the hospital.” She looks at me with no affect, flat and completely expressionless.

“Mom?”

She still doesn’t respond, but she lets me lead her to the car, where I put her in the front seat and buckle her seatbelt because I’m not sure she’ll do it herself.

“I’ll ride with Major since he doesn’t really know Mattie and Belle. Garcia can go with you,” Taye says, kissing me on the forehead.

I watch him jog around Major’s car and get in. They begin to ease down the cracked street. It’s really hard to drive with people milling around and the serious damage to the roads. It looks like a war zone with all the smoke and people with tattered clothing wandering aimlessly.

A few people tap on the windows, asking for a ride. I want to stop and help them, but there’s only room for one more in my car, and I’m not comfortable picking up strangers. Especially when I have a pregnant woman in the back seat—not that anyone would dare mess with her with Garcia back there, but still.

When we get far enough away from the beach, I expect Major to lead us toward the closest hospital, but he’s not going the right direction.

“He should have turned back there. He’s not going the right way. What’s he doing?” I say out loud to no one in particular. I’m just voicing my frustrations.

“He’s going to the base hospital,” Garcia says.

“What? We can’t get on base without prior approval, and Belle’s not married to Mattie yet. She’s not considered a military dependent.”

I only know these things because I grew up on bases like Camp Pendleton all my life. It was a pain in the ass to have sleepovers and boyfriends. Everyone had to get approval to come onto the base, and a lot of boys weren’t into that kind of intimidation. I usually met my dates at the movie theatre or the mall.

“It’s a natural disaster. Major has special clearance, and all of you have background files from your pasts, except doctor what’s his name and you, Kimber.”

“No, actually, I just divorced a Marine. They should have something on me too.”

I glance in the rearview mirror to see what Garcia thinks of this news. He’s surprised but doesn’t seem concerned.

“I hope you don’t have any preconceived opinions about Marines. I’m a pretty good guy, ya know,” he says, lacing his fingers with Kimber’s.

“No, I don’t think all Marines are douchebags. Just Caleb,” she says, smiling up at him.

“Is he stationed here?”

Kimber nods a quick yes.

“Is this his baby?” he says, placing his hand on her belly.

“Yes. He doesn’t want kids though.”

Frown lines cut deeply into his forehead, but doesn’t press her any further. He senses it’s painful for her to talk about.

“Everybody have their driver’s license?” Garcia asks as we pull up to Camp Pendleton’s main gate. Everyone answers yes and starts to dig them out of pockets and purses. Mom is still quiet, but not quite as robotic. She retrieves her license and hands it to me, and Kimber and Garcia pass theirs up too.