The Bridge to a Better Life (16 page)

Everyone nodded. Coach had the oratory skills of a fire-and-brimstone preacher. His pulpit was one hundred yards of green grass. Coach could chew your butt like none other.

“While I respect Coach, some of his other tactics may not be right for my camp.” My, he liked the sound of that. His camp.

“Adam taught me there’s a fine line between encouraging someone with intellectual disabilities and letting them motivate themselves to greatness. I don’t want anyone pushing too hard or singling a kid out. This first camp is going to involve a lot of firsts for us. I’d rather err on the side of encouragement this time.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Sam said, and the others nodded their agreement.

“But don’t pity them or mollycoddle them either. Adam always hated that.” He handed out two manuals to everyone. “What you have before you are the coach's flag football manual for kids with intellectual abilities and the official rule book. Read them. Study them.
Brody.”

“Hey, just because I barely made it through school doesn’t mean I don’t read,” he protested.

“Man, you never read the game plan when we were at camp,” Zack said, giving him a look. “I had to cover your ass with Coach Garretty more times than I can count.”

“I’m a professional athlete now, and I do my homework.
Blake.”

“Just saying.” He held up his hands. “That’s a pretty good overview for now. I’m working on a solid meal plan with a nutritionist who specializes in food for athletes with intellectual disabilities."

“It had better involve some junk food, Blake,” Logan said. “That was the best part of camp. Chewing potato chips and shooting the breeze.”

He’d forgotten about that. Yeah, junk food had been an important part of bonding. “I’ll keep that in mind. I also will have some medical volunteers on hand. We’ll have some training on special medical issues to be aware of the day before camp starts. All the kids will have had physicals clearing them to play, but muscular, breathing, and cardiac issues can appear out of the blue.”

That’s always the way it had happened with Adam. He’d be fine one day, and the next…

“We’ll be vigilant, Blake,” Sam said, knowing better than anyone the ups and downs they’d experienced with Adam’s health.

“Thanks. Okay. Any questions?”

He answered a few questions, which included a liberal amount of playful banter. Finally Jordan stood and put his hands on his hips.

“Who’s ready for the Smuck competition?” he boomed out in his best TV announcer’s voice. “I think our surprise guest is waiting outside.”

Blake groaned out loud. God only knew what his buddy had in mind for the competition. Some of the guys followed Jordan out. Sitting down in the chair Logan had vacated, Blake kicked out his feet.

“Twenty bucks he rented some clowns,” Sam said.

“Perish the thought!” Blake exclaimed. “What does he expect us to do? Juggle?”

The guys were hooting in the hallway. Then Grant let out a high-pitched girl scream.

“It’s not clowns,” Sam said.

The guys danced into the room, wiggling like nervous dipshits. After a few seconds, Jordan strutted after them, a boa constrictor wrapped around his waist.

Blake’s whole body shivered. Shit. He hated snakes, and Jordan damn well knew it. Their eyes locked, and he saw the same fierce competitiveness he was used to seeing in the mirror before a game gazing back at him. Jordan wanted him to go down and bad.

“Okay, who’s going to be the biggest Smuck this time?” Jordan asked as the snake’s— What in the hell should he call the fifty-year-old woman in the khaki uniform who had followed Jordan into the room and was standing in a military stance beside him? Its babysitter?

“Guys, this is Zeus. He’s a thirteen-foot boa constrictor from Brazil.” Jordan grabbed the back of the snake’s head like he was shaking it in greeting.

Blake could only stare in horror as the army-green body colored with brown and cream spots clenched and rippled around Jordan’s waist.

“Shit, man,”
Zack said with a wheeze. “I know you have it in for Blake, but do you have to make the rest of us suffer?”

Grant launched into some colorful
Snakes on a Plane
quotes in the worst Samuel L. Jackson impression known to mankind. All of the guys laughed—except for Blake.

“I’m going to kill you, Jordan,” Blake ground out.

“So, you want to go first?” Jordan replied with a grin. “Great! Guys, this is Alice. She’s a…herpetologist from the Denver Zoo.”

“Say that three times fast,” Logan called out. “Hi, Alice.”

The woman didn’t crack a smile. Snake Woman was serious, and who could blame her? She hung out with giant snakes that could crush a man’s larynx in ten seconds. The Raiders should draft her.

“How many pounds did you say Zeus was again?” Jordan asked.

“Fifty-eight,” Alice informed them in what had to be her best lecture voice. “And here’s a little known fact about the difference between males and females. Females are larger in length and girth than males.”

Hunter snorted beer out of his nose. Brody barked out a laugh. Even Sam’s mouth twitched.

Okay, so Snake Woman had a sense of humor.

Jordan pretty much laughed like a loon. “Alice, you naughty, naughty girl, you.”

“Let’s take the snake out back,” Blake suggested.

There was no way in hell he was letting Jordan accidentally let that snake loose in his house. He didn’t wait for the guys to follow him. He felt something on the back of his neck and freaked, thinking it was the snake. It was only Grant, tickling his neck, a stupid grin on his face.

“You all planned this together,” he accused.

“Not everyone was in on it, but yes, we had to get creative. You’re pretty much indestructible when it comes to the Smuck competition. We had to take you down, Blake.”

Hunter walked by with a bounce in his step. “By any means necessary. Oh, this is going to be so good.”

“Just remember,” he warned, pointed his finger at them one by one. “You have to hold that bastard too.”

“Please, Blake,” Jordan crooned. “You’ll hurt Zeus’ feelings.”

He shot him a gaze that would have made most men tremble. Jordan only lifted the snake higher around his waist.

“Hey, Brody, if this snake wasn’t male, it would remind me of that yoga teacher you dated in college. You remember the one I mean? She was like some freaking contortionist.”

The wide receiver gave a deep sigh. “How could I forget? She could actually touch the top of her head with the soles of her feet while blowing bubble gum. I wonder what ever happened to her.”

Jordan cleared his throat, which doubled as a way to mask his laughter. “Okay, who wants to go first? I obviously have the record so far. What has it been? Like eight minutes so far.”

“Yep,” Logan said, holding out his smartphone. “We started the count the minute Zeus wrapped himself around Jordan.”

Convenient. Blake crossed his arms across his chest. No way he was going first.

“Okay, Blake can go last since he’s never been the Smuck.”

Alice looked a bit amused as she helped Jordan unwrap Zeus from his body. The snake’s tongue slithered out and touched the woman’s face. He flinched, and some of the guys jumped back.

“No f-ing way that snake is kissing me,” Zack said.

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Hunter said, stepping forward to take the snake. “Don’t you have big snakes and shit down in Louisiana?”

“Do I look like I hang out in the bayou, Hunter Punter?” Zack replied, using their friend’s nickname from camp. Before his skills as a quarterback had become apparent, Hunter had been the punter. And he’d sucked. Bad.

“Call me Hunter Punter again, Zack Sprat, and we’ll see who gets kissed by the snake.”

Great. The childhood nicknames were coming out early this weekend.

“Just take the damn snake, Hunter,” Blake said, “or this is going to last all day. We have somewhere to be tonight.”

“Where are we going, Ace?” Logan asked.

Okay, so Blake had a cooler nickname than some of the other guys. “I rented out part of the local Irish bar in town called Hairy’s.”

“Awesome,” Brody said. “I’m assuming they have beer, pool, darts, and Irish music.”

“Take it easy, Riverdance,” Blake replied. “They have that and more.”

Hunter lasted a minute with Zeus. Zack clocked in at thirty-three seconds before yelping. And so it continued until they got to him.

Jordan was still in the lead with eight minutes plus, but then again, he’d always had a reptilian brain. Mr. Cool, Sam, had managed to come close at six minutes and fifty-eight seconds. The snake had stared him down and started to curl around his neck, thereby ending the standoff.

“He’s a smart one,” Sam muttered as Alice helped him resituate the snake on Blake.

Breathing deeply, trying to clear his mind like he would before a high-pressure game, Blake tried to stay calm. But he nearly freaked when he felt the snake’s scales against the bare skin of his arm. Soon Zeus’ muscles were clenching around him, making every hair on his body stand up in high alert. Then there were the snake’s eyes as its head lifted to peer at him. They really were beady. A cold sweat broke out across his back, where he could feel the snake’s powerful muscles shift and clench around his body.

“Snakes are ectothermic,” Alice informed them all in that instructor voice of hers, “so they really love being warmed up by the human body, especially the waist, which carries so much body heat.”

Thank you for that PSA, Snake Woman, he wanted to say.

But then Zeus darted up his chest, heading straight for his face. He started shrieking even before he felt the slithery tongue on his neck.

“Okay, I’m the Smuck, I’m the Smuck!” he shouted. “Just get this thing off me!”

The guys started howling, and Snake Woman stepped in and untangled Zeus from him.

“Does anyone want to try and lift Zeus over their heads?” she asked.

Grant shivered. “Ma’am, I can dead lift that snake four times over, but there is no way in hell I’m touching that sucker again. I’m going to have nightmares.”

He wasn’t the only one. Someone tickled Blake’s back again, and he swung around to find Jordan smirking at him.

“Twenty-three seconds, Ace. You lose…or should I say you ‘win’?”

“You don’t have to be such a poor sport about it,” he muttered.

“Oh, yes I do. I’ll be back with your award, sunshine.”

Blake steeled himself for the worst humiliation possible.

“This moment has been coming for years,” Sam said with a grin that did little to appease him.

Judging from the grin on Jordan’s face as he sauntered back onto the deck, holding a white box, he knew he was going to pay and pay bad.

“Thank you, Alice. We really appreciated having you here.” Jordan stuck something in her free hand.

“Bye, fellas,” she said with a smile. “I have to say I was a little concerned when I got this request. Usually I visit children’s birthday parties, but I have to admit, you guys are a lot more fun than you look on TV.”

Snake Woman left them without a backward glance, but Zeus watched Blake over her shoulder until she disappeared from view.

As soon as she was gone, Jordan shoved the box at him. “It is my honor as the winner of the last Smuck award to hereby present this one to Blake Cunningham. May you enjoy your weekend in Smuckville.”

He opened the box and cursed as he drew out a black T-shirt with pink letters on it that said
Call Me Maybe,
a pair of black 1980s Don Johnson
Miami Vice
sunglasses, hair mousse, and a hideous pair of acid-washed cut-off jeans.

“You’ve
got
to be kidding me,” he said with a groan.

“The mousse is inspired,” Logan said, leaning in for a closer look and elbowing Blake in the gut.

He was supposed to stick that shit in his hair? “That’s one word for it.”

“I’ll even help you style,” Jordan said, running his hands through his own perfect locks.

According to the gossip and fashion blogs, no one in the whole NFL had better hair than Jordan Dean, and didn’t he know it. He was like James Dean’s hair twin, and they sometimes called him James instead of Jordan. Okay, and Jimmy Dean too, when they stooped for a little sausage humor.

“No way you’re touching my hair, Dean,” Blake said even though he had no idea what to do with that gunk. And they were going out tonight. In public. Usually he wasn’t vain, but wearing this? People were going to think he’d experienced a nervous breakdown and was now living out some 1980s Don Johnson fantasy.

“Oh, stop your bitching,” Jordan said, reaching out to tug his T-shirt. “You knew there was going to be payback.”

He gave him a playful shove. “I can undress myself, thank you.”

“Then hop to it, Ace,” Logan called out. “We don’t have all day.”

He stripped in his backyard, making the guys cat-call and whistle like they were all twelve. As he changed into the outfit Jordan had chosen, he tried not to wince at the tight fit of the T-shirt. If he made any sudden moves, he was going to rip it at the shoulder seams and no way was he turning this monstrosity into a wife beater.