Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance)(47)

Henry Powell and the juvenile were pronounced dead at the scene. Lauren Powell was transported by helicopter to Christiana Hospital, where she remains in critical condition.

The state police have confirmed that they believe alcohol to be involved.



My fingers feel numb. I try to flex them and gather the feeling back. My hands tremble.

His whole family. Gone.

My phone buzzes on the table. I snatch it.



You home okay, Princess?



Yes. I am well. Thank you. Are you hurt?



I'll live.



See you tomorrow?



Wouldn't miss it for the world.



When? Where?



Quad by the library. Text me when you're leaving. Early.



I will.



I wonder what "early" means.

The feeling of dread I felt as I read the newspaper article does not leave me as I brush my teeth and return to my bedroom to brush out my hair. It takes the better part of an hour, and by the end the motions are mechanical as my mind drifts to other places.



Jason



The bus ride home is a perfect opportunity for some much-needed sleep. I curl up at the back. Chester "Cheesy" Caulfield—no, really—one of the smaller players on the team, sits next to me and gives me plenty of room. I lean away from him, and my head ends up resting on the window.

I could sleep for a week, but then I'd miss Ana. All I can think about is being with her. The loss this afternoon feels like a small thing, inconsequential. They're not going to pull me from the starting quarterback position over one game that we barely lost against the best team in the division. Coach will give us a rant about our best, and that'll be that.

As I drift between waking and the fitful half sleep that comes from your head gently thumping against glass, I get that feeling I always get after a game. The world is made of paper. It's flat and smooth and there's no place for me to grip it.

Ever since I lost my family, it's been like that. I go through motions. I lived with my uncle, but I didn't care about him. I went to school and excelled in my classes because I had nothing better to do. I played football because I was big, and I was good at it because there was nothing much else to occupy my time. I had a couple girlfriends, but f*cking them didn't feel any different from using my hand.

I feel like I was born and grew and lived all in darkness, and then suddenly Ana burst in, this living light that warms everything she touches. When I'm with her, even if I can only see her, it brings meaning back into this world. I feel alive in a way that I haven't in years.

Sleep gets me after a while, but only halfway. It's more like a trance than sleep, but dreams come easily. There's a little house, not a huge mansion but not small, a warm, cozy house with a fireplace in the living room and another one in the bedroom, and I come home from a day of work teaching ninth grade English. I’ll need to have my master’s first, but that’s only another year.

It's spring and the sun is shining, birds are chirping. I have a dog, a beagle like I had when I was a kid. He runs up to the back gate and won't let me get in the house without some running and a game of fetch first.

I don't have to get inside. The kids run out and throw themselves at me. Back in the real world, I can feel myself smiling a little. I can't see their faces. They're only ideas, half-formed ideals.

Ana is real though. She stands at the back door, filling the frame with her beauty like an oil painting. In my dream she's cut her hair a little shorter and wears it loose, held back from her eyes with a headband I somehow know I bought her, and she's ravishing in a simple cardigan and mom jeans. I want to rip them off her and give her another baby.

I snort awake for a moment. Jason, what the hell is the matter with you?

Sleep pulls me back. Half the guys on the bus are probably having dreams about f*cking their girlfriends or the cheerleader squad. I'm dreaming about eating cinnamon buns Ana baked just for me. She probably doesn't know how to cook, but that doesn't matter. I like the Pillsbury kind. I'm a man of simple tastes.

That's my dream.

I want to go home. With her.

As the bulls pulls up to let us off, I rise, my sleep only halfway satisfying. As I stand up, I feel like I'm walking through a door from a warm place into the cold outside, where the snow wants to swallow me and chill me to the bone.

Once I'm off the bus, Aheahe and Akele quickly fall in around me, along with a cluster of the other guys.

"We're going to the Deerhead," Akele announces.

Part of me wants to break off and head home, but I end up walking with them in silence, hands in my pockets, head down, hood up. It's me, Akele, Aheahe, Izzy, Cheesy, and a couple of the other guys, all offensive players.

When we walk into the bar, the bartender looks up, horrified.

"Not again," he moans.

"It was away game," Akele says.

"Oh thank God. Just get drunk and get out."

Honestly, the bar fight didn't make much of a difference for the decor. The big stuffed deer head is back in place, and you could probably hit some of the furniture in here with a freight train and it wouldn't hurt it. As if summoned by the thought, a big train rumbles right past outside.

I don't know who built a bar next to train tracks—or maybe train tracks next to a bar; this place has been here so long that Edgar Allan Poe supposedly frequented it a few times—but it was an exceptionally bad idea.