You're no hero.
I left Mia's words on in my bathroom until they blurred under my shower steam and dripped down in dark crimson trails. Gone but not forgotten, the words burned in my brain. I wiped the mirror clean and replaced the message with my ragged reflection.
I disgusted myself.
Not by the stressed-out version of the handsome devil glaring at me with dark, puffy half-moons under my red eyes and the uneven and split ends of my beard encroaching mountain-main status. No, the assumptions and hypocrisy that festered beneath the surface of my lifeless skin burned my eyes with regret. I acted no different from what I accused her of.
I wrenched my mouth into a grimace and palmed the counters. The ghost memory of Mia's curves bent over the same surface made me curl my fingers into fists. Heat simmered under my skin, broiling me from the inside. The brown irises surrounding my enlarged pupils turned darker from the same regret filling my stomach.
She was right. I wasn't a hero.
Professionally, I was an overpaid, arrogant athlete who controlled every aspect of football. I put in the extra time, ate clean, and ground my bones into dust and muscles into screaming fits of fatigue. My body went through enough ice baths to make a glacier.
Three hundred offensive plays were available with no recall effort, and I executed them effectively. My body wasn't fast, but it was more agile thanks to stronger ankle stabilizers. The larger size I was teased about in high school made me a tree to tackle. I was second in the league for passing percentage, secured my future status as Houston's franchise quarterback for the rest of my career despite my multiple off-the-field distractions, and owned the two most recent Super Bowl rings. My body operated at an elevated level most only imagined, and my brain saw the chess pieces on the field in real-time action...
But off it? Fuck, I was a work in progress to the people closest to me. I was flailing. I leaped at every dangled financial opportunity, but I wasn't in touch with all aspects of my life. Yes, I was talented, and my bank account was set for post-football life. Michael and I salvaged all my endorsements after the charity shitshow, which proved I was serious about protecting my off-field interests. I jumped through every media hoop Ashley lit ablaze in front of me and bared my stupidity to correct an ignored wrong.
After I took the fallout for the accident.
I threaded my hands through my hair and clenched the roots. I wanted to rip them out. Mia didn't know the truth. She didn't know because opening her up was impossible. Cracking through her walls was impossible. I assumed –stupidly– that physically showing her how I felt about her was enough, but it wasn't. Why weren't my efforts enough? What the fuck was she hiding?
I wouldn't care how deeply she felt about her ex if she explained why.
It was easy to get caught up in the hype, the glamor, and the elevation to God-like status associated with being a professional athlete. Parasites chasing money, fame, or both were everywhere. Staying grounded by roots of humility was essential, so I built a close, no-secret team around me on a foundation of trust. I turned a blind eye to fanfare attention and loose women, but my team was my chosen family. I extended my team to Mia when she joined it. Ashley kept her name out of the charity news, denying Mia's existence and having Shanti issue a statement that I had worked out at her studio but didn't anymore. Simone protected both her and Amir's legal interests. And Jer? Wouldn't stop asking me about her.
Michael told me Mia wasn't teaching her classes. Had she seen the studio's parking lot overflowing into the side streets? She left my texts on read, which I stopped sending after the most pathetic one.
Me: I need you to know what really happened.
When Mia showed up at the party, relief filled my heart to burst. In another Mia one-eighty, she sucked all that hope out in her retreat. Her flashes of warmth, the cracks of trust seeping through her walls in that apologetic smile, made me unhinged. Hardened with muscles trained to perfection, an exterior thicker than rumors and suspicions, and my level of stubbornness, she weakened me without saying a word.
She could have worn a plastic bag and taken my breath away, but my cock jumped out of my pants at first glance. With her in skin-tight yoga clothes, I shouldn't have been that affected by a dress on her tight frame. It hugged the cinch of her waist, and the skirt painted over the curve of her hips and thighs. The round tops of her cleavage begged for release, or better for my mouth over them.
It was more than that. Much more.
A soft, apologetic smile curved her lips. Her skin glowed, and her eyes rounded. Most importantly, they shone with no signs of guilt. She didn't regret being with me.
I went upstairs to cut off Ashley and her husband from fucking in my hallway bathroom, then used mine while Mia searched me out. Her presence flipped a switch in me. I was so thankful, so relieved she was there, that my body erupted in reactions. She bolted at verbal confessions, but I thought she was all in. That's why she was there, wasn't she? And she needed to show her how affected I was. I was all hers if she said the word.
Instead, she tore out of my house like it was on fire.
Maybe she came to share the truth about her ex. Or, maybe she came to tell me we made a mistake. I hadn't cared then and didn't care now. Too focused on how fucking beautiful she looked and the happiness her presence filled me with, I acted on raw, physical impulses.
Sam, you fucked this one up.
Worse than dried kindling, my patience snapped under Mia's hot-cold yanking. She went from moaning my name, her sweet arousal slicking both our thighs, to the back of her head flying out my house. The way I bragged about her efforts helping my shoulder, calling her the secret to my contract's success, melted under the heated anger that burned in my chest when she left.
In my frustration, I pushed what I thought she needed to hear. I wish I could take those words back. Underserved words, spoken in the wrong tone and under the wrong circumstances, were the icing on the cake I smashed into her face.
All because I wanted more while she battled a depression that I couldn't wrap my brain around.
Her erratic behavior dug under my skin, and I snapped. I wanted to hear that I mattered somewhere in that cracked heart space, that I was worthy of knowing whatever the fuck secrets she thought I couldn't handle.
Her admission about having a husband, I didn't see coming. Before I processed that shocking information, she tore off like a wild, unbridled mustang that escaped captivity.
My actions weren't justified by the reasons behind them. Michael was right. She didn't deserve my low blows. Heated in the non-argument moment and burned by her rejection of leaving, I didn't mean those words. Fuck, I wished I could take them back. I replayed every second of that night. Images from first seeing Mia to Michael stepping between us haunted me for days that followed.
"Sam, she didn't deserve that!" Mike rubbed his forehead. "You have no fucking clue what you just did, how much pain you inflicted on her."
"That's the problem!" I wanted to rip my hair out or tear something apart with my bare hands. "I don't fucking know anything. She won't-"
"She's dealing with pain you can't understand." Abby's eyes weighed with the truth, which left me speechless.
In one admission, Mia shifted from borderline toxic crazy to the strongest person I'd ever met... and myself the biggest asshole for how I treated her. I thought she had a fucked-up ex who left her with unrequited feelings. I leaned over onto my kitchen counters, the cold hard surface poking into my elbows, and stared until the light gray veins blurred away into the white.
Fuck, I was so wrong.
Mind-numbed and tongue-tied, I was shocked and speechless. Abby could have slapped me, which I deserved, and I wouldn't have felt the sting. Both fell silent, offered only averted eyes, and retreated behind Mia. They didn't need to say more. The crushing weight of the truth was enough. Rendered thoughtless and actionless, I gaped at the darkness swallowing their departure. They rushed to her side, and glowing headlines shrunk off my property. My knees gave out, swaying under my weight. I palmed the trunk of the nearest car.
The question of 'how could I have known?' was replaced by 'how couldn't I have known' by the time my feet brought me back inside. Celebration over, I kicked out the remaining guests to avoid their curious stares. My skin burned as I slammed my palms into every door shut and marched upstairs for a cold shower.
Her note on my bathroom mirror said it all. The pills stamped on Candy's note. I wished she'd counted them. It would've verified my stubbornness wouldn't allow me to take prescription painkillers. Fuck, Ashley's false toxicology report was too good.
"I would've told her if she asked," I muttered and shook my head. Hundreds of new phone messages, but none from her. Michael was a wall of 'give her space' resistance, but fuck, I was so worried. His describing her as the strongest person I'd ever met was true but didn't help our situation.
I couldn't help but shift my perspective of Mia. She wasn't surrounded by thick walls but cracked eggshells. Why she was so fucking difficult made sense. The on-off switching and hot-cold emotions were crystal-clear. Mother bear-level protection of her classes. Afraid to allow herself to be happy and be cared for by another person, she punished herself with isolating, self-sabotaging guilt.
Absent the details, I couldn't fully comprehend her situation. Small hints slipped into place, leaving both my heart bleeding and my brain confused. I had the border pieces of Mia's puzzle, but the core interior pieces were scattered off the table. Her freak out over the truck, the ragged nails, her hair long and stringy, the yoga therapy...
I was so wrong about her. So, so wrong.
She was dealt the worst hand in life and punched back, one creative insult at a time. Fuck, the way she channeled her pain into charitable contributions made my foundation look like a sham without its corruption.
I thought my problems were bad, but she needed to know my truth as much as I needed hers.
Candy saved every version of the accident article she found and covered my fridge with them as motivation through my rehab. I associated them with her and tossed them out after Candace left for good. Like Mia's bathroom message, I never forgot the accident words.
Houston's biggest question mark is Pearson's shoulder health. Pearson, 26, suffered a rotator cuff tear in an off-field injury. Leaving a celebration party for Warren Hayes' Hall of Fame induction, Pearson, 26, was driving home with two unidentified girls. Alcohol was believed to be a factor.
My and Candace's argument that night was the first time she threw our relationship in the trash, stormed out, and left me with a flask of whiskey. I remembered fragments of that evening. Neither of the two girls in my car was the only girl I hit on that night –Mia because Fate loved fucking with me too much– but the two that I snapped my fingers at because of the piss poor shape I was in.
Ash and Simone.
Simone's pending divorce was leaked into the media, putting the strong woman in an emotionally vulnerable state, so I invited her to the party. Ashley's husband was out of town, but the two agreed to make sure I made it home.
Thanks to another drunk, Ashley instead smashed head-first into a tree.
Goosebumps pricked the skin on my forearms. A cold chill trickled down the back of my neck, raising the hairs at the base of my skull. Echoes of Ashley's screams, Simone's lower-toned yells, and my slurred cursed words, intermixed with the slam of crunched metal. Flinching on instinct, my right hand palmed the dashboard.
Cracked plastic, crunched metal, and smashed glass erupted around us. The airbags exploded out of the dashboard and side windows. My right arm snapped back, followed by a sickening third pop. It echoed in my ears, embedding doubt in the back of my foggy mind. This one came from behind me as if my seat broke. Pain throbbed through my upper back, and numbness shot down my right bicep.
Ash hid her and Simone's identities into 'unknown girls' to protect their identities and careers from false reporting, at my expense that the incident painted me as a player and cheater. I chose the least damaging between two false rumors, 'Sam Pearson found cheating on his girlfriend' vs. 'Sam Pearson cheating on his girlfriend with his lawyer and publicist.'
I scrubbed both hands down my face. Mia deserved to know I wasn't who she thought I was, that she was the only one in four years I'd slept with other than Candace.
First, she deserved an apology. I stood at Mike's front door before I questioned my actions. Abby's apologetic face verified what I knew from Mia's truck being absent in the driveway. Hope lifted my eyebrows. "Is she back at the studio?"
"Sam." She shook her head and sagged into the door frame. "I know it's hard, but you need to be patient. She went for one of her drives. It's not you. She needs time."
Drives? Where did she go when she hit her bottom moments? Was it a specific place or nowhere at all? "I need to know if she regrets it," I blurted out and dropped my head. "If she regrets me. If I'm making things worse for her."
"She doesn't." Abby's soft voice brought my eyes to the sympathy swimming in hers. "If anything, she feels guilty for not regretting it. You've unlocked feelings in her, feelings she didn't expect, and it might not look like it, but she's processing them."
Same answer every time. I couldn't wrap my brain around feeling guilty for not feeling guilty. Mia, more than anyone I knew, deserved to be happy. Her processing those feelings alone, with misinformation, made me restless enough to search the entire state for her.
"She's pulling back from me," my whispered admission surprised me as much as Abby's rounding mouth. My heart stuttered from the exposed, vulnerable sensation coating my skin.
"No." Her head shook, which slid a few of her braids over her shoulder. Warmth cupped my shoulder. "She's putting herself back together. This is how she does it. She pulls back into silence until she feels strong enough to rejoin life. Pushing her will only-"
"It can't be the only option." I understood self-preservation, but Mia suffering on her own settled hard in my stomach. "She doesn't have to be strong and alone all the time."
Warmth filled Abby's dark brown eyes, and she leaned against the doorway, her arms crossed. "That's all she knows how to do, Sam. It's all she has."
I wasn't going to force myself on Mia, but I hoped Abby's sympathetic smile meant she delivered my message, "No, it's not."
"We'll finish today's set by watching Telenovela episodes."
I grunted, wiping a sweaty hand over my sweatier forehead. The gray gym floor blurred behind the haze clouding my vision. Snaps of racked weights faded into the background music. Today's workout was pointless unless entertaining Jer by tripping over a pylon during SAQ drills was considered productive. Worst part? Smashing nose-first into the astroturf reminded me of when Mia dropped me on my head.
I thought prepping for football refocused me on a much-needed distraction. Slivers of my life returned: the stability, the regimented schedules, and my football family reunited. Endless planning meetings, play and film reviews, physical assessments, and light workouts with Jer borrowed my attention. Seeing my teammates again, the ridicule, and even the locker room pranks brought a smile to my face.
Outside the team's family confines, the same superficial shit existed. Sportscasters argued if my shoulder was worth the contract extension. Fans came out with their usual excitement and support subdued from the offseason shit, but I threw out constant, 'New season, new start' words until I believed them. Women dangled their bodies at me, and I looked away.
I grabbed my phone and skimmed over the pile of today's messages. None from her.
"After we're done debating if Consuela or Mariana will win over Jeremiah's heart, whoever triumphs in the mud wrestling competition determines who marries him."
What? I snapped off my phone. A vacant look in my eyes reflected on the black screen.
"Let's wrap up. I want to freshen up for my lunch with Amelia. Can't do that with your broody man stink permeating my breathing space. You need a deodorant endorsement, Sam."
My neck pinched with how fast I turned my head to his smug smirk. "What the fuck are you talking about, Jer?"
"What?" His meaty shoulders lifted. "You don't believe we'd have lunch? Preseason camp starts next week, so I'm done training your sorry ass. And we text all the time."
Palm up, I flicked my fingers. "Give me your phone."
The overhead lights danced over his bald head as it shook. "Private conversations, man."
"Your phone, Jer." I palmed the mats under me and stood with a grunt. His messages included a long, one-sided wooing of Simone whose details I buried under man code. Sure enough, he had one from Mia.
SamsCrush: Thanks for everything Jer. Good luck!
It's a joke to him. I lifted my eyes in a glare at him and threw his phone at his chest. "I don't need this bullshit."
"She doesn't need time or space, Sam." Jer's serious tone stopped my feet from leaving. "And she doesn't need your stubborn melodrama. She needs a hero moment."
I frowned at his wide, cheesy grin. "A what?"
"Hero moment." He lifted his arms into a giant wingspan, excitement radiating off him in waves. "A big confession. Every romance movie and book has one. A grand gesture, all your cards laid out, bare your soul, spew your guts, to assure her of your feelings."
Bare my soul and spew my guts? Why did he clench his hands at his heart on the word soul? I scanned around the gym, where thank fuck no one overheard this insanity, and rubbed the ache pulsing between my eyes. "You gotta stop with the Telenovelas."
"Enact a hero moment," he declared with a puffed-up chest, dropping his arms. "Maybe Mia would believe you then."
"How can you convince someone who won't listen?"
"Go big. Go bold, or-"
"Or go home," I muttered, dragged my hands through my hair, and released a sign. With no other options, I teetered on the same level of insanity for even entertaining the idea. "Hero moment. What the fuck would I even..."
His hand palmed my shoulder and squeezed it. "What's important to her?"
Yoga was, but not her regular class. Her therapy class helping soldiers was her true passion. Her truck. That's not it. Think, Sam.
My silence prompted him, "Or what does she need?"
"Mia deserves the strongest person in the world award for being able to get herself out of bed."
Abby was partially correct. Mia deserved more than acknowledging her strength. She needed a shoulder for support when she broke down, a voice that assured her it was okay for her to not feel okay, and that what she grappled with was not her fault. Mia needed someone who recognized that pain was a part of life that shouldn't be pushed away, who accepted her heart being big enough to love multiple people, and who understood that moving forward from losing someone you loved didn't mean forgetting them.
She needed... a golden retriever. No, a Blue Lacy.
I pulled my phone to my ear. "Michael, where does Mia go when she needs to decompress?"
"It's hard to explain." My phone buzzed with an address located in the middle of nowhere. "Why are you using a tone of voice like you're going to do something crazy?"
Because I was crazy. My stupid brain's wheels spun with the stops I needed to pull out first. The crazier, the better. I smiled so hard that my cheeks pinched.
"Sam?" The hesitation in Mike's voice mirrored the wary look Jer shot me. "What are you planning?"
I smirked at Jer. "Not planning, I'm doing."
Sammy... What are you planning? 🤔
Lots of hints here, but how about some clear answers about Mia's secret? They are ALL given in the next chapter.