Hail Mary Read online

  Yep. That kind of face.

  The owner of the club, Manny, steps over the ropes and drops a few packets of smelling salts onto Gillette’s chest. They look like the little salt packets you can get at Wendy’s.

  “Mary,” Manny says. “We’ve talked about this. You gotta stop knocking out the paying customers. I’m trying to run a business here. You feel me?”

  I give Gillette a shake. I don’t want to use the salts unless I have to. I wouldn’t know myself, but I’ve heard it’s a terrible way to wake up. “It’s been two whole weeks, Manny. Cut me a little slack.”

  Manny picks up Gillette’s massive hand and then drops it with a thump on the mats, like people do with corpses on crime shows. “I don’t think I got a plastic bag that big. Imma have to make a special trip to Home Depot. Dexter-style.”

  Placing my ear to Gillette’s body, I hear the strong thump-thump-thump of his heart. “He’s not dead.” I pinch his gorgeous face in my hand again, feeling the strong, sexy muscles of his jaw under my fingers. “He’s just… resting.”

  “Oh sure. Like Al Capone. Like Che Guevara. Like my uncle Felipe. Resting. Pffffffft.” Manny straddles the big guy’s torso. He takes the first Polaroid for the Knockout Wall, which falls onto his chest. “I'll go mix some concrete. The lake isn’t frozen yet. Nobody has to know. I know a couple’a cops.”

  It is a little worrying. He should definitely be showing some signs of life by now. Some eye movement. An eyebrow furl. But there’s nothing at all.

  “Does he look familiar to you?” Manny asks, leaning in as the third photo lands face up on Gillette’s chest. He turns the big ox’s jaw side to one side. “Maybe like he’s in the movies?”

  I can’t imagine he’s that famous. “Gillette razors. I’m positive.” I crack open the little packet of smelling salts, which makes my own eyes start to water from a foot away.

  I waft it under his nose. No response whatsoever.

  Uh-oh.

  “I’m feeling like this isn’t the best way for you to meet a man. Why can’t you go on the internet like nice girls do?” Manny asks.

  I crack open a second pack of salts and give those a try.

  Nothing. Either this guy is immune, or his contract with Gillette has led to some serious head trauma. Whatever it is, it’s not good.

  Manny leans down. “The usual? You do compressions, I'll blow in his mouth?”

  It’s standard operating procedure. But then I look at that jaw. Those lips. That face. “You do the compressions this time.”

  Manny cracks his knuckles. “Mmmmkay.”

  But one last time before we go seriously Rescue 911 on this beautiful, beautiful man, I cradle his head in my lap and waft the smelling salts under his nose again. Okay, fine. I actually jam them up there so far I almost lose them in his nostril.

  “Come on, handsome,” I whisper. “Wake up. Please. I'll take you out for a drink. Just open your eyes…” I take a deep breath and give him a flat-handed slap on the right cheek. “Manny’s not insured for this kind of thing. Please.”

  That’s when his eyes flutter, and he inhales hard. I brace for the usual return-to-consciousness routine—they usually flail around like a rooster, or shoot straight up like Uma Thurman did after she got shot in the heart with adrenaline in Pulp Fiction.

  This guy, though, he’s different from all the rest. He doesn’t flail, he doesn’t startle, but wakes up lazy, dreamy, sultry, slow and sexy. Like a big lion napping in the shade.

  “Hey there, pussycat,” he says, smiling at me and putting one hand to his forehead, revealing a breathtakingly beautiful tricep.

  Oooooh boy. “Hello.”

  “You’ve got some power in those guns.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I adjust his head so it’s a little more centered in my lap. “I thought for sure you’d duck…”

  Looking away from my eyes, his gaze falls to my lips. My cleavage. My stomach. And then back up again. “Don’t be sorry. You warned me.”

  God, the way he’s looking at me. My thighs clench, as though he’s pulling me on a string. “Did I?”

  He nods. “Here comes trouble.” He lifts his eyebrow. “And here you are.”

  3

  Jimmy

  Joe Namath said it: “When you win, nothing hurts.”

  And I might be flat on my back with a headache like I just sucked down a smoothie too fast, but I’m fucking winning. Because look at that goddamned face. Fucking gorgeous. Freckles, those lips. Everything. Her body is hella hot, but that face. That face seals it.

  Also, those tits. I groan and pretend I’m rubbing my temples. Actually, I’m looking at the curve of her stomach—the crease across her bellybutton. The edge of the tattoo just wraps around her side, accentuating the line of her waist. God, yes.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I’m not allowed to fight my own weight class anymore, but I thought you’d be able to take it.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Oh no.” She puts her hand to her mouth. “I mean…sorry. Just…I’m really sorry.”

  I know she’s lying. She’s probably left a trail of unconscious guys from here to wherever she came from, but I’m not proud. I’ll be the next man in line. I sure fucking will. “What do you weigh? A buck fifty? And you knocked me out like that?”

  “One fifty-seven!” The way she says it, she’s proud of it, and I love that. A buck fifty-seven. Sold.

  “You can hit.” I explore the damage with my tongue. The hot, metallic taste of blood fills my mouth, and my saliva stings the cut on my bottom lip.

  I glance around. Nobody’s paying any attention at all. Further proof that she’s done this before.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t even thinking. Let me…” She dabs at my lip with a washcloth. I can smell the sweat, the salt, the heat. The sharp lingering smell of ammonia in my nostrils. A drop of her sweat runs down off her neck and lands on my chest with a plop.

  She takes my face in her wrapped hands, looking from eye to eye. “I don’t think you’re concussed.”

  Okay, so I know I’m not—I don’t know much, but I do know a concussion when I get one—but I’m going to go along with it because I need her to stay exactly like that. “Might be.” I follow her eyes with mine. “Head trauma can be very complicated.”

  Slowly, a smile creeps up across her face, and a little dimple crimps her cheek. But she bites it back. “Your pupils look normal.”

  Coconut. I can smell it. Definitely coconut. Good thing I’m already flat on my back. She holds up one finger and moves it to and fro in front of my eyes. I don’t follow it. I leave my eyes right there, on this fleck of brown in her left iris.

  “If you can’t follow my finger, I think we have to call 911…”

  I sniff, the ammonia still stinging my sinuses. “If I let you knock me out again, can I get you to keep doing this all night?”

  She pouts and makes a fist of her wrapped hand. “Let me? Let me knock you out?”

  “Oh yeah. Let you.”

  She cocks her head, her eyes saying, Bullshit!

  “Fuck, yes, I took the fall. Sometimes you got to throw the fight to get what you want.”

  She lets go of my face, and my head lands in her lap. The curve of her thigh supports my neck. She gives me that look again, the one she gave me right before the lights went out. “Yeah? And what do you want?”

  “I think you know.” I let my stare fall to her cleavage.

  She presses her lips together, like she cannot believe I just said that.

  Booyah. Now who’s on her heels?

  I rip off the Velcro cuff from the glove on my right hand and shake it off. “I’m Jimmy.” I hold out my hand to her. She shakes it softly, and then her grip tightens and she pulls me up to a sitting position in the middle of the ring. She keeps her right hand knitted in mine, thumb over thumb, and gently supports my back with the other. “I really am sorry about that.”

  “I’ll deny it forever.”

  “There were witnesses.” S
he glances over her shoulder at the assorted groups of guys around the gym.

  “Are you familiar with the down-low?”

  “They took pictures. For the Knockout Wall,” she says, grinning.

  Fuckers. Great. Just great. JIMMY FALCONI KNOCKED OUT BY GIRL IN PINK GLOVES. I can see it on Bleacherreport.com right now. “Polaroids burn super easy.”

  Now she’s really smiling, and fuck is she pretty. Like, drop-dead gorgeous. The knockout with the knockout punch. “I’m glad you’re okay. If you never woke up, that would have been a lot of paperwork.”

  I grunt-laugh, which also hurts because of that one-two-three combination to my spleen earlier. I grab my stomach and flop back down on the mat.

  “Need ice?”

  “Let me die with dignity.”

  She gets stern. “Ten-four. We’ll remember you fondly.” And then she salutes me.

  All this and she’s funny?

  Alright, Falconi. Time to head for the end zone. Time to bring the Super Bowl ring home. “Fine. I’ll give you the win if you let me buy you dinner.”

  Her eyes move over my face. “Dinner? There’s a blizzard coming. Also, you might need a stitch for that lip.”

  “No way. I’ll get some superglue. Fuck the blizzard. Come out with me.”

  “Tough guy.”

  I study that hollow at the base of her throat and then meet her eyes to hold her stare. “Dinner and drinks.”

  She stands and offers me a wrapped hand. Toe to toe, she sizes me up like we’re locked in some full-body arm-wrestling match. Christ.

  But she still hasn’t said, “Don’t you play for the…” like everybody else always does. So I ask, “You like any other sports besides knocking totally unsuspecting strangers unconscious? Like maybe…football?”

  I hold the ropes open for her and she steps through. Goddamn, those hips. That skin. The curve of her waist. The petals of the lace that barely touch her spine. And my mind kind of unravels in imagining where that tattoo goes and how sexy that ink must be on the skin of her ass.

  “Nope. Is that a problem?” she asks. “That I wouldn’t know my touchdown from my…whatever? Going to put a cramp in our conversation, champ?”

  “No problem at all.” Doesn’t matter if she knows me or not, because pretty quick here, I’m planning to have her saying my name. Over and over again.

  4

  Mary

  Jimmy squirts some water in his mouth. He picks up his T-shirt from the bench and wipes off his face. He winces when he brushes against his split lip, but tries to cover it by smiling at me.

  And winking.

  You can tell almost everything about a guy in the way he acts immediately after regaining consciousness. It’s like an asshole-levels litmus test. And this guy has revealed himself to be a sweetheart, right down to the center. Honestly, I do feel really guilty for knocking him out. I pick up the Polaroid that Manny left by my bag and hold it out to him. “For your memory book.”

  He winces and groans. “Don’t remind me. Come on, Mary. Just dinner and a drink. What could possibly happen?” he says, grinning.

  “I can’t imagine.” I unwind the sparring wraps from my left hand. I flash back to the ring. You wanna screw around?

  “No?”

  Yes, I can. I felt it when he had his arm around me. That close heat, that anger, that delicious tension that only one thing can undo. “Nope.”

  “Neither can I,” he growls.

  “I have to shower,” I say. “I’ve got work in the morning.”

  He lifts his hands in the air between us. I catch sight of his groin muscles coming up from his gym shorts. Man, oh man, oh man. I feel that tension deep in my hips.

  Now it’s my turn to squirt some water in my mouth. I wipe the sweat from my eyes and grab another glance at the muscles. The Incomparable V.

  “Look, I’m not going to kidnap you. I’m going to take you out. And if I come on too strong, we both know you can leave me in a drooling pile on the sidewalk. So what do you have to lose?”

  I honestly don’t know why I’m making him give me the hard sell. Of course I’m going to say yes. I’d have to be insane not to… but there’s something about him, a kind of pride that I find just a little irritating. That cocky, aging, prom king glory that I want to take down a few notches. Make him work for it. So instead of Yes, I say, “Hmmmm. Where?”

  He looks me up and down. I can tell he’s stuck between being totally offended—Is this girl really about to reject me?—and a little mad. Now he gives me that look again. That lusty, aggressive look. God, is he sexy. “Ribs. I’m taking you out for ribs and beer.”

  Oh boy. Yes. Yes, please. My favorite. “Barbeque? Could get messy…”

  He takes a step toward me, pushing me up against the water cooler. I shimmy along it, narrowing my eyes at him, laughing, and take a step back, and another, but he doesn’t let up. He presses me up against the cinder block wall, which is cold against my sweaty bare back. “Sticky. Messy. Time-consuming. Might take all night. You got a problem with that?” His voice is rough and quiet. Confidence like that, it’s not learned in front of a heavy bag. Cockiness like that is way down deep.

  I breathe him in and watch his abs contract as he does the same. He smells like man. Good old-fashioned, red-blooded man. Ivory soap, clean laundry, and sweat. With one arm, he cages me up against the wall. Pecs to die for and an eight-pack like I’ve never seen in my life.

  I bite my lip, and he watches me do it. I lean toward his ear and hit him with my best shot. “All night? Now you’re talking.”

  “Fuck.”

  5

  Jimmy

  I strip down and grab a quick shower. Then I get dressed and wait for her outside the locker rooms. I’m not going to lie; I listen hard for the sound of the water splashing off her body. I can barely hear it, but it’s there. I imagine the suds slipping down her curves, all lathered up and soapy. All warm and sexy and slick. With her coconut body wash, or maybe some fancy soap with oatmeal or sea salt, scraping her skin a little, leaving her a little hot and raw. Naked, with all that pretty hair down her back in a tangle…

  Christ.

  I rake my hand through my hair. That’s when I hear something else.

  She’s singing. Just softly.

  I’m pretty damned good at tuning out background noise, thanks to my job. Lately, it’s been 70,000 people screaming variations on the theme of, “Fuck you, Falconi!” It doesn’t take long before I zero in on the song.

  No way. At first, I think that I can’t possibly be hearing that right. Just my imagination playing tricks on me, making me hear what I want to hear. Like when I got up in the ref’s face against the Buccaneers and he said, “Penalty confirmed!” when I thought he’d said, Penalty overturned. Wishful thinking, man. It’s a bitch.

  But no. This isn’t wishful thinking. She gets rolling into the chorus. Holy shit. I was right:

  Def Leppard. Pour Some Sugar On Me.

  I drag my hand down my mouth and turn away from the locker rooms. Is this girl for real?

  That’s when I see the Knockout Wall.

  The thing is massive. About a thousand Polaroids, stuck to the cinder blocks with duct tape. Each picture has a date written on it in Sharpie, with the printed name and signature of the fighter who got the KO.

  There are a lot of names—J. Zavala, T. Jesús de María, G. Nguyen, A. White—and lined up in a row next to the corner:

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  M. Monahan

  Holy shit… Could it be her? If there was any doubt, each one has a little “xoxo!” written in pink in the corner.

  My mouth drops open.

  Def Leppard, pink gloves, and the whole shebang. She’s the real deal. She sure
fucking is.

  The victims of the Knockout range from massive to tiny. The first one is dated three years ago. Looks like she’s been leveling dudes quarterly ever since. Some of them are seriously beaten up, with black eyes and broken noses. Some of them just look like they’re sleeping. One of them is a guy with his glove to the camera, a flash bulb against red vinyl.

  What I don’t see is her face, anywhere. And for about one second, I think, That’s because none of these fuckers would dare hit a girl…

  Except, nope. Wrong again. Littered in and amongst the photographs, there are women. Not many, but a few.

  Mary is nowhere to be seen. Not that pretty face, those freckles, or those lips, so perfect that I can feel it in my balls.

  I look outside and down onto the street. It’s snowing hard already, and a plow blows down Clark, dropping sand behind it as it goes. With my hands in my pockets, I walk around the gym and notice a couple of guys watching ESPN in the corner. One of them has a bag of frozen corn on his face and a bloody towel in his hand. Another one is eating ramen. On the screen, they’re showing a clip from the Bears game last week—me getting sacked so spectacularly that my helmet flies off. As I land on the turf, my body bouncing, the guys from the gym all make sympathetic noises, feeling my pain.

  But they have no idea. At all. As The Fridge once said, “Playing professional football is like getting clobbered by concrete mixers for a living.”

  Just to really put the icing on the cake, they’ve got the replay of the after-game interview. I hate those. What’s a guy supposed to say? They’ll either ask you, How’d you win? In which case, you answer Teamwork, unless you’re a total and unmitigated asshole, in which case you’d say, Because I’m awesome, and that’s not my style. Or they ask, What happened out there?

  Which is what’s happening on the replay. The sideline reporter, a super skinny little thing in a blue skirt suit and heels that make her wobble like a flamingo, asks, “Jimmy, what happened out there?” The wind blows her blonde hair, lifting it like shellacked straw. She holds the microphone up to my face. Behind me, a couple of guys from the Raiders growl, “Nice work, Falconi. We like having you on our team.”