Page 20 of The Player

“You wanna tell me what you got into yesterday?” Franky asked, his attention still on Drew’s ribs.

“We won.”

“I watched the game.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

Franky looked up at him. “What did you do after the game, smart-ass?”

“Celebrated.”

“How?”

Drew gave him a mock salute. “Responsibly, sir.”

Tanner, stretched out on the next table with an ice bag strapped to his knee, snorted. “That what we’re calling last night?”

Drew flipped him off without turning his head.

Franky didn’t even smile. He pressed his thumb into the same spot again, like he was daring Drew to flinch. “Kiernan.”

“What?”

“You came in here looking worse than you did when you walked off the field.”

“That feels personal, Franky.”

“Your voice is shot, your ankle’s swollen, and you can’t lift your arm without making that face.”

“I slept wrong. Must’ve rolled over too aggressively.”

“Bullshit.”

Drew scratched at the morning stubble on his chin. “Fine. Maybe I got a little carried away.”

“Celebrating responsibly?”

“Exactly.”

Franky huffed and reached for a fresh roll of tape. “That’s what I thought.”

He pulled a stool closer and sat down in front of Drew’s left ankle. “Doc wants you out of contact until Wednesday.”

“That’s not happening.”

Franky started wrapping his ankle. “It is if you want to play Saturday.”

“I can practice.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t practice. You can throw. You can run if that ankle lets you. But nobody touches you until Wednesday.”

Three days was too long to spend standing around while everybody else worked. Then again, missing Saturday would be worse.

The training room was already loud for a Sunday morning, but Sundays during the season were always like that. Saturday was the crowd, the band, the cheerleaders, the cameras, and eighty thousand people screaming like a football game was the only thing happening in the world. Sunday was when you paid for it, with ice baths, treatment tables, and waking up sore in places you hadn’t even noticed the night before.

Guys were stretched out on every table in the place, sitting in tubs, or limping around with bags of ice strapped to shoulders, knees, or backs—wherever they’d taken the worst of it. Somebody in the far corner had a towel over his face like he was trying to pretend he was dead. Somebody else was arguing with a trainer about whether his hamstring was tight or actually pulled.

Franky tore off a strip of tape with his teeth and kept wrapping. The ankle had been fine before yesterday, and Drew couldn’t say for sure whether the game, the party, or both had done it. But in football, something always hurt. You got it checked, taped up whatever needed taping, and kept moving.