“The Hotel”
“Oh, God, please…” Jim murmurs into his clasped hands. He wants to kneel but can’t bend on one knee anymore after the injuries, all the surgeries. Instead, he prays standing up, his head thrown back, his eyes pressed closed. He talks to God every day. He asks for wisdom. He argues with God. He tells God about his problems. He knows God is listening and will bless him. He knows God better than he’s known anything ever in his life.
His wife emerges from the bathroom. She’s tied her hair in a chignon, applied heavy dabs of makeup and wears a clinging black dress that reveals ample thigh and cleavage. Morning sunlight trickles in from the hotel’s French windows, golden rays reflecting off her diamond necklace and earrings in bright prisms of light.
Jim pans his gaze toward her. His lips twist into a smile. She’s sparkling like an angel. She’s still got it, he thinks. How blessed he is, to have the love of this woman.
He knows he should appreciate her more, be more chivalrous. But he’s always had issues expressing emotions. Still, he loves her. He cherishes her. He knows she loves him. He knows she’s suffered and sacrificed, and he appreciates how she’s stood by him since back in his rookie year when his career prospects were uncertain. How she stood by his side, literally, in the hospitals, those times he went under the knife, his devoted wife helping him up in the middle of the night, assisting the hobbling giant to the toilet, holding his dick as he pissed, changing bedpans for him.
For better or worse, in sickness and in health…
This was why you’d marry, he thinks, to have a partner like her. And he’d been faithful to her, throughout their marriage. When the team was on the road, in faraway cities, in 5-star hotels, the Hilton, Ritz-Carlton, loads of other guys on the team would hit the nightclubs, the bars, go party and dance, bring back floozies to fuck.
They had intricate systems of sneaking out of the hotels, averting their militaristic coaches’ watch. They’d bribe lower-level coaching assistants, bellboys, set up mannequins in their beds, creep down hallways like burglars, rush down fire escapes and back stairways, run and duck and look over their heavy shoulders, as if they were escaping jail. These grown men, star athletes, wide receivers and quarterbacks, cowering and terrified of coach, risking steep fines and possible suspensions. And all for what? To nail a floozy? Jim didn’t understand it…
But Jim never cared, as long as their performance on the field didn’t suffer. And he understood the bro code. And he kept silent.
And he kept inside his hotel rooms, watching movies, Game of Thrones, nature documentaries, eating salt and vinegar potato chips, facetiming with his wife. He’d never been with any other lady since they’d become an item. It was now that he realized his faithfulness was paying its dividends…
They collect their bags. Jim pats his beautiful wife on her lower back, and they exit their suite. The moving/relocation service had finished unpacking the family’s things and setting up the house late last night, so the couple, along with their teenaged son, had stayed in a nearby hotel for the night.
Their teenaged son, Kyle, clicks open and closes the heavy oak door to his room. His head bowed to his phone, he wheels a suitcase with his other hand, then rides an elevator down to the lobby, where he’ll wait for his parents.
