Tackled by Love Read online

  She just stares at me with her mouth hanging open. With the look that’s on her face you’d think I just told her that cashmere was outlawed. “So this is it? You’re just going to give up like that?”

  Now my eyes widen. “Give up? What the hell does that mean? I’ve never given up! I don’t have a fucking choice here, Valerie. Dr. Herpin gave me his medical opinion on what was best for me and my health, and I trust his advice. He wouldn’t tell me I need to retire if it wasn’t for my own good.”

  She lets out a little huff, “So what’s next then? Where do we go from here?”

  I rub the back of my neck trying to relieve the tension that is building there. “I’m not sure. My pension is pennies compared to what I make, since I’ve only been in the league for three years. Plus, I won’t see that money until I’m 55. We’ve got enough money to live off of for a while, but we’re gonna have to cut back until I figure out what I’m going to do. And that means no trips to Bora Bora and no more Hermès bags for a while.”

  “I can’t believe this, Landon! You said you’d take care of me! How are you going to take care of me if you aren’t playing football anymore?”

  I can’t hold in my anger. I just got the shittiest news of my life and my wife is acting like a spoiled brat, all because we can’t spend thousands of dollars on a lavish vacation. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? How selfish can you be? When have I not taken care of you? Please, tell me. Because when I look around this house, all I see are the numerous ways in which I’ve taken care of you. Football is my whole life, everything I’ve worked my ass off for and now I have to give it up, and you’re concerned about your lifestyle changing slightly? Give me a break, will ya? We’re not going to be in the poor house, we just need to be wise with our money right now. Shit!”

  I slowly get to my feet and grab my crutches. “I’m going to unwrap my knee and take a shower,” I murmur to her as I walk away. Right before I get to one of the guest rooms where I can shower without climbing a bunch of stairs, I hear her start to cry. I don’t know if she’s upset because I yelled at her or the fact that I’m currently unemployed, but I don’t turn around to find out. That makes me feel a little guilty. Not only have a let the team down, but now I feel like I’ve let my wife down too.

  A couple hours later I’m lying in bed staring up at the ceiling fan, contemplating my next move when Valerie comes in.

  “Do you mind if we talk?” she asks quietly, barely making eye contact.

  “No, come here.” I reach my arm out to her, pulling her into bed beside me and laying her head on my chest. “It’s going to be okay. You know that, right?” I say to her as I run my fingers through her hair.

  She lets out a deep breath, “I know.”

  “I’ll figure things out. I’m going to make an appointment with my accountant and see how much money I need to move around to our different accounts to cover our expenses. I know we’ve saved a good amount, so we should be fine while I work out a plan B for us. Don’t worry, I’ve always taken care of you and I’m not going to stop now.”

  She’s quiet for the longest time, so quiet I’m wondering if she fell asleep, until she finally speaks up. “Most of it is gone,” she says in a whisper.

  “What’s gone, baby?” I ask, still absentmindedly running my hand through her hair.

  “The money.”

  I sit up quickly, causing her to fall off my chest and pain to shoot through my knee. “What do you mean the money’s gone? How much?”

  “I don’t know exactly.” She looks down and picks at the comforter on the bed. “I just always thought you’d be able to make that money back, so it was no big deal if I spent a little of it.”

  “How. Much?” Anger coats my words as they come out through clenched teeth. I’m seething at this point. This day just keeps getting better and better. She is still silent so I repeat, “How much?” I say it in a demanding tone, making sure she answers me this time.

  “Well, the account you set up for my spending money is gone,” she answers, still avoiding eye contact.

  “Valerie, that account got a $50,000 deposit every month! How the hell did you blow through all that?” I feel my face getting red, like all the blood is rushing to my head and it will explode like a volcano at any moment.

  “I don’t know, okay? At first it was fine and I always had money left over at the end of the month. But then I started seeing these fabulous bags and clothes and stuff I wanted for the house and things I wanted to do. And we always did spa days every week and that stuff isn’t free. I don’t know, it’s just gone,” she says a little defensively.

  I put my head in my hands, “What else? You said the money is all gone. Did you pull it from any of the other accounts?” She doesn’t answer, silently telling me she did, but I want to hear her say it. “Valerie!” I snap out and look at her, “did you take money from any of the other accounts?”

  “Yes,” her words come out shaky as her lips tremble.

  “How much is gone, Val,” I demand.

  “About half of it.”

  I’m completely floored. She went through almost one million dollars in such a short amount of time. I would’ve never thought she was capable of spending that much money. She comes from the same small town as I do. That’s where we met. We were the cliché high school sweethearts that went off to college together. Our parents weren’t wealthy and material things never held any real value to either of us.

  “Did you pull from any of the investment accounts?” I hold my breath waiting to hear how bad it really is.

  “No.” Thank God, but we can’t exactly pull the money from those accounts to cover our expenses now without some heavy penalties. So basically, we’re fucked and I’m gonna have to figure out a plan B a helluva lot faster than I had originally thought.

  “Okay, I’ll call my accountant tomorrow and see how long we can keep afloat with what we have without completely depleting our funds.” The only thing I can do now is try my best to calm down.

  “I’m really sorry,” she says with tears in her eyes. I lay down and pull her back down to my chest, kissing her head, “It’s okay.” It’s the only thing I can say.

  ***

  Walking, or I should say crutching, into my accountant’s office, I feel a little unnerved to hear what he’s going to tell me. To be honest, I’m kind of pissed he didn’t flag all the spending my wife was doing, and I definitely plan to question him about that.

  “Hey, Brian.” I walk into the door extending my hand.

  “Hey, Landon. Sorry to hear about the knee. How are you feeling?” he asks while shaking my hand and then gesturing to the seat in front of him.

  “I’ve been better. I guess we’re about to find out how bad it really is in a few minutes, right?”

  “Just sit tight for a few minutes while I go grab a few things so we can get started. Can I get you anything to drink?”

  “Nah, I’m good, thanks.” I look around his office, searching for something to keep my mind occupied. What’s the worst case scenario? We sell the house and move in with my mom and dad. That thought almost has me laughing. I doubt the situation I’m in is that bad.

  After a few minutes, Brian comes walking back in. “Alright, let’s get started.”

  He shuffles through some papers and tells me what I have in all of my investment and personal accounts. When he tells me that my wife’s personal account has two pennies in it, I almost flip.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me she was burning through money like that?”

  “I thought you knew,” he says.

  “No, she just told me yesterday that she’s been going through our money like an addict goes through blow.”

  “When you first got signed, I asked you if you wanted me to keep tabs on your wife, and you told me no. That you trusted her and thought it was an act of dishonesty to spy on her spending habits, so I didn’t.”

  “But that much? Come on, man. She’s spent half of what I had in there.”


  “Wait, what do you mean half?”

  “Exactly what I said. She told me she spent close to half of what we had available in our accounts.”

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Landon, but she spent more than half. I was just getting ready to show you the other accounts. You only have fifteen thousand left between the other four accounts.” I just stare at him dumbfounded and my stomach feels like it’s filled with lead.

  “How is that possible? How in the fuck did she burn through two million fucking dollars?!” I roar out and slam my hands on his desk. This startles him and causes him to slide his chair back slightly. “You’re fired, Brian. I don’t care if I told you in the beginning that I didn’t want my wife’s spending habits monitored. This is beyond excessive and you fucking know it. This has red fucking flags all over it and you missed it. Now, I have nothing. Absolutely nothing!”

  “Look, I’m sorry. Had I known that’s what you wanted me to do, I would’ve done it,” he says apologetically.

  “Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to know something like this, huh? You should have used common sense and told me when you noticed her blowing through her personal allowance. But don’t worry about it, because that will no longer be your concern. I’ll contact you and let you know who to send all my information to next week.” With that, I get up on my crutches and leave his office.

  I’m quickly losing control over everything in my life right now, kind of like a domino effect. Everything seems to spur the next disaster on. I’ve lost the thing I’m most passionate about, and now I find out that I barely have enough money in my accounts to cover next month’s mortgage payment. I soon find out that these issues are barely scratching the surface.

  “Hey, you busy?” I ask into my phone.

  “Nah, just hangin’ out. What’s up?” Andrews answers.

  I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose trying to ease the headache that’s building behind my eyes. “I just need to get out for a little bit. Can you meet me at the bar down the street from the training building?”

  “Yeah, give me about thirty minutes and I’ll be there,” he replies.

  “Alright, later.” Hanging up, I drop the phone into the cup holder of my car and lean my head back into the headrest. My car is still parked outside my accountant’s office. Still too pissed to go home and face my wife, I know I need to go somewhere and blow off some steam, but the figures keep dancing around in my mind.

  Two million dollars down the fucking drain.

  Two million dollars that I’ll never get back.

  Two million dollars that I might never have the chance to earn again.

  One person to blame for all of it.

  And nothing to show for it. Well, actually I take that back. I have a closet full of fucking handbags that are useless to me, and nice things all over the house that won’t pay the damn bills.

  Money has never been important to me and was never a motivator to go pro. But knowing that I made so much and now don’t have a dime of it, makes me sick. My only saving grace is that I had a lot of it invested in other assets, or I’m sure Val would have spent every last penny. Unfortunately, I can’t touch any of that money now. I rub my hands over my face as I think of solutions. We’re definitely gonna have to put the house on the market. We can’t afford to make the mortgage payments on it now. That’s a talk I dread having with Val, that’s for damn sure. She’s going to flip out, but at this point I couldn’t give two shits. She’s the reason we’re in this predicament.

  ***

  “Hey, man, how you holding up?” Andrews says as he walks to the table I snagged for us. He’s tall, at 6’7” which is why he’s one of the best receivers in the league. You throw the ball up high and he’ll get it way before the defender can. He looks relaxed in jeans and a t-shirt, but you can still tell that he’s a buff son of a bitch. We do our usual handshake with the guy slap on the back before he sits down across from me.

  “Not good. I’m going to have to fucking retire.”

  Andrews’ eyebrows rise up his forehead, almost touching his dreadlocks that are pulled back. “What? No way, you can’t retire.”

  “Dr. Herpin said I really don’t have a choice. I’m having surgery next week to repair the tear again. If I hurt my knee again, surgery might not be an option and I could be permanently disabled. I just can’t play Russian roulette with something like that. As much as I love and live for the game, I can’t do it.” I start rubbing my thumb over the condensation collecting on the glass of my beer the waitress brought over right after I got here.

  “Damn, that sucks balls.” He shakes his head, clearly not expecting me to drop that bomb on him.

  “Tell me about it.” I take a long pull from my beer hoping the alcohol will numb some of the pain and disappointment I’m feeling at the moment.

  “Well, you’ll be alright. You’ve got enough money to make it until you figure something else out. I know you’ve always been real conservative with your finances, so you’ll be okay,” he says as he drinks the beer I had waiting on him when he came in.

  A chuckle escapes from me even though nothing about this situation is funny. “I thought I did too. Val spent all of it.” I gulp down the rest of my beer and signal to the waitress for another. Andrews just stares at me like I’ve grown a third head.

  Finally, he snaps out of it and says, “No disrespect man, but I think I might strangle a bitch if she did that shit to me.”

  “Trust me, that thought crossed my mind.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “She told me she spent half of it. I guess she was freaking out because I told her we’d be fine. She knew we wouldn’t be, but I didn’t know she spent all but $15K until I talked to my accountant about an hour ago.”

  “That’s just fucked up. Have you talked to her about it yet?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. I was too pissed to call her when I walked out of that office. It’s bad enough that she blew through everything like that, but she lied on top of it. I’ve known this girl forever and I never would’ve thought she’d lie to me about something so serious.”

  “I really don’t know what to say, Landon. That’s a lot to deal with all at once. Do you need any help?”

  The glass I’m holding stops midway to my mouth. “No, I’m good. I’m going to have to downsize and sell that big ass house, but I’m sure everything will work out.” Drinking half of the beer, I set it down and lean back in my chair.

  “Just say the word, and I’m there for you. I really don’t mind, ya know?”

  “I know and I appreciate it.”

  “So what are you going to do about Valerie?” He eyes me over the top of his glass, waiting for my response. I’m sure he’s waiting for something juicy like I’m going to kick her ass to the curb. My response is probably going to disappoint him.

  “What can I do? Make her sell all those fucking handbags in the closet? The money’s gone now. She’s my wife, so we’re going to get through this. For richer or poorer, right? We’ve seen richer, looks like we’re about to get acquainted with poorer.” I raise my glass and finish off my beer.

  “You’re a better man than I am. I usually say ‘it’s cheaper to keep her,’ but in your case, I think you should run for the hills.”

  “Thanks for the advice. By the way, don’t mention to anyone about me retiring yet. I haven’t even called my agent yet. It’s just all been a lot to take in and I don’t want to hear it from him too right now.”

  “No problem, I won’t mention it,” he says.

  I pull out my phone and shoot Val a text so she won’t worry.

  Me: Hey. I talked 2 Brian we need 2 sit down and talk I’m at the bar with Andrews see u in a couple hrs

  ***

  A couple hours later, I’m pulling up to the house and parking in my three-car garage. I walk in the house and it’s completely quiet. I know Val is still here because I saw her car.

  “Val? I’m home,” I shout out, making my way t
o the bottom of the stairs. “Valerie!” I yell up the stairs. “You home? We need to talk.”

  Right after I say that, Valerie appears at the top of the stairs. She walks down them and I notice she has her keys and purse in hand. “Are you going somewhere?” Her eyes look over toward the front door. I follow her line of sight and see there’s a suitcase sitting there. “What the hell is this?” I demand.

  “I’m leaving, Landon.”

  “Okay, when are you coming back? We have a lot of shit to figure out and it needs to be done soon.”

  “I’m not coming back.” She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes like she’s steeling herself for what she’s about to say. Opening her eyes, she looks at me and says in a monotone voice, “I want a divorce.”

  This is not happening to me right now. “You can’t be fucking serious right now.” I’ve been pretty pissed off before, but I’ve never been so mad that my vision starts to blur and I can feel the pulse in my forehead pounding from the sudden rush of blood to my head. But that’s exactly how I’m feeling right now. It’s taking all my self-restraint not to flip my shit at this moment.

  “I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to work. You made promises to me and you can’t keep those now.” She says all of this with not one ounce of emotion. You’d think she was reciting a fucking grocery list with as nonchalant as she’s acting. Meanwhile, every single emotion known to man is pinging around inside my body looking for an outlet, a release. I’m about to explode.

  “WHAT FUCKING PROMISES, VAL?” I yell in her face.

  She winces slightly, which gives me some satisfaction that she’s not completely immune to what’s happening right now. “You promised you’d take care of and provide for me.”

  “So now that I don’t have any money, which, by the way, is your fucking fault, I can’t take care of you anymore? Is that it? Were you always in it for the money?” I wonder in complete disgust. How was I so blind that I couldn’t see her for the goddamn gold digger that she obviously is?

  “No, of course not!” she says in mock offense. You can’t offend someone with no feelings or consideration for others. “Look, don’t make this harder than it already is. I’m really sorry, I am, but you can’t provide for me in the way I’m accustomed to,” she says matter of factly.