Chapter Sixteen: The Return of Trev Davila

****Trev****

I woke up the next morning feeling like I was on top of the world. For the first time since my accident, it didn’t matter to me that my career was up in the air because I knew that no matter what happened, Pam would be by my side.

It was the furthest thing from my mind when we finally made our way to the kitchen, when I successfully distracted her from making coffee, or as we drank some an hour later while we looked out the windows at the busy noonday city. 

It was rare that we had a quiet moment alone which was why I didn’t look at my phone when a message came through. Who knows how long I would’ve gone without checking it if Pam hadn’t brought it up and I lazily picked it up, figuring it was Ryan or maybe Stan.

“What is it?” Pam asked after she saw my double take at seeing my agent’s name on the screen.

“It’s David. He wants me to call him: ‘ASAP’.” I looked down at her and without saying a word, she kissed my cheek, grabbed her coffee and walked back up stairs to the bedroom. Giving me the privacy she thought I needed.  

She might’ve been half way up the stairs before I selected his number and started pacing around the kitchen as I waited to hear it ring in my ear. 


“Hey, Trev. Sorry to bother you on the weekend.” He greeted me after only one ring and I stopped pacing.

“No big deal.” It was since he never contacted me unless it was important, which was why I felt jumpy. Like I’d drunk a whole pot of coffee instead of my one cup. “What’s up?”

He chuckled and I heard his squeaky chair move in the background. “A lot, actually. I was contacted this morning about presenting you with a possible job offer and considering who it’s from, I didn’t want to sit on it for very long.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a quarterback coaching position and ASU.”

“You’re shitting me.” I said more out of shock than anything and glanced up at the living room ceiling, wondering how much Pam knew about it.  

“I’m not. Apparently the previous quarterback’s coach has moved on to be offensive coordinator at another school. If you’re interested, they’d like to meet with you as soon as possible.”

It’s not every day that you get a chance at your dream job, so when it comes out of the blue it’s hard to wrap your head around it. Especially when you’re wondering how much a certain person walking around on the floor above you knew about it. 

“Let me call you back in a minute.” He started to protest but I hung up on him and made my way over to the stairs to get some answers.

Chapter Fifteen: The Worst and Best Kept Secrets

****Trev****

“The car will be here in about five minutes.” I yelled up the stairs in my apartment and smiled at the sound of her rushed footsteps on the floor above. 

“I’m almost ready. Just getting my shoes.” She yelled back down and I kept pacing between the stairs and the doorway. I didn’t know why though; it didn’t help get rid of any of the anxiousness I felt about the night ahead. 

It was our big moment, the night when we were going public with our relationship and we’d picked a doozy to do it with. It was the Bucks’ annual postseason banquet that was hosted by the organization to celebrate its accomplishments and thank those who made them possible. 

It was extra special that year since we’d won the Super Bowl and the organization had planned an over the top celebration that was getting a lot of attention from local and some national press. Which meant that a lot of media would be there when we finally let the secret out of the bag. 

Not that it was the best kept secret. Our families, closest friends, Bucks’ management, and Pam’s boss all knew. The later I’d learned about while we were still at the cabin when it dawned on me that she should’ve been working instead of taking care of me. That’s when she let me know about her conversation with Roger and how she was taking time off.

Her hiatus lasted until a couple days before the Bucks’ event. She’d gone back to work and explained why her reporting on the Bucks wouldn’t be an issue anymore. It wasn’t a secret that I didn’t like most journalists, at least the pushy sports ones, but I came to respect Roger after he had gone out of his way help Pam and kept the news of my retirement quiet until I announced it.

My retirement press conference was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. It wasn’t pretty; I choked up and cried, but what made it doable was the support that I had there: my Mom, Will, Ryan, the rest of my teammates, Pam’s dad and Pam. 

She’d done exactly what she’d said she would do. She‘d stayed by my side through the weeks since my injury and I owed a lot of why I was able to do the press conference and start down the road to recovery and acceptance, to her. And it was one reason why I was anxious to finally go out with her; because it meant I could reveal how I’d made it through everything.

The sound of an alert from my phone told me that the car had arrived and I turned to call up the stairs again but stopped when I caught sight of her coming down them. She had on a short, tight, black dress, stiletto heels and her hair was styled like it was the night she’d gone out with Paisley, all those months ago at her parents’ house.

Chapter Fourteen: The Reasons Why

****Trev****

I couldn’t remember ever being in that much pain. My chest and the back of my head ached from the hit but that wasn’t anything compared to my neck. The insane pain was enough to tell me that there wasn’t going to be an easy fix for whatever was wrong, but as I laid there the next morning with Pam I told myself that the worst I was probably looking at was having surgery.

All I wanted was for someone to give me answers and tell me how I could fix it. I thought that might happen when the whoosh of the door hinted that someone was coming in the room, but the small footsteps on the linoleum floor told me I was in for another round with my nurse. 

“Good morning.” She chipperly smiled down at me and I grunted, waking Pam up. “Glad to see you’re in a better mood.” She grinned, completely ignoring my scowl and checked my IV. I’d run out of pain medicine about an hour before but hadn’t pushed the button for more and after noticing it, she looked back down at me. 

“Do you want any more?” She dropped the happy nurse act and seemed genuinely concerned.

“No.” I firmly stated, but they looked at me like I was crazy.

“Are you sure?” Pam asked as she sat up and placed a hand on my arm.

“No.” I repeated and scowled at her. “I don’t like how it makes me feel.” I didn’t feel in control of myself with them and decided that normal  pain medicine would have to do; no matter how much it hurt. Pam nodded and after the nurse brought me something else, she stood up and walked over to my side of the bed.

“Do you remember what happened?” She whispered as her fingers brushed a strand of my hair off my forehead.


“I remember getting hit, nothing after that until seeing you walk through that door,” I pointed to the one that everyone kept going out of, “and then it’s blank again until I woke up earlier in pain.” I knew that there was a lot more in between and it looked like she was about to fill me in when there was a knock on the door.

My stomach dropped as my eyes followed a doctor, Randy (one of the Buck’s trainers), Coach, and Jimmy. Seeing the last two removed any doubt about it being bad but even more telling was the fact that they wouldn’t look at me as they walked to other side of the room.

“Mr. Davila, I’m Dr. Fraser.” The doctor started after Pam helped me adjust the bed and pillows so I could sit up. It took a ton out of me to move and his forehead wrinkled with worry. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like something else for the pain.”

I gave him a look that left little doubt about my determination to not change my mind and he nodded. “We’ve taken a look at the x-rays that we took last night. . .”

“Perhaps we should discuss this in private.” Jimmy interrupted and motioned to Pam. Her weight shifted to the foot closer to the door, like she was getting ready to take Jimmy’s hint about leaving and I grabbed her hand.

“She stays. Anything you want to say to me, you say it in front of her.” My eyes darted sideways at her, worried for a moment that she’d be upset that in one fell swoop I’d outed our relationship to everyone in the room. She gave me a small smile and placed her other hand over mine. Knowing we were on the same page, I turned my attention back to them.

Chapter Thirteen: The Moment the World Stopped Moving

****Pamela****

Maybe my hatred of winter comes from the fact that I’ve spent years standing and sitting on sidelines in freezing weather.  It seemed a real possibility as I stood on the field watching the Bucks and Panthers play in the Conference Championship. 

From childhood, I’d gone with Mom and my sisters to watch Dad coach games and while I loved seeing him and watching the players, there’d been many times that I wished that the stadiums were indoor, something that I found myself wishing for at that moment as a teeth chattering wind blew across the field.

I stuffed my hands even further in my pockets, hoping that it would help me find some warmth but deep down I knew it wouldn’t do any good. The cold had seeped into my bones and wouldn’t go away no matter how many cups of coffee or cocoa I drank or how many layers of clothes I wore.  

The fact that I couldn’t move around didn’t help much either and I felt a brief flash of envy as I watched the players on the field who I knew were warmer because they could. But any envy soon turned to sympathy as I witnessed Trev misread the Panthers’ defense, almost throwing an interception.  

No, I don’t really envy any of them. I thought to myself as I watched Trev and the others return to the sideline. Both teams were under a huge amount of pressure to win the game, but the Bucks felt it more so than the Panthers. They’d met two other times, once during preseason and again during regular season with the Bucks losing both games. 


It was something that gnawed at Trev, and throughout the season he watched countless hours of video of the Panthers’ defense and offense, trying to get an advantage on them. He wholeheartedly believed in the team’s motto, We don’t win or lose games by what one person does, we win or lose as a team, but he also believed that each player was accountable for their performance on and off the field and I knew he would beat himself up about his mistake.

The roar of another cutting wind blew over the field, adding to the already deafening noise level of the crowd and players, which was why the sound of a single voice cutting through the thickness of all others astonished me.  “God damnit!! What the fuck was that?” The sound of Trev’s frustrations caught mine and several other reporter’s attention.

“Trev, chill! We’ll get them next time.” Tiny tried to reason with, him but it was no use. Once Trev made a mistake no one could convince him otherwise. He wouldn’t “chill” but would go over and over his mistake, figuring out a way to fix it, and then make sure it never happened again, willing himself to perfection. 

Chapter Twelve: Things Happen When They're Supposed To - Part Two

****Trev****

In all my travels with teams, friends and family one thing always held true: it never took long before you learned people’s quirks.  Like how Ryan didn’t want to sit next to the window on planes because it reminded him that only inches of metal were what kept him from plummeting to his death. Or learning that Coach White liked to pass time by doing crossword puzzles and whispered “yes” every time he successfully solved a clue.

It didn’t have to be a long trip either. Anything over thirty minutes and people start to get comfortable. Which was why I learned all kinds of interesting things about Pam on our hour and a half trip to ASU.

Like how she liked to remove her shoes and socks and put her feet up on the dash, curling and straightening her toes to the beat of the music. And if it wasn’t her toes moving it was some other part of her body because sitting still for more than a second seemed to be impossible for her.

There were other things besides bare feet and fidgeting that I learned about her during that trip, but the one that made me do a double take was her chattiness. With nothing else to do, she talked way more than normal. Which wasn’t a bad thing, it was just that before that trip I never would’ve put her name and the word chattiness in the same sentence.   

She started with telling me that I was acting suspicious and that it must mean that I had some surprise planned. It was completely laughable, since it was obvious that she was hiding things too and a debate followed about who was acting the most secretive.

Having no luck with prying surprises from me, she moved on to how Mom knew about us before we arrived at George’s. Providing evidence by pointing out that Mom greeted us, that I led her to sit between Mom and me and that I winked at Mom when we succeeded.

I worried for a second that she was upset about it, that she felt like I had betrayed her since we’d agreed not to tell anyone before. But her reassuring smile convinced me that she wasn’t and I let out a sigh of relief before revealing how it happened.

I told her about my talk with Mom in October, when I went home for Dad’s service. That Mom probably would’ve guessed who my guest was from that conversation. But it was my phone call to her a couple days before, when I recruited her to help make sure that introductions went smoothly, that she really learned the truth.    

When she asked me to tell her the embarrassing stories about my siblings, the ones I hinted at when we were at George’s, I was all too willing to share. Will’s first date was a disaster because he was running late and didn’t have time to look for his lost belt. Instead of changing his pants, which were too big, he risked wearing them and regretted it when they fell down around his ankles; right as he pushed his date’s chair in at a fancy restaurant.

George’s embarrassing story also involved his pants, but unlike Will’s, his stayed on. At least until he was forced to change them. In the months leading up to George and Charlotte’s fifth birthday, they begged for new bikes; ones that had removable training wheels. When Mom and Dad led them outside on their birthday and they saw the new, shiny bikes, George got so excited that he literally pissed his pants.


To say that Charlotte loved her favorite mirror would be an understatement. It was a handheld one that she carried around her room, talking to it like it was her boyfriend. But that wasn’t the most embarrassing part. The fact that she also used it to practice her kissing, was. I only knew about it because she left her door cracked open one day and I heard her making kissing noises. She had no idea I’d ever seen her until hours before, when I threatened to tell everyone.

My reward for sharing was Pam’s responses as she listened to each story. More than once it looked like she couldn’t decide if she should laugh or scold me and her facial expressions flip-flopped between disbelief, horror and amusement.

When I was finished, she mentioned how glad she was that her family didn’t go around sharing embarrassing stories or photos. I must have looked guilty because she started smacking my arm until I confessed the habit I picked up in the summer of skimming through photo albums in her parents’ family room.

Chapter Twelve: Things Happen When They're Supposed To - Part One

****Pamela****

He turned the wrapped present around in his hands, inspecting certain spots more than others, like he was trying to find a hole that would reveal a clue about what laid underneath the shiny, red paper. My wrapping skills were legendary. I could wrap any shape or size and was an expert at taping all gaps, making it almost impossible for anyone to open.

“Give it up, Trev. You’ll never figure it out until you open it.” Dad tried to convince him and Trev first looked up at him and then glanced at me. His raised eyebrow asked me if I’d give him any hints but I smiled and shrugged back, refusing to give in. It seemed so fitting that he’d approach opening presents like an excited child and as he began trying to find a corner or edge to rip, we all started to laugh at his theatrics.

The smirk that appeared on his lips gave away that he somehow found a place to begin ripping and I held my breath as more and more of his present was revealed. I thought my heart might explode from the anticipation when he released the last of the tape from the paper and bit my lip as his hand started to pull it back to see. . .

The images were instantly gone and I felt my heart sink as I realized that I’d woken up, again. Every single time, something would wake me up before I could witness his reaction and I wondered what the culprit was that morning.