Free Can't Stand the Heat by Shelly Ellis

changing the subject. He gestured to a built-in cabinet encased in Plexiglas and filled with more than a dozen pictures of Cris with his old teammates, a football with all of their signatures, and his old football jersey.
    Jamal paused in front of the built-in and Cris smiled as he glanced at the tokens of his past.
    â€œBrings back memories every time you see it, huh?”
    Cris nodded.
    After fifteen and a half years in the NFL as a wide receiver and at the age of thirty-six (practically a senior citizen in football), reoccurring injuries and plain old fatigue had finally forced Cris to walk away from a game he loved so much. He had been playing football since he was seven years old. Back then, he had been an awkward half-black, half-Filipino kid who always had his nose in a book. He had decided one day to ask his father to teach him to play football so that he could make friends with the boys in his neighborhood who had treated him for months like his nerdiness was contagious. From that point on, he was hooked on football.
    â€œYou miss it?” Jamal asked, turning away from the built-in.
    â€œIn some ways . . . yeah. I miss my coaches. I miss my teammates.”
    â€œAnd the crowds, brothah! I remember being in those stands during the games. Those crowds were crazy!”
    â€œYeah, there was nothing like that roar or the nervous energy before every game. There is no high that’s better than the one you get after a touchdown, Jamal. They need to sell that stuff in a bottle or in dime bags,” Cris said wistfully, running his hand over the glass.
    Jamal slowly shook his head. “How could you walk away from all this?”
    â€œEasy. I had to,” Cris said as they continued to stroll, passing a window where they could see the groundskeepers taming overgrown hedges. “My body couldn’t take it anymore, Jay . . . getting tackled by some three-hundred-pound linebacker . . . and all the bruises, sprains, and broken bones. In some ways, I’m . . . I’m glad to finally get my life back. I mean, for more than a decade, I was football’s bitch. It told me where to live, where to travel,” he said, enumerating the list on his fingers, “what to eat, and even how much to exercise. I’m looking forward to finally planting some roots”—he slapped his firm stomach—“and getting fat while I’m doing it!”
    â€œBut what about the girls , Cris?”
    â€œWhat about them?”
    â€œYou don’t miss the groupies? Hell, even I looked forward to your castoffs!”
    â€œYou know groupies were never my style, Jamal,” Cris said with a laugh.
    While his other teammates collected jump-offs like they were Beanie Babies, Cris had always been one of the few monogamous guys on the team. But football didn’t make having a serious relationship easy. Because of the pigskin, Cris had had his share of women come and go. The sole exception had been his last girlfriend, Alex—Alejandra Marisol Delgado de la Cruz, according to the business card she proudly brandished to whoever asked. He had met the former Miss Dallas and current marketing executive at an ESPY awards after-party three years ago. Of all his girlfriends, Alex had stuck around the longest.
    Most of Cris’s exes had hated having him disappear for more than half the year, but Alex had taken flights to games to be with him. She had always put him first. That’s why he was shocked when she broke the news that she was not coming with him to Virginia.
    She told him only two days after they had finished packing everything they owned in boxes and suitcases that she had too much family and too much going on in the Dallas–Ft. Worth area to just pull up stakes. If he wanted to move halfway across the country, she said, he would have to do it alone.
    They would have finally had unhindered time together. She would have finally gotten his full attention, and now she wanted them to go