I chuckle to myself as the couple I just mentioned mauls each other’s faces off for their first kiss.
Hayes: I guess I believe that if two people spend enough time together, have a mutual respect for each other, and enjoy both physical and emotional sides to one and other, then they can make it work.
It’s not the most romantic sentiment I’ve ever heard, but it is the most truthful. And coming from Hayes, it makes my heart rate spike.
Something is happening between us, and sooner or later, I have a feeling we’re not going to be able to step back over that quickly evaporating line.
18
Hayes
“My girlfriend just texted me. Who brought the blond bombshell?”
Jimenez waves his phone above his head, and all of my teammates start to look around the room. I cringe, trying to sink further into my locker.
“Ah, fresh meat! Who brought the bat bunny to the game?” Walker wonders aloud.
It’s a pretty strict rule that you keep the groupies who hang around teams out of the family room. It’s disrespectful to the legitimate partners and spouses of the players, and grandparents of the team don’t want to be rubbing elbows with women who only want to jump on your jock strap for their fifteen minutes of fame.
But the girl I gave my team room tickets to isn’t a bat bunny, a fact that Jimenez and the rest of the team figure out rather quickly.
“Wait, my girl sent a pic.” He holds it up, and five to six guys clamber around his phone.
“Wait a minute, that’s that Russian model, Marlena.” Clark whistles under his breath.
“Shit, she’s with you, isn’t she?” Walker rats me out, turning to accuse me.
I have to now pull my head out of my locker, where I was very intricately studying the tape the trainer had applied to my wrist. Every pair of eyes in the room are staring directly at me.
“Yes, Marlena is here to see me. Happy, you nosy bastards?” I grumble.
Jimenez wolf whistles. “Dude, I have absolutely no problem with that. Though the WAGs are definitely still calling her a bat bunny.”
“That’s because they’re fucking jealous. Did you see her tits in the Sports Illustrated issue?” Shane Giraldi rubs his hands together.
The guy is a fucking creep, and he’s talking about my ex-girlfriend like he has a chance to go up there right now and bend her over a couch. When his wife and two daughters attend every game to support him. I can’t stand him, and a lot of our other teammates can’t either. Walker bares his teeth each time the guy walks into the locker room.
“That’s enough,” I deadpan at Shane, and then address the room. “She was on the East Coast and we reconnected. That’s all you gossip columnists need to know.”
Half the guys mutter that I’m being an asshole, and the other half just lope off, disappointed not to get the dirty details. Walker is still seated next to me, and he’s smirking.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re playing a very skilled game of PR right now.” He wraps the end of his bat in red tape, the same color as the Pistons’ uniforms.
I grin back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Except that I do. My agent thought it might be good to do some damage control, even if the moves we make are subtle. Which is why I invited my ex to the game tonight, and she’s sitting in the family section as we speak.
Marlena is a pretty well-known model, someone I dated about a year and a half ago back in Los Angeles. We were together for a few months, though it wasn’t serious, and most of the time one or both of us was traveling.
It took some persuading to get her out to Packton, but once I promised some press coverage of it, she relented. Marlena had made some poorly worded comments a month ago about Judaism and the holocaust. I was completely disgusted by them, but if she could use me for some good publicity, I could play the game right back.
And right now, Colleen could not afford another scandal on her head. Still reeling from the blowback of her father’s decisions, she was being questioned left and right. After I stood up for her at the press conference, it turned some heads, but not enough to make any solid assumptions. The attempted assault, however, had brought a media storm to her doorstep.
Fate seemed to have intervened that night, leaving me as the last player to be seen by the trainer. That snowballed into me being the last in the showers, and then the last to leave the stadium. I was the one who came upon those two vile men trying to …
I shiver just thinking about what they would have done to her if I hadn’t fought them off. After I made her report the attack to the police, the report became public knowledge, and had pinged on some journalist’s radar. They picked up the story immediately, and it had burned us up in its wildfire.
Rumors were flying everywhere about Colleen and me. That we were dating, that she was giving me favors just like her father did, that I was breaking my “oath” not to get married before I left the league. The most disgusting one I heard was that I had just been biding my time to fuck my way into the right family, and that was why I had helped Colleen. There was also speculation that the two men who assaulted her could take me to court for battery and request a very hefty payout. If that ends up happening, I’ll have my lawyers hang those two by their balls.
She doesn’t need any of that shit troubling her mind. Not after the thing she just survived. I still can’t get her look of panic and utter desperation out of my head. How she dug her nails into my arms so hard that I bled, holding onto me for dear life as if those two pieces of shit could come back and take her from me.
If pretending to see an ex-girlfriend, and create some gossip by having her sit in the family suite with my tickets, helps Colleen have a marginal amount of peace, then I’ll do it.
Pretty soon, I’m wrapped up in the energy of the game, with no time to stop and dwell on the publicity stunt I’m pulling or to worry about Colleen. We’re playing our rivals, the Carolina Titans, and they’re just a game back on us in the division. With every inch of ground, base stolen, run earned, they’re just a hair above us. The team can’t seem to keep pace with our enemies, and by the end of the game, we’ve lost by three runs and I’m both furious and exhausted.
I shower and dress, going up to greet Marlena after my press interviews. I call her a cab, telling her I’ll meet her at a nearby restaurant because I brought my car. I need a few minutes to decompress, especially after a loss. If I have to fake small talk and some photo ops with my ex, I’ll need an extra minute or two of alone time before plastering on a fake smile, a thing that feels very foreign to me. It was a shitty night, punctuated by thinking about my ex in that family suite and the woman I can’t get off my mind in the owner’s box.
Colleen and I have been purposely avoiding seeing each other in person, though neither of us has acknowledged this. We message all day long, about everything from the type of breakfast we’re eating to the ridiculous TV shows she’s watching at night.
Something is forming between us, though we won’t speak of it and don’t make plans for … well, anything. I think both of us know that it’s better for everyone if we don’t act on any of the emotions that are clearly being felt.