Jamie blushed again, this time very embarrassed. She was sweet. I liked that. “Oh, of course. Um… well, I was thinking the picnic tables down the way. Would that be good?”
I thought. “Um… no. I’m hungry. You?”
“Um… hungry?”
“Yeah. You know, I would like some food. It’s been a while since I’ve eaten. I just played a hard game. I’m famished.”
“Oh, ok. Sure, I could eat something.”
“Great. Let’s go to Kellar’s,” I said.
“Kellar’s?”
“Yeah, it’s a great little diner just a few blocks down. It’s technically off campus, and a lot of people don’t know about it. I love it. Great burgers, sandwiches, fries, and outstanding coffee and pie.”
“Sure,” she said. “We can do that. Lead the way.”
We didn’t talk much on the walk over there. It was almost kind of awkward. Well, it would have been awkward if I ever felt that way about anything. But I’d discovered early on that I have always been very comfortable in who I am and I don’t put too much stock in what anyone else really thinks of me. I can’t recall ever being ashamed of anything in my life and I’ve never understood why anyone would give someone else that kind of power over them.
“I mean,” I said as I explained this to Jamie. “Why would you care what they thought? We are all people. We all have virtually the same needs, desires, hopes, and dreams. We all have the same bodily functions. It is ridiculous.”
Jamie was trying to follow along. Her eyes were looking up at me intently. “That’s a good point.”
“Are you writing this down?” I asked with fake annoyance.
Jamie looked startled. “Oh, yes. I mean no, but I can if you want.”
“Well, you are interviewing me, correct? When is this supposed to start?”
Jamie began fumbling in her bag.
I laughed. “No, I’m playing with you. I’ll be happy to answer your questions when we are sat down. You need to relax and have some fun. This interview doesn’t have to be so impersonal, does it?”
Jamie smiled. Wow, what a smile. “I guess not.”
We arrived at the diner and got our seats. We both ordered cups of coffee and I also ordered a burger with fries. I was starving.
“So, what would you like to know about me?” I asked before taking a sip of my coffee.
“Ok,” Jamie said. I could see her confidence starting to shift. It was like a light switch just turned on and I was speaking with a young Barbara Walters. She was prepared, she was ready, and she was damned sexy.
Jamie leaned in slightly. “What made you want to play football? Was it something that was there from an early age, or did you kind of discover it accidentally?”
“Well, my dad played in high school and college. He was pretty good, but he got injured in his junior year. Luckily, he had as much passion for business as he did for football and he went in that direction.”
“Right,” Jamie said. “And you are majoring in History. If for some reason you don’t go pro in football, or if you retire one day from it, what do you plan to do in the history field, if anything.”
I sipped the coffee and let it simmer in my mouth. It was tasty, bitter, and full flavored. I loved it. “Well, I will definitely make it pro. Let’s not kid ourselves about that. But if I went into the history field, I imagine I would become a historian and maybe write biographies, autobiographies, that sort of thing.”
“You’re a writer?”
“I am,” I said. “Mostly I like to write short stories, but I’m not sure my fiction is ever going to be good enough to merit a decent level of success. But writing about other people and their lives, what happened to them, and how they shaped the course of history—now that has a lot of potential. And it gets into me. It excites me. It really feeds my bones.”
“Interesting,” Jamie said. “Has that always been with you as well? When did you discover this passion for History and writing?”
I didn’t answer right away. I was too busy watching her. Her bright eyes, her long flowing hair, and the way her mouth turned up slightly when she asked questions and her left eyebrow rose up as well. It was so attractive. I was fully captivated by her. I wanted her. I longed to touch her. I decided then and there that I had to have her.
“Chance?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I replied. I loved looking at her and most importantly I loved her looking back at me. I knew she loved what she saw in that locker room. I was going to bring it up soon and start the thoughts going that way. “I’d say that it has been with me since junior high. That was when those creative muscles began to flex.”
“Ok,” Jamie said. She then jotted down a few things on a legal pad. “Oh, do you mind, if I record this?”
Jamie pointed to her phone to show that it was indeed recording.
I smiled. “Not at all.”
We talked a bit more about sports and my background. Then we started getting into some juicy stuff, which I was surprised by.
“So,” Jamie asked. “So many people want to know what your plans are after you graduate? What do you want them to know?”
“Well, the dream is to get a pro contract, of course. I’d say every guy on the team is gunning for that same goal. Of course it isn’t going to happen for everyone. Hell, it probably isn’t going to happen for most of them, but it is still the one thing that most of us are striving for. I know that’s been my goal for so long.”
“What is one thing that you think everyone might be shocked to know about you?” Jamie asked.
I rubbed my chin before answering. “I think most people would be shocked to know that I’m actually, painfully shy.”
I said the word in a teasing, sarcastic manner. Jamie instantly looked at me with a weird glance. She knew I was totally full of it. And that was the point.
“You are not shy,” Jamie said. “I think people look up to you as a confident leader on the field. Would you say that is accurate?”
I shrugged. “What did you think when you saw me standing there naked in the shower?”
Jamie’s eyes widened and she stopped breathing. Her entire being looked like it was being nailed to the wall. I’d caught her completely unawares. I loved it. This was fun.
“What?” Jamie asked.
Did she think I’d forgotten?
“When you walked in and saw me naked in the shower. You didn’t make your presence known on purpose. How long did you stand there watching me? How long before I noticed?”
Jamie took a deep breath and her eyes started blinking quickly. She started to speak and then stopped. Again. And then she slumped back in her seat. Finally, she calmed down enough to answer me. “I don’t know what you are getting at…”
I looked at her calmly. I was leaning against the booth, my arms spread out from my sides resting on the back of the booth. I was as relaxed as could be. I was feeling really good about everything. And I was very intrigued by Jamie.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “It’s a simple question. How long were you standing there watching me?”
Jamie didn’t answer right away. She looked away as if she couldn’t look right at me. This lasted a few seconds, but then she looked back with an essence of grim determination.
“About thirty seconds,” Jamie said. She shrugged.
“That’s a long time,” I said. “You can take in a lot through the eyes in thirty seconds.”
Jamie was blushing hard now. “Um… I think the interview is over…”
“No, don’t be that way.”
“What way? You are trying to mess with my head. It was an accident. Get over yourself,” Jamie said. She started to leave.
I held out my arm. “Don’t be freaked out by it. I understand you are nervous and embarrassed, but don’t be. You saw me. I’m not embarrassed. I’m actually a bit jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“Well, you’ve seen me. I haven’t seen you. That doesn’t sound so fair, now does
it?”
Jamie’s eyes glared and then widened. I could see that she was trying to work out whether to kill me or hug me. That was ok. They were both nice, strong emotions. Any time a woman felt something strongly for you, it was a good sign. If she didn’t care; that was rough.
Jamie smiled slightly. “Well, that is something you might have to live with.”
“It’s ok,” I said. “I think we might be better off as friends. I’m not sure I should get involved with a woman like you.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked.
I didn’t answer as the waitress brought my food. She gave me a flirty glance and I held it a few seconds as the waitress sauntered off to another table. She was decent looking. And of course I wanted Jamie to witness another woman openly flirting with me right in front of her. I thought it might raise the desire in her to fight for me. Or it might not. I didn’t care. I was having a good day, a fun day. And I was always looking for that fun day to include some harmless flirtation with women.
“Well, are you going to keep me guessing?” Jamie asked.
“Aren’t you supposed to be interviewing me?” I asked. “Ask me some more questions about myself. It’s always a fascinating subject to me.”
Jamie rolled her eyes. I hoped she could see I was more or less joking with her.
“Ok, do you ever see yourself maybe coaching a football team in the future.”
“At the pro level? Absolutely. But only after I’ve had a distinguished career as a player behind me first. I’d like to be one of those guys who keeps playing well past the typical age of retirement.”
“Do you think you will keep playing simply because you love to play, or as a point to prove, say when you are in your late thirties?”
“Damn, the late thirties. Now that is a long time from now. But I do think I will keep playing for both of those reasons. I love football with a blind passion and I don’t see it waning any time, and I feel that I might stay healthy enough to last that long.”
“What is the secret to staying so healthy? Relatively speaking, you have been very lucky with injuries and so forth. What is your advice on that?”
“Well, diet is important,” I said as I dipped my French fries into some ketchup. “Getting lots of sleep, drinking plenty of water, watching your carbs after eight in the evening, and you should always warm up before you work out or play a game. It’s just good to do. You don’t want to go into the sport cold.”
Jamie finished up the interview and started to leave. “So, when can I see you again?” I asked.
Jamie was suddenly that same nervous girl she’d been when I had first met her. The reporter was gone; it was just sweet, Jamie.
“Oh, um… I don’t know…”
“Well, when are you free?”
“Tuesday night,” she replied. “Maybe.”
“Ok, well let’s maybe kind of sort of most definitely get together,” I said.
She laughed. “Ok.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“What are we going to be doing?”
I wiped my mouth with my napkin. “I think we should start off with some bowling, and then maybe get some ice cream. After that we should take a walk in the park and throw eggs at the houses over in that retirement community.”
“You don’t take anything seriously, do you?”
“Not much,” I said. “Except the game. And beautiful women like yourself when they accept my invitation to an evening out.”
“I bet you have a lot of those.”
“No. Not really. With as much as I train, I can’t really get into anything heavy.”
“Ah, so I guess I shouldn’t get my hopes up,” Jamie said.
“Well, anything is possible,” I said. “You aren’t exactly the kind of girl a guy just forgets about.”
Jamie smiled a bit more than she’d wanted to. I could tell because she instantly drew it back and kind of shrugged.
We finished our lunch and then said our goodbyes. After the diner I thought about going to the party, but I really didn’t want to do anything other than see Jamie again. That girl had touched me. It was the last thing on my mind, and in fact it was the thing that I was hoping to avoid as much as possible, but I could see myself already developing feelings for this woman.
It was a dangerous thing for me to get involved in. I was pretty certain that I had the skills and the talent to coast along with my football abilities and ambitions, but I didn’t really want to leave anything strictly to chance. That was a reckless way of looking at things. And I’d worked so hard to get where I was. What if I threw all that away now by doing something silly?
No. I couldn’t let myself do that. I had to keep my eye on what was important to me.
But the more I tried to dismiss it, the more I realized I really wanted to spend a lot more time with Jamie Adams.
Chapter Seven
Jamie
“This is the coolest thing I have ever listened to,” Rosie said.
She turned and gave Collette a big high five. “Our girl here, is going out with Chance Atkins. Did you hear the way he was flirting?”
Rosie started to dance around in a sexually provocative manner, as if she were stripping on an invisible pool. I hit her playfully and the two shared a giggle.
I had just gotten back from my interview. Me and my friends had decided that we would spend some time with each other before I headed home to start writing my article. I couldn’t wait to tell them all about how things had gone.
I started with the incident of the shower, and then I told them about the interview itself. They were skeptical at first about the shower scene, but then when Chance mentioned it so vividly and asked me several questions about it, they had to believe me. There was no way he was acting on that recording.
“So, what was it like? Seeing him all wet and sexy?” Rosie asked.
I held my head back and let the memories come rushing back into me. It was surreal. I almost had a heart attack when he blatantly asked me about it. I was so offended and aghast that I wanted to both slap him and jump into a big kiss with him. How could one man drive me that wild? It had been just as perfect as I thought it was going to be, but it had become way more awkward then I thought it was going to be also.
“It was surreal,” I said with a smile. I could not get the image of Chance standing there naked in front of me out of my mind. I just wanted to rub him so badly, to grab his muscular flesh, and sink my talons into the meaty musculature of his wickedly strong glutes and make the most passionate love to him that I could. I was getting so turned on just thinking about it. I’d been turned on ever since then. I felt like I needed a shower. I wondered if Chance would like to come over and wash my back? “The interview went fine but then all of a sudden he starts flirting with me hardcore. That guy has no shame at all. He is so…strong.”
Rosie whooped loudly. “I think something is going to happen!” she cheered.
I laughed at her sarcastically. “And what do you think is going to happen? Like some movie? We are just magically going to end up in a whirlwind romance? Life doesn’t work that way. Besides doesn’t he have a steady girlfriend?”
“A guy like Chance Atkins? Not hardly. I heard he was going out with someone… but I’m pretty sure that is over.”
“Isn’t that the case with every guy on the football team?” Collette asked. “They always have some main girlfriend, but then they cheat around with any girl who is willing to just hop into bed with them.”
“I don’t think it’s fair to assume that all the guys on the team are like that. Chance seemed a bit different, like he was above all that.”
They both laughed at me. I didn’t care.
“You have to be smitten if you think Chance Atkins has turned over a new leaf suddenly,” Collette said.
“I’m not saying that. I just believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt and I don’t know him nearly well enough to make those kinds of assumptions. That’s a
ll.”
The two of them looked at each other and shrugged. I was glad to know that some of my words were actually sinking in.
“So, when are you going out with him?” Rosie asked.
I laughed. “Who said I was going out with him? We had a lunch interview. When he turned things to a more nonprofessional nature, I decided to end the interview. I had everything that I needed. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“I know you too well to believe that,” she said. “You are going to think about him, you are going to desire him, and then somehow the two of you are going to end up knocking boots. I’ve watched way too many teen movies to know how this works. You are not going to reinvent that wheel.”
My friends were utterly ridiculous.
“So, you are proposing that I contact him and just ask him out? Isn’t that really forward?” I asked. “That would make me seem like some kind of groupie, or just like all the other women who throw themselves at the football players on a regular basis.”
“Your thinking is so old fashioned. It is a terrible shame,” Rosie said with mocking enthusiasm. “You owe it to yourself to just throw caution to the wind and go for it. Be a woman of the now.”
The idea was tempting, but I knew that I couldn’t go to him and ask Chance out on a date or anything. I had never done that before with any guy and the idea of it terrified me to my very bones. What would I say? How would I act? And if I asked him out, would that automatically make him think that I was going to jump his bones fairly quickly? Not that he would be wrong…
Oh, I wanted him so badly. I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind. It was starting to become an obsessive thought. I had to get my head focused on something else or I was going to go insane.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Look, if Chance was serious about getting to know me or taking me out as he might have implied, then he knows where to find me. He can just call me or talk to me and ask like a gentleman. I’m not chasing after him. It isn’t my style, besides, I have far too much work to get caught up on.”
After a few more minutes of nonsensical chat with my friends, I headed back home to my room. I needed to get a jump start on that article and get to work. Of course half of the article was going to be about Chance, so any hopes I had of getting my mind off him were going to be dashed in fairly short order. Oh, well. That was the job. When I became a top level, well-respected sports writer, I was going to have to deal with this sort of thing all the time. Chance Atkins was not the only amazing, sexy athlete I would be interviewing. It was going to become a whole career and I couldn’t wait to get started with it. That was my dream and now it was on the cusp of coming true. I could feel it.
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