Out of My League (The Underdog series Book 1)

by Brea Brown

  Wrinkling her nose and forehead, she says, “I didn’t see him anywhere until he was out there on the dance floor with his grubby hands all over you. I definitely wouldn’t have told him to talk to you. All those guys are major players.”

  “Yeah, darn good ones.”

  This gets her to laugh, in spite of her rotten mood. “You know what I mean. Since that supposed conversation I had with him never happened, it appears Knox is also a liar. Shocking.”

  “Well, I’m hardly planning to get involved with him. We talked for a few minutes and danced to a couple of songs. Big deal.”

  Oh, and I gave him my phone number when he asked for it. But she doesn’t need to know that right now. Or ever.

  To prevent inciting more of my friend’s wrath, I change the subject—somewhat. “So, other than throw ridiculously early Christmas parties, what else does the team do during its bye week?”

  She frowns. “Most of the guys ignore their diets, stop working out, and open the door for injuries and illness, especially when the bye falls this late in the season. But supposedly, we maintain a training schedule and use the extra time to prepare for our next opponent. In this case, San Diego.”

  “San Diego. Nice,” I say, as I stare at the naked trees lining the highway.

  “I guess,” she grouses.

  I roll my eyes. “What is your deal tonight?”

  She muffles, “It’s nothin’,” then removes her thumb from her mouth and glances over at me, but her eye contact is brief and returns immediately to the road in front of her. “Okay. Fine. Everyone thinks I’m a loser, like I’m a workaholic and a slave driver. I’m just the hag who wraps their sprained ankles and tapes their broken toes and nags them about their diets and workouts.”

  “So you thought cutting out of the party to work would prove you’re not a workaholic?” I chuckle and push on her shoulder to soften my blunt assessment of her silly logic.

  She grunts but smiles. “He needed help, but the other trainers—”

  “Were busy having a good time with their guests and co-workers?”

  “Yeah! Everyone knows they can rely on me to take care of things, even when it’s not convenient.”

  I think about that for a second. “You know, your work ethic is admirable. But it’s not winning you any popularity points, and that seems to be what you want the most right now.”

  “Maybe not the most, but equally as much.”

  I drum my fingers on the dashboard. “You can have both, you know.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “You can!” Warming to my topic, I swivel in my seat, pressing my back against my window so I can see her better. “This is your first season with the team. Maybe they just don’t know you well enough to joke with you. How do you act when you’re around them?” Carefully, I clarify, “Are you always so business-like?”

  “I have to be professional. Do you know how hard it is for a woman to advance in this career? No matter how much people go on and on about equal opportunities and blah, blah, blah, you know what the reality is. I have goals.” More quietly, she says, “I realize that’s a foreign concept to some people.”

  Gritting my teeth, I let her comment slide and try to stay on topic. “You’re not going to be passed up for promotion because you get along too well with the guys. If the guys like you, they’ll request to work with you when they’re hurt. Sounds like you need to make the first move. Maybe they’re… intimidated by you.”

  Instead of contradicting me, she asks, “You think so?”

  My heart breaks at her hopeful, approval-seeking expression. “Maybe.”

  “How do I break the ice? I feel like we have nothing in common.”

  “You like women, and so do most of them,” I blurt, then laugh. “Sorry! It was the first thing that popped to mind. Probably not appropriate, though.”

  “Probably not,” she says. “Seriously. What did you and Jet talk about? Maybe I can get a hint from that. A starting-off point.”

  My mind’s a blank. I suddenly can’t think of anything besides the one thing I can’t tell her. My mouth works open and closed a few times before I finally admit on an uncharacteristic giggle, “I don’t know! I remember him talking, but I was… gaga, I guess. I can’t remember any of it. He smelled amazing, though,” I mutter.

  Since the majority of my statement is true (especially the last part), it passes muster with Rae, who laughs and says, “You’re useless. Dangle a nice-smelling guy in front of you, and you turn to jelly. I guess I’ll have to pay more attention to what the players say to each other on the sidelines.”

  “There you go!” I say, grateful to shift the focus of the conversation back to her. “When you’re in the PT room or the locker room, or whatever, after the game or practice, and you’re working on the guys, you can initiate some chit-chat. The weather’s always safe. Hobbies? Significant others? Kids? Pets? After all, they’re just guys.”

  How soon I’m able to spout that flippant advice after admitting how star-struck I was by Jet Knox. But that’s different, because I like football. And hot guys. And sex with hot guys. Even if all I’ve done lately is think about sex with hot guys.

  “Hello! Paging Maura Richards. We’ve reached your stop.”

  I shake my head and smile sheepishly at myself. “Sorry.”

  “Dreaming of Jet Knox’s hard body?” she asks.

  I reach for the door handle. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wonder what he looked like in—or out of—a towel.”

  “I’ve seen nearly every one of those guys naked. Including Knox.” Her tone is bored.

  “And?” I barely catch the drool before it falls from my lower lip.

  “Meh. He’s cut—and hung. But it doesn’t do anything for me, obviously.”

  “It could do something for me,” I mumble, indulging in a mini-fantasy, then allowing myself to get a tiny bit excited at the thought of my number nestled in his cell phone. “All right. Well, thanks for taking me to the party. It turned out to be a decent time.”

  When I pop open the door, Rae grabs my left hand. “Hey.”

  I half-turn.

  “Thanks for coming with me tonight. You made it more fun. Even though your taste in men is questionable and concerning.”

  Snatching my hand away from her, I playfully swat at her shoulder. “Shut it. Nothing’s going to come from a couple of dances at a silly holiday party.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet, but rather than argue, I merely shake my head at her and exit the vehicle, tossing a “Good night!” over my shoulder.

  She waits for me to unlock and open the front door of my duplex, then give her the all-clear sign after I turn on the living room light. Sliding off the shoes that allowed me to at least reach the shoulders of most of the male partygoers, I return to my normal height and vantage point and marvel at how quickly I’m back to this bland life of mine. A thirty-minute drive. That’s all it took.

  “Nothing’s changed at all,” I say to the man who welcomes me home each night.

  Matt Damon says nothing in reply, merely continues his focused study into the sight of his rifle in the second of three framed Bourne posters that fit in a perfect line in my entryway.

  Despite how it may have felt for those few minutes in Jet Knox’s arms, it was an illusion, a departure from the norm, like two people acting in a movie scene.

  “That’s a wrap,” I say, shuffling down the hall to bed.

  Two

  Colin, the Ex-Pat

  Vocations fall into the same category as soul mates, maternal instincts, and runners’ highs: I’m sure they exist for some people, but not for me. There simply doesn’t seem to be anything out there in the world I feel called to do. I spend forty hours of my life each week helping people find jobs, and yet, I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.

  I’m not alone there, though. Many of my clients are serial applicants. In some cases, they’re not satisfied with their placeme
nts—ever. Sometimes, it’s the other way around. You’d be surprised how many people truly are unemployable.

  In the case of my favorite recurring client and friend, Colin Bennett, well… let’s just say Colin has a short attention span.

  “I’m quite keen to be in and out of whatever you’ve got by Christmas,” the Brit ex-pat tells me now, leaning forward in his chair across the desk from me with his elbows on his knees.

  I flip through the binder of temporary positions, tearing out the expired postings I come across. This is the fourth time I’ve seen Colin on the other side of my desk in as many months. Qualified—overly so, in most cases—he’s not at all interested in a nine-to-five job that could lead to something permanent. I love the guy, but he’s seriously fickle.

  Colin hasn’t always had issues with commitmentphobia, though. Just ever since I’ve known him. Which maybe means I’m spreading this disease to those around me, now that I think of it.

  “It would be easier to be between jobs over the holidays, when I leave for my duty visit to Mum and Dad’s, than to have to muck around with asking for time off.”

  “Oooh, that’s right! You’re off to the motherland soon, aren’t you?”

  “Indeed.”

  “How much are you dreading it?”

  “Eh. It won’t be too awful, I suppose. It’s been a while since I’ve been back, and I have the air miles, so I couldn’t say no, could I? Mum’s been banging on about my coming home since Emily passed, and I’ve been putting her off, for one reason or another. I simply ran out of reasons after three years of stalling.”

  I look up and smile sympathetically.

  He was newly bereaved when he first came to The Career Center to seek employment, so I never knew his wife. They met and fell in love online, when he was still living in London and serving on Her Majesty’s police force. He chucked his pension and his entire life as he knew it to cross the Atlantic to be with his “one and only forever love.” Even an unromantic person like me inwardly swoons at that notion.

  Colin’s experience in English law enforcement didn’t translate over here, but that didn’t matter. He took a job in the warehouse of the print shop where Emily was a graphic artist. Only one thing could separate them. And it did, after Emily unsuccessfully battled a particularly vicious and efficient form of cancer. Colin couldn’t stand to work at the shop anymore, so he came here to find another job.

  “Any job. I don’t care at this point,” he’d said. “It doesn’t cost much to merely exist.”

  Since then, I’ve found him countless temporary placements. I’ve also watched him heal and return to some semblance of the fun-loving and adventurous guy he must have been to leave everything and move to the States to marry Emily, but he’s still not particularly interested in routines or permanence.

  Now he rubs his face. “Mum has this picture of me as the grieving widower, you know? And I do miss Emily. Still. Every day. But Mum thinks I walk around with a hankie pressed to my eyes, and I know that worries her. The thing is, though, if I don’t act that way around her, she’ll harangue me about that, as well. There’s no winning with her. It’s going to be a miserable visit, but the first time ‘home’ has to happen at some point, and the sooner she sees I’m okay, the better. Until now, though, I haven’t been able to show her I’m okay. Not convincingly.” He stares down at his hand, fingering the wedding band he still wears. “Ah, blimey. I’m waffling. Sorry.” He waves me back to my work, seemingly anxious for me to stop looking at him.

  “It’s okay,” I’m quick to reassure him.

  “Perhaps I should cut back on the coffee.” The left side of his mouth lifts in a nervous grimace.

  Suspecting he’d like a moment to try to recover his stiff upper lip, I return to the binder. “Jobs, right?”

  His shoulders lower. “Yes. Perhaps something in retail? Surely places are hiring temporary seasonal help, now that it’s December, and with Christmas coming up and all. I’d still prefer mornings and early afternoons. As much as I enjoyed sweating my balls off on that landscaping crew back in August, something a bit less physical may be in order.” He shoots me an adorable smile as I flip faster.

  “Let’s see… Maybe something at the mall? Do you care what type of store you work in?” I check.

  “Don’t give a monkey’s.”

  “Figured as much.” I give up on updating the book as I make my way to the seasonal retail section of the folder.

  He nods toward the docked laptop on my desk. “Any reason you’re shunning technology today?”

  “Network’s down. I’ve been telling IT for months that the system is sluggish and seems like it’s always on the verge of crashing, but do they listen to me? No.”

  Hmmm… Maybe I should go back to school to study computers. Nah. Too tedious. Although, the IT people make double what I do. Obviously, job performance isn’t a factor in those earnings.

  “Right. Well, whatcha got there?” Colin prods me after I’ve stared into space, fuming for a while.

  “Oh! Uh, sorry.” My eyes snap down to the page in front of me. “Do you have any engraving experience?”

  He looks bemused. “You mean like etching inscriptions on lockets and pocket watches and things?”

  I nod and tell him about a position for a clerk at a kiosk in the mall, where a computer does all the engraving, in fact. We both cringe at the minimum wage pay rate, but he likes the flexible hours.

  After giving him a few seconds to mull it over, I take a deep breath and smile. “What do you think? You’ll probably have to wear a Santa hat.”

  “Is that in the job description?” He sounds almost hopeful as he half-stands and tries to read the paper from upside down.

  I laugh. “No. But I recall seeing people wearing hats there when I was—” I remember at the last second that I was having a watch engraved for Jamie, my boyfriend at the time, nearly a year ago. “Anyway. I did some shopping there last year.”

  Time stands still when I’m with you.

  Well, it did. Unfortunately. And that sucks, when you’re biding your time, because you don’t have the heart to dump someone during the dreaded Christmas/New Year’s/Valentine’s stretch. I wonder if he still has that watch. It was nice. I spent more than I wanted to spend, but that was the guilt talking.

  Retaking his seat and shooting me a knowing look, Colin mercifully chooses not to comment on my sudden caginess but says about the possible holiday head-wear requirement at the kiosk, “I’m not bothered. It’s no sillier than some of the other uniforms I’ve worn in the past.” He taps his lips with his fingertips. Perhaps he’s thinking about the hat he wore as a “copper,” what probably seems like a lifetime ago. “I was hoping I could be one of those blokes who flies toy helicopters in people’s faces. But this will do.”

  As I fill out the paperwork for him to take with him, he stands and wanders around my tiny, dingy office, then squints at the framed diploma on my wall.

  He peers at the calligraphy, then looks at me. “Tell me again, Ms. Richards, what, exactly, does one study to get a film studies degree? What does one do with such a degree?”

  In a snooty voice to match his, I reply, “One studies films, Mr. Bennett. Obviously, one subsequently becomes a job counselor.”

  Because watching hours and hours of Hitchcock, Scorsese, and the Coen brothers and writing papers about point-of-view, the long shot versus the medium shot, and the significance of the well-placed jump cut don’t have many practical applications around here. Heck, I’d have taken a projectionist job at one of the local movie theaters, if it had included benefits not in the form of free admission, popcorn, and candy.

  Colin nods earnestly. “Ah, yes. It has served you well, then, that degree.”

  “I think so.”

  This conversation—or a version of it—is the longest-running joke of our friendship. It actually started it all, during an ordinary appointment. The first time he asked the question, I thought he was being what my dad would call a �
�wisenheimer.” So my stiff reply wasn’t said in jest, like today’s.

  He could tell right away he’d offended me and stuttered, “Right. Oh. Sorry. I-I didn’t mean any offense. I was merely curious—”

  Embarrassed I’d spoken to him so unprofessionally, I flushed. “No, I’m sorry. I-it’s sort of a raw nerve for me.”

  At my college graduation party, the ink was barely dry on my highly impractical degree when my dad asked, “What’s next, Mo?”

  My older brother, Greg, jumped practically mid-sentence from another conversation to join Dad and me. “Yeah, Maura. I’ve been wondering the same thing. Are you going out to Hollyweird now?”

  I couldn’t bear to tell him, “No,” flat-out, so I said, “Eventually. Probably. Maybe.” At his disappointment with that noncommittal statement, I clarified, “I don’t have a job yet, so it would be irresponsible to go out there without a plan.”

  Now, I was speaking his language. He nodded pensively.

  “I still have my job at the Career Center, so I’ll stay there for a while, save up some money, then relocate to L.A. or New York City.”

  When I stopped there, the two of them glanced at each other before Dad smiled and said, “Oh. That’s nice, Sweetie. Good plan.”

  Greg was less diplomatic. “That’s not really a plan, though. It’s half a plan. What are you going to do when you get to New York or L.A.?”

  I tried to lend a mysterious, carefree air to the half-shrug and eye roll that preceded my response, but I’m afraid the gesture betrayed my cluelessness more than anything. “Whatever. I’ll apply for jobs in the industry.”

  “What industry?”

  “Film-making,” I answered, using the tone one would use with a child. “Or critique. Or teaching.” By then, it was obvious I was reaching.

  Greg lectured, “You don’t want to wait too long, though. Nobody will hire you if you’ve been out of the business for any length of time. You’d be better off moving there right now, interning somewhere so you can get some experience, and taking any job you can find that pays the bills.”