Playing for Keeps: An Enemies to Lovers Sports Romance

by Stephanie Queen

  But I shouldn’t be taking sides with Tate because he’s the subject of the exposé and I have a lot at stake too. Don’t I?

  Chapter 9

  Chloe

  “Where’ve you been, Smitty?” Mike Foley says as I take a seat in the first row at the stadium. He throws the name Smitty out like an accusation and I know something’s up. The team’s practicing on the game field today, a full pad scrimmage. It’s the first time the veterans are going to see any real action. And about time, too. This should be a good test for Tate.

  “Back at the studio working on a top-secret project.” I keep my eyes on the field, sensing he wants to talk more about me than the team.

  “You never mentioned you were Oscar the Mouth Smith’s daughter.”

  “Never came up. What of it?” Still keeping my eyes on the field while he laughs, I wait him out. Talking about my pedigree has become my least favorite subject. The weight of the legend is getting heavier by the day between questions at the studio and everywhere else I go. Or maybe I’m being paranoid.

  “It explains a lot is all.”

  I ponder whether I ought to be tired of being known as my father’s daughter and annoyed at Foley. I’m not sure whether he’s judging me or pandering to me because of who my father was when Duff comes over and gives him the nod of approval. Trusting Duff, I decide Foley is okay.

  We watch as the A-team defense lines up against the B-team offense. My eyes zero in on Fontanna. Of course. From then on, Foley and I exchange thoughts on who will make the cut and who may be harboring injuries.

  “Everyone is injured,” he says, “to one degree or another. This is football, isn’t it?”

  “Say that with a cigar in your mouth and bad grammar and you’re a ringer for my father,” I say, only exaggerating slightly.

  “I met him once. A memorable occasion. We had dinner at The Press Box, the old sports reporter hangout in the north end of Boston. He talked about you, in fact. You had just gone away to college and he missed you. He ordered every appetizer on the menu and tasted every one of them with a chaser of JD.” Foley shakes his head.

  “That’s Dad. Living large.” The whistle blows, stopping the action on the field for a while for coaching intervention. “So is The Press Box still in business?”

  “Nah. Changed hands a few years ago and got upgraded. It’s not called The Press Box anymore. No one goes there now—I mean none of the media types.”

  “Too bad. It would be nice to get out—somewhere besides the studio or my apartment or this place.”

  The past week I’d been immersed in doing the investigative work for the project, editing daily clips from practices and commentary about players who were cut. Trying to prove myself all over again to Henry. But that’s how it always is—I’m always proving myself. If I stop trying, I stop succeeding. Another Oscar the Mouth truism.

  “I’ve been watching your interviews,” Foley says. “An upgrade over the usual bland stuff.”

  “Oh yeah? Coming from a print reporter that means a lot.”

  He laughs. He may be no expert, but hearing his approval is better than a kick in the head.

  “Hey, I’ve been on air before,” he continues. “All the best reporters get guest spots on sports shows these days.”

  Pretending shock, I know it’s true. “Sure—they’ve got to fill all that airtime with content somehow.”

  He elbows me and I’m feeling comfortable, like he could really be a friend, especially since Duff seems to approve with his stoic silence.

  “Henry is pissed that my next interview is with the kicker, Sean Patrick, because he wants the bigger name guys, but I told him we’ll get them closer to the start of the season.” I test him to see if he’ll give me anything on Patrick.

  Foley nods, “Sure, build up to it.”

  Nothing. I’m hoping I can get Sean to slip and reveal something about Fontanna’s back injury, but I don’t share this with Foley. In an ideal world, I’d go directly to the trainer who I originally overheard and ask him for a quote, but those guys aren’t even allowed to talk to the media and if they did I know they won’t admit to anything except routine bumps and bruises.

  “Coach Marini keeps a tight-lipped ship,” I say. Foley grunts.

  “Must be hard on Cat, being the coach’s daughter and trying to balance good PR with a tight-lipped boss who’s also her dad.”

  “She manages,” Foley says. “Must be harder for you. I bet you miss your dad.”

  Now I want to hug him. He’s treating me like a real human being. Duff turns and nods in his direction again. A double seal of approval.

  “So now that The Press Box is out, where do reporters around here hang out?”

  “Nowhere. There hasn’t been a gathering place like that for years.” We all agree it’s a shame, especially Duff.

  “How about we get together after the game—invite a bunch of the guys and girls and make it a thing? I say. “There must be a place near the stadium, some hole-in-the-wall joint we can make our own.”

  Foley eyes me for a few blinks, pretending he’s making up his mind. “Sure, there must be a place—you find one and I’ll tell you what, I’ll be there. Make it a place that serves Italian.”

  I nod and make it my business to find a spot. I can’t take him to Chloe’s spot though it would be perfect. I don’t want to steal it from her.

  I think of the only other place I know in the area—the Italian restaurant called Louie’s where I met Sean, Max, and Tate. It’s only a couple of miles away from the stadium in East Boston.

  After practice I take off and drive over to Louie’s, only making one wrong turn. I arrive within minutes and know it’s the perfect place as I walk inside the glass door and get a whiff of Italian heaven same as before. The place has no pretentions and a good long bar that serves a generous pour of whiskey.

  I text Duff and then send Foley a shot of an empty bar stool and the address, telling him the spot has his name on it and I’ll let him know what time. I don’t care if he thinks it’s a come-on, but I doubt he does since there’s nothing at all flirtatious in my manner. With him, I’m a comrade in arms, a member of the sports reporter club. Even the lines between print and broadcast reporters have blurred these days with occasional role switching. I’ve written pieces for online news outlets, and plenty of print reporters sometimes appear on air to give their expert commentary. The game of journalism has evolved so far and fast it makes my childhood memories feel like they happened to someone else, sometimes makes me feel like a dinosaur. I wonder how my father stood it, handled it—because he did. He wasn’t one of the guys who ever complained about the good old days. He joked about them and told his stories, but he embraced every single change, wrapping himself around each one until he owned it.

  Nostalgia burned at me, making my eyes sting. These memories are good things, no reason for tears, no reason for the screeching pain in my chest.

  After the game Sunday, the third preseason game, I catch a postgame interview with Gabe Wyatt and can’t help the night-and-day comparison between him and Tate Fontanna. And yet I see Foley talking to Tate and exchanging some laughs, which Tate never did with me.

  “How bored are you, sitting on the bench waiting for your turn?” I ask, returning my attention to Gabe.

  “Not bored, but getting anxious, impatient to play in a game. How could I be bored watching my teammates kick butt?”

  I slice my hand across my throat to signal to Duff that we’re done and I don’t know how much more banal I can get, hoping Henry doesn’t demote me to covering Pop Warner football.

  I glance at Tate. Gabe follows my gaze and says, “Talk to him. His bark’s worse than his bite.”

  Laughing, I say, “He’s the one who needs to worry about getting bit.”

  “You won’t hurt him. I have a good feeling about you, Smitty.”

  I open my mouth as someone else grabs his attention, pulling him aside, and I don’t know if I should be offended or . . . flat
tered.

  Duff is smiling like he sees my dilemma and I scowl. He puts up his hands, “I didn’t say a thing. You done?”

  “Let’s get out of here.” We get off the field and I don’t bother with the postgame press conference because that’s Sarina’s thing. I’m strictly color. I give them the extra soundbites to round things out. That’s if I can get anything soundbite worthy.

  Running into Foley in the tunnel, I tell him we’re going to Louie’s and he says he’ll meet me and bring some of the others. Duff and I head there now because I’m starved. That’s the problem with these Sunday afternoon games. I bet the players are starved too. I bet Fontanna will go out for dinner after the press conference is done. Maybe he’ll come here.

  I swerve my car into the parking spot a few doors down from Louie’s. What the hell? Since when am I a groupie? If I wanted to talk to Fontanna, I could have gone up to him after the game and talked to him, couldn’t I?

  As Duff and I take our seats at the bar, several reporters I recognize walk in with Foley and join us. We order up an assortment of beer and whiskey and watch the coverage, including replays of the game. My clips may or may not get shown later. Duff sent them in and Henry will review and edit them, but if he doesn’t, I may have to go back into the studio to do it myself. Because I’m not going to make it too easy for him to leave me on the metaphorical cutting room floor.

  One side bet on whether the rookie running back will make the cut and two jiggers of whiskey later, I look up when the door opens, like I have every time the door’s opened for the last hour, and this time familiar faces walk in.

  Gabe and Hunter hold the door for Cat and another woman. Breathing a sigh, I smile, refusing to be disappointed. As Cat approaches me to say hello, my eyes dart up again when the door opens and Tate appears. Unaccompanied. I hold in the grin that wants to break out and tell my heart to calm down because what the hell?

  “Hey, fancy running into you here,” Cat says as she gives me a hug. Hunter and Gabe are more noncommittal in their response, probably because of all the press present. There are a few murmurs of hello and I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I let it out as Tate appears, heading in my direction, eyes lasered in, expression unreadable.

  “So now you’re a reporter turned stalker,” he says.

  “You’re confused, Fontanna. Last I looked you followed me here.”

  “I’m here because we always come here for postgame dinner. It’s been a tradition for two seasons and running. I’m practically Louie’s adopted son. Isn’t that right, Louie?”

  I see we have an audience, a very interested and amused audience comprised of his teammates and friends and Louie. Luckily they’ve blocked out the other reporters with their bodies like a human wall around me and Duff. And even my sidekick cameraman is amused.

  “Too bad you don’t have your camera, Duff. We could do a human-interest story on the football player slash Italian restauranteur.”

  “Oh, don’t go calling him that,” Gabe says. “Last time he cooked—” The lovely woman who I could swear I recognize but can’t place shushes him.

  “What should I call you, Fontanna?” It’s the way I say it that sends an edgy message and I can see the message is received by his expression. Interest just south of lust, but only by inches.

  I can’t help flirting, he’s so delicious, and it’s not just the whiskey talking.

  Cat says something about the flirting and I laugh it off. She arches a brow and I have no idea what that means, but it doesn’t matter. Cat’s good people and means me no harm. No need for me to get paranoid.

  Louie announces the group’s table is ready. The two couples move on to a private room but not before Cat gives me a wink.

  “You coming, Tate?” she asks, “Or are you going to stay and play with Chloe? Unless you want to invite her to eat with us—”

  He snaps his head around, tearing his gaze from mine, and says, “No. She’s here with her friends.” He waves his arm to encompass the bar full of media types and a couple of them raise a glass and invite him for a drink. He smiles affably enough, pretending he doesn’t think we’re snakes in the grass, but I know better. I know what he really thinks of us. All of us, but especially me.

  “It’s been a happy coincidence to run into you,” I say, more to annoy him, though it is the truth, even the happy part. “But you’re right, I’m here with my friends.” I give him my invitational look to test his resolve and he bestows a one-dimpled smile. That’s all the encouragement I need. I lean in close as he tries to pass by me.

  I whisper, “If I’m still here when you’re done with your meal, how about I buy you a drink?”

  “If you’re still here by then, I’ll buy you a coffee,” he says back in a mock whisper. I laugh. He doesn’t know me very well.

  “Don’t think I can hold my liquor?”

  “You’re right—what was I thinking? You’re Smitty.” There’s a definite twinkle in his eye now. His friends are gone and Duff and Foley and the others are arguing about the last World Series in Boston, so we’re on our own in this tête-à-tête and I kind of like it. A lot—if the sizzle in my panties can be credited.

  “So how about it, big boy? An after-dinner drink with your favorite girl reporter?”

  “No reporting and no reporter friends and especially no cameras,” he says in a deep raspy voice, the kind that comes from banked excitement.

  Now, I knew we had a spark between us, some kind of connection, but enormity of it hits me. He feels it too and I know for sure, no guesswork needed, no hiding or pushing it under the rug. Flat-out forbidden desire right out in the open, big and raw and hungry.

  “You have yourself a deal.” My voice turns out to be raspier than his, clogged with something. Who am I kidding? There’s a big ball of carnal greed stuck in my throat.

  I see the way he swallows, the Adam’s apple in his throat big and menacing and pulsing. It takes everything in me not to squirm or gravitate to him like he’s a black hole sucking me into the void. He’s hot and he’s available, but everything else about him screams all wrong. He hates me, everything I am, because being a reporter is in my DNA. And he’s a player with a capital P. He’s decent, but let’s face it, he knows he’s special because every woman he’s met since he was twelve years old has told him how wonderful and hot he is. Not my kind of man.

  He walks away like he owns the world, with that special swagger, understated and effortless, proving every wrong thing I think about him is true. And wishing I didn’t know deep down how genuine and driven and passionate he is.

  Fuck. I should go home now, but Duff claps my back and the bartender puts a bowl of pasta in front of me, so I’m not going anywhere.

  Chapter 10

  Tate

  Cat teases me about Chloe and I laugh, but she’s hitting too close to the mark. My plate of pasta is half finished and I have no intentions of eating another bite. My gut is no longer interested in food—all my body’s attention and blood flow has turned to anticipating a showdown with one gorgeous piece of forbidden fruit. Chloe Smith. We need to confront our attraction once and for all.

  “Maybe I’ll turn the tables,” I say. “Get her to confess what her angle is, why she’s dogging me.”

  “I think it’s obvious,” Cat says.

  Hunter wipes his mouth, nodding. “She’s into you, man.”

  “No shit. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t have an agenda.” Sipping my beer, I shift in my seat, my back screaming, reminding me of her agenda. But it’s only a fucking sore back, a weak angle at best. Fontanna is playing with a sore back—doesn’t scream viral headline to me. There has to be more than that.

  “Her agenda is screwing your brains out.” Gabriel grins. “I’d let her have her way if I were you. She’s a quality—”

  “Sports reporter,” I finish. “She’s a fucking sports reporter, a shark.” I shake my head.

  “Can’t talk to Tate on this subject,” Hunter says. “She’s media. He ha
s his mind made up.”

  “We’ll see,” Cat says from behind a glass of wine, but it doesn’t hide her mischief-maker smile and that gives me pause.

  “So are you going to have a drink with her?” Cat asks.

  I shrug as if I’m not counting the minutes until I can excuse myself without being rude. The thing is, in spite of my bluster to the guys, in spite of my caution and extreme distrust of all media, I can’t pretend away the attraction. And I can’t ignore the fact that she donated ten fucking grand to my charity—and that it was to make up for the media debacle at my uncle’s graveside.

  The woman has heart. But what the fuck does that mean in the grand scheme of things? Does it mean I can trust her? Probably not. Hell no. Taking a last sip of my beer, I shove my chair back from the table and stand.

  “Wish me luck.”

  Walking away to jeers and claps and taunts, I refrain from giving them the finger because I deserve this. I’m fucking schizophrenic when it comes to Smitty. My mind tells me one thing and my dick has a whole other idea. The scary part is that now she’s touched my heart, reached out and grabbed it with that damn donation. But that’s not all, if I’m honest. There’s also the vulnerability she shows every time she talks about her dad—which is often. She loved the man and that speaks to me, whether I want it to or not.

  Before I enter the bar, I stop. My fucking heart is racing and I need to calm down. This isn’t a big win on the line and it’s a far cry from high stakes. So what if she’s gone? Checking my phone, I see it’s been less than an hour. She’ll be here.

  Turning the corner, I hear her laugh before I see her at the crowded bar. As I approach I take her in, her hair disheveled, that curl falling on her forehead making her look innocent and sexy all at once and my balls tighten. I can feel the blood start to leave my brain and rush to Team Cock and I tense. Then she turns and lays those deep blue-violet eyes on me, framed by dark lashes, her lips red and plump and her smile softened by a few drinks. Her edge is gone and my dick is hard.