Playing for Keeps: An Enemies to Lovers Sports Romance

by Stephanie Queen

  Or maybe he thinks it’s more and truly thinks I’m crazy. Maybe I am, because I know damn well it’s more than casual between me and Chloe, no matter how much I say the words enemies with benefits. No matter how much I warn myself not to go anywhere near a relationship with a reporter.

  Gabe slaps me on the back and says in a much quieter voice, “Don’t worry, man. We’ve all been there.” I wonder what the fuck he means by that and he must read my mind because he says in a low voice I can barely hear, “We’ve all had what we thought were . . . inappropriate relationships.”

  My mind clears, and for a flicker I see he’s right. Mia was his girlfriend’s best friend when they met and I thought Gabe was crazy. Hunter married the fucking coach’s daughter. Max comes over to our huddle and we let him in because he’s the one man universally respected as the veteran sage, the wise old man. He takes in the situation and sizes it up.

  “You ready to play, Fontanna?”

  “Sure. The guys were just schooling me on how fucked up we all are when it comes to women.” He quirks his mouth and nods.

  “I’m right there with you. I’m with a woman young enough to be my niece.” Everyone cracks up because in truth, he’s not exactly an old man and Natalie is a formidable woman underneath her hot-as-sin exterior. I know there’s all kinds of complications going on in his life, but he never lets it get to him, plays it cool always, and even Gabe admires him though Max is his backup QB. The men around me are more than my teammates and, looking around at them, I nod.

  “Let’s go get ready,” I say, putting my fist in the center of the huddle. Everyone follows suit and Gabe makes the call and we break. I’m not usually in huddles with Gabe, neither is Sean or even Max, but we have a bond within the team’s close-knit community that I fully appreciate at this moment, that motivates me, elevates me above whatever else is going on, to play with everything I have. That makes me remember who and what I’m dedicating my career to, the memory of my mentor, my uncle Frank.

  After films, we’re on the field breaking into our groups and I’m with the linebacker group. My role is to run the defense on the field, communicate reads and shifts and make sure we stay in sync. I’m working with the defensive coordinator on a scheme to disguise our QB spy for Thursday’s game. We run through a play with the offense with Max in at QB because he’s less predictable than Gabe.

  The switch-out disguise works perfectly as I catch up with Max when he tries to scramble outside of the pocket and I end up on the ground with him under me.

  “Fuck, sorry man.” I jump to my feet and reach out a hand to help him up. He’s laughing and he lifts his helmet off.

  “Shit, I think I have grass in my mouth.” Everyone laughs as he pulls chunks of turf from his facemask. He’s only slightly exaggerating.

  “Let’s break.” Marini calls from the sidelines. It’s time for films of our opponent and then a team supper before more scheming and a team meeting. Today’s a long day in a short week where we’re trying to cram six days of prep into four. I walk with Max off the field and back to the locker room.

  “Are you serious about Chloe?” he asks me point blank.

  “No.” My kneejerk response kicks in before I think. “We’re not an item.” I search my head for the right words to say and all I come up with after rattling around in confusion is the safe words. “She’s more like an enemy with benefits.” Max looks skeptical.

  “You sure she’s cool with that?” he says, sounding like a protective father—or uncle. Then I remember he knew her father, or at least had met him, and had met Chloe when she was a young girl, so maybe he does have a soft spot for her.

  “That’s what she tells me. And why wouldn’t she be? She’s a big girl, more worldly than most. She knows better than most women what players are about.” I almost have myself convinced by my speech.

  “Except you’re not a player. At least not that kind of player.” Max sounds sure of himself and it’s no use trying to con the wise old man of the locker room. So I don’t bother. I shrug it off and trot ahead of him inside where I lose him.

  Not even a conversation with Max is going to help sort out the mess in my head and my gut. So I do what I always do when emotions overwhelm me, I focus on football, let the energy channel into playing the game.

  It’s after nine p.m. by the time I get home and I walk inside, the lights off, the place only lit by the twinkling Boston skyline across the harbor. My mind automatically goes to last night, but I shut it down. Before I can turn on the television for a distraction, my phone rings and, slipping it from my pocket, I see it’s my mother. Grinning, I answer the call.

  “How’s the woman who’s spoiled me for all others?” She laughs. It’s good to hear. My tension sheds a layer and I lean against my kitchen island looking at the serene night view to listen to my mother.

  “Same as always. Busy with the restaurant and enjoying the football season.”

  “Not too busy to come to next Sunday’s game as planned?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it. Though we can only stay the one night and I so would have liked to stay longer.” She pauses and I know she has something on her mind. “I would like to meet your new girlfriend,” she says. My head explodes in confusion like she’s talking Chinese.

  “What new girlfriend? What are you talking about, Mom?” Then it hits me as I’m asking the question. Chloe. The flashes of cell phones at Louie’s. And I groan out loud.

  “Don’t pretend with me. One of my friends from book club came into the restaurant today and says her daughter saw you on Twitter. She showed me photos of you with a lovely young woman. Tell me about her, Tate.” She seems genuinely pleased and I cringe, knowing if my mom finds out Chloe is a reporter, she’ll have a fit and worry about my mental well-being for real. Fuck, I’m worried about my mental faculties.

  “No one special, Mom.” Guilt grabs me by the balls as soon as I say the words.

  “Don’t lie to me, Tate. I can tell when you do.” She uses that half teasing, half accusing voice that always gets me.

  “I mean it—she is special, but we don’t have that kind of relationship where I would introduce her to my mother. You know what I mean?”

  “So it’s still new?” Hating myself for it, I agree with Mom, unable to explain my relationship in a coherent way to her—or to myself, for that matter. We confirm plans for her and Dad to visit and stay with me at my condo.

  “Maybe we can have dinner with this new young woman—what’s her name?” There’s no sense not telling her.

  “Chloe.” I leave it at that, unwilling to share anything else about her because I know it would upset my mother and I’m not even sure if whatever we have will last until game three when my parents get here.

  “Lovely name. I look forward to meeting her, honey.”

  “We’ll see how it goes, Mom.” This is the most honest thing I’ve said. We say our goodbyes and end the call.

  Fuck. One more layer of fucked up confusion to put on my relationship with fucking Chloe Smith. My mom would be horrified if she found out Chloe is a reporter. Because no matter how paranoid and cynical about reporters I am, my mother is a hundred times worse. I’m her son and she’s a fierce mama bear when it comes to reporters ever hurting me again.

  Kind of like the way I feel about protecting my mother from the media.

  Chapter 15

  Chloe

  “It’s a gorgeous Thursday night on the field here in East Boston at the Militia stadium as the team warms up for the game against their major rivals, the New York Wild Cats,” I say to the camera as I hold the defensive coordinator at my side for a pre-game comment. I’m hoping for something pithy, but I can spin whatever he says.

  I’m excited to do the pre-game color on the sidelines and post-game too. But I’m extra jittery because I haven’t talked to Tate all week and, in spite of his warning that he wouldn’t have time because of the condensed schedule, I don’t feel right about it.

  Because I don’t feel c
onfident about our relationship. Whatever the heck relationship means in this case other than a confused jumble that includes a heavy dose of lusty chemistry.

  Coach gives me a funny quip and I run with it, then wrap up the spot. Maguire turns off the camera and lowers it.

  “We have time for another one?” he says. I’m listening to the director in the truck and he’s telling me we’re finished until the next time-out. They’re back at the studio now. Then they’ll go to the guys in the game booth. I’ll take my direction from them throughout the game, to get color commentary on the field as things unfold, like if they want a comment on a controversial call or an injury. In this role, I have to play close attention to the game, to the guys in the booth and to the director. Maguire has a screen with the show set up under a tarp along with the other media outlets and we head over there now.

  By the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Militia had a substantial lead and because NESH is a hometown station, Henry encourages me to lighten it up. I’m dying to get Tate on camera for a one-liner about his two and a half quarterback sacks, but he hasn’t been cooperating, outmaneuvering me for the third time-out in a row. But after a three-and-out by the offense, he’s back in the game again. “Damn,” I say aloud.

  Maguire says, “Don’t worry, this’ll probably be his last set of downs. We’re ahead by twenty-one with under ten to play. They’ll take their starters out if they keep New York scoreless here.”

  Giving him a sideways glance, I’m pretty sure he knows I’m after Tate even though I haven’t said, because I haven’t exactly hidden my obsession from him. I’ve decided what I feel for Tate is obsessed. It’s less intimidating than being infatuated—or, heaven forbid, sin of all sins, in love. That’s never happening.

  We watch the play from the thirty yard-line, not exactly front and center of the action down at the opposite forty-yard line. It’s a scramble play and Tate goes for the QB. He’s about to tackle when an offensive lineman comes out of nowhere to collide with Tate, bringing him down to the ground in a bone-crushing hit. The QB escapes the collision and throws the ball, but I don’t pay attention, because Tate’s still on the ground under the lineman and they’re both slow to get up. Since I don’t have the best view, I’m waiting for the replay on the jumbotron, but they don’t replay the hit because the fucking QB completes a freakish fifty-yard pass to their third-string walk-on wide receiver, catching everyone by surprise as he jets into the endzone for a touchdown.

  My eyes dart back to where Tate was leveled and he’s still on the ground, but he’s getting attention. Gravitating in that direction, Maguire follows me and Henry yells in my ear to talk to someone about it for the next time-out, a ten-second clip. I run toward the defensive coordinator as he trots off the field ahead of Tate, who’s being escorted by a couple of medical staff—a trainer and a physician.

  Waving my hand for Maguire to roll, I stick my mic out and ask the coach, “Is it a concussion?”

  “No. It’s not.”

  “What’s the injury?” I ask while I watch Tate walk awkwardly toward the sideline, but he doesn’t stay there, he keeps going toward the tunnel to the locker room with the medical staff, his steps slowing. And just before he disappears from sight, I see the two men lift him from the ground and half carry him into the darkness of the tunnel. Riveted and horrified, I almost miss the coach’s answer to my question.

  “We’re not sure. Could be shoulder or back. We’ll wait and see what the medical evaluation is, but he’s out for the rest of the game.”

  “Back to you in the booth, Sarina.” We cut the camera and I trot back to where our equipment is to get my bag, Maguire at my heels.

  “You following up on the injury?” Maguire says.

  I nod and grab my bag, looking for the most likely person I can ask how Tate’s doing, the one person who will find out for me and tell me. I see Sean Patrick on the sidelines, with his helmet in his hand. They won’t need him to kick anything for the next few minutes, so I head in his direction as inconspicuously as I can.

  “Sean, do me a favor and find out how Tate is, will you?”

  He looks at me, registers the question, and then nods. Dropping his helmet, he jogs twenty yards down the sidelines, but he doesn’t go through the tunnel. He talks to the defensive coordinator, who has earphones on and must be communicating with the team’s medical staff. Sean is heading back to me, but he’s walking and so I meet him halfway, deep into the sidelines behind some cameras. He may not feel any urgency, but I sure as fuck do.

  “What the hell is going on, Sean?” My heart is beating out of my chest like impatient fists against my rib cage.

  “He’s heading to Mass General for an MRI. Nothing earthshattering—diagnostics.”

  “Fuck.”

  “He’ll be okay, Chloe.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and I give him a pathetic smile.

  “Thanks. Gotta go.”

  When I get back to Maguire at our equipment station, I tell him the situation.

  “What are you going to do?”

  All I know is I need to get to the hospital, to see him. Now. But I’ll need to get out of doing the postgame wrap-up first so I can leave. I have an idea. It’s underhanded, bold, and suits me perfectly.

  “Maguire, I need you to disappear,” I say to him as I drag him into the tunnel back toward the exit to the parking lot. He’s listening so I keep talking. “I need people to think you’re with me when I go to the hospital.”

  “But I won’t be with you.” He nods, knows I’m going off the record and doesn’t balk. Squeezing his arm, I lean in and give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “I owe you.” I run for the exit and my car, pulling my phone out as I go.

  “Sarina, I need you to cover the postgame for me. I’m heading to the hospital to see Fontanna.”

  “Oh my God—do you think you can get in?”

  “Absolutely.” There’s a pause while she considers it. She’s not stupid. She knows how this will play in our Perspective special.

  “This injury is perfect for our piece. If you can get something out of him—anything—we can work it in and spin it,” she says. I’m horrified as I calculate how close to the line I am—and which side I’m on. We end the call and, while I’m driving to the hospital, no more than fifteen minutes behind the ambulance because I need to get there before anyone from the team or I’ll have no chance, my phone rings.

  It’s Henry. I hesitate to answer. Sarina’s called him for sure. Taking a deep breath that does nothing to relieve my tension, I punch on the call.

  “You really think you can get in to see him?” No preamble of niceties with Henry. One of the reasons I like him in spite of everything. He’s all in for the story, to get the best ratings, the best scoop, the newest angles. The way I am—or the way I used to be because I don’t even recognize myself right now. I’m too tangled up with my subject. My dad warned me about getting caught up in the weeds, becoming involved personally in the story. Said even with sports journalism it was a danger. I believe you, Dad.

  “Of course I can get in, Henry. I have an angle.”

  “Sure you do.” He pauses. “Your dad would be proud. You may be even more ruthless than he was.” I want to scream at him not to say another word about my dad and what he was or wasn’t because he has no right. But I keep control.

  “So we’re good?”

  “Go for it, kid.”

  “No guarantees, Henry.” It’s the one thing I need buy in from him on—to let me out of the post-game coverage so I can follow Tate to the hospital—if I want to stay on the very tip of the blade, not falling to either side of the line. Not yet.

  “I know. Go do it.” He ends the call and I’m not sure he’s convinced I’m that ruthless. He’s more naturally suspicious than most reporters and my stalling about the Perspective piece might have his Spidey senses on alert.

  Nothing I can do about that now as I swing into the garage and park in a spot on the first floor that says Reserv
ed, but I don’t care. I dash into the front door of the Mass General Hospital and now I need to find him and get past whoever the gatekeepers are, both from the hospital and the team.

  Finding the directory, I head for the orthopedic wing and try to look like I know where I’m going as I search for the MRI examining rooms. I finally find the check-in area for the imaging and spot a couple of guys outside the room. One of them I recognize from the medical staff and I can only hope he doesn’t recognize me. I approach the woman at the check-in window and go into my act.

  “Hello, can you tell me where they’ve taken Tate Fontanna? I need to see him, to be with him.”

  The woman eyes me while I give her my most genuine worried expression, which is easy to do since I’m truly worried.

  “Sure you do. Are you family?”

  I pause, promise myself it’s for a good cause, and say, “I’m his wife. I need to be with him. He shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Oh, I see. He’s not alone. He’s with these fellas.” She points at the two men standing outside one of the doors.

  “Is he in there?” I don’t wait for her answer, but hustle over and reach past the men for the door handle.

  “Wait, you can’t go in there.” One of them puts a hand on my wrist.

  Eying him coldly, I say, “Yes I can. I’m his wife. Take your hand off me.” My voice implies a threat and it works. He lifts his hand immediately and I give him no chance to question me further, opening the door and going inside the room.

  Tate is there, lying on a bed in what looks like an examining room. On the other side is a glass wall looking in on a giant tubular machine for MRIs.

  “Chloe?” Disbelief colors his voice and his face. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He sits up and stops abruptly, wincing and putting a hand to his back, muttering a string of obscenities.

  Rushing to his side, I say, “Don’t move. Lie back down. Are you crazy?”

  “Me crazy? WTF, Chloe? How did you even find me?” He pauses and adds, “And what do you want?”