Bad Ballers: A Contemporary Sports Romance Box Set

by Bishop, S. J.

  “Erin, we’re your people,” said Casey. “We’ll be back tomorrow to drive you to your apartment. But we have to go home and feed our cat.” She leaned down and kissed my un-bruised temple. “Feel better,” she said. “Get some rest. Heal up. I’m taking this phone home so reporters don’t wake you up at all hours. You can have it back tomorrow.”

  I gave her a smile, but smiling hurt my already bruised facial muscles, so it was small.

  With Casey gone, the room was suddenly quiet. I was on the sixth floor, my window facing out into the city. I couldn’t see the harbor in the dark, so the city stretched out as if it were endless. For a while, there had been doctors, nurses, even camera crews and reporters waiting below. I’d felt like a celebrity, like someone important. When Casey and James had arrived, I’d felt a bit more like myself. But now I was alone, and the city was vast. And I felt…anonymous.

  I turned my gaze back to the television. Ted Schneider’s face was emblazoned across it. I wondered if I’d get to see him again, if he’d explain himself.

  6

  Ted

  “What do you think your dad is going to do when he finds out you played hooky from school and practice to come tubing?” She smiled at me, creating dimples in the corners of both cheeks. I couldn’t help myself. I leaned down and kissed one of her dimples, delighted when she sighed and leaned into me. I wrapped an arm around her.

  This was the Erin I liked: the affectionate, teasing, confident Erin. She was so much easier to be around than the self-conscious, hurt Erin, or the angry, self-righteous Erin. I took a deep breath. Our last fight had been a bad one. I’d thought this might be a way to smooth things over, and it looked like I may have been right.

  “I don’t want to know,” I said. “So let’s hope he doesn’t find out. More importantly…” I pulled back, getting an eyeful of the editor of Dale High School’s literary magazine in a teeny green bikini. Erin Duvall was a lot cuter than anyone gave her credit for. How she’d managed to stay single for so long… “What do you think the school is going to do when they find out that Ms. Goody-two-shoes Duval cut class to go tubing with Teddie Schneider?”

  Erin rolled her eyes, grabbed her inner tube, and waded into the creek. “You’re so full of yourself,” she said. “The fact that you think anyone cares whether or not you and I are in school or out of school…”

  “Maybe they don’t care about you…” I said, grinning, wading in after her.

  “Oh, brother,” Erin muttered as she fell backwards into her inner tube and let the creek pull her feet up from under her. She started a slow drift down the river.

  I grabbed my tube and dashed into the water after her, gasping at the shock of the cold creek. It was September. I’d thought the water might have been warmer.

  “Come on, slow poke!” Erin called, the creek’s lazy current already pulling her away from me. I lay on top of my tube and paddled out to her, grabbing the side of hers when I got close.

  “Thought it would be easy to get rid of me, huh?” I said.

  “Trust me,” said Erin, archly. “If I were trying to get rid of you, you’d be gone.”

  “You going to play, Schneider, or are you going to keep sitting there with your thumb up your ass?” Coach shouted.

  I blinked and realized that the entire practice squad had lined up on the line of scrimmage and I was, indeed, still standing there. But I could still feel the sun, hot on my back, and the cold bite of the creek on my skin.

  I didn’t respond. What formation we were supposed to be running? Right. I hurried over to the right side, ready to break through the line and head left.

  “Blue 57!” Dash hollered. “Set, hut!” The snapper released the ball, and I lit out for the fifty-yard line, turning just in time to see the ball laser to the exact spot I was supposed to be. I leapt left, just snagging it out of the air and tumbling to the ground.

  “Nice catch, Casanova,” said one the defenders, hustling over to pull me to my feet. It had been like that all day. Casanova, Prince Charming, Don Juan, Romeo…

  I grimaced. If only they knew the truth. I ignored him and tossed the ball to one of the offensive linemen, hurrying back over to the huddle. But Coach had called a timeout, and Dash was off the field. I took my helmet off to push the hair off my face.

  “Try to stay focused, son,” said Burke Tyler, rolling his eyes skyward as he passed me on the right. I didn’t reply to him either. I don’t get the hype surrounding Burke Tyler. He’s not that good.

  Both Burke and Dash had given me a lot of shit when the season started, and I knew they were pissed at having to rely on me so much throughout the game. I’d gotten under Dash’s skin during the off-season (I might have made some untoward comments about his baby-momma). But if pre-season had taught us anything, it was that the other teams were prepared to see Dash throw passes to Burke Tyler and Cassidy Woods. Those two dudes had seen double coverage almost every game. Other teams had not prepared for me.

  In response to the defensive coverage of his biggest stars, Coach had been forced to develop a series of plays around me. Needless to say, I was getting a workout.

  But making a few fantastic game-saving plays hadn’t yet endeared me to anyone on the team. That, of course, was my own fault. I have a mouth on me. I just can’t help it. If I see stupid, I have to call it out. And there’s a shit-ton of stupid on a football team.

  “Tell you what, Schneider,” called Vic Ferguson as I passed him. “I knew you were a ladies’ man, but I had no idea you were into necrophilia.”

  One of the defensive safeties burst into laughter, and I paused, letting my brows lift up to my hairline in surprise. “Wow, Ferguson,” I said, shaking my head. “I had no idea you that you were reading past the third-grade level. Shit, man. Good for you…”

  That got even more laughter, and Vic tipped his imaginary hat to me.

  The ninety-minute practice went on a half hour longer than anticipated because the defense kept mucking up the new package plays. But once I’d stretched and cooled down, I opened up my phone.

  After deleting the obnoxious amount of interview requests, I had one message from my agent and one from my dad.

  I played the message from my dad first.

  “Teddie. Saw the coverage from your little visit to the hospital. I know I don’t have to tell you to keep your goddamn head in the game. I’ll be watching this Sunday. Also, your mother wants to attend the Cowboys game next month. See what you can make happen for her.”

  I rubbed at my forehead, gritting my teeth against the irrational anger that sprung up in me. When had I ever played distracted? What an idiotic thing to say. I brushed my father aside (trust me, I had plenty of practice doing that). I checked my agent’s message next.

  “Ted, you’re in luck, buddy. We got some big names asking for you. I’ll let you pick, but I recommend Ellen. Her people reached out. The Today show and a bunch of the local affiliates are also interested. Let me know if you’re willing to fly out to LA next Tuesday to tape. If not, New York is your next bet. Also, let’s give this coma-kiss some legs. I think it’d be a great idea if we got…what’s her name? Whatever her name is… let’s get her seats to Sunday’s game. And maybe you can think about taking her out to dinner? That’s on you, man, but the press would eat it up…I sent you details in an email, so call me back when you get home.”

  I pressed my lips together, nodding to Caz as he passed me on his way to the locker room. I didn’t say anything to anyone as I packed my things and headed out to my car. Only once I closed the driver’s side door and was safe behind tinted windows did I let my head fall back and my eyes close.

  …Two tiny commas dimpled her cheeks, her toes dripping with water as they stretched toward the sky…

  I texted my agent: See if you can get me her number.

  7

  Erin

  Being home helped a lot. Not with my distant past – that was still a blank, and where it wasn’t a blank, it was an indiscernible blur. I had
stayed two more days in the hospital after I’d awoken while the doctors ran scans and made sure I was stable. The only untoward incident was when I’d left. I went out the front, and there was a reporter who’d somehow learned that I was being released. She’d stuck her microphone in my face and asked if I would ever consider going out on a date with Ted Schneider. I’d blinked at her and said something inane like “he’d have to ask me first.” Then James and Casey had taken me home.

  For about ten minutes of being home, my apartment was a stranger’s apartment. Someone else must have picked out the sofa in the small sitting area, the worn coffee table, and the TV stand. Someone else had decided that red was a good color to keep in the kitchen. I certainly wasn’t the girl who’d picked out the floral bedspread.

  But then it came back, slowly. The furniture had all been inherited from my mother. I had the sudden recollection that I had more stuff in a storage unit in Texas. The couch had been my first adult purchase and doubled as a sofa-bed. The bed frame was my childhood bed frame, but the covers had come off of Pottery Barn website’s clearance section.

  Casey took me through everything, but once we’d been around the apartment twice, I’d begun to remember things: where I hid the remote control, which drawer in the bathroom held my makeup. That I was supposed to go out and get a new curling iron because mine had broken…

  I spent a long time looking at the photos I’d set up around the apartment. Most of them were pictures of my mom and me. There was one studio photograph that must have been taken when I was two: it had my mom and dad in it. My dad was wearing his army uniform and holding me. I didn’t remember much about my past, except that my father had been killed in active duty when I was four – that, I remembered.

  Other than the one photograph, there weren’t that many from when I was really young. There was only one from high school. In it, a pretty girl, about my height, with hair so black it must have been dyed, had her arm slung around my shoulder. We had our hips cocked out and were giving the camera our best pouts. Her name swam around my head, and I could hear her laugh – abrasive – she liked to pinch my arm to get my attention. Lucy.

  “She’s a friend from high school,” I said, taking the picture down and showing Casey.

  “You went out to Colorado last spring to visit her,” James confirmed. He had given himself the task of cleaning out my fridge and was squatted down, throwing wilted spinach into a white garbage bag. “She hasn’t visited you in Massachusetts yet. But she has called and texted a few times.”

  “Where is my phone?” I asked. I hadn’t felt an overwhelming need to check it. I had distant family, but we weren’t that close. My mom had a sister in California. My dad had family in Wisconsin – but I hadn’t spoken much to them after my mom had passed away.

  “I have it,” said Casey, wandering back in from my bedroom. She hurried over to the bag she’d left on the kitchen table and fished out my phone. “I responded to the texts that came in, telling them who I was. You got a few from college buddies, one from Lucy, one from an Aunt Meg, who volunteered to come to Boston if you needed her, a few people from work…”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking my phone back. Shit. Looked like my mailbox was full.

  “I only answered the ones that had names attached,” Casey explained, looking over my shoulder. “After the first reporter called, I stopped answering. There were a lot of ambulance chasers, too, wondering if you were going to sue.”

  “Sue?”

  “The driver who hit you. He was arrested for DUI.”

  I blinked. I hadn’t even thought of the man who’d hit me. “Shit,” I said, sitting down at my small kitchen table. “What do we know about him?”

  “He ran a red,” said James, standing up and tying the garbage bag closed. “He was out-of-his-mind drunk, and he was injured in the accident too. Concussed. Broke his leg.”

  “One of the phone calls on there is from a detective Maxwell who wants you to call her back.”

  I nodded.

  “So,” said Casey, sitting down. “What do you want to do?”

  “You guys can go home,” I said. “I’m fine for the night, really. I might even try to go by work tomorrow and see if that helps me regain some more of my memories.”

  “If you’re sure,” said Casey.

  It took some convincing, but they both left after I told them they could come by for dinner tomorrow. Alone in my apartment, I sat for a while, stewing in the strangeness that was my life. Then I got to work.

  I took out my laptop, paper, pen, and phone, and began to go through messages. I went through the texts first. There were texts from reporters, but also texts from friends. Some names I had trouble putting faces to. I went on Facebook, matched names to faces, and began to put some more of my life back into context.

  Too bad I wasn’t a big social media person. That would have helped. I also, apparently, regularly went into Facebook and deleted information. I had no pictures of Damon, for instance.

  Once I was done placing names to faces, I had a killer headache, but I knew I had to tackle the fifty-odd voicemails on my machine.

  I listened to them all and called back my father’s sister, who’d left a worried message. We talked for a little bit, and she invited me to Wisconsin for Christmas. I also called Lucy, who’d left three messages. She answered, but she was working late at the real estate office and didn’t have time to talk. We settled on a tentative date a month from now when she would come and visit. “I’ll bring all the yearbooks,” she promised.

  It was ten o’clock by the time I reached my last message.

  “Hey, Erin. It’s Ted Schneider…” The voice on the message sounded tired and slightly hesitant. Immediately, I saw his face: warm brown eyes, thick lashes, curling blond hair, chiseled jaw… My body reacted, and a series of emotions flit through me at the sound of his voice: lust, yearning, and – strangely enough – anxiety. Where had all of those come from?

  “I’m sure you’re getting as many calls about the whole ‘Sleeping Beauty’ thing as I am. My agent really wants me to play the whole thing up – which might not be fair to you. But I was wondering if you wanted to attend the Pats game this Sunday and let the cameras catch you. I could get you good seats. Would you be interested? Just… ah. Just call me back. Let me know.”

  There was something in his voice… it sounded familiar, and my head ached as it tried to place him. Did I know Ted Schneider? Had I spoken to him in the hospital? No – I remember now. From watching the video of him waking me up. He’d been speaking to me before he’d kissed me. That must be it.

  The nurses at the hospital hadn’t been able to stop talking about the kiss. And I’d seen enough of his face on the TV to understand that he was kind of a big deal. And now, he was inviting me to a football game. Hadn’t Casey wanted tickets?

  Before I could think about what I was doing, I’d hit the number and was dialing him back. Oh fuck, Erin! It was 10 pm! He was probably in bed.

  “This is Schneider,” came a voice from the other end. Fuck! Fuck! My body betrayed me, my stomach clenching and a strange heat shooting through my gut. Seriously? I was lusting after a guy I didn’t even know? How long had it been since I’d last had sex?

  “Hello?” the voice on the end of the phone pressed.

  “Hi,” I said before he could hang up.

  “Erin?” My name on his lips sounded familiar, almost intimate.

  I took a deep breath. “Yes,” I said. “I…” Oh god, I was as tongue tied as he’d been. “I’m returning your call. I seem to have missed a lot of calls over the last few days.”

  There was silence for another moment before Ted said, “I’m sure. How are you feeling?”

  I blinked. This was so surreal. One of the nurses in the hospital had given me her phone to look up his player stats. Ted Schneider had been drafted second overall by the Browns. He’d been in the league for five years and was a really impressive Wide Receiver. He’d also been featured in last year’s ESPN B
ody Issue. After the first shot (Ted flying through the air with a football artfully placed over his crotch), I’d had to stop looking.

  “I’m okay,” I said. “I have headaches, but besides that and a good bit of memory loss, I’m okay.”

  “I heard about the memory loss. The Media is saying ‘amnesia,’” he said. “Listen, I… I’m sorry I kissed you. That was incredibly invasive of me.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. I had been weirded out at first, but the video showed that the kiss was a chaste one, pressed lightly to the bruise on my temple. It had been an intimate gesture – as if he were family or a friend. “If the media is to be believed, your kiss can bring people back from the dead. I suppose I should thank you for bestowing it upon me.”

  “Ah. Well, in that case, you’re welcome.” Ted sounded less uncertain now. I could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Listen, would you be interested in coming to the game and letting the cameras see you in the stands?”

  “I guess I’m a little confused about that,” I said. “What would be the point?” I knew I was fishing, but Casey’s dream about him spotting me and needing to kiss me was in the back of my head. Was it true? Did he want to see me again?

  “The point?”

  “Yah.”

  I could almost see him shrugging. “I suppose the point for you might be to catch a free Pats game from thousand-dollar seats… The point for me is to remind people that I’m a beneficent demi-god whose lips possess restorative powers.”

  It wasn’t the answer I’d been hoping for, but I found myself grinning.

  “I’m new this season. And players who play with the Patriots take a bit of a pay cut. I’m trying to get in good with the Boston crowds and pick up local endorsements. Any press is good press.”

  “So you’re saying you kissed me because it was good press?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ll do anything for good press.”