“You look like shit,” she said in the changing room. I slipped into a bikini and grabbed a towel.
“I feel like shit,” I said and told her about my meeting with Lee Williamson. “So, what do I do?”
We stepped down into the hot tub, and a shirtless man entered the room. He grabbed the bottle of wine and poured us each a glass.
“I agree with May; you need ammo to use on other people when they come at you,” Julie said. Bubbles grew and popped around her neck. She had her red hair up in a ponytail, reminding me of the time the two of us went to Chicago during our junior year in college. We weren’t shy about running the city into the wee hours of the morning. We learned to have fun without drowning ourselves in alcohol. Her parents treated me like a daughter, and she treated me like a sister. I needed more than just Bryce and May on my side.
“What if he asks me to marry him?” I said. “What do I do?” I grabbed my glass and didn’t stop drinking until empty. “I can’t say no, and I can’t say yes. And maybe won’t work.”
“What if you talked to Gus?” Julie asked. She worked on her wine a little slower. “Let him know you want both. Nothing wrong with having your cake and eating it too.”
“I don’t think I can trust him even if I tell him I know what he’s planning. The man wants to run the Hurricanes until he dies. And he’s got that bitch Clarissa doing his dirty work.” The half-naked man entered again and filled our glasses. I waited until he left to continue the conversation. I told Julie about Clarissa and the man taking photos. “Who do I trust?”
“Bryce owned up to what he had planned,” Julie said. “He didn’t go through with it. He’s your number one asset.”
“And the reason I’m in this situation in the first place,” I said. I stepped from the hot tub and dried. Julie followed and once she was dry, two men entered the room. Each stepped to a massage table and raised the top sheet then looked away.
We undressed and laid on our own tables. The men laid the sheets over us.
“I think May’s right on. Get dirt on the trustees and make everyone else circle the wagons,” Julie said. “Tony Martin is the worse of the three. Been married more times than the entire city of Orlando.”
The guy rubbing my shoulders stopped. “Tony Martin? The Hurricanes trustee?” he asked.
Julie and I both looked back. “Yeah,” I said.
“Asshole was hitting on my eighteen-year-old sister,” he said. “Came into the restaurant where she works. Him and some other guy. She told me he asked for her number. She told him no. He grabbed her ass, and she told the manager. The manager fired her. Said Martin was not someone to fuck with.”
Julie looked at me. “That’s sexual assault.” She turned over, her boobs flashing both men. Neither cared. “Up here,” she said and pointed at her eyes. “When was this?”
“Last week,” he said. “She got a job here until she finds something else.”
“Do you know who I am?” I asked.
The guy nodded. “The hot owner of the Hurricanes. I’m sorry about your father. He was a good man.” He lifted the sheet to my neck when I turned over.
“She working now?”
“Yeah, she was at the front desk.”
I glanced at Julie, and the two of us smiled. “I think we’re done,” I said. “Give us ten minutes and tell her we’d like to talk.”
“Sure,” he said.
The two men left, but not before taking another peek at Julie’s boobs. Julie winked.
We dressed, discussed what the young woman’s story meant to my current situation, and then headed to the lobby.
“Madison Charles,” I said and offered my hand.
“Jessie Deering,” she replied and shook.
We spoke to the girl for nearly an hour, Julie recording on her phone with Jessie’s permission. When we were done, I offered the girl a job with the Hurricanes as my personal assistant.
“Ice Cream?” I asked Julie after we left the day spa.
We walked across the street and each ordered a double scoop of chocolate mint.
“What if I walked away from the Hurricanes,” I said.
Julie stopped licking her ice cream. “You’re not serious.”
“Think about it. I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. Bryce has at least another five years of football. We could have the kids we talked about back in college. Maybe I need a semi-normal life.” I went back to licking my ice cream, watching Julie stare at me.
“First off, your father would not approve. You told him you wanted this, so he did everything he could to make it happen for you.” She paused long enough to take a bite of her cone. “Secondly, you still have time to have kids. And it’s okay for an owner to be pregnant. At least then people wouldn’t give you so much shit.”
“I don’t know that I’m strong enough to deal with all this,” I said.
“Fuck that,” Julie replied. “You’re hands down the strongest woman I know. “Don’t let those assholes win, Madison.” She studied her ice cream. “This calls for an extra thirty minutes on the treadmill tomorrow.”
We laughed and dumped the rest of the ice cream in the trash, hooking arms as we crossed the street. We shared a hug and then went our separate ways.
Don’t let the assholes win. My father would have said the same thing. Bryce would have said it as well.
Out duel them. If they wanted me gone, I’d have to make them work for it.
And that was exactly what I did for the rest of training camp and into the first two games of the regular season. Then things turned to shit.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bryce
“You all right, Bryce?” I looked up at Ollie who was standing next to my locker in the dressing room. The man donned his uniform two hours before the game began. He said it was part of his ritual.
“Yeah, why do you ask?” I peered around Ollie and noticed several players looking my direction.
Ollie sat next to me. “Some of the guys have asked Coach to put the rookie in.”
“No fucking way, Ollie.”
“Look, Bryce, people think you and Madison are having trouble working together. They think it’s fucking with your game.” He glanced up and looked around the room. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to take a game off.”
“Are you serious right now? I won the fucking title last year, Ollie.” I showed the team the middle finger and stood, turning my back on them. “I’m playing today. And I’ll shut them up. You fucking hike me the ball, and I’ll make shit happen.”
“Okay, Bryce.” Ollie patted me on the shoulder and returned to his locker.
Madison had been right—our relationship was complicating our business life. My last two games had sucked.
“Let’s go,” Coach yelled.
I moved to the front of the players and led the team through the tunnel leading to the field. Our team was announced, and we ran out onto the field to a chorus of boos. The boos were for me.
Unfortunately, the boos would grow louder.
The first play from scrimmage, I threw a thirty-yard interception to an opposing player who was wide open. He ran it back sixty-yards for a touchdown.
“Nice fucking pass,” RJ said when we returned to the sideline.
“I didn’t see him,” I said.
“Maybe you’re the wrong guy for the job.”
“Get open, asshole, and I’ll find you,” I said and put my helmet back on. “I know, Coach,” I said as he approached.
“What’s eating at you, Bryce?” he asked.
“Just bad luck, that’s all,” I said and ran back onto the field after the kickoff.
The next plays ran without a hitch. I managed a twenty-five-yard pass over the middle, ignoring an open RJ down the sideline. Tough shit. I got under center for the next play and, seeing the defensive, changed the play, yelling out the new plan. My second mistake of the game.
RJ crossed the middle of the field, and I threw behind him, my second interception.
This time he didn’t bother to chastise me. Instead, he went and sat with the rookie quarterback, the two of them looking at plays.
“One more and I’m pulling you, Bryce,” Coach said as I walked off the field. Several players stared in my direction.
“Take yourself out, Bryce,” Ollie said, knowing I wouldn’t. I wasn’t ready to admit defeat.
“No,” I said. “I got this.” Though I doubted myself more than my teammates did.
The other team scored in two plays, making me responsible for us being down 14-0. I went back in, for some reason thinking about the short cruise Madison and I took to the Bahamas our senior year. We spent two days snorkeling and lying on a beach, holding hands, and making love whenever we were in our cabin.
“Bryce? What the fuck, man, pay attention.”
“Just hike the fucking ball!” I said, snapping at Ollie, feeling like a shit that I had done so.
It wasn’t so farfetched to say sometimes life happened in slow-motion, because the next sixty seconds did exactly that. Ollie hiked the ball, and I dropped back to pass. From the right, I caught a glimpse of the opposing player steaming toward me. I looked to my left where RJ was watching me, having missed his block and allowing the defensive to rage toward me.
I scrambled back ten-yards and then turned upfield, throwing the ball just as RJ’s man hit me. As I laid on the ground and let the pain of the impact spread throughout my body as my breathing struggled to catch up after the hit. I knew I’d fucked up because everyone was running the opposite direction, chasing the guy who had intercepted my pass. Ollie helped me up in time for me to see the guy in the endzone dancing, his teammates cheering and dancing right along with him.
As I approached the sidelines, I heard the boos and then the chants.
“We want Kyle!”
“We want Kyle!”
“We want Kyle!”
And that was exactly what the fans got on our next possession. Coach put Kyle in, and I sat on the bench, looking at the plays I’d fucked up. By half-time, Kyle had brought us back to within a touchdown. His cockiness had gotten a boost.
Nobody spoke to me at half-time. Instead, everyone rallied around Kyle. High-fives. Slaps on the shoulders. When the second half started, I remained on the bench, watching over the next hour as Kyle tied the game. And eventually, the Hurricanes scored with ten seconds left, giving us the W. For the first time in my career I was walking off the field alone. The boos, though not as loud, were still there.
On Monday morning, I turned on one of the national sports shows, seeing Kyle’s face and then listening to the experts trying to end my career. I was washed up. Last year’s title had been luck. You name it, and they said it about me. Two days later, I learned via another talk show that Kyle had been named starting quarterback for our next game.
Thursday night, after practice and team meetings, I grabbed a beer and headed to my garage and the punching bag I’d not used in months. I turned the radio to a rock station and then slid on a pair of gloves.
I was throwing away a dream for a woman I loved. I hit the bag, and it swung to the left. I had a team full of players pissed at me. I hit the bag again, and it swung to the right; this time I caught it with another punch. Everything was going to shit. I danced on my feet, hitting the bag repeatedly, anger boiling over. I’d worked my ass off for the Hurricanes, but with the first sign of trouble, they sat me on the bench.
“Bryce,” Madison said and stepped from the shadows of the room. She wore her favorite Chanel perfume, making the room smell much better than me. It was a scent she knew drove me crazy.
I hit the bag again, but harder, sweat pouring down my chest and dripping from my hair. I was okay with her turning around and leaving. The night was between me and the bag.
“Bryce, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this isn’t easy.
I hit the bag several more times, each punch harder than the last, each punch jolting my hands and arms.
“Bryce, please stop!” she insisted.
I raised a glove to my mouth and loosened the strings, sticking the glove between my legs and pulling my hand out. I removed the other glove, the darkness in the room revealing only a silhouette of Madison’s body.
“We should talk,” Madison said.
But I wasn’t in the mood to talk.
I turned on her quickly, her mouth searching for mine as I drove her across the room and up against the wall. Madison shoved my shorts down, and I raised her skirt, tearing away her panties. She began unbuttoning her blouse, but my impatience got the better of me. I ripped her blouse apart and tore away her bra. I buried my face between her breasts and savagely licked and sucked her nipples. I raised her left leg around my back, and as I did, she raised her right.
I drove into her, lifting her up and down, our bodies gliding flawlessly against one other. She pulled my face to hers and kissed me hard, shoving her tongue into my mouth. We fucked hard, like animals in heat. Not a fucking thing mattered anymore in the world.
Madison moaned and repeated my name, begging me not to stop. She head rested on my shoulder, her nails impaling my back. We staggered around the dark, musty room, hungry for one another, starved for each other’s attention. Madison scraped my back, coming hard, her hips like jolts of lightning sparking against me. We collapsed to the floor, sexually satisfied, physically spent, and mentally drained.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Madison
I watched him sleep. The gorgeous hunk of a man who’d fucked me like the old college days. We talked after we showered. We made love after we talked. I didn’t tell him I was gathering dirt on people and had been for months. I didn’t mention any of the things that had been reported to me around the Hurricanes.
He lay on his back, one leg outside the sheet, his hands and arms out to each side of his head. He snored lightly. His hair was a mess, the only time ever out of place while he slept. I moved the sheet over his leg and left the room, actually thinking about waking him with a blow job.
We were two days away from the next game, and Bryce was in no condition to play. My fault? I’d had enough. The hiding was getting old. The secrecy was no longer fun and exciting.
I shut the front door and walked out into the morning sunlight, dreading the day ahead. Intuition suggested I go for a long drive and avoid the oncoming shit-storm brewing at work. I started away from town but turned around at the next exit. Running wasn’t in the Charles’ DNA. Whatever waited needed to be addressed head-on. It was the way my father would have wanted it.
Waiting for me in the parking lot, RJ. I didn’t need his shit or anyone else’s, but it didn’t matter, shit was what I would get.
“Madison,” he said as I approached the entrance. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
I stopped at the door and turned. “How’d you know when I was coming in?”
“A little birdie,” he said.
I took my hand off the door and moved in front of RJ. “Keep fucking with me, and I’ll trade you.”
RJ laughed. “You can’t replace me.”
“Anyone can be replaced. Even a semi-talented, small-dick wide receiver such as yourself.”
The smile dropped from his face, and I left him standing alone.
Jessie sat in the suite, chatting with May. The two said hi, and I nodded as if my world were working in slow motion. I dropped my purse and bag onto my desk and plopped in my chair. I turned on the security camera feeds and watched both training facility and stadium. I switched over to the office cameras and saw Clarissa coming down the hall toward my office. The woman deserved to lose her job, and the way the day was going, it was very likely. Her days were numbered anyway.
Clarissa entered the suite, and May asked if she could help her. On the camera, I watched Clarissa ignore May and head to my office. First RJ and then Clarissa. I had the luck of a leprechaun who couldn’t find his pot of gold.
“What can I help you with, Clarissa?” I asked and switched off the security cameras. I pointed tow
ard the door. “And when May asks what you need, I expect you to acknowledge her.”
She sat in the leather chair across the desk from me. “Gus knows,” she said. “And he’s pissed.”
“That so,” I said, shocked but not revealing any emotion. Dad told me to never let them see you sweat.
“He plans on telling the trustees. I guess you know what that means.” She smirked, and I just about went over the desk at her. She stood and began walking around the office.
“What are you doing?” I asked when she looked to be measuring the windows.
“We’ll be moving back in soon,” she said. “I have the perfect curtains for Gus’ new old office.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said as I stood and moved around my desk.
“Yeah, you are,” she said. “Though I think Gus mentioned giving you your old intern position. He also mentioned that the position would be reporting directly to me.” A smile crept across her lips. “Your first task will be to clean out May’s office. I’ll also drop off cleaning supplies. The desk, my desk, needs to shine.”
“You really should be careful,” I said, standing my ground. “You’re on my payroll.” I didn’t really know at that moment how much power I carried but figured it worth a try.
She left the window and moved to the other side of the chair, facing me. “Everyone knows you’re like a dog in heat when Bryce is around. Everyone knows you’re fucking him.”
“You have proof of this?” I asked. When she paused, I knew she didn’t. “Now, I suggest you take your slutty ass out of my office before I call security and have you removed.” I moved to my office door and opened it. “I’ll have May cut a check for you tomorrow.”
Clarissa scowled. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning you’re fired. Now get the hell out of my office.”
“You can’t do that!”
“I just did.”
“Gus…”
“Will be notified by me,” I interrupted.
When Clarissa left the office, I closed the door, clenched my fists and jaws, and managed to hold back the scream and rage desperately trying to escape. Who the hell was she to question my authority? Things were starting to fall apart at the seams. Gus would be super pissed that I fired Clarissa. In fact, he would probably go to the trustees immediately and try to have that decision overturned. Fuck!
Inheritance Goals: A Sports Romance Page 12
