by Imani King
Still, he can do this one thing.
And I can clear my mind enough to tell him what’s what.
“Macklin Pride is getting a fiancée. The Mack Pride brand—well, it’s getting an upgrade. You’re getting a classy, well-bred, intelligent, educated football wife.” I smile at him like I’ve smiled at so many men I’ve worked with. Trust me. I’ve got this.
“A wife? Are you fucking kidding me?” Mack looks at me like I’ve started launching rotten tomatoes at his face. “I’m not—that’s not what I do. I mean it was—and I was serious when I—God, woman, you can’t do this—”
My cheeks grow hot, and there’s a clenching feeling inside my chest. I push aside the welling tide of emotion, trying not to read the looks crossing over Mack’s face. Yes, that was us, once. But I’m here for a job, and the situation in front of us is demanding this type of solution. I’ve done it a dozen times before. I take a deep breath and shrug to signal my nonchalance. “Macklin, there are all sorts of contracts, non-disclosure agreements, interviews, and processes in place to make sure we’ve got the right girl for your image. I’ve already talked to a few of them and we’ve already got a frontrunner. Now, none of this means you have to be with her for the rest of your life—”
“That’s what marriage is, Renata.” He looks at me pointedly. “That’s the biggest contract of all.” He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t continue.
Wingate looks between both of us and speaks to ease the tension. “You don’t have to marry her. Just be engaged for a good while. Make it through the season, become indispensable again. And for God’s sake, stop throwing those parties.”
“That’s right,” I continue. My body is tense, penned up, roiling with guilt and a lingering sadness I didn’t quite expect. I’ve never had this feeling with a client, not when I’m arranging a perfectly routine, normal celebrity relationship for him. But something about this feels different. Mack seems like he’s just being an ass, but maybe he truly doesn’t want to do this. “We won’t make you do it. But we know that this job means a lot to you. Maybe more than anything else.” I don’t mean that last part as a dig at him, but he looks at me like he might be taking it that way.
Mack cracks his knuckles and leans his head into his hands. It’s hard not to notice how sexy he is, how time has changed and altered him—and it’s all been in a good way. He looks just like himself, but more distinguished now. He looks up at me, his eyes distant, feelings hidden. “I do want to keep my job. Renata, tell me. You really do think I’m not going to be able to make it through the season without doing something like this?”
“I think exactly that,” I say softly. “I’ve done my research, talked to other players, talked to the owner, talked to your coach. I don’t think you’ll make it through the season without a major shift in your identity. And this is the start of all that. We’ve got other ideas too, but this is the event that will take attention away from your… indiscretions. And I’m betting it’ll keep you employed. Especially if you go for our first choice.”
“And who’s that?”
“Kinley Edwards.”
“The country star?” Mack looks between us, confused.
“She knows the owner of the team,” Wingate says. “And she just loves the team. Huge football fan. It’s a perfect match.” Wingate leans in toward his cousin. “And you know you need the paychecks to keep coming, man. This house, your brother’s farm. You need to keep on. We both do.”
Mack’s face goes dark. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll do it.”
CHAPTER NINE
“I won’t go out there, Wingate.” He watches me pace back and forth like I always do. I try to stop myself, and my fists automatically clench up. I know there’s already a patched-over hole in the wall, and I’d rather not deal with patching up another one again. So I go back to pacing and wonder if it’s too early for a beer. Then the ache comes back over me—the one I feel when I think of that night a week ago when Renata found me, nearly passed out, after I’d given out all that free information to the girl with the camera. The camera that I never saw—I wasn’t thinking about what could happen at that party. I wasn’t thinking. And now it’s come to this.
“You agreed to all of this. I watched you sit there and nod at Renata before she retreated back to the guest house and refused to see you again. She’s interviewed each and every one of those women. And then you picked one from the line-up, just like she wanted you to. You can’t come up to this dinner party thing and get second thoughts.”
He’s right. The photographer somehow leaked a few photos from the party even though we got her camera and her phone. Wingate thinks she paid someone who was at the party for a few of their pictures and got the story out anyway. Fortunately, it hasn’t been enough ammunition for the field day the media really wants to have, but it’s more than enough for there to be intense speculation about the parties, my use of alcohol, and the idea that I might be failing the team and its owner.
Rumors are circling, and Renata and Wingate are right. There’s only one way to deal with the media: give them another distraction.
Still, I can’t help feeling like this is all wrong. Seeing Renata the few times that I’ve been able to—stolen glimpses and hasty conversations before she puts as much physical distance between herself and me as possible—reminds me that there’s something more to life than parties and dimly remembered hookups. And it seems that there’s something far more than pulling a fast one on my team—and every news outlet that’s been following my story—with a stand-in girlfriend who becomes a stand-in fiancée at some nebulous point in the future.
“It’s not—this isn’t right. It doesn’t seem like something I should do.” I crack my knuckles and sit down on the bed in front of my cousin.
He regards me with something akin to disdain. “You can’t afford to have second thoughts. Let me reiterate. You agreed to this. You took the profiles and picked out the candidate. You talked to her on Skype and said she seemed—in your words—‘real nice.’ And she’s coming here tonight for a high-class dinner that can be effectively documented by a photographer of our choice. It puts the ball back in our court—or on our field, what the hell ever. It gives us back the power, and that way, we can help mold the public perception of you—and your fellow players while we’re at it. Instead of thinking we’re some lazy podunk joint down in the Carolinas, they’ll start to see more of what we can be.” Wingate leans back on the sofa that faces the bed and then looks out of the window that faces the pool.
It’s a bad reminder of all the shit I’ve pulled, a reminder that I might be able to do better.
The late-night parties that made me and my teammates late to practice. The several eighteen year-old girls I was dating at the same time, the ones who probably caught Eddie Davidson’s eye and made him know for sure that I was no damn good. Why does Renata being here make me feel like this? All reflective and shit? Good God, that woman. That stare of hers, cutting me down to the bone and making me realize things I haven’t figured out in six years of playing professional football.
I crack my knuckles again and think of Renata, the last time I saw her at Brooks University. I didn’t know I’d never see her again, didn’t know that all the shit that happened would happen. I’ve wished a million times that I could go back in time, start all over again.
But I can’t. And now we’re stuck here. I’m waiting for my fake girlfriend to show up, to start a relationship with someone I don’t know for the sake of cameras, for the sake of popularity, for the sake of who knows what.
I get up and pace again, and then I stop, looking directly at Wingate. “Couldn’t Renata be that woman for me? Couldn’t she pretend to be my girlfriend? We did it once before...” My voice trails off, and my throat tightens. There’s an uncomfortable twist deep in the pit of my stomach.
Wingate’s blond eyebrows furrow. "I don’t know what kind of ideas you’re getting, here. I brought Renata here because she’s the best at this ga
me, because she knows you so well. I didn’t bring her here to get her hurt or to give you some foolish notion that you get a do-over. You fucked up, boyo. A long time ago, I might add. And this woman’s here to straighten you out. I know you’re not used to having a woman around who’s looking out for you. She can see you’re going off the deep end better than anyone. And she’s here to fix it.”
Wingate’s voice reflects his anger—anger about the ways I’m messing up my career, and anger he hasn’t expressed in a long time. The anger that came when I hurt his friend.
“It just doesn’t feel right.” I sigh deeply, thinking again of that hole in the wall. In the past few days, all of it has started to sink in. I could lose my income, I could lose the job that I love, and I could lose the ability to help my brother take care of the farm back home. The very thought of my brother makes something tighten in my body, an old guilt that I haven’t faced in a long time. That day. Renata. The tremendous weight of leaving her.
Wingate gives me a stern look. “You don’t have the luxury of thinking something doesn’t feel right, man. You know what a regular man working at a bank would get from pulling all this shit?”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Fired, probably last year. And without severance. One thing we know about the NFL, they’re not going to give you a fat severance package. They’ll leave you high and dry, and before long, you’ll be homeless or working as a damn football coach at the local high school. That’s if you’re lucky. When it comes to you, Mack, I think the homeless thing might be a little more likely.”
I can’t do this when the woman I loved is right out there in the guest house.
I should say it, but I don’t. Wingate doesn’t know about my brother, about my mother and father. About the farm. There’s so much shame tied up with all of that that I can’t bear even thinking about it, let alone saying it aloud. The deal still stands, my brother reminded me when Renata got up here. As long as her old man is living.
“I don’t want that. I don’t.” It’s all I can say. I’ve already agreed to this party with Kinley, already met her over the computer and talked to her and signed the forms. She’s showing up within the next ten minutes, and she’s depending on me, too.
I have the itch to pick up a bottle of fine whiskey and start drinking it, but I feel sick when I remember the look on Renata’s face after that party. I feel sicker when I think of the stories that popped up about me in the papers, the things that woman said. A week later, and Renata and Wingate assure me that this news will replace what’s being said about me. They assure me this engagement will get me started in the season, that it’ll eventually get me through the whole thing. It seems an awful length to go to avoid getting fired, but I reckon people have done a lot of stupid shit for that very reason over the course of human history.
The best I can do is go out there with my head held up high. Renata makes it her business to know what’s best for professional athletes, and I have to put my trust in her. “Fine,” I say, looking over to Wingate. “You all win. I don’t want to lose this.”
Wingate nods, and it’s only after he leaves the room that I’m not sure what I’m talking about. Lose what? Is it football I’m thinking about, or is it the woman pulling the strings?
I shake away the thought and pull on my button-down shirt and the expensive jeans that Renata found at the back of my closet. I’m as polished as I ever am, which isn’t saying much.
I paste on a smile, and walk out into the living room, where Kinley Edwards, country star, is waiting. She’s a cute enough girl with long flowing hair and shapely legs. Her face doesn’t have any of the intelligent depth of Renata’s, or the high cheekbones or the deep brown eyes I fell in love with.
But this is all pretend.
I don’t have to fall in love, and looking at Kinley, I know I won’t.
I go up to her and shake her hand.
“Nice to officially meet you, business partner,” I say, shaking her hand.
“Same,” she says with a wink I'm not sure if I like. “Now let’s rock this relationship like nobody’s business.”
After that, things become a blur. There are people starting to arrive, and for once, I fall into the rhythm of behaving like a normal human being, which I suppose is the best thing for my career.
Going through the motions, I remind myself that there are many celebrities who have gone through the same arrangement, and some of them have even built real relationships. I don’t hold out hope for that. But I think of it when I get the creeping feeling that something is wrong, that it I’m going against the natural order of my life.
I’ve had that feeling for the past six years, I realize. I’ve usually just covered it up with booze and more and more women, but tonight I’m feeling it for the first time, trying to understand what it means. I purposefully walk past the open bar, even though my hand is itching to have a full glass in it. I greet the football players and their wives, trying to focus, trying to drive away the dread I feel about this whole damn situation.
There’s the job—a job I love, a job I need. And it’s only sunk in the last week how very little I know about keeping that job. There’s even a message sitting in my voicemail from the owner, Eddie Davidson, telling me how delighted he was about my budding relationship with Kinley Edwards. As an aside, he’d added that he’d be happy to keep me through the season if things went well with Kinley.
A threat. That’s what it was. And like she always has been, Renata is right. Right about Eddie. Right about this plan.
Still, I can’t help looking over at Kinley and wishing she were different. Wishing her blond hair was deep black. Wishing her full lips were stained cherry red. Wishing her skin and eyes were a deep golden brown, that her brain was sharper, that her career was less frivolous and far more focused. Without alcohol surging in my system, it’s clear to me that I’d rather she were Renata.
But Renata wasn’t up for the role. Not after what I did, anyway. She doesn’t want anything to do with me. Wingate told me she won’t even walk the hundred yards up to the house for the party.
I don’t blame her. By God, I don’t.
After a spell, I get dragged into a conversation with Kinley and my friend Darius, whose date is conspicuously absent. Kinley throws her hand over my arm, and Darius rolls his eyes slightly in my direction. Despite his read of the situation, the conversation flows easily, and Kinley and I fall into a rhythm, joking and maybe actually enjoying each other’s company.
I turn and walk across the room to refill her wine, and at the door, there’s a shadow. Standing about five foot eight, with deep black hair and a hint of red on her lips. My stomach threatens to drop out of my body altogether, and it takes all of the will power I have to pull myself away and walk back to Kinley.
It’s clear as crystal to me as I drag the words out of my mouth to make more small talk with prissy little Kinley. There’s only one woman that I want.
And I had to go and break her heart, ditch her and leave her behind after I graduated from Brooks.
For my family.
But as I look over my shoulder and see her looking inside, I know for certain it wasn’t worth the pain.
It never was.
And now I can’t help feeling like we’re both trapped in a game that will push us further and further apart.
CHAPTER TEN
There’s no good reason why I’m up here. None at all. I had my meeting with Kinley before Mack’s dinner. I checked in with our photographer, and with the sources at each one of the papers and media outlets where we’re carefully releasing pictures of a poised, sober Macklin Pride and his classy new musician girlfriend.
Kinley was pleasant enough, I suppose. wearing a dress made of light gray eyelet lace that made her look like she stepped out of an Anthropologie catalog. Her dark blue high heels even had matching eyelet cutouts. And she even recited our story perfectly--she’d met Macklin at one of her concerts. He was a fan, and he’d come backstage to tal
k to her, and of course, he was the perfect gentleman. We even had the tickets and a carefully orchestrated photo shoot set up the following day that would place Mack at her concert, showing the two of them meeting for the first time. With every word she recited to me, she spoke with charm and grace.
Her eyes were blue, her immaculately curled hair strawberry blond.
Even though it’s been years since I’ve been with Macklin, it seemed to me that Kinley was everything I wasn’t--innocent and sweet, her voice soft and melodious, her edges soft where mine have always been hard. No wonder he chose her--she’s nothing like me at all. Of course, she does have business savvy—pairing with a playboy like Mack will help her see a surge in album sales and ticket purchases. And an engagement--if the two of them can pull it off—will benefit her even more.
Everything seems to be set up perfectly, but I can't shake a little niggling feeling of unease. As I said, Kinley had been perfectly pleasant at our meeting. Almost too pleasant, in a way. Too polished, too perfect. And there had been a strange edge to her tone when we discussed the terms of the contract. She'd made what sounded like a throwaway comment about 'making it real' when I reminded her that it was a business arrangement only, not an emotional one of any kind. And when I questioned that statement, informing her that Macklin Pride wasn't the settling type, she'd taken a step towards me, looked me right in the eye and told me that she was used to getting what she wanted.
Now, I'm used to ambitious young people and in every other way, Kinley seemed perfect. Or, almost perfect. But her tone had been cold where mine was friendly and professional.
"I always get what I want." - That's what she'd told me. I wanted to ask her what she meant but the truth is, Macklin Pride's options - and therefore my own options - are running out. He's tiptoeing along a precipice of disaster, seemingly unaware of just how close he is to be fired from the only job he's ever known. There isn't enough time to vet more women or come up with another plan. It has to happen now. So all I can do is cross my fingers and hope that Kinley Edwards is as level-headed as I'm hoping she is. Calculating, I can handle. Ambitious, cold, self-interested - I can handle those things, too. As long as she's stable and I'm trusting that she is, because there isn't a plan B to fall back on.
