by Mia Ford
“Of course not,” I assured him as I watched him loosen his tie and drape it over a kitchen chair. “Do you need help tomorrow?”
“You’ve been home for a day and change. You’re allowed to rest,” Payne reminded me as I shrugged and got him a beer.
“It’s quiet on the weekends, so I thought it would be a nice chance to catch up is all.” Payne seemed to consider that idea as I felt Dad looking at me.
“She’ll make an excellent attorney someday,” Payne said as Dad nodded. “Come in at ten. You know where the building is?” I nodded. “I’ll be waiting out front for you.”
“Perfect,” I agreed as I heard the bread maker beeping. I shut it off, letting the sourdough bread inside cool as I glanced at the clock. We sat down to eat about forty-five minutes later after watching some of the scores on television while I played around on my phone for a few minutes. I was thinking about contacting some friends to see who was around as much as I was looking at Payne every few moments as he argued something with my dad.
They’d been friends for years, probably since before they were my age. They were as close as brothers, which worked out well because they were both only children. My grandparents died when I was fifteen and Payne’s lived near Harvard, so he didn’t see them often. They were lovely though, and fed me a few times during my life there. They were like my own grandparents and it made me wonder of what I was doing here was terrible. They wouldn’t approve of their son with me from what I understood about them.
They were thousands of miles away. It didn’t matter.
I looked at him across the table inside of the kitchen, seeing his eyes pass over me a few times throughout the evening. They weren’t long or particularly heated gazes, but he was aware of my presence.
Payne left after dinner, claiming that he needed his beauty sleep for work tomorrow. I knew that was code for him being there before I arrived and asked what I should wear. “The weekends are casual. Jeans are fine or anything comfortable.” Payne looked at me before he walked towards the door and called out a goodbye to Dad, who was in his office. I locked the door as always and scurried up to my room as I played back the brief night.
I felt like something was brewing between Payne and I, but there wasn’t anything sexual yet. He was still treating me as kindly as he always had and seemed to notice that I’d grown up over the years. I pulled out some skinny jeans and a bronze t-shirt to wear in the morning with some Cons. I was looking forward to wearing my new clothes next week but there was no need for overkill. Not yet.
I crawled into bed around midnight, stroking myself as I bit my lip to stay quiet. The house was big, but I didn’t want to get caught as I came hard and fast. I rolled onto my side and looked out of the large picture window at the moon as I caught my breath. I was excited about the next day.
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BREAKING RULES
EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT TO HOT SELLING - “FAIR PLAY” (A BAD BOY SPORTS ROMANCE - 1ST 2 CHAPTERS ONLY)
Kate Asher
“Forget it, Kate, he’ll never talk to you,” Walter said, shaking his bald head slowly and making the squinty face that reminded me of that old cartoon character, Mr. Magoo.
I was doing my best to keep the whine out of my voice. Walter hated whiny women. I said, “But I don’t understand why I couldn’t at least try to contact Sean Donovan and—“
He gave me a dismissive wave, like he was shooing away a bad smell. Walter was in his late fifties and had drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney for decades. His voice was gruff and irritating, especially when he was dealing with what he considered to be overeager young journalists who were pitching him silly story ideas.
He said, “It would be a total waste of time and resources, so just forget it. Sean Donovan is still pissed at us for posting that video of him having a three-way with those two groupies in Chicago. Our people can’t even get past the guards at Kings Stadium anymore. We have to cover their home games by watching them on TV or listening to them on the radio.”
I blew out a long breath and bit my lip. Arguing with Walter Thompson was like having a battle of wits with a brick wall. No matter how sound your argument, there was no way to convince him that your idea had merit once he decided that it did not. And Walter rarely gave merit to any idea I came up with.
I was a girl.
A chick.
A broad.
Hired to keep the EEOC off his back.
I should have been off writing for Glamour or Modern Bride. Professional sports reporting was no place for girl, at least in Walter’s mind. He’d never say it out loud, of course, because it would get his ass sued off. But I had worked for Walter since getting out of journalism school two years ago. I knew exactly how he felt about women journalists in sports, even good ones like me.
Walter was my editor at Sports Insider Online. He was the guy who assigned stories to writers and decided what went in the magazine, what went online, and what went in the trash.
Walter was an old-school sports guy, always reminiscing about the “good old days” and how things used to be, i.e. when all sports reporters were male. Walter was also a sexist pig who thought that “little girls” like me should be on the sidelines in slutty cheerleader outfits rather than on the field covering the game with the boys.
I sat in the chair across the desk from him and silently fumed for a minute. I’m not sure what I expected when I came in to pitch Walter the idea of me doing an exposé on Sean Donovan, the New York Kings star running back.
Hell, I didn’t even know if there was anything left to expose at this point. Sean Donovan had more dirt floating around the internet than Charlie Sheen, yet the good old boy sports reporters and TV analysts painted him to be a god.
The fans loved him, and who could blame them?
He averaged two touchdowns per game. And in football, that was all anyone cared about. As long as he wasn’t abusing women or kicking puppies, his off-the-field antics were more or less ignored.
Just boys being boys.
Blowing off a little steam.
It helped that he looked like the proverbial All American Hero.
Sean Donovan was six-three, packed with muscles, and could run the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds. He had caught more touchdown passes than any other Kings receiver in the past five years and was considered a shoe-in for this year’s Pro Bowl.
Why should anyone care about the testosterone-driven fights with other players on the field, or the drunken bar brawls with fans of other teams? Or the numerous sex videos floating around the internet? Jesus, this guy’s junk was on display more than Michelangelo’s statue of David. And Donovan’s junk was much bigger, if you know what I mean. I’d seen all the videos… for research purposes, of course.
But then there was the other side of Sean Donovan.
The side that donated millions of dollars to charity every year.
And the side that visited children’s hospitals in every city where the team played.
And the side that worked with inner city kids in New York City.
And the side that seems like a genuinely nice guy in TV interviews.
And that was the point of my pitch to Walter.
I wanted to find out which side was the real Sean Donovan.
I wanted to follow him around for a week or two and observe him as he went through his daily and nightly routines. I’d be a fly on the wall. I wanted to shadow him on and off the field, regardless of where that took me.
What made me think Sean Donovan would even agree to such an outrageous idea?
My own desperation, plain and simple.
I was tired of writing puff pieces about women’s tennis and girls’ volleyball.
I was tired of putting in hours of work only to see my stories relegated to the back of the magazine or buried deep in the website.
I was a serious journalist, goddammit.
And I could be great at my job, if only Walter would give me the chance.
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I took a deep breath and forced the emotion out of my voice. If you were one of the two female journalists working for Walter, the worst thing you could do was show emotion. And God forbid you cry in front of him. That would be like showing fear to a mad dog. Walter would rip out your heart and tell you to grow the fuck up. Then he’d assign you to cover a women’s ping pong match at a local rec center.
Breathing easy, I said, “So, I can’t even call the Kings office and request an interview with Sean Donovan?”
Walter sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. I could smell the whiskey that he put in his coffee each morning, and the cigarettes he’d smoked on his breath all the way across the desk.
“Look, Kate, I’m not being a dick here,” he said, patting his hands in the air like someone being a dick would do. “You can call the Kings all day long. The minute you tell them you’re from Sports Insider Online, they will tell you to go fuck yourself and hang up the phone.”
I scoffed at him and waved a hand toward the window, as if Sean Donovan was standing outside on the ledge. “So, Sean Donovan will talk to Sports Illustrated and People Magazine all day long. He just won’t talk to us.”
Walter shrugged his bushy eyebrows and bobbed his head. “That’s about the size of it. And he only talks game with Sports Illustrated and humanitarian shit with People. Nobody has ever done the kind of story you’re proposing because Sean Donovan wouldn’t agree to it.”
I rolled my eyes. So much for keeping emotion out of the situation. “He’s okay with women posting sex videos with him online, but he wouldn’t agree to let me do an in-depth profile of him?”
Walter leaned forward and planted his elbows on the desk. “Let’s be honest here, Kate. Do you think that Sean Donovan would let anyone shadow him for a week? Off the field?”
“You never know till you ask,” I said weakly.
“Sean Donovan is not going to let anyone follow him home, or follow him around nightclubs and watch him get shitfaced and fuck groupies in the bathroom. Even Sports Illustrated has never been to his house. And he has body guards that keep reporters and paparazzi at bay when he goes clubbing.” He leaned back and scratched his chin. “You’d have to work for Playboy or Rolling Stone or GQ to get that kind of access. And even then, I doubt he would agree to do it. He’d be insane to let the public peek behind that curtain, and I don’t blame him. For Christ sake, the guy’s gotta have a private life. You wouldn’t want someone poking around your underwear drawer, would you?”
I blinked at him. “My underwear drawer?”
“Figure of speech,” he said, making a sour face. “The point is…”
I stared at my hands in my lap as Walter rambled on. I didn’t look up when something he said sparked an idea in my mind. I just nodded slowly as if I understood and agreed with everything he was saying.
Walter took my nodding head to mean that the discussion was over. He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. He began to rock, welcoming a change in conversation.
He asked, “So, how’s the profile on Serena Williams coming?”
“It’s almost done,” I said, looking up with a forced smile. “I’ll have it to you this afternoon.”
“Excellent,” he said. He brought his hands down and rubbed them together, making a sound like sandpaper on rough wood. “I’ll give it a look and decide where we want to run it. Maybe we can make room for it in the magazine. Would you like that?”
“Sure, that would be great,” I said, getting out of the chair and walking toward the door. I ignored his feeble attempt to pacify me.
Walter was always dangling the chance that your work might make it into the magazine, which was much more prestigious than just getting it on the website.
At this point, I couldn’t give a shit what he did with the piece. He could shove it up his fat ass for all I cared.
As my coworker Drucilla would say, “What-the-fuck-ever, man.”
“Kate,” he called after me. “Keep up the good work.”
“Thanks, Walter, I will,” I said. I waited until I was down the hall before finishing my sentence. “You asshole.”
Sean Donovan
I passed the joint to Leon, the three-hundred-eighty-pound lineman slouched on the couch next to me, and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.
I squinted at the screen and nudged him with my elbow. “Okay, man, watch this catch…”
“I’m watching, motherfucker,” he said with the joint at his lips.
On the big screen was the video of yesterday’s game against the Chiefs. I was lined up wide-out right, and Leon Lewis, the black monster sitting next to me, was blocking right of center.
When the center hiked the ball to Matt Murphy, our quarterback, Leon blocked like a fucking brick wall to give me time to run down field so Matt could hit me with the ball.
“Here’s it comes…” I said, leaning forward with my fists clenched. “Watch this catch.”
A split second later, Murphy launched a long spiral that fell perfectly into my hands as I ran into the end zone. I jumped off the couch and did a happy dance.
“Touchdown, Sean motherfucking Donovan!” I yelled, throwing my arms in the air and dancing around. I glanced down at Leon and clapped my hands. “Did you see that fucking catch?”
Leon waved a huge hand at me and rolled his eyes. “Man, my granny could have caught that fucking pass.”
“Bullshit!” I said, reaching for the joint. “Let’s see your fat black ass run downfield and catch a ball like that.”
He chuckled and snorted smoke. “Shit man, my fat black ass is too busy giving Matt Murphy time to throw. I swear, that motherfucker moves in slow motion sometimes.”
I grinned and dropped back on the couch beside him. I took a long hit on the joint and passed it back his way. I choked out the words through the smoke.
“Yeah, but when he does throw it, it usually hits the mark.”
“Fucking A,” Leon said, taking the joint, which looked tiny between his thick fingers. “I’m getting hungry. You got anything to eat?”
I grinned at him. “There’s pussy in the bedroom.”
He made a face and shook his head. “I’m tired of eating pussy, man. Got any pizza?”
“I’ll go see.” I gave him a nod and worked my way off the couch again.
My knees were wobbly. I held my hands out like a surfer to steady myself as I stepped over sleeping bodies, empty booze bottles, and crushed beer cans on my way to the kitchen.
The victory party after yesterday’s game had been at my mansion last night, so the place was a wreck. In every room there were passed-out football players and naked cheerleaders, and maybe a groupie or two. No wives or girlfriends were ever allowed at the victory parties. That’s why the guys in relationships either didn’t show up or lied about where they were going.
I made it to the kitchen without stepping on anyone and pulled the freezer door open. It was one of those big stainless steel freezers, and one side was stacked with frozen pizzas.
I pulled out two Supremes and shoved them in the double ovens. Funny, I had a gourmet kitchen, but only knew how to cook pizzas and Pop Tarts. And I usually burned the shit out of those.
I leaned down and squinted to set the timers. I had no idea if I’d set the temperature or the timers correctly. I was too fucked up to concern myself about such things. And too fucked up to care.
I yelled at Leon. “Hey, if you smell smoke, that means the pizza is ready.”
“Heard,” he said. I couldn’t believe Leon was even awake. We’d been drinking and smoking dope for twelve hours, but somehow, he had managed to put on a video game and was killing zombies on the big screen like Daryl motherfucking Dixon from The Walking Dead.
“Gotta piss...” I said to no one in particular. I paused long enough to reach into the fridge for another beer, then dragged my feet from the kitchen and up the stairs to the master bedroom. I had to piss like a racehorse and there was a chick passed out sitting o
n the downstairs toilet. I had no idea who she was. Nice tits, though.
I gripped the railing with my free hand and pulled myself up the stairs. It was the house rule that my bedroom was off limits during parties. It was the only room in the house that hadn’t been invaded by my guests.
I opened the door and stepped inside, then closed the door and leaned back against it. I rubbed my eyes and blew out a long breath. I suddenly felt very tired.
“What the fuck are you doing, man?” I said as I popped the beer and took a long swig, spilling half of it down my chest. “You gotta fucking grow up.”
“Did you say something?”
The words came from a naked blond with big tits and a shaved bush who was sleeping in my bed. I stared at her for a moment. I vaguely remembered leaving her there after she got the Sean Donovan special a few hours before.
I tried to remember her name…
Carla?
Cassie?
Connie?
C… something…
“Just talking to myself,” I said, holding up the beer as I started toward the bathroom door. “Go back to sleep. It’s only Monday.”
I didn’t realize that I was naked until I stumbled into the bathroom and glanced in the mirror. I frowned at my reflection.
My body looked amazing (duh), but from the neck up, I looked like hell. My eyes were red and squinty. My lips were cracked and dry. I leaned into the mirror and tilted my head back. White powder rimmed my nostrils. And down below, my poor cock was hanging like a limp noodle.
“Fuck, man… You gotta sober up…” I said to the man in the mirror. “You look like shit.”
I imagined him saying, “You first, motherfucker.”
I huffed at him and turned to stand at the toilet with my feet spread and my hands against the wall to keep me from falling over. I must have looked like a guy waiting to be frisked.
