Changing the Play

by Julia Blake

  “Marcus Loder, if you think for one second—”

  In a flash, he dropped the carving knife on the counter, crossed the kitchen, and swept his wife up in his arms to lead her in a little dance across the black and white tiles.

  “I don’t think when you’re around. I just know I love you,” he said.

  Catherine Loder, nurse, mother, football mom, administrator of tough love, and pusher of food melted before Rachel’s very eyes. “I’ll leave the woman alone.”

  Her husband twirled her back over to the kitchen sink. “Good.”

  Rachel leaned against the counter and watched the long-married couple move in their own rhythm, the banter and the cacophony of clanging pans providing the music.

  People liked to ask her what her favorite thing about the job was. She usually gave pat answers like “Getting to meet the next generation of Hall of Fame athletes” or “Traveling across the world” because that’s exactly what they wanted to hear. But, in truth, it was getting to see inside the good families—the ones who loved and supported each other—that made her job worth it. It was helping these people who bent over backward to make their child’s dreams happen for more than just the big payout on draft day.

  Finished carving, Marcus hefted the heavy platter of chicken and marched into the living room with its dining table set up at the far end. She was about to follow when Catherine stepped up to her and in a low voice said, “You could do a lot worse than having a bit of fun with a man who looks like Nick Ruben. And don’t tell my husband I said that. Men get sensitive about these sorts of things.”

  Rachel shook her head as Catherine pushed through the swinging door, leaving her standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding a basket of bread.

  Chapter 4

  Two days later Rachel’s phone screamed at her to wake up. Through the haze of sleep, she couldn’t tell whether it was her alarm or a phone call.

  Her hand snaked out from under her warm covers, and she fumbled for the phone. When her fingers bumped against the rubber case, she scooped it up and blindly unlocked the device.

  “Rachel, it’s Catherine,” a tinny voice chirped through the speaker before she could even get it to her ear.

  She bolted upright, the white duvet sliding down her body. Definitely not her alarm.

  “Is everything okay?” Her heart pounded as she reached over to click on the light.

  “It is. It is.” The Loder matriarch sounded eerily contrite.

  Dread began to spread from Rachel’s chest to her entire body. She fished her glasses and iPad out from the tangle of bed linens. Shoving the glasses on, she woke up the tablet to see it was 4:24 a.m.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry to call so early,” Catherine was saying as Rachel pulled up her email to look for any Google alerts on Kevin. If he was in trouble, there might still be time to contain it and keep it out of the news. “It’s just I’m on the night shift at the hospital and I was on my break and I was thinking.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, trying to calm the older woman down. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong?”

  “I talked to that reporter again.”

  Her tablet fell to the bed. Kevin hadn’t done anything wrong, but Catherine had, even after she promised Rachel she wouldn’t.

  She exhaled in a slow, steady stream. Catherine’s human, she told herself. In fact, she’d spent all of yesterday preparing a contingency plan in case something like this happened. Reporters could be persuasive, poking at vulnerabilities and weaknesses, the things that made athletes so compelling to their viewers, until they nailed a story.

  “You spoke to Nick Ruben,” Rachel said, pushing her annoyance aside. This wasn’t Catherine’s fault. She was the proud mother of a gifted son. The person she really blamed was Nick.

  “I don’t know how he found my address. I didn’t give it to him at the track meet,” Catherine said.

  “It isn’t too hard if you have access to the right databases.”

  She could practically hear Catherine twisting her hands on the other end of the line, the faint sounds of a hospital in the background. “I know you said not to talk to anyone, but it’s just—”

  She pressed two fingers to her right temple and started rubbing in circles. It didn’t do anything to ease the pressure of an impending headache. Not when the headache was six foot one with sharp green eyes.

  “Don’t be sorry, Catherine.” She tried to keep the sigh out of her voice. “Nick’s persistent. Even more than I realized.”

  “Kevin and I want to do the interview. We want it to be NYSN,” Catherine said with determination.

  Rachel let herself fall back against the pile of pillows on her bed. Fantastic.

  “I understand,” she said. Kevin wasn’t in sports prison. He had the right to speak to whomever he wanted. If he and his mother wanted him to do the interview with Nick, there was only so much she could do to stop him without running the risk of damaging the strong relationship she’d worked so hard to forge with the Loder family.

  Still, it was the last thing she wanted to concede because—among other things—doing an interview would mean working with Nick. Closely.

  The memory of him had plagued her since their drinks. And the worst part was that she couldn’t deny the jolt of desire that shot through her whenever she thought of his hands on her shoulders. But it was his smiles that bothered her the most—all of them. Smug, confident, open, sexy, sheepish. Each one had undone her a little more until she was in danger of unraveling.

  Except now he’d gone behind her back, breaking the code that said he should speak to her and her alone about Kevin’s availability. Now she was bordering on furious and working hard to control her anger.

  Catherine pulled her attention back. “We’re tired of waiting around. I see all of those other draft prospects on ESPN and the NFL Network every day. What if my boy slips because he’s not getting TV time?”

  Ah, so that’s what this was really about—what it was always about. Every parent worried and wondered why their kid wasn’t getting national exposure. Even if Kevin was the number one draft pick, his family would want to know what more they could do. More. More. More.

  “Too much exposure before the draft can be a really bad thing,” she said. “Those interviews have a tendency to expose a lot of flaws, even when we don’t mean for them to.”

  “I know we have to be careful because of Kevin’s condition.”

  She sat up a little straighter. “That will not be a problem. We’ve done everything we can do to make sure he’s safe.” Then, softening her voice a little, she added, “You know Kevin’s my top priority.”

  Catherine’s voice came through low and clear. “He’s my baby boy. Prove it.” Then the woman hung up.

  Rachel sat in bed, staring at her phone. She would prove it. She had to.

  She swung her feet over the side of the bed and started her day, determined to restore the balance of power between her and Nick.

  Thirty punishing minutes on her building’s treadmill later she was in the shower, mapping out her game plan. She’d have Nathan clear her schedule and she’d bring Kevin in for more media training. But first she needed to assess the company line.

  For months now, her boss, Rob, had been dropping not-so-subtle hints that he thought she was handling the Loder account all wrong. Image Sports had a superstar in the making, and he wanted to brag about it. But Rachel knew that Rob’s approach was exactly the wrong one for an athlete like Kevin. She’d worked to keep her shark of a boss at bay, but really the only thing holding him back was the Loder family’s agreement to stay off the radar before the draft. Now that Catherine was pushing for an NYSN interview, Rachel would be struggling to keep the Loders happy and protected while holding Rob at arm’s length. Not to mention Nick.

  If she were running her
own agency, all of this would be playing out very differently. The problem was, she wasn’t—no matter how much she thought about breaking out and starting her own firm. She might be the agent with one of the biggest income-generating client lists, but Rob still signed her paycheck.

  By eight, Rachel had walked the thirteen blocks to work and was at her desk. One of her cabinets was open, revealing an electric kettle set to boil next to a small French press. The two TVs mounted on the far wall were tuned to ESPN and ESPN2, the soft gab of Mike and Mike filling her office.

  Rachel pulled her laptop out of her leather purse and opened it up. An innocuous Word document labeled “General Notes” sat innocently in a folder of miscellany. It was, in fact, the most valuable tool she had—her bible. It contained her notes on every major news outlet and every single reporter who’d crossed her path since she started working at Image fresh out of college.

  She keyed in her passcode and scrolled down to the Rs. As soon as she’d read the press release that Nick Ruben was leaving his Chicago station, she’d started an entry on him. She wanted to be prepared when he came calling. It had taken him three years, but finally the work was paying off.

  Her eyes scanned the bullet points highlighting his career as she knew it:

  • Chose baseball over football out of high school, graduated 2000

  • University of Missouri scholarship to pitch. Tore ligament in elbow freshman season

  • Started writing for the Columbia Missourian and doing color commentary for Mizzou baseball games. Appeared as student TV reporter

  • Hired as an AP beat reporter in Kansas City, 2004–2005

  • Hired as an on-air sports reporter in Kansas City, 2005–2007

  • Hired as an on-air sports reporter in Seattle, 2007–2010

  • Hired as an on-air sports reporter in Chicago, 2010–2012

  • Currently an on-air sports reporter and fill-in anchor at New York Sports Network

  She’d made a couple additional notes about significant stories he’d covered since he’d been at NYSN and a couple of Page Six appearances when he’d been spotted on the arm of a young, Russian tennis player who washed out of the majors after injuring her knee a year and a half ago, but not much else.

  For any other reporter, this bio would be enough to orient herself. When it came to Nick, she needed to know how he worked, how he approached interviews. Was he a gotcha kind of reporter with a chip on his shoulder who’d never gotten over his own failed baseball career or was he an ethical stickler who’d report exactly what he saw? She hoped he proved to be something in the middle.

  A knock snapped Rachel’s head up. Her boss filled the doorway.

  “I got your text. What did you need to talk to me about? Sounds urgent,” said Rob.

  She pushed her laptop away. “The Loders want to talk.”

  A slow smirk spread over Rob’s face. “I told you we were keeping them on too short a leash.”

  “I’ve been keeping them on too short a leash,” she corrected him. “I remember you laying the responsibility for that decision at my feet.”

  “And it was the wrong decision,” huffed Rob. “They’re excited about Kevin. Let’s let them talk.”

  “And get some publicity for Image?” she asked.

  Rob settled himself into a chair in front of her desk. He crossed one brushed suede Italian loafer over his knee and began drumming his fingers on the side of his shoe. “Success gives rise to success. Kevin’s going to be a second-round pick. He’d be first round if this wasn’t the best quarterback class since 2008.”

  She bristled at her boss’s refusal to acknowledge her analysis that Kevin should be a lock at the end of the first round.

  “You know that nothing’s guaranteed until his rookie contract is signed,” she said, slipping back into the same fight she and Rob always had when it came to Kevin.

  He laughed. “You’re too cautious, Pollard.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with assessing risk and making a decision based on that.”

  Rob’s smirk grew. “You sound like an actuary. Let me tell you something. When I took over this agency from my father, he told me he never got anywhere by sitting back and letting success come to him.”

  “I’ll bet he also never told you to be reckless with a client’s career. This isn’t monopoly money we’re playing with, Rob. This is a kid’s livelihood. His signing bonus is going to be more than four times his parents’ annual income combined. I don’t want to risk that kind of money for him and his family.”

  “Typical woman,” her boss muttered.

  Over the years, Rachel had heard it all. She’d been called a bitch by college coaches who resented losing their best rising seniors to the pros. She’d had people question whether she could do her job because she happened to have boobs, all while others questioned her womanhood entirely because she “closed deals like a man.” Dress up, dress down, skirts and heels or pants and boots, there was no pleasing everyone. About four months into the job, she stopped trying to win people over and realized that if she wanted respect, she was going to have be a better agent than any of the men she worked with.

  That’s why, sitting in her own office across from the man she’d made millions for, the blatant sexism of his response pissed her the fuck off.

  She stood, tall in her stilettos, and braced her hands on her desk. “Do you have a problem with me, Rob?”

  He looked a little startled. “What? No.”

  “Because if you do, I can walk myself out of here and down the street to Armstrong & Lee or All-Star Sports. I’m sure they wouldn’t have a problem with a ‘typical woman.’ ”

  She could practically see Rob throw his brain into reverse. “You’re overreacting. It’s just a tense time here. Loder is a big deal.”

  “I’m acutely aware of that.”

  “So what do you suggest we do?” he asked, no doubt deferring to her out of fear that she’d make good on her threat to jump agencies.

  Slowly she lowered herself back down into her desk chair. She’d won that fight easily, but the adrenaline still pumped through her veins. Carefully she said, “It’s gotten to the point that we have to let the Loders do the interview. I’ll call Nick and hammer out the terms of the agreement. This has to be contained.”

  Rob nodded a little more emphatically than usual. “Use that famous Pollard magic. Have you worked with this Ruben guy before?”

  She shook her head. “No, but we used to know each other a long time ago.”

  “Oh?” He raised an eyebrow, the playfulness he usually exhibited when he was trying to apologize for some sort of gaffe coming back into his voice.

  “High school,” she intoned, keeping her voice neutral.

  “An old boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  Rebuffed, Rob rose from his seat. “Well, I hope you can control him.”

  She had a pretty good idea Nick wasn’t going to like being managed by her one bit, but her boss didn’t need to know that. Especially when he was almost groveling.

  “When have I not been able to control a reporter? Besides, I think he wants to make a career move with a high-profile exclusive,” she said.

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “It’s just a guess, but I think it’s probably a pretty solid one.”

  The question of why Nick had reestablished contact after years had been nagging at her. She figured it took a lot for a man like him to ask for a favor, to put himself in someone else’s hands. It would also explain why he was pushing so hard, going around her to speak to the Loders.

  Rob nodded to her on his way out. “Then make this story happen. The draft’s less than two months away. Then this will all be over.”

  No it wouldn’t, she thought as her boss crossed the still-empty bullpen. The draft was just the beginning. With any l
uck, she’d be the steward of Kevin’s long, successful career.

  Rachel glanced at the clock on her laptop. 8:27. Resigned, she picked up her cell phone. Time to make moves.

  NICK SAT on the Saint Croix beach, the sun crisping his skin golden. A few feet away, turquoise water lapped gently against the hot white sand. He had a Harry Bosch novel in one hand and a Negra Modelo with a lime wedged in the neck in the other.

  Paradise.

  He nudged his sunglasses up, cracked the spine of the book, and—

  Brrrrrr!

  The sound of a far-off ship’s horn broke the peace and quiet of his beach escape. He frowned and looked back down at his book.

  Brrrrr!

  “What the hell?” he murmured as the ocean receded and the sand started slipping away. The beer disappeared from his hand, and his book dissolved into nothing.

  Brrrrrrriiiiinnngg!

  A cell phone. What was a cell phone doing on his beach?

  He opened his eyes to the crushing realization that he was in his Chelsea apartment in the middle of March and his damn phone was shrieking like a banshee.

  With a groan, Nick rolled over and ham-handedly smacked his nightstand until he found the thing.

  “Rise and shine, Ruben.” A woman’s voice flooded his ear. “It’s time to play Let’s Make a Deal.”

  “Rachel?” he asked, groaning. He felt like he’d just been hit by a truck. Or maybe a whole cargo train.

  “Who else would it be?”

  He groaned again. “What time is it?”

  “Eight twenty-eight on Tuesday morning.”

  Oh God. He usually slept for at least another three hours before dragging himself to the gym. Then it was breakfast and off to work for the night shift. Sports reporting meant that when most people were getting home, he was just hitting his stride.

  He scrubbed a hand through his hair, as though that would wake his brain cells. “It’s so early.”

  “Not my fault you decided to go behind my back and speak to my client’s mom. Again.”