Challenging the Center (Santa Fe Bobcats)

by Jeanette Murray

She smiled sweetly. “Just checking.”

  “I know how to put a weight on a bar,” he said under his breath.

  “How was I supposed to know that? Safety first,” she chirped, then stepped onto the riser and let the bar and padding settle comfortably over her shoulder blades.

  “What’s the connection?”

  “Agent,” she finally said, then twisted her hands to unrack the bar and began a set of twelve presses with her calves. This one was hard because she always had the instinct to bounce. It took effort and concentration to make the motions of lowering her heels toward the ground smooth and deliberate.

  “Your agent hooked you up.”

  She racked the bar and stepped forward, still on the riser, which made her an inch taller than the annoying man. Before answering, she surveyed him a moment. Skin that was darker than a tan, probably indicating multiple ethnicities in his genealogy, dark hair that was buzzed nearly to the shape of his head, and eyes that were sharp and such a deep brown they nearly blended in with the pupils. Fit, of course, but not overly tall. Lean rather than muscular. Built for speed, she guessed.

  “Running back?”

  “Receiver,” he corrected, looking surprised. “Bobcats fan?”

  She laughed and shook her head before taking her place under the bar. Before she unracked, she added, “Football is a mystery to me. But it was a shot in the dark. You weren’t going to be a lineman. And everyone knows who the quarterback is even if you hate the sport. Trey Owens is known by all.”

  As she went through her next set of twelve, he surveyed her. But she had a feeling it was less about sexual appreciation and more about judging her worthiness.

  “So you’re, what, a workout partner?”

  “Something… like that,” she said with some effort, racking the bar and stepping out from under it. “What does it matter?”

  “Because I like to know who I’m working out with.” His smile wasn’t cocky, exactly, but it wasn’t all that friendly either.

  “I’m not distracting anyone, and I’m not in your way.”

  “You’re here.”

  “So what? Afraid I’m going to press more than you and make you look bad?” She patted his shoulder in a there, there gesture and got ready for her last set of calf raises. When she finished and started taking the weights off the right side, she was surprised when he unclipped and removed the weights on the left.

  “Are you saying you could press more than me?”

  She laughed again. “That would be ridiculous. Hard as I train, biologically that’s unlikely. But,” she added because she couldn’t resist, “strength isn’t the only thing that counts in the game.”

  That had him raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms over his chest. “Oh yeah?”

  She grinned. “Yeah.”

  Michael checked his phone, shocked he hadn’t missed a call or text from Kat while he’d been in the meeting. Come get me, I’m tired. By now she had to be bored senseless.

  Unless she was causing problems. Again. Jesus.

  Michael broke into a jog as he made his way from the offices at the facility to the weight room. The moment he hit the hallway, he heard the masculine laughter and cheering.

  God, please let her not be doing some weird dance routine on top of a weight bench.

  But as he opened the door, he wasn’t sure which was worse: her dancing on top of a weight bench, or…

  “Lambert!” Caleb walked over, a smile on his face. “She’s a frickin’ machine! She’s about to kick Rodman’s ass. This is the hardest I’ve seen him work in weeks.”

  Michael maneuvered around the guys who were standing watching the back of the room where the mats for stretching were and found… well, damn.

  Kat and Rodman Holiday were both hauling ass on burpees in what he quickly realized was a competition. They placed their hands on the floor, thrust their legs back into push-up position, hopped them forward again, then jumped as high as they could, arms reaching above them. From the looks of it, they’d been going for a while. Each had a counter standing beside them, keeping track of the number completed as the rest of the guys shouted encouragement—or heckling for Rodman.

  Then someone in the crowd yelled, “Ten!”

  The countdown was on, everyone joining in with, “Nine, eight, seven,” like it was freaking New Year’s Eve in Times Square.

  “How long have they been doing this?” Michael asked to nobody in particular.

  “Two minutes total,” came someone’s answer just as the crowd reached one, and both contestants flopped down on the floor, chests heaving, both dripping in sweat.

  He maneuvered himself around the guys watching to walk up beside the mat. Kat rolled over onto her back, laughter lighting her face. Her sweatshirt was long gone, and she wore only the sports bra and her shorts. Her stomach and the fronts of her thighs left a sweat print on the mat.

  “What the hell is going on here?” he asked. God, that sounded pompous.

  “What… does it… look like?” she gasped, hand clutched to her stomach as she fought for breath. The hard muscles of her abdomen contracted and stretched with each labored breath.

  “Friendly competition,” Rodman said with less effort, though he was clearly still winded.

  “And the winner, in two minutes with sixty-three burpees, is Kat Kelly!” Caleb walked between them and grabbed one of Kat’s arms, holding it as high as she could reach from her position flat on the mat. She laughed, and Rodman cursed and rolled onto his stomach again.

  “I told you not to slow down, man,” his counter said while the guys all cheered and jeered simultaneously.

  “This,” one of the linemen said with a leer, “is going on Facebook.” He held up his phone and started walking away, several guys following, asking to see the video.

  Lovely. Just fantastic. More video evidence of his complete ineptitude. He started to walk to the teammate with the phone, but then his strength coach clapped a hand over his shoulder. With a mental groan, he watched it unfold, helpless to stop it.

  Kat finally sat up, taking the towel another guy handed her before receiving a fist bump of congratulations.

  “Can she come back every day?” Caleb asked under his breath. “Seriously, just breathed new life into some of these jackwagons who have been going cruising on autopilot for too long.”

  Michael started to snap no, she sure as hell can’t come back when he looked around him. Yeah, several guys were still hanging by her, but others had gone back to their workouts and were, to his mind, attacking it with an intensity he hadn’t seen in a while in the weight room. There were always a few guys who lived for weights, but mostly it was a routine they had all become complacent in. Now, though…

  Huh.

  “It’s up to you, man,” Caleb continued as he checked his clipboard. “But as far as I’m concerned, she’s welcome back, as long as she signs a waiver.” He left Michael to check in a few new arrivals to the weight room.

  “Hey.” Kat walked up, zipping her hoodie as she approached. “I can catch a cab back to the apartment if you have practice.”

  “I do,” he said slowly. “What, not gonna ask if you can use the sauna or get a massage?”

  She wrinkled her nose as she flipped the hair of her ponytail from the collar of her shirt. “That’s going a little too far. Using weights that nobody else is currently using is one thing. Taking up a trainer’s time for a massage… something else entirely. Though I wouldn’t say no to a recommendation for a massage after hours.”

  He surveyed her, watching as she still worked to slow her breathing.

  “I told you I wouldn’t get in the way. I meant it.”

  And he saw she did. For all her antics and love of attention, she had stayed on the fringes in the weight room and actually used it for its intended purpose. And used it well.

  “You impressed Caleb,” he said, walking out of the weight room with her. “The strength coach back there. He said you can come back anytime if I was okay with i
t.”

  Her face lit with hope. “Seriously? You’re kidding.”

  He might regret it later, but… “Yeah, it’s fine with me.”

  “Thank you!” In the empty hallway, she did a little dance of glee, then threw her arms around him for a quick hug. She was gone before he could react, but his arms itched to pull her back against him for another, longer hug.

  Perv.

  “If you want to catch a cab, I’ll show you where to wait up front. Kristen will help you get one.”

  He tried hard not to touch her—even a brush of arms—the rest of the walk to the main desk so he could give his body time to calm down before practice.

  Kat stabbed a piece of lettuce and glared at it. “This has to be the worst part about my job.”

  Aileen Rogers, who had introduced herself as a sports reporter first and Killian Reeves’ wife second, grimaced. “Do you have to eat the rabbit food?”

  Kristen Kelpar, the assistant Michael had left her with over two hours earlier, rolled her eyes. “You work out for a billion hours a week, and your least favorite part of your job is eating salad?”

  “I like working out.” Kat let the fork settle back into the plastic container that held the take-out salad.

  When Michael had introduced Kat to Kristen, he’d left rather rapidly. After Kat had told the assistant she needed a cab, Kristen had immediately asked if she wanted to stay for lunch, as Aileen was also coming in to work on schedules for interviews. They’d welcome the company, she swore.

  Let’s see… eating lunch alone in my boring apartment in a city where I know almost nobody or make new friends and have some company?

  No brainer.

  Kat had the feeling Kristen was about ten years older than her twenty-six but had no problem relating to her. Aileen was closer in age, in her estimation, though she’d achieved a lot in the last few years in her career. Despite the differences, they had immediately fallen into an easy conversation.

  “Who likes working out?” Aileen sighed and dipped a fry into some ranch dressing. “I mean, Killian runs, which is obviously for his job and stuff. But I don’t get it.”

  “Neither do I,” Kristen said with a smile. “Though I wouldn’t mind the perks of having a nice body from working out. Why can’t I have it both ways?”

  “Laziness and rock-hard abs?” Aileen ducked the grape Kristen flicked at her.

  “It’s a release. I’ve always done better with the physical than the mental. I was never a heavy lifter when it came to academics,” Kat admitted. “Some subjects were fine, but I struggled in a few other areas in high school. I always passed, thanks to the power of athletics, but it didn’t encourage me to reach higher up the academic ladder.”

  “It’s a problem, passing athletes just so they stay eligible for competition. It really does them a disservice,” Aileen murmured, then looked stricken. “Sorry, that totally came out wrong. I—”

  “It’s a problem,” Kat agreed, smiling sadly. “Not that I think I’ll ever need to know the Pythagorean theorem by heart, but sometimes I wish my teachers had pushed me harder rather than just letting me skate by. As a high schooler, though, it always felt like a stroke of luck.”

  Both other ladies made sounds of quiet understanding as they continued to eat in the small conference room.

  “So what story are you working on now, Aileen?” Kat asked after a moment.

  “Doing a little sociological digging on the difference in experience from players who come from middle- and upper-middle-class families to those who come from disadvantaged ones.” Aileen took a bite of her club sandwich, chewed, then sipped her soda. “You’d think that once they get here, having signed million-dollar contracts, they’d all be on even ground again. Right? I mean, nobody’s poor once you get to the NFL. There are salary requirements, after all.”

  “Doesn’t help those who don’t know what to do with it,” Kristen said, sounding sad.

  “Exactly. Money is not the great equalizer.” Aileen toasted Kristen with her cup. “So I’m doing a story on several guys who come from varied backgrounds and how that shaped their current experience playing football, as well as their plans for the future post-NFL. Not everyone will be a Bobcat, of course. I’ll have to do some traveling and such. But it’s such an interesting piece to dig into.”

  Kat nodded. “I totally get it. I’m curious to see it.”

  “You know,” Aileen said after a moment, propping her chin on her hand, “I’ve never done anything about tennis players. I barely know anything about the sport. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know about you at all until Kristen introduced us.”

  She started to give the safe response—the response she’d been conditioned to give since she went pro—but stopped. And went for honest. “Most people don’t know about me. And that sucks, because I’m good.”

  Aileen blinked, then burst out laughing. Kristen snickered into her soup.

  “Oh my God, that was great.” Aileen laughed more and wiped at the corners of her eyes. Her soft red hair fluttered like feathers around her chin as she shook her head. “Priceless. You’re so right. I love it.”

  Kristen started to add something, but both her and Aileen’s phones pinged with a notification at the same time. They each looked down at their cells, then both swiped almost in sync with each other.

  “Wow, someone left me out of the group text,” Kat joked, taking a bite of the pickle spear Aileen had given her from her sandwich platter.

  “It’s a Bobcat news alert,” Kristen explained. “Basically just like a Google alert, but it sends push notifications to our phone whenever… whoops.” She grinned, then turned her phone screen to show Kat. “Not just Bobcats this time.”

  Kat squinted at the tiny print of the phone while Aileen read out loud, “Tennis player trounces Bobcats’ center in fitness competition.”

  “What?” Kat asked, reaching for Kristen’s phone before she thought twice about grabbing a cell phone out of the hands of a woman whom she barely knew. “That was nothing! We were just doing burpees, for fun, as just a silly competition. This makes it sound… this is stupid.”

  “Welcome to the media,” Aileen said unapologetically. Well, she would know. This was her business.

  Kat sighed and then played the video that accompanied the short, uninformed article. It was of her and Rodman doing their burpees in the weight room, both of them collapsing at the end, then the coach announcing her the winner. The cheers and jeers were cut off as the video ended. Kat handed Kristen the phone back. At least this one hadn’t mentioned her sex tape.

  “Sorry,” she said, handing the phone back with a sheepish smile.

  “No worries,” Kristen murmured.

  “I should do a segment on you while you’re here,” Aileen said suddenly.

  Again, it was on the tip of her tongue to say no, but she shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Kat’s pretty busy these days.”

  All three of them turned around at the masculine voice to find Michael standing in the doorway of the conference room, arms crossed, shoulder propped on the doorjamb. He looked freshly showered, wearing a different pair of clothes from when she’d last seen him.

  And, she admitted silently as her body reacted, looked delicious at that.

  Fighting back the attraction, she turned back to Aileen. “Maybe,” she said again, firmly. A silent message to Michael to mind his own business.

  “Kat, we’ve got a phone call to make.”

  His voice was so firm, so sure of his position of authority she just wanted to kick him. Instead, she leaned back in her seat, fork dangling over her salad insolently. “Hmm? I don’t remember any phone calls.”

  “It’s with Sawyer,” he said, teeth gritted. His arms tightened in frustration, making his muscles bunch deliciously under his Henley.

  Stop that, Katrina. Not for you.

  “Sawyer knows my number.” She crossed her legs, the running shoe dragging her foot down. Still in her workout gear, it wasn’t as
pretty a picture as she’d like when in a showdown with an alpha male, but it’s all she had to work with.

  “He wants to call us together. Now,” he added with exasperation.

  “We can leave,” Kristen said, standing up and gathering the remains of her soup and baguette. “In fact, my lunch hour is nearly over. It was wonderful to meet you, Kat.”

  “Likewise,” she said. “Thanks for the tips on the area. I’ll be sure to check some of those restaurants out.”

  Kristen’s smile was warm as she gathered her things up, dumped the trash in the can by the door, and walked past Michael on her way back to her desk.

  Aileen waited a moment, her eyes darting back and forth between Kat and Michael, a mischievous smile tilting her lips.

  “Aileen,” Michael rumbled.

  With a sigh, she stood and crumpled her sandwich wrapper. “Fine, fine. Kat, great to meet you. I’m serious though, I want an interview before you leave.”

  “We’ll see,” Kat said, and Michael just sighed.

  Aileen tossed her trash away, then paused beside Michael, watching him. He turned his head to look down at her, expression softening slightly as he did. Finally, she reached up and patted his cheek in a friendly manner.

  “Be nice, cutie.” With that warning, Aileen excused herself, closing the door behind her.

  Michael watched Kat hang back at the conference table, acting like there wasn’t a care in the world for her. Her posture was posed in a relaxed manner… but that was just it. It was a pose. Studied, not natural.

  Despite her devil-may-care attitude, she worried about her career. Worried about what others thought of her.

  “You’re still here.”

  “I’m still here,” she agreed, pushing the lid back over what remained of her lunch and snapping the plastic closed.

  “I thought you were getting a cab home.”

  “I was going to, but then Kristen introduced me to Aileen, and they invited me for lunch, and…” She shrugged. “It was nice to have a girl chat.”

  Was she lonely? “You could have waited and had lunch with me.”

  “You hate me. Why would I do that?”