by Cross,Lexi
“The difference between Tommy and Raven was that I trusted you enough to call you and tell you what was going on, and what was your immediate response?”
I ran a hand through my hair and took another drink from my bottle. “I told you to move in,” I answered her.
“Damn right, you did. Why did you do that?” she asked. Her questions took the place of a harsh, angry tone.
“I didn’t want you to be in danger. I wanted you to be safe, just in case he tried anything,” I replied, dropping my eyes.
“Now, if you’re going to try to protect me from someone like Tommy, why not from someone like Raven? Did you not realize that accusations like this could hurt me, too?” Her beautiful eyes stared hard at me, pushing me back away from her.
I took a deep breath. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to admit that I hadn’t even thought about what my troubles meant for her and Older Brothers. Part of the problem was I never thought about the consequences of my behavior.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized again.
I couldn’t look her in the face anymore. I looked away and put my beer back on the table. I didn’t want any more of it. What I did in another town, on another team, in another state was coming back to haunt me. It threatened my freedom, my career, and now my relationship. Kendra was the first woman I had ever gone after for more than just sex, and it looked like I was about to lose her.
We sat quietly for a while. I stared at the space between us on the couch and thought about what all Raven was going to cost me. Kendra took an occasional sip of her wine. The sound was loud and filled the room each time, reminding me of the tension between us. I didn’t want to be on the couch any longer.
I wanted to go upstairs to get a shower and shave the rough stubble off my face. I wanted to get ready for bed, and I wanted to hold Kendra close to me between my silk sheets. I wanted to feel her body close to mine and enjoy her body heat.
I just didn’t know how I was going to get off the couch. I felt like she was holding me hostage until she was ready to say her piece in all of this. Her eyes were burning holes in me, and her silence was loaded with thoughts she obviously hadn’t found the words for yet.
Chapter Seventeen
Kendra
“You don’t usually think about the consequences do, you?” I finally asked him while he sat there on the couch, cowering at the opposite end.
He wouldn’t look at me. I wanted to believe him when he apologized. I wanted to believe that he truly regretted what he had done, but I felt like the only thing he regretted was all the trouble he’d managed to get himself into.
“You’ve got to start thinking beyond the tip of your dick,” I told him, trying to say something to get his full attention back on me. I was kicking myself because I couldn’t force myself to be as mad at him as I felt like I should have been. I should have been furious, but I was just disappointed and hurt. I was scared of what this latest round of tabloid drama meant for me at work.
Most of all, I was glad to have him there with me. I was glad I didn’t have to spend anymore nights alone in his big, empty house. It was so cold and impersonal compared to the apartment I’d just left, but that was really an unfair comparison. The apartment had been so small that every surface was bound to be stained by my emotions and personality. It probably took a lot of energy to fill a house like his, and he’d only been there for a couple of months. I had only been there for a few days.
“Cade, look at me,” I ordered him when he still refused to respond to me.
He looked up slowly, and our eyes finally met. I wanted to ignore everything and just celebrate the fact that he was home. His eyes were so tired and weary, but he was also really good at manipulating people. He always seemed to be able to work the people around him to get out of trouble. I wasn’t going to let him work me like that.
“I really don’t think you understand the scope of this incident,” I told him.
He sighed. “I don’t think you do either,” he said in a low voice, as if he knew better but was doing it anyway.
“Okay, you first. Tell me how big this is for you,” I challenged him.
“This could end my career. No more trading because this is the only team who would accept me this time. Next time, no one will accept me,” he said plainly, keeping his eyes on me finally. He didn’t look away as he admitted to me the kind of trouble he was in with the team.
“I see. But tell me, what else could it jeopardize for you?” I asked him sharply.
“I could end up doing serious jail time if she manages to get a jury to believe her,” he continued, and I could see in his eyes that he really was worried about getting convicted of everything she claimed he’d done to her. He was making the same mistake she had made in making her accusations. He was overlooking me. I was there. I knew that nothing had happened.
“Don’t worry about that, Lucky. You’ve got too many people who know where you were, and I’m sure the publicity you two received during your relationship will be used to prove how unlikely it is that you would go and beat her ass, no matter how much she deserves it,” I assured him. “What else are you looking at because of this?”
He’d been looking at me already, but his eyes focused on me, and I felt my hair stand on end. His eyes penetrated deep into me and touched my heart, touched my soul. I felt weak in my knees even though my legs were tucked underneath me. I felt my insides twitch with desire. He was inspiring so many mixed emotions.
“I feel like I could lose you through all of this,” he said carefully, as if he were unsure it was safe to say out loud.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet, Lucky,” I said, surprising myself. That wasn’t what I had planned to tell him at all. I had planned on reassuring him that we were going to be okay. I had planned on telling him that I was going to stay with him as an example of how he had been working to straighten his life out. But that would have been a lie. I had to do what was best for myself as well.
“I’m really sorry,” he said again, shaking his head. “This time I really fucked up.”
I heard it in his voice and saw it in his face. It was really setting in that he’d made a pretty serious mistake with Raven, but I wasn’t sure if he realized just how far back that mistake went. The mistake wasn’t in refusing to help her when she called to get him to father a child for her. The mistake was getting involved with her just for the sake of getting laid.
“Are you ready to hear what you’ve done to me through all of this?” I asked.
“I guess.” He lowered his eyes, looking away in shame.
“You guess.” I laughed dryly. “I guess you don’t have much of a choice, Lucky.”
“Yes, please tell me,” he said with a hint of exasperation in his voice, but I figured I’d let what I had to say handle his attitude instead of addressing it directly.
“You have jeopardized my career as well. The Older Brothers charity is really my last chance to show that I can run a charity organization. They were the only ones who would have me, and that’s because they needed someone who had experience working with charities looking at having to shut their doors. I was actually on my way to restoring Older Brothers and essentially relaunching the program altogether,” I explained.
I paused to give him a moment to say something, or to at least give what I had just said a chance to register. He rubbed his chin and continued looking down at the couch. At least he wasn’t apologizing pathetically again.
“When you made your large donation, you helped create a firestorm of money and interest in the charity. Since this little spectacle of yours, people have been withdrawing their donations. They don’t want to be associated with you and the mess you’re in, Lucky. You’re unpredictable,” I told him.
Again, I gave him a moment to respond, but he didn’t say anything. He kept staring at the space between us as if he was trying to wait it out.
“The board of directors doesn’t want to keep you on. They don’t want any endorsements.
They don’t want any money. They don’t want you involved as a Big Brother. If they knew I was getting more involved with you personally, they’d probably let me go as well,” I added.
One of the things I felt he failed to realize was that when the news of his legal trouble surfaced, I went from trying to secure donations through the contacts I had made, to having to spend more time in the office. I had been in the office almost as long as he’d been in jail. I’d been called in because my staff couldn’t field all the calls. They certainly wouldn’t have been able to authorize giving people money back. We never did that. Of course, realizing that money was leaving the program, which wasn’t supposed to ever happen, the board of directors started coming down on me to make sure he was as far away as possible.
“I’ll help you with the money, Kendra. You know that. Just let me quietly support the charity without any press,” he said feebly.
“At this point, I don’t think it’s a good idea to accept any money from you. I’ve got to find someone else to help with our funding. I thought I had you. I thought I could count on you, Lucky. But now the program is in danger of being evicted from our current office, and if that happens, what’s the point in even continuing? At the moment I only have two options. The first is to see if I can get an extension and do some fundraising. The second is to call Tommy and tell him I’ve reconsidered his offer.”
Lucky looked up and started to protest. “But…”
“But what?” I snapped. “You’re not leaving me with many options here at all. No matter what I do, I have to hold a press conference announcing that the charity is severing all ties with you because of your behavior. Your reputation is threatening the charity.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, shaking my head. There was so much to say. And for every negative point I felt the need to make, I also wanted to remind him that I was still there for him. I wasn’t sure how long I could remain though. That was the only thing.
“I’m thinking about doing another fundraiser, but I can’t even use your team for it,” I told him, letting some of the anger in my voice subside. “I really don’t want to call Tommy to keep the charity alive, but he promised to handle all of my personal finances, help Older Brothers get established with better publicity, and keep the organization afloat singlehandedly.” It felt good to rub it in.
My face had been rubbed in Lucky’s past with all this drama over Raven. Rubbing his face in another man’s offer to pay me for sex felt justified. At the same time, I didn’t want to overdo it. My emotions were so conflicted. I wanted to get a hotel room and make him pay for it, but I also wanted to go to bed and let it ride until morning.
“Do whatever you need to do, Kendra,” he said finally. He got up from the couch and started to walk out of the room.
“No, we’re not done here,” I argued. “I’m still talking to you, Cade.”
“Fine, you can continue, but I need a shower,” he said as he started up the stairs to his bathroom.
I started to follow him upstairs so I could continue letting him know how I felt about the whole thing, but I figured I’d give him some privacy before continuing the conversation after his shower. I listened until he started his water. I waited until I was sure he was in the shower before I started up the stairs. I decided I wanted to be in his bed waiting for him to get out.
Older Brothers had to sever all ties with him, but I was determined not to if it could be helped at all. I had wanted to work my way to telling him I was considering whether or not I wanted to sever my personal ties with him, but I hadn’t made it that far before he decided he was done listening.
I didn’t blame him for getting up to leave the room. We’d sat downstairs for an immeasurable amount of time while I berated him. I figured it had been enough. I wasn’t going to give him a hard time when he got out of the shower. I was going to flip a switch and love on him when he came to bed. He probably needed someone to take care of him and baby him a little just as much as he needed to understand that what he was allowing to happen was unacceptable.
I felt like Lucky had finally started to realize just how big his mistake was. He also needed to know I was there for him. I wasn’t going to go anywhere unless we just couldn’t get through it together, but he needed someone at his side. He needed someone in his corner, and I was the person for the job. And if it came down to Lucky or Older Brothers, I’d make that decision. Until then, I was going to stay put.
Part of wanting to stay with Lucky was my desire to see him change. I knew that if I gave up on him and left him, he’d go right back to how he was before. The only way he was ever going to change was if someone like me stayed with him and gave him the opportunity to make the changes he needed to in his life.
Chapter Eighteen
Lucky
“You’re suspended for the next two games, or until all of this is cleared up with Ms. Cox,” Coach Anglin informed me.
My situation just kept getting better. I was supposed to try to get back on the field for the next game.
“Understand, Cade, this is just a formality. We have to do this for the press and to save face with the league,” he continued.
“Yeah, I get it,” I said, and I did understand. I just didn’t want to have to deal with it anymore.
“As part of your suspension, you can only be up here for meetings with the owner or with the lawyers. You understand that, too, right?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
We were meeting in the boardroom again, but it was just the two of us, so I took the opportunity to speak candidly.
“Coach, am I ever going to get back on the field?” I asked.
“I don’t know what to tell you, man. This is pretty serious. You saw the other guys at the barbeque, right? They were there with their wives. They try to present a positive image to the public. Even when they go out, it’s upper crust type stuff. They don’t party the way a lot of the guys out there do these days. And you haven’t even played one game so far as a part of this team. Hell, you didn’t even make it through preseason training,” he said, going on and on.
“I get it. Things aren’t looking too good for me.”
“No, they’re not. And Mr. Stevens wants to talk to you about that when he gets here,” Coach Anglin said before taking a seat at the table across from me.
“So, I take it he’ll be joining us in a moment?” I asked.
As if in response to my inquiry, the door to the boardroom opened and Mr. Stevens walked in. He unbuttoned his suit jacket as he approached the chair at the head of the table.
“Thanks for coming in today, Cade,” he said amicably as he took his seat.
“Of course,” I said.
“You have presented me with quite a dilemma here. I’ve got a bit of controversy on my hands with you, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I don’t like controversy.” He leaned back in his chair and tapped the table while he talked.
“Yes, sir, I’ve noticed,” I said.
“I’ve got to figure out what to do about you, son. I’m sure Coach Anglin has informed you of our immediate response. Basically you’re out until all of this is cleared up. I’m definitely keeping you off the field for the next two games, no matter what happens between now and then,” he continued. Mr. Stevens no longer had his buddy-buddy tone. He was ready to get down to business with me and let me know where I stood, without leaving any room for doubt.
“Yes, sir, we talked.”
“I brought you in here on the merit of your ability on the field. You’re a great athlete and one hell of a kicker. I was willing to ignore the constant reckless behavior and the scandals that plagued you throughout your career thus far. However, you haven’t played in a single game, and you’ve had constant issues with the press. It’s like you just can’t stay out of the spotlight, kid. I need better from you.” He didn’t raise his voice or stand up while he talked. He stayed in his chair and gently rocked himself back and forth.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stev
ens. I didn’t expect this to follow me like it did. When I was traded, I expected all of it to stay behind,” I explained.
“Save it for the talk shows, son. Everyone expects their problems to stay put when they run from them. That’s the point of running from your problems, right?”
“Yes, sir, I guess so,” I said with a weak laugh.
“Well, these days, it rarely happens that way. Once upon a time, maybe, but not anymore,” the owner said, sounding like an old-timer.
“Right, I can see that,” I agreed. I kept my responses simple so I didn’t get him off on a tangent or give him something to use against me. I wasn’t certain where the conversation was going. He could have been looking for a reason to cut me right there for all I knew.
“Look, we’ll support you throughout this process, but we can’t have you associate too closely with your teammates while you’re going up against these charges. I hope you understand. During your suspension, the only time you should be seen here is for meetings with us or with the lawyers.”
