by Tracey Ward
“…superstar in the making,” Ashford explains arrogantly. “The Kodiaks are a great program and now that they’ve traded Duncan Walker for this first round pick, they’re in the market for a running back. Andre Larkin is the clear choice, and Keith agrees with me.”
“Keith Wilton, the Kodiak’s General Manager?”
“He and I had a very in depth conversation about it and we both came to the same conclusion; Andre Larkin.
The announcer, a balding black man with a vibrant green tie, shakes his head. “Now, I have to disagree with you, Brad, and I think a lot of other people will too. The smart move on a first round pick is almost never a running back. A quarterback is the backbone of your team. A great one can make or break a program and the Kodiaks have been desperate for a good one for two seasons. I think you go Trey Domata. No question.”
“Fucking-a,” Folk rumbles.
“I’m not going to argue with you, Josh. He’s a great athlete. He’s another client of mine and he’s an incredible player, but I don’t see him being a good fit for California, and Keith agrees with me. The Kodiaks need an explosive quarterback. The kind of guy who will run the ball and make the big plays, and Domata just isn’t that player. He’ll do great somewhere, but if it were up to me, it wouldn’t be with the Kodiaks.”
“Don’t be modest, Brad,” the announcer laughs. “You’ve been in the business a long time and we all know your reach is long. You have at least a little say in where your clients land.”
“I may hold some sway with some people, I’ll admit it, but in the end it’s down to the coaches and the GMs making the right choices. I would caution them to remember that while a player can be flashy and feel like the popular choice, he’s not always the right one for your program.”
“And you feel like Andre Larkin is hands down the best first round choice for the Kodiaks? Worth giving up star player Duncan Walker?”
“Absolutely, Josh. It’s why I suggested the trade. There’s no doubt in my mind. Andre Larkin is a Kodiak.”
“Trey, where are you going?” Cummings asks nervously.
I’m already off the mats, heading for the door. “I’m going to the agency.”
“He’s not there, man! He was just on TV. He could be in New York for all you know.”
“Sports Center broadcasts from the ESPN offices in L.A.,” Folk corrects.
“Why would you know that?”
“I took Broadcasting fall term. We had a field trip to their studio.”
“A fucking field trip in college, are you shi—Trey, get back here! You can’t ambush your agent!”
Heavy metal doors slam shut behind me, silencing his protests.
Inside me voices roar angry and chaotic. I can’t understand them, can’t get a clear grip on my thoughts. It’s a buzz between my ears, like wild bees on bath salts.
I drive too fast. I change lanes without thinking. Without looking. I’m in the driver’s seat but I’m a passenger in my own body. I’m grabbing for the wheel but I can’t get my hands on it. I can’t slow myself down.
I’m out of control.
I park on the curb in front of the office building where the Ashford Agency sits high in the sky. My parking spot is a red zone. It’s illegal and I don’t give a shit.
After an agonizingly slow ride up the elevator, I burst through the glass doors leading into the lobby. I haven’t been back since I signed with them. It’s whiter than I remember.
A startled receptionist with brown hair and dark rimmed glasses greets me nervously. “Welcome to the Ash—“
“I want to talk to Brad Ashford right now.” I step up to her tall, curved desk, slapping my hands down loudly on it’s cold top. “Right. Fucking. Now.”
She shakes her head. “Mr. Ashford isn’t in. I can leave him a message.”
“When is he coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll wait in his office.”
“You can’t do that.”
“You better find somewhere to park me and tell his old ass to get down here because I’m not leaving this office until I talk to him!”
“I can try calling him,” she offers halfheartedly.
“No. I want him here in person. He’ll face me like a man.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t—“
“Trey.”
I jerk to my right. Sloane is in the hallway. She’s perfectly dressed, perfectly pressed, and utterly calm.
It pisses me off worse than I already am.
“Where’s your dad?” I demand.
She frowns at me impatiently. “Mr. Ashford isn’t in the office today.”
“Get him here.”
“No.”
“Well one of you better get him on the phone because I want to know what the fuck is happening with the Draft!”
Sloane takes three slow steps toward me, her expression annoyed. “Lower your voice and watch your language. This is a business, not a locker room.”
“Don’t turn frigid on me, Sloane. Talk to me. What’s going on?!”
“Come with me to my office and we’ll talk about it.”
She doesn’t wait for me to agree. She turns on her heel, the black spike on her shoe snapping sharply with each decisive step down the hall. She holds the door open for me as she waits stone-faced for me to storm angrily inside. Once the door is slammed shut behind me, she loses her composure.
“What are you thinking?” she hisses viciously.
“I’m thinking your dad is a goddam traitor!”
“Keep your voice down.”
“What’s going on with the Draft?!”
Sloane shakes her head stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest. “I won’t talk to you when you’re like this. Calm down.”
“I can’t!”
“Lower. Your. Voice.”
“Answer. Me.”
“I have it under control. You have to trust me.”
I point to the small flat panel TV mounted against the wall. “How can I trust that you have it under control when your own dad is telling the world I’m not the right guy for the job?”
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s never known with you. I had to fight for you for years to get him to sign you because he wouldn’t listen!”
“Well, you know who’s listening now? The fucking GM of the Kodiaks! He’s listening to your dad telling him I’m no good!”
“And Coach Allen and I are telling him you are! Nothing has been decided yet!”
I turn, pacing the small room with my hands in my hair as my head pounds painfully. “I can’t handle this. I can’t take this shit.”
“Trey, what is with you?” Sloane asks hesitantly. “I’ve seen you uptight before but never like this.”
I can hardly hear her. I barely see her. All I can think is that I’m spiraling. I’m falling. The lights in the room are too bright. The air is too thin. The walls too close. It’s all crashing down on me, pulling me under, and I’m going to pass out. I’m going to die.
“What can I do to help you?”
Her hand is on my shoulder.
Her smell is in my nose.
Her face is in my hands.
Her breath is on my lips.
I kiss her zealously, pouring my anxiety into her. Letting myself go as I cling to her. I pull her to me until I’m worried I’ve hurt her, but she doesn’t complain. Her arms tangle with mine as I try to get a better grip on her. Try to get closer to her so I can be farther from myself. Clothes are shoved aside, teeth clash and clatter as we come together and break apart violently shedding our shells. She can’t reach high enough to get my shirt off over my head but I don’t help her. I make her struggle to touch me under the fabric. I make her work for it as I take from her greedily, tugging her clothes aside until she’s bare and beautiful. Breathless and begging.
It’s frantic, too violent and rushed to be remembered with any clarity, but it’s everything I need.
Everything I want.
“Oh my God, no.”
Oh my God, yes. Trey, yes. Don’t stop.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
“Fuck me.”
Fuck me, Sloane. That’s right, baby, ride it. Ride me.
“Stop,” Trey tells me heavily.
I have to push my hair out of my face to look at him. He’s lying on his back on the floor next to me, his eyes on the ceiling. His face is totally calm. Completely blank.
“You’re freaking out. You have to stop.”
“How are you not freaking out?” I demand. “What we just did was so insanely—“
“Hot.”
I close my eyes against the memories, but it’s useless. They’re so fresh, only minutes old, and they’re too vivid to ignore. I can see it all, feel it all, in perfect clarity. Trey’s hands on my thighs, his long fingers finding the edge of my skirt, lifting it higher and higher. Pulling my underwear lower and lower. Then they were gone along with everything else I was wearing. Blouse, bra, sense of shame. We tossed it all aside until our bodies collided. Until his tongue was in my mouth, his hands in my hair. On my breasts. Between my legs. He sent my breath scattered through the room, lost to me as he spun me around. As he bent me over the arm of the couch. As he slid inside me in one rough thrust that would have made me scream if I had air left in my lungs. His touch was coarse, every inch of his body hard and demanding as he commanded me, moved me through position after position, never letting me have what I was dying for, never giving either of us the release we chased until I was lost, whimpering and pleading for him.
For every. Last. Inch.
I lick my lips, opening my eyes reluctantly. “It was pretty hot.”
“It was smoking hot.”
“Habanero hot.”
“Magma hot.”
“Fell off the back of a truck hot.”
He turns his head to look at me, a smile on his lips. “Sloane Ashford hot.”
“Trey Domata hot.”
“That’s pretty damn hot.”
I laugh, but the sound is lost in his mouth when he kisses me. Then I’m lost in his hands as they weave into my hair to the back of my head, pulling me to him. My hand lands on his chest. It’s peppered with stiff, dark hair over the curved steel of his muscles. Every piece of him is toned and hard, calloused and coarse, but his mouth is incredibly soft. His tongue asks permission gently, an unbelievable contrast to the way he kissed me only minutes before, but I open myself to him readily, letting him take control the way he likes. The way that feels so deliciously free.
He places one last chaste kiss on my lips before releasing me. His face is serious and familiar as he lays his head back down. This is the man on the field. The self-assured QB with all the right moves. All the answers.
“Don’t overthink this, Sloane,” he tells me gently, smoothing my hair back from my face. “It’s not the end of everything.”
I shake my head ardently. “We can’t work together and do this. Brad would make me stop working with you. Everyone would assume I sleep with all my clients. I’m already seen as nothing but a pair of tits from most of the men I meet. The last thing I need is for them to start thinking about my vagina and how much dick it catches.”
“Slow down.”
“How are you so calm all of the sudden? I honestly thought you were having a panic attack earlier and now you’re… you’re different.”
Trey sits up suddenly. He pulls his shirt down from where I tangled it up around his neck and searches for his underwear. His pants. His socks. His shoes. I’ve cast his belongings to the winds and I worry that somehow something made it out into the hall. Maybe out the window. We were that kind of careless when the moment was on us, but now that it’s fading away I’m worried about what’s on the other side of it. I’m worried about the dramatic shift in his attitude.
“Trey, have you ever talked to a doctor about your attacks?” I ask gently.
“I don’t have attacks.”
His tone is even. Dead and uninterested.
“You have something going on. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you panic before, but it was definitely the worst. I think you need to talk to someone.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“Not really, no. You’re not.”
He hands me my bra, going to the other side of my desk to look for his left shoe. “What’d you mean when you said you had to convince your dad to sign me? What’d you have to convince him of?”
“Guess we’re done talking about it,” I mutter, yanking my black camisole down over my stomach.
“Why didn’t he want to sign me?” Trey presses.
“Because he didn’t think you were NFL material. He thought you were too calm. Not explosive enough. He says you’re too soft to be big in the NFL. I told him he was wrong. I never let up on him, even after you hurt your hand. I refused to give up because I knew going into this job that you were going to be big one day, and I wanted to be the one to help make that happen for you.”
“For both of us.”
“Yeah. I wanted it for me too. I wanted my moment, the one that would make everyone take notice and realize I could do this job without my dad, because you were my pick. I saw you coming. I knew you were going to be great.”
“Kodiak’s GM doesn’t agree with you.”
“Keith is a spineless douche,” I reply with disdain, standing up to pull on my skirt. “Brad tells him you’re no good for the program, he agrees. Coach Allen told him last week you were the only pick he’d take in the first round, and Keith agreed. He’ll nod his head for whoever is yelling at him the loudest.”
Trey hands me my shoes. “Are you yelling at him?”
“I don’t yell. That’s my dad’s way, not mine. I’m more subtle.”
“I’ll go talk to him.”
I shake my head, stepping into my heels. “Wrong. You’ll go home, shut off the power, and lock yourself in an isolated room until Draft day. You did your job on the field for the last four years, Trey. It’s time to let me do mine.”
His jaw tightens. “I don’t passenger.”
“I remember, and I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to idle the car. I’ll keep you informed on everything as it happens, I promise, but you have to promise me that when you see shit like my dad on TV talking out his ass, you’ll pump the breaks and talk to me before getting stupid.”
“Yeah, alright,” he agrees halfheartedly.
I take a step toward him, staring up into his eyes. “I’m going to ask you something and you’re not going to like it, but I have to know. You have to be honest with me, alright?”
He lifts his chin, looking down on me. Going on the defensive. “What?”
“The personality test they did on you at the Combine, is that going to throw up any red flags?”
He knows what I’m asking. Will they see the panic? Did his anxiety shine through?
Trey shakes his head, his face calm. “It’s clean.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I was tight that day. I had my head right.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.” He scratches at his shoulder, glancing at the door. “Hey, look, I better go. People are going to start to wonder what’s going on in here.”
I go to step out of his way, but he grabs my arm. His hand is lightning fast. I don’t see it coming, but all of the sudden I’m chest to chest with him, rising up on my toes as he leans down over me, covering my mouth with his. The kiss is brief but soft, and even though he disappears as soon as he lets me go, I can still feel him. Everywhere.
I smooth my hair back as I sit down at my desk, trying to find normal. Trying to find a place in my body where I’m not blushing. Not humming from head to toe.
There’s nowhere.
He left so abruptly, his presence still lingers in the air. On my skin. I can’t be in here. I can’t think straight with his tall, naked body behind my eyelids every time I blink. The g
host of my orgasm ripping through me like lightning flashing across my mind every two seconds.
I stand up to hurry out of the room, down the hall, and into the first door on the left. I close it quickly behind me, leaning back against it breathlessly.
Hollis doesn’t look up from his laptop.
“Please, come in,” he drones.
“I slept with him,” I blurt out. “I just slept with Trey Domata. In my office. Just now.”
His eyes rise slowly to mine, his face shocked. “Dude.”
“I know.”
“Dude,” he scolds.
“I know!”
His mouth pinches sympathetically. “Dude.”
I nod slowly, falling down into the seat across from him. “I know.”
“Do you think anyone knows?”
“No. Hardly anyone is here today and my office is in fucking Narnia. If you didn’t hear it, no one did.”
“I didn’t, thank God, but I’m worried for poor Mr. Tumnus.”
“Can we not talk about goats while we’re talking about my sex life?”
“You’re the Ice Queen,” he adds quickly, unable to stop himself.
“Why do I talk to you?!”
Hollis sits back in his chair with a smug smile, appraising me. “What are you gonna do?”
“Marry him. Have his babies. Spend the rest of my life watching him jump from city to city, girl to girl, bed to bed, and father bastards across this great nation. It’s my every dream finally realized.” I lean forward, pressing my fingers excitedly to my lips. “Hollis, I’m so happy.”
“God, you can be such a bitch,” he sighs.
I drop my hands, falling back into the chair. “I’m going to pretend it never happened. What else can I do?”
“You could not be a bitch about it.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin with that.”
“I wouldn’t recognize you if you did. And can I point out the folly in that plan?”
“I’d rather you didn’t since it’s my only plan at this point.”
“You said you were going to pretend the kiss at the Combine didn’t happen. How’d that go?”
“Not great.”
“Not at all, that’s how it went. You didn’t even try to avoid this.” He shakes his head, swiveling back and forth slowly in his seat. “You’re not going to be able to gloss over it. There’s no going back. You’re going to have to find another way to deal with it.”
