Superstar

by J Santiago

He contemplated the coming conversation on his drive to her house. Hawk had forwarded the pictures of Tank and Amber that had already made the rounds with the Atlanta media. Hawk wanted a statement, but Tank wasn’t ready for that. He didn’t want to do anything to jinx the fragile bond he’d built with Amber. Probably, if it wasn’t for his association with Madison, this might have flown under the radar.

  He’d missed a call from her earlier, but he didn’t want to talk to Madison until he’d worked through everything with Amber. His greatest worry now was that he had to get back to Atlanta. He knew it was the wrong time to leave when he and Amber were just getting started, but he could play hooky for only so long before the demands of his job, endorsements, and promotions kicked in.

  He arrived at Amber’s at precisely nine o’clock. Her front porch light was on, as was the light in the kitchen. He left his suitcase because there was no way he was going to misstep with presumption. He ambled around the front of the car and up the walkway, and then he knocked on the door. He didn’t have to wait long for her to open the door for him.

  He didn’t even pause. He pulled her into his arms. There was no hesitation as her arms wrapped around his neck, and she relaxed into the embrace. Tank ran his hands up and down her back, memorizing the feel of her in his arms, a sensation he could hopefully retrieve later when he was alone in Atlanta.

  She raised her mouth while tugging on his neck. He bent, and she placed her mouth on the lobe of his ear, biting gently. He suppressed a full-body shudder, losing the battle to not react to her. If they had sex tonight, it had to happen after all the cards were on the table. She kissed the spot right below his ear, a particularly sensitive point on his body that she was all-too familiar with, and he forgot all about his noble ideas. He slid his hands down her back and over her butt, and then he gripped her thighs before lifting her. He moved forward a couple of steps until her back was against the wall.

  “Hi,” he finally said before he planted small kisses against her lips, over her left jaw, and then to her right side, tracing the deep groove from the corner of her mouth and along the webbing.

  Her mouth dropped open, and she gulped for air, like a fish out of water. Every muscle in her body went lax against him, and every muscle in his body hardened.

  Amber gasped something that he couldn’t quite make out because he was lost in this vortex of air, a wind tunnel amplifying every rough inhalation she dragged through her lungs.

  She stiffened and said loudly, “Baa!”

  Movement between them ceased. He kept his mouth open against her jaw because he was afraid to look up at her and acknowledge that he got the joke.

  “Baa!” she repeated but this time with the perfect delivery of a wayward sheep.

  Tank burst out laughing, his body shaking with mirth. He couldn’t even form words, but he could move, so he hefted her from her perch on the wall and walked them to the living room. Still laughing, he sat on the couch and situated her on his lap. Their eyes met, hers sparkling with mischief.

  “Guess you saw the picture,” he managed to say, even as the urge to giggle—yes, giggle—remained.

  “Oh, I saw the pictures,” she concurred, emphasizing the plural form of the word. “In fact, the whole staff got to see the pictures. Whitey got a kick out of telling them that one of his staff members had gone above and beyond over the weekend to get some hands-on training from a football great.”

  Tank couldn’t control the guffaw that exploded out of his mouth.

  “Silly me,” she continued, “I was looking around the room, trying to figure out who got the drop on me with impressing Whitey.” She rolled her eyes. “Because I’m super-fucking competitive like that,” she drolly reminded him.

  He tried to control his hilarity, but it took several minutes and a plethora of comments from Amber like, “Glad you find this so funny,” and “Go ahead, bruh. Get it all out.”

  When he finally used up his monthly allotment of laughter, he got serious quickly. “I am really sorry. Honestly, I had no idea there was anyone around to even take note of us.” He wanted to add that it was hard to notice anything when he was around her, but he imagined she’d think he was playing her. “That’s one of the reasons I texted you earlier. I was hoping to give you a heads-up.”

  “For some strange reason, Nicky set up Google Alerts on you, and he showed me the picture of us on the street.”

  He didn’t think she was trying to make him feel worse, but her explanation made him feel like a complete ass. He should have been better prepared and should have at least given some thought to exposing her to the media. He wasn’t a huge story in Atlanta, but every once in a while, on a slow news day, he could be a story in the off-season. Some infinitesimal part of him wondered if Madison had set him up, but he couldn’t get his head around her selling him out like that.

  “I am so sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Now, we know.”

  “Baa?” he teased. “Really?”

  She smirked and then laughed. “What do you want from me? I had all day to come up with something.”

  Fuck, she makes me happy.

  He didn’t even want to broach the next topic because he was enjoying her response to everything. He wouldn’t have predicted her approach to this. He’d figured she’d be so pissed at him and skittish because of it. That she could joke about it and laugh off her embarrassment in front of the whole staff kind of amazed him. She was so much less guarded than she had been at twenty-three. He loved her confidence. He wondered about all the things she’d experienced in their time apart that helped her grow into this strong, independent woman he had sitting on his lap.

  He couldn’t stop himself from dropping a quick kiss on her mouth. He reluctantly pulled back and set her away from him. Her sitting on his lap was distracting, to say the least.

  “What’s up?” she asked, all business. The tone of her question bothered him.

  “Hawk wants me to make a statement.”

  “About us?”

  This time, he heard skepticism in her voice.

  “At least about the end of my relationship with Madison.”

  “Huh.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What does huh mean?”

  Her gaze darted away from him. “Ya know, you had me convinced that your relationship with Madison was no big deal.”

  “It wasn’t,” he insisted, not at all happy with where she seemed to be going with this.

  “Well, if it wasn’t, why does it need to be addressed? Why am I feeling like a home wrecker?”

  He managed to hold back the rolling of his eyes. “Madison left the party the other night for us. She’s a good friend. But she’s also been my date for the last year, so those people who follow the celebrity-gossip scene think we’re together.”

  “Yeah, I get all of that.” Amber waved her hand, like she was pushing his words out of her way. “What does Madison say?”

  “I haven’t talked to her about it.”

  Amber looked at him and raised her brow. “Really?” she virtually scoffed.

  Tank shook his head. “Yeah, really. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Look, Tank, your world is not my world. So, whatever you feel like you need to do, do it. But I don’t want to be outed—or whatever you call it. So, say we are old friends or something, but I want my name kept out of it, and I don’t want anyone to think we are together.”

  He was tempted to argue, but right now, it wasn’t a fight he thought he could win, and he had a bigger battle ahead of him. “Fine. I’ll talk to Madison, and I’ll keep you in the loop on whatever we come up with.”

  “Perfect,” she said flippantly.

  He reached over on the couch and plucked her off the cushion he’d set her on only moments ago. “Is your leg okay?” he asked as she straddled him.

  She nodded before she put her arms on his shoulders and looked down at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since they’d started talking about the pictures.

  He
took a fortifying breath. “I have to go back to Atlanta tomorrow.”

  She leaned away from him, barely restraining a slight flinch. “Okay,” she said.

  He could feel her withdrawal from him, and just as she made to stand and move away from him, his hands clamped down on her hips, holding her in place. “Don’t do that,” he said softly.

  “Do what?”

  “Pull away from me.”

  They stared at each other. His hands flexed on her hips, and her body relaxed marginally. He couldn’t quite figure out what to say, so he stayed like he was with her weight on him, her hands cupping his neck, her dark brown eyes boring into him.

  “It’s shitty timing,” he explained, “but I want to do this with you, try to do this.”

  Amber’s eyes got wide and then narrowed as his words suddenly made sense to her, and she didn’t like the meaning. “Long distance?”

  He smiled briefly. “It’s only two hours away,” he said, pointing out the obvious.

  “Yes, two hours. But we both have erratic schedules and hardly any corresponding time off.”

  He had anticipated this response, so he’d done his research. “Actually, May is pretty light for both of us, so I think we would be able to see each other at will. I know camps pick up for you in June, so I can do the traveling until we have mini camp. Then, July is downtime for you. And I know you have a mandatory couple of weeks off during that time. You can come to me, and we’ll make it work. Then, we just take it day by day from there.”

  He was proud of himself for anticipating her concerns and giving her a concrete plan. He waited for her reaction, but she looked catatonic.

  “Say something,” he murmured. “Anything.”

  “We can cut bait right now. No harm, no foul.”

  “Uh, anything but that.”

  She considered, studying him, trying to discern his secrets. He wished she’d had mind-reading capabilities, so she could tap into his brain and know how completely serious he was about her.

  “Let’s say,” she started slowly, like she was thinking up the words as she went, “we do that, and we’re successful with the long distance from now until our seasons start.” She paused.

  Tank waited, and when she didn’t continue, he prompted her, “We will be.”

  “Right. So, we’re in this relationship, and then we both work twenty-four/seven for five months—actually, six for me—right through Signing Day. What then? We try to continue a relationship when we have no possibility of seeing each other? Skype and FaceTime go only so far.”

  “There are days, bye weeks, which are not at the same time, but I can come here during mine, and you can come to me during yours because we play at home on your bye weekend.”

  “Are you hearing yourself?” she asked incredulously.

  “You are the only one who needs to hear me.”

  “You’re fucking crazy,” she said, laughing.

  “Yeah, well, I happen to be fucking crazy about you.”

  May

  Amber allowed herself another glance at the top right corner of her computer screen where the minutes of the day were moving at a glacial pace. In the amount of time it had taken this day to pass, Amber figured a mountain could have risen from beneath the shifting plates of the Earth’s surface. She knew her sense of anticipation was the cause, but it had been a really long month since Tank slipped out of her bed on the morning he had to return to Atlanta. Much like Amber had predicted, two aborted trips over the last four weeks had left Skype as their only visual communication. She’d long since wished for teleportation as a superpower.

  April had been busy with the spring game and then planning for the contact and evaluation periods for her coaches. But, now, with everyone on the road, she was at loose ends because work was slow. And she missed Tank. Mostly though, she blamed it on being bored and not having any distractions to take her mind off of who was waiting for her in Atlanta.

  Aside from talking every night, Tank had started trying to stump her with football trivia. He kept a running total of their game. She was currently winning—by a lot.

  Sometime during the month, Tank had discovered that he didn’t know general facts about her, so she started getting what he called Amber Fun Facts texts.

  What’s your favorite color?

  What’s number five on your top ten movie list?

  If you could hang out with any famous person for a day, past or present, who would it be?

  She’d answered.

  Green.

  Remember the Titans.

  Vince Lombardi.

  If he’d asked her what about him surprised her the most, she would have said, Your ability to be freaking adorable.

  She’d thought the distance and time apart would prove to him, and to her, that they couldn’t make this work. Instead, she found herself wondering if there was a career out there that would challenge her but let her be close to him. And that scared the shit out of her.

  At four forty-five, she couldn’t hold back any longer. She shut down her computer and began organizing her desk so that, when she came in on Monday morning, she’d be ready to go. She heard voices in the outer office but ignored them.

  She picked up her phone and sent Tank a quick text that she was getting on the road and hoped to be there for a late dinner. Making her way out of the office, her mind on the two-hour drive and Tank at the end of it, she wasn’t prepared when Lamarcus Steele filled her doorway. His hands were braced on the jamb across the top of the door. With the muscles of his arms taut, he was a framed picture of masculine grace.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked, sarcasm threaded through his words.

  “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in South Florida?” She hoped to appear unflappable, but she wasn’t sure she pulled it off. Even though she missed their easy friendship and relaxed interactions, she was impatient with his antagonistic attitude.

  “Finished early and caught an earlier flight.”

  “Oh.” She shrugged. She would love to push him out of the way and continue out the door, but he didn’t seem to be moving. “I’m on my way out.”

  His eyes surveyed her, moving slowly down and then up. “Thanks for the information. I probably couldn’t have figured that out on my own.”

  “Ya know, Steele, I’m pretty much over your shit. If you need something work-related, let me know, and I’ll take care of it. But, otherwise…” She let the statement drift between them.

  Steele studied her with a good degree of petulance before some unknown emotion flashed quickly. “Look, I’d rather be anywhere else, but Nicky needed me to do something for him.”

  “Do you need something from me to do it?”

  He shook his head, his eyes never leaving her. “It has to do with you, but it’s not work-related.”

  Amber almost growled her annoyance, but instead, she turned around. She dropped her purse at the side of the desk and then leaned against the front of it. Steele, seeming reluctant, finally let his hands fall and walked into her office. He dropped into one of the two chairs. His long legs almost touched hers until he shifted them to the side and crossed his left leg over his right knee.

  He shook his head, and Amber got the feeling that he wished he were anywhere but in her office.

  “I don’t want to do this,” he stated, confirming her thoughts.

  She rolled her eyes. “Just get it over with.”

  “You know Nicky’s weird obsession with Tank?”

  She actually smiled because she did know. “Yeah,” she said, almost laughing, “Google Alerts.”

  “Yeah,” Steele concurred before he rubbed his hand over his face. He shifted in his seat, dropping his leg and sitting up straight. “So, he saw something this morning and wanted you to see it.”

  Amber’s stomach conducted a little tuck-and-roll exercise before settling. “Let’s see it.”

  All bravado, she held her hand out for what she presumed would be his phone with some crazy picture on it. He push
ed up with his feet and reached back to grab his phone from his pocket. He made quick work of the passcode and of finding the picture. Then, he placed the phone in her hand.

  She kept her eyes trained on him, prolonging the inevitable. Then, she looked down. Tank was sitting at a table in some funky little café that had tiny two-top tables and mismatched wrought iron chairs. The colors in the restaurant reminded her of a carnival, all bright and jovial, some fantastical eclectic place she could see herself falling in love with. She noted all of that—the interior design, the furniture, the cute bar in the background—before she saw what her friends wanted her to see. A suit-clad Tank Howard leaning across a table, smirking at Madison. His jacket was strewed casually behind him, and his tie was flipped around, like he wanted to avoid splatter. Madison was laughing at something.

  And Amber was fine.

  She shrugged and held the phone out to him. “So, he’s having lunch with a friend. Big deal.”

  “Yeah, big deal. That was my response.”

  “Really?” she said skeptically. “Your response to this picture was, No big deal? You expect me to believe that?”

  “You’ve got this all under control, right?” He quirked his brow at her.

  “I do.”

  “Right. So, no big deal. You know, except for the hand-holding.”

  She wanted to ignore him. But, instead, she focused on the picture again. Just like before, she looked at everything but what she needed to see. Then, she zeroed in on the hand-holding. Under the table, Tank’s hand was intertwined with Madison’s, casually resting on her knee. It looked intimate. It looked like two lovers enjoying lunch. It looked like something far more serious than friends.

  But whatever.

  She shrugged with feigned indifference and dropped Steele’s phone in his waiting hand.

  “Thanks,” she said shortly. “Is that all? Because I gotta get on the road.”

  Steele shook his head, like a disappointed parent who knew his child was making the wrong decision but was going to let her learn her lesson the hard way. “Un-fucking-believable. Seriously? You’re still going to go see him this weekend?”