Passion on the Pitch: A Contemporary Sports Romance

by Maya Hughes

  “He said he broke up with her before he came to the States, but now she’s trying to play it off like they never broke up. I believe him, but figure that won’t play well with the tabloids. Man, that’s a sentence I never thought I would say.”

  “I know; if there’s anyone that would have ended up in the gossip rags, I would have thought it would have been Meg for the suspicious disappearance of an ex,” Sam quipped, raising her glass to Meg.

  “Har har har,” Meg deadpanned. “Anyway, how are you doing? I mean really, how are you holding up? It’s a lot to take in,” Meg said placing a hand on Jess’s knee.

  “It was a shock for sure. I never thought I would be in a situation like this. Aedan’s great, he’s amazing. I have never felt like this about a guy before. When I’m with him, it just feels right. But all the other stuff, all the paparazzi and attention. It’s freaking me out for sure.”

  “That’s completely understandable,” Meg said.

  “Yeah one hundred percent,” Sam agreed, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. “But we don’t want you to psych yourself out about this. I know you’re analyzing all of the angles and trying to run assessments, but we’ve seen you two together. We’ve seen how he is with you. And how you are with him. I don’t think we’ve ever seen you so happy with a guy. Don’t overthink it.”

  “How can I not? He’s a superstar—a bona fide international sensation. This is Emmett times a million.”

  “I knew you would go there. Don't even compare Aedan to Emmett. He was a boy that didn’t know what he wanted. Aedan’s not like that. Not as far as we can see. Just relax and let yourself go along with this for as long as it goes.”

  “And if it all goes to shit, you can sell some awesome stories to the tabloids.”

  Sam turned to glare at Meg, “Not helping!”

  Jess burst out laughing.

  Meg held her hands up in false surrender, “What? I’m just trying to look for a silver lining.”

  Jess wiped away a few tears of laughter and gave Sam a hug. “I don’t know what I would do without you two.”

  “We know. You’d completely over-think everything until you worried yourself into a coma.” Meg said topping off Sam’s glass of wine.

  “Yeah, probably. Come here.” She pulled them into a group hug. “Thanks girls!”

  “Careful you’re going to make me spill my wine!” Meg complained, and snorted as Jess let them go. They spent the rest of the evening talking all about Jess’s whirlwind time in the spotlight and interrogating her about her hotel room date, which then devolved into a YouTube binge-watch of Aedan’s greatest goals. He was magnificent and Jess couldn’t help feel her heart swell with pride at the sheer athleticism and determination he displayed game after game.

  “Crap! Now I’m going to have to learn about soccer!” Jess said, flopping back onto the couch. Sam and Meg shrugged, then burst into laughter.

  “How hard can it be? Kick the ball into the net, right?” Meg poured another glass of wine and the girls continued watching the clips, which then morphed into ads that Aedan had starred in for everything from cologne to sneakers. He even had a few kind of crazy ones from Japan. Holy crap, I’ve fallen for an actual bona fide celebrity. What the hell am I going to do now?

  21

  Making her way to her apartment was much less eventful than the previous day. She waved to the front desk guy and went to check her mail. Shuffling through envelopes, she made her way out of the mail room.

  “Excuse me, are you Jessica Montgomery?” Jess looked up.

  “Yes,” she answered giving the guy a wary look.

  “Hi, I’m Bryan Greene from The Daily Dispatch. I wanted to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Aedan O’Connell.”

  “No comment,” she tried to move around the guy and started for the stairs.

  “Just a minute of your time, please.”

  “No, no comment.” Jess’s heart rate started to speed up. Her hands were getting clammy as she made her way across the lobby to the stairwell.

  “How does it feel to be the whore that broke up Aedan and Kate?” Jess froze on the spot.

  “What?” She shrieked. She turned around to face the paparazzi who had his camera out, ready for her reaction.

  “Just get out.” Jess’s heart was racing a mile a minute now. The photographer walked in front of her to try and get between her and the stairs, but Jess moved out of his way, so he couldn’t pin her down.

  “Patrick, can you please get this guy out of here?” Jess asked looking past the photographer with tears in her eyes that she tried to blink back.

  The paparazzi started taking photos then, she tried to keep her face as neutral as she could and vowed not to let a single tear escape. Knowing that she only had seconds before she broke down, Jess didn’t wait for Patrick to come around the desk before making a break for the stairs. Once inside the stairwell, she pressed her back against the cool cinderblock wall and tried to muffle her heaving sobs.

  Slowly, she made her way up the stairs with tears streaming down her face. Thankfully, despite the god-awful quality of the elevator, not many people took the stairs, so she didn’t run into any neighbors. As she made her way to the front door, Jess felt bile make its way up her throat.

  What was I thinking?! What am I doing? Any hope that this would work was just delusional. It was not going to happen. How could I be so stupid? With shaking hands, Jess finally slid her keys into the lock after three tries and made her way into her apartment. The bile rose again and she barely made it to the bathroom before she puked. She threw up until she dry-heaved. Wiping her mouth and rinsing it, she practically crawled into her living room and collapsed onto the couch.

  The darkness of the apartment helped calm her as she got her breathing and heart rate under control. She had almost recovered from the ugly run-in with the photographer when her deep breathing was interrupted by a buzz from her pocket. She pulled her phone out, the bright glare momentarily hurting her eyes.

  A: I hope you had a fun night with Sam and Meg. Can I see you tomorrow? We can have a quiet night in at your place.

  Jess stared at her phone frozen. Her finger hovered over the text response. Deciding that ignoring the text wasn’t going to work—if anything it would make him come over, which would just be a whole other ball of crazy—Jess decided to reply.

  J: Aedan, I don’t know if tomorrow will work out.

  A: OK, how about the day after tomorrow.

  J: I don’t think that would be good either.

  A: Jess, please don’t shut me out. Let me come over tonight.

  J: No Aedan, don’t come over tonight. I just need a bit of quiet for a while. After this morning at the hotel and then stopping at Meg’s, I’m tired.

  A: I know, I’m sorry. I want to see you. I miss you already.

  Jess stared at his message for a long time. She began to type her response. “I can’t see you anymore.” Her finger hovered over Send. The look on his face when he asked her to stay flashed into her mind. She couldn’t do that to him, not over text. But she didn’t know if she was strong enough to tell him she couldn’t see him anymore in person. Another text came in.

  A: Can I please see you tomorrow?

  Taking a deep breath Jess deleted her reply and wrote a new one.

  J: Yes, OK, I’ll see you after work.

  A: I’ll pick you up from work.

  J: You don’t have to do that.

  A: I know, but I want to.

  J: I’m wrapping up my project tomorrow, so I don’t know how the afternoon will go. I’ll try to be finished at 5.

  A: OK, don’t worry. I’ll wait for you. See you tomorrow!

  After tossing and turning for an hour, Jess pulled out her work laptop and got to work. If she put in a few more hours tonight, she might actually be able to wrap this thing up tomorrow in time for Aedan to pick her up at five. Did she want him to pick her up? Did she want to continue this knowing what it could turn into? Instead of t
hinking about it, Jess decided to continue on with her work, maybe a few hours of data tables and modeling would give her some clarity about where her life was going.

  Plugging away into hour five, at nearly 2 am, Jess shut down her laptop and collapsed into bed. As she drifted off to sleep, Jess thought about Aedan, about how nice it would feel to have his arms wrapped around her as she drifted off to sleep. With that thought, Jess had her answer. Yes, she did want to be with Aedan. she just hoped she was strong enough to survive the inevitable heartbreak.

  22

  As Aedan reclined in bed and looked at his phone, he hoped that he wasn’t going to have to track her down tomorrow. Things seemed fine with her when she left that morning. She was a bit freaked out, but seemed to be handling things well. What wasn’t going fine was sorting out this mess with Kate. Had he known how mental she was, he never would have let James push them together in the first place.

  James thought she would be a good match for Aedan and would enhance his reputation. Aedan had met her a few times at parties and she seemed cool. He figured she would be good to hang out with, but would know what the deal was as far as their “relationship” and wouldn’t demand too much of his time.

  Kate hadn’t; she’d come to a few of his matches, sat in the box seeing and being seen. She came to any red-carpet events that he needed her to attend. And she was often traveling for fashion shows and photo shoots, so they weren’t in each other’s hair too much. Apparently, her aspirations went beyond modeling and the reality-TV beast was where she wanted to make her money.

  Unfortunately, the reality TV show she wanted to work with was a Footballers WaGs (Wives and Girlfriends) type of show. Since she wasn’t a wife, she needed to be a girlfriend and his breakup with her came smack in the middle of her final negotiations for the show. This was causing a problem. When Aedan sent the breakup text, it took her three days to respond to it with a “fine.” He hadn’t thought it would be a problem.

  Thinking back to his earlier phone call with Kate made his blood boil and he clutched his phone so tightly he swore he heard it crack.

  “Aedan, we can’t be broken up just yet. I still need a bit longer to secure the contracts for the WaGs show.”

  “Kate, it’s not really my problem. I’m not going to keep up appearances just for you to get a show. I’m seeing someone now and I want it to be very clear that we are no longer in a relationship.”

  “You’re seeing someone? Who?”

  “That’s none of your business Kate,” Aedan barked. “I’m back for pre-season next week and I don’t want there to be issues with this.”

  “What if we just don’t say anything for a while?”

  “You’ve already been talking to the press!” Aedan said nearly shouting. “Kate, I’m not going to lie—”

  “I’m not asking you to lie, Aedan,” she said, letting out a snarky huff. “Just don’t make a statement yet. I won’t say anything else to the press either.” Aedan could practically hear her pout through the phone.

  “I’ve asked very little of you in the time we were together. I wasn’t demanding, I showed up where you needed me to, and didn’t even ask about your extracurricular activities.”

  “I’m not a cheat. I don’t do that and you know it.”

  “Whatever, I don’t actually care,” she said sounding bored with the conversation already. “But I’m asking you to do this for me. I don’t want to have to go out and play the aggrieved party even more than I already have …” she let that hang for a bit and Aedan actually pulled the phone away to look at it in disbelief.

  “Are you threatening me?” he growled.

  “All I’m saying is you help me protect my image and I’ll help you protect yours. I can easily say there was a misunderstanding or I was misquoted when asked about the stories about us still being together. We can both come out of this with images even better than before. Let’s not muck it all up with squabbles about who did what to whom.”

  “I won’t say anything right now, but you better sort this out. Don’t make any more statements to the press. Sign your contracts and leave me alone.”

  “On it, thanks Aed, love you,” she did the smooches thing over the phone as Aedan ended the call on her and slammed it down so hard he thought he’d broken it. FUCK!

  Thankfully, it was just the case that cracked and not the screen. Pulling off the broken case, Aedan put the phone back much more gently and ran his fingers through his hair pulling at it as he went. What am I going to do?

  This was not what he needed to happen right now. He needed this Kate thing completely behind him or it was going to cause serious issues with Jess. Aedan decided to hold off on telling her anymore unless he thought there would be an issue. Hopefully, Kate would sign her contract, find another footballer to latch onto and not need to use him anymore. There would be a clean break.

  Aedan picked the phone back up, flipped to James’s name, and hit “Call.” He waited impatiently for him to answer.

  “Aedan, so nice to hear from you, glad to see you finally returning my calls,” he snarked.

  “James, I saw you less than twelve hours ago. I don’t have time for that now. I need you to talk to Kate’s people and figure out what the deal is with this reality show she’s trying to get. She pretty much threatened to try to destroy my reputation and my new relationship if I don’t go along with her story that we haven’t broken up.”

  “Why are you talking to her without me there? You should have called me if you were going to call her,” James squawked.

  “I didn’t call her, she called me and started threatening me,” Aedan bit out.

  “You need to let me handle these things Aedan, I can’t protect you or your brand if you don’t tell me about the things going on that could blindside us.”

  “There is nothing to be blindsided about other than this Kate situation.”

  “We also need to figure out what to do about the Jess situation,” James said.

  “There is no Jess situation,” Aedan growled, not liking James’ tone.

  “There is a Jess situation if the headlines I’m seeing that are coming to me for review and comments are any indication of what’s to come.”

  “What headlines?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve managed to squash most of them by letting them know they won’t have access to you for any promotions in the future if they publish them.”

  “If you knew all of this, why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  “You weren’t reading my messages or answering my calls, remember?”

  “Sorry about that. OK, thanks for your help with squashing all of this,” Aedan said, relieved.

  “That’s what I like to hear. How much longer are you planning to try to stay in the States?”

  “I was hoping for another week.”

  “I think you should cut your trip short and head back on Tuesday.”

  “That’s only two days away. It’s not enough time.”

  “It will have to be; you need to be back on home turf with all that’s happening with Kate.”

  “You’re right. OK. I’ll try to make it happen.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. I’ll make the arrangements and give you flight options once I have them.”

  “OK, thanks, talk to you later you later.” Aedan ended the call feeling a little bit better knowing James was in his corner. He could be a weasely little shit sometimes, but it was often better to have a weasel on your side than the other side.

  The fact that there were already headlines coming out about Jess was not a good thing. If he could get her to come to the UK with him, they could spend a bit more time together and Aedan could get her see that being with him wasn’t the sideshow she might expect.

  After waking up next to her in the mornings, feeling that tightness in his chest whenever he tucked a little bit of hair behind her ear and she looked up at him, Aedan didn’t know if he would be able to walk away from her. Being away from her tonight had
been bad enough. He needed more time to convince her that what they had could become something lasting. At least he hoped it could.

  23

  Aedan arrived outside of Jess’s work in the black SUV Steven had secured for their stay in DC. His leg was tapping so hard it rocked the car. Aedan wiped his sweating palms on his jeans as he looked out of the window, trying to spot Jess. He was worried about being spotted. In downtown DC, the odds were slim, but honestly, he was more afraid of what Jess would say to him when he saw her.

  She’d seemed reluctant to see him after their time in the hotel. Steven was sitting up front next to the driver, ready to ferry them back to Jess’s place. Aedan knew that she would prefer taking the metro, but he figured using the car would cut down on their chance of exposure.

  He’d also picked up a small bouquet of summer flowers and some groceries for the dinner he planned to cook for her. The thought of having them delivered to her office had crossed his mind, but he figured that she probably wouldn’t want to draw more attention to herself. And he wanted to see her face when he gave them to her.

  Sitting in the back seat with the bouquet in his hand, Aedan went over his speech in his mind. He would convince her that they were right for each other. He glanced at his phone—it was already a little after 5 p.m. He hopped out of the car, nervous that she wasn’t going to come out, and started pacing near the doors to the building. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t even notice she’d come out until she tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Waiting for someone?” she asked with a shy smile.

  “As a matter of fact, I am, I’m waiting for a beautiful woman who has agreed to let me bring her home this evening and perhaps cook her some dinner.”

  “She sounds like a lucky woman,” Jess said, grinning.

  “I would say that I’m a lucky man to be able to spend time with her, and I hope I can persuade her to spend some more time with me.”