by Love,Amy
If she has anything slick to say to me, I just need to remind her whose game we were playing now. She thought she had something on me? I had something on her, too. This was way worse for her than it was for me. If it ever came out, you know, by accident, or on purpose, that we were fucking, it would be her who would get in trouble. Not me.
It would be her professionalism that was in question. Not mine. I would be the victim. Not her. All I had to do was tell someone that we were banging, and she might even get taken off the story. Then someone frumpier, not as sexy, or a dude could cover it instead.
It would be sad to see her go, but at least she’d be off my fucking back.
I wondered about her. She was just another chick. Literally. So many of the relationships I had had with women were ones that started and ended like the one I had had with this girl. We would meet, we would bang, and then we would never see each other again. I thought about the way it had happened. She was resisting, but that was probably just because she didn’t want me to think she was a slut. Girls were funny like that.
In the end, something I did must have convinced her. I wasn’t sure about that one, to be honest. There was the chance that she would come easily and quickly, as she had, but there was also the chance that she was going to make me work a bit harder and wait much longer.
That interview though.
That was… that was something else. The girl was like a pit bull or something; she just kept attacking. I don’t know how the hell she got it out of me. All the shit about my mom and my dad and Gabbie… all that was not supposed to come out just then, but I almost had no choice. I had to tell her what had happened so she understood and didn’t keep holding against me that thing that she was holding against me.
I had never told that to a woman I was sleeping with. We usually never got that far in the conversation to discuss that. A lot of them were likely also not that interested in hearing about me and the events that had happened in my childhood.
I liked that thing she had said to me…that it was a safe space. Even if you asked me, I couldn’t tell you when, but at some point, sitting there with Quinn, it had stopped feeling like an interview and had just started feeling like therapy. I had tried that shit in the past; my mom had begged me to go, so I had, but I could never get on board with it.
How was I supposed to open up like that to a stranger? It was that safe space thing that Quinn had said. Being around her felt safe…and being in the locker room felt safe, too. That whole shrink's office thing, I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know Quinn that well, but she didn’t have that douchey, I-know-everything look on her face when I was talking to her. I didn’t feel like she was analyzing and judging everything I was saying so she could diagnose me with some sort of disorder.
She was just listening. She just let me talk about it, so it was like this knot in my throat that I couldn’t swallow anymore. She looked at me and listened like she fucking cared. Sure, she was there to write a story at the end of the day, but I didn’t just feel like a story to her. I felt like me.
It wasn’t that big of a secret that my mom had been abused by my dad, not in my life anyway. Some of my teammates knew because I had told them, but it was never something that people brought up in interviews to me because that wasn’t something I just blabbed about to everyone who put a mic in my face.
My father, that piece of shit, hadn’t come forward and tried to sell the story either, which was honestly something I expected him to at least threaten to do. The statute of limitations was over, and there was no way he could be prosecuted for it, but then again, he was a monster. He was capable of anything.
I felt on top of the world during the game. It must have been something to do with Quinn’s pussy. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, but I was just dominating. I sunk every shot that I took. I made good passes; I sunk the free throw I was rewarded when I was fouled. I wasn’t even mad when it had happened. It had been a hard foul, like the last. The guy had shoved me when I was airborne and I had come down. I wasn’t even pissed; I just called him a motherfucker and went about on my way. The fans had been keeping control of their urges, which was good, too. I hadn’t had to do anything against the rules all game long.
Coach hadn’t fired me, or beaten my ass or anything. I told him about the story that Quinn was going to write and he was gravy. Just like that.
The last whistle blew just after the ball sunk smoothly into the hoop. My team swarmed. We had gotten the win…eight-six to forty-seven. Pretty damn good if I did say so myself. There was one person I wanted congratulations from the most.
I walked up to her.
“Good game, hotshot,” she said, smiling. I smiled back. Her smile was beautiful. Her teeth were straight and nice. She looked like a fan who was happy their team had just won.
“The trick is warming up thoroughly. I had this great, great session in the locker room with this hot chick who left before we could really get hot.”
“Hm. I don’t know about that. It was a good game, but you aren’t paid to play bad games.”
“Some guys have these pregame rituals. I think I need one, too.”
“You don’t have a lucky pair of boxers you wear?”
“Hm, I’m thinking about just totally going commando when there is a game because you will be there and I know what that means.”
“Do you want to concentrate on what it actually is that we have to do together?”
“Drop it, Quinn. You don’t have to try and keep hiding from me. You can’t. I’ve been inside of you, and I know what you sound like when the cock inside of you is rubbing so good that you can’t form whole words anymore.”
She paused then, and she swallowed slowly. I could see it in her face. It was not embarrassment over what we had done. It was desire. She wanted me again. She wanted me, and I was ready to give it to her. Fuck, if there hadn’t been so many people around us just then, she could have just raised her skirt right there and we could have gone again. She wasn’t wearing any panties. I knew that because I fucking had them.
“I would suggest not playing games with me. I won’t play nice with people who don’t deserve it.”
“I won’t either,” I said easily.
“This is not a game.”
“Yes it is, Quinn.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. If she had done it to push her tits up and distract me, then it had worked.
“You are going to lose.”
“I’ve got more game than you, TMZ,” I told her. I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. I felt her whole body go stiff. A couple of people had had to see it. Her face turned red in the cheeks. It was on. Me and Quinn. We had just had the tip-off and she was already down one. She had had the upper hand before, but I had come in with the equalizer and now she was fighting for supremacy once more. She wasn’t going to get it.
Chapter Nine
Quinn
What had Daniel asked for?
An interview with Dante Rock.
What had I gotten him?
Not one, not two, not even three interviews with the man. I had gotten him as many as I would be able to have for the remainder of the season. I had basically gotten him Dante Rock himself. He might as well just move in with Dante because he was going to be hearing so much of him. I was so excited to tell him. I worked for Daniel. He was my boss. We had known each other for years, and I had risen through the ranks since I had been an intern. He had basically seen my trajectory as a reporter, and I knew he would be happy for me. If not happy, he would at least respect that I had gotten myself a mega story. At my media company, I was already considered one of the youngins. Somebody was always calling me kid and many people still mistook me for an intern.
This was huge for me. It was huge for the company, too. We would be able to come out with the most intimate and detailed profile of Dante Rock that had ever been seen. We were getting him at more or less the height of his career. He was a controversial and interesting character, and quite frankly
, our objective—besides telling the news—was selling the news, and he would help us do that.
I had reported on athletes before, but there was a reason this was such a big deal. Dante was a force all on his own. He was the guy who people would call a legend in the future, and I was going to be one of the people helping him make history. When people in the future, biographers and historians, were looking for information about Dante, I would be a primary source.
This was such a big deal. Who had this much access to Dante Rock besides his family?
I knew Daniel would be expecting a lot—and he was about to get it and more.
I was so excited. The only people who tended to get access like this to the athletes were documentary makers who would follow them around with cameras. I had spent the last couple days sending emails to Dante’s people, telling them who I was and what I wanted. If Dante knew what was good for him, he had been telling them as well who I was and what he had agreed to do. I was fully expecting them to get back to me, or to Daniel and my other bosses to talk logistics and probably get a contract or something drawn up, but that was fine. I wasn’t nervous about that. I was excited about finally getting this opportunity.
I had so many ideas. There was the option to just serialize the interviews and make it like a journey that the reader would go on. It would document when Dante faced adversity and came out victorious at the end with his first championship win for the Charlotte Yellow Jackets. Why was I thinking so small, I could write a fucking book. I had to start carrying a camera around so I could start getting footage and pictures to accompany the writing. He was sensitive about filming and having cameras around, but that was fine. I would just warn him when I was about to get it out. There was part of me that was curious about why he was so skittish about the filming thing, but the other part of me wasn’t really all that bothered. He was a public figure, and I guess it was just natural that he was cautious about all the different ways his private life could be caught on tape. He would likely have me sign one or several non-disclosure agreements, which again was fine. Whatever he had to do to make himself comfortable. I was interested in him, but I wasn’t that interested. I wasn’t going to try and film a sex tape of him or something. Nope. That would have hurt me more than it would hurt him.
My last conversation with Dante had been on the basketball court at their last game. It had been just after the Yellow Jackets had won their game and just after that other thing that had happened. I didn’t want to think about it. The more I tried not to think about it, the more I thought about it. I remembered it, intensely. It would come back to me at the times when my mind was allowed to wander the most…like in the shower and just before bed when I would lay awake before falling asleep.
Sleeping with Dante had been a terrible mistake. Sleeping with Dante had been the worst thing I could have done in my position at a time like this. Sleeping with Dante, was the sort of thing that would turn into a career-ruining scandal if it came out. It wasn’t even sleeping together; we had been fucking. It was bareback, dirty, gross fucking in a locker room where anybody could have walked in and seen us. Saying we had slept together was just the way I wanted to think about it. It made it seem just that little bit less gross. Just put some nice dressing on a shit salad. I was supposed to be a reporter. I wasn’t supposed to sleep with my subjects.
Was there a bigger breach of ethics than this? It wasn’t like this was anything illegal, but it was wrong. It was a little gross using a person you had so much power over for sex. Okay, that was a little steep. I wasn’t using him for sex. If anything he was using me for sex.
I didn’t know how the thought made me feel. I had told him his rules, and no womanizing was one of them. I expected him to follow them, but to be perfectly honest, wouldn’t have been that surprised if he didn’t. I wasn’t his teacher. He wasn’t going to get detention for not following the rules, I just wanted him as clearheaded as possible, without distraction. I, to him at least, was going to be there to help him work his urges out, or whatever, which was a little polarizing to think about. It was just casual sex. People in their twenties and older… and younger too, had it all the time. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t have it all the time, but still, not a big deal.
Why was I thinking that just because we had had sex one time, we had to keep doing it? It wasn’t like bleaching your hair where you then had to go back in and keep getting your roots colored. No. We could never go back and never have sex with each other in the first place, but we could never have sex again going forward.
That was it.
That would have been the better, and right thing to do in this situation. If you looked at it technically, our professional relationship, Dante’s and mine had only just begun. The first interview had happened without the cooperation of the team and his management. It was like it didn’t even count. I would totally use it though. However, as far as the two of us went, everything that had happened bar the interview could be stricken from the record.
If you ignored something long enough, it became invisible. That was one way all this could go. I could ignore it, forcing him to ignore it, too. If you ignored something for long enough though, it could get worse. Where did we fall? We weren’t a loose string in a sweater that left unchecked would unravel and ruin the whole garment. We were two adults who were more than capable of keeping their genitals to themselves. Attraction wasn’t like hunger; you wouldn’t die if it wasn’t fulfilled.
Dante Rock was by no means my first time, but he was the first that I had had in a little bit. Also, the first that I had had and felt that damn good. I think it was because we were in public. That was why it was so hot to think about. Anybody could have walked into that locker room and gotten the scoop of the century. Dante would have survived, but I would likely have ended up out of a job.
He had had nothing to work with but his body, and it had to still be one of the most erotic experiences of my life. No ambiance. No mood. No aphrodisiacs, no nothing. Just him and the weapon of mass destruction between his legs. We hadn’t even been naked, but there was a chance that I had never been hotter in my life. Just the solid size and girth of him stretching me out still made me wet when I thought about it. I didn’t regret it that much, but I regretted it a little.
For one thing, I could have maybe not let the man come inside of me. That had been irresponsible. Yes, I was on the pill, but I didn’t know where he had been, and he didn’t know where I had been. I had never in my life before then just believed a guy when he had said that he was clean so I would let him have raw sex with me. If someone really wanted it, they wouldn’t be above lying to get it. Dante had the money and reason to take care of himself, but still. That was not a shining moment for me.
I didn’t know why I was panicking so much. Who the hell said that Dante even wanted to do anything with me again? He had maybe hinted at it a little, but who said he was serious. I couldn’t treat him like he didn’t have a reputation. That was not something I could afford to do with this guy. He had one, and I had fallen for him anyway. I hadn’t fallen fallen, but I had crossed a line that was impossible to uncross. There was no way he was as worried about all of this as I was. He was used to fucking women—and ditching them—and I… I had to be that woman this time.
Focusing on the pieces I was going to run was more important than worrying about whether Dante Rock would ever feel horny enough to touch me again, and whether I would let him. I had to think about work, the same way I had made him cut out all distractions so that he could think about work.
I could talk to Dante all I wanted. What I had had to do next was make sure that his management knew what was going on. I wasn’t asking for much, just access to him for the rest of the season. The interviews would not take up any of the time that he had to dedicate to things like training, press, and actual games. He would be there for them when they needed him. All I needed was access to him for the rest of the time.
His agent was fully on board. He had sounded more exci
ted by the thought than you would think he should have been. Maybe he thought this was a way to score Dante some brand deals or something. Talking to the coach and manager had been next. I also spoke to the person in charge of the Yellow Jackets’ public relations. As it turned out, they weren’t the biggest fans of the sort of stories about Dante that would tend to make it to the news and the blogs. They were all in agreement that the stories, a number, between three and five, based on the interviews could potentially be good for him, hence, for them.
They would also be good companion pieces to his success when he finally managed to help the Yellow Jackets get a championship. It would be his first, and I had all the rights to telling the story. That was real power. I couldn’t wait to tell Daniel. I had to wait though, just long enough for me to communicate with Dante’s people a little bit first. I wanted to look like I had my shit together.
I knocked on the door of his office and waited for him to call me in. It was always awkward doing that because his office had glass walls all around. Really, you didn’t have to knock because he could see when someone was at his door, but it was convention. I opened the door up and sat across from him, waiting for him to finish his phone call. He sounded like he was talking to someone from IT because he kept barking at them to talk in English.
