by Locklyn Marx
Besides, it wasn’t the stats that were keeping the fans away – it was the team’s reputation. It wasn’t exactly family friendly.
“Jay,” Steve said, “he’s paying you millions of fucking dollars, he has the right to be unreasonable.”
“Fuck him,” Jay said. “He’s trying to put a curfew on me! Home by eleven!
That’s bullshit, Steve, and I don’t need it. I’m not Derek fucking Jeter.”
He was out of the car now, pacing up and down the garage, his energy making him all jumpy.
“Look,” Steve said. “You have to keep the peace. Try a little harder. If you get let out of your contract, it’s going to be hard to find another team to pick you up. It won’t matter your numbers, Jay, your reputation is going to bury you. At least for a while. You ever heard of Lindsay Lohan? Drugs and partying and stealing that necklace and boom, done.”
“I’m not Lindsay Lohan,” Jay said, rolling his eyes.
“No, you’re not,” Steve said. “You’re nowhere near as good looking.”
Jay laughed.
“Look,” Steve said. “I agree with you, Jay, I do. But we gotta do something to show him that you’re trying. I’m not saying go crazy or anything, but you gotta meet him at halfway. At least for a little while.”
Jay thought about it. And then it came to him. The perfect idea. That reporter.
Alyssa or whatever. He’d befriend her. Get her to write good things about him in her little blog. And then, once that happened, he’d be back on Billingsley’s good side.
“Steve,” he said, “I gotta go.”
“What?” Steve said. “Wait a minute, we have to go over the – ”
Jay ended the call, then immediately dialed upstairs. “Hello, Cliff Billingsley’s office,” the secretary said.
“Hey, Kylie,” Jay said. “It’s Jay.”
“Hi, Jay,” Kylie said. “What can I do for you?”
“You know that reporter that was just in there?”
“Alyssa?”
“Yeah. Do you happen to have her cell phone number?”
***
The hotel was right down the street from the Lerner Sports Complex, a fact that Alyssa appreciated, as it meant she didn’t have too far to walk. And since all she wanted to do was take a hot bath and curl up under the covers while ordering a pay-per-view movie, the short walk was even more of a plus.
She’d order room service, she decided as she walked down the hall to her room.
Pasta and bread, and maybe even a dessert. Usually she watched her carbs, or at least tried to, but if anyone needed comfort food, it was her.
She slid the card they’d given her at the front desk into the door of her room, and then pushed it open. She dropped her suitcase and bag on the floor, then flopped down on the bed.
She closed her eyes for a moment, glad she was here and not in a meeting with Cliff Billingsley. Then she got up, drew herself a nice warm bath, and spent the next forty minutes soaking in the tub.
She got out and wrapped herself in a warm fluffy towel, then dressed in a soft pink t-shirt and comfy pajama pants, and ordered a cheeseburger and mac and cheese from room service. She was flipping through the Lifetime movies on the TV, and was just settling on one called HER FAVORITE MISTAKE, which starred Jennie Garth and was about a woman who ended up having sex with a guy who turned out to be a good mistake, when there was a knock on the door.
Thinking it was her room service, Alyssa answered it without looking through the peephole, which was a very stupid move, since everyone knew you were supposed to look through the peephole in case it was a serial killer. But it wasn’t a serial killer. It was Jay Havens.
Alyssa’s mouth dropped. “What… what are you doing here?”
“I came to see you. Can I come in?” He pushed past her into the room before Alyssa could answer.
“What are you talking about? Is Mr. Billingsley back? Does he want to see me?”
Alyssa was hoping not. All she wanted was her mac and cheese and a nap.
“No,” Jay said. “I wanted to see you.” He sat down on her bed and glanced at the TV. “Lifetime? Huh. Weird, I didn’t peg you as a Lifetime fan.”
Alyssa picked up the remote and switched off the screen. “So what if I am?” she asked. “Lifetime movies are nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“No, I agree,” Jay said. “Did you see the one where Henry Winkler dressed up as Santa?”
“I think so,” Alyssa said. “Was that the one with – ” she broke off when she saw that same arrogant smile playing on his lips. He was messing with her. “Get out,” she said.
“What?” He leaned back on the bed, stretching his long legs out across the comforter. God, he was tall. Alyssa was tall herself, five foot eight, but next to him, she felt tiny.
“Get out,” she said. “Unless you have a reason for being here.”
“I do.”
“What is it?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“You already said that.” She crossed her arms and waited.
“Look,” he said, sitting up. He flashed her a smile, and then got up off the bed, crossing the room toward her. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’d like to start over.”
He held his hand out, and Alyssa hesitated, then took it. His grip was warm and firm, and his hand was huge, enveloping hers until it disappeared. A bolt of electricity shot up her fingers and moved through her body. It threw her for a loop, and it was all she could do not to take a step back.
“Anyway,” Jay said. “I wanted to see if maybe you wanted to go out for dinner in Manhattan. I could show you around New York.”
“No thank you,” she said, still thrown by the way her body was reacting to his closeness. “I already have important dinner plans.”
He looked surprised, and raised his eyebrows. “You do? What kind?”
There was a knock on the door, and then a waiter yelled, “Room service!”
“Those are your important plans?”
“Yes,” Alyssa said, crossing the room to the door. She opened it, and the waiter wheeled the cart into the room. Alyssa signed for it, and thanked him. When the waiter saw Jay sitting there, his eyes widened.
“Oh my God,” he said. “Jay Havens!”
“In the flesh,” Jay said, flashing his grin. “What’s your name, man?”
“Carlos,” the man said. “I’m a huge fan.” So then Alyssa had to wait while Jay made a big production of signing an autograph for Carlos’s son, and then Carlos admitted that the autograph was really for him, so then Jay insisted that he sign another one for the son. The whole thing was very jovial and ridiculous, and once Carlos was gone, Alyssa turned around and glared at Jay.
“So that’s how it works, huh? You’re a jerk in real life, but then when the fans come around, you turn into Mr. Nice Guy?”
“I haven’t been a jerk to you,” Jay said easily. He picked up the metal dome on the cart and looked down at the mac and cheese. “Mac and cheese?” he asked incredulously. “What are you, twelve?”
“That,” Alyssa said, “is why you’re a jerk.” She took the dome out of his hand and slammed it back down on the plate.
“I’m a jerk because I don’t like mac and cheese?”
“You’re a jerk because you questioned my choice of food,” Alyssa said. “And also yes, because you don’t like mac and cheese. Who doesn’t like mac and cheese?”
“Me,” Jay said. “I prefer mashed potatoes, or maybe like a chicken pot pie.”
Alyssa watched incredulously as he picked up the hotel room phone and pushed zero.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Ordering room service,” he said. “I can’t eat that, I don’t like it.” He frowned at her. “You really should have asked me what I wanted. I mean, it was kind of rude.”
“I didn’t know you were coming! You barged in here with no warning!”
Jay held a finger to his lips to shush her while he waited for the
person on the other end of the line to answer. Alyssa walked over and pushed down the button, hanging the phone up. “Hey!” Jay said. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because you’re leaving.”
“No, I’m not.” He pushed the zero. She hung up. He pushed the zero. She hung up. He pushed the zero, and this time, Alyssa went to take the phone out of his hand. He grabbed her wrist playfully, and that same shot of heat flew through her body, only this time, she felt it hit between her legs.
She went to pull her hands away, but he grinned and pulled her closer, down onto the bed on top of him.
“Do you say uncle?” he said gruffly.
“No,” she replied, determined not to let some cocky baseball player get the best of her. Even if he was hot. She rolled over and grabbed the cord of the receiver out of the phone, then stuffed it down her pants and sat up, backing across the hotel room.
“Now, now,” Jay said, leaning back and giving her another slow grin. “Don’t make me come and get that.”
Alyssa swallowed, suddenly aware of the thin t-shirt she was wearing, with no bra on underneath. She felt her nipples harden at the thought of Jay crossing the room and wrestling with her some more.
“Don’t even try it,” she said.
“Okay, fine.” Jay was sitting up now, and he picked up the fork that was on the room service tray and took a bite of mac and cheese. He grimaced. “That’s it,” he said.
“Come on, we’re leaving.” He looked at Alyssa. “Actually, no, don’t come on, at least until you get dressed. You can’t go out looking like that.”
“Where are we going?”
“Out,” he said. “I’m taking you to dinner. A real dinner, not this hotel food crap.”
Alyssa was about to say no again, but then she thought about it. He was probably expecting her to say no, and she figured he would love that. Then he could talk all about how he tried to get to know her, how he even offered to take her to dinner, but that she wouldn’t budge. The stubborn reporter didn’t even want to hang out with him, he would say, she didn’t care about the real story, she just wanted to write what she thought would get web hits, and so she didn’t give him a fair chance.
In the end, it was her job that made the decision for her. The bottom line was that this was her first real assignment, the first time she’d been given a chance to prove herself. She’d wanted to be a writer ever since she was a little girl, and she was damned if some conceited jerk like Jay Havens was going to jeopardize that.
“Give me ten minutes,” she said, heading into the bathroom. Jay was right about one thing – she couldn’t go out looking the way she did. She just hoped the hotel had a hair dryer.
***
Jay sat back on the bed, waiting for Alyssa, and tried not to think about the way his body had reacted when they’d been wrestling over the phone. He’d seen her nipples get hard through her tiny t-shirt, and he’d felt himself getting aroused. But why? She was definitely not his normal type. He liked blonde hair, skimpy clothes, and women he knew weren’t going to be much of a challenge. Keep it simple, no attachments, that kind of thing.
He probably just needed to get laid. It must have been way too long if he was thinking about going after a reporter from upstate New York.
His theory was confirmed when Alyssa came out of the bathroom in a pair of jeans and a black sweater, her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. “Ready?” she asked.
“Yup.” She seemed a little wary, which Jay had to admit he liked. But he also knew he had to be nice to her.
He led her downstairs to the underground parking garage in the hotel.
Alyssa stared when she saw his car. “You drive?”
“Yes,” he said, “Jay drives.”
“Ugh.” She opened the passenger door before he could do it for her. “Please don’t refer to yourself in the third person.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s annoying.”
“If you find that annoying,” Jay said, “you’re probably going to find a million other things about me annoying as well.”
“Duly noted.” She settled into the passenger seat, then pulled a notepad out and started writing something down.
“What are you writing?”
“I’m making a note that you talk about yourself in the third person.”
Jay frowned as he navigated the car out of the garage and onto the streets of Brooklyn. “Why are you writing that?”
Something about the idea of people knowing he talked about himself in the third person bothered him. The truth was, even though it was causing him a career headache, he kind of liked the fact that people thought he was a badass. There was a certain cache to it, a certain power that he liked.
“I’m writing it because it’s the kind of thing that I think readers would be interested in reading.”
“Why, though?”
“Look,” Alyssa said. “Your boss hired me to follow the team around, and then write about my experience. And that’s what I’m going to do. If you don’t want me to write about something, then don’t do it.”
“I don’t give a shit what you write about,” Jay lied, then reached over and turned the satellite radio to the rap station.
“You seem like you do.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Fine,” she said, shrugging. “Then there won’t be any problems.”
Jay looked at her out of the corner of his eye, wondering why she was suddenly being so feisty. It was in contrast to the way she’d been this morning in the elevator, and in the hotel room. Then she’d been a little spitfire, yeah, but it had seemed like more of an act. Now Jay felt like she had taken back some of in control, even though she was in his car, at his mercy, going where he wanted to go.
He glanced over at her again. She was scribbling away in her notebook, biting her lip in concentration. His eyes traveled down to the sweater she was wearing. It was a V-neck, and since he was so tall, he had a perfect view. He could see the top of a lacy black bra, and he thought about those pert little nipples that were under there, the nipples he’d seen earlier popping through her thin t-shirt. He quickly averted his eyes as he felt himself becoming aroused.
“So where are we going?” she asked.
“Don’t worry,” Jay said. “You’ll like it.”
***
He took her to dinner at Koi, his favorite sushi restaurant, mostly because he wanted to impress her. He wasn’t sure why, but for some reason, their car ride had thrown him off. There’d been a small but perceptible shift in the dynamic. Once she had that damn notebook out, she’d gotten confident, like she knew he had to be on his best behavior. And for some reason, he felt like he wanted to be on his best behavior. Well, except for when it came to her breasts, which he couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Hello, Mr. Havens,” the maitre’d said as they walked in.
“Hey, Walter,” Jay said, shaking the man’s hand. “How’s it goin’?”
“Excellent,” he said. “Would you like your regular table?”
“That’d be great,” Jay said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill, and handed it to Walter. Usually these things were done secretly, so that no one could see, but Jay wanted Alyssa to notice. He wanted her to be impressed. But she didn’t seem impressed, and she seemed even less impressed when Walter led them to a secluded table in the back of the restaurant, behind a privacy curtain.
Walter pulled Alyssa’s chair out, and she slid into it. “Thank you,” she said, and placed her napkin on her lap. She picked up the menu and scanned it.
“This is one of the most exclusive restaurants in New York,” Jay tried.
“It looks lovely,” she said.
Jay frowned. Lovely? Koi wasn’t lovely. Yes, it was lovely inside, but you didn’t go there because it was lovely. You went there so you could say you went to Koi, you went there because the food was kickass, you went there to see and be seen, even though you were behind a privacy screen.
>
“Should we start with a caviar appetizer?” Jay asked casually. Alyssa looked at him blankly, then pulled her notebook out of her bag and started to write something down. “What did you just write?” he demanded.
“I wrote that you wanted to order a caviar appetizer.”
“Why is that relevant?”
“All the women who are swooning over you want to know this stuff.”
“There are women swooning over me?”
“Yes,” she said.
He grinned. Obviously he knew there were women swooning over him. And he liked the idea that she was going to write that he ordered caviar. It made him seem refined.
When the waiter returned, Jay ordered sushi for them both. Alyssa scribbled away in her notebook. “Are you writing that I ordered for you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you writing what kind of sushi I ordered?”
“Yes.”
Finally, she set the notebook down and took a sip of her water.
“So how are you liking Brooklyn so far?” Jay asked politely.
“I’ve only been here for a few hours,” she said. “That’s hardly enough time to make up my mind.” She took another sip of water, and her tongue snaked out and licked a stray drop of water off her bottom lip. Jay’s eyes flicked back down to her sweater, which somehow seemed even lower cut than it had been in the car. She had nice full, breasts. Jay imagined what they’d look like out of that black bra.
The waiter set down their caviar, and Jay thanked him. Then he scooped some up with a cracker, popped it into his mouth, and sat back to enjoy the show. The show being, of course, that Alyssa had probably never had caviar. Probably she was going to refuse to try it, or even better, spit it out.
“Good,” Jay said, after he swallowed.
Alyssa reached over, scooped up some caviar, and took a bite. “Not bad,” she said, chewing and swallowing. Jay tried not to feel disappointed.
They made conversation about the weather, about New York City, about her job.
When the sushi came, she was just as adventurous, and slammed down everything from raw tuna to eel.
