by Rose, Callie
“So what you’re saying is that your game stats are worth at least one hundred thousand dollars? That seems a little aggrandized.”
I shook my head, beginning to get frustrated. “You’re trying to quantify something that isn’t quantifiable. Seems like you’re so stuck on the money you can’t see anything else. I didn’t peg you as a gold digger.”
“Excuse me?” Her cheeks flushed prettily, and I grinned. “If you are implying that I’m here to dig for your gold, Mr. Dawson, let me assure you that nothing is further from my mind. I was sent here under protest to figure out what your deal is, so let’s cut to the chase. How can you reassure your sponsors that you’ve really turned over a new leaf?”
“Easy. I haven’t done anything lately to get myself in trouble.”
“You underestimate the tenacity of the paparazzi.” She pulled a thick blue folder out of her big purse and flipped it open. “How closely do you follow tabloid media, Mr. Dawson?”
“I don’t.”
“You should start.” She slipped a piece of paper out of the folder and slid it across the table to me. “These headlines were printed yesterday.”
I scoffed. “What do they say, that I overindulged in vegetables? Spent too long in the shower?” I picked up the paper. My stomach clenched as I read it.
Dawson at it Again! It proclaimed in huge letters. Waitress Ex-lover Tells All! Beside the words was a picture of me from a year ago making out with some girl in a club, and a picture of Millie in tears.
“That traitor!” I fumed. “I never slept with Millie. She’s too old for me, for one thing. Who writes this crap? Where’s the rest of it, what did she say?”
Addison shook her head. “She didn’t say anything important. I read the piece, and the quotes were clearly taken out of context and hyped for all they were worth. ‘He does it all the time,’ and ‘He paid me.’ Innocuous things like that, which could have been referring to anything. The direct quotes cover the tabloid’s ass legally, and the rest of the article is the author’s personal conjecture.”
“Then it’s meaningless,” I said irritably, tossing the paper back onto the coffee table. “It shouldn’t matter.”
“Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does,” she said somberly as she put the paper back in the folder. “Your sponsors don’t take the time to read and analyze these stories, Mr. Dawson. I only do because it’s my job. All they see is that, once again, your face is plastered all over the grocery store check-out aisles with another scandal attached, and they aren’t going to risk their bottom line against the idea that you’re maybe, possibly, being maligned.”
“Maybe, possibly, nothing,” I said heatedly. “I’ve kept my nose clean for months!”
She raised her eyebrows and tapped a fingernail on her recorder. “Your nose, hm? And what do you have to say to the rumors that you are doing cocaine in public restrooms?”
“Full of crap.”
“Hilarious. I hope you know that puns aren’t going to save you. When was the last time you drank alcohol?”
“What are you, my doctor?”
“Nope, just your last hope at saving your career.”
She said the words with such quiet authority that it actually gave me chills. She was right. Between the money and the tabloids, I was screwed without her. That didn’t mean I was ready to cooperate.
“You say that.” I shrugged. “But here’s what I think. I think as soon as the tabloids find a juicier target, they’ll leave me alone. As long as I don’t keep outdoing myself the way that I was, they’ll get bored and move on.”
She chuckled and tossed her red hair over her shoulder. God, I wanted to run my fingers through that hair. Maybe pull it a little if she was into that. What was she in to, anyway? No reason the interview couldn’t go both ways.
“You didn’t deal with a lot of bullies in school, did you?” She asked.
“Never. Why?”
She leaned forward, and her shirt fell just enough to give me an enticing peek at her cleavage. She looked good enough to eat.
“Because if you had, you would know that they don’t just get bored and move on. Once they pick a target, they aren’t satisfied until they tear that target to shreds. You can’t passively stop a bully, Dawson.”
I tore my eyes from her cleavage to study her face. This particular point seemed to be personal to her.
“So you’re admitting to being a bully.”
She froze for an instant, then sat back to widen the cool distance between us. I cursed at myself. It had just started to warm up in here.
“Not at all,” she said. “But I will admit that, personally, I couldn’t care less about your career, Mr. Dawson. All I care about is the truth. I spent the afternoon poring over the last six months of stories about you. It’s fluff, but it’s powerful fluff.”
“Then it should be obvious to you that I’ve changed,” I said with an easy grin. What a relief. “So you can just write your story and be on your way.”
“Not a chance,” she said. “Anybody can hide a secret for six months, Dawson. My job is to uncover all of yours.”
“Feel free to uncover anything you want to, darlin’.” I let my eyes wander over her suggestively, amused at how quickly her cheeks turned red.
“Comments like that tell me that the rumors are not unfounded,” she said coldly. “Are you even capable of being professional?”
“You saw my game,” I shot back. “The picture of professionalism.”
“Maybe,” she said. “We’ll see. Tell me, where do you go for down time these days? I assume turning over a new leaf involves leaving your old clubs and parties behind.”
“Of course it does. I spend my time at home.”
She didn’t believe me, and that wasn’t surprising.
“At home? So what you’re telling me is that you bring the parties to you.” She looked unimpressed. A woman with such an expressive face would be a work of art under the right circumstances, I thought. I wondered if there was a way to create those circumstances without playing right into the magazine’s hands.
“Not at all,” I told her with a smile. “The last party I went to was Alistair’s granddaughter’s birthday party. She’s five, so, you know, no strippers and booze just yet.”
She raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. Fuck, I wanted to kiss them. It had been a long, dry, new-leaf spell. I would’ve loved to break that spell with her. Al’s desk was the perfect height and width for that exact activity, I realized. I gazed at it thoughtfully for a moment, imagining what she would look like bent over it. Stifling a groan, I crossed one knee over the other. It really had been a long time.
She cleared her throat, drawing my attention back to her. “I have a list of questions here that I don’t remember seeing in any of your previous interviews. They’re a little tougher than you’re probably used to.”
“Lay them on me, darlin’. I’ve got nothing to hide.” Except for the bulge in my pants, but she didn’t need to know that.
She raised a brow but continued in an even voice. “All right. First question: two years ago, you were not only the star of the team, but you were a role model for young men everywhere. You did charity work, made guest appearances on inspirational podcasts, you even volunteered for the Make-a-Wish foundation. Twice. There wasn’t a scandal to be found anywhere near your name.”
That memory blast was as effective as a bucket of ice water. I shifted in my seat, suddenly far less comfortable with the interview.
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” I said.
“Fast forward to four months later. Your first scandal hits the papers. You’re doing body shots off of strippers. You claimed it was your friend’s bachelor party, but that turned out to be a lie. Weird thing to lie about, isn’t it?”
It felt as if someone had turned the thermostat up to ninety. I shifted in my chair again. “I don’t like reliving that part of my life. I was a spineless douchebag, let’s leave it at that, all right?”
“Co
me on, Sawyer, if I leave it at that I’m not really doing my job, am I? So tell me. What happened in between Make-a-Wish and stripper body shots?” She pressed her pen against her lips. I don’t think it was intended to be suggestive, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t. The conflict between my uncomfortable shame and her provocative gestures irritated me.
“None of your damn business, that’s what.”
She sighed. “Mr. Dawson, if you aren’t going to cooperate, you might as well retire right now. You are about to be fired, do you understand that at all?”
My jaw clenched until I thought my teeth would crack. I hated that she was right.
“Fine. Before the body shot incident, I was dating a woman, Lucy, who I thought I was going to be with for the rest of my life. I’d bought a ring and everything. I was going to propose during the last game of the season, out on the ice. I got approval from everybody I needed to. It was going to be freaking magical, damn it.”
She listened patiently, but her expression was unchanged. I didn’t want her pity, but a little softness could have gone a long way.
“Anyway… long story short, she left me for a football player.”
There it was. Surprise, all over her pretty face. Good.
“Did she give you a reason?”
I shook my head. “She didn’t have to. There are about eight million reasons why he was better for her than me. Common knowledge.”
Her eyes lit up with understanding. “Ah, so that’s why the gold digger comment. It’s a sore spot for you. You know, that also explains why you got so upset about the fiscal breakdown. You’re still mad about being reduced to a paycheck.”
“Wouldn’t you be? I was in love with her!” I squeezed my eyes shut against my temper. Breathe, breathe. List ten things that make you happy.
Goals.
Freshly sharpened skates.
Sleeping till noon.
Extra-large pizzas with everything on them.
White panties with little red roses sliding down an attractive ass.
First warm day of spring.
First cold day of winter.
Is that ten? Close enough.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.
“Anger management?” She asked in a tone that struck me as being just a touch more sympathetic.
“How’d you guess?”
She shrugged one shoulder and cleared her throat. “Just seemed like a studied technique. I guessed.”
“Liar.”
She flashed me a heated look, and I grinned. I was finally starting to get to her.
“This is your interview, Mr. Dawson, not mine.”
“That’s kind of cute,” I said teasingly. “The way you change which name you call me depending on what you’re trying to convey. Nice trick.”
She flushed red. “You’re mistaken, Mr. Dawson. Now, back to your story. So the girl breaks your heart. What happens next?”
I decided to let it slide for now. “You know what happens next. Stripper body shots.”
She gave me an exasperated look that reminded me of a hot teacher I’d had in high school, and it only made me want to mess with her more.
“So you expect me to believe that she walked out, and you immediately went to the club, took body shots, and flushed your reputation down the toilet on an extended bender?”
“Exactly.”
She groaned and rubbed a hand across her forehead. “Okay, one more question for now. We can pick this up again tomorrow. What made you decide to stop ruining your life?”
Nobody had ever asked me that question before. Not the media, not my coach, not even my friends. It was the first thing she’d asked me that actually made me stop and think.
“I can give you a clear-cut answer, but it would be bull.”
“I would prefer to skip the bull.”
“I figured. There wasn’t any one thing. I didn’t have a moment of clarity like everybody talks about in AA, there was no one single influential person. It was a struggle. I would see myself in photos and wouldn’t be able to remember the night they were taken. I would look at myself in the mirror and see that I was getting old too fast. My memories… my old memories, the ones I wanted to keep… started to slip away from me.”
I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t even want to keep talking, but I couldn’t seem to stop.
“Some days I would wake up and decide this is it, this is the day I get my life together. Then by six o’clock, I would be hammered again. Other days, I would wake up drunk and keep it going until an hour before practice, then throw up in the locker room and be good to go. Practice would be hell, and I would decide that night that I would change, that it was never going to happen again.”
“But it would.”
I nodded. “But then it wouldn’t, for a day or two. Then a few days together. After a while, I stopped throwing punches when people suggested that I needed help, and started to look into it. A while after that, I actually went to a meeting.” I shrugged. “There’s no switch to flick. There’s always more rock under rock bottom. Sometimes it takes a dozen little shifts to turn a car around. It’s not sexy, and it’s not dramatic, but it’s the truth.”
We sat in silence for a long moment, then she switched off the recorder and closed her notebook.
“Thank you, Mr. Dawson,” she said with that same warmth she had spoken to Al with earlier. “I appreciate your candor. Give me a call tomorrow, whenever you’re ready to pick this up again.”
Jesus. Was that an interview or a therapy session? I shook my head at myself as I watched her firm, round ass sashay out of the room.
Either way, keep it in your pants. She’s dangerous.
5
Addison
The second I made it back to my hotel room, I kicked off my shoes, pulled the comforter off the bed—those things are filthy—and collapsed onto its welcoming softness. The day had completely drained me, and I was just jet lagged enough to be irritated about it. I needed to decompress, and I knew exactly how to do it. I called Rebecca.
“Oh my God, I have been waiting all day for you to call! I saw you on TV for a second. You didn’t look impressed. How could you not be impressed?”
“You know me,” I sighed. “I’m not into sports ball.”
“It’s not a ball, it’s a puck.”
“Fine then, I don’t give a puck about sports. But I did manage to get a halfway decent interview with Sawyer.” I stretched, rubbing my aching feet as I talked.
“Oh? Tell me everything!”
“There’s not much to tell, really. Nothing that you don’t already know from all the other stories. He was a model citizen, then he wasn’t, now he appears to be trying.”
“Appears to be? You don’t think he is?”
I shrugged, even though she couldn’t see it. “I don’t know. There’s definitely more to him than meets the eye.”
“Yeah, like everything under the clothes.” She sighed dreamily. “But I know you don’t mean that. What do you mean?”
I could have meant that, but I wasn’t going to admit it. He really was one of the most attractive men I’d ever spoken to, and something about our interview had only made him more attractive.
“Rebecca,” I said, changing the topic. “Do you think I have an unhealthy obsession with fixing unfixable men?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Well, you asked. You remember Brian? Oh my God. There was no hope for that boy. He was so full of himself I’m surprised he could keep a meal down.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me! He had so much potential, though. Maybe it’s a jock thing? Something about playing sports gives them a gladiator complex or something.”
“How appropriate,” she said wryly. “Oh my God, Addison, you aren’t considering fixing the Gladiator himself, are you?”
“No, God no. It’s just that when he was talking about how he’d slipped into the party life and pulled himself out of it, I kind of… I don’t know…
I felt for him, you know? He’s got that whole wounded warrior vibe.”
“Plus he’s hot.”
“He’s not that hot.”
“Puh-lease. He’s as hot as they come, and you know it. You just don’t want to admit it because you’re still pissed off that Edward’s sent you to cover this.”
“Stop knowing me so well,” I teased. “Okay, so maybe he’s passably attractive. But he’s a superstar jock with dual rage and alcohol problems. I’m not getting anywhere near that if I can possibly avoid it.”
“That’s probably wise,” she said sagely. “I mean, I wouldn’t be able to stick to that if I was in your shoes, but you’re better at the whole impulse control thing than I am. And oh my God, would that boy trigger some impulses!” She sighed heavily again, and I could almost see her big grey eyes gazing moodily up at the posters on her wall. She still seemed like a teenager sometimes, in an endearing kind of way.
“But anyway,” she went on. “You said there’s more to him than meets the eye. What did you mean?”
“Well… okay, so from everything I’d heard, I was expecting him to be a glutton for attention. A drama queen. But he didn’t hog the ice, when I gave him the opportunity to give me a sob story, he gave it to me straight, and when I offered him a chance for a dramatic turnaround story, he painted a very real, solid kind of picture.”
“See? He’s a good guy underneath, he just needs a little forgiveness, that’s all. So you’re going to write the story and fix it for him?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to write yet,” I said firmly. “I’m not convinced that he isn’t just a very good actor. He could have a keg stashed under his bed and strippers hiding in his closets for all I know.”
“Oh, good point. You should go search his bed. Under the sheets. While he’s in it.”
I laughed with her, and it was exactly the reset I’d needed.
“No, but seriously though,” she said earnestly. “If you don’t at least kiss him by the time you’re finished there, I owe Bobby twenty bucks.”
