What happened to being a fucking man?!
I roar as I do one last bench press and then slam the barbell down on the rack and sit up, reaching for my sweat-soaked towel. My phone buzzes and vibrates, and my heart leaps as I reach for it. I wonder if it’s Gale, but I know it’s not. It’s everyone else in the fucking world calling and texting and tweeting and bleeping. But it’s not Gale.
“Doubt she has my number,” I say out loud as I scroll through the list of alerts and then toss the phone back on the exercise mat in my private gym. I’ve sequestered myself in my mansion outside Philly, no one but my dogs to keep me company. “That’s why Gale hasn’t called. How would she get my number, anyway?”
I grin as I listen to myself try to come up with lame explanations about why some woman hasn’t called me. Even in high school I was too busy juggling women to give a fuck about who was calling and who wasn’t. But now here I am with just one woman on my mind.
“And why can’t I just call her?” I ask my squat little bulldog, who’s just scurried into the room on his tiny legs, his entire body wagging because he’s so happy to see me. “Why can’t I just call her, Bud? Why can’t I just be a dog and follow my instincts without giving a fuck about the consequences?”
Of course, there’s no real reason I can’t just pick up the phone and call Gale. Yeah, I don’t have her number, but it can’t be that hard to get it. And it’s not like my agents or lawyers or PR folks told me I shouldn’t call Gale. There’s no publicity-related reason I can’t call her, can’t be seen with her, can’t just be with her.
“Which means the reason is personal,” I mutter to my bulldog as I rub his ears and then let him lick my face with his sloppy-ass tongue. “The reason is fear. I’m scared, Bud. I’m fucking scared!”
Scared that I made a mistake. Scared that I was vulnerable after that big loss in our home stadium. Scared that maybe it was a perfect storm of debilitating emotions that made me reach for a crutch, made me see what I wanted to see, believe what I wanted to believe, think that some hallucination of a dying child was a prophecy that had come true just when I fucking needed it.
“In a way I never really grew up, did I, Bud?” I whisper to my dog, who just pants and stares at me with his big, trusting eyes. “I was on the cover of Sporting Illustrated before I was old enough to vote! I was a multi-millionaire before I was old enough to rent a fucking car! My whole life has been a fantasy! No shit I fell hook, line, and sinker for the fantasy of my little sister who read about princesses dressed in blue for her entire life!”
I rub my eyes and reach out to pet my dog again. But Bud is gone, and when I look around I see that he’s across the room, staring at me like he’s pissed off, maybe disappointed.
“What is it, Bud?” I say with a frown. “C’mere. Come to Papa.”
Bud’s ears prick up at the word Papa, even though I don’t use that line much. The word Papa sticks in my head as I look at my dog like I’m in a trance. I take a long, slow breath as I think back to that moment when I was inside Gale, deep inside her like I belonged inside her. I think back to that overpowering need to fill her with my seed, the satisfaction I felt when I poured myself into her. Yeah, the orgasm was fucking insane, but it isn’t just the memory of a sexual climax that’s filling me with a warmth that’s so beautiful I want to cry like a little boy. This is more than that. This is love. It’s fucking love, baby!
And then suddenly I burst into laughter. Deep, booming laughter that comes from my soul, from the very essence of the man I am. Now I understand why I acted the way I did, why I freaked the fuck out. I wasn’t ready for what Gale made me feel. Twenty years of never letting a woman get close to me. Twenty years of never even thinking the word love, let alone using it in a sentence. And then this curvy princess in blue sends me for a fucking toss that hits me harder than the toughest edge-rusher in the league. No wonder I lost my shit! I was a kid in a man’s body all this while, and meeting Gale was me suddenly awakening to the man I am. It takes coming face to face with your woman to bring out the man in you, doesn’t it?
“Doesn’t it, Bud?” I say with a grin just as Bud’s bitch (hey, that’s a biological term for a female dog—look it up) walks in, her seven pups in tow. I never got Bud fixed (are you fucking kidding me? Cut off my best friend’s balls? How is that even legal?!), and he’s been at it every year to the point where everyone I know has been gifted a pup or two of Bud and Lady’s annual litters.
And then I’m sprawled on my carpet, nine dogs wagging their butts and stub-tails, licking me all over, yipping and yapping like they’re laughing at me for being an idiot, for overcomplicating things with my big brain when I should just be relying on my instincts, on the animal I am, the man I am. I laugh again, this time with wild abandon, shaking my head as I see that I’m just complicating things unnecessarily, making the simple seem convoluted, making the obvious seem like a trick. My reaction to someone spying on a private moment between me and my woman is gonna result in that someone getting his ass kicked from Philadelphia to Pittsburg and back again. That’s the reaction of a man whose woman is threatened—either her dignity or her safety. You mess with my woman, you get your nose broken. Simple as that.
I reach for my phone to call someone in the head office who can get me Gale’s number. But a chill goes through me when I see the long list of missed calls, most of them from my agent and PR guys. They wouldn’t fucking call me like fifty times unless something new was up. Something big.
My breath catches as I read through the urgent texts from my agent and PR folks, and then my jaw goes taut as I follow the links they sent me.
“Someone’s gonna die,” I growl, my vision almost going blank as I see the photographs of me and Gale that have been uploaded to the web. Photographs that were supposed to have been deleted. Photographs that have clearly been cherry-picked from that private moment of beautiful intimacy we shared. Photographs that have been chosen to make the whole thing look like I’m forcing myself on her, doing something to her she didn’t want to have done! Me holding her wrists tight above her head. My hands on her throat. Her pretty face twisted in a grimace of what I know was ecstasy but can easily be interpreted as pain and resistance!
“No. No. No!” I roar, blinking as I scroll through the photographs, anger and dread rising in me like twin snakes that coil around my insides and make me feel like I’m suffocating. I can barely look at the photographs that these anonymous fuckers have chosen to publish, but clearly thousands of people have already clicked on, commented about, and shared with twisted glee!
A call comes in from my PR guys and I answer, just yelling into the phone without even bothering to say hello. “Why are these photographs still in existence?!” I shout. “Why haven’t the cops arrested that motherfucking reporter who broke the terms of our agreement?! What the fuck am I paying you guys for?!”
I listen as these jokers babble on about cease-and-desist notices, about how the reporter had uploaded the images to the “cloud” and so even though they were deleted, some hacker could have accessed archived copies, which gives the reporter what’s called “plausible deniability.” Also, apparently it’s complicated to simply get the photos taken down because the websites are hosted in Lithuania or some shit. I don’t give a damn. We can bomb Lithuania for all I care.
I hang up in frustration, knowing that there’s nothing I can do about the photographs until my PR guys and lawyers manage to get the website hosting company to take them offline. It’s too late anyway. The damage is done. There’s been so much focus lately about how football players treat women that there’s almost no way to spin this right. Right now I’m probably being skewered in online articles, blogs, and Twitter comments. Tomorrow morning I’ll be all over the Times and the Post and everything in between. My career is over.
Yeah, my career is over, I think as I rise up off the floor and rub my pounding head. But that’s not what I care about
right now. All I care about right now is her. Has she seen this? Is she second guessing what happened in that locker room? Am I second guessing what happened there? Is it possible that I did force myself on her without meaning to? I was in a position of power, wasn’t I? Did I make her do something she didn’t want to do?! Am I that monster that they’re making me out to be in the press right now? Did I rape a woman and then break some reporter’s nose all in the same day?! Am I an unhinged animal? A crazed beast with no self-control? Have I isolated myself in a cocoon of wealth and fame for so long that I think I’m invincible, that I can do what I want with impunity?
And then I’m back down on the floor, my dogs clustered around me as I hold my head and just break down like a fucking child, sob like a goddamn baby, howl like a lost boy. But it doesn’t last, because I’m not a fucking child. I bend but I don’t break. I’m a fighter, and it’s time to fight.
“Fuck it,” I say to my dogs. “If they say I’m an animal, then maybe I am. And what does an animal do when it’s backed into a corner? It attacks. It fucking attacks.”
All I can see is red as I scroll through my phone with trembling fingers until I find what I’m looking for: That asshole reporter’s name. It was his camera, his cloud account, and there’s no way some hackers found exactly those photographs unless they knew what they were looking for. He was the one who leaked those photographs of Gale or leaked the filenames to some hackers, and I don’t need any fucking proof. I don’t give a shit about the nondisclosure agreement or recovering any of the money I paid him to delete those photographs. He won’t be able to use that money where he’s going.
Yeah, I think as I run a search and find this guy’s home address listed on some random real estate site from a few years ago. You can’t use money in hell. Not even if it’s blood money.
I own a gun, but I don’t fucking need it, I decide as I dress and get into my truck. I’m going to make this guy feel my hands squeeze the life out of him. The last thing he sees is gonna be my fucking face, my goddamn grin, my cold blue eyes looking into his as I dispense nature’s justice, enforce the law of the jungle.
And then I’m on the road, gunning my truck’s V-8 engine to the max, my head buzzing as I try to ignore that sickening feeling that three days ago I thought I was in heaven, and now maybe I’m driving myself straight to hell. How could everything turn upside down so fast? How could everything spiral downwards like a freight train plummeting off a bridge? How? How?!
6
GALE
How?! I ask myself as I hang up the phone and stare at the quilt I’d started just a few hours ago, when things hadn’t descended into chaos.
This was the third call I’ve gotten from someone in the press. They were all asking for interviews, asking me about Grant Gunner, asking me if I was ready to talk about what he did to me. What he did to me? Why does anyone know about that?! What just happened?!
It takes me a few minutes to get online and see what happened, and I almost collapse when I pull up the first of the series of photographs showing the two of us in moments that I thought were private, were just the two of us, intimate and secret. Of course, now thousands of people are staring at my boobs, commenting on what my facial expressions mean, arguing over whether I’m a slut or a victim, whether Gun is a rapist or just another football player taking what he thinks he’s entitled to, another wealthy, powerful man using his position to force “consent” from some innocent woman.
I can barely breathe, and I just slam the lid of my laptop closed and stare into space, shaking my head in disbelief. That reporter must have leaked the photographs even though he agreed not to do it. For a moment I’m so angry I almost scream out loud. But then a wave of dread washes over me when I realize that if I’m angry, what must Gun be feeling right now?!
I shake my head again as I force myself to get back online. I won’t look at those photographs again. I won’t read the comments. I won’t respond to any of the reporters, the bloggers, the activists calling for blood, calling for me to deliver Gun’s head on a platter. I know that what happened in that locker room was private and personal, intimate and beautiful. A few still-life photographs can’t explain what happened.
“So maybe I need to explain what happened,” I say out loud as I panic at the thought of standing up in front of a camera and facing the self-righteous public, explaining that those pictures of me with my wrists being held down by a tattooed beast of a man isn’t what it seems. I swallow hard as I realize that I’ll be skewered by the folks who want to see this as a powerful man taking advantage of a weak woman. They’ll say that I was bribed or threatened. That I’m a victim who’s in denial. That I’m betraying rape victims by saying that being held down and taken by a powerful man was something I wanted.
Is it what I wanted, I wonder as I absentmindedly caress my throat where Gun placed his hands, rub my wrists that still have marks from how he held me down. I gulp as I feel a sliver of doubt cut through me, but it doesn’t get far. It can’t get far. I know who I am, and I’m not a victim.
Yes, I know who I am, I decide firmly as I smile fiercely and shake my head.
I’m his.
By God, I’m his!
And then I’m laughing, the tension just melting away as I realize that this is all a test, that this is just the universe tossing an obstacle at me to see how I’ll react, to see how we’ll both react!
I’m about to pick up the phone to call back one of the reporters and give her a statement that clears up this entire mess, but my last thought sticks in my mind and I hesitate.
I know how I’m going to react, I think. But how is he going to react?
And then a chill goes through me as I think back to how Gun reacted back at the stadium, how his protective instincts took over like he was an animal protecting his mate. Shit, Gun had already broken that guy’s nose and given him two black eyes before they managed to pull him off the reporter! What would he do now?!
I toss my phone away and feverishly look for that reporter’s name. I find it, and after a couple of searches I come across the guy’s home address on some random real estate website. I blink as my thoughts race, and then I’m on my feet and out the door, in pajamas and a sweatshirt, pushing my little Honda hatchback as hard as it’ll go, heading to my man, to stop him from going down a path that will lead us to hell instead of heaven, turn this into a tragedy instead of a romance, into a horror story instead of a fairy tale.
“Nope,” I say out loud as I glance at my GPS and pray to anyone listening that I get there in time. “This is a fairy tale with a blue-eyed prince and a curvy princess. That was the dream, and I’m gonna make it real, no matter what the world around us wants. That was the dream, and I’m gonna keep dreaming it.”
7
GUN
I wonder if I’m dreaming as I stare down at my own hands clamped tight around the reporter’s throat. I know I’m squeezing the life out of him, but I don’t give a shit. I’m so angry it feels like I’m totally fucking justified, that this is absolutely the right thing to do, that death is a reasonable consequence for violating the laws of basic decency, for going back on your word, for choosing to be a two-timing snake instead of a fucking man.
“Gun!” comes her voice from somewhere in the blackness of my hazy dream, and I cock my head like a dog as I keep looking at the reporter, who’s now blue in the face, his eyes rolling up in his head, his hands feebly clawing at my viselike grip as he gurgles and gasps, struggling for air, fighting to hold on to life. “Gun, are you crazy?! Stop it! Let him go! Gun! Gun! Gun!”
Suddenly I feel my head pulled back, and I realize she’s pulling my hair, screaming and slapping me like she’s as insane as I am. I shake my head to get her off me, but she digs her nails into my goddamn face, pounds her fists into my back, kicks me in my goddamn side until I feel it in my fucking ribs.
With a roar I finally let go of the reporter, who co
ughs and sputters and crawls away like the lowlife creature he is. I turn to Gale, not sure how the hell she showed up here, not caring how the hell she showed up here. She’s still screaming and hitting me, her eyes wide and wild as I grab her wrists and finally get her under control. I can barely breathe, I’m so fucking wired, so goddamn worked up, so beside myself with rage and shock and God knows what else.
“Gun, what’s wrong with you?!” she’s shouting as I push her down to the carpet and press my body against her just so she won’t kick me again. “You’re an animal! You can’t just beat up people like that! You can’t just . . . just . . . oh, God, Gun, you were going to kill him! Do you even understand what you were doing?! You need help. You need to be locked up. You need help. You need—”
“This is what I need,” I growl, kissing her ferociously before I even realize what I’m doing. All the anger in me is turning to lust, wild fucking lust, a need that’s so desperate and primal that it almost scares me. But I can’t stop, and I kiss Gale again and again, spitting blood as she bites my lip and tries to turn away. “Maybe I am a fucking madman, an animal, out of control, violent and unhinged. So you know what? Fuck it.”
Somewhere in the background I hear a door slam, and I know it’s the reporter getting the fuck out of here, probably calling the cops. In a few hours I’m gonna be locked up for real, caged like the animal I am, behind bars where I deserve to be. I’m done for. My career is over. My fucking life is over. And all because I thought I’d found the woman I was meant to be with! How the fuck could a fairy-tale turn into a goddamn horror story in the blink of an eye?
Curvy for HIm: The Quilter and the QB Page 5
