Chapter 16 Andy
Chapter 16
Andy
“I really like this chick.” I blurt out the words without thinking, forgetting for a second who I’m talking to.
“Yeah, I know,” Dex says. “You told me.”
He’s bored with the subject of me dating already, and I’ve only brought Harlow up once before.
“I know I told you I liked her, but I meant, I like her, like her.”
“What are you, ten? Who even says, ‘I like her, like her’ anymore?” Dex is in the office in his McMansion, all the trophies he’s earned over the past few years displayed in plexiglass cases behind him. It’s like a monument to himself, the same way my dad has all my shit in his office as a monument to me —the only difference is, I don’t have a room like this in my place. I let my parents keep my shit, the same way they have kept my art projects from fourth grade and my old report cards.
It’s fitting to let them hold on to my awards and trophies, given how they’ve supported me on my journey.
Dad gets off on that shit, and besides, I don’t have a huge house with a basement man cave the way most of my buddies do. I don’t have a family for a huge house, either, so for the time being, my sweet condo in the sky does the trick.
Dex is eyeballing me from his desk chair, swiveling on it and twiddling his thumbs like a villain in a kids’ cartoon.
“Was her vagina really that special?” He snorts.
“No. But . . .”
He snorts again. “Dude, you can’t go sniffing after her for the simple reason that she doesn’t know who you are.”
“Why not? It’s nice.”
“Nice?” He laughs. “For now, maybe. But I already told you, it’s going to blow up in your face.”
“How could it blow up in my face?” He has no idea what he’s talking about. “And we’re just talking—nothing has happened yet.”
He stops fussing in his chair, directing all his attention at the camera. “Are you telling me you haven’t contacted Trent and told him to set up a meeting with Green Bay?”
I squirm in my seat.
This bastard knows me too well. “Pfft. That would be creepy.”
He cocks a brow. “But you’re not denying you called Trent and told him to set up a meeting with Green Bay.”
“Listen.” I inspect my fingernails. “I have to explore all my options. New York isn’t the only show in town with championship rings. Neither is Philly or Chicago. I go where the playoffs are.”
Dex isn’t buying my bullshit. “First of all, Green Bay hasn’t been in a championship game for like ten years. Second of all, can they pay you the money you’re looking for?”
Maybe, maybe not. But that’s hardly the point. “How much money do you think I need ?”
Dex shrugs. “You’re worth what the market demands and a top team can pay. If you want to take a cut to play in a farm town, that’s on you. She’s a stranger.”
It’s not a farm town.
“She’s not a stranger anymore. You’ve dated women and not seen them in person for months at a time. Shit, you were fucking Lana Lewis for two years and didn’t even know her birthday.”
He blinks back the truth, fluttering his lashes like a child who’s just been caught in a lie.
“Look.” I finally relent. “I need an excuse to go see her. If I set up a meeting, I’ll be killing two birds with one stone.”
“But doesn’t she think you’re broke? How are you going to show up in town and act casual about it? That’s giving stalker vibes.”
True. It could very well be. But since I know I’m not a stalker, I shrug off his words.
“So give me a reason to go see her.”
“Dude. There isn’t one—the timing is too sus.”
“Stop talking like a millennial.”
“I can’t. I am one.”
Barely, but I’m not going to argue.
“This isn’t helpful.”
My best friend shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. You need a damn good reason to be in Green Bay, or she’s going to think you’re loco.”
I lean back in my seat, squeaking my dad’s wooden desk chair. “You’re right. I need a better reason for being there.”
And I have time to think on it.
“Marinate on that shit,” Dex intones, spinning in his chair again as if it were a ride. “Don’t be so impulsive.”
I squint at him. “Why do I feel like you’re judging me?”
Dex thinks about my question—marinates, if you will—before dishing out the truth. “Do I think you’re the relationship type of guy? Yes. For sure. Do I think you’re the kind of guy who wants to date a nobody? No.”
I reel back, genuinely surprised by his words. “Sorry, what? ”
“I don’t think you’re the kind of guy who wants to date a nobody.”
“Dude. Harlow is not a nobody—why would you say that?”
He laughs. “What did you say she does for a living?”
I rack my brain, not sure if I did tell him. “She’s developing a dating app.”
“Why? There are, like, hundreds of them already.”
“Dude, who cares? She’s an engineer.” Or something. Whatever that means, I have no actual idea. “She’s creative and wants to be the founder of something bigger than herself.”
Which sounds like something she would say.
“Bro. My point is you date supermodels and actresses. Name one woman who wasn’t in the spotlight. Just one.”
I rack my brain again, thinking long and hard. “Karla what’s her name.”
Dex looks at me blankly. “That cheerleader chick from college?”
“Yeah.”
“Technically I think dating a cheerleader from the university cheer squad—one that gets televised cheering during games—counts as someone in the spotlight. So try again.”
Shit. Does it?
Is he right? Do I only date women who are popular? I thought I was more well rounded than that, but it turns out, I’m a basic bitch.
“Judging by your silence, I gather you agree with me.”
“I don’t know.” I pause. “Am I that big of an asshole?”
“That doesn’t make you an asshole. It just makes you ...” He searches for words. “Vain.”
Vain! I am not vain!
Dex laughs at the expression on my face. “Chill, dude—it’s not a bad thing.”
“Since when is being vain not a bad thing? I’m not vain, by the way. And I’m insulted.” I’m sputtering, absolutely beside myself with not-vainness, and I want him to take the words back.
They sting.
“My feeling is hurt.”
“Your one feeling?”
“Yeah, it’s tingling and kind of wants to shed a tear.” I swipe at my cheek, mock wiping off a tear.
“Maybe I phrased that wrong.”
I gawk. “You think?”
“No. I was saying that because it’s obvious you’re butt hurt, and I don’t want you to hold a grudge.”
“I wouldn’t hold a grudge.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “Oh, really. Remember that one time you won MVP of the Reiser Championship, and we stole your helmet before the next game but didn’t tell you it was your helmet we stole?”
How could I forget. The cocksuckers gave my helmet to a reporter who was in on the joke. The reporter asked me to sign it for an auction to raise money for a charity, and I signed the damn thing not knowing it was mine, then had to wear it during the next practice. A damn helmet with my damn autograph scrawled on it in big, bold, black letters.
I felt like a douchebag.
“You tried for an entire year to get back at us, but you didn’t know who actually stole your helmet, so you just pulled pranks on everyone.”
Yeah, that happened. “Because I was so irritated by the whole thing.”
“Because deep down inside, you’re actually a vain asshole.”
Is that true? It can’t be.
“Listen, bro, all of us have that gene. I don’t think you can do this job and not have a certain level of ego. It’s not easy stepping out onto that field and doing what we do, and you can’t do it if you’re a pussy.”
He’s not wrong about that.
However, I don’t love that he thinks I only chase women who have clout, as if I needed it myself. That would put me in the same category as Paisley, who isn’t terrible but who also isn’t winning any Miss Congeniality competitions.
“I don’t date women who are famous on purpose.” A majority of them have been set up by my team, several others were women who hit on me at one benefit or another. One woman I dated for five months or so was the sister of our quarterback’s wife—turns out she was a gold digger who wanted the same lifestyle as her sister and would blow me to get it.
I liked her, but she became clingy and a total desperado—and wanted to have sex with no condom from day one. Which I wasn’t interested in and didn’t trust.
It was hella fucking awkward when I broke things off—everyone had been invested in the relationship, including our QB, the press. Her parents. Mine.
Kristy (that was her name) was familiar with what being a football player’s wife might be like, knew the routine, had seen all the fans and cleat chasers, never letting it bother her to the point I convinced myself for a hot second that she was perfect.
That hadn’t convinced my mother, who I’ve grown to consider an expert bullshit detector.
Danica soon followed, and I entered a vicious cycle of strong, self-assured—and social-climbing—girlfriends.
The good news is I’m on the road to recovery and crave normalcy, the kind of normalcy my parents had living in the suburbs when I was growing up.
I want kids and shit—is that so wrong?
“We never date those women on purpose .” Dex snorts. “Our dicks fall into them by accident, and it’s never our fault.”
“Hey—you’re just as guilty as I am.”
“But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about chasing some girl who lives in the frozen tundra, who wants privacy and didn’t recognize you, who is going to shit a brick when she finds out. You’re going to be all over the news when you pick a team. It’ll be impossible for her not to notice you.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Don’t know. The sooner you contact her and tell her the truth, the better.” Dex hesitates a few seconds before opening his mouth to say something, then closing it again.
“What?”
His head shakes back and forth. No.
“Say it.”
“How do you know she doesn’t know who you are? What if she’s faking it?”
Faking it?
Nah. Not Harlow.
Now it’s my turn to shake my head. “She’s not faking it.”
“But how do you know?”
“I just . . . do.”
“But how?”
Is he being serious? Does he not trust my judgment?
I squint at him. “Don’t you think I would know if she was pretending not to know who I was?”
That makes Dex laugh. “No, dude. It happens all the time, chicks and other people pretending not to know or acting unaffected by the fame for the sole purpose of tricking us into dating them or whatever.”
So we don’t suspect their motives and think they’re a gold digger.
Tale as old as time.
“I get that you’re skeptical because you have to be—and you’re watching out for me—but, dude, where was this conversation when I was fucking that maneater Paisley Blue?”
“I was fucking her best friend, remember?”
Facts.
He was. Another model slash influencer slash beauty rep slash, slash, slash ...
“Seriously. I appreciate you looking out for me.”
He nods. “Someone has to.”
I mean, my parents are pretty great. Over the past few years, Mom has basically turned into a lioness, distrusting anyone and everyone—and by everyone, I mean women —who comes circling into my orbit.
I thought Mama Burke was scary when I was a teenager, but she’s nothing compared to the protective mother she is now.
“Well, I’m glad it’s you.”
“Listen, dude. I just find it odd that she has no idea who you are; no one is so naive they don’t recognize a celebrity when he’s right under their nose.” He pauses. “Also. Are you telling me no one on the street recognized you, either, while you were on that dumb red bus?”
I shake my head. “No, man, no one recognized me.”
He leans back in his comfortable leather chair. “How is that even possible?”
“I had a disguise on.”
He shrugs. “So? Even with a mask on, I still recognize them.” He lifts his hands and points at his face. “It’s the eyes.”
“Don’t know what to tell you, man. If someone recognized me, they didn’t say anything.”
My thoughts stray to that dude in the elevator of the Statue of Liberty—he definitely knew who I was, or suspected he did—but he was cool enough not to rat me out. Not sure what I would have done if he’d started fangirling in front of Harlow. I would have looked like a major dickhead if I’d denied my identity, or worse, told him to piss off and leave me alone.
Not cool.
We sign up to play football, but along with that? We sign up for all the crazy shit that goes along with it. Yeah, lines get crossed, boundaries get blurred, people take things too far. That’s part of it—occasionally the dark side of it.
“Tell me more about this dipshit disguise you came up with on the fly so you could walk around the city without anyone recognizing you?”
“A great fucking disguise, obviously. Do you think I’m a fucking rookie?”
Dex rolls his eyes. “What kind of disguise?”
My shoulders move up and down in a shrug. “Ball cap, sunglasses, fake mustache.”
He blinks. “Fake mustache?”
“Yeah, man. I ordered them from Amazon and slapped one on my face. Harlow had one on too.”
“She had one on too? Why?”
“’Cause. She thought we were playing a game, and she hadn’t wanted to feel left out.” I laugh at the memory of her tiny, little weird mustache, wiggling on her face, above her lip, wishing I would have kissed her on our day date. “It was adorable—she looked way cuter than I did.”
“Huh.”
“You can’t just say huh without explaining.”
“It was just a noise, bro. Didn’t mean anything.”
“Yes it did. You were judging.”
“Dude, all I’ll say is I hope this works out the way it’s working out for you in your brain. That’s all.”
My brain.
If only that were the only thing hoping this works out.
Ha!