Chapter 8
Connor
“This could not be any better.”
“It was just a date,” I said, annoyed as shit by Brian’s reaction as I reached for my glasses on the nightstand. I loved my agent and trusted him with my life—or at least my work life—but it was irritating, him calling me about my date with Duffy like it was any of his business. “Not a big deal.”
“No, I know,” he said, “but people are eating this shit up. I saw a meme about how much you probably love that damn coyote now because he made this happen. I have to find it and send it to you because it’s hilarious. The people are fucking into this date.”
“First of all, that meme sounds foul,” I said with distaste. “And second, it was just dinner and she’s a regular person; why are people freaking out so much?”
“It’s like the chicken shop thing.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know, that Amelda chick. It was a moment in time on an interview show, but you guys just had great chemistry on TV, so everybody likes the idea of this happening.”
“Why does anybody give a shit?”
“Why does anybody give a shit about anything?” Brian said.
“And it’s because she’s a regular person that they’re devouring this.
You’re an NFL pro on one of the most talked-about teams, and instead of dating a model or an actress, you’re into a girl who’s a nobody.
A chick from the south side who goes ice fishing and knows how to ride a snowmobile. ”
“Don’t call her a nobody,” I snapped, rubbing my forehead. “And I have no idea if she does any of those things.”
“Oh, she does; a simple Google search will show you.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I said, even more annoyed because I knew Duffy would hate the idea of anyone googling her.
“The bottom line is the city where you want to stay is loving you right now, so that is definitely a win.”
But instead of feeling any sort of victory, I felt like a piece of shit after I hung up, like I’d tricked her. I’d had a great time with Duffy and I wanted to take her out again, so I didn’t like his reaction because it made me feel like I’d manipulated her.
Man, I’d felt like such a sneaky dick when she’d wondered how the reporters could’ve known we’d be there.
Because my people called them, Duffy.
I swallowed down the guilt, telling myself it didn’t matter because even though the first date was technically a PR stunt, everything was real now.
I got out of bed and called her number on speaker as I walked into the bathroom, flipping on the shower.
For the price I paid for the unit, you’d think the water would get hot right away, but it took forever, because the water was triple-filtered for better conditioning, whatever the hell that meant.
“Hello?” I heard Duffy say as I set the phone on the vanity.
I loved how she sounded like she was suspicious of my call.
After dozens of people speaking to me with only praise and reverence almost daily, there was something so fucking refreshing about the way she treated me like I was just some ordinary guy she’d met.
“Hey, listen, I was wondering if you wanted to join my fantasy karaoke team.”
“Haha very funny,” she said. “But I seem to remember you calling me embarrassing.”
“Awesomely embarrassing, Distefano. That’s different.”
“Says you.”
“What are you doing right now?” I asked, realizing I didn’t really have a solid plan for the call at all. I hadn’t thought out what I was going to say, which was a mistake because Duffy kept me on my toes.
“I’m actually working because it’s nine thirty in the morning on a Friday,” she said in a tone that let me know she thought I had no idea how jobs worked for normal people.
Which was probably fair.
For me, Fridays were light days with a quick run-through.
Everyone in the league fucking loved Fridays. They were freedom days.
For her, it was probably…meetings…? Spreadsheets of data and…tax documentation…?
“What are you working on at the moment?” I asked, trying to picture what her day looked like as an accountant. “Adding up numbers?”
“Yes, because that is definitely what my job is. I am a human computation machine,” she snarked, but I could hear the smile in her voice. “Is there something I can help you with, Football?”
“If you want, I can make a list,” I said.
“I do not want,” she said with a laugh. “But thank you.”
“Okay, so obviously I’ve called when you’re in Duffy the Accountant mode, so I’ll make this brief,” I said, even though I could banter with her like this all day.
“But I was wondering if you would consider going out with me again. We can do karaoke, we can go to Burger King, we can fly to Seattle for seafood and coffee; whatever you want to do, I’m game. ”
“Oh. Um…?” she said, sounding confused. “You’re asking me out again?”
“You make me feel like I’m doing this wrong with the way you continuously fail to understand that I’m asking you out.”
“I mean, I don’t get asked out by a lot of celebrity football players, so it catches me off guard each time,” she said.
“So will you go out with me?” I asked, trying not to sound desperate.
It was dumb how badly I wanted her to say yes.
Dumb.
But the truth of the matter was that I didn’t have a lot of people in my life who weren’t attached to football. I had teammates and coaches and my agent, but since I’d moved to Minnesota, I hadn’t really gotten to know anyone outside of that world.
I missed having friends, as weird as that sounded.
It was like I’d gone from college life, which had been full of friends and parties and chaos, to this weird world where I owned real estate and made a lot of money but kind of had no life outside of football.
I still talked to my buddies on a regular basis, but it wasn’t the same long-distance.
I wasn’t complaining, because it was the dream, and this year was marginally less stressful than my rookie season, but truth be told, I was homesick for a place with connections.
She cleared her throat. “Listen, um, I seriously had the best time last night, but I think for right now, I’m good.”
Wait. What?
“Are you…are you ‘No, thank you-ing’ me?”
“I am,” she said, clearing her throat and then saying it again like she was confirming it to herself. “Yes, that’s right. No, thank you. Thank you, though.” I turned off the shower and snatched up the phone.
I hit the green FaceTime button and waited as it switched over. I knew it wasn’t really…typical to dip into a FaceTime call without first texting, but it happened before my brain caught up.
“What is going on here?” she asked when she accepted the call, her eyes narrowed. “We don’t toggle to FaceTime without a word; where are your manners? What in God’s name do you think you’re doing, Cunningham?”
She was giving me shit, but I could tell by her smirk that she wasn’t pissed.
I drank in her appearance on the small screen, fully entranced. I fucking loved the messy bun and black glasses. She was giving Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality and I was fucking there for it.
“Can I ask why you’re rejecting me?” I said, genuinely confused and in need of some clarity.
“You find it impossible to believe somebody would reject you?” she teased, but I’d lost a little bit of my levity.
“It’s not that,” I said as I paced in the bathroom, more disappointed than I would’ve expected to be when I hadn’t even wanted to ask her out the first time. “But I felt like we had a good time last night.”
“Okay, so we totally did,” she said, blinking fast like she was trying to convince me.
“I’m going to be honest with you. I know it’s not fair and it’s not your fault, but I have no interest in something high profile where there are people with cameras tracking our every move when we go out.
That’s your life and that’s so cool, but it’s just kind of not my thing. ”
“Oh.” The few girls I’d taken out since moving to the Twin Cities had really seemed to enjoy the visibility and attention. I could tell Duffy hadn’t been the most comfortable with the cameras, so shit—it was totally shortsighted of me not to have even considered she might see it as a deal-breaker.
“And it’s probably best for you anyway, because I would do nothing but ruin your reputation.”
“How so? What does that mean?”
“It means that, like, designers dress you for your pregame fit, right? I buy clothes at Target and wear them repeatedly for years. You drive a Porsche, and I drive a Honda with over a hundred thousand miles on it. You had a professional decorate your apartment, and I recently moved back into the childhood bedroom of my father’s three-bedroom, one-car-garage house where a poster of a boy band still hangs on my wall. ”
“Which boy band?”
“One Direction,” she said quietly, but her eyebrows were raised like she was daring me to comment.
“Okay, but none of that matters,” I said, slightly miffed that she’d think I cared about that shit.
“I know it doesn’t,” she said, “but the idea of going to a restaurant and having cameras there is the stuff of nightmares to me. So thank you so much and, um, you know, maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime if I am ever sexually harassed by another NFL mascot.” She gave a small laugh.
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. I needed to end the call before I did something stupid, like beg her for a date.
I really liked her, but I also respected what she was saying. “Well, if you change your mind, feel free to shoot me a text.”
“Okay, and good luck Sunday, by the way.”
“Will you be back in your seats?” I asked.
“I know my dad will,” she said with an eye roll. “But the idea of getting pummeled with stadium snacks is still too fresh. I’ll probably watch from a sports bar or at home.”
“By the way, was there really someone at your door the first time I asked you out?” I asked, still curious about that.
“Not a soul,” she admitted. “I had no idea what to say, so I needed to buy myself a minute.”
“I knew it,” I said, smiling in spite of this rejection.
“I assumed you did, but it was all I could do.” She gave a helpless shrug and smile. “Have a good day, Connor.”
“Yeah, you, too,” I said, and I was surprised how fucking disappointed I was when I hung up the phone.
Asking her out the first time hadn’t even been my idea, so why did getting shot down for the second feel so shitty?