15. Avery
FIFTEEN
AVERY
“That was an incredible speech, Avery,” Meredith tells me when I walk off the stage to a round of applause. It’s the largest speaking event I’ve ever done, and their enthusiasm lifts my confidence.
“I’m not sure I’d call rambling about the human connection social media creates incredible, but I’m so grateful for the opportunity. Sorry if I derailed the conversation a bit at the end,” I laugh.
“Please. Last year the keynote speaker went on a rant about who would win in a fight, Deadpool or Wolverine. Trust me when I say you didn’t derail anything.”
I think of Reid and bite back a smile.
I wonder who he would pick. He’d probably have a twenty-minute argument ready to back up his decision. Comic books would be used as references, and there would be a PowerPoint presentation.
He strikes me as a PowerPoint guy. Slide after slide of data and graphs and hard evidence.
I should text him.
I should ask how his trip is going and if he’s hanging in there despite all the ass kissing.
Maybe I can ask when he’s free again to fulfill the parameters of our casual arrangement. He seemed eager about it when he had his hand between my legs the other night at his apartment. There was a look of wonder in his eyes when he told me how badly he wanted to fuck me.
My cheeks heat at the memory, at the thought of his fingers and warm mouth, and I fan my face to try to cool off.
“I’m glad everything went well,” I say. “Thank you for having me.”
“You’re giving another talk this weekend, right?” Meredith asks.
“On Saturday afternoon. It’s a conversation about engaging with fans and learning how to draw a boundary when online discourse turns negative. It’s a topic close to my heart, especially for the women in a male-dominated field. The amount of times I’ve wanted to call out grown men for living in their mother’s basements and hiding behind their keyboard while they talked shit would astound you, but I keep it professional.”
She laughs. “We call someone out, we’re a bitch. We keep our mouths shut, they ask, ‘what? Don’t you have something to say?’ We can’t win.”
“We really can’t. We’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”
“Sums up being a woman, honestly.”
“Gosh, it’s good to see you, Meredith. I’ll try to catch up with you later this weekend,” I say.
We exchange a round of goodbyes and I make my way for the main hall of the convention center. With nothing on the agenda for the rest of the evening, I’m excited to settle in with some room service. Maybe I’ll add a bottle of wine and have a nice night with my vibrator and shitty television.
My feet ache. The new black heels I’ve been waltzing around in all afternoon were a bad decision, and my toes are killing me. My social meter is dropping lower and lower as I make my way down the corridor, and I could use a little peace and quiet.
I can feel my smile straining around the edges. I can hear my voice turning less friendly the longer I stand, but I keep going.
Working in pageantry and theme parks prepared me for this. I do the dance I’ve done for years as I pass people: Hello. How are you? It’s good to see you . I talk to everyone who stops me, giving them five, ten minutes of my time before I’m handed off to the next person for another round of introductions.
I should love the attention.
Twenty-five-year-old me craved the attention, but I know it’s not totally genuine. They don’t want to get to know me. They only want to pick apart my brain and find my deep, dark secrets, like I wrote a manual on how to be successful at my job when, really, it was a stroke of luck.
I had low expectations when I took the Thunderhawks job. I figured we’d have a losing record for the first five years like most expansion teams do. I thought we’d be at the bottom of the standings, hanging on by a thread with a bench of mediocre players on their last stint in the NFL before retirement.
Then, the song happened.
It was a right-place-at-the-right-time moment. I never thought a drunken night out with a Grammy-winning producer from Baltimore who used to go to Thunderhawks games as a kid before the team moved out west would end up changing my life.
After four margaritas and a hundred YouTube listens of the original Thunderhawks’ soundtrack, we came up with an idea: a new and improved theme song that was fresher. Poppier. Catchy and recognizable enough where you’d stop scrolling to listen if you heard it playing on your phone.
I posted it after our first win, syncing it to a clip of the guys on the team celebrating by dumping a cooler of Gatorade on their coach, and it became an overnight sensation.
It went viral in a way I’m still struggling to comprehend.
Social media followers flocked in by the thousands.
Our empty stadium began to fill up.
We started to win somewhat consistently, and our second year in the league resulted in six wins. Last year we snagged eight victories, and this year, with a roster full of young talent and players who want to work their asses off, we have a real shot at making the playoffs.
Every video I upload gets millions of views and floods of comments. Other team accounts—the franchises I grew up idolizing—message me regularly, popping in to congratulate me on professional milestones.
I also accidentally ended up in a feud with the guy who runs the DC Titans’ accounts, and bugging him to no end might be my favorite part of all this madness.
I don’t remember how the feud started, but I do know it’s my fault. Something I instigated and keep instigating.
It’s so damn fun to push his buttons.
There’s the constant badgering. The sarcasm he lobs my way and my ability to irritate him with only a few messages.
Through all the back and forth, though, I’ve found myself wondering what he looks like. Who he is and what his story might be. Does he answer me from his couch? From an office? From his bed?
I’ve been so tempted to do some digging and figure him out myself. One night, after a glass of whiskey and a Thunderhawks loss, I came close. I had the Titans website pulled up, ready to search high and low until I learned his name.
Then I stopped.
I turned off my phone and walked away.
I remembered he’s pretentious and a know-it-all. He can’t take a joke, and he thinks everything is about him.
I might hate him with every fiber in my being, but I love him assuming I’m unbothered by him even more.
It’s written in the stars. As long as he and I coexist in this wide world of sports, we’re going to bicker over menial shit. We’re going to argue about trending audio and what filters to use on photos. We’ll toss statistics at each other, as if we’re the ones on the field making the plays.
Working for rival football teams separated by a highway and thirty-eight miles will do that to you, and any possibility of something cordial ever forming between us closed up years ago.
I shake my head and get rid of the thoughts of him.
This weekend is important.
I have notes to look over. Another presentation to rehearse. Friends to see and networking to do, and I can’t get distracted by the bane of my existence who’s loomed in my peripheral vision for goddamn years.
He might be lurking around here, sitting in the crowd and listening to my talks, but I refuse to give him the time of day.
The conversation I’m pretending to be involved in stalls, and I use it as a chance to sneak away. I turn the corner for the elevators and let out a relieved breath when I find an empty hallway.
“Avery Sinclair,” says a deep voice from behind me, and I swear the next ten seconds happen in slow motion.
I glance over my shoulder. My eyes almost bulge out of my head when I see Reid standing there, his arms folded across his chest and his cheeks a little flushed. Above the collar of his Henley is a light pink mark, the spot my nails dug into when I came on his hand the other night, and my face flushes too.
I turn to face him, trying to get a grasp on the situation unfolding in front of me.
“What—” I stare at him, confused. “ Reid ?”
He walks toward me until he’s crowding my space. I take a step back and collide with a wall, immediately thrown back to the night of the wedding. My dress around my waist, him on his knees. The scratch of his beard and his fingers on my thighs.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, and it’s barely above a whisper. “Are you—is this a surprise?”
That would be a lot of effort just to see me.
Borderline creepy, too.
I like the guy, but showing up unannounced a week after we started hanging out toes the line of obsessive and get me the fuck out of here .
“What do you think I’m doing, Avery?” Reid asks.
My brain is trying to figure out his riddle. How does he know my last name? Why is he here?
My eyes bounce to the lanyard around his neck. I see DC TITANS and SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER printed on the laminated name tag in a big, bold font, and the earth stops spinning.
My breath gets stuck in my chest. I shake my head, refusing to believe this man , the one who stared at me like I was the most precious thing in the world and wouldn’t look away, is the same one I’ve been talking to, been hating , for years.
“What the fuck ?” I grab the lanyard and look at it closely. The letters melt together. My vision turns blurry. This has to be a sick and twisted joke. “You—I—how?—”
“I had the same reaction when you walked across the stage an hour ago as the keynote fucking speaker,” Reid says.
“Oh my god. This cannot be happening. I liked the you I met at the bar, but I hate internet you. You’re the biggest pain in my ass.”
“The feeling is mutual. How long were you going to wait before you told me what you really do? Before you told me your ‘small presentation’ was a huge fucking speech for all the important people in the NFL? The commissioner is here, for fuck’s sake,” he says.
My hands shake. I think I might pass out. I cannot believe this is happening. “Look, I’m sorry for lying. I don’t want to make excuses, but I did it to protect myself.”
“Protect yourself? I’m not going to stalk you, Avery.”
“You saw what happened on my date the night we met. Telling a man I work for an NFL team? Please. I’d either be ridiculed for having a stupid job or put through an interrogation a man wouldn’t be forced to go endure.”
“Okay, fine, you want to be protective over your career. That’s fair. But was this ever going to come up?” Reid asks.
“Not after two nights of sex. For the record, I felt terrible lying to you. Not the new you. The old you.” I pause and tip my head to the side. “Why did you lie?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Tell me.”
He runs a hand through his hair and tugs on the ends of the strands. “The second I mention my job and the guys I’m best friends with, people don’t have any interest in me. They have an interest in all the ways they could benefit by being with me. Marketing is my go-to line until I can vet someone and make sure they aren’t spending time with me for the wrong reasons.”
“You think I’d do that?” I ask.
“I don’t know the first thing about you. Especially now,” he emphasizes, and for some strange reason, it stings. “You have been under my skin for years . Every time I post something, there you are. Every time I come up with an idea, you one-up me. If I have to hear that damn song of yours one more time, I might scream.”
“Maybe you should come up with better ideas or find a new job. I’ve been kicking your ass for a while now. It’s not my fault you’re not creative.” I flip my hair over my shoulder, and heat flares to life behind his gaze. “As for the song, I’m going to use that as ammunition. I have your cell phone number. I’ll send it to you every morning. Every night. It’s going to haunt you, Reid, until you realize you’re never going to be able to compete with me.”
His eyes narrow, and I’ve really pissed him off. I don’t know when we stepped so close to each other, but our chests almost press together. I can feel the warmth of his body, can see the deep green shade of his eyes, can taste him on my tongue; salty, sweet, delicious.
“If you’re so sure of yourself, wanna make a bet?” he asks low and rough, and I imagine those words on my neck. On my thighs and my breasts.
Goddamn him .
“Who can make who orgasm faster? I already won that competition, and we’re never doing that again,” I say.
“You wish we were doing it again.”
“In your dreams.”
“I propose a friendly wager where we keep our clothes on.”
“Pretty sure I’m going to take an hour-long shower when I get back to my room to scrub my body clean of you,” I say. “Keeping my clothes on will be easy.”
He smirks, and I hate the satisfied look on his face. “You’re talking about the times we hooked up an awful lot for someone who wants to get them out of her memory.”
“Will you tell me already? I’m walking away in ten seconds.”
“A competition to see who can secure the most ticket sales throughout the year. Bonus points for new season ticket holders. And why don’t we throw in the title of Social Media Account of the Year for good measure? I know we’re both gunning for the accolade.”
I hum, intrigued.
He has my interest.
“What’s the winning prize?” I ask. “How do I know this will be worth my while?”
“If I win, you have to change your social media handle—@footballindc? Really? You play in Baltimore , Avery, and I’m tired of people confusing our accounts.”
“I did that to piss you off. Guess it worked.” I grin, and he scowls. “What do I get if I win?”
“What do you want?”
I tap my cheek, an idea coming to me. “You have to play the Thunderhawks song on your page during every playoff game and publicly acknowledge you lost a bet.”
“Deal,” he says.
“You’re quick to agree.”
“Because it’s an easy thing to win.”
“Hang on. Before we do some weird blood oath where we vow to destroy each other, can we temporarily pause our feud?” I ask and he blinks, surprised.
“We’re making up the rules as we go, so sure. We can pause it. Why?”
There’s a question on the tip of my tongue, one I’m not sure I’m allowed to ask. Especially now. But I’m going to ask it anyway. It’s my last chance to. “We… we had a connection, didn’t we? That wasn’t—” I swallow. “That was real, right?”
I’m scared to hear the answer.
I’m not going to be able to turn off my attraction to him overnight. Even with this big revelation, I still want to kiss him. I still think he’s a nice guy with a good heart.
He also happens to be the man I’ve loathed since our very first interaction.
Separating the two is going to be difficult.
Reid’s eyes soften, and he looks sad . Regretful, if I stare long enough, as if he knows how hard this is going be too. “Yeah,” he says, and my traitorous heart leaps in my chest. “It was real. For me, at least.”
I rub my thumb over my bottom lip. He tracks the motion, like he’s watching me one final time and trying to savor it. “Me too,” I admit. “What do we do now?”
The air is thick with tension. The heavy moment breaks, and it feels like I’ve been holding my breath for days.
“We go to war,” he says, but there’s far less disdain behind it.
“I hope you’re prepared to lose.” I step past him. I need some space. I need to get my head on straight. “If you’ll excuse me, I have things to do. Speeches to write. Content to post. A bet to win.”
“It’s going to go as well as your season did last year: well below average.”
“Not your best dirty talk, but I’ll take it. Good luck. You’re going to need it.”
“It’s going to be like that, huh?” He tugs on my belt loop and spins me so I’m facing him. My hands inadvertently land on his chest, and I look up at him. “You’re going to wish you never came to Baltimore when I’m finished with you,” he whispers in my ear, and I shiver. “Game on, Sinclair.”
Before I have a chance to toss back a rebuttal, Reid is moving away and leaving me breathless, confused, and feeling like I just made a deal with the devil.