Chapter Five
Jake
Tuesday night, I got a belly full of beer, tequila and Mexican food, and I’m not even sure I can see straight.
There are fifty players on the roster for the Mutineers.
We filled out the entire restaurant. I’m slowly getting to know my team, and they’re all good guys.
More than half of ’em are married with kids, or in steady relationships.
Family men, guys who know that, if they get injured, their football career could be over in a heartbeat.
For that reason, they’re passionate about bringing their best performance to every game.
They know as well as I do that this life is only temporary, but family is forever.
So, they savour every minute of this opportunity.
There are two types of guys on the team.
The ones who don’t drink, who – like all professional athletes should – look after their bodies, keep healthy, work out, stay in peak physical condition.
Those are the guys who still have at least five or six years left of their pro careers.
Then there are the older guys – the ones edging closer to retirement.
Tonight, it’s those guys who seem to wanna let off steam and have a little fun.
Us rookies? We’re just here for the ride.
From fifty, we’re down to ten as our cars pull up outside a bar called Surly’s Tavern.
It’s a red brick building with a big, red neon sign and its own parking lot.
I got no idea where I am exactly, only that we’re somewhere on the west side of Canyon.
Hud Briar has us a couple of tables booked.
Mostly, we’re the single guys on the team, other than Dalton, who reportedly is allowed a very limited number of passes per year to go on wild nights out with his brother.
On entry, I look around. Inside, there are a lot of neon lights, a stage with a dancing pole planted in the middle, where a topless woman writhes around for some guys who look like truckers staying in town overnight.
They’re on bar stools facing the stage. More widely, there are other occupied tables.
I guess I’m wide-eyed at the sight of the girls, because Dalton Briar picks up on it as soon as we enter the VIP suite.
‘First time in a joint like this, huh?’ he laughs as we take our seats and order drinks.
I can’t help but smile. ‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Lemme guess,’ Dalton raises his voice toward me over the music. ‘In college, you dated the captain of the cheer squad and went to church every Sunday.’
I wince. He’s not so far off the mark. At Penn State, I did date the captain of the cheer squad, who I broke up with after she cheated on me with one of my teammates.
I nursed a broken heart for weeks. After that, I hooked up with a social sciences major, who said she didn’t wanna be an NFL WAG and decided not to follow me out to Texas when I got drafted.
I was never single for long in college, and never long enough that my buddies could drag me out to anything close to resembling a club like this.
‘Honestly? I hate these kinda joints,’ Dalton lowers his voice when I don’t reply. ‘I’m only here to keep my brother happy.’
We both look over to Hudson Briar, who is talking animatedly to two of my fellow rookies. Outta all of us, he’s the most wasted.
I lean forward. ‘So how come Hud doesn’t have a girl?’
Dalton tries not to smile. ‘Oh, it’s complicated.’
‘How so?’
Dalton leans back in his chair. ‘Truth is, Hud met the woman of his dreams a while back, but she’s not, uh… let’s just say she’s not available.’
‘Why? Married? Already taken?’
Dalton shakes his head. ‘No, nothing like that. Her name is Harmony Reese. You ever heard of her?’
I stick out my bottom lip and shake my head. Her name doesn’t sound familiar.
Dalton checks his brother is not listening, then leans across the table so I can hear him.
‘Harmony Reese is captain of the Mutineers’ cheer squad.
The CMC. There’s a clause in their contract the cheerleaders have to sign, prohibiting them from fraternizing with any pro-player.
As in, they can’t go anywhere near us, and we can’t go anywhere near any of them.
Those are the rules. This is Harmony’s fifth year on the squad. ’
My brows draw together. ‘That sounds like a dumbass rule.’
Dalton pulls a face. ‘It’s by order of Sam Conway, chief brand officer for the Mutineers.’
Samantha Conway, as in daughter of Hank Conway, the owner of the Mutineers and the whole reason I’m sitting here with a big-money contract. ‘Oh,’ I say.
‘I mean the players on the field might be the ones bringing home the loot, but it’s the cheerleaders…
they’re the ones pulling in the big crowds.
Sam Conway wants people to believe they’re superior somehow.
Beautiful, classy, feminine… so perfect to seem, like…
unattainable. Like almost holy. Ally told me they have all these unwritten rules they gotta abide by, like always having perfect hair and makeup whenever they go out.
There’s even a no-touching rule. So, Hank Conway might own the Mutineers, but let me tell you, it’s his daughter pullin’ all the strings.
She got him wrapped around her little finger.
Her son, Brody, he’s her deputy. She’s positioning that asshole to take over the entire outfit one day when her dad meets the big adios. ’
I tilt my head toward Hudson just as our drinks arrive. ‘So, what’s the deal? Hud plans to, like, wait for Harmony or something?’
Dalton checks his brother is not looking our way. ‘Keeps saying he’s not. But deep down, I know he is. If he has a girlfriend, she usually lasts less than a month.’
‘What about Harmony? She feel the same way?’
‘Well, she chose squad captain over him, so I’m not all that hopeful.’
‘So how does he know she’s the one?’
Dalton’s lips curl into a smile. ‘You’ve never been in love, have you, rookie?’
I shrug. ‘I mean… I thought I had.’
‘You got a girl right now?’
Without warning, the woman from the grocery store pops into my head.
Serenity. These past few days, she keeps doing that.
Sweet, kinda shy, seemingly no idea how smokin’ hot she is.
My perfect kinda girl. I’m excited for Thursday night’s pre-season opener, but, man, Friday can’t come soon enough.
I keep wondering if I’ve turned her into something else in my mind, and that really, I’m just being delusional – dreaming about the idea of her, rather than who she actually is.
But instinct tells me that she’s somebody I need to get to know, and I’m already planning what I’m gonna say to persuade her to give me her number.
‘No, nobody,’ I say with a sniff.
Our captain is smirking right now. ‘But I’ll bet you’re not short on offers though, right?’
I can feel my cheeks burn. Why the hell am I like a little kid when it comes to this stuff? ‘I switched off my notifications. They were draining my battery.’
Dalton nods knowingly. Suddenly, some of the guys are being offered private dances. Zach Dorsey, one of my fellow rookies, from Baltimore and the Mutineers’ newest kicker, is on his feet, rubbing his hands together, the widest grin on his face. Just the sight of his giddiness makes me laugh.
‘Mon-tana Cream!’ he croons, allowing her to lead the way, and it’s pretty obvious he’s admiring the shape of her ass, ‘Mmm-mm.’
‘Montana Cr— that’s her name?’ I ask, wide-eyed. Fuck, Walsh, quit acting all virginal.
Dalton shakes his head, also grinning.
Hud raises his eyes to me. ‘What about you, rookie?’ he shouts over the pulse of the music. ‘You gonna follow Dorsey’s lead?’
‘I’m good, maybe later,’ I holler back, raising my bottle of beer to him.
A little voice in the back of my head says I can’t be this golden boy all the time, and that I should just let the guys sign me up for a lap dance.
That I shouldn’t be so damned chicken or worried about what other people think.
‘Whatever my brother’s sayin’ to you, it’s not true, by the way,’ is Hud’s slurred response, looking at Dalton warily. ‘None of it.’
‘Whatever you say,’ I shout back, and Dalton is laughing again.
‘Rise ’n’ shine, your highness. It’s game day.’
River’s voice enters my dream. It’s the opening game and I’m about to lose control of the ball.
In my bedroom, I stir. We agreed that, when my family moved into the same property as me, we’d try and keep things separate.
Compartmentalized, so I’m not that dude who still lives with his parents, aged twenty-three. Apparently, River didn’t get the memo.
I groan, pull my pillow further down over my ears. I didn’t sleep well, because –
goddammit – I’m nervous.
Tonight is the first time I’m gonna be on that field, as a Mutineer, playing for the NFL.
The actual NFL. More than three months on from the draft and it still hasn’t sunk in.
That I’m here. But last night, I lay here, stared at the ceiling and asked myself, what if I screw it all up?
What if I let my team down? Doesn’t matter how much college football I played, this is the big leagues now, and it ain’t for fucking snowflakes.
‘Didn’t we agree you wouldn’t hang out on this side of the house?’ I say to River, but it comes out more like a grunt.
‘It’s my first day of school, dipshit. I’m not gonna see you before the game tonight. Thought I’d come and wish you luck.’
I raise my head. ‘Right. First day of school. I forgot.’
I haven’t been able to focus on much else other than training. Except for when the girl from the grocery store pops into my head. No woman has ever occupied my thoughts like this. I must be down bad.
‘How do I look?’ River asks.
‘Why you wearing so much makeup?’
‘You think it’s too much?’ she counters.
‘You don’t normally wear so much is all.’
She goes over to a mirror I hung on the wall only yesterday. ‘Does it look like I’m wearing too much?’ she asks again.