Chapter 4 #2
“Yes, fine.” Rushing my words because I hate conceding anything, he gives me a pat on the back and walks me out the door to my desk. I sit at my computer. Leaning over my shoulder, he looks at the clip that pops up on the screen.
“You’re not going to babysit me now, are you?” I look up at him. “Because I swear I don’t need a suicide watch. I’m fine. I’ll win the war.”
He squints and says, “This for tonight?”
“Could be.” It’s not much from the day’s practice, clips of each and every one of the players I managed to corral saying the exact same thing in response to one question.
How are you feeling? I was planning to entitle the spot “The Militia or the Yes Men?” It’s almost comical and all too obvious that they’re coached what to say in response to anything injury or condition related.
It’s almost silly as it stands, but it’ll be the perfect backdrop for my exposé—rather the station’s exposé.
It sets up the audience to distrust whatever we hear from the team later.
“No one’s live for an hour yet. Why don’t you go home? Or better yet, go out. Aren’t there any nice young gentlemen who would fall all over themselves to show you around?”
There’s no way I’m telling him anything about my personal life, thinking about my pseudo date last night.
I give him a shrug in response. He doesn’t back off, still looking at me expectantly as if he has some stake in my love life.
That protective fatherly streak that I’m trying not to resent, especially since it falls so far sort of the real thing.
Maybe I should give him something to placate him, tell him I had a date with Sean Patrick.
It would only be a half-lie. It started out as a date with him.
Then again, I don’t want to risk Henry giving me a lecture about getting myself in trouble.
It would be useless because I love trouble and tight spots, love working at the edge of a cliff.
“I have planning to do,” I say, for once taking the less bold route. “You make the call to the coach tonight and I’ll have Fontanna in the studio sitting in a makeup chair by next Friday.”
“We don’t make those guys up—”
“Don’t you dare tell him that.” I smile an evil smile and he laughs, pats my back once again and walks off, shaking his head.
Henry’s starting to grow on me—if I put aside the fact that he just sabotaged my big exposé, giving it away to someone else in the name of dues paying.
In spite of that, I know his caring is genuine, know he’s doing his job.
All in all, I like him for an uncle-type and figure I’ll start calling him Uncle Henry tomorrow so he knows his lane. Not a father replacement.
The pleasant warmth about Uncle Henry is chased down by a shiver of fear, a shadow, until I shake it off.
There’s no way I can avoid relationships, even close ones, and live my life, no matter how great the danger and pain of loss may be.
More words of wisdom from Dad, after I asked him how he could stand it without Mom.
How he could go on knowing he could lose any one of us, the people he showered with his own gruff brand of affection and unmistakable love and caring.
Fuck. I swipe at my cheek. It’s hard to control the memories and the tears that inevitably follow when they pop up randomly like this.
I don’t mind looking like a girl and taking advantage of my girlie good looks, but I hate crying like a girl more than anything in the world.
With my head down, close to my screen, I take a surreptitious look around the room.
It’s almost empty now, most of the filming done for the day.
People are home for dinner. A new shift starts later for the end of the day, closing out the live games and wrap-ups.
Confident I’m past my emotional hiccup, I straighten. My dad raised me to be tough as nails and, damn it, that’s what I am. Pushing my hair back with both hands, I take a deep breath and turn my mind to the task at hand.
Tate honeybuns Fontanna. He is one sweet piece of meat.
Scrolling through my shots of him, I ignore the alarm bells ringing hollow in my chest. This is all in fun.
He’s the enemy through and through and I’m not about to forget that when I talk to him or meet with him.
But at night, alone in my bed, anything goes.
I’ll fantasize about him later tonight. Maybe he’ll fantasize about me.
Whoa there—where did that come from? Who cares if he fantasizes about me?
If he has my photo hanging on a wall, it’s most definitely to throw darts at.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way—except in my fantasies of course.
Not in real life. Not even when we flirted.
It was all for the cause. The edge of enmity never left us, I’m certain.
Still, I wish Henry would call the coach now so I can call Tate tonight and taunt him—about the interview. Not about . . . anything else.
Fuck. He and his fucking dimples have my panties twisted a little too tight.
I’ll need to do something about that. Pronto.
I think for a second about going out and meeting someone new, like Henry suggested, find a guy who’s interested.
Someone who doesn’t think of me as the enemy, as some warped, crass version of a Southern belle. Except that’s exactly who I am.
As I shut down the computer, the idea of finding a man for myself, someone I can actually date and have a real relationship with, someone I’m not sparring or competing with, gains traction in my head. By the time I get to my car, my phone is out and I know just the person to call to make it happen.
Starting the car, I tell my dashboard Bluetooth to call Cat Marini.
When I got to Boston I was surprised she reached out to me, but it turns out we were in the same sorority and she happens to be the queen of alumni relations or some such.
She’s also the perfect person to fix me up with someone in this town since she’s lived here all her life and knows everyone there is to know.
The dashboard rings three times before she picks up and I remember she’s a newlywed.
Glancing at the clock, I figure she ought to be finishing with dinner if she has a normal household—but then who does most days in this business?
Certainly not me, but I hear tell there’s such thing as a dinner hour. Finally, she answers.
“Chloe Smith, great to hear from you.” She sounds genuine so I smile and relax into the seat as I drive over the Tobin Bridge to my one-room apartment in Chelsea.
It’s a dive of a little city on the north side of Boston, making a triangle between the stadium, the studio, and my home.
I like it. The neighbors don’t mind if I smoke the occasional cigar on my back deck overlooking the water—a small channel running between Chelsea and Boston.
Not scenic by conventional standards, but lots of character with barges being offloaded and smokestacks spewing whatever gives the city air that distinct flavor I’m coming to appreciate.
“I hope I’m not interrupting you at home,” I say.
She laughs, “Not unless you count my attempt at making dinner, but no matter. I hope you called about getting together.”
“Sort of. I was hoping you could help an out-of-town girl meet a nice gentleman without going through fifty dates to sift the golden nugget from the sludge.”
“You just made my night. Matchmaking is one of my favorite things. Maybe we could have lunch and you can tell me all about your dream man and I’ll see if I can conjure him up for you.”
“It’s a plan. When are you free?”
“Is tomorrow too soon?” Score.
“I knew I liked you for a good reason. No sense wasting time when you have the here and now.” Another thing my dear dad used to say. “I’ll meet you at the stadium at noon.”
“Perfect. You can come up to my office—I’ll give security your name.”
“You sure you’re allowed to let the enemy behind the lines?”
She laughs again. “I’m sure there’s nothing I could tell you that would remotely resemble a team secret. Everything I know goes out on Twitter. Sometimes I envy the reporters.”
“Don’t bother. You’re safer where you are.
And in pretty good hands from what I can see.
Your husband is a certifiable hunk.” Hunter Quintanna, the strong silent man of immeasurable talent.
I’ll need to tread carefully since he may be exposé-worthy at some point.
But I’ll cross that creek when I get to it.
No sense borrowing trouble. Oscar the Mouth’s saying number thirty-three.
“He is, isn’t he?” She breathes one of those dreamy, woman-in-love sighs and I feel a twitch, something that could be mistaken for a pang of longing if I were a different kind of woman—the kind who cared about home and hearth and—heaven forbid—babies.
But I don’t. I would stake my reputation as a lady and a tramp that there’s not a conventional bone in my body.
Unlike the uber conventional Midwest suburban place Fontanna comes from.
But what the hell did that matter? Just one more reason we mixed like gasoline and matchsticks.
“Looking forward to lunch, Cat. See you tomorrow,” I say in my most polite Southern belle voice and we end the call.
It’s not that I feel like I’m putting on an act when I revert to the gracious girl.
My penchant for spike heels is real enough and I love looking my sexy best. I had it pounded into me from a young age that I’d need to make the most of whatever assets I had and I knew from the age of thirteen that I had some valuable ones in the female department.
Lucky for me my dad taught me to take care of myself, take no shit, and never back down. No good old boys were going to make me feel like I had to be one of the guys to fit in—even if I did occasionally enjoy a cigar and a whiskey and wearing grungy jeans and ripped T-shirts.
I pull into the drive leading to the small space I call home for now.
The breeze coming off the channel buffets the sheets and clothes on the lines out back as I park in front of an old and fragile-looking garage next to the triple decker where I rent the top floor—one large room with a kitchenette—which reminds me of an old-world-style turret like they have in some areas of Atlanta.
As long as I don’t glance out the windows, I might think I’m there, back in the home where I lived with Dad the past few years since I’d graduated Georgia State.
Where I took care of him as he diminished to nothing.
Looking up the hill to the new and stately condos named Admirals Hill, I shake my head.
They aren’t worth the money, even though I do have it.
The grit is good for me, Dad would have said.
Besides, I have an enormous walk-in closet in my turret that fits my entire wardrobe and that’s what sold me on the top-floor apartment.
Truthfully, I think the closet may be a small bedroom, but I’m happy with the Murphy bed and my office space, my small couch and big TV.
It’s not like I plan to entertain. I’m not a dinner party hostess kind of girl.
Though I’ll accept an invitation anywhere anytime.
I run up the stairs, in my heels, enjoying the fast clacking sound like tap dancing as I go, and let myself in the hefty door.
After I throw a frozen meal into the microwave, one of those low-cal, good-for-you brands, I sit at my desk in front of my computer and get to work on prepping for my interview tomorrow.
Slipping my shoes off, I click on the file of photos.
Multiple shots of Tate Fontanna’s face pop onto my screen in neat rows, all gorgeous.
The smile, the dimples, the manly stubble on his chin, and the magnetic intensity of his eyes all get to me, shooting straight to the hot spot between my legs. Damn. What the fuck is it about him?
Not his looks, not even his dimples, and certainly not all those muscles—all pro athletes have those and they’re a dime a dozen in my business. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t like me. I can’t deny I find that a turn-on, bringing out my competitive streak.
And then there’s that vulnerability I sense underneath his relentless bad humor, occasional real smile, and sharp intelligence.
He’s got a soft underbelly, something that makes him sad.
I know this, I recognize it because it mirrors my own blanket of permanent sadness layered over and under everything else in life now that my dad, my mentor and my hero in life, is gone.
I’d bet my entire collection of Christian Louboutin shoes that Fontanna lost someone important along the way.
Same as me. I feel the connection, that deep-seated sense of sadness and emptiness lingering at the edges of everything.
And like me, he doesn’t let it stop him—the opposite, it drives him.
But who is it? He still has his parents, his brother, so no one obvious.
I have some homework to do, background research to tackle that I would have gotten to if I hadn’t just moved here from Georgia.
Hadn’t just lost my dad. But I can’t let that interfere, not even when my concentration is shit every time I sit quietly in front of a computer screen.
The microwave bings and I shut down my computer. I know no matter what intriguing background I might dig up, tomorrow I have to stick to the script and all I need to know are his stats and the team’s stats. Done and done.
I sit in my lounge chair with my miniature dinner that I know would have made Dad cringe and turn on the TV to watch all the sports shows that I’ve DVR’d all day.
Homework. Reconnaissance on the competition.
Zeroing in, I forget about the sadness for a time and immerse myself into the world of broadcast sports reporting.
One of these days, I’ll have a show of my own on a national network.
Tomorrow I’ll talk to Tate and confirm his interview. But tonight I’ll fantasize about him to my heart’s—and lady parts’—content. Pour grease on the fire. My style of cooking up life.