Chapter 5 #2
Priceless. It’s worth whatever hassle I’m going to get—because I know there’ll be hell to pay on some level somewhere for this stunt—just to see that open-mouthed look of shock on his face.
Before two blinks the surprise is gone and a tick of pleasure replaces it when he sees the Judas smile on my face.
Warmth shoots through me, floating my belly unnaturally.
He stands. “What the hell are you doing here, Smitty? You know you’re not—”
“I have an appointment with Cat Marini and thought I’d stop in.” No way I’m giving him a chance to accuse me of interloping even if—technically—I am.
He snorts and comes around the table and the noise starts up again, including a few whistles and ribald calls aimed at me. Tate reaches me in no time because he’s fast, as advertised, and grabs me by the arm.
“You’re in the wrong place. You can’t be here.”
“Don’t sweat it, Fontanna. I only wanted to say hello. Check in on my favorite player.” I glance in Sean Patrick’s direction and give him a wink. His grin is wide and he gets out of his seat in spite of a withering stare from Tate.
Under his breath, as he walks me back a few steps, Tate says, “What the hell are you up to? You trying to get into trouble? You could have your media privileges revoked.”
“You almost have me convinced that you care.” I let him walk me back toward the door.
“But no, I’m trying to get you into trouble, not me.
” I smile. Watching his jaw muscle tic up close and personal is an unexpected turn-on.
I see the coach coming up behind him and pull myself from Tate’s grip because, contrary to my natural antagonistic instincts, I don’t want to get him into trouble. Not really.
“Actually, I wanted to confirm that we have an interview set at the studio for Saturday, Fontanna,” I say.
He scowls and turns as the coach approaches.
Marini walks toward us, leaving a subdued murmur in his wake like the principal walking through the school cafeteria.
He nods at me, not smiling, but not showing anger either.
“That’s right—you two have an interview coming up. Ms. Smith, your presence here is unexpected.”
“I’m here to meet Cat for lunch.”
He nods and whips his phone from his pocket and places a call, summoning his daughter to meet me.
“Cat will be down in a minute,” Marini says, looking between me and Tate. I can feel Tate’s anger simmering below the surface, or at least I think it’s anger, based on his scowl.
“You can wait for her—outside in the hall,” Coach Marini says, and I nod.
“If you insist.” I look around and give a wave at the mass of staring faces, some annoyed, some surprised, some appreciative, including and especially Sean Patrick, who offers to show me the way.
“Patrick,” the coach says. Sean sits back down in his chair with a wink, mouthing the word later.
I can’t help my smile because the man is truly amusing in a stereotypically macho, overcompensating-for-being-the-kicker kind of way.
But even my amusement with Sean’s antics isn’t enough to cool the simmering in my gut or the crackling in the air between me and Fontanna.
He’s staring, mostly in disbelief mingled with anger, and something else that could be appreciation.
I’m dressed to irritate his appreciative streak.
“See you later, boys.” I turn and walk out, the satisfying click of my heels making the statement eat your hearts out in a subtle enough way that it doesn’t compromise my professional integrity. I need to be who I am. Tough shit if someone can’t handle it. Someone named Tate Fontanna.
Cat greets me with a hug and no questions about what the hell I’m doing at the team dining area.
Probably because she knows exactly what I’m doing and gets it, obviating Tate’s paranoia and almost irrational dislike for media—because I know it’s not just about me.
I don’t suffer from paranoia. Shit, I should have done my research last night.
Something is up with Fontanna, something’s causing his more than the usual disdain for media, and I need to find out what it is.
I doubt he’ll tell me straight up if I ask.
“You look fabulous,” Cat says with a wink after she lets me out of the hug. It’s genuine and I didn’t realize how much I needed it until she steps away. I squeeze her arm before I let go.
“So do you. In fact you look blissfully happy. I’ll attribute that to the enigmatic hunk of a husband you have in Mr. Ooh La La Hunter Quintanna.”
She laughs, a sweet pink shadowing her cheeks and a silly grin confirming my assumption.
We take off through some long anonymous corridors along the ground floor to an obscure exit seemingly on the other side of the world—or at least on the other side of the building.
Stepping outside to the streets of East Boston, we go through a gate and cross the street heading to a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint.
It’s the kind of place I live for and I’m quickly falling for Cat as my new BFF.
“This is my go-to lunch place—whenever I have a chance or when I have company. Luckily that doesn’t happen often enough for me to turn into a fat lady—not yet any way,” Cat says.
As if. She’s a stick, in a petite feminine way that’s not scrawny, and I feel like an next to her. But I’m very fit and shapely and I don’t have a problem with eating all the food I want, especially at places like this.
Inside we sit in a brightly lit booth with a Formica-topped table and plastic leatherette padded benches with cracks that would run my stockings if I were wearing any.
But I’m not—because who wears stockings anymore, except in the bedroom when playing show and tell?
I’m definitely starved for a man’s attention and way past the point of giving a shit about pride or embarrassment about asking for Cat to fix me up—not that I get embarrassed about much.
I can’t even remember the last time I was embarrassed.
My Dad being Oscar the Mouth cured me of that early on in life.
Cat sits across from me and, with that shit-eating grin of marital bliss aimed at me, says, “You have no idea how happy I am that you asked me to fix you up. I love playing matchmaker and haven’t had a chance to do it since college.
Hunter isn’t a fan of fix-ups, but since you asked for it, he can’t argue.
So let’s jump in—what are you looking for in a man? ”
“What? No small talk?” I laugh. Cat’s a girl on a mission and she blushes again.
“I’m sorry—you’re right. I should at least tell you how sorry I am about your father’s recent passing. Dad says he was a character and a half and a decent human being. I bet you miss him.”
“Don’t make me cry. Let’s go back to my requirements in a man.” She reaches out and touches my arm with a sincere, kind look, not sympathy, but more like empathy and warmth. Whether she knows it or not, we will be fast friends from now on.
“It goes without saying, but I’ll say it, I want a hunk, but I don’t want complications.”
“I understand completely,” she says. I figure we’re on the same wavelength and she knows I don’t want a player—a football player that is—and I hope she knows some hunky non-football players, but then again, I bet she knows everyone of consequence in this town.
“I don’t mean to sound superficial.” I pause.
“Okay, I confess, I don’t care if I sound superficial because I want a guy who can turn me on, someone I have chemistry with, someone not boring, a sharp guy.
A man with strong opinions. Strong character too.
A guy who doesn’t back down, who’s relentless about what he does no matter what.
Someone who maybe had to overcome obstacles or struggles in his life, who knows what it’s like to lose something or someone special and survive and thrive.
” I stop, wondering if I’ve described my perfect man or the male version of myself. I shrug. It is what it is.
“Wow. Tall order.” She gets a gleam in her eyes. “But I think I can fulfill it. Give me a little time to work on it.”
“Sure.” I’ve waited this long.
The waiter delivers a giant pepperoni pizza and a pitcher of red wine and I know we never ordered. I laugh.
“Grazi,” I say, exhausting my Italian, and the kid smiles and spouts off a whole paragraph of incomprehensible Italian as I nod and laugh. Cat shoos him away as if she knows him.
“The little lech,” she says to me after he disappears behind his counter. I laugh.
We demolish the pizza as if we’re two guys, except we leave a couple of slices that get boxed up and I insist she take them for Hunter. The wine we finish down to the last drop, and I plan on stopping for coffee on my way back to the office as a doze-preventing measure.
When we’re ready to leave after she’s insisted on paying the bill and I insist on leaving an extravagant tip—cementing the young man’s adoration forever—Cat says, “I’ll set up a dinner party in a few weeks—still during preseason—that way there’ll be less pressure with other people around the first time you meet your blind date.
Then you can arrange to see him again, just the two of you if you hit it off. Or not.”
“Sounds painless. Possibly fun.”
“Definitely fun,” she says and I wonder if I’ve gotten myself into something difficult.
Of course I have. I always do. The grin pops onto my face of its own accord and I give Cat a big hug before I leave.
I love getting myself in and out of spots. It’s what makes life interesting.
It doesn’t occur to me until I’m in my car halfway back to the office that Fontanna, from what I know of him, has the characteristics I described to Cat.
But I’m not sure how that’s possible. He’s the opposite of me, isn’t he?
He’s conventional and I’m unconventional.
But deep down I know there’s more to him, more similarities to me.
We’re both competitive, like challenges.
That comes with the territory for any pro athlete.
But it’s more. I can sense his disdain for the easy and simple.
Of course we’re both hard working or else we wouldn’t have gotten to where we are respectively.
And I know, with certainty, that he’s a decent, loyal person. Like me. Fuck.
Gunning the gas pedal out of a stoplight on Tremont Street isn’t smart, but I’m angry. At who, I’m not sure. Or maybe it’s a cover for the small droplets of fear spreading in my gut. Taking a deep breath, I ease my grip on the steering wheel.
It doesn’t matter if I might have possibly described Fontanna, because I still don’t know him well enough to be absolutely sure about my assumptions—and I am absolutely sure that he’s a paranoid, antagonistic bastard.
That’s mostly based on my very first impression of him and the Ms. No-Name Reporter crack.
Besides, it doesn’t matter, because Cat doesn’t know my hang-up over Fontanna and we agreed she wouldn’t fix me up with a player.
I force the calm through me, and as a result I’m left with an unsettled feeling, like there’s unfinished business, something just out of reach, that I can’t reconcile. Like a disturbing dream that you can’t for the life of you remember in the morning, but it still haunts you all day long.
That’s how I feel about Fontanna. That’s why I’m hoping and counting on Cat to find me someone to rid me of that feeling.
In the meantime, I’m going to dig into some heavy-duty research on him before I return to the stadium for the coach’s postpractice Q&A session.