Chapter 7
NATE
“You’re early,” I said, standing up to greet Becca.
She looked sharp and put together in a navy blazer with a matching skirt. Her notebook was in one hand, coffee in the other.
Becca was pretty. Not in an over-the-top kind of way, but the type that caught you off guard because she wasn’t trying.
“You sound surprised.” She set her bag down on the table and pulled out a notebook.
“I guess I shouldn’t be.” I gestured for her to take a seat.
I leaned back in my chair, watching her as she leaned across the table to grab her laptop. One second, I was listening to her grumble about her charger being all tangled up, and the next, my gaze was dipping down to her cleavage.
Jesus Christ.
I snapped my eyes upward so fast I almost gave myself whiplash.
I was a grown-ass man who needed to get a grip.
It had been far too long since I got laid.
Thankfully, the door swung open, pulling my attention away from her.
A young intern walked in, carrying two overstuffed cardboard boxes and a stack of envelopes. She was tall and thin, and looked like she was about to trip over her Converse sneakers.
She dropped the boxes on the table. “Sorry.” She sounded breathless. “These packages came for you this morning.”
“What is all that?” Becca gestured to the stack of glittery envelopes with lipstick kisses on the flaps.
“Questionable fan mail,” I grumbled, thinking that the intern couldn’t have picked a worse time.
She blinked. “Wow. I thought maybe it was your birthday.”
“Nope. Just a random Thursday,” I said, scrubbing a hand over my face.
“They are supposed to go through that before it gets delivered,” I swore under my breath and shot the intern a glare.
I was hoping she would take the hint, but I don’t think she understood how pissed I was.
Her supervisor was going to get an earful.
I hated that this was happening in front of Becca, of all people. I didn’t like how this would be perceived.
The intern smacked her gum loudly. “I didn’t have time to go through everything.”
That was literally her job.
“Why would you bring this to me now?” I asked, pressing my fingers against my forehead.
The girl looked like she didn’t have the patience to deal with me today. “My supervisor told me to.”
“I’m clearly busy,” I said, keeping my voice calm and doing my best not to cause a scene.
She looked between Becca and me. “I’m just going to leave this here.”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “Please, take it away.”
I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I got a lot of wild stuff. The people in the mailroom have been told repeatedly that I don’t want any underwear and lingerie, which was mostly all that stuff was.
Becca leaned forward. “Is this normal?”
“Unfortunately,” I exhaled through my nose. I could practically feel her curiosity spiking.
The intern, whose name I couldn’t remember, pointed to the boxes. “What would you like me to do with all that?”
“Throw it all out in the garbage. I don’t care.”
She crossed her arms. “You don’t even know what’s in there.”
“I do know, and I don’t want it.”
“But…”
I held my hand out. “No buts. This is supposed to get screened before it gets to me.”
She glanced at the fan mail and back at me, debating if she should continue arguing with me. I knew I was coming across as a jerk, but I didn’t know any other way to shut this down. I just wanted it all gone.
She tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowed. “These people took the time to send you a gift. Don’t you think you should at least look at it before you decide to throw it away?”
Great! I was being judged by a twenty-two-year-old as if I were the problem today, not her attitude.
“Rules are rules.” My voice was sharp now. “And I’d rather you didn’t leave a box of inappropriate items and photos on the table while I’m in the middle of an interview.”
“Fine.” She picked up the boxes forcefully, as if trying to prove a point. “I’ll take it back to the mailroom and see what my supervisor wants me to do with it.”
“I appreciate it. Next time, if the door is closed, please don’t just barge in when I’m in the middle of a meeting.”
She seemed annoyed. “Cool. Anything else?”
“Close the door on your way out, please.”
She did, with just enough force to make it rattle against the frame.
I dragged a hand over my face and shot Becca an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that.”
She was grinning. “I didn’t realize that receiving fan mail was such a sensitive subject for you.”
“It’s not about the mail,” I said flatly. “It’s about boundaries. If you knew what half the crap was in those boxes, you would probably go put on a hazmat suit.”
She arched her brow, looking way too interested for my liking. “Now I’m curious.”
“Don’t be.”
She clicked her pen. “What’s the weirdest thing anyone’s ever sent you?”
I threw my head back and groaned. I should have known she wouldn’t let it go. “Is this your first question?”
Her smile was triumphant. “You know what I think it is?”
“I already regret doing this interview.”
She leaned in, letting me know I wasn’t getting off the hook so easily.
My mind shifted through all the bizarre gifts I’d received over the years. I was aware this would be on the record, so I kept it as PG as I could. “Someone sent me a lock of hair once.”
She scrunched her nose up. “That’s odd.”
“It was pubic hair.”
Her nose scrunched up. “That is completely vile.”
I smirked. “You asked.”
She scribbled something down. “Okay, what else?”
I tapped my chin. “I once got a box of someone’s ashes, asking me to scatter them on the field.”
“Did you?”
“No. Those requests get denied all the time. They could potentially damage the turf.”
She flipped open her notepad. “Maybe you could convince the athletic department to build a memory garden somewhere on the property.”
She was still smiling as she booted up her laptop. I could see her shift into all business mode. She straightened in her chair, flipping over a fresh page that was full of notes. I could tell by the way her pen hovered over the paper that the next few questions weren’t going to be as light.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Let’s talk about this season. You’ve got a lot of eyes on you. How does this compare to other years?”
I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. “You always ease into interviews like this?”
“Consider this your warm-up question,” she said through a smile. “If you’d like, we could talk about your hatred of fan mail instead?”
“I’m not sure which topic is more painful.
” I chuckled and took a sip of my water.
“I suppose this season is different because I’m more aware of it.
That championship loss was a massive disappointment, not just for the team, but for the fans too.
I can’t change how it ended, but I can learn from it and build on it. “
She nodded and went straight to the next question. “Your name has been trending on social media. Not all of it’s been positive. What do you say to the people who doubt you? You mentioned before that you don’t let it bother you, but how can you just ignore it?”
I hated these questions but understood why she was asking them. “People are wild. When you win, you’re the hero. When you lose, you’re washed up. I don’t waste time on trending hashtags and funny memes.”
She tilted her head to the side. “The backlash really doesn’t bother you?”
“It used to when I was first starting out, but I’ve developed a thicker skin over the years. I don’t let it get to me. I can’t and won’t. Instead, I use all the negativity as motivation to prove them all wrong.”
A small smirk lifted her lips. “So that’s your plan? To prove them wrong?”
“And to make sure the same mistakes don’t happen again.” I smiled despite myself.
Becca smiled back. For a brief minute, this didn’t feel like an interview. It felt like two people having a normal conversation.
“Okay, next question.” She flipped through her notes. “There was speculation that you were distracted last year due to your public breakup with Lydia Sullivan. Some people connected that to your performance. Care to comment on those rumors?”
I rubbed my forehead, giving myself a minute to formulate an answer.
My PR team told me not to respond or correct it if she asked.
They said defending myself would only make me look guilty.
It didn’t matter that people had the truth backward.
Going after my ex would make me look bitter, so I was instructed to remain quiet and let people assume whatever the hell they wanted.
I thought these rumors would burn out and that people would get bored and move on to the next headline. I guess I was wrong.
I met her eyes from across the table. “When you’re in the public eye, you don’t always get to control the story.
You just decide if you’re going to add to it.
” I rubbed my hands along my thighs. “I think it’s easy to form an opinion from the outside looking in.
The reality is, the relationship ran its course.
There really isn’t much more to it than that.
A lot of what was said wasn’t true. So, I don’t feel the need to respond to rumors. ”
Her gaze didn’t waver, but I felt the mood shift between us.
Becca asked a few follow-up questions. Most of them were harmless and light.
She asked about training camp, routines, and my relationship with the guys on the team.
We went back and forth for the next twenty minutes.
Her questions were threading between serious and personal.
At one point, she asked about my family. A topic I didn’t talk about much with the media. It was usually where I drew the line.
“There was a picture of you and your sister, Callie, at her college graduation. What was it like for her to have a famous older brother?”
“Are you calling me old now?” I teased.
She laughed. “Absolutely not. I’m the same age as you.”
I glanced at her before answering, trying to read her intentions. This wasn’t the first time I’d been asked a question about my sister. However, her question showed genuine interest, not just that of a typical, nosy journalist bullshit.
I pulled on the hem of my T-shirt. “Callie doesn’t think of me as Nate Sandler, the NFL player. To her, I’m her annoying, overprotective brother.”
“So, she doesn’t put you on a pedestal?”
A laugh slipped out. “Absolutely not. In fact, she’d be the first to knock me off if I ever started believing that.”
“Do you talk often?”
“All the time. She’ll text me after a game and say, ‘Good job,’ and follow up with all the things I did wrong.”
Her face softened. “I can tell by the way you talk about her that you’re very close.”
My eyes lit up just thinking about her. “Callie was literally my favorite person on the planet, other than my mom.”
Becca glanced at the clock on the wall. “I think that’s a good place to end for today.” She closed her notebook and tucked it away in her bag.
I nodded and pushed my chair back while gathering her things.
I had to admit, this was the most at ease I’d been with a reporter in a long time. Becca didn’t push. She just listened as I talked about topics I usually kept off the record.
“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked, pulling a tube of lip gloss out of her side pocket and swiped it along her lips. My attention lingered before dragging my eyes back to the table. She was turning into a distraction, and if I kept staring, she was going to start noticing.
I cleared my throat and stood up so I could walk her to the door. “The verdict is still out. I need to hold my judgment until the next interview.”
She glanced toward the door but didn’t leave right away. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.”
I stuffed my hands into my front pockets. “Don’t make me regret it.”
Her smile was soft, as if she understood that I had opened up in a way that I usually didn’t. “I won’t. You have my word.”
Surprisingly, the interview had gone smoother than I expected. Almost too smoothly. Which was ironic, because I’d spent my entire career steering away from answering tough questions and keeping reporters at arm’s length. But Becca had a way of asking questions that made me want to answer.
It was as if she saw something real in me. Not Nate with the two championship titles, but Nate, the guy who secretly craved something real, but was too afraid to go after it.
That idea was messing with my head.
She was a reporter. I didn’t date journalists. I didn’t even trust them. Hell, I didn’t even trust myself at the moment. I needed to play it cool and get through these next few weeks.
I followed her to the door and held it open. She stepped into the hallway and glanced back at me. “Let me know when you’re available to meet next.”
I nodded. “You got it.”
She hesitated long enough that I knew she wanted to say something. Instead, she gave me one last smile and headed down the hall.
I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. I stared across the empty conference room, which still smelled of her floral perfume. I hated how quickly I registered it.
I ran a hand over my face, letting out a short breath.
Attraction was one thing. I knew how to handle that. This was a lot more like trouble brewing. The kind that snuck up on you and made you forget your own rules. And the kind that reminded you why you made them in the first place.
She was writing about me and shaping a narrative like everyone else. It didn’t matter how comfortable I was with her. I couldn’t let my guard down, because that was when things got messy.