Special Teams – By S.L. Hannah
SPECIAL TEAMS
BY S.L. HANNAH
In a sea of tuxedos and gowns that’s becoming a blur, the last person I expect to see is Tommy Evans.
My fingers scrunch the black, tight-curled mane that drops past my shoulders as I straighten my shoulders and suck in my stomach in the rose-colored, strapless dress my stylist picked out for me.
She was right that it accentuates my curves in just the right way, and compliments my caramel tone, but I don’t want to leave anything to chance.
Especially not now that Tommy Evans is here.
I strut towards him in my tall black heels, fidgeting with the shoulder strap of my matching black clutch.
Tommy Evans. Former receiver for the LA Rams. The team my father used to own. The team that I now own. The team Tommy retired from five years ago after a nagging shoulder injury affected his numbers too much.
Damn, he looks good in a tux. I mean, he looks good in anything with that tall, fit ebony frame. But still…
He shoots me a smile and those dimples…they’ve always melted me.
When I’m within striking distance, his hands take mine. “Billie Johnson,” he says, eyes drifting across my body. He lifts my hands to his mouth, lingering on my knuckles. “It has been too many years.”
I run my tongue across my lips, thirsty for something. “Agreed. How are you?”
He lets go of my hands and sighs. “Alright,” he says taking a step back to lean on a cocktail table. “Thinking about getting out of late-night football recaps and back on the field. Coaching.”
I take a flute of champagne offered by a passing waiter. “Should I be calling your agent?”
He smirks and shakes his head. “I was sad to hear of your father’s passing,” he says, warmly caressing my arm. “This is a really nice event celebrating him.”
I nod and take a sip of the bubbly. My father passed away three months ago, and after the funeral, memorial, and a couple of private dinners with the typical power players, the mayor of Los Angeles wanted to have a banquet honoring his memory and everything that he’s done for the City of Los Angeles. “I appreciate you coming?—”
“How are you holding up?” He asks, cutting off my stock line of the night.
Freaked out. I want to scream into a microphone, so the entire world hears me and stops asking so much of me.
At least for a little while. So that I can crawl away from the constant lights and questions and grieve instead of having to keep up with a seemingly non-stop schedule of meetings and decisions.
And missing him. Regardless of how much my daddy prepared me for this role and his passing… He left a huge gap that I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to fill in the same way.
“Honestly, I want to get the hell out of here.”
Tommy offers his arm to me, and I take it, like a lifeline.
Outside the banquet hall, we discuss where to go, like two kids on the run, taking a few turns until we’re outside the hotel. Tommy finally suggests this sliver of a lounge that plays great late-night music. It’s just a few blocks down.
Nothing sounds better to me right now, I tell him as we quicken our pace.
The man standing outside the door recognizes Tommy and after a warm hug lets us in.
Sliver is right. It’s dark, and the few tables are packed. If we were still allowed to smoke inside bars, there would be a tobacco fog. The woman on the tight stage croons soulfully as the three-piece band behind her gently strum and thump their instruments.
Tommy spots a bar stool and whisks me over to it, hoisting me onto it, gliding his hand down my calf to the strap of my heel, murmuring about how he should have gotten us a car.
I tell him my feet are used to it, as I adjust the necklace at my chest, and he orders us two drinks. Macallan on the rocks, like always.
The smooth sounds from the stage and the relaxed energy from the crowd soothe my soul and calm the storm in my head as we casually catch up, and he makes sure I have everything I need. A little water. His jacket around my shoulders.
I always wanted to date Tommy Evans, but my father forbade me from fraternizing ever with any of the players. I got it. And I obeyed. Mostly.
He tells me about getting traded to the Giants and then the Lions and then coming back to the Rams. How he thought he was making all the right decisions, especially when it came to his wife and children even when he kept hearing the rumors that she was cheating on him.
I tell him about getting out of advertising and working with my dad the last year of his illness, and my slew of failed relationships, and how my son was mostly being raised by a nanny because his father decided to move to London, and I didn’t want to disappoint my father’s legacy.
But in the background, I can’t help but roll through some history. He was the only player I almost dated, wanted to date, except that I didn’t want to create any drama for my dad and upend his football team.
The songstress continues spinning delicately powerful words and pitches and the bartender gets us another round of drinks and our body language becomes a kind of familiar.
The bar stool next to mine becomes available, and Tommy takes the opportunity. His gaze shifts across my body again, this time even more longingly, and then he chuckles.
I give him a jab in the arm. “W hat?”
He shakes his head, muttering something I can’t hear above the music.
“What?” I demand, louder.
He bites playfully at the fist he’s formed. “Do you remember that night in Vegas?”
A sly smile curls on my face as I nod my head. “That’s still clocked in as one of the craziest…” I lean closer to him. “And hottest.”
I’d run into Tommy and his friend in Vegas.
I had lost my girlfriends in the club we were at, and I was tired, wandering through the casino on the way back to my hotel room, and there was Tommy.
He was kinda a big deal back then. Just turned twenty-four , just signed a $50 million, five-year contract with our team.
Talented, gorgeous, and sweet as all hell.
He gave me the friendliest hug and insisted I not go back to my room yet.
And his friend, I knew him too, Adrian Ocansey, an up-and-coming safety.
About the same age, a little shorter and broader, and just as gorgeous.
The fact that these two weren’t with an entourage of women surprised me.
Then again, not all NFL players were players. At least not all the time.
We ended up at a roulette table, winning, which meant the drinks were flowing and the conversation was light.
We were laughing about stupid shit that a bunch of twenty-somethings find funny.
And that winning vibe kept going. The wheel kept spinning and that little ball kept dropping in the exact places we needed it to drop.
Tommy and Adrian proclaimed I was their lucky charm, and how we should all hang out more often. I couldn’t have agreed more.
One, maybe two hours later we decided it was time to quit. We cashed out with a stack of chips weighing down each of our pockets.
Then there was talk of being hungry and of me having to see how amazing their suite was, and as if it was the most natural thing to do, I ended up in an elevator with two beautiful, young, black football players.
I would be lying if I said it was a completely innocent decision. I’d felt a vibe between us that was hard to explain. Something in between kismet and opportunity. Truth was, I felt more empowered in that elevator than I’d ever had in my twenty-eight years.
Tommy’s hand moves to my thigh, the slit of my dress, as if he’s inspecting the details of the embroidery work. “How did we even manage to get you naked that night?”
His hand on my thigh creates a heat in my mid-section. “I actually think Adrian got naked, first,” I say, placing my hand over top of his, and then walking my fingers up his strong forearm to the now rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. I frown at the barrier.
The subtle gesture makes him groan. Our eyes lock. Like they did that night in Vegas when Adrian, after scarfing down his burger proclaimed, he needed to take a shower.
We’d already turned up the music and dimmed the lights, after a tour of the hotel suite that spanned three thousand square feet and overlooked the infamous fountains.
Sitting in oversized chairs across from one another, nibbling on fries and sipping water.
There were weightier matters than food on our minds.
I got out of my chair and shrugged off my linen blazer. I took a few steps over to where Tommy was sitting, bending down in front of him and gingerly weaved my torso back and forth to the beat of the song playing through the surround sound system.
He smacked my ass and pulled me on top, so I could straddle him as he buried his face in my chest. My hands worked to get my bandeau off so that his mouth could have access to my nipples as I ground my hips against his hard on.
By the time Adrian got out of the bathroom, Tommy’s shirt was off, and I was running my tongue up and down his eight pack.
Adrian stood in the doorway of the bathroom, arms crossed watching us.
When I looked over at Adrian, I knew where things were going with Tommy.
I was gonna fuck him, but then seeing Adrian in that doorway, sporting his own eight-pack, that towel wrapped low around his hips…
I got greedy. I pointed in his direction and motioned for him to come closer.
I could hear Adrian’s words of surprise as he slowly tread over to our debauchery and sat in the chair where fifteen minutes ago, I’d been eating a late-night snack, thinking about a different type of snack.