Chapter 25 #2
At the end of practice, Maurice Bradley asks if I’ve got time to chat with him.
I do want to get back to Donovan, but I know what this chat is.
Management goes through agents for a lot of things, just like they’re supposed to, but they like to talk to the players personally, too, about how the upcoming season is going to go down.
I’m signed on for the next two years, no concern there, but there’s a lot of flexibility in the minutia, and there’s a big round of finessing just before the preseason.
“You’ve had a lot going on in your life, I hear,” Bradley says by way of greeting because he’s the type of guy who likes to see absolute titans squirm in their seats.
I’m not Gabe. I’m not going to have a panic attack. I’m a grown-ass man. Grown-ass men have grown-ass ladies, and they have babies together. I’m just doing what everyone else is doing. “Yes, sir. Let me show you some pictures.”
Bradley waves me off. “I’ve held your boy, Blaise. Several times now. And now I’m gonna ask you to be honest with me and help me settle a bet I’ve got going with some of the other staff, because there’s been a lot of confusion on this front: is he your boy?”
I haven’t made an official announcement about it.
My social media girl, Stephanie, has hinted a couple times that she could throw one together if I just ask and offered to arrange a photoshoot — for any personal-related thing I might have, she said — but I kind of want to save it for a really good win, when the cameras are all over me and Jugs corporate doesn’t have quite the leash on me they usually do.
I’m real jealous that Allore got to announce that he was going to be a dad after one of our games our first season, if I’m being honest. And then somehow that announcement alone was enough to knock Keira into labor, negating the C-section they’d already scheduled for the next day.
I’m never going to be able to do that, but I want to get as close as I can.
I lean across the desk and wink. “Let’s just say there’s going to be an announcement, and it’s gonna be big.”
Bradley pales slightly at that. I guess that might have sounded like a threat, but I’m not here to make him feel better.
He clears his throat. “Well, whatever the situation is, he seems to be having a great impact on how you’ve been on the field. I don’t think we’ve ever seen you so focused, and you’ve done a great job of taking back some of the responsibility Gabe’s had these last few years.”
“I mean, he likes doing that shit.”
Bradley rolls his eyes. I can’t count the number of times he’s uttered some form of ‘I see through your shit’ to me, but Gabe does like doing that stuff.
That’s why I’m such a good quarterback for him.
I let him do it. And now that he’s got his own baby, if he doesn’t want to be the contact point for the coach anymore, I’ve always been able to do it.
Probably.
I mean, yeah, it’s been dicey at times, but that was more on the coach than me. A lot of them just don’t get me. Coach Keenan gets how I work. We’re going to have a great season.
“So you know we’ve added some bonuses this year to get you moving.
Your coaches are saying they think you’re going to be hitting them, and that’s great.
I want you to diversify your play. It’ll be good for you.
Good for the team as a whole. But straight up?
What I really care about here? Getting to the Super Bowl. ”
I nod, but that’s a big fucking ask. I’ve never been to the Super Bowl. Most of us haven’t. Most NFL players never do.
“Now, you know your bonus structure already. You know how much you’re getting if you make it to the Super Bowl.
But I’m going to sweeten it even further.
On top of what you’re already getting, if you beat last year’s record?
An extra million. And for every post-season game you get to, an extra million.
You pull off a miracle, you get an extra five million.
You think you can make that miracle happen? ”
“Hell yeah!” Nope. Not at all. But I need every penny I can get, and I’ve never had this motivation.
“Great. Heard your girl’s out of town right now, is that right?”
“Yeah. She’s back to work. She’s a costumer. For action movies. So she’s gotta travel a lot. Hopefully not too much, but we’ll figure it out.” Am I babbling? Shit. The way his eyebrows lift as his frown deepens tells me I am and my words are digging a hole under me.
“She going to stay home once the season gets going, though, right?”
I should lie, but I cringe before I can get the lie out.
“Sinclair, I’m not saying this to be insensitive or to tell you how to run your life, but you see the other guys who have wives and kids.
You know how this goes down. If those ladies work, they work around the team’s schedule.
You either get a full-time nanny, or she stays at home. That’s just how it goes.”
I shrug helplessly. We don’t have space for a nanny.
We don’t have money for a nanny. I’m waiting until my next big paycheck drops to have the hard conversation with her about whatever outstanding debt remains and what we need to do so I’m not continuing to be bled dry.
I’m probably going to have to bring in a money adviser or something.
But we’re definitely not having a child care conversation until then, and with Donovan’s health in flux, child care is an even bigger problem.
Bradley scratches his beard as he stares me down. I’m not Gabe, I’m not freaking out. But yeah, I sink a bit in my chair. I’m glad I never told anyone from the Jugs about the blackmail because it would look so fucking bad now, but . . . this still looks bad.
“You boys are getting paid in a week, yeah? Does an extra $100,000 keep her home?”
It’s enough that the day it shows up in my account, I finally feel like I can breathe for the first time since that day Tilly showed back up in my life, having just robbed me of nearly every penny I had left.
I take her and Donovan out to dinner at the nicest restaurant I know of that I know people aren’t going to be too mad about a baby, a popular Asian fusion restaurant downtown that’s by reservation only but not opposed to a name drop to get squeezed in that night.
She dresses up and does her makeup. I have Merrick bring down a nice suit and dress shoes as I tell him that, actually, I am going to move out, I just don’t have room for my stuff yet.
Lin somehow finds out we’re doing a fancy date night — probably it got passed around through the WAGs — and gives me a tiny three-piece with proper trousers and a vest for Donovan that his baby never got to wear before he grew out of it.
I send a quick text to Stephanie, my social media manager, that there might be some paparazzi photos popping up, and we’re waylaid in the parking lot by a photographer I recognize from game days.
Several secret pics of us walking to our table and enjoying our date — yeah, our first date, sue me — get scattered about the internet, but the best one is the first one that goes right onto the Jugs’ social media.
It could be the best night. We have a great time, and I know difficult conversations are ahead, but we joke and laugh and shake people’s hands and sign autographs while forcing them to admit that Donovan is the cutest baby ever.
Tilly looks happier and more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her, even if she shies away and makes herself busy with Donovan when people stop by.
Seeing her like this makes me feel at peace with everything I went through, every decision I’ve made, and everything I had to ignore to get here.
And then, when we’re in between dinner and dessert and Tilly’s busy giving Donovan a bottle, I cave and check my phone.
It’s blowing up, of course, but there, mixed in with my emails, is a dreaded, familiar name, demanding more money than I have access to.
Attached to it is a series of photos and video from that night at the con, but these are the first that have come from the bathroom.
I don’t need the audio to know what I’m telling her to do. I see, clear as day, what she does. What I reciprocate.
These cannot get out. Can. Not.
Tilly tilts her head and frowns. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
My eyes dance between her and the phone. She hasn’t touched hers all night. She didn’t send this to me. And yeah, I’ve assumed all along she had an accomplice, but the way she pales and says, “Oh god, what happened?” has my gut sinking.
“A video was just sent to me,” I say carefully, which has her only leaning forward in anticipation. “A sex tape.”
“Eww,” she blurts out. “Anyone we know?”
“Yeah.”
“Gross. Don’t tell me who, okay? I don’t need to know what freaky stuff people are up to. Lord knows I would absolutely die if anything we’ve done ever got out.”
Her laugh isn’t nervous, just embarrassed.
Shit.
Fuck shit.
It’s like a flashback of every conversation we’ve ever had races through my mind, everything that I thought was her confirming that it’s been her, that she knows I’m Donovan’s father but didn’t want to come out and say it, every time she denied it, but she was always nervous.
But she’s always a bit nervous.
“Right. Yeah.” I want a nice segue, but nothing comes to mind, so I just blurt out, “Hey, how’s your dad’s home paid for, anyway?”
The change in her is instant. It’s no longer vague embarrassment over the concept of something. She stiffens, her complexion going ashen.
Okay, it is her. I don’t know what to do now, if she’s aware that her accomplice just sent this email or if she’s going to be as blindsided as I am, but at least I’ll finally get her to confess.
And then she just crumbles, tears welling in her eyes, her hold tucking Donovan in closer like she’s worried I’m going to snatch him out of her arms.
“Emerson’s been paying this entire time,” she says so quietly I can barely hear her, her face hung low so no one can see her behind the bangs of the wig Emerson gave her.
“I was his mistress for years. I swear it ended, way back when I got my cancer diagnosis. But that’s why I had that suite at Ani-Con. ”