Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Cat
Spending the evening with Hunter Quintanna last night had felt like going fifteen rounds in a heavyweight bout.
I slept late and couldn’t make myself do anything except wonder what he was up to.
Reaching for my phone at least a dozen times, I stopped myself from calling him.
Even though the team didn’t have a real practice, they had walk-throughs and meetings today, but that was over and I had no idea what Hunter was up to now.
And that was killing me. For both professional and personal reasons.
Mostly for personal reasons. I trusted that Wyatt would take him home and they’d stay in for the night, that he wasn’t about to go out and get himself into any trouble, allow himself to be vulnerable to attacks from the press or fans.
There were crazies out there who would attack, I knew from monitoring the team’s Twitter account.
By the time nine o’clock came around, I was in my nightgown and should have gone to bed, but I sat in my living room on the couch staring blankly at the TV. All I could think about was that night, that off-the-charts crazy phone call with Hunter. The need clawed at me to call him again, to—
My phone rang, shattering my train of thought. Hunter was calling me.
I grabbed my phone from the coffee table, swiped it on, and read the flashing words. It was Dad. I closed my eyes for a beat and let out a breath. Deflated, I answered the call, trying to sound light and happy.
“Penny tells me you’re inviting Quintanna to dinner tomorrow.”
“It’s already done. He needs our public support, Dad.” He was silent. I could tell he’d been angry but was considering my words. I’d used his tactic of attacking with my best front before waiting for him to make a defensive move.
“You’re right. But I don’t like it. Make sure you dress for business.” I laughed.
“Am I being funny? Is it ridiculous for a dad to be cautious when it comes to his daughter?”
“Not at all, but you do know we’ll be in public, right? It’s not like Hunter is going to attack me if I wear a nice dress.”
“How nice?”
I laughed again, then took mercy on him. “Don’t worry. I’ll wear a suit. Everyone will think I stopped for dinner on my way from the office.”
He grunted. I chose my next words carefully.
“Penny’s coming, right? It would make things less awkward for me if there was another woman.”
“You think so? You don’t think it’ll look funny?”
“No one’s going to think you’re on a date with her. She can sit with me and Hunter, an extra buffer for me.”
“Since when do you need a buffer? Is he behaving inappropriately—?”
“No, not at all—I meant for appearance’s sake.” I lied through my teeth even though it wasn’t my area of expertise.
“Fine.”
“You’ll tell Penny, then?”
“Why don’t you do that. Good night, Cat.”
“Break a leg tomorrow, Dad.” He snorted and hung up his old-fashioned phone.
I didn’t like that he wanted me to tell Penny that she was now invited to dinner after he’d left her out, but I knew where his head was at.
Coach was all about game-planning right now.
So I phoned Penny to get it done before bed.
Standing, I paced around my living room while I told her the good news. Her response wasn’t what I expected.
“I’m not going to dinner after the game tomorrow unless the invitation comes from Coach himself. Nothing against you, Cat. But you shouldn’t be playing his messenger for this one. He disinvited me. He needs to invite me again.”
With nothing much to say in response to that, we ended our call.
I knew she felt bad about being left out and could sense some line being drawn in the sand in her relationship with my dad.
Or rather nonrelationship. The notion that Penny might be getting close to some kind of ultimatum made me feel sick.
The circle I paced got tighter and tighter until I’d need to do a pirouette to continue.
This was not an ideal frame of mind for getting a good night’s sleep, but it wasn’t like I was playing the game. I only needed to show up and watch, right?
All I needed to do was sit with Jason, pretend we were an item for the whole game and then go to dinner with Hunter and my Aunt and Uncle. No tension there. Right.
About halfway through the second quarter, after Hunter blocked his ass off and the running game and play-action passing were humming along, my Twitter feed blew up.
Someone had posted a photo of Hunter, claiming he had to take the back door into the stadium, claiming he’d gotten an Uber ride and, yes of course, speculating that he must’ve lost his license.
This was my worst nightmare. As I tried scrolling through tweets, trying to catch up with what was going on, where this had come from, the crowd around me roared to life, standing and stomping and waving arms. Jason nudged me, then dragged me to a stand and I saw our team in the end zone.
We’d made the go-ahead touchdown when last I knew we were on the forty-yard line.
“Your man connected with a bomb from Wyatt,” Jason shouted at me, grinning and pointing to the replay on the jumbotron.
Almost dropping my phone, I watched, the grin shaping my mouth reflexively. It would be so easy to forget about Twitter and enjoy the moment, enjoy the fact that his teammates were celebrating with him in the end zone, that the fans were cheering their asses off for him. But I needed to do my job.
Flashing photos with the telephoto app on my phone’s camera, I zeroed in on Hunter high-fiving with Gabe, both men grinning wide.
Then I took a pic of the catch on the jumbotron replay.
Sitting back down as the team set up for the extra point, I began tapping away, posting the photos in all the team’s social media accounts, hoping this would drown out the shadowy photo of Hunter heading to the maintenance door of the stadium like a thief.
With any luck, which I wasn’t counting on, no one on the team would even notice the questionable photo with the controversial questions being posed.
But whatever tension I’d previously felt in anticipation of dinner was totally eclipsed by what I felt now.
The thought of eating dinner made me sick.
Any joy at seeing Hunter catch a pass for a touchdown had been dulled by the splash of social media acid.
Or it would be if I let it. I turned to Jason. “Do you think this will really help him?”
“Are you nuts? The way he ran, the catch, the stiff-arm, the run into the end zone—it was classic. A work of art.”
My heart pounded as the defense took the field and we watched the Militia hold their opponent from Chicago scoreless for the rest of the half.
At halftime, I needed to get to a computer and a television to do some serious reconnaissance, get more photos and hopefully even positive fan commentary about Hunter to deluge the Boston Militia hashtags with pro-Hunter content.
“I have to go,” I said to Jason, “but first, I need to make a clip of you saying something good about Hunter. You’re playing the role of a big fan.
Go.” I aimed my phone at him and Jason came through, sounding genuine and appreciative.
I slipped away then, headed for my dad’s office.
He had a big TV and I could use his computer to schedule the content.
He also had a view of the field so I could take more pics if I needed to.
Once today was over, I’d see how good I was at my job.