Chapter 1
Chapter One
Tate
Standing in a line with a crowd of press mobbed in front of us, I remind myself that I love football. I love my team, the Boston Militia.
It’s also an irrefutable truth that I hate media day with a passion.
We’re trying to get ready for the first game of the preseason and it’s hotter than hell on the field, even for August. It doesn’t help that my shoulder and back are sore and need icing more than they need standing out here in the sun answering the same relentless questions for the same sports reporters like we do every damn time we see them.
They’re everywhere. On the practice field, at the games, in the locker rooms. Hell, I won’t be surprised if I start seeing the damn fuckers in my dreams. Again.
The media—the whole damn world—has been bugging me ever since my injury last season.
Or that’s what it feels like, but I know I’m paranoid about the media, so I take a breath, let reason take some control. But not much.
“It’s a contract year for you, right? What are the chances you’ll break your sack record again this year, Tate?
” Mike Foley asks. He’s older and experienced, one of the reputable reporters if there is such a thing.
I want to say to him, Who the hell knows?
Ignoring the reminder that I’m looking to renew my contract, looking for the big payday so I don’t need to worry if my career ends abruptly with a catastrophic injury, I give him my stock answer to such questions.
Knowing the guy has a job to do, a column to write, airwaves to fill, tweets to tweet, I ought to let go of my tension.
But I don’t, because hell, it’s media day and I’m totally exposed.
We all are. It annoys the fuck out of me that instant media, like tweets, are the new communications tool and people pay attention to them in this business.
I refuse to have a Twitter or Instagram account.
Less points of exposure. Dredging up a smile, I answer him.
“I’m sure as hell going to try as hard as I can to obliterate my record,” I say. “I’m working to improve, to always give the game and my teammates a hundred and fifty percent.”
A loud feminine voice cuts in, “Why not two hundred percent?”
I turn toward the voice and so does Foley, the tension in my lower back tripling with a scream of pain straight through me like a hot iron. New sweat pops out at my temples.
Standing a few layers of media away, the owner of the voice is easy to spot. She holds a microphone high, wearing a floral sundress and a picture hat with sunglasses, dressed more for a garden party than football media day. She has a camera with her.
Fuck. She’s legit. Big time legit. According to the logo on the camera and on the cameraman’s shirt, the woman appears to be working for New England Sports Headlines.
Only the leading sports network in the area.
Double fuck. I know she’s trouble as I watch her push her way past Foley and a couple of other people, jostling them aside, miraculously managing the turf while wearing heels without missing a step, not even a stumble.
Elbowing Sean Patrick, the Militia’s field goal kicker who’s standing with me, I lift my chin in her direction and ask, “You know this reporter chick with the smart mouth trying to edge out Foley?”
He turns to her and lets out a low whistle—a whisper of a whistle like only he knows how to do.
“I sure as hell do not know her, but I think I want to change that status pronto.” The signature wolfish grin appears on my friend’s face and I half want to roll my eyes. The other half of me wants to join right in.
“Fuck, man, she’s a reporter,” I remind him. “As in the enemy. “You can’t—”
“Oh yes I can. When they look like her,” he says under his breath as she excuses her way past Foley, the last remaining reporter between her and me.
Most of the media is busy trying to get quotes and pithy one-liners from our QB, Gabriel Wyatt, but there are plenty of media types to go around since we’re the defending Super Bowl champs.
I figure she’s not joining the crowd around our QB because she’s new.
Possibly because she’s clueless. But as she removes her sunglasses and I get a look at those brilliant deep blue eyes—actually violet and definitely intense—I stop thinking about .
. . whatever the hell I’d been thinking about.
Before I’m prepared, not that I could be for such an assault on my hormones and my nerves at the same time, she’s in my face with her microphone, so close I can see the gold flecks in those deep purple irises, feel her intensity.
Shit, I feel the unmistakable sparks flying between us made of resentment and excitement, the kind that get to my dick before they get to my head.
Get it together, man. She’s a reporter, a snake in the grass armed with the worst poison of all. Sex appeal.
“Well, Mr. Fontanna? Is there or is there not a limit to the effort you bring to your team?”
Gritting my teeth to maintain my famous smile, the one that women usually drool over—though I don’t see her drooling—I clear my throat and go into my snake charmer act.
“I do everything to the absolute limit, Ms.? I don’t think I know you. You’re new to NESH?”
She’s damn near baring her teeth at me even as I sense our electricity, a nasty opposites-attract kind of joke. She bristles, but keeps her smile and ignores my question. A pro. Only amateurs answer questions posed by the interviewee.
“If you’re new to town,” Sean interrupts us and I should be grateful, but I’m not, “I’ll be happy to show you around.”
Flicking her eyes to him, she smiles, not exactly sweetly, but without the tension she’s been aiming at me. She doesn’t bother replying to him and I admire her focus as my cock twitches.
“Let me put it this way, Mr. Fontanna, would you risk your life to play football?”
“We all risk our lives getting out of bed every day, driving cars, flying in planes. Life is a risk, Ms. No-Name Reporter.” Bingo.
I strike her down. There’s a ripple of response in the small group around us.
I know it’s a clean hit when Foley chuckles, maneuvers himself back into place, effectively blocking her out.
She’s lost her one advantage. Surprise. Though being drop-dead gorgeous could be considered an advantage.
Okay, I admit that her looks are in fact a clear advantage.
But my dick is calm now as I go back to talking with Foley about the competition in the division as if we’re having a beer in a bar on a Sunday, but knowing the whole time who he is and not saying a damn thing that isn’t vanilla and uncontroversial.
No one from the PR office had to teach me twice how to talk to the media.
That was tutoring I was grateful for and learned well.
So what if half my attention is still riveted on the new chick from NESH?
I never did get her name and when she moves on, catching Sean’s attention and taking him aside, I sigh.
With relief. Or everything in me is relieved except my cock.
My cock, I will not lie, is disappointed.
It’s a very stupid, undiscriminating organ in all men, but I have control. Complete control.
Monitoring Sean Patrick out of the corner of my eye, I’m not so sure about his control.
I watch out for him for his own good. That’s what friends and teammates do.
It doesn’t matter that my cock protests when she smiles a genuine smile at him, lighting her face to head-snapping proportions.
She doesn’t break my control. How can she?
The one and only thing I now about her is that she’s a reporter.
And that’s all the information I need to know that I want nothing to do with her.
She is the enemy.