Chapter 10 #2
She puts a finger on my lips, stares at me with a purposely sultry look and says, “It’s been fun.
I trust you’re not the kind of guy who kisses and tells.
” Then she pulls from my arms because I’m not trying to hold her, not really, and heads downstairs, her heels clicking on the steps in a staccato rhythm like she’s dancing to some unheard music in her head.
Whatever vulnerability, whatever emotional truth she’d shared is gone, taken back, locked down again behind enemy lines, inside the head and heart of the reporter.
And playing for keeps are empty words stuck inside my head with no place to call home.
Losing myself in football is what I do, what I’m good at, like all the guys on the team.
Whatever else is going on in life, the field is the place we leave it all behind.
And in spite of seeing Smitty on the sidelines of the practice field and at post-practice press conferences this week, we don’t exchange more than a look.
I try like hell to match her professionalism.
Her indifference. It shouldn’t be hard. She’s a damn reporter and she’s living proof why media is not to be trusted.
Print, broadcast, sports, all the same. They’re just out for a story and people aren’t human beings to them, they’re subjects.
Why Chloe had wanted to tease me Sunday night, I can no longer guess.
Was there a physical connection? Hell yes.
But was it enough to overcome the line between us as adversaries?
Hell no. The only reasonable assumption for me to make is that she had an agenda, still has an agenda, and is waiting to play it out.
This week heading into the last preseason game is finally at an end and I feel like a racehorse at the starting gate with the door stuck closed.
The game is tomorrow and Coach hinted I might get some playing time.
Finally. We’re all in the locker room to change after the light walk-through.
I need a shower because it’s a muggy hot day in August and the sooty East Boston air is stuck to me in places I don’t want to think about.
In my shorts, I grab a towel from the shelf and head to the showers. Sean catches up to me, still dressed, his phone in hand.
“Fontanna, you gotta see this. My Twitter feed is blowing up about you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? And more to the point—who the fuck cares?” I turn away.
“The tweets are between the official Militia Twitter account—namely Cat Marini—and one sexy reporter—namely Chloe Smith.”
That stops me.
“Take a look.” Sean shoves his phone at me and I read the thread of tweets starting with Chloe—her handle recognizable as @SmittyJuniorSportsReporter—no subtlety there.
She asserts in her usual pithy bold style that Fontanna is not the number-one middle linebacker in the league and maybe not even on the Militia.
I snort as I scan through the back and forth between her and Cat where they exchange stats like heavyweight blows to back up their positions.
Chloe insists with some impressive arguments that there are others better than me, putting forward a few names.
Shaking my head, I’m ready to give the phone back to Sean, when my thumb slides down and I see some of the fan response.
Fuck. There are some mean, nasty SOBs out there taking exception to Smitty’s tweets.
Everyone knows the trick. Media clickbait at its best/worst. Throw out a grenadelike comment to rile up the fans and then argue with them about it endlessly.
I’ve seen it, ignore it religiously. It’s what sports media do.
I shouldn’t be surprised and I definitely shouldn’t be concerned.
She’s a big girl and knows exactly what she’s doing.
Staging a Twitter war in the name of fan engagement and bigger, better ratings for her and her station.
Handing his phone back to him, I turn to the shower.
“You gotta respond to this man. She’s dissing you. I thought she liked you—I mean for real. But I don’t know.”
“She’s playing games, Sean. It’s her way.”
“Then you gotta play back. Tweet her.”
“I don’t have a Twitter account—you know that.”
“Start one. This’ll be fun. Some kind of sick flirtation—like when you’re a kid in the schoolyard and you shove a girl because you like her. You can flirt on Twitter.”
Snorting, I whip my towel at him, catching him on the back of the legs. “No way am I flirting on Twitter. I shouldn’t be flirting at all. It’ll just encourage her and I truly don’t need bad PR of any kind—not even on social media. I want to score on my new contract.”
Sean nods.
“I get you. I’ll keep you posted if anything else blows up.”
“You do that.” I pause as I turn the spray on. “I appreciate you having my back, Sean.”
He moves on with a grin to leave me to shower in peace.
But Chloe’s in my head, so there’s no such thing as peace.
She gets to me and she’s not even here. She gets to my cock too.
I should have waited to shower at home though that would be fucked up since I’m too sweaty and dirty to put on clothes or sit in my car.
The thing that churns in my gut, as I shut the water off and grab the towel, is the response Cat and Chloe’s exchange of opinions is getting from fans, some of them far from reasonable.
It’s not my job to worry about her, but someone needs to.
Or her sweet ass is going to land in a pile of trouble she might not be able to handle.