Page 10

B EING ENGAGED REALLY brought the women out of the woodwork. Brandon glanced over at a line of several hundred people snaking around the side of Sharks Stadium, waiting for Sharks players’ autographs. One-third of them were females who appeared to be between twenty-two and forty. In other words, he was going to spend the next couple of hours giving the words “No, thank you” a workout.

He sat at a long table with four of his teammates inside the Sharks’ pro store. Signing autographs was part of his job description. The team wanted the best PR they could produce. Brandon wanted to remind the team’s front office he was someone the Sharks would regret cutting or trading due to community backlash if his contract extension wasn’t offered.

Brandon wasn’t opposed to female attention. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed the attention he received from a certain diva named Emily who wore his engagement ring the most, however. Unfortunately, Emily was out of town performing. He missed everything about her, up to and including when she got bossy with him. His little diva could be compared to a pampered, purebred Persian. She had no problem tilting her nose in the air, swishing her tail, and walking away when he was pissing her off. She’d throw a sweet smile over her shoulder, though, and he was helpless again.

The perfume she wore drove him crazy, too. He remembered her scent when she was nowhere around: It smelled like peaches and freshly mown grass.

Speaking of helpless, the first woman of marriageable age skipped over his teammates Zach and Tom like they had failed to shower recently. She had long, dark hair. The third finger of her left hand was bare. Her makeup applicator was set on “thick.” She wore stilettos, a micro-mini, and a low-cut top showcasing her after-market breasts to their best advantage. She extended a team cap to Brandon, flashing him a huge, whitened smile. “Would you sign this, please?”

“Of course I will.” He reached out for the cap. She didn’t let go. He gave it an experimental tug.

“You know what I’d like even better than your autograph? How about having a drink with my friends and me later? You’ll be thirsty from all this signing.” She leaned over the table a bit to give him the maximum amount of cleavage on display.

His buddy Damian sat next to him. Damian let out a snort. Brandon managed to pry the cap out of her hand and scribbled his name and jersey number with a Sharpie on the back of it.

“Thank you for the invitation, but I’m going to have to say ‘no’. My fiancée doesn’t like it when I date.”

“She doesn’t have to know,” the woman coaxed.

“Thank you, but no, thank you.” He handed the cap back to her.

The guy next to her in line gave her a glare. “Do you actually know anything about football, or are you here because you think he’s handsome?”

The woman flounced away. She didn’t ask Damian for his signature, either. “I think I’m insulted,” Damian said in a low voice, but his broad grin belied his words.

Brandon shook his head. The signing continued. Brandon received many more amorous invitations over the next hour and a half. He did his best to be polite, but he couldn’t believe these women thought he would do something as stupid as accepting an invitation to cheat on his fiancée with them. He wasn’t interested, and he couldn’t imagine where they got the idea he would be. His single teammates were eagerly scooping up a few of the disappointed females, however.

Brandon signed five hundred autographs that evening. He and his four teammates were whisked out of the pro shop and into a waiting SUV for the trip back to their cars by security. Instead of going back to the team facilities, Damian talked the driver into dropping them off at the Sharks’ favorite bar.

One of the more frustrating things about being a professional athlete was the fact it was sometimes tough to go out in public. The recognition factor increased along with the number of Sharks involved. Tonight’s five meant the group would be besieged anyplace else but the hole-in-the-wall Brandon and Matt Stephens had found during Brandon’s rookie season.

The place was older. The décor was early seventies—orange Naugahyde-covered benches, dark wooden tables scarred from years of use, industrial carpet of an indeterminate shade of blue. The place was littered with neon signs advertising various alcohols. At least ten flat-screen televisions were suspended from the ceiling in various places throughout the seating area. The food was plentiful, delicious, and nothing on the menu could be classified as nouvelle cuisine . Best of all, it was a fairly open secret among the mid-twenties to fifties clientele that the pro athletes they might see bellying up to the bar (or indulging in an order of chili fries during the off-season,) kept showing up as long as people left them alone.

The BrewPub was comfortable for everyone from Boeing blue-collar workers to thirsty Microsoft billionaires. The athletes fit right in.

After ten PM on a weeknight, there weren’t many cars in the parking lot. Brandon’s teammates followed him through the front door to the large table against the back wall. A few people glanced up from their beverages or food, noted the arrivals, and went back to discussing the Mariners’ latest victory or the upcoming schedule of the University of Washington’s football team.

Damian seized a menu as the group arranged themselves around the table. He was deep in consultation while three of his teammates compared notes on how many phone numbers they got slipped during the signing.

“Hey, McKenna, they were all talking about you, too.” Tom, the Sharks’ quarterback, attempted to imitate one of the women he talked with earlier. “‘I can’t believe he’s getting married. What does he see in that opera chick, anyway? I’m cuter than she is.’”

“If he went out with me, he’d forget all about her,” the newest Shark, Chris, chimed in.

“Maybe they’ll break up.” All five men laughed at Zach’s attempt to sound like a female.

Brandon nodded at a passing server. “I need some beer before you ladies start on the post-game wrap-up.”

“Your loss is our gain, brother. The dark-haired one with the big rack, short skirt, and spike heels is meeting me tomorrow night at Feedback Lounge. I’m sure she’ll forget all about you when she meets my friend,” Zach told Brandon. He pointed at his groin for emphasis.

Brandon shook his head. He loved these guys, but he was consistently amazed at how little they knew about him. Ms. Big Jugs wouldn’t have been on his to-do list in the first place. There had been too many women over the years with whom there was nothing to talk about five minutes after he pulled his pants back on. That part of his life was over the moment he met Emily, and he was grateful.

The server left with an order that would keep the cook and the bartender busy for a while. Brandon’s phone buzzed in his pocket: A text from Emily. She asked him how the signing went. He tapped out, “It was fine. I miss you,” and hit “send.”

“Let me guess. The other half wants to know what you’re doing,” Tom teased.

“She’s saying goodnight.” Brandon took a long swallow of the pint of Mac and Jack’s Amber Ale another server had set down in front of him.

“She’s checking to see if you’re with someone else,” Zach said.

“Maybe your woman is jealous and suspicious. Emily’s not that type,” Damian said. Damian had a bit of a crush on Brandon’s fiancée, it seemed.

“Oh, yes, she is. You just haven’t seen it yet,” Zach informed the entire table.

Brandon responded by draining his pint glass. Maybe it was best if he called a cab and went home. He didn’t want to spend the next half hour impressing on Zach why it wasn’t a good idea to say anything remotely critical of Emily, or any other young woman of his acquaintance, in his presence. He really wanted some of those chili fries, but Damian would eat his order. He pulled thirty dollars out of his wallet, slipping the bills under the empty pint glass.

He checked his phone to see another “xxx ooo” message from Emily, and hit the “stored contacts” icon to find a number for a cab. A commotion at the front door of the bar made him look up from his phone’s screen. His stomach lurched.

Anastasia and two of her model friends were cantering toward their table. She wouldn’t be caught dead in this place while they were dating. What the hell was she doing here now? She flipped a curtain of long, straight hair over a bony shoulder. The oversized sweater she wore slid off the opposite shoulder. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and the other side of the sweater showed signs of sliding right off, too. Half an inch more, and she’d give a whole new meaning to the words “wardrobe malfunction.” The two women she was with wore dresses that left even less to the imagination, and impossibly high heels.

“Well, look who’s here,” she purred. “Just the man I wanted to talk with.” She pulled out the chair on Brandon’s right and sank into it. She was glancing around the table already. She clearly wanted a cigarette, and there were no ashtrays available.

“Smoking’s not allowed here, Anastasia,” he said. “Maybe you should leave.”

“They won’t care.” She pulled out a lighter, laid it on the table in front of her, and reached into her bag once more. Brandon grabbed the lighter off the table.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me. You’re not doing this,” he said.

She tossed her head. “Where’s your fiancée?”

“Why should you care? You and I aren’t together anymore.”

Her smile was feline. It matched the exaggerated cat-eye black eyeliner she wore. She tossed a box of Marlboro Reds onto the table in front of them. “I need my lighter.”

He sat forward in his chair. “What is it that you want from me?”

“You must miss me.” She shook a cigarette out of the pack and slid it between her fingers. “I know I miss you. Let’s get out of here and go somewhere quieter.” He knew what she meant by “somewhere quieter”—her bedroom. He wasn’t interested. He wondered why he never noticed how cold her eyes were the entire time they were together. She gave him what he was sure she thought was a sultry glance.

He felt like he was observing the entire scene from somewhere overhead—Anastasia’s belief she could seduce him with nothing more than a glance, and his realization that he couldn’t believe she’d ever lured him into her spider web in the first place.

The guys pretended not to notice what was going on at their end of the table. Zach and one of Anastasia’s model friends went so far as to grab a two-top a short distance away. In other words, they expected trouble.

“Maybe I need to remind you what you said about me on that entertainment TV show.” His voice dropped. “I’m not interested. Take your friends and get the hell out.”

She let out a sigh of faux distress. “You can’t believe I really meant that.” She rolled the unlit cigarette between her fingers again. “They wanted a good quote. You know how amazing it was with us.” She leaned closer. He almost choked on the wave of stale smoke, too much perfume, and evidence of her preferred method of weight loss—vomiting—hitting his nostrils. “Remember the entire day in bed?”

Oh, he did. He wondered what he could shower with to scrub the images off his brain pan, too. He couldn’t believe he spent any time at all with her now. Supermodel or not, she didn’t do a thing for him. She reached out and plucked the lighter out of his fist. “You have to know there isn’t a guy in this place that would turn me down, Brandon.”

The server arrived with a platter of food, noted the cigarette and lighter in Anastasia’s hand, and snapped, “There’s no smoking here. You’ll have to leave.”

It happened so fast he had no time to evade her. Anastasia leaned forward, wrapped one arm around his neck, and kissed him. She made it good, too—she writhed against him like a snake, she tried to stick her tongue in his mouth, she did everything but give him a lap dance. He pushed her away.

He sprang to his feet. “Get out,” he said in a low voice.

She grabbed her handbag off the table. “You still want me. Your little friend does, that’s for sure,” she taunted.

Their eyes met. Her smug expression told him she believed she’d won. Count to ten, he told himself. Don’t do anything you’ll regret later. He felt the phone in his pocket vibrate again. Emily. He’d never wanted to wipe his mouth off after one of her kisses, or scrub till every trace of her was off his skin and out of his life. But he did now.

“You know where to find me,” Anastasia said as she walked away.