Page 5

5

WORST DAY EVER

Jack

I feel something shift on top of me.

Fuck, I’m hot.

I bring my hand up at the same time I open my eyes. I feel bare skin and see a mess of wavy dark hair.

When I stretch, she lifts her head and her dark, sleepy eyes hit me. “Hey.”

My hand constricts on her ass. “Hey, yourself.”

She gives me a weak smile before burying her face back into my chest. “I have morning breath.”

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t when they wake up.” The sun shines brightly through the windows, and I have to squint to look over her head to check the time. “Checkout is in two hours. You want a ride to the airport?”

She rolls off me and reaches for her phone. “I’m traveling with my cameraman. I can’t exactly ditch him to ride to the airport with a strange guy. That will surely get back to the station. I’m already not invited to happy hour. I can’t have it getting around that I hooked up with someone on a work trip.”

I lean up on an elbow and frown. “But we’re childhood friends.”

She fists the sheet at her tits and turns to me before unlocking her cell. “Correction, you’re Levi’s childhood friend. We have never been friends. You threw a frog at me on the school bus when I was in kindergarten.”

I don’t try to bite back my smile. “I forgot about that until you mentioned it last night. We had to pull over so the driver could find it.”

“Right.” She does not smile at the memory. “And Levi threatened to cut off the hair on all my barbies if I told on you.”

“And still I was your first kiss, gave you a threepeat, and fucked you to the moon and back last night—wait, no. The supermoon. Talk about an epic comeback. The fact I wasn’t awarded MVP in Sin City is, in fact, a sin.”

She rolls her eyes, turns back to her cell, but doesn’t make a move to get out of bed.

I push the sheet down to my waist to get some fresh air since I spent the last two hours being deliciously smothered by Emma.

“Tell your cameraman you’ll meet him at the airport. Make up something. I’ve got a limo scheduled. There’s no need to waste it all by myself.”

Emma gasps.

“No need to be impressed,” I go on. “Limos are a dime a dozen in Vegas.”

“Holy shit,” she exclaims as she yanks the sheet off me. “I’ve got to go.”

She scrambles out of bed with the sheet, and I’m left naked.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind being naked, but I’d rather not be naked alone.

“What’s wrong?”

Her hair is a mess from drying overnight as she feverishly scrolls her phone. What she doesn’t do is answer me.

I stand, not at all concerned about my state of nakedness. I work out fucking hard to look as good as I do.

“Emma, what is it?” I demand.

“I’ve got to go,” she repeats, but doesn’t make a move. She keeps reading while she pushes her messy mane from her face. “There’s a story. It’s breaking. My producer wants me there, in like… Shit, thirty minutes ago.”

All of a sudden, my phone vibrates with a phone call.

I look down at the nightstand and tense when I see the name flash across my screen.

I look at the time.

What the hell? He’s supposed to be on a theme-park float with princesses and dogs and mice for fuck’s sake.

I don’t let it ring a second time and slide my finger across the screen. “Hey. Tell me you’re calling me from a fucking princess float.”

“Jack … um, I don’t know what to say.”

I look up and Emma is staring at me from where she stands on the other side of the bed.

I grip the cell and narrow my eyes. “You can say you’re at the fucking parade acting like the fucking superstar you were last night. Because when I left you after the game, you were on your way to a private jet to fly across the fucking country on a red-eye to get there.”

“Um, yeah.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m at the parade, but you’re not going to be the happiest person on earth. I’m fucking not.”

“Man, I’m getting ready to toss a mountain of endorsements at your feet today. Why am I not going to be happy?” I hiss.

Emma gathers the sheet so she doesn’t trip over it when she tries to run to her clothes.

I move in front of her for the block and put a hand to her abs to stop her.

Brett Sullivan keeps talking even though he does it through a wince. “I had a bit of a problem last night.”

I look at the clock again, as if the time has changed drastically in the last few moments. “And you’re just now calling me? We’ve been over this. You get a parking ticket, you call me. You have a breakup, you call me. You fart in the wrong direction, you fucking call me. If you had trouble last night, why am I just now hearing about it?”

“I know, Jack. But the thing is, I don’t know what happened. I blacked out at a party. When I came to and realized what time it was, I grabbed a cab to the airport. I’m here, but everyone around me is talking. I don’t know what to do. And now … pictures. They’re fucking everywhere.”

“Brett.” Emma’s eyes go big when I bite out his name. I realize in our sex-craved cloud, I never verified that my client is none other than her viral interview. I drag a hand down my face and pull in a deep breath for patience. “Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t fucking know!” he growls across the line.

In fact, he yelled it so loud, Emma heard. She purses her lips together and slowly turns the screen of her cell to face me.

I take in what I see. It’s one picture even though Brett said there were multiple.

There was a time in my life that I was a drama magnet, so I know.

This one picture is bad enough. If there are more to corroborate what’s going down in this graphic, it can only get worse.

But I’ve also been doing this long enough to realize there’s not much I can’t manage, spin, or just outlast.

It’s a modern-day miracle, but I’ve become more patient than the American public. My third-rate tennis star with a temper gave me the deep-dive lesson on patience. Sure, fans and the media can get up in arms about throwing a camera across the net, but they also forget just as fast.

I call it the SpongeBob Effect.

The lack of long-term memory coupled with the lowest standards in the history of humans is a good thing for people like me with clients who fuck up.

But never in my life did I think Brett Sullivan would be one of them. That’s why I felt good about leaving him to celebrate last night instead of babysitting him.

Sidebar…

Brett Sullivan is a midwestern boy who grew up on a farm outside of Omaha, Nebraska. He helped his school win two state championships in a row thanks to a stellar high school coach. He killed it in college before being drafted. I picked him up two years ago and got him signed with the Founders. He was a second-string quarterback, but I had a good feeling he’d get his shot.

I was right.

Ironically, Brett got his big break when the starting QB, Mark Morse, went down with an injury. He was out for the first six games of the season.

Morse isn’t immune to drama or injuries. He’s played in the pros for years. I knew it would only be a matter of time.

Brett took advantage of all six weeks to prove himself. He went undefeated. Six weeks passed, Morse’s doctors and therapists glued him back together, and he demanded his starting position back.

The Founders not only lost the next two games, but those losses were so epic, I was jumping with fucking joy.

Brett was put back in, and the chemistry returned to where it was the first six weeks.

Not only that, the press ate it up.

So did the fans. Brett is a single, good looking, professional football player. I’m as straight as they come and even I’ll admit, the man could melt butter in the arctic.

He also manages a foundation that offers more than a million dollars in college scholarships every year. Ten lucky kids get a different start in life than they would have because of him.

Brett Sullivan is America’s homecoming king and wet dream rolled into one.

What he’s never done is gotten a parking ticket or farted in the wrong direction.

But all that flies out the window as I stand here buck-naked staring at the graphic on Emma’s cell.

A graphic that has over two million views and is clicking up as I stand here naked and flabbergasted.

I drag a hand through my messy hair. “What the fuck did you do?”

Emma’s dark eyes flare.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Brett says. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Emma

The man I had life-altering sex with last night stands in front of me like he’s wearing a custom three-piece suit rather than the one he was born with. It’s hard not to appreciate his beauty and the way he’s confident in his own skin.

I had no idea Jack represented Brett Sullivan. I went on and on about my epic interview last night, and he never said a word.

I pull my cell to my chest, grip the sheet, and try to move around him, but he side steps me with a curt shake of his head.

My phone vibrates again. When I look down at it, three little words that make up a force in my life appear.

Dad is calling.

I cannot talk to my dad while I’m naked with Jack. Hell, I can’t talk to my dad while I’m naked with anyone, but especially Jack Hale. Dad always gave Jack the side-eye in high school. And I haven’t been around in years to see if those feelings have lived into adulthood, but now is not the time to find out.

I send him to voicemail.

Jack’s expression turns from shocked to angry to something else wholly that I don’t recognize. He’s not the playful, charismatic man who I couldn’t wait to rip my clothes off for last night. Hell, he might as well be a snake charmer. I would’ve followed him anywhere.

He looks like his whole world is falling apart around him.

He drags a hand down his face before pulling in a deep breath. “Listen to me, Brett, and listen closely. Forget about the pictures. Forget about what happened. We’ll deal with it when we get back to D.C. The only thing I want you to do is get on that damn float and look like you’re the happiest person on earth. Wave and smile. I don’t give a shit if you do a dance. The moment you look like anything is wrong, the fucking media will have ammunition. Do you understand me?”

The fucking media.

Huh.

That would be me.

Which drags me back to reality. I need to call my producer and Ross. Now that I know Brett Sullivan flew across the country while I was doing the dirty with his agent, I’m not sure what more we can do in Vegas besides report a quick update before catching our flight back home.

But I know where Brett will be by the end of the day.

I cannot miss my flight.

Brett must not be arguing about pretending to be happy, because Jack adds one last demand, though it comes out as a warning. “And for fuck’s sake, do not talk about this to anyone. You have no practice with shit like this. No one is your friend right now besides me. Got it?”

Brett must get it.

Because Jack doesn’t say goodbye. He slams his cell on the bed where he just rocked my world a few short hours ago. “Fuck!”

“I’ve got to go.” I hurry around the man who I’ve known all my life, while not having any idea how comfortable he is standing around naked. “I’ve got to call my boss back and head to the airport. It seems you have…” My words trail off as I collect my clothes from every corner of the room where Jack threw them last night after he ripped them off me. “Things to do too.”

It's a miracle I haven’t tripped over myself on the way to the bathroom when Jack blocks the door I’m about to slam in his face. The fact I’m looking for some privacy when he washed me from head to toe in this very space is ridiculous, but the sun making an appearance and quarterback drama has a way of humbling a gal.

There’s no way I can shut the door when his thick arm holds it high over my head. “You cannot report on this. I know my client. There’s got to be an explanation behind what happened. Do not make this worse, Emma.”

I drop my clothes to the floor and put my free hand on my sheeted hip. “You think I could make this worse? Do you remember anything I said last night? Just last week, I barely got any airtime at a high school basketball game. I’m a nobody who just wants to keep her new job. Anything I do in the next twenty-four hours is nothing compared to what your client did to himself. You saw the pictures. I mean, we’re in Vegas. Lots of shit is legal here that isn’t in other places. So many other things he could have celebrated, but he chose the illegal ones.”

Jack brings his hand up and enunciates every word that spills from his mouth as he points at me. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to push the boundaries, but Brett Sullivan is not that guy. His only goal in life is to score touchdowns, put youth through college who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity, and work on his family farm in the off-season to help his dad. Whatever you think you just saw on the internet is not what it is. I just need to prove it.”

“Jack.” I lower my voice and do everything I can to keep my gaze from taking a trip south for one more souvenir from my entire experience with him. “I have to get dressed. If anything, I can’t miss my flight, and it sounds like you can’t either. Your quarterback isn’t even in town for me to run after. I mean, thank goodness. Running two days in a row sounds like hell, even though I’d do it to keep my job. Please, let me get dressed. We’re running out of time.”

His expression intensifies when his tone lowers to something that sounds like a threat. He leans in closer and captures the tip of my chin between his index finger and thumb. “This isn’t over, Emma. Not by a long shot. Now that this has started, there’s no way it’ll end until I get what I want. And I never lose.”

My chin gets one last squeeze before Jack, in all his naked glory, takes a step back.

He’s not the only one with moves.

I slam the door. He and all his extremities are lucky they don’t get caught in the crosshairs.

His deep voice bellows from somewhere far away in his fancy suite when he growls, “Worst day ever.”

After I lock myself in, I freeze when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Holy sex on wheels, I’m a mess.

In more ways than one.

Well then.

Time to move on.

I pull in a breath and reach for my panties.

I might not have known what a touchback was yesterday, but I do know drama. And when it comes to professional sports, it seems that what goes on off the field is as big as what happens on it.

Maybe bigger.