Hearts in Overtime: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (4 page)

6. RYAN

 

 

The shrill sound of the whistle rings out.

“All right, men! That’s it for the day!” Coach O’Neil announces.

Finally.

It’s been a long fucking day and I want nothing more than to have a nice, filling meal and go straight to bed, but no. I have to hurry through dinner so I can go be interviewed by Charlotte fucking Marshall.

I make my way over to the bench to grab my water bottle and take a big, long swig before heading for the showers.

“Blake, hold up!” Coach calls from the middle of the field.

He jogs over to join me at the bench.

“What’s going on, Coach?”

“Do you have a minute?” he asks.

“Not really. I only have about forty-five minutes to shower and eat before I have to meet with that biographer chick.”

“I’ll walk with you,” he suggests.

I can’t argue with that. And I wouldn’t want to anyway. Coach is a decent guy. I have nothing against him.

“Sure.” I start making my way to the locker room with him by my side. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much. I was just wondering how it was going with her—the biographer, I mean. I know you’ve only had one interview, but would you say you’re off to a good start?”

I can’t help but roll my eyes.

“I guess. We just talked about my years as a Viper, the Super Bowl wins, the MVP awards. Stuff like that.”

He nods. “Glad to hear things are coming along smoothly. Now, I hate to bring it up, Blake, but you do know that she’s going to need to start asking about your life before football, right?”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” I mutter through my clenched jaw.

“It sucks, I know. Believe me, I know how fiercely you guard your privacy, and I wish I could say you’ll be able to keep it to yourself, but that’s just not the case anymore. The people have a right to know.”

“Fuck that. I play ball for their enjoyment. That’s what I do. Apart from performing on the field, I don’t owe them jack shit.”

“That’s not how it works, my friend. Not in today’s world. You want to be a public figure? You’d better be prepared to live a public life. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have the privacy and the glory.”

More and more these days, I’m regretting the choices I made in life. I looked at playing for Ohio State as a great way to fund my education, which would then to a quiet and stable life.

Hah. Yeah, right.

“Anyway, if you need to talk to anybody about what you’re going through, what you’re feeling with everything coming out in the open, my door is always open. You can come to me with anything, Blake. I want you to know that.”

“Thanks, Coach. I appreciate it,” I mumble, concentrating very, very hard on keeping my cool.

There are times when Coach will say something that sounds like something my father would have said, and whenever this happens, I come dangerously close to losing control.

Like now. Now is one of those times, and I start to feel the panic rise up inside of me.

As luck would have it, we’ve arrived at the door to the locker room. I push it open and walk on in, hoping this will signify the end of my conversation with Coach.

“You’ll see. Things will all work out for the best in the end,” he says.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I reply with finality.

The last thing I need is for my teammates to listen in on this conversation.

“And once the book hits the newsstands, you’ll be unstoppable. There won’t be a soul on this planet who hasn’t heard about your incredible skill on the field, not to mention your instinctive timing.”

I stand corrected. The
absolute
last thing I need is to become even more famous.

“Oh, shit. Are you guys talking about the
book
?”

I turn to find Todd Weston, second-string quarterback
standing next to me with sarcastic smirk on his face.

“I, for one, can’t wait to get my hands on a copy. What’s it going to be called?
The Life and Times of the Vipers’ Tortured Golden Boy
?” he asks.

“At least there’s a market for a book about me, which is more than I can say for your sorry bitch ass,” I reply.

Ignoring my insult, he says, “Or will it be
A Look at the Life of Football’s Most Pampered Little Prince
?”

“Jealous much?”

“In your dreams.”

“Kiss my ass.”

“Suck my dick.”

With an indulgent chuckle, Coach leaves us to our good-natured ribbing. Only it really isn’t good-natured ribbing, and he knows that better than anyone. Todd’s skills on the field are only marginally above average, but he’s deluded enough to think that he’d be promoted to starting position if I wasn’t in the picture.

“Bummer nobody has any interest in reading about you, but who can blame them?” I can’t help but taunt the little bitch. “It’s not like they’d be on the edge of their seats reading about your years at prep school and how Senator Daddy had to grease all sorts of palms to get you here.”

“Fuck you, Blake,” he says, anger flashing in his eyes. “And excuse me from coming from a good family. I guess you’re right. It probably is more exciting to read about some little urchin fuck who appeared out of nowhere, probably in a basket on the steps of a church or something.”

I can’t help myself. I ball my hand in a fist, pull back and punch Weston right in his bitch ass face.

Man, that felt good.

7. CHARLOTTE

 

 

This is it. The time has come to delve into Ryan’s past. Or to try to, anyway. I walk into the training facility and smile at the security guard. He smiles back and waves me through. I make my way through the Hall of Excessive Egos to the elevators at the end.

Yesterday went well. I showed up prepared to conduct things pretty much exactly as I had the first day. Ryan was cooperative. He answered all the questions I had about his years at Ohio State, and if anything, he gave me less attitude than he had on the first day.

But today is a whole new ballgame.

Today I really must get him talking.

After taking the elevator up to the third floor and heading down the hallway, I walk into the meeting room and set my things down on the table next to my spot. I then open the door to the mini fridge, open the mini fridge and grab a bottle of lemonade. It may only be the third day, but we’ve already fallen into a routine of sorts.

It’s not long before Ryan arrives. With a lackluster wave, he drops into his usual chair, the one across the table from me.

“Hi, Ryan. How was practice?”

“Exhausting,” he says with a weary sigh.

Maybe it’s just me, but the look in his eyes seems a bit accusatory—like if it weren’t for me he’d be stretched out on a sofa somewhere in this training complex, relaxing with his teammates.

He certainly doesn’t look any worse for wear. His cheeks have a healthy pink glow and he’s emitting a fresh, clean scent. He’s obviously just come from the shower. Looks like his short, dark hair is still a little damp.

Mmm… Ryan in the shower…lathering his naked body up with soap as the water beats down on his sore muscles…

Get a grip, Marshall.

“Well,” I say in my most cheerful voice, “I have to say I’m really pleased with the way things have gone so far. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the past couple of days.”

He answers me with a blank stare.

“Is it okay if I record today’s interview?” I ask.

“Whatever.”

Thank goodness that’s out of the way. I recorded yesterday’s interview without any resistance on his part, hoping that would help me get his permission to record today’s interview. I can’t help but congratulate myself on the smooth way I got that taken care of. With any luck we’re going to get into the meaty stuff today and I’m going to need to be 100% present. If I’m busy taking notes manually, I might miss out on an opportunity to draw Ryan out of his shell.

So far, so good.

I make the necessary adjustments to my phone, and once I’ve got it on “record” I set it down on the table and smile up at Ryan. I want to appear as warm and as friendly as I possibly can, so that he’ll feel comfortable with me and more likely to open up.

His body language doesn’t read like he’s closed off, which I take as a very good sign. On the contrary, his legs are stretched out before him and his arms are casually draped over the arms of his chair. He looks extremely relaxed. Definitely more relaxed than I’m feeling right now!

“Okay,” I say, clasping my hands together on the table and widening my smile.

No more stalling. Just do it!

“Let’s talk about your high school years,” I suggest as casually as possible.

Silence.

“What was the name of your school?”

No answer.

“Did you grow up in Ohio?”

Icy glare.

Exhaling heavily, I lean back in my chair and glare back at him.

“Ryan, you know as well as I do that you have to open up about your background. If it were up to me, I’d be happy to write a book about your years with the Vipers, but it’s not up to me. And it’s not up to you either. It’s my job to ask these questions, and it’s your job to answer them.”

“Whatever.”

If I hear this man say “whatever” one more time, I swear I’m going to smack him clean across the face…

I take a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to calm down, and then I weigh my options. Maybe I can at least figure out where he’s from by analyzing his accent. But I scrap that idea almost as soon as it comes to me. Ryan has one of those non-regional accents. He’s got the voice of a national broadcaster—aside from the fact that he always sounds like he’s in a bad mood. He could be from anywhere.

All right. Well, I’m getting nowhere, so what I need to do is to come at this from another angle.

“Did you play football in high school?”

Silence.

“How old were you when you first got interested in the game?”

Nothing.

“Were there any players in particular who inspired you?”

He cocks his head ever so slightly to the side. Finally, one of my questions got through to him.

“All right,” he says as if he’s doing me some huge favor by answering. “I always sort of idolized Joe Montana.”

Well, this is hardly the stuff that makes for a riveting read, but at least I’ve got him talking. Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about Joe Montana or any other football player apart from Ryan Blake so it’s not like I have an arsenal of thought-provoking questions. That being said, I’m determined to focus on the bright side of matters. He’s talking now. Sort of.

“Joe Montana, yeah? What is it about him that captured your fascination?”

He gives me a look like I just asked him the stupidest, most inane question ever spoken.

“His stats were off the fucking hook. In 1987 alone, he had thirty-one passes in just thirteen games, he set the NFL record with twenty-two consecutive pass attempts without an incomplete pass, passed for over three thousand yards
and
he had a passer rate of one hundred two point one.”

This is what I hear:

“Yada yada ya ya yada ya yada yada ya yada ya yada ya.”

But I do my best to appear blown away.

“Wow. That’s incredible.”

He shrugs.

“Did you ever see Joe Montana play? I mean live? At a stadium?”

Again, he stares at me like I just fell off the turnip truck.

“No.”

No? That seems odd. I think I might have just gotten my first clue into Ryan Blake’s secret life. You’d think his parents would have taken him to at least one of Joe Montana’s games. Seems a bit cruel to deprive their child of seeing his idol in action at least once. The tickets couldn’t have cost
that
much, could they?

Maybe Ryan’s family was broke. Maybe he grew up in poverty and that’s what he’s hiding. Or maybe he grew up in some super religious household that shunned spectator sports or idle time or…who knows?

Think, Charlotte. Focus.

“How old were you when you first started playing football yourself?”

Nothing.

“Oh my god!”

His eyes widen. Clearly he wasn’t expecting that sort of reaction from me.

I get up from my chair and start pacing the room with my fingers pressed firmly against my temples.

“You, Ryan Blake, are the single most frustrating person I’ve ever met in my entire life! You know perfectly well that whatever secrets you’re hiding are going to come out into the light sooner or later, so what—please enlighten me—
what
is the point of putting this off?”

He says nothing, but the big, goofy grin on his lips speaks volumes.

“The only thing you’re accomplishing here is that you’re wasting my time as well as yours, and you’re driving me up a fucking wall!”

Oops. I wince. I can’t believe I just dropped an F-bomb in a professional setting. But it doesn’t take me long to recover when I remind myself how often Ryan uses profanity. To him, everything is fucking this and fucking that.

I circle the table, walk up to him and swivel his chair so that he’s facing me before I continue.

“Please, Ryan. Have a heart. You know it’s all going to come out eventually, so in the interest of saving time as well as my sanity, please. I’m begging you to tell me what I can do to get you talking.”

I watch as that goofy grin of his transforms into an evil little smirk. He doesn’t say anything for a few moments and I swear I’m only seconds from punching him in the face when he finally speaks.

“How about this? I’ll tell you anything you want to know about my high school years if you agree to suck my cock.”

Did he really just say that?

I stare back at him with wide eyes, searching for signs that he’s only joking but finding none. He stares right back at me with a smug, self-satisfied look on his face.

The nerve of this guy! Where does he get off proposing such a thing? Part of me wants to smack that stupid smirk off his lips. Part of me wants to go back to screaming at him, only this time I’d go after his overblown ego and sense of entitlement. Part of me wants to storm out of the room and head for the nearest law firm to open a sexual harassment case against this infuriating megalomaniac.

And yet…

Part of me is thrilled by the proposition. It’s not like I haven’t been dreaming about getting my hands (and lips) on Ryan since the moment we met. Since before, really.  

I can’t believe I’m even thinking about doing this, about sucking him off in exchange for background information of all things. How absurd is this? I am a professional woman. I can rely on my interview skills and powers of persuasion to pull a story out of an interview subject. I don’t need to resort to what is, when it comes down to it, a sort of prostitution.

But he’s sooooooo hot…

And I want him so badly it hurts.

Ryan leans his head back and arches an eyebrow. That’s when it hits me: he
expects
me to freak out on him. He expects me to unleash my fury upon him and then go storming out of the training facility, never to return. He wants this. If I quit the project, he won’t have to deal with me probing into his life. Sure, they’d bring in someone else to take over, but it’d take time to arrange it, and Ryan would probably start the same crap with anyone who came in to replace me.

Argh! He was just so infuriating!

Well, I’ll be damned if I’m going to play into his hands. I will call him on his bluff. If he chooses to put the brakes on then, so be it. If not…let’s just say my mouth is already watering at the prospect.

I look Ryan straight in the eye and say, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

 

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