Yeah, I was pretty much fucked.
8
Gideon
"Awesome game!" One of the reporters who was standing on the edge of the pack as I made my way from the field down the tunnel to the locker room swatted me on the arm. "You must feel like you're on top of the world right now!"
I gritted my teeth against the words I wanted to say and instead offered the guy a tight smile. "As always, it was a great team effort. San Francisco certainly gave us a run for the money, and they should be proud of the game they played, too."
It was all I had to say at this point. As a general rule, I didn’t chat with reporters; it was bad enough that I had to do the post-game press conference. That was the limit of what I was willing to give. Without another glance back at the men and women shouting my name and snapping photos, I stepped into the locker room, where my teammates were already in various states of undress, some of them yelling, others singing, and everybody generally having a good time.
That reporter was right. I should've been on the top of the world. I should have been flying high after a beautiful victory over a tough team. There was no reason that I shouldn't have been greeting Corey Iversen with a punch on the shoulder and a congratulations, before thanking the rest of my teammates for all their hard work. Hell, maybe I should've even been over in the corner getting in on the singing action with our defensive line.
But then again, that would've been so out of character for me that my entire team just might drop dead of heart attacks. As it was, I simply made my way to my locker and began the methodical process of changing from Gideon Maynard, hard-ass quarterback, to Gideon Maynard, miserable son of a bitch.
I had nothing to complain about. It'd been a great season so far; four games into it, and we were undefeated. The next few weeks were gonna be tough, for sure, as we faced some of our division rivals. But we were all working hard, and the team felt like it was coming together in the right way. I was beginning to foster a small, glimmering hope that this might be our year after all.
"Hey." Leo Taylor dropped onto the bench next to me. He’d already showered, and the white towel was tucked tightly around his waist as he used another to dry his hair. "You were on fire out there today, Maynard. Seriously, dude, I am in complete awe of you. You make the rest of us look damn good."
I spared him a sideways glance. "We're all looking good because we’re all putting in the work. It's not me making any of you guys look one way or the other. It's talent, it's hard work, and it's…" I tried to think of how to say it, but before I could articulate what I was thinking, Leo spoke again.
"Heart." He nodded, his eyes meeting mine. “We got the heart this year. And it felt like when we were out there on the field that it was all beating together, didn’t it?"
I nodded. "Yeah, that's exactly it. We've all got our eyes on the prize that we want. But we all know too that we're not gonna coast our way there. So everyone's putting in the extra time, the extra hours with film, and taking care of their own selves in the off time. So far, things look good."
Leo reached forward to the wooden cubby in front of him and knocked on it once. When he saw me looking at him inquiringly, he grinned sheepishly. "For good luck, and to make sure we don't jinx anything by thinking the best," he explained. "Something I picked up from my wife."
"Is Quinn here with you?" I inquired. I worked hard to keep my voice casual, as though the answer didn't matter to me at all. The reality was that I didn't really care whether or not Quinn Taylor had accompanied her husband on this road trip. However, I had a hunch that if she had, both she and Leo would take the opportunity to visit with their friend Sarah, who was now working in the city. And while I'd been doing my damn best to forget that I'd been in the same zip code as that woman for over twenty-four hours, I had a feeling that I would probably succumb to the temptation to see her if Leo told me that he and his wife had plans with her that evening. Hell, the truth was that I would probably get down on my knees and beg for him to invite me along.
But Leo shook his head. “We had hoped that she would, because we both have friends in town. I don't know whether you knew this, but before we got married, Quinn worked for Allan Crocker. He used to play for San Francisco back in the day."
“Okay,” I nodded. "Yeah, actually I think I did know that." Now I just had to hope that Leo didn't wonder why I would have that knowledge. "So why didn't she come along? Everything okay?"
"Oh, yeah.” Leo reached into his locker for his clothes. "But one of our friends is having a baby, and the shower deal was this weekend. Quinn's kind of in charge of it, so she couldn't go." He cocked his head at me. “Actually, I think you met them at our engagement party. Zelda and Eli Tucker."
I remembered the guy in the wheelchair with the beautiful wife. "Yeah, I did meet them. Nice guy. Didn't talk to her that much, but she seemed cool, too. Good news for them, I guess."
"Absolutely the best," Leo agreed. "They’re solid, and they've been great friends to both of us. So even though we would've loved to have had a night on the town with the Crockers, the baby shower trumps the trip."
"I get that." But now, of course, that brought up another question in my mind. I clearly remembered Sarah saying that she and Leo had been friends before he and Quinn were together. Maybe he was going to see her tonight, even though Quinn wasn't with him. And if that was the case, it made me even more interested in tagging along.
"Actually, another one of our friends is in San Francisco now, too. She works for the Crockers." It was as though Leo had read my mind and knew what I was going to ask him next. I checked out his face surreptitiously, wondering if somehow, he’d noticed Sarah and me together either at the engagement party or at his wedding. But he didn't seem anything but chatty.
"Really?" I tried to sound as uninterested as possible.
"You might have met her at the engagement party or at the wedding. She's a friend from high school. Sarah Jenkins. I was thinking about calling her up and letting her know that I was gonna be in town, just to see if she wanted to catch up while I was here, but unfortunately, she had plans tonight." Leo shrugged. “Which is probably for the best, because now that the game is over, I'm wiped out. The idea of going back to my room, turning on Sports Talk, and zoning out with a room service hamburger sounds like absolute paradise to me."
Relief that also left me unreasonably angry at myself flooded through me. "That does sound like heaven," I agreed. I finish shedding my pads and jersey and reached for my towel. "I better hit the showers. I still gotta do the lame-ass postgame press conference, and they're not very understanding if I'm late."
"Better you than me, that's all I can say," Leo laughed. “Catch you later, Maynard."
I walked toward the showers, all the while lecturing myself silently. My phone sitting back in my locker, with Sarah's number still temptingly in the contact list, sang me a siren song.
But I was stronger than that. I wasn't going to call her, I wasn't going to text her, and I sure as hell was not going to go wandering the streets of the city on the off chance that we might run into each other. Taylor had said that she had plans for tonight, which meant that she definitely wasn't sitting at home after watching the game, wondering if the guy she'd hooked up with at an engagement party almost a year ago was going to call her. I wondered if she'd make fun of me for doing the thing that I swore I wouldn't do, if I did give in to the weakness and try to get in touch. Somehow, even if she did, it didn't matter anymore to me.
You're not going to call her," I muttered to myself as I turned on the water. "You don't have time for somebody like Sarah Jenkins in your life."
It was true. While we had this evening free, the team was flying back to Virginia on an early flight the next morning. I had no business even considering doing anything other than going back to my room and getting a full eight hours of sleep. After a good, hearty steak dinner with a side of the Caesar salad, of course, courtesy of room service. That was exactly what I was going to do. And then, o
nce I was back home in Richmond, I was going to do what I should've done from the beginning and erase her number from my phone.
I held onto that conviction all throughout my shower, while I was dressing, and even as I hustled over to where the press conference was being held. Morgan stood just inside the door, and she greeted me with a smile and a finger to her lips.
"Coach is still talking, so you've got a few minutes." She inclined her head toward the podium where our coach was indeed still answering questions. "Hey, by the way, did you get the message from travel and transportation?"
I shook my head. “No, what's going on?"
"I guess there's weather coming this way, and they bumped your flight back until Monday night," Morgan answered. "The hotel is going to extend check out until it's time for you to leave for the airport. So we all get another day in the city by the Bay." She winked at me. "Don't go wild with that now, Gideon. Don't do anything I wouldn't do with the extra time."
I rolled my eyes. "Don't worry, the wildest thing I'm going to do is take advantage of the morning to sleep in, and maybe have room service for breakfast."
“You do that." She patted my back, as the sound of voices and click of cameras going off swelled in the room. "Coach is finished. You're up, champ."
Stifling a sigh, I pasted on the mask that I always wore at these things and climbed the steps of the dais, preparing to face the virtual gauntlet.
No one could really complain about the style in which football players travel. Whenever we were on the road, we were put up in the best hotels that boasted top-of-the-line restaurants and bars. And although I never requested more than a basic room, as quarterback I was always upgraded to at least a junior suite. This weekend, in San Francisco, my executive level, two-bedroom accommodations looked out over the city’s skyline. It was still early; we’d played the one o'clock game today, which meant that even after all the postgame crap, it was still only five-thirty as I stood at my window, hands in my pockets, staring out into the twilight.
I’d been invited to tag along with several groups of my fellow Rebels tonight. A couple of them had reservations at some famous restaurant in the city, while another group was hitting a bar that boasted karaoke. I shuddered at that thought. A singer I was not.
No, I wasn't interested in any of the various activities my teammates might have planned for tonight. And somehow, even that steak and salad that I'd been looking forward to had lost some of its allure. The droning voice on the television that I’d turned on as soon as I came into the room was recapping all of today's games, and I should have been paying attention. I should've cared about the fact that everybody was saying Philadelphia looked so good this year. It should have mattered to me that the commentators were talking up my team, too. And yet … I couldn't seem to focus on it. Every time I tried, somehow my mind popped back like a rubber band, hell-bent on one preoccupation: Sarah Jenkins, and what she was doing tonight.
With a growl that was born deep in my throat, I wheeled around, putting my back to the twilight view, and gave the cassock next to the overstuffed chair a halfhearted kick. I was making myself crazy over a woman, and that was not my style. That was not me. There had to be a way to get over someone who shouldn’t have been any more than a distant memory.
It was at that point that a sneaky and dastardly little voice in my head spoke up. What if… what if I just needed to get her out of my system? Maybe the whole problem was that I was trying so hard not to think about Sarah. Maybe if I just stop fighting it and saw her once more, I’d realize that the woman in reality couldn't touch the woman I’d build her up to be in my head.
Well, it was as good an excuse as any, and even if I didn't want to admit it, I knew that I was looking for any kind of rationale that would justify seeing Sarah again, even it was a half-assed reason. I stalked over to the dresser and picked up my phone from where I'd left it earlier. It took me less than a minute to find her number. For a long few seconds, my thumb hovered over the contact listing. I’d promised myself I was going to delete it, but now the idea of doing so raised a lump in my stomach.
"Fuck it all to absolute hell," I muttered and opened the text app.
Now that I was here, I was at a loss as to what to say to her. I could keep it friendly and casual, the same way we’d left everything back in the spring. I could try to be funny and make a joke to hide how much her response mattered to me. Of course, if I did that, Sarah would probably wonder who had hijacked my phone, because I'd never been known for my sense of humor. After standing there brooding like a fourteen-year-old girl for longer than I cared to admit even to myself, I finally settled for simplicity.
Gideon: Hey, Sarah. Gideon Maynard here. You busy?
God, I was lame. But before I could let myself second-guess it more than I already had—and I rolled my eyes at that truth—I hit send and then dropped my phone back to the dresser, staring down at it and waiting for her response
"She had plans," I reminded myself. “Taylor said she had plans, and that means that she's more than likely not going to –"
Before I could finish that thought, her name popped up on my screen.
Sarah: Why, Gideon Maynard as I live and breathe! Give me a minute to pick myself up off the floor, because I never in a million years thought that you'd do anything that would let me have your number. How the hell are you, QB?
The huge grin that covered my face was totally involuntary. It was as though she was here with me, standing in the room, her eyes alight with teasing, and suddenly I was so glad that I'd given in and texted her.
Gideon: Ha ha ha very funny. Glad to see California hasn't robbed you of being a smart ass.
Sarah: Not hardly. If anything, it may have made the condition even worse. So you're in my town? Nice game today, by the way. Though I can't say that too loud, or my fellow San Francisco citizens might string me up.
Gideon: Yeah, we did okay. We didn't exactly roll over them, though. They’re a good team.
I grimaced, realizing that I was giving her the same line I did to the press. What was I doing talking football here, anyway?
Gideon: But the game’s over now. I figured since I was in town, I’d check in and see how you were doing.
That sounded okay, didn't it? I didn't seem like I was desperate to see her.
Sarah: Aww, that was sweet of you, Gideon. For real, I'm impressed that you remembered I was here and floored that you actually did something about it.
I wasn't sure whether I should be happy that Sarah was glad that I got in touch, or insulted that she thought I had forgotten where she’d moved. I decided to let it be. She was typing more, anyway, so I didn't need to respond to that particular sentiment
Sarah: So what does the winning quarterback do when he's on the road and has just finished a killer game where he dominated?
Well, this was the moment of truth. I could back off here and tell her that I was heading out with my teammates or going to bed early . . . any number of things I had no intention of doing. But I’d texted her for a reason, right? I hadn’t done it so that I could spend the rest of the night on my own, brooding, sulking and miserable. I took a deep breath and plunged in.
Gideon: Actually, that depends on you. I know it's really last minute, but do you have plans tonight? I just found out that we're going to be in town a little longer than I expected, so I was thinking of maybe grabbing dinner somewhere outside of the hotel.
I sent the message and told myself I didn't care at all what her answer was. I was a fucking liar.
Sarah: Dude! Are you serious? I'd love to do that!
I didn't have much time to bask in the warmth that her pleased response brought to me before she continued typing.
Sarah: I haven't had any visitors at all since I moved here and I've been dying to show somebody around. Care to be my first? ;-)
My breath whooshed out as the memory of her face rose up before me, lips swollen and hair a mess and eyes challenging. A surprising surge of possessiveness gr
ipped my heart, and I realized I was wishing that I had actually been her first.
Where the hell had that come from? I clenched my jaw. I didn’t care about firsts or lasts or any of that shit. I just wanted to go out and get some dinner.
And yet, apparently my fingers didn’t get that message, because the words that they typed were not about food.
Gideon: Hasn’t that honor already been claimed?
Sarah: It was a joke, Gideon. And this isn’t a conversation for text. Tell me where you’re staying, and I’ll meet you in the lobby in 20 minutes.
Gideon: How do you know you can get here in 20 minutes if you don’t know where I am?
Sarah: Would you just trust me, please? I’ll be there.
Gideon: Okay, okay, don’t get testy. I’m at the Four Seasons. Do you need the address?
Sarah: No, I know where it is. See you in twenty.
I timed my descent to the first floor of the hotel with military-like precision. The idea of loitering around the lobby, waiting for Sarah, wasn’t an option; it wasn’t that I expected anyone to bother me, but if any of my teammates caught me down there, they’d want to know what I was doing and why. No way in hell was I telling them that I was heading out with a chick. They’d never stop pestering me about it—about her—and that would effectively destroy the carefully constructed persona I’d worked so hard to build, the one that kept everyone at arm’s length and ensured that no one got into my business. Not one of them knew anything of my personal life, aside from what they might’ve read on-line or in the papers.
My mother’s words floated through my mind as I stepped out of the elevator and lingered just beyond the doors, in the quiet, shadowy nook out of the lobby traffic. Mom had intimated that keeping myself separate from the other guys on my team was going to damage my reputation and maybe even the well-being of the team itself. She wasn’t wrong that I’d never made an effort to be super friendly to them. In fact, I’d gone the opposite direction, keeping things all business as much as possible. I’d done the same thing in college. Leadership meant holding onto boundaries, making sure that the men who played alongside me respected my ethic and my focus on making us the best we could be. It was the way I’d always conducted myself, and so far, I hadn’t found a good reason to change.
Sway (Keeping Score Book 6) Page 14