Coming Clean

by C. L. Parker

  “Again! Again!” Abe squealed, bouncing up on his tiptoes and reaching for Shaw.

  “No, no, little man. That’s enough for right now. Daddy’s gotta go.”

  Abe’s bottom lip poked out into a pout and the fat tears started to well in his eyes. “No, Daddy! Don’t weave. Have a pic-a-nic with me and Mommy,” he said, wrapping his hand around Shaw’s finger and trying with all his might to pull his father toward his bag under the tree.

  To Abe, Shaw was larger than life. He adored his father, wanted to be just like him in every way. I often thought he loved Shaw more than he loved me, but maybe that was because he was with me all day, every day, and he knew his time with his father was nothing short of…limited.

  “Abe, stop. I can’t. I’m sorry, but I have to go.” Shaw bent over and picked up Abe again. “How about if I fly you to the car?”

  Abe still cried, even as he nodded in agreement. As Shaw headed toward the parking lot where his company car sat reflecting the sun’s glare off its sleek black paint, flawless wax, and chrome wheels, I grabbed Abe’s backpack and followed behind. He stopped at my dull brown hybrid, which was seriously in need of a bath, and waited for me to unlock the doors.

  “What’s the attitude about?” he asked when I wouldn’t look at him.

  “I don’t have an attitude, Shaw. I just can’t understand why you’d schedule a meeting that would interfere with a promise you made to our son, but I’m not really surprised.”

  “Seriously? I’m out here busting my ass for us, and you’re pissed?”

  I could’ve predicted his response. The fact that he was the breadwinner in our family was something he threw in my face every time I got my panties in a wad over his broken promises. It wasn’t like I didn’t have my own savings. “Nope. Worse. I’m disappointed, but then I always am lately, so maybe it’s my problem, not yours.”

  “Cass, don’t start. I’m so close to signing Ingram, and I’m still drowning in Denver’s newest endorsement contracts, not to mention headhunter recommendations for the agent opening—”

  Before he could go any further on his tangent, one filled with all the excuses I’d heard a thousand times, I cut him off. “Don’t forget we have that appointment at four o’clock this afternoon,” I reminded him. “Might want to set an alarm on that watch so you’re not late for that either.”

  I knew the watch didn’t have the capability of setting an alarm, but it was a pop shot I couldn’t resist getting in.

  Shaw’s shoulders slumped with a roll of his eyes and an annoyed sigh. “Do we really have to go through with that?”

  Hoisting Abe’s bag of essential toys, snacks, and a change of clothes onto my shoulder, I arched a brow at him and that was enough to make him concede the unspoken argument. Actually, it had just been spoken so many times that he was likely as exhausted by it as I was, but there’d be no budging on this subject, and he knew it.

  “Fine,” he huffed. “But I still think it’s a giant waste of time…and money.”

  Giant waste of time? His precious, precious time. As I lifted a crying Abe from his arms and situated him on the hip opposite his bag, I huffed right back at my baby daddy. “Shaw, we need this.”

  “Respectfully, I disagree, but I don’t have time to have this conversation again. I’m already going to be late.” He kissed me so fast it was over before I’d realized he’d even leaned in. “Love you,” he said. “You, too, little man. Promise, I’ll make it up to you.” With a kiss to Abe’s forehead and a ruffle of his hair, Shaw was gone.

  As I watched him walk away, he pulled his ringing cellphone out of his pocket, giving a boisterous greeting to whoever was on the other end with a hardy laugh. Staring after him, I said, “Yet another promise you’ll break.” But he hadn’t heard me. Shaw heard very little I ever had to say, and he listened even less.

  My frustration got the better of me and I resorted to a very childish side of myself, flipping him the bird.

  Abe sniffled, his voice thick with tears when he said, “What’s that mean, Mommy?”

  Crap! “Oh, nothing, sweetie. It’s just sign language. And you are to never do it.” Dropping the subject, and hoping it wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass, I did my mommy duty and put a very disgruntled little boy into the SUV. Abe’s tears were back in full force, and he kicked and screamed, making it incredibly difficult for me to fasten him into his car seat with any kind of ease. But I’d become practiced at working around his mini-tantrums since he’d hit the dreaded terrible twos.

  “I wanna play with Daddy!” Abe wailed over and over again, his face flaming red with big, fat tears streaming down his cheeks.

  “I know, baby. Daddy wants to play with you, too, but he has to work.” I was so sick and tired of making excuses for his father. It was one thing when Abe was smaller, quite another now that he understood his emotions a little better.

  Snapping the last buckle of his car seat into place and making sure he was snug as a bug in a rug, I kissed him on the forehead, wishing for all the world that I could take away his disappointment and sadness. I knew the feeling, but as an adult, I could process those emotions better.

  “Daddy promised! Daddy promised, ’n’ I want Mr. Binks!” He stretched his hand toward the lake, but Mr. Binks was already out of sight.

  There was nothing I could do to quell this episode, so I decided to ride it out. My baby boy was perfectly within his right to be upset, after all. “I’m going to kill Daddy,” I mumbled under my breath through clenched teeth as I closed his door. Getting into the driver’s seat, I shut mine as well. As I clicked my own seatbelt into place, Abe continued his tantrum, and a very nasty headache started to develop at the front lobe of my brain. My nerves were absolutely shot.

  After starting the motor, I took a moment to gather myself, flipping down the visor and finding the reflection of a woman I didn’t know staring back at me in the mirror. God, I looked exactly like I felt. Exhausted. Where Shaw had gotten better-looking over the time we’d been together, I’d become haggard. Not wanting to dwell on all the ways my outward appearance had changed over the last four years, I flipped the thing shut and put the vehicle into gear.

  “Let’s go have a playdate with Uncle Quinn, Abey Baby. Huh? Doesn’t that sound like fun?” I looked up at him through the rearview mirror as I pulled away from the curb.

  Abe’s crying quieted, though he still sniffled. “And Uncle Denver?”

  “Maybe,” I answered him, not wanting to make promises I might not be able to keep.

  He loved his uncle Denver, and Uncle Denver was a master at getting Abe to take a nap. Judging by the heavy droop of his eyelids, I’d say he was due for one. And I was due for some adult time. I loved every second of every day that I got to have with Abe, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need a break from time to time. Lord knows Shaw wasn’t going to be the one to give it to me, so I had to get it where I could for my own sanity.

  Yet another valid reason for Shaw to make sure he showed up for our appointment this afternoon. If he didn’t, I wasn’t sure there’d be much hope for our future.

  Shaw

  “Is he here yet?” I asked Ben the second I stepped into my office suite. He’d know whom I was talking about.

  Ben was already on his feet, taking my jacket and handing me the most important messages that had come in while I’d been at the park with my family. “Yep! He’s waiting for you in your office. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  I might have, if I hadn’t already been running late myself, thanks to the hour drive from Lake Dixon. My next meeting deserved the respect of punctuality, but I didn’t want to come off as being too eager, nor did I want him to turn diva on me before he’d actually made the big time, so it worked out just as well. I’d seen plenty of good kids turned into spoiled brats with an obnoxious sense of entitlement to last a lifetime, and I didn’t want that for my latest conquest. I wasn’t sure what it was about him, but I had a feeling he would be my greatest contribution to the
industry yet.

  Marcel Ingram was a Kentucky native who’d made big plays for Alabama as a running back, rushing for a school record of 291 yards as a redshirt freshman. And he just kept racking up the records after that, holding fifteen by the end of his senior year, as well as the Heisman Trophy. He could’ve gone pro much earlier, but he’d kept his cool and hadn’t let the fame and endless ego boosting go to his head. He’d stayed in school to earn his degree…and the respect of every lover of the game—coaches, players, and fans alike. Clever kid. As such, it was a gimme that he’d be drafted in the number one slot on Draft Day. That number one slot would earn him a payout of somewhere around twenty-two million dollars, including a hefty signing bonus and a guaranteed four-year contract with a team option for a fifth season.

  Three percent of twenty-two million dollars was great money and all for an agent, but not the thing that drew me to him the most. Although it was against the rules for agents to even speak to a player before the end of his last college game, they were notorious for doing so, to not risk losing that player to another rule-breaking agent. Young rookies were dazzled by the gifts and promises a smooth-talking agent could give, whether they could follow through on them or not, and often fell for them, signing representation agreements pre-dated and then stored in a safety deposit box until they could legally be revealed.

  But not Marcel Ingram.

  Marcel had refused to speak to an agent until after his last bowl game, and even then, he simply entertained the suckasses. I know because I was there. Only, I hadn’t stood in line behind a single one of them, and I hadn’t fought my way through the horde to get to Marcel. Alabama’s head coach—a very good friend of mine—had given me a personal escort into the locker room and had taken me straight to Marcel without my even having to utter a word. That is, until I found myself standing in front of the golden boy himself. But I didn’t fawn all over him and I hadn’t been starstruck. Why should I be? I was Shaw Matthews, after all.

  Marcel’s eyes had been big as saucers when I’d stood before him. He’d even stopped talking right in the middle of an interview with a major sports television station, the reporter all but disappearing when he’d caught sight of me.

  “Good game,” I’d said, offering my handshake.

  Marcel had taken my handshake with a “Thank you, Mr. Matthews.” Because yeah, my reputation had preceded me, and no introduction was necessary.

  And then I’d handed him my business card before turning and walking away, leaving the swarm of reporters buzzing with speculation for Marcel to deal with. “Marcel! Marcel! Will Shaw Matthews be your representation?” I’d heard at least half a dozen different voices ask him. I hadn’t stuck around to hear his response. They’d all know soon enough anyway. As would I.

  See, most athletes choose an agent because they have family members in the industry who use that agent, or the agent represents players from the same school they attended, or, most likely, the agent has a close relationship with the coach the rookie knows and trusts. But sometimes…sometimes an athlete makes up his own mind about what is important to him.

  Marcel, as it had turned out, was one of those athletes.

  I’d gone about my business after our first meeting and waited for him to make the next move. I’d really had no idea if he’d call. Truthfully, he could take his pick of which agent he wanted to go with, or he could follow the Elam model and choose none at all. It would be one way to pocket as much cash as possible, and I certainly wouldn’t blame him. Though it would be stupid. The money for his contract was guaranteed, but the added perks were not. He needed someone to weed through all the legal bullshit, someone to negotiate extras like his signing-bonus payment terms and off-season injury protection, to name a couple. Most important, he needed a confidant he could trust, someone who knew the ins and outs of our world and how to work them.

  He needed me.

  It had taken Marcel a few days, but he did contact me. The first call had been all about the introduction—where he’d been in his career and where he wanted to go. The second call had been the generic questions about fees, services, financial and injury strategies, and how I planned to divide my time with all the other clients I represented. I had a damn good answer for that one. In the three years since I’d become co-partner of Striker Sports Entertainment, I’d handed off all but my major athletes to some of the other agents. And although those major clients could be quite demanding of my time, they were all settled in their contract negotiations, so I could give Marcel my full attention.

  He liked that. Or so I’d assumed, since the third call had been all about setting up a face-to-face, not at his home in Kentucky but right here in San Diego at my office with SSE. He was coming to me, and that spelled all kinds of “in the bag.”

  Which was exactly the reason I felt comfortable enough to make him wait in there right now. Not that I had anywhere else to be at the moment.

  Leaning back against Ben’s desk, I checked my watch—shit, I didn’t have much time—and then crossed my legs at the ankles and my arms over my chest. I was already fifteen minutes late for this meeting. Another five should just about do it.

  My assistant perked up, his brows asking the question his mouth didn’t need to, but that didn’t stop him from getting verbal with it anyway. “You’re making him wait?”

  I shushed him, not wanting Marcel to overhear our conversation. “Have you learned nothing from me over the last five years that I’ve graciously kept you in my employment?”

  Graciously wasn’t exactly accurate. Ben had more than earned his position, though just as I couldn’t let Marcel get a big head, I couldn’t let Ben do the same. Without a doubt, he knew how invaluable he was to me, but that didn’t mean I had to clue him in to the fact. He’d likely demand an even bigger pay raise than he’d gotten once I’d taken the partnership role, and it had been a pretty hefty one.

  Taking care to lower his voice to match my volume, he said, “You want to represent him, and he obviously wants you to do the representing. So what’s the point of playing head games?”

  “Three percent. That’s the point,” I told him.

  Marcel could choose any agent he wanted, and in return, any of those agents would use a sizable cut in their commission as a negotiation tactic. In the past, I would’ve done the same, might have even come out of my pocket for a full-service training center before the Combine. Simply put, the Combine was like a job interview, except an interview with the professional football league involved athletes showing off their physical and mental capabilities. No matter how good an athlete, he still needed to prepare. And despite the predictions that Marcel Ingram would be the first draft pick, if he looked like shit at the Combine, he’d be lucky to go in the first round at all.

  Another check of my watch found that all systems were a go, so I gave Ben a wink, straightened my tie, and got my strut on toward my office.

  When I cracked the door open, I found Marcel sitting in one of the chairs in front of my desk, hunched over with his elbows on his knees. He turned at the sound and straightened immediately when he saw me.

  “Marcel! I apologize, but I had an urgent matter to attend,” I lied, still going with my plan of not letting him know just how important this deal was to me.

  And then I pulled up short, my confident swagger missing a beat when the door opened fully and I saw we had company. Sitting on my sofa was a woman with long, dark hair and Latin features. Jumping up and down with a giggle on the same sofa beside her was a little girl with similar features. Only her hair was curly.

  “Vale, stop,” the woman said with a tone of chastisement. The little girl did as she was told, quickly plopping down onto her bottom and ducking her head, suddenly becoming shy.

  “Well, hello there, angel,” I said, hoping to put her at ease. “That’s not the first time that couch has been jumped on, you know, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

  Closing the door behind me, I crossed the floor to greet the man who
was about to make the Shaw Matthews brand even bigger. “How you doing, man?” I asked, shaking his hand.

  “Good, good,” he answered. “This is my wife, Camille, and our daughter, Vale.” He smiled as he looked at them, a real sense of pride lighting up his features.

  “Beautiful family you got there, Marcel. How’d you get that lucky?”

  “I ask myself the same question every day. Still don’t know the answer.” He laughed. “Are you a family man, Mr. Matthews?”

  “Please, just Shaw,” I told him, waving off the formality. “And yes, I have a son of my own. Abe. He’s three.” Then I turned to Vale. “And how old are you, angel?”

  She held up four fingers and said, “I’m this many.”

  “No, you’re not, baby,” Camille said while lifting Vale’s thumb to open her hand wide. “You’re this many. Five. Remember? You just had another birthday.”

  “Oh, yeah.” The little girl beamed. “I’m five. I get to go to school this time.”

  “And I bet you’re excited, too,” I said, smiling along with her as she nodded. She was beyond sweet.

  Though I wouldn’t show it, I was surprised, caught unaware. I had no idea Marcel was married, much less a father. Cassidy would have. The woman had been unparalleled as an agent, a super-sleuth when it came to knowing everything there was to know about a potential client.

  “Well, it’s very nice to finally meet you, Vale. And you, too, Camille,” I covered, acting as if I’d known about them all along. Ben and I would be having a talk about his not having forewarned me of the additional presence, in addition to not having fact-checked behind me. What was I paying him for, anyway?

  Taking the seat behind my desk, I got comfortable and turned my attention back to Marcel to get our meeting under way. “I’ve got to say I’m a little surprised that you decided to come all the way to San Diego to talk to me, Marcel. I’m sure you have agents camped out on your front lawn. Am I right?”