THE HARDEST YARDS (A BAD BOY FOOTBALL ROMANCE)

by Andrea Rose

  The minions left the room as Yuri rested her claw to my shoulder. “Mr. King, thank you so much again. I hope Miss Maldova turns out to be everything you hoped. Shall I let her walk you out?”

  “A few minutes alone would be great, if this meeting’s adjourned.”

  “Of course, I’m sure you have your people to call. Come, Ariana, give the man some privacy.”

  Yuri fanned at a bewildered Ariana whom I’d accidentally distracted. Begging to breathe, I’d unbuttoned some of the cat shirt.

  “Alone with Miss Maldova,” I said. “If she has nowhere else to be.”

  “Alone? As you wish.” Yuri obliged slamming the door a little too hard on her way out.

  Ariana cringed.

  She lunged forward and snatched for the buttons of my shirt, her arms outstretched full.

  “I’m gonna hear about that in the morning. Why the hell did you start undressing in front of her? She’s already filling her head with ideas she doesn’t need to be having.”

  “Ideas?” I said, giving Ariana space to button me up.

  “That we’re hooking up…or eventually will or already have. Any of the above.”

  Her breath blew against my chest hairs. Scents lingered between us. Fingertips twisted and brushed at the fabric, moving down, down the buttons…

  Down…Twist.

  Down…Twist.

  Down…

  Ariana’s eyes raked up at me from below. My eyes shot up and shut tight, trying to forget any thought of her reaching under my shirt and begging me to get her down on her knees.

  Damn that whiskey making me wanna do bad things.

  “Why does she think that?” I blew air out pursed lips.

  “She’s been right in the past. She gets especially twitchy when a female rep takes on a male client.”

  “A jealous kinda twitchy?” I said, keeping my eyes and hands to the heavens.

  I waited for a response.

  “Ariana?” I peered down at her seeing the buttons were done up already. Ariana crouched with her palm rested against me. “Ari?”

  Her gaze zipped up from my chest and back to meet my eyes. “Shit. Yes. Sorry.”

  She patted my shoulders, shoved me back and backed up herself.

  “What were we talking about?”

  “About Yuri having the crazy notion that two young, attractive people might get it on if the mood should strike.”

  “Why are you smiling about this? This is dead serious.”

  “What bad would come of me and you?”

  “Plenty.”

  “Can’t be that bad.”

  She readjusted her dress on tip-toe in the reflection of the night out the window. “A rep fell for an actor client a few years back,” she said, twisting one way then the other. “Yuri found out and warned them to stop. They kept sneaking around behind her back. A few months later, the actor’s wife released intimate photos of the affair to every media outlet on the planet after installing a video camera.”

  “Anthony Parker?”

  A shh pressed to her lips. “Yuri spun it so the rep was their au pair, to distance the story from the firm. Which worked like a charm, obviously…”

  The beauty bided her time, stealing up a bagel and pacing by the window.

  “That’s the big story?”

  In finishing chewing, she took a chair beside me and swallowed.

  “I’m pausing for dramatic effect because this is important—The ex-rep ended up leaking some confidential files and wrote this blog post exposing the dark side of PR—or so she wanted to believe. Yuri had the girl blacklisted where she could but not before taking her to court.”

  “Yuri…lost?”

  “She won. But her reputation, that took a hit. Colleagues stopped trusting her, the union revoked her license, her business suffered for it.”

  “Heavy.”

  “We have to respect that she has a company to run and to do that, we must be professional, for her sake. Y’know. Professional.”

  I’d stared too long at Ariana in that dress if she wanted me to stay professional. My collar heated up.

  “I should be leaving,” I said through a half-smile and went to stand.

  “Sit down. We’re not done yet.” She ducked beneath the table searching boxes of files. “Did your lawyers read the contract?”

  I placed an apology gift above her before she sat back up.

  “Actually, Tyler, did you even read the—”

  Thunk! Her head against the underside of the table.

  “Shit, are you OK?” I dropped to a knee.

  “Professional, Tyler,” she reminded me, shooing my hand from her bump.

  “Right.”

  Her hungry eyes spied the box on the table. “Chocolate pretzels?”

  “Apology gift.”

  “You got me an apology gift?”

  She giggled at the little card stuck to the front:

  A shrugging donkey with a speech bubble saying ‘Sorry I’m an Ass’.

  “You bought this for me?”

  “Chrissy bought it…but it waaas my idea.”

  “You knew I liked these?”

  “Chrissy mentioned something back at the hospital.”

  “The card?”

  “Chrissy bought me five options to choose from. I didn’t want to get out the car and face any douchebags. But I wrote in the card and, like I said, whole thing: My idea. ”

  “Ariana…” she read aloud. “I’ll make it up to you one day…Congratulations on…your first client of many. I’m sure it’ll be a beneficial relationship for us both. T.”

  Her voice strangled and she did the worst job of hiding she’d broken into tears.

  Emotions, women and me— My Nope trifecta. I folded my arms and pretended I had knew how to use a phone app aside from text, call, Gleem and email. The fake scrolling and tapping got bored pretty quick.

  I threw it back down on the table.

  “You, uh, need help?”

  “Can’t you tell happy tears from sad?” Her hands criss-crossed to wipe glistening cheeks and I laughed at her through the dark.

  The lights switched off.

  “Yuri’s leaving for the night. We need to go.”

  “Need me to call you a car?”

  “Nope. We’ll just be needing the one.”

  “You’re crying,” I said at her through the dim light of the Emergency sign.

  “And your fly’s been undone the entire meeting. Shall we?”

  She slid into a sweater, covering her leather dress against my will. Hood up, tears hidden we followed into the last elevator down.

  14

  Time would tell if getting into the back of Tyler’s Escalade would be a bad idea.

  The stubborn jackass pushed the day’s schedule back some hours meaning I’d have to take this meeting elsewhere…Beyond the confines of La Maison walls.

  A clear night had fallen.

  Roads glistened.

  Dead, damp leaves glittered the sidewalk.

  New York City after a storm.

  “I need to be direct with you. It’ll put me at ease.” I dropped my glasses atop my beaten-up planner.

  “Lay it on me.”

  With Martin’s sound-proof partition closed, I fessed up. “I’m terrible at boy stuff but I think we were flirting earlier at the office…Whatever…that was, we cannot do it again.”

  “It’s only a little fun.”

  “However fun, it’s a breach of contract as of the second you signed your name on that line. If you and I are caught behaving…unprofessionally…Yuri has every right to take us to court over it. You initialed that clause yourself, need I remind you.”

  “Outside business hours, I have no chance with you?” He laughed off the notion.

  “Zero chance. Ever. If you actually read this…” I flapped the contract at him. “…you’d know that.”

  “Been off the dating scene too long, obviously—I’ve lost my edge.” I spun back to him. He grew a crooked sm
ile and forked his fingers through his hair.

  He’d tricked me into checking him out again, unbuttoning out the novelty cat shirt to my dismay.

  The gorgeous beast’s bare torso sat a foot away from me, flailing strong limbs ahead of me as he thread himself into a knit sweater that sadly fit a little looser.

  I lifted my hands to barrier my eyes.

  “Edge or not, you are far too much man for me, big guy. This playing with fire? It stops.”

  “That your style of flirting when you puked on me earlier? You like to shock ‘em and walk away.”

  My cheeks went hot. “No. That was payback. You were the reason I felt sick in the first place.”

  “Give ya that.”

  “Shush. Focus.” I laid a hand to his bicep and lowered it from my face. “We have real work to do and now we’re five hours behind schedule.”

  I tapped ahead of me. A video played on the vehicle’s widescreen TV hanging from the roof.

  “What is this?” Tyler asked.

  “A TV, Tyler.”

  “Nice one, Maldova. Seriously…”

  A young Tyler came up on the screen— A fresh-faced adult with less ink on his arms, less arrests on his record, a buzzcut hairdo and chubbier cheeks.

  “Looked as fresh-faced as I felt,” he said, chewing at a toothpick.

  “It feels great to come out with a win!” Young Tyler’s voice cracked over the uproar of the crowd in the stands. “We’ve worked so hard for this!”

  “Can we turn this shit off?”

  “Why?”

  “Thought we were focusing on the future, not the past.”

  “We are but we gotta stir up some things first.”

  He flicked Pause with his fingernail.

  The film kept playing.

  He flicked it again.

  “You have to use your finger.”

  “I know,” he said, flipped and tapped with his fingerprint.

  The video stopped.

  “Knowing you peaked in your twenties ain’t fun; Reliving…that’s torture, babe.”

  “I’m…”

  I trailed off and gave him some silence.

  “Some troubled kid from Kansas,” he continued for me. His forehead creased. “…Led the worst team in the league to its first victory in a decade.”

  “You remember how you felt?”

  “Felt pretty good.” Head nodding, I knew he meant he’s never felt that good since.

  “Recently?” I pushed.

  He turned his attention out the window to the damp city street. “No. Not until that final, until that Bowl’s ours.”

  “This video is to lead into Phase Two of the plan,” I said. “I thought videos were less intimidating than the binder. Note to future Ari, cancel all future visual aides.”

  Quiet Tyler didn’t laugh at my non-joke as most people would. I wish he did—I needed something to ease this tension.

  He slipped the GQ from my purse.

  “Phase Two?” His jaw extended.

  “The real stuff— Finding that something,” I added. “You had a fire once, like in that video. You focused on your vision and you went for it. Do you remember what that fire was?”

  “Football.”

  “I think it goes deeper. From my research, what I saw was a lost boy whose talent gave others hope. You played football for more than just playing football. You were pulling a team from the ashes. You played to win, to see the crowd’s faces, feel that surge of that fulfilling something.”

  “I was good at football, I played football, and I won football games. No need to romanticize it. ”

  “I’m a writer, it’s my job to find the most honest story.”

  “Thought you were a publicist?”

  “Slip of the tongue,” I said and got us back on track. “The feeling of winning those games feels different to you and you want that back but don’t know where to get it.”

  “Everybody gets jaded.”

  “Do you ever want kids, a family, a business to sustain you into retirement? What’s next, is my question. You had to have thought about it.”

  Tyler danced his palm through the night air. “Can’t say I have.”

  “This rush you seek in hookers, liquor, brawls, gambling…”

  “You my shrink now too?” He swiveled back around to study me.

  “Sorry. I’m not trying to…I meant to say I seek cheap rushes in things like that after I lost how to find the other one, the important one. Maybe you can relate.”

  I couldn’t handle him analyzing me like that. I turned back out my own window, the Hudson River whizzing by us.

  “What are you trying to say with all this?”

  “That the Lightning don’t need saving anymore. You saved them. From here on out, anything you do will never be that. No matter how many championships you chase after.”

  He took pause for a second to consider and shook his head.

  “That’s not how this works. I’m a champion. I want to make my team champions. I want them to feel that, like I have.”

  “Let them make it on their own. You answered your call of duty. Anything after is only going to wear you thinner and thinner until there’s nothing left of you to give.”

  “I want that Bowl, I want to smash more records, go down in history books.”

  “There’s a life beyond the game you can’t see where you’re content. It’s not as far as you think.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Oh, a PR girl?”

  “No, a child.”

  “Hey. I’ve lived, studied, blogged and read enough that I should have a degree on the subject of long-term planning.”

  He rubbed his lip.

  “You know you miss that fire in your belly. It used to spring you from bed in the morning. It doesn’t anymore. So time to move on and find it elsewhere. If we can find that sooner, you can start working on….whatever addictions or distractions—”

  “Addictions?”

  My face fell. “Perhaps? I don’t know if you have any serious problems. I’m a coffee addict—”

  “What’s your fire then, Ari?” He snapped back like a harmed animal. “Your driving force?”

  “M—My job? My dogs.”

  “Your job?”

  “Wa-wa-wait.” I sat up straighter. “Why are we talking about me? You said you knew the deal that you are my job and that this’d get personal sometimes. I have to get raw with you.”

  “Your work is your own addiction in disguise, that’s all I’m saying. We’re all escaping something.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, scoffed in frustration then tossed a pretzel toward his chest.

  Tyler pincered it from the air.

  “You throw like an amateur, Maldova,” he said. “Try again. Less wrist, more shoulder.”

  “Amateur? High school softball captain two years running.” I aimed and focused, launching the candy at his wide-open mouth.

  “Not bad,” I commended the smooth operator who’d caught it square. “They say you’re wasting your talents.”

  He gave a sarcastic sniff. “How many you think you can fit at one time?”

  “Professional,” I warned.

  “Mind out the gutter, babe. Pretzels— Twenty bucks I can fit ten in this thing right here.”

  “I don’t doubt it, babe.”

  “Come on.”

  He tilted his head back and we got lost in hushed laughter. I hand sanitized, told myself fuck it and sidled nearer to Tyler’s wide-open arms.

  One by one, I shoved pretzels into my client’s mouth and didn’t think twice about it.

  “Ngeh,” Tyler counted. “Ngeeeh!”

  He rapidly pat my arm. Stomach cramping in silent laughter and snickering, I squeezed in a final pretzel. His lip went taught, jaw full of chocolate.

  “You owe me twenty bucks,” I said, tossing the tenth pretzel out the window.

  A hand slapped to my shoulder. Tyler, fist to mouth, gagged loudly and sheltered himself to
lean out the window.

  “That was ten!” he said, bending back in the seat to wipe his mouth.

  “Nine. And a waste of good candy.”

  “I’ll buy you more. We got time.”

  My head shake told him what I thought of that. I snorted and cupped my mouth.

  “What?”

  Tyler, a smudge of chocolate on the cleft of his chin. He pulled my hand away to see my tight-held smile.

  “Maldova,” he said.

  I scratched near my chin and turned back out the window.

  “Oh…Oh,” Tyler said and scrambled to clean his face. “Lost my edge? Ha!”

  The mood shifted when I turned back in the car. The car slowed to a stop light.

  “Ari, I needa be direct with you now,” Tyler said, basked in the red stop light. “I’m taking you out on a date this weekend and you’re gonna say yes.”

  “Why are you…?” I huffed.

  “Why am I? Why am I taking you on a date?”

  “No. Why do you want to go on a date so bad?”

  “I should’ve read that fucking contract. I dunno if I can do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Stay professional with you nearby.”

  “You’re firing me again?”

  Tyler held his hand ahead of him to calm me. I knocked on the partition.

  “Martin, can you pull over please?!”

  “Hey, I’m trying to be honest with you. I’m attracted to you. It’s been a while since that’s happened to me. That means we have a problem.”

  I climbed from the car and scanned around our surroundings:

  Brooklyn, a bridge from my apartment.

  My own damn fault—I’d asked Martin to take the longest route home to give us time for this meeting.

  A yellow cab pulled around the corner. My arm flinched to hail it until I realized something…

  I wouldn’t be left here to catch a pricey cab home alone in a seedy neighborhood.

  “Why even show up today?” I said struggling into my coat Tyler handed me from the car. “Why sign a contract? Why tease me? My whole life is on this, on you. I know that’s not your fault but it’d be nice for you to appreciate that and bend with me here.”

  “I bent.”

  “Oh you bent? Yeah, thanks for showing at that meeting five hours late, Tyler.”

  “I met Phoebe today.”

  I spluttered. “No you didn’t, Tyler King. Because if you did you risked screwing up with my plan and you know how I feel about risks that jeopardize them.”