THE HARDEST YARDS (A BAD BOY FOOTBALL ROMANCE)

by Andrea Rose

  I popped my furry coat collar and let my thick, white breath spiral through the night.

  “You want me t’upload this photo I took of us earlier?”

  I cocked my head to the smartphone in his hand, sneering at it for a moment.

  “Photo?”

  Tyler King, cuddling Phoebe Rose Kite on her fire escape, a starburst of sunrise behind them and burst if jealousy in me.

  “Huh? When…when did you…?”

  “I want to prove that I’m in this. For now. I upload this, you gimme one single date, see where it goes. Or see what we’re missing.”

  An attractive male begging me for a date and this girl couldn’t say yes even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.

  I criss-crossed karate chops through the air and stepped up onto the gutter.

  “Never. End of discussion.”

  I kicked the door closed and straightened my skirt. Nobody wasted a Maldova’s precious time. In his tinted windows, I fanned and stroked down my nonconformist hair then carried off down the sidewalk.

  I stalled ten feet from the car when Tyler hadn’t followed after me.

  This see-saw ride with a man twice my size wasn’t fun anymore; I had fur-children to fight for, bigger things to waste my energy on than being messed around like this.

  I speculated over the parked truck.

  My shoulders straightened.

  A future where I had control existed just over the hill ahead…

  Yuri needed me to crack the whip on Tyler, that’s what I’d do.

  I swung the car door open again and slapped the leather seat beside him. “Hey!” I shouted.

  He spun quickly. “Uh, hey there.”

  Martin gave me eyes and I snatched my pointed finger behind my back.

  Eyes back on Tyler, I made sure I had his full attention before speaking.

  “I’ve tried being the nice girl, I’ve tried being tough, I’ve tried honesty, transparency, vulnerability. Hell, I even tried being sexy and I’ve tried being your friend. Which version of me will you listen to and respect enough to commit to? For the first time in my life, I have no ideas left.”

  “Already? Yuri said you had years worth.”

  “Oh, how’s this for a fucking idea?” I said, showing him my fully-tensed middle finger.

  He stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth and inspected me—So fucking hot.

  I stumbled back further.

  “Do you know who I am?” he teased and edged further out the car.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “No….I want to, though. Hence the secret date.”

  Wait, why was I mad at him again?

  He reached and brushed my hand with his fingertips.

  Oh, right…

  “People rely on you to play this off-field game with all your heart, Tyler. That’s unfortunate but, they do.”

  “Fuck them.”

  “By people, I mean me.”

  “Right.”

  “Can you give me a solid answer, right here: In or out? Remember what’s at stake.”

  Dammit, the way his eyes creased at the corners as he smiled should be a crime!

  “Why are you smiling?”

  My fingertips clawed my hair.

  “You’re impossible!” My heels clicked along the pavement again.

  Please chase after me, please chase after me…

  “Where are you going?” he said out the open car door. “Hey, I was playing around!”

  “That’s answer anytime you laugh off the work I’ve put into you! ‘Oh, I was messing around’. I’ve dived headfirst into this, into you, since day one. All you’ve done is dip your toes in and out.”

  “I’ve never been a good swimmer.”

  “This—you and me—is a commitment of hard work that, from what I’ve seen so far, I don’t know you’re ready for like I thought.”

  My heart raced, anticipating him telling me once again he given up on this.

  But he paused.

  He stood above me and cradled his elbow and chin.

  “What’ll it be? This is a big deal. No pressure.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” he said and scratched his hair. “I’ve had a rough day. I apologize you’re the one bearing the result of it.”

  “Rough day, Tyler? Rough day? Oh, I’m sorry you had such a hard day ignoring my calls and messages getting drunk on Phoebe’s sofa. You must be exhausted.”

  “You knew I was drunk…Nevermind. I get, I get it.”

  “No. I don’t think you do yet,” I said and swung open a door to present him inside.

  “Where are we?”

  “I’m fucking broke and you’ve acted like a prick all day.”

  “‘Scuse me?” he said and walked me inside by my lower back. I slapped him away and kept him at a distance.

  “Twenty bucks for the pretzels, too, big guy. Guess who’s buying the rounds?”

  15

  Two drinks deep each, Ari latched onto my arm, gasping for air at my incident with a pot plant on the way to the parking lot. When her teary eyes opened again she moved me a foot away.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Please. Laugh on me all you like.”

  Outside an empty Brooklyn pool lounge, I organized plans for our “definitely only casual, celebratory business dinner between colleagues,” a tipsy Ariana enjoyed reminding me every twenty minutes.

  According to her, we had more work to do this evening and the pool hall was way too loud.

  I suggested a place I’d visit often out this way: Maceos Brooklyn. An acquaintance owned it. It’d be dead tonight because of the wind and a big enough tip could buy me the private rooftop.

  When everything went as I’d hoped, we exited onto the treelined garden draped in lights, soft jazz playing Dream a Little Dream, the cloudy city beyond…

  …“This isn’t the casual ambience I’d suggested,” Ariana warned at the table, her arms holding down every part of her to keep her from flying away.

  She angled forward to lift the glass covers and snuff out the table candles.

  “You knew this would freak me out.”

  “Nice knowin’ I can scare you too sometimes,” I said letting the words slip out.

  Ari itched her nose. “You scare me all the time.” She slipped out a laptop, setting it up on another wrought-iron table she’d dragged beside ours.

  I swigged on my Old Fashioned, amused by her every effort to make this seem like this had turned into anything but a romantic date for two.

  Still didn’t count.

  Not until I got a yes from the first girl to tell me no.

  “You think they’ll find us up here?” she said to the laptop screen.

  I raised my brow at her.

  She jeered. “Anybody can use a drone these days,” she said and spread various loose pieces of paper about the table.

  “You do what you gotta do, sweetheart.”

  “Let me get those for you,” a waiter said as he reached to spark up our candles once more. “It can get breezy up here.”

  “No,” Ari snatched forward stop the waiter a little too hastily, knocking her huge glass of pinot over her dress. “Thank you.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am. I apologize.”

  “No, no, it’s my fault. I have a…fear of…flames….?”

  I chuckled and rubbed my lip.

  “Excuse me, madame. I shall fetch something to help.”

  Ari slid her chair aside. Back turned, she hadn’t noticed the waiter relight the candles. I didn’t protest. Best thing I could do right now—Hand her my napkin and soda water, shut the hell up and enjoy the show.

  “Thank you,” she said snatching the items from my hand. “Who wears white anymore? Stupid. I ride the subway. Like, really, Ari.”

  I watched the candlelight stipple in her eyes as she mashed at the dress.

  “Not one for romance?” I asked her.

  “I’m allowed to ask those questions. Not you.” The one girl, legal
ly and painfully off-limits to me, dimpled her cheeks. “But, to answer your question, yes I am. Was. You?”

  “Ha.”

  “Come on, King.”

  “Can’t get much less romantic. A dead heart, right here.”

  “You brought me chocolates today. You said you sent dates home in limos. You have that picture of you and Phoebe at sunset now, that’s romantic.”

  “Some soda water, madame,” the waiter said.

  Ari missed me nod in consideration.

  A frazzled, wind-whipped Ari returned, having done the best she could to clean the stain in the bathroom.

  “Give me this and this.” She knocked back the rest of my drink, tied my jacket around her waist and sat back down. A breeze caught hair in her eye.

  “Ah.” She stopped me before my hand reached to brush it from her face. “No more games. Tell me exactly what you did with Phoebe today and why you went behind my back?”

  I slipped my phone back into my pocket and took a long sip of wine.

  “What’s that look mean? What’d you do with your phone?”

  Ari’s screen lit up with a flood of alerts.

  “Tyler. You don’t have Twitter,” she said scrolling further down. “Why is the internet saying you have a Twitter? And that you made your first tweet and uploaded a photo?”

  Her brow furrowed.

  “The girls set it up for me.”

  “The girls?”

  “Phoebe, Chrissy.”

  “You have to tell me these things,” she groaned and tapped away at the screen. “That’s great you’ve officially met and you’re…being proactive but…Seriously…”

  “I’d met her before, though.”

  “Huh?”

  “Phoebe. The crazy nurse fan in hospital who thought it OK to steal a kiss?”

  Ariana’s shoulders dropped. “Oh, you remember that? We did our best with the times you were conscious.”

  “Gavin didn’t catch you?”

  “Nothing to do with me. Phoebe did it alone before me and you had even met.”

  “You deviant, Maldova. Staging couple photos. I feel so violated.”

  She pressed out closed-mouth smile and blew out the candles again.

  “So, the whole look-a-like thing…?”

  “Phoebe’s hair is longer, she’s taller and she’s British,” I admitted and linked my fingers behind my head. “I overreacted. I have a temper. I wanted something to direct my anger at this morning and I regret that was you.”

  Ariana stayed hushed.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Silence, still.

  “Ahh…the bitter taste of swallowing my pride.”

  She caught my eye again. “Samantha?” she asked.

  “She’s my past, a long time ago,” I said with a sincere nod. “Fuck all that though. I held up my end of the deal in showing. Do I get that secret you promised me?”

  “I promised that if you showed on time.”

  My tone showed her I was serious. “I’m here now. I showed.”

  Ariana glanced down to my buzzing cell.

  “Ari.”

  She took her hand and slid the phone towards me. Her glare told me she knew something I didn’t yet.

  I lifted it to my ear.

  “Chrissy.”

  “Where are you this very second? Specifically,” she said in a panic.

  “I am having a, uh, business meeting with Ariana. What’s up?”

  “You’re having a business meeting at Maceos in Brooklyn.”

  “How’d you know that?” I turned over my shoulder for nearby hover-cameras.

  “The whole world knows, Tyler. I warned you to disable Location settings when you upload photos. You just uploaded your balcony photo from a romantic restaurant. You and Phoebe’s balcony shot went viral.”

  Location settings? Viral? Alien speak. “Right.”

  I flipped my palm up at an exhausted Ari and shrugged.

  “People want that shot of you and Phoebe’s first public appearance as a couple,” Chrissy said. “You baited them into where they might get it.”

  “But Phoebe’s not here, Ari is,” I said plainly.

  “Catch up, Ty.”

  Leading Ariana out a fancy restaurant, her messy hair, wine-stained dress, my blazer around her waist and no Phoebe—my real girlfriend—in sight.

  “They think they found the first public shot of you and Phoebe?” Ari said.

  My wide eyes made Ari nervous.

  “Time to leave?” she asked, dressed in her coat already and packing her bags before I’d answered.

  We dashed with plenty enough tip, making our escape down the fire exit. The elevator wasn’t an option according to Ariana who shoved me into the emergency stairwell.

  Both of us laughed, racing down,

  down,

  d o w n…

  Ari’s rings hit the stairwell bar with resounding tings, ascending three flights of stairs toward the rear exit.

  Too drunk to think twice about it, I reached out my hand to help her. She grabbed it to balance as we burst through the screeching metal door into the ice cold night.

  “Do we…Do we call it a night?” Ari puffed and bent over to her knees to catch her breath.

  “Do you want to?”

  She checked either side of her, looked straight at me again and shook her head.

  “Good,” I said. “This meeting’s not over. You still owe me that secret about getting me back in the game.”

  Ari shoved my shoulder. “Where do we go to?”

  “Yeah, you know the place?”

  “Naw.”

  Some male voices. We looked down the road to the silhouette of a camera over a guy’s shoulder.

  “I thought you were the one with the plans?” I said and started walking fast the other way.

  “Not anymore.”

  She pointed to her weighty bag slung over my shoulder.

  I took up Ari’s hand and her nose grew pinker in the cold air.

  “Fuck a plan. Let’s see where the road takes us.”

  16

  I must’ve been drunk if I thought my apartment building was up to Tyler King’s standard. But my list of secret hideouts in this city was only so long.

  I turned the keys in my door, awash in relief to almost be back in the comfort of my own things.

  “Wait here a sec,” I said to Tyler down the hall. “Been a while since I’ve had guests.”

  Tyler obliged and I swung on through the front door.

  Three more steps, I’d breached the foyer wall.

  “Welcome home, honey”—A voice in the living room.

  Worry creased my forehead.

  A sweaty Braydon sat on my sofa in gym gear, socks kicked up on the table.

  The bottle of wine in my hand slipped onto the tiles, splashing more red wine up the hem of my dress.

  I stepped back and flapped a worried Tyler back down the hall. He wouldn’t go. He didn’t think I was safe.

  My eyebrows pleaded so hard they almost spoke.

  Leave. Now, they said.

  He jogged toward the elevator and tapped the button.

  “What are you doing in my house?” I said, turning back to the devil on my sofa and kicked the door closed behind me.

  “Had a few spillages this evening?” Braydon’s beady eyes noticed over The New Yorker. “Never could hold a drink.”

  Something wasn’t right.

  No over-excited welcoming party panting at my feet—? Dino and Bentley, the puppies!

  “Where are they? I’m calling my lawyers.”

  “Read your letters once in a while. It’s the only way I can contact you these days thanks to you— Through my goddamn lawyer. That costs me, y’know.”

  “You bombard me with useless junk. I don’t read every one anymore.”

  “Here’s the deal, honey. I’m taking the dogs upstate with me until the court decision. The estate has a backyard, space for them to play without being cramped…ick…here. Give me
that bitchy sneer all you want, you know it’s better for them.”

  “Don’t act like I’m some abuser. You lived here. You know how much I take care of them. They’re walked three times a goddamn day. I give them everything they need to be healthy.”

  “They need to run free and play, sweetie. They’re living creatures with lots of energy.”

  “They’re my dogs. They’ve been my dogs for seven years. I know how to raise them.”

  “Our dogs,” he said and flapped his paper.

  He spun my head out—this hateful pig sitting on my precious IKEA futon.

  My eyes glowered, teeth bared, blinking fast. I wouldn’t shed more wasted tears over this asshole. I fell against the wall and slipped out my phone, praying this would be the time I’d call the cops on him.

  “I didn’t come to hear you whinge. I’ve had a long day. I’m in the city until tomorrow and couldn’t find a hotel last minute.”

  “I—I’m calling the police. You’re violating your restraining order.”

  “Call the cops then, Ariana. Go on.”

  “Get out of my apartment. None of your shit’s even here.”

  “Except, uh, this sofa, this TV set, that refrigerator.”

  “They’re mine.”

  “The court will decide that. Pretty sure I picked that TV up from the shop and made the last payment on it. In the meantime, you call up Kelly, make sure she has the sofa bed ready for you.”

  A loud banging on the door.

  “That’ll be for me,” he said.

  “You invited guests?” I mumbled.

  “A few, actually. I’m debating inviting the new secretary from work, if you don’t mind. I’ve fucked her on the office furniture. Why not fuck her silly on mine—oops—ours, too.”

  “Fuck whomever you want whatever you want, Braydon. I don’t care. I want those dogs,” I said.

  Knock-knock-knock!

  “Ugh, what!” I said and swung open the door to a stout, gray-haired woman firing off a heated rant in Spanish.

  Dashing through her legs were my babies.

  They sprinted towards me into my arms, paws stomping, butts wagging.

  “Aw, hello. I’ve missed you all day.”

  Dino cuddled into me tightly as Bentley shoved his face in the water bowl.