Beauty and the Blitz

by Sosie Frost

  I stiffened. “Excuse me?”

  “How do you know your client’s intentions?”

  Dangerous ground. “I’m his agent. It’s my job to represent his wishes.”

  “His agent.” He exhaled. “Miss Madison, maybe you should disclose the nature of your relationship with Mr. Hawthorne.”

  He wouldn’t dare.

  The staff and league reps leaned in. I gritted my teeth.

  “I don’t see how it’s relevant,” I said.

  “Well, you could certainly give us insight into his character. And his home. His interests. His bed.”

  “That’s enough,” I said. “I am acting as Mr. Hawthorne’s agent.”

  “No. You’re acting like his whore.”

  I didn’t have a chance to get outraged.

  Cole leapt to his feet. I didn’t need his brand of heroism. He wasn’t a knight in shining armor. Cole was the dragon, and he’d burn through any son of a bitch who dared to insult or hurt what was his.

  Including my own father.

  His chair slammed into the wall and shattered. The coaches and management stood, retreating from the table, but I jumped between Cole and the others.

  “Stop!” I pushed against his chest. It was useless, but at least he’d have to go through me to get to them. “Cole!”

  I was five feet of nothing against a monster of muscle and spitting rage. But he would listen to me.

  I’d make him listen.

  “Just go!” I shouted. “Wait outside! Cole!”

  Cole pointed at my father. “What did you say to her, you son of a bitch?”

  Dad had panicked, but he stared at me, eyes-wide. “You let this man near my granddaughter?”

  Cole snarled. “You actually give a damn about your granddaughter? You fired your daughter and left both of them on the fucking street?”

  Sweat prickled my brow, and a chill shredded me. I pushed Cole back, but preventing him from flipping the table didn’t help our case.

  Or me.

  Or either of our reputations.

  “Stop it! Both of you!”

  Dad and Cole silenced. I faced the other men in the room and pointed to their chairs.

  “You all, sit.” I grabbed Cole’s suit jacket and tugged. “Get in the hall and calm down. Now.”

  “I’m not gonna let anyone talk to you like that—”

  “You don’t speak for me, Cole. I speak for you.” I lowered my voice to a razor’s edge. “Get out of here or, so help me God, you can defend yourself.”

  A still moment suffocated me in panic, but Cole eventually pushed away from the table. The conference door slammed behind him, shaking the walls. The water and coffee had overturned, but I left the mess for the coaches to handle.

  I faced the league management and president, humiliated and unraveled.

  And I hated that moment of uncertainty that stole my voice.

  But these were men I’d never cared to talk to or about until the day Dad brought me to work at his agency. Maybe I wasn’t an agent. Maybe it was wrong to sleep with my client. Maybe I was underqualified to scout for new talent on the field.

  But I was smart enough to defend Cole.

  It didn’t matter if it was French literature, raising a baby, or researching precedent in the league, I learned how to succeed on my own. Maybe I couldn’t tell the difference between pass interference and defensive holding, but I could read a contract. I could negotiate terms, and I could represent both me and Cole with the professionalism we deserved.

  And I was damn tired of people telling me otherwise.

  This was my job. And this was how I’d take care of myself and Rose.

  I ignored their curious, invasive stares and crashed my tote bag onto the table. They flinched. Good. I handed out pamphlets, binders, and copied pages from the league’s own rulebook. The presentation was organized and labeled with intricate care.

  I never got to deliver a doctoral thesis, but today I’d give them a defense of the indefensible.

  “If you open your handouts to page one, you will see a detailed outline of what I will present to you gentlemen today—beginning with the past precedents on unsportsmanlike behavior and unnecessary roughness. We’ll then lead into references on what constitutes clean and legal hits, cross-referenced with citations of other fines and penalties levied on players in the league within the past ten years.”

  Frank Bennett exhaled, his stare burning through me. “You’ll fight my ruling?”

  “Through every available appeals court.”

  “Even though you’d lose?”

  “I’d do it for the publicity, Mr. Bennett. You don’t want the league to single out one of the greatest defensive players in the game. Work with him instead. Let him be a model for other players and an example of reform, so children and fans can root for someone trying to change their life.”

  “And how do you propose doing that?”

  “Not expelling him for starters.”

  “You’ll have to work harder for that.”

  “You offer substance abuse rehab for players involved with drugs. Let’s start Mr. Hawthorne on anger management classes. Let him take a psychiatric evaluation if you’re worried about his conduct. Work with him, help him to improve his behavior so he will be cognizant of his strength.”

  “And if we don’t agree?”

  I tapped the binder before me. “Then we’ll go through this, line by line, with all the best attorneys Mr. Hawthorne’s money can buy—and, honestly, gentlemen?” I smiled. “He has an awful lot of money.”

  Frank was silenced, tensed and furious. He pointed at Coach Scott.

  “Four games.” He slammed his briefcase down and gathered his things. “I want him suspended for four games.”

  Coach Scott nodded. “I won’t appeal that. Maddy?”

  Dad didn’t have anything to say to me. He stared though, surprised. Proud?

  How dare he even speak in front of me.

  “I taught her well,” he said.

  He’d taught me nothing. “Jude Owens wouldn’t want Cole Hawthorne expelled from the league. He knows it was a clean hit.”

  “Right now, I’m not sure he knows his own name.” Dad hesitated. “But, if I were in his shoes, I’d be glad someone came to defend me. I’d want someone in my corner who cared about me. Someone to make sure Hawthorne won’t accidentally hurt an innocent person.”

  “You don’t know anything about Cole.”

  “I learned a lot today.”

  “And?”

  “I owe that man an apology.”

  Dad thanked Coach Scott and the others. He shook hands with Frank Bennett as the league reps stormed from the conference room.

  Coach Scott didn’t let me leave. He waited for the doors to close before speaking.

  “The team’s gonna talk, Miss Madison. And we’re gonna think about what to do. We’ll call you next week with what we decide.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Should I tell Cole to pack his locker?”

  “We’ll let you know.”

  That told me everything I needed to know. My stomach sank, and I calculated the time before the trade deadline in my head.

  Two weeks.

  We had two weeks to either convince the Monarchs to keep Cole or…

  Or I didn’t know what he’d do, what he’d say, what would happen.

  Cole feared leaving the team, and he worried his strength would be abused by other teams in the league. Was that enough for him to give up on the game?

  I exited the conference room. The click of the door broke the silence in the hall. Cole sat on the floor, suit jacket pitched across the linoleum, tie practically clawed from his throat. He slowly rose to his feet, but he wouldn’t look at me.

  “You have a four game suspension,” I said.

  He didn’t hear me, or he didn’t care. “Why does your father talk to you like that?”

  “Why did your dad hit you?”

  Cole snorted. “He said he
wanted to mold me into a better man.”

  “And my father wanted me to be a perfect lady—educated at college, married at twenty-two, and giving my husband as many babies as he liked. It was his way of taking care of me.”

  “You deserve better than that.”

  “I can fight my own battles, Cole. Right now, we need to worry about yours. The suspension means you can’t be at the facility, you can’t practice with the team, you can’t play—”

  “I know what it means.”

  I doubted that. If he understood what it meant, he’d have raged, stormed the halls, lost himself in vicious profanity.

  Instead he picked up his coat and walked away from me.

  He didn’t even wait. Didn’t look to see if I followed.

  It was like…he didn’t care.

  Or he wasn’t letting himself care.

  “Cole, I just risked everything to help you.” I chased after him. “We have to talk about it.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “You’re still in the league. It’s just a suspension, I was able to negotiate—”

  “You wasted your time.”

  I stopped, my stomach knotting in my pounding heart. His words hurt.

  “None of my time is wasted with you, Cole.” Even my whisper couldn’t slow his steps. “These past few months have been the best of my life.”

  His voice hollowed, raw, but flat.

  “Then you must be just as broken as me.”

  Cole

  I didn’t trust myself drunk, but blacking out would have been safer.

  It might have helped me sleep. I wasn’t getting much lately. That made it harder to work out, to lift, to heal. But it was easy to hate myself. Easier than usual.

  It was always a laugh-riot to realize what a fucking asshole I was.

  Those realizations were generally silenced by on the field or under the weights. Without that exertion, I was trapped in my own straight-jacket of fucked-up emotions.

  Was this what it would be like without the game to protect me from myself?

  Without the uniform and pads, practices and playbooks, hits and tackles, something changed in me.

  No. Something broke.

  It was like a switch flipped in my head. The rage dissipated, and my mind disconnected in my body. The whole world turned grey. For the first time in my life, I was numb.

  I’d breathed. I’d slept too much. I’d worked out too little. My head clouded in a thick, sluggish fog. I felt…nothing.

  I hoped it’d be enough to keep them safe.

  I needed to eat, but I had no idea what I’d cram down my throat.

  I hobbled through the house. It shouldn’t have hurt that much to cross from the weight room to the kitchen. Was it because I was out of uniform? Every injury and ache I endured through the season surged through me, like it had never healed.

  Maybe it was all in my head. Nothing was right in there now. Maybe it tortured me too. Maybe it wasn’t just the anger that made me crazy.

  At least this nightmare would only last four weeks.

  I stood in front of the fridge. The latch on the side was still a pain in my ass. I learned slapping it a couple times usually dislodged it, and a butter knife worked as good leverage.

  But Piper’s hand slipped under my arm, twisting the mechanical release. The door popped open.

  I stared at the shelves. Wasn’t sure for how long.

  “I can make you something,” Piper said.

  Her voice hurt me. Her soft melody grated my nerves. I couldn’t face her. Couldn’t look at her.

  Couldn’t let myself feel anything more for her.

  My throat was hoarse, unused. “I’m fine.”

  I grabbed a handful of cheese and meat, but I didn’t want a sandwich. I’d choke it down anyway.

  “You didn’t come to bed last night.”

  Why was she talking so quietly? Did she think she’d break me with a single conversation?

  She probably would.

  “No,” I said.

  “Where’d you sleep?”

  “Downstairs.”

  She searched my expression. I didn’t know what she expected to find. “Will you come to bed tonight?”

  Already knew the answer to that. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Do I have to explain myself?”

  I might have been numb, but I felt the coldness in those words. So did Piper.

  She nodded. “Fine. I’ll put my things back in my room.”

  “Probably for the best.”

  “Gonna tell me why?” she asked. “Had enough of me? Got too real?”

  “Don’t push me.”

  She wasn’t intimidated. “Or what? You’re gonna get angry? You’ll pout? You’ll storm around the house and foam at the mouth like a damn rabid animal?”

  “Maybe I will.” I pitched my sandwich into the sink. “Is that what you’re waiting for? You want me to get pissed off? To yell? To lose control?”

  “How much longer do you think you can keep it locked inside, Cole? You’ve spent the last week living in this passive, self-inflicted shell. You aren’t keeping it contained. You’re letting it build.”

  “We’re done talking.”

  “Yeah.” Piper shrugged. “Because when have you ever done something that might help you?”

  I slammed a hand against the counter. Didn’t even feel it.

  “I’m trying to protect you, beautiful!”

  “And I offered to help. I offered to listen. I want to be there for you, but you’re the one refusing me. So you know what?” Her voice strained. “I have enough shit to deal with today. I don’t have the strength to convince you that I’m on your side. Just forget it.”

  It was too quiet in the kitchen. I listened, hard.

  Silence.

  I called to Piper before she stormed from away.

  “Where’s the kid?”

  Her voice embittered. She didn’t bother turning to look at me. “Her father has her for the day.”

  The air squeezed from my lungs.

  Her father.

  That explained why Piper was on edge. I didn’t blame her. Rose’s father was an asshole. They’d lived in the mansion for weeks, but this was the first time he made an effort to see his daughter.

  What kind of a fool refused such a blessing?

  I hid downstairs. It was a leg day, and that meant a familiar strain and discomfort. But, even after a few hours of working out, I couldn’t feel anything, only numb detachment.

  I knew I was in trouble, but it wasn’t like Piper would understand what tortured me.

  The suspension didn’t piss me off. It had been the meeting, and the way the league, the Monarchs, and her own father spoke to her. She didn’t deserve their condescension, their sickening insults.

  She should have defended herself. Instead, this beautiful, stubborn, wonderful woman tried to help me. And I refused her. Repeatedly. And all because…

  Because I couldn’t let her see the real me.

  Because I was too terrified of losing her.

  …Because I was in love with her.

  The thought was like a kick to the gut.

  Not the time to realize it. Four-hundred pounds of weights rested on my shoulders as I bent in mid-squat. Love was the one force in the world that could bring a man to his knees. A panicked drop in the middle of the rep would be what broke his knees.

  The weights clattered against the bench, locked into place as I collapsed against the ground. I dumped water over my head and waited for the room to stop spinning.

  Leave it to Piper to knock me on my ass.

  I had no idea it was even possible for me to love someone. Whatever warmed in me for Piper was inspired by a heart that hadn’t beat for anyone or anything…ever.

  And the baby?

  God, I missed the meatball.

  By this time in the day, she was usually tossing herself at the weight room’s baby gate Walking Dead style. She’d press again
st the plastic mesh, reach her fingers through the holes, and babble about her day, her favorite shapes, and tried to count out ten reps for me.

  I might have been miserable without Piper, but I was goddamned lonely without Rose.

  My life of quiet and solitude was shattered, and I couldn’t have been happier. I liked what I felt for Piper. That warmth. The confusion. It quelled the beast and excited the man and proved that I could be…

  Normal.

  I showered and dressed, popping up the stairs two at a time to find Piper.

  But something was wrong.

  It had been weeks since she first paced in the foyer. She peeked between the curtains and grew more and more frustrated as whoever she tried to reach on the phone refused to answer. Her voice cracked with a boiling rage.

  “Jasper, I don’t care where you are or what you are doing. Call me back this instant.”

  Her panic crushed me. She ended the call, waited ten seconds, then dialed again. Her hands trembled as much as her bottom lip. She was on the verge of tears, and that was a swipe of salt poured over my wounds.

  I took her hand. “What’s wrong?”

  She pushed me away, but her fingers curled in my shirt before she freed herself. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  I didn’t let her get away. “Piper.”

  “I’m handling it.”

  Yeah, not well. “What’s happening?”

  She swallowed the hesitation in her voice, eyes wide and wild. Her hand tangled in the curls that escaped from her ponytail.

  “Jasper isn’t back with Rosie yet.”

  I checked my phone. “It’s not even seven o’clock.”

  “He was supposed to bring her home at five.”

  That prickling rush of heat and adrenaline returned.

  Blinding.

  Consuming.

  Piper called Jasper again, and she searched out the window for the imaginary car that’d pull up the driveway. It didn’t come, and he didn’t answer. She ended the call and gripped her phone under her chin. She faced me again, her expression crippled with fear.

  Fuck. I had to help. I had to do something. My knuckles cracked as my hands twisted into fists.

  But getting angry wouldn’t fix anything. She needed to be comforted. Someone to support her. Someone to reassure her that everything would be okay—that I would make everything okay.

  “He’s two hours late. Hasn’t called. Hasn’t texted.” Piper shook her head. “I have no idea where he is with her. What if something happened?”