by A. J. Pryor
“You are very chivalrous, Cage. Don’t bruise your knuckles on my account.”
“Study up and I won’t have to.”
We stare at each other for a few uncomfortable seconds, unsure where we go from here. If my life were normal, I’d get her number, take her to dinner, and at the end of the night, I’d have her in my bed. But my life isn’t normal, and reporters are a poison avoided in my world, threatening to uncover a past full of lies and deceit. The past I buried years ago.
“Seriously, Hannah, get your ass over here.” The command from her friend speeds this process along.
“I better go.”
I toss her a head nod and watch as she walks away, her ass swaying gracefully under a pair of tight, ripped jeans. Her top slides off one shoulder, exposing an ample amount of smooth skin that’s incredibly tempting to touch. A tug of arousal stirs my cock, and an instant physical attraction ignites warmth in my gut.
Let it go, Cage. You can’t have her.
“I can’t believe Derek threw an interception.”
“Coach Matthews is going to chew his ass out.”
“Cage does know his career is on the line, right?”
“Are we allowed to ask about his past?”
“His past?”
“You know, the reason Derek left Chicago ten years ago.”
“No. I don’t know. What happened?”
“The girl. Do you know about the girl?”
The most important skill to being a journalist is listening. It’s essential when interviewing any public figure. A trained ear can identify a shift in cadence of a voice or the slight switch of unnecessary words to detect a fabricated tale and distinguish truth from fiction. Elephant ears are also imperative to eavesdropping, and I’ve just gleaned some new information.
There was a girl, which invariably leads to drama and essentially heartbreak. But whose heart was broken? I can feel the threads of a story begin to weave their magic, and a stirring of excitement rushes through me.
The doors once again open to an R-rated viewing of Chicago’s pro football team. The scene is similar to last week with various players at their lockers either talking to reporters or shunning them. McCoy is here, his disinterest in me growing daily. He won’t look my way or acknowledge my presence. What’s with this guy?
I brush it off. Today is not the day to get into the mind of Travis McCoy. My interest lies with one player only, and his locker is noticeably vacant.
It’s been almost a week since our encounter at Johnny’s, yet I can’t shake the feeling that our conversation was unconventional for Derek Cage. No one knows the real Derek Cage. His history is defined in outline form on Wikipedia, his family more famous than his football career.
Walking through the locker room, I’m impressed with the decor. Glass partitions separate the changing area from the washroom, and plush navy-and-orange sofas line a wall where five flat-screen televisions are replaying today’s game. Corridors branch off to what must be executive offices and suites.
I should search for him. In Los Angeles, not much would stop me from sauntering through one of those corridors in search of my subject. Thanks to my asshat of an ex-boyfriend, Spencer, I’m not in LA. Instead, I’m a Midwest transplant, attempting to put the pieces of my life back together.
I left a thriving career, the city where I grew up, and my parents, to escape Spencer. A con artist and thief, he’d bled me dry, and now, his mother is attempting to sue my father for malpractice, and it’s all my fault. If only I’d been more careful with my choice in men. I’d believed him when he told me he loved me, I’d trusted him when he said he’d one day marry me, and when he moved into my apartment, I left all my personal data out in the open for his prowling eyes. We’d been together for two years, he’d never given me a reason not to trust him, and yet he’d left me with nothing but a mountain of debt and a crushed father. Larry offered me a lot of money to join his team, more than I could have ever made in LA. It’s a fresh start, and possibly with some distance, I can find a way to help my dad overcome the deceitful lies of Spencer Hamilton and his conniving mother.
Luckily, I’m in the same city as Gwendolyn Murphy. My roommate at USC and native to Chicago, I couldn’t ask for a better friend to introduce me to this new life.
I didn’t move to Chicago to find the status quo. This choice was a renovation of the life I’d already crafted, an expansion to blow my past to pieces. I can stand here and stare at the sign that reads Cage, or I can take action, and continue to build my future.
Squaring my shoulders, I stroll down one of the hallways, praying the rest of the team is too busy with post-practice antics to notice I’ve gone AWOL.
Team photos dating back to the 1920s line the bright white hallways. It’s comical to note the style of uniforms back then and how much larger the players are today. But the glaring difference is the lack of color amongst the teams. There hadn’t been a single black player on the Bears’ roster until well after the 1960s, a tragic and sad fact of American history.
Caught up in my sole locker room tour and history lesson, I’m startled shitless when I lift my head and find myself face to face with Derek Cage.
I come to a halt. My breath freezes in my chest, and my hand covers my heart. Fresh from a shower, he is standing beside me, his hands, big and strong with long slender fingers gripping his towel-wrapped hips, studying me. He doesn’t say a word as his lips press tightly together and his brow furrows in annoyance. Ignoring his less than hospitable greeting, I’m focused on his bare chest, the cut muscles that flex and move, the symbols inked into his skin.
I reach out and trail a curve of a black tattoo, scrolling vertically along the side of his torso, tracing meanings I don’t understand. The muscles tense at my touch, and I’m fascinated how they become harder as my fingers descend. His skin is warmer and softer than I’d imagined. He lets out a raspy breath, the heat of it kissing my already fevered cheeks.
“Is this all from football?” I ask. “None of the other players are cut like this.”
With emotions impossible to read, his chest expands and retracts with deep breaths, as he keeps a steady eye on my face. He grips my hand and presses it flat against his chest. My breath catches.
“You obviously haven’t done your research, Freckles. Want to tell me what a backfield is?”
“It’s the area you will get sacked if George Cox keeps letting your opponent’s defense through the line of scrimmage.”
He raises an impressed brow.
“I want to know why your body is more like a surfer’s than a football player.”
“You like surfers?”
My face heats. “I like people who answer questions.”
“Then you’re in the wrong place.” He smirks.
An uncomfortable silence descends.
“What are you doing back here, Hannah?” His grip on my wrist is firm, and my arm is beginning to tire.
“Looking for you,” I say. I tug on my arm, but it’s useless. He has my hand pinned to him. By the darkness in his eyes, he likes this power over me, and I can’t deny the electric reaction his touch is sending through my veins. He’s a recluse, and yet he’s allowing my touch on his body, in fact he’s controlling it. Maybe I’ve read him all wrong.
“So you are a stalker.” Gently—seductively—he runs a finger from my temple to my chin, watching in fascination as my breath deepens. My entire body shivers, and my stomach twists with anticipation.
“Journalist,” I clarify, tugging again.
He shrugs. “Same difference. You’re not allowed past the locker room. It’s an invasion of privacy and trespassing.”
“Are you going to turn me in?”
Finally, he releases my hand, and I stumble back. “You should leave, Hannah. I don’t know how you bypassed the guards, but you’re lucky I’m the one who found you.”
I regain my balance, put a hand on my hip, and tap my fingers against my side. “I need your help.”
; He belts out a laugh. “With what?”
“An assignment.”
“Why would I help you?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
He scans my face, searching for the climax to the joke. “What’s your assignment?”
“You.”
“Me? You’re not doing your job if you think I’d help you. I don’t talk to reporters.”
“You talk to me.”
He runs a hand through his wet hair and sighs. “I save you. Big difference.”
“You save me?”
“Yep. Saved your ass from Colt Dixon’s perverted mind. Saved you from your clumsy drinking. And I’m about to save you from getting locked up in the county jail for trespassing. Who knows where you’d be if I hadn’t talked to you?”
“Save me again and let me interview you.”
“No. Not ever going to happen.”
“Why not? This is your year, right? Your last chance to prove you’re separate from your father?” He goes rigid, eyes narrowing, jaw twitching.
“It’s no secret you want success because you deserve it. Your football career hangs on a string unless you succeed this year. Let me tell your story. Derek Cage’s story. Not the son of Tom Cage, but the football player who walked five miles to and from practice to avoid being seen in his father’s town car; the man who tried to apply to college with a different name to see where he belonged. Let me help the world get to know that man.”
I’d Googled Derek Cage. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I had to start somewhere.
Derek’s hands are on his narrow hips, his tension wrapping us in a frigid blanket. I look away, giving him time to think.
Some of the players are crowding into the hall, eyeing us with curious stares.
“Everything good, Cage?” a blond version of Derek asks. Similar build, similar bone structure, but strikingly opposite with his light hair and fair skin.
The man takes a few steps toward us, and Derek holds his hand out, halting his approach. “I’m good, Reggie.”
George Cox, the guard who’d let Derek get sacked last Monday night, doesn’t get the same message. His teammates call him Coxy, and with the swagger he’s got going on, I can see why. Dreadlocks that reach his shoulders sway side to side as he saunters to us, his eyes black as night, look back and forth from Derek to me.
George Cox is younger than I imagined. Larry had been right in instructing Chandler to help me on all things Bears. He has his finger on the pulse and was a wealth of information. Pure gold. And thank God for that. It’s the only way I know that Coxy grew up in a world of crime. The hard life of the street is all he knew until someone put a football in his hands and told him he could go pro. He’s a walking advertisement for American football. When you rise from nothing to sudden fame, it’s hard to grasp reality. Some players take it seriously, others end up in jail, and only time will tell for George.
“Cage, is your sexy reporter looking for a celebrity exclusive?”
George lingers over the word celebrity, enunciating each syllable, but there is lightness in his voice, a calm neither Derek nor I are feeling.
“She’s not my reporter,” Derek says through clenched teeth.
“No? Well damn, you wanna be mine, pretty lady? I’ll let you get to know the real Coxy.”
Audibly groaning, Derek cuts George with a glare that would frighten the harshest of criminals and has the hair on my arms standing tall.
“Thanks for the offer, Mr. Cox, but I have my eyes set on him.” I point at a furious Derek, and George Cox breaks the tension with a laugh.
He wraps Derek in a big hug. “Relax, Cage. She isn’t gonna bite you.” George winks at me. “All that money and no one taught this boy any manners. He’ll come around.” Laughing again, George Cox walks off.
Derek holds my stare, conflict and interest swimming in those dark irises. The air around us electrifies, and my heart is pounding, my mind swarming with what he’s thinking. At twenty-eight, Derek Cage has had years of mastering the art of his emotions, years of knowing how to create impenetrable walls. Walls against people like me.
“Reggie,” Derek calls, breaking the tension, “please show Ms. Black the exit.”
My shoulders drop in defeat, but my resolve is stronger than ever.
“You touched him?” Gwen is looking at me like I’m a rock star, her big green eyes wide in disbelief. We are eating at Big Star, a taco joint with great drinks, around the corner from my apartment.
There was electricity when my palm landed on his chest, there was tension, there were definite sparks, but it’s possible all that heat was one-sided. Mine.
“Do you know anything about Derek Cage and a girl?” I ask Gwen, changing the subject. Except for the four years she lived with me in Los Angeles, Gwen has lived in Chicago. She’s my best resource when it comes to the Cage clan.
She runs a hand through her auburn hair. “That’s vague. I need more.”
I tell her about the conversation I overheard. Gwen twists her lips to the side, her brow furrowing. “He keeps that part of his life incredibly private.”
“That part? His entire life is locked in a secret vault.”
“There has to be a woman or women,” she continues. “I mean, look at him. A man like Derek Cage isn’t sitting at home with his right hand on a Saturday night.”
“Left hand,” I clarify, ignoring the pang of unease that hits when I think of Derek with women.
“What?”
Shaking off the odd sense of protectiveness over a man I barely know, I clarify, “Derek’s left-handed. He’d be using his left hand.”
“I’ve never heard of a left-handed quarterback,” Gwen says cautiously.
“It’s rare, but they’re out there. Derek Cage is one of them.”
“Okay, well anyway, he’s not a monk.”
She’s right. Derek oozes sex. And not the soft and gentle kind but a lovemaking so strong, it would knock the wind out of you, leaving you breathless and shattered, begging for more. Jesus, Hannah, knock it off.
“They specifically said the word girl. Makes me think it’s someone from when he was a child, possibly a high school sweetheart.” I tap my fingers on the table. “Nothing comes up in my Google searches. It’s like someone has paid for his entire life to be kept a closely guarded secret.”
Gwen sits back and sighs. “There was this one time I remember my parents talking about Tom Cage and saying he and his son should be in jail. But I was a freshman in high school and thought they were lame. Wasn’t paying much attention. Do you know about his mom?”
“I know she died in a car accident when he was fourteen. Other than that, the reports just called it a tragic accident.”
She nods. “I was only eleven, but I remember my mom crying and talking about how awful she felt for Derek. My mother didn’t know the Cages, but growing up in Chicago, they were constantly on the news. The media made it feel like they were part of your family. When Madeline Cage died, my mother felt like she’d lost a friend.”
I find it hard to imagine Derek Cage allowing his life to be portrayed in the media so visibly. But I have to remember she’s talking about when he was a child. He didn’t have a choice. I see Tom Cage everywhere. He’s a reporter’s wet dream, nothing like his son. It makes me wonder about their relationship and if father and son are close. Are we seeing the real Tom Cage or is his public life a stark contrast to what he does behind closed doors?
“I’ll help you,” she says. “I’ll talk to my friends and their parents, find out whatever I can about that time in the Cage’s history.”
“You think people will know?”
“This is the Midwest, Hannah. Your business is everyone’s business. If Derek Cage has a mysterious girl hidden in his past, someone knows about it.”
“Mandy, Blaire, hike!” James Dumont snaps me the ball.
I scan the field for the open receiver. He cuts left, wide open. Coxy is in my periphery, keeping our defense at bay. I draw my
arm back and set to release when Colt Dixon is on me, encasing me in a bear hug. “Tag, you’re sacked.” He snickers.
I chuck the ball on the ground and storm up to Coxy. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Coxy?” I shove him hard. “You trying to get me killed out here?”
Coxy tosses his helmet aside and glares at me. He’d lunge if he could, but no one touches the quarterback. No one.
His expression reflects hate as players shove us in opposite directions and orders to calm the fuck down are screamed into our faces. Sweaty, strong arms pull me away. Coach Matthews, our offensive coordinator, is shouting to knock it off, but I’m raging inside. The need to rip someone apart, specifically Coxy, is burning a hole through my skin. I spin on my heels and walk to the far side of the field, needing a breather, needing to chill out before I go anywhere near my teammates.
I’ve been playing football since I was fourteen, when the death of my mom incited an anger within me impossible to contain. Football tamed the violent urges that ruled my body, the sport giving me an outlet and keeping me balanced. Tired of the rules my father insisted we live by, I signed up for the JV team at my local high school. Dad insisted I wouldn’t make it past the first few weeks, that I’d be begging him to re-enroll me in the exclusive private school that costs more than most people’s yearly income. He was wrong.
The murder of the girl I’d loved my entire life, Lily, my Lily, tore my world apart. Death does that. My life had come to a sudden standstill, my freedom put in jeopardy, proving again that the rich and famous aren’t immune to the painful realities of everyday life.
“Derek.” I turn to the sound of Coach Matthew’s voice, the two of us alone on the field. “I don’t tolerate that kind of bullshit on my field, Cage. You threaten one of your teammates like that again, and you’re done.”
“Tell George to cover me.”
Coach groans. “I didn’t have to sign you, Derek. I had choices. Drake Remington being one of them.”
Drake Remington’s a pussy.