False Start: A Quick Snap Novella

by Leigh Lennon

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Sure, you don’t look the same. Your glasses are gone, and your hair is a little more manageable. I mean, you’re sexy as hell. And social media has you pegged as one of Seattle’s top ten bachelorettes. But you’re not the same kid you were at fourteen. You don’t let people push you around. You can’t in your business or you’d be like fucking Connie Weston.” This garners a laugh from me. She’s the only one I let see me as the insecure kid who would cry herself to sleep because of Kieran O’Hennessey.

  “And just because the guy was a fucker in middle school doesn’t mean you’re going to let him push you around.” She gives me a kiss on the cheek. “You are Leleeta Adriana Cesarea. You kick ass and take names. Now, go march your ass in there, put on your sexiest three-piece suit, show a little cleavage, and go meet that jackass. And if you need me, I’ll come kick him in the balls again.”

  The frizzy hair I had as a fourteen-year-old is gone. It’s still curly but in a pretty way. I take my sister’s advice and change into a professional suit, but this isn’t your normal grandma-like outfit. With cropped navy blue pinstriped pants and a navy V-neck sleeveless top, I decide on this since it’s incredibly warm for July. I grab my navy blue Jimmy Choos, my pendant pearl earrings, and a plain silver necklace to finish the outfit.

  When I arrive at the training center to meet with his public relations liaison, I’ve decided not to let him get to me, just as I’d told myself so many times in eighth grade. He’s not a blip on my radar. He’s a stepping-stone, and it’s all he’ll ever be.

  I’m escorted into the point of contact’s office for an overview of what she wants from this piece. I, too, have some things to discuss with her that we want as a station. It’s sort of the adage of I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.

  Becky sits behind her desk. I’ve dealt with her in the past about some other pieces I’ve done, but they were for the entire team and not just an individual. That she’s professional and easy to work with may be my only saving grace. “Ms. Cesarea, I’m so glad you could come on such short notice.”

  She extends her hand, and we shake, sharing the normal pleasantries. I insist she calls me Leela, and she insists I call her Becky. The normal behind-the-scenes crap my audience never sees.

  We get going on the specifics of what this piece will entail. Everything is easy. Follow him around, have a couple of different sit-downs, and interview some members of the team and staff. She has three specific areas where she wants interviews to occur. One, on the field. Two, in his apartment, showing he’s a normal man like the viewers, hoping it will soften the fans. Three, in his childhood home of Portland. This isn’t a major burden since it means I can sneak in a quick visit to my parents and my nona.

  In turn, Becky meets Marcel’s demands. We want a one-on-one with Will Montgomery at a later date and access to all post-season game interviews. She reluctantly agrees, but we know all of this is necessary.

  “I’ll be in contact with you about my schedule. I need him available on the days I have marked off for him because I have other stories.” She doesn’t need to know Marcel cleared my schedule for this. I won’t be at his beck and call.

  “Sure. No problem, Leela. As a matter of fact…” There’s a buzz through her line, and she doesn’t say hello or anything like that. “Oh, send him back.”

  I don’t have a chance to fully understand what’s going on, not until Kieran O’Hennessey slams through the door in his tight as sin football pants and a plain white T-shirt.

  “Okay, Becky, I don’t have all day. When will she be here?”

  Oh, he didn’t get the memo, and when his gaze swings to me, I try to forget how his biceps almost rip through the T-shirt, or how the sheen of sweat under his eyes only accentuates his blazing blues. No, I forget it all, honing in on my anger of a sad fourteen-year-old. Of course, this only collides with the woman inside me, who realizes he’s a beautiful man—all man. He may still be that ass, but he’s also fucking beautiful.

  Chapter 3

  Kier

  I slam into Becky’s office, as she had asked me to be here before the reporter arrives. “Okay, Becky, I don’t have all day. When will she be here?”

  All the men in the locker room had asked if they could tag along. I have no idea what they meant, not until I locked eyes on the other woman in the room, who sure as fuck isn’t Becky.

  In the wideness of her doe eyes, it’s clear she’s as surprised to see me as I am to see her. I must be watching the wrong news channel because I’m positive I’d remember this beauty. Her hair has a relaxed curl, and it’s jet black. The gray of her orbs pull me further into her large eyes, and the ivory of her skin is in perfect contrast to her raven hair and dark suit. And then there’s her outfit. The collar dips to her perfect plump breasts that slightly spill out. Just professional enough but telling me she’s all woman, too.

  “You’re actually late, Kier. But that’s okay, for now,” Becky chastises as if I’m her kindergarten student. “I have a meeting to get to. Go ahead and chat. Maybe come up with a game plan.”

  Becky leaves without another glance, closing the door behind her. Finally, this bitch does something right, for once.

  “Heck, I’m sorry, Ms. Cesarea. I didn’t know you were here.” She stares straight into my eyes as though she’s attempting to get a very personal read on me. I guess, if someone is going to blatantly stare, there could be worse people.

  “As I was telling your publicist, I have a very tight schedule. I’m going to send over specific times for you. We’ll need to chat a couple of days before each interview, so you’ll need to be available. And I guess, if we’re going to interview your family, we’ll have to do it on a weekend. And that’s no problem.”

  “Wait…” I extend my hand to her, halting everything. She’s not introduced herself, nor have I.

  “Go ahead, Kieran,” she says, her pitch a little aloof and certainly haughty.

  I can’t help my chuckle. There’s no denying she’s hot, but fuck, she’s so uptight. It actually makes her hotter.

  “First off, the name is Kier. No one has called me Kieran since I was fifteen years old. Second, what are you talking about with interviewing my family?”

  She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I don’t have time for you not to know what the hell is going on. I suggest you get with Becky because I’m not here to babysit you.”

  I laugh again. Hell, if she wants to piss me off, she’ll have to work harder. Normally, this sort of bratty attitude pisses me the fuck off. But with her, it doesn’t.

  “I’m just asking a question, Ms. Cesarea.” She lets out a frustrated breath. “Okay, let’s start over again,” I begin. “Apparently, you share the same opinion of me as the whole Pacific Northwest. So if you don’t mind…” I extend my hand to hers, but she doesn’t shake it. “I’m Kier O’Hennessey, and you are…?” I wish I’d paid attention when I’d been told her first name earlier. I’d rather call her this than Ms. Cesarea.

  Again, she doesn’t attempt to shake my hand or even give me a little smile. “Okay, now this is the part where you tell me your name.”

  She steps back, resting her ass on the edge of Becky’s desk. “What exactly do you want, Mr. O’Hennessey?”

  “Aw, come on, we’re going to be working together. Apparently traveling to Portland, too. I was told this piece will take a couple of weeks. Might as well get on a first-name basis.”

  She throws back her head, laughing at the ceiling. Her delicate neck is delectable. I’ve not had any sort of feminine contact since before leaving New York. And now she’s certainly piqued my interest, but not in the one-time sort of way I’ve always treated women. No, she’s something special. I can tell by the feisty way she’s challenging me.

  “First off, we aren’t traveling to Portland together. I’ll meet you there. Second of all, this is a job, and that’s all. I have no opinion of you, good or bad. I’m here to report without bias. But somehow, I
am told to make you look good, which, quite honestly, you’ve made hard for me.”

  “Ouch,” I respond, and before I can say more, she cuts me off.

  “And third, we’ll meet according to my schedule. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answer, the hoarseness in my voice has to be evident. She walks to the door, and it’s the first time I catch a glimpse of her ass. And I’m a little envious it had been sitting on Becky’s desk and not on me. “Come on, are you at least going to give me a name to call you?”

  She rolls her face to my view. “Oh, yeah, you can call me Ms. Cesarea.” And with that, she slams the door behind her. Something is oddly familiar with this beauty. This headache sure as fuck is shaping into a treasure of sorts, and the torture I thought it would be may just be enjoyable.

  “How was it?” Will’s familiar voice pulls me from my daydream of the sexy reporter.

  “Oh, the face-to-face with that beauty? Hell, she’s a saucy little thing. Sure full of piss and vinegar but fine as fuck.”

  His narrowed stare stays on me. “I’ve been a good boy, and I’m not going to fuck this up. But I’m not against trying to date again. Though she seems to like me as much as most of our fans do,” I admit. “By the way, I’ve been watching the wrong station. And she didn’t give me her first name. Do you know what it is?”

  He gives me a loud chuckle, and I’ve not had a chance to look it up on my own as I hurried back to practice. “What’s so funny?”

  “I’d say you’ve watched no news at all! Where have you been? She had the feature story on the Strickland murders. She’s huge right now.”

  I’ve kept my head down so low that I miss most of what’s going on in the world. “The Strickland murders?”

  “Ah, you really do eat, sleep, and breathe the game, don’t you? It happened last year. My brother, Matt, and his old partner were part of taking down a case from eleven years earlier where a young girl’s family was murdered. How did you miss it? You were living here. Fuck, it made national news.”

  I shrug my shoulders as I sit and listen to the recap of the murder case, which is interesting to say the least, but I still don’t have this reporter’s first name.

  “Okay, back to the lovely Ms. Cesarea,” I remind him. “What’s her name?”

  “So I guess you aren’t as sore as you had been earlier in the day about being forced to do this?”

  I shrug again. “I mean, if I have to… it definitely could be worse.” We both laugh at my response. “And, I’ll ask one last time, what is her name?”

  “Oh, yeah, she’s Leela, Leela Cesarea.”

  Why does that name sound so familiar?

  Two days later, Becky calls me up to her office when practice is over. I shower and even gel my blond hair a little because I’m hopeful the beautiful and sassy as fuck reporter is in Becky’s office. It’s an early day, considering we’re in training camp. All I care about is getting back to my condo and falling asleep by seven p.m.

  I open the doors without knocking, and my smile drops into a frown when Becky’s grim expression is the only one in the room. I even circle her office, thinking maybe I’ve missed the lovely Leela Cesarea.

  “I’m here, Becky. What do you need?” Will told me to play nice with Becky, and this is the nicest I can be to her.

  “Hey, good, you are here.” She grabs something on her desk. “Here is the tentative schedule with Ms. Cesarea. Please adhere to it.”

  Eyeballing the typed itinerary, I see most of the scheduled times are later, after practice, and I appreciate this since my goal is to have the record for touchdowns this year. One fucking touchdown and I would have tied the record for this year; two, and I would have beat it.

  “Um, Becky, there must be some sort of mistake. It says I’m meeting her today at my apartment for a walk-through?”

  She nods her head. “Yeah, I called you yesterday to pick up the schedule, and you didn’t, so that’s your own fault.” She picks up the phone, making a call and pointing at her door, dismissing me.

  This is when I’m happy I’m a minimalist, and my home is in decent shape for company. Hauling my ass to my truck, I put it into drive, attempting to make it home before she arrives. I get to see her stunning face again. Yes, these are the silver linings that make me smile.

  Chapter 4

  Leela

  The address is hoity-toity, to say the least. Second Avenue in downtown Seattle, with views of both the Space Needle and the Puget Sound, depending on the apartment. I know the man took a significant pay cut when Seattle signed him. I’ve done my due diligence on Kieran O’Hennessey in the past couple of days as I’ve started to outline how I want this piece to play out.

  Pulling into the public parking garage nearest his home, I cross Second Avenue and make my way up to his twentieth-floor condo. Taking Zia’s advice from earlier in the week, I dress in a business suit, but this time, it’s a pencil skirt, a pair of kitten pumps, and another tight tank top in a deep forest green.

  Stepping off the elevator, a sweet voice calls after me. It’s a little girl. “Are you Ms. Cesarea?” I turn around on my heels, and the cute face of maybe an eight-year-old stares up with large chocolate brown eyes.

  “Yes, sweetheart, I am. And what’s your name?”

  I can’t kneel, not with my tight skirt, but I bend over, facing her.

  “I’m Hailey. And I’m going to be just like you when I grow up.” I’ve heard this a lot from many little girls. To say my career catapulted after I’d been given the exclusive with Malia Strickland and Wells Shanahan is an understatement. I was the only one they trusted to report the story. From there, it’s been almost indescribable how social media and Seattle-based magazines have pegged me as the most eligible bachelorette in the Pacific Northwest.

  “Well, this is the best thing I’ve heard all day.” I pull out my business card and hand it to her mother. “I’d love to have you come down to the station. I could give you a tour if you’d like?”

  Hailey jumps up and down. “I’d love that, Ms. Cesarea.”

  “Now that we’re friends, you can call me Leela if that’s okay with your mother.”

  I chat with her and her mom for a couple more minutes, when out of my peripheral the door opens from the hallway. The jerk watches me and doesn’t even hide that he’s staring at us. The little girl gives me another hug, and I take my time walking down the hallway to Kieran O’Hennessey’s condo.

  “You were really good with Hailey,” he starts, his megawatt smile brightening up the darker hallway.

  Before he pissed all his fans off, every female reporter would comment on his smile, naming it his megawatt signature smile, and it stuck. It only disgusted me.

  “You know your neighbors?” I don’t know why this surprises me.

  “Yes, Leela, I know my neighbors. They may be the only ones in Seattle who don’t hate me.”

  I’m not going to touch his statement. If he treated people the way he treated me in middle school, it’s more than his extracurricular activities that most likely make him unlikable.

  He opens the door for me, and I walk down a small hallway to his living room. Not only is the Space Needle the first thing I see with the large windows but the location of his place within the building gives him unobstructed views of the Sound, too.

  The place is what I’d expect from a bachelor but very clean with all muted colors. The countertops are stainless steel, the cabinets are a bright but darker gray, and his black furniture has pops of light blues and oranges. Nothing is out of place.

  “Okay, Kieran, the news crew will be here in an hour, so they know where and how to set up the cameras on the day we tape here. I just want to get the lay of the land to see how to portray you the best. I need all the help I can get.”

  “What is up with you calling me Kieran? Few people know it’s my real name. Please call me Kier, Leela.”

  Being caught knowing his first name does not fluster me. “I’ve done my homework on
you, Kieran. Oh, and while we’re at it, you can call me Ms. Cesarea.”

  He walks over to the couch, falling back on the poor piece of furniture, which catches his whole weight. “Seriously, what is wrong with you? You don’t know me.” He’s frustrated, and this somehow pleases me.

  Oh, I know him. I know him too well, but I don’t answer, not on this anyway. “Can I get a tour, please?”

  “The house is open, and I have nothing to hide. Just help yourself.” He doesn’t stand, so I take a self-guided tour. He’s not kidding. There’s nothing personal on the walls. I circle on back to the front door where there is an office. Across the way must be his master and besides a treadmill, a large king-sized bed, and a door to what I assume is his bathroom, there’s nothing but a family picture of his parents and little sister on his bedside table.

  They always seemed nice, and his sister, Molly, is the same age as Zia. They played basketball together. But it’s all I really know of him personally. Sure, I’ve done my homework. His dad is an accountant. His mom is a nurse. His sister, a kindergarten teacher. Very ordinary, but in the picture, he seems almost human—this Kieran O’Hennessey in the family portrait could be very dangerous for me.

  I walk back into his main living space. The apartment isn’t huge, maybe a thousand square feet, but what does a single man need more space for?

  I sit down kitty-corner from him in a modern light blue chair, scooting a tad bit closer to get this over with. “I’ve done an outline of how to best do this puff piece on you.” Yeah, I say the word puff in a sarcastic way. He doesn’t storm off or challenge me. He sits almost indifferently. “I truly believe the best place to start is to take the bull by the horns and delve into your past. Let’s talk about it, giving a heartfelt apology. At least, for your image, I guess that’s what Becky wants to accomplish.” Through all of this, I’m certainly bitchy right now. I don’t even regret it.