Second Chance: A Dark Bad Boy Romance

by Kathryn Thomas

  This wasn’t as bad as being in a foreign country, but it was pretty bad. This kind of thing—physical altercations, or colloquially, fights—meant that you couldn’t control yourself in public and you were a menace. People and establishments became leary of you. Getting into fights was a great way to get yourself banned from places. It was bad enough that Dante raised hell in LA, where he was based, but he had to go fuck up everyone else’s quiet nights around the country.

  I could see the stories now.

  He was lucky that I was above outing him at a time like this. I knew a lot of people would not be so considerate. Daniel would probably kiss me if I gave him this scoop. He would probably be the only one with it. I wasn’t. Daniel would have to find out about this the same way that the rest of the country was going to.

  Because there was going to be a police report filed, the disturbance was probably going to make the local news. It was probably going to make the national news because it was Dante Rock, and it was going to make the sports news for the same reason. The details of the case would come from the police report and whatever bum eyewitness reports people, who were there thought they were qualified to be giving, gave. If there were cameras in the restaurant, footage of the surveillance would make an appearance. People would start rumors and speculate until they finally forgot about it when Dante got into trouble for something else. Because that was just what Dante Rock did. That was what you could count on Dante Rock to do for you. He could give you good basketball, and he could give you good fights. That was it.

  I wasn’t saying that because I wanted him to get in trouble. I was saying it because, after this, Dante’s goose was cooked. How long would it take before the league got wind of this? LA was just two hours behind and three and a half hours away by flight.

  Who knew what they would do to him?

  I didn’t want to think about it because looking at Dante behind bars was different than seeing him react to the other hits he had taken so far. This was legal trouble. Real legal trouble. He could potentially face time in jail for fighting, the restaurant might sue for damages, and the goons might sue just for the hell of it…for the sake of the payout.

  Dante had asked me before he was taken away to call his lawyer back in LA. I had his phone because it would have been taken away from him anyway when he was put in holding. I had called his agent because that was the only name in his phone beside his mother and his sister that I knew. I didn’t want to call either of them because I didn’t want them to panic.

  This was fine. Everything would be fine.

  This was a mess—and things were likely going to go down the toilet, but that was no way to face a problem. I had to think positive because I was probably doing it for both Dante and myself. I had to keep calm because I was no use to him when I was panicking, or crying, or otherwise making myself useless as a partner.

  I had made the calls, beginning with an introduction of who I was and the reason they were talking to me and not to Dante. I followed with profuse apologies at calling them this late in the night for this sort of reason. His agent had yelled in disbelief when I told him what was happening. He wasn’t surprised; he was just mad. He told me how to contact Dante’s lawyer, and when I asked whether he could keep the situation to himself, he said he couldn’t. He said that this didn’t just involve Dante, and it would take a number of people to get him out of this mess.

  His lawyer, as we spoke, sounded incredibly bored. I didn’t know whether he dealt with this sort of thing often when it came to Dante, or if he just didn’t care what was going to happen, or if he had it all under control and I was the one who was frantic and overreacting.

  Whatever the case was, there was still a long time to wait.

  It was at least an hour after him being taken into custody before I was able to go and see him. There was black ink on his fingertips. They had booked him. He had a mugshot now. Way to cement that bad boy image.

  “Dante,” I said to him, walking over to the cell.

  He stood and walked over to the bars when he saw me. This moment was literally like something out of a movie. Dante Rock in a holding cell. Where was my camera when I needed it?

  If I wanted… really wanted I could have used my phone, but that was just shitty. That would just be using this situation for my own gain and I didn’t want to do that to Dante. He was in trouble and the buzz something like this could generate was huge, but I couldn’t do it to him. Not for a story, not for anything.

  This was a mess.

  The interview on Inside the League had been well received by most people, but I guess there were a lot of people who were upset about it, too. The story had died down a little since the team was on the road now, but there was no way we could have anticipated something like this happening.

  The guys had said they were the girl's brothers and that… let's just say you get good at spotting lies when you hear them enough and that sounded like a lie. How did they know where to find Dante? It wasn’t a secret that he was in Houston, but since they found him, it had to mean that they were tracking him. We hadn’t been at the hotel where we were staying. That, at the very least, was public knowledge whenever teams came to visit. How was it that they knew that we were not there at the time, and more importantly, where it was that we would be? We had not left any information with guys back at the hotel or at the desk or anything. The whole thing just stank, and I couldn’t help feeling there was something else going on.

  “Quinn, have you heard from anyone?” he asked.

  “I made the calls, and all they told me was your lawyer would be coming.”

  “How long will I have to wait?”

  “They didn’t say, but if they are flying in from LA, it might take a while.”

  He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated.

  “What’s going to happen?” he asked me.

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. I have no idea.”

  “Do you think anyone from the restaurant was filming?” he asked.

  “Almost certain. You know how people are when fights are about to start. They can’t wait to film it and put it on World Star Hip Hop.”

  “How bad to you think this is for my career?” he asked.

  “Honestly?”

  He nodded.

  “I think… I think if there are videos of the fight on the Internet, they will get plenty of traffic because of your name. I think that people who were at the restaurant, or even not at the restaurant will be fighting each other for a chance to give their eyewitness report to every blog out there. Those things, however, I think would be the least of your worries.”

  “Tell it to me straight. If you were the manager, what would you do?”

  I sighed. “If I was part of the Yellow Jackets’ management, I would be struggling to find a reason why I shouldn’t suspend you for the rest of the season or worse.”

  “What is worse?” he asked.

  “Kick you off the team.”

  “You really think they would?”

  “You wouldn’t understand if that was what they felt they had to do?”

  Surely he had to. This was not an isolated incident. It had happened as a result of a scandal that we thought we had tackled. Even if it was not the result of a crazy woman, who was apparently so obsessed with Dante she was sending people to kill him, there was no way that the team’s managers could look at this as if it was its own incident. They had to consider the brawls during games, the attacks on fans, the salacious lifestyle, and the suspensions.

  “I would get it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “This is really bad, Dante. We both know that you already had strikes against you. If they did send you off the team, the trouble you are in would just follow you, and who knows what team would take you knowing you were a controversial player.”

  “What about the woman then, if the guys who came after me were her brothers?”

  “I haven’t heard a thing from her since she blew the Interne
t up with her false accusations,” I said.

  “What are you thinking? We need damage control.”

  “No… no, I don’t think this is what it seems like. I don’t believe those guys.”

  “Why not?”

  “The woman was lying. Why would this be true? She's already shown that she has no shame. She doesn’t care what she says about you, true or false. In fact, she probably wants there to be speculation about your character. It would just make the case for her stronger.”

  “You think this is all a con?”

  “I don’t have any proof, but yeah,” I said, trying to put the pieces together in my head and make sense of them. “I think someone is trying really hard to pull one over on you Dante.”

  “So what now?”

  I shrugged.

  “We have to wait.”

  It felt like ages before Dante’s lawyer showed up. There was not just one man, the one I had talked to on the phone, but four. Four times the people we were expecting was a bad and a good thing. On one hand, that was a lot of legal power, on the other, the number of lawyers seemed to be directly proportionate to the amount of trouble Dante was in.

  I couldn’t be there while they were talking to him. I could only imagine how much trouble he was in. I felt so sorry for him. He didn’t deserve all this. He had been partly defending me. I shouldn’t have stood up and said anything. I didn’t think the guy would actually put a hand on me, but I had been on the ground before I even knew what the hell had happened.

  I saw the men before I saw Dante.

  “What happened?” I asked one of them. “What’s going to happen with Dante?”

  “Were you the one on the phone?” one of them asked. He had on dark glasses even though we were inside.

  “Yeah. I’m Quinn Blaze. Was I talking to you?”

  “Yes. Dante… is a very lucky man. This could have gone very wrong for him.”

  “So what's going to happen?”

  “He had a nice long conversation with his management and he has to miss the rest of the games that they have on the road.”

  “How many is that?”

  “Four.”

  I winced. Another suspension. When was Dante ever going to play again?

  “What does he do now?”

  The man shrugged.

  “Whatever he wants. You’re his…?”

  I thought about what the answer to that question was.

  “I’m his… we’re friends,” I said.

  “How about you keep an eye on him for us. Make sure he doesn’t get into any more trouble.”

  Could I do that? I didn't know.

  What did he mean by that? How was I supposed to watch out for Dante unless we were together?

  I hoped that his lawyer didn't think he and I were together. Not that there was anything wrong with that, or because I didn't like Dante. I liked him just fine. I just didn't think that would be a good thing for him and his image.

  If anyone from the restaurant was going to open their mouth to blab about what they had seen or thought they had seen Dante Rock doing, they were maybe going to mention that he had been in the restaurant with a woman.

  I would be that woman.

  I could just see the rumors swirling.

  It would be terrible for Dante. There were worse things than being in an alleged relationship, but I didn't want it.

  It would just be more shit, and the last thing he needed. I didn't know what the hell he thought he was telling me when he asked me to keep Dante out of trouble. It didn't seem that Dante could stay out of trouble. It was just attracted to him. It followed him wherever he went.

  How much influence did he believe that I had over Dante anyway? If Dante was a known rule breaker, what did he think I could say to him to change that? Trouble and Dante Rock were obviously two sides of the same coin. I had basically tethered him to his home, with no alcohol at his disposal or women to distract him and he had still managed to get himself behind bars.

  I hoped his lawyer had some advice or something because I was clean out of options. Dante was obviously not someone who interacted with the universe the same way we mere mortals did.

  Watching Dante come out, I couldn't help myself. I ran over to him and hugged him. He seemed a little surprised, but he hugged me back. I was so nervous about what would happen. I was happy that he wasn't in worse trouble, but how long before it was game over and he fucked up in a way that his lawyers could not fix for him?

  "Are you okay?" I asked him, looking him over. He had light bruising on his face and the back of his right hand, but that seemed to be it.

  "I'm fine, Quinn. What about you?"

  What about me? Why was he asking, he was the one who had just spent most of the night literally behind bars. Yeah, I was a little tired, but no one had ever died of a little fatigue.

  "I'm fine. What did they tell you?"

  "The usual speech about how I am an idiot and I am going to do something one of these days that I can't get out of," he said, shrugging.

  I wished he wasn't so cavalier about this. I was more worried than he was and he was the one with his entire career on the line.

  "Did you talk to your team management?"

  "They are the ones who told me I had to miss the rest of the road games. They also said they would release an official statement or whatever and that I was not permitted to say anything about this to anybody."

  "What do they think happened?"

  "Who cares? I'm benched. Once they want to tell me something, they will. I'm not going to ask them for information."

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked him.

  “Go home, I guess. They don’t need me here anymore. Wait. What are you going to do?”

  “If you aren’t going to be here anymore, I don't have to be. I’m going home, too, I guess… till your suspension is over. If we have to do anything, we can do it from there.”

  “Come with me,” he said.

  “I am. Your team flew us out here, I suppose they will fly us back out?”

  “They won't. They might pay for it, but we can't use the team’s private plane because it will be taking the team to the next stop.”

  “That’s fine. I could get a ticket back to LA easy.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I could give you a lift back.”

  “How?”

  “I only fly with the team because they prefer that all their players are together and arrive places at the same time so they don’t end up fucking up their schedule. I have my own plane.”

  Dante had his own plane. Of course, he did. What was I thinking?

  “You sure you don’t mind?”

  “Quinn, I’m offering. It’s the least I can do after getting into that fight.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “I have one more thing to ask though,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I was excited about finally being in a place with plenty of private rooms that we could use… together.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. I like fucking in places it's not allowed, but I like being able to lock a door, too.”

  “Hm, I agree.”

  “This whole suspension thing doesn’t have to ruin everything though.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Come home with me,” he said.

  “Your house?”

  “Yeah. You can stay as long as you want.”

  “Are you asking me to come to your place for a sleepover?”

  “Quinn,” he said, pausing and touching my hair, moving it behind my ear. “We both know the last thing either of us will be doing is sleeping.”

  It was that thing that Dante had that made women so attracted to him; he was using it on me. He was using it on me—and it was working. He was selling something—and I wanted to buy. I felt hot inside of my body. He didn’t need to ask me twice to do anything at all with him. The answer was already yes, but I was too proud to just let him
know what a hold he had over me. Even if he already knew, I didn’t need to make him feel any more confident about it.

  “If I come to your place, then I have to stop by mine for clothes.”

  “Tell me what you want, I’ll tell Daniella to send someone to buy some.”