The Game of Love: (BWWM Romance)

by K. Alex Walker

  “We have to get in front of this, Austin,” Sommer added. “As much as we’d like for it to, it’s not going to go away. The more we try to brush it off or avoid it, the more the media gets to add their own spin to it and turn us into people that we’re not.”

  Austin’s eyes tracked his father’s movements across the screen. It had been nearly two decades since he’d last seen the man and just like back then, he’d hated him. However, there was no longer a son’s underlying need for unconditional acceptance from his father living somewhere in that hate.

  Back then, he’d tried everything he could think of to get his father to accept him just the way he was, as well as accept who he chose to befriend. But, as he watched as William answer questions in the middle of his front lawn and in front of a house that should have been destroyed years ago, that need for acceptance was nowhere to be found. It had been engulfed by pure contempt.

  “You’re right.” He turned to face Sommer. “We’ve got to get in front of this. I’ll call Gary and give old Willie Riley his interview. But first, I have a question. Jessica told me that she thinks Kyle is the one who leaked that my father was still alive and gave your name to the press. That night we went to Louie’s, you said something about being tossed aside like trash by somebody. Was that person Kyle?”

  Sommer nibbled on her bottom lip and carried her gaze over to the stovetop. “I was talking a little bit about Kyle, and a little bit about my father,” she answered.

  “What did Kyle do?” Austin prodded. “There’s never really been any problems between me and him except now, so whatever the problem is, it seems to be related to you.”

  Sommer shifted her weight onto her other leg. “Well, the four years me and Kyle spent together at NC State, we became pretty close. Really good friends. Somewhere along the line, his view of our relationship got blurred and he started seeing me as his property, rather than just his friend. Kyle’s always been the possessive type. The formulaic only-child used to getting whatever he wants.”

  She stopped and Austin tilted his head, indicating that he knew that her story wasn’t over. Sighing, Sommer climbed onto a bar stool.

  “After we graduated, I started working at a small PR firm in Charlotte and he moved to Miami. We kept in touch quite often, and it was through those conversations that he found out about the crush that I’d had on you for all those years. Once he found out, he started showering me with gifts that I would politely return. When that didn’t work, he introduced me to all of his girlfriends and told me about how wonderful they were. Each time, I’d only be happy for him. When that didn’t work, everything went back to normal…until I got offered the job at that firm in New York. It was short notice, so when I told him, he offered to let me stay at a place that he’d bought out there. I accepted because I needed something quick, and told him that it would only be for a few months until I got everything figured out.”

  She started wringing her hands together and Austin could already tell that he didn’t like where the story was headed.

  “So, I moved to New York and everything was perfect. The job was perfect, the place was perfect. It was wonderful. Then, on a whim, I decided to buy a ticket to the game Dallas was playing in New York. Kyle called the same night I bought the ticket and I told him, not thinking anything of it because we were just friends. He said that it was his team’s bye week so he’d come along. I didn’t think anything of it until that night in bed when I felt someone climb in next to me.”

  Austin’s jaw clenched and he sat in the stool across from her, never breaking his gaze.

  “I was scared out of my mind,” Sommer went on, “But once I realized it was Kyle, the terror waned some. I was more confused as to why he was in bed with me. He then explained that he didn’t like the fact that, even after all these years when he’d been there for me, I still kept an image of you hanging like a shadow over our relationship. That was when I first realized that he’d seen our relationship completely different than I did.”

  She closed her eyes. “I made the mistake of telling him that he and I had never been in a relationship, and pointed out that I’d dated several men since college, all of which he’d known about. His answer to that was that those were regular men. Middle-class men. He would always be better than them and I would have always come back to him. But you, he saw as a threat for some reason.”

  “Because he knew how I felt about you,” Austin filled in. “Me and Kyle didn’t see each other much, just those times when we played on the same field, and each time I would ask him about Yearwood. Then, I would ask him about you. Even when I was seeing Jessica, I would ask him about you. Or I’d ask my mother about you. I’d even ask Arielle about you.”

  Sommer’s face flushed as she smiled. As it seemed, regardless of their fears or circumstances, fate had made sure that there would be a way for them to be together.

  “Well, when I told Kyle that there’d never be anything between me and him, he went crazy,” she continued. “He broke my laptop in half. Destroyed lamps and furniture. It was literally like a spoiled child’s tantrum. So, I let him throw his tantrum and when he was done, he fell to his knees in front of me and apologized. I told him that it would be okay and tried not to sound too scared, looking at all the destruction he’d just caused. After that, he left. The next day, on my way home from work, I came back to changed locks, a note on the door telling me that I’d been ‘evicted,’ and directions to the storage facility where I could pick up my things. Then, I got a call from my uncle about Mom’s breast cancer. That’s how I ended up moving back home. I’m not proud to admit it now, but I literally just gave up on everything.”

  “You ran,” Austin surmised.

  “I ran.”

  “Well, we’re going to stop running, Sommer.”

  They both turned to look at the TV. Yet again, another loop of William’s statement was displayed on the screen. This time, it also included commentary from a few other players across the league as they weighed-in with their opinions on the matter. So far, Austin had garnered nothing but support from his colleagues, another thing for which he’d been extremely grateful. His father had assumed that, at the center of everything, the world had remained the same from the days when his bigotry was the norm. Now, they were going to demolish that entire ideology by showing him exactly how much everything had changed.

  “One more thing.” Sommer reached into the front pocket of the sweatshirt and pulled out the ring box. “About this—”

  “What about it?” Austin asked, challenging her with his eyes.

  “We’re you really going to propose to me on live television?”

  “Yes,” he answered, confidently slipping the box from her fingers. “I had it all planned out. I was going to bring you and Livvie up to the platform. I was going to introduce Livvie, just like I did, and then hand her off to Ma. Do you want to hear the speech I had planned?”

  Sommer touched a hand to her chest. “You wrote a speech? I’d love to hear it.”

  He turned off the flat-screen and walked her by the hand out to the living area. Sommer sank into the sofa.

  “Well, after Ma took Livvie,” he began, “I was going to turn around and say: Today is probably going to go down as one of the most memorable days of my life. As kids, we spend most of our time dreaming about the things that we want to accomplish. These things might change as we get older, but at the end of the day, our goal revolves around our own version of a perfect life. For me, I can say that I’m one of those lucky kids who had the chance to live my dream. Ever since I was nine years old, I knew that I wanted to be a quarterback, buy my mother a BMW, secure the financial future of my family, and win a Championship. Ever since I was nine years old, I also knew that I wanted to marry Sommer Hayes.”

  Sommer lowered her eyes and smiled, and he responded to her embarrassment with a boyish grin.

  “She was my number one enemy,” he went on. “If I was fire, she’d have to be ice. If I was scissors, she was always rock.
We’d argue over everything and scream how much we hated each other, but if a bee had so much as threatened to try and sting her, I would have probably taken down the whole hive. I was the only one with permission to hate her because I knew, deep down, I truly didn’t hate her. It would be nearly twenty years before I found out that she’d felt the same way.

  “Then I was going to turn to you and get on one knee,” he explained, demonstrating. “After that, I was going to say: Today, I’m standing here as a professional quarterback. Check. I just bought my mother a 5-series, my family’s future is secure, and Dallas just won the Championship. Check. I guess that the last thing I need to check off the list is marrying Sommer Hayes, so…,” he opened the box and the sight of the ring again took Sommer’s breath away, “…will you marry me, Sommer?”

  Sommer stood and clapped her hands. “That was really good, Austin. That would have been an excellent speech.”

  He didn’t move.

  “So, will you, Sommer?”

  Sommer’s fingers went ice cold. “Will I what?”

  “Marry me. Be Mrs. Sommer Riley.”

  “Mrs. Sommer Hayes-Riley,” she corrected, her eyes brimming with tears. “And yes, of course I’ll marry you, Austin! Of course, of course, of course!”

  He finally got the chance to slip the ring onto her finger, and it fit perfectly as though it was designed to be nowhere else. He then stood and lifted her into his arms, kissing her as he walked them back to the bedroom. He placed her in the center of the bed and hovered over her body.

  “You and that damn hyphenation,” he teased with a grin, and then filled his senses with her taste and smell, and his hands with her heated skin and the soft mounds of flesh he released from their enclosure.

  He tortured her with impassioned lovemaking which she returned with the same intensity. She stroked and tasted him. He ran his tongue agonizingly slow over her naked body and then inside of her, licking and gently tugging her into frenzied fits of ecstasy. He filled her with restrained urgency, and she cried his name into the walls. She rode him and he took her from behind. Although he made love to her all night and well into the next morning, she’d finally given him the chance to love her much longer.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wendy found that she couldn’t tear her attention away from Austin and Sommer as they sat in a plush sofa on the other side of the studio. Austin was insanely handsome in crisp suit, tie, and vest combination while Sommer sat in his lap in a coral colored top and cream pencil skirt, looking nothing like a woman who’d just given birth a mere two months ago. The two were talking and laughing like old friends, an obvious indication of how long they’d known each other.

  “Ms. Carter?”

  Wendy looked up.

  “Do you want to do a red lip or nude lip?”

  The woman standing in front of her swirled a kabuki brush across her cheeks, and then pointed to the lipstick palette next to her. Wendy mechanically looked at the palette, but her gaze uncontrollably went to Austin and Sommer again, then up towards Arielle, her husband, and Emma Riley just arriving on the set.

  “Ms. Carter?”

  “Red,” Wendy answered. “Let’s stick with red. That’s my power color.”

  In just a few minutes, she was going to give one of the most important interviews of her life, but it suddenly started to trouble her that her goal had been to try to show everyone in the nation that Austin truly didn’t love Sommer. To prove that he’d hidden her because he was afraid of what the world would think about his daughter’s mother, and how their relationship would affect his career.

  Usually, whenever she interviewed couples on her show, she would instantly be able to determine at which point they were faking. If it wasn’t the way they seemed to avoid each other while walking around the set, it was the way their affection seemed overdone as though they were trying to convince themselves, along with everyone around them, that they actually tolerated each other.

  But this couple was different.

  Austin was relaxed as he sat in the chair with one arm around Sommer’s waist, and they were sharing a cream cheese filled croissant from the breakfast table. Sommer broke a piece with her fingers before slipping it into his mouth, and if any of the pastry happened to get on his face, she’d remove it as though touching his face was the most commonplace thing in the world. Their exchange was so intimate that Wendy felt as though she was watching them in secret, so why was she so ready to discredit that? What was it about Austin’s relationship with Sommer that made her believe that the love she was currently witnessing between them was false?

  “Where do I get my makeup put on?” A towering voice bellowed from behind her chair. When she spun around, this time dressed in a charcoal gray suit and yellow dress shirt, sauntered in the controversial William Riley.

  *****

  The room fell quiet and Austin’s grip around Sommer’s waist tightened as though an enemy had walked in. When Sommer turned towards the voice that had just exploded into the room, she realized that one had.

  Arielle slipped her hand into Justin’s, and Emma held the gaze of the man that she loathed more than anything else in the world, despite the fact that he was father to her two absolutely wonderful children.

  “Is this a funeral?” William joked, strolling over to the breakfast table with a hand in his pocket. He picked up a cube of cheese and popped it into his mouth.

  “This must be what rich, fancy people eat for breakfast. No wonder you TV broads stay so skinny.”

  When no one responded to his quip, he chuckled to himself and moved over to a bunch of grapes sitting on a tray next to the cheese.

  “You know, there are utensils that you can use to pick those up,” Justin spoke up, already annoyed by the man’s presence. “We all pretty much have access to that buffet. It would be nice if your fingers weren’t in it.”

  William continued to pluck grapes off the stem as though no one in the room had spoken.

  “Alright people, we’re on in three minutes,” the director announced. “Mr. Riley, if you’d come over here, I’m going to show you where to sit.”

  “I’m only sitting next to my son,” William asserted.

  “Don’t put that man any less than two feet away from me,” Austin warned. “Unless you want this civilized show to turn into Jerry Springer.”

  The response only seemed to amuse William.

  “Alright, fine,” he conceded. “Then sit me next to my lovely wife. How have things been with you these days, Emma? You are still as beautiful as ever. My bed has been mighty cold without you in it.”

  Emma’s eyes bore into his, but she didn’t offer a response. William chuckled again, rubbed his hands together, and then turned to the director.

  “Where do I sit now?”

  Three minutes later, with the exception of Justin, they were all situated in front of the camera. William sat alone on Wendy’s left side while the other four sat to her right. Austin kept a tight grasp on Sommer’s fingers as though he expected William to spring forward and grab her. William refused to take his eyes off of his son. He was even more proud of the specimen Austin had become now that he was looking at him in person.

  “It’s the interview that everyone has been waiting for,” Wendy announced, looking at the camera. “Today, I’m here with star quarterback Austin Riley, his sister, Arielle Wells, his mother, Emma Riley, and the woman we’ve all been waiting to meet, Sommer Hayes. Also with us today is William Riley, the father that everyone once thought was dead.”

  She turned to William. “The first thing that I want to address is the controversial statement that you made on national TV a few days ago.”

  “What’s so controversial about it?” William brazenly asked. “Look, I understand that these things can be sensitive to talk about, but what did I say that was wrong?”

  Austin’s fist clenched.

  “Are you a racist, Mr. Riley?” Wendy asked.

  “Of course not. I think you all are taking w
hat I said out of context. I’m not saying that Sommer shouldn’t be married or have children one day. I’m just saying that it should be with someone other than Austin.”

  “And what kind of someone is that?” Arielle cut in.

  William smiled at the little girl that he used to carry on his shoulders. “Someone that looks more like her.”

  Austin’s grip went even tighter and Arielle took a quick glance over at Justin.

  “So, what about me and Justin?” she asked. “What about our children? We have four of the most perfect, precious, and wonderful children in the world. What do you say to that?”

  William smiled again. “I’ll be honest and say that half-breed children are nice looking. Just look at that Halle Berry woman. And Derek Jeter.”

  Arielle started to rise from her seat, but Austin grabbed her with his other hand.

  “Mr. Riley,” Wendy interjected, “Did you really just call your grandchildren half-breeds?”

  William shrugged as if there’d been no problem with the way he’d answered the previous question. Wendy stared at his face in disbelief for a few seconds before she continued.

  “If we took a poll right now, Mr. Riley, do you think America would think you’re racist?”

  William shrugged again. “Everybody’s trying to be politically correct these days. They would answer in a poll that they think I am, but it would be a different story if we had a one on one conversation.”