Five-Star

by J Santiago

  She wasn’t scared. She didn’t freak out. She knew it was him by the gentle hold on her arms and the familiar smell.

  She wanted to step on his instep and elbow him in the balls, but she merely stopped walking, took a deep breath, and said on a sigh, “What do you want, Tank?”

  “Don’t leave,” Tank said, keeping enough distance between them to both frustrate and excite him.

  Again, with the sigh. “Why? Did you want me to watch you fuck that girl, too?”

  He almost laughed at her assessment of the situation. “Nah, I wasn’t planning on fucking her,” he said as he gently turned her around. Then, he dropped his hands.

  “What do you want?” she said, her frustration and anger radiating off of her.

  “I don’t want you to leave,” he said, understanding the complete discord between his words and his actions inside his apartment.

  She rolled her eyes. “Could have fooled me.”

  He knew that he should insert the word sorry right there, but he wasn’t sure if he was, so he didn’t. After her no to his invitation this morning, he was feeling a bit spiteful and pissed. He definitely didn’t mind that she was mad; he kind of felt like she deserved it.

  “Look, I asked you to stay. You gonna turn me down twice in one day?” He sorta spit the words out at her, his little bit of mad mixed in with the invitation.

  “Ah,” she said, nodding her head, as if she’d just solved a complicated equation.

  “What?” He bristled.

  “So, that’s what this is about. Breakfast?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked with feigned innocence.

  “The ignored text, the girl all up on you. This is all because I didn’t go to breakfast with you and your mom?”

  He bowed up, spoiling for a fight, so he could let loose some of his frustration with the day and the way it’d turned out. “Am I not supposed to be with other girls? Had we gone there?”

  She glared at him. “Nope. I don’t think we have gone there. But, next time, you might want to space us out better.”

  “Last I checked, I didn’t ask you to come here tonight,” he fired back, his sense of self-righteousness growing by the second.

  “Funny, I swear you followed me out here to beg me to stay.”

  Maybe it was the word choice or her mocking glare, but whatever it was, Tank felt he’d been pushed too far, the day unbelievably heavy on his back. He almost scoffed at her. But, instead, he pushed in close, moving her back against her car, his body flush against hers. He could sense the change in her breathing, feel the curves of her body giving against the solid metal beneath her. He ran his hands up from her thighs to her arms, from the tip of her fingers to her shoulders, across her collarbone and her neck, until her face was cradled by his hands. He rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip and then followed it with his tongue and his teeth as he gently caught it and tugged. Amber’s breath hitched, and she seemed to melt into him. He felt it, too—this incredible desire to sink into her and forget all the shit of the day.

  His body was taut with desire, so when his mouth captured hers, the kiss took on a life of its own with his tongue moving in, exploring her mouth, his hands moving down her body, beneath her shirt. He pulled her closer and then leaned them both back against the car. He almost got lost in her, but then he heard the moan escape her throat and as she hauled him closer, and he remembered that he was mad. He drew away from her mouth but kept their bodies pressed together.

  “I never beg,” he stated simply as he put space between them, breaking all contact.

  Her eyes snapped open, but they were still glazed with the desire that had immediately ignited when they kissed. Her languid look told him that what he’d said hadn’t hit her yet. So, he waited impatiently for his statement to take hold. He watched her eyes as the comprehension sank in, and they filled with the same kind of mad he was feeling.

  She pushed away from the car, backing him up. Then, like a fury, she lit into him.

  “I get it, you know. I really do. I understand you put yourself out there with that invitation, and I hate that I disappointed you and left you hanging like that. I just…I couldn’t do it. I still had Tilly’s little pep talk in my head, and I just…I wanted to go but—ugh! I know I’m hard, but so are you. You go all, ‘I’m Tank Howard. Bow down before me,’ on me,” she said as she threw her hands up for the air quotes. “And I get it. I so fucking get it. You are Tank Howard. Mr. Five Star. Mr. Heisman. But, shit, cut me some fucking slack. Can’t your ego just cut me some fucking slack?”

  He hated to admit, even secretly to himself, that he was pissed off at her for not coming with him this morning. Yes, he’d asked her to go with him to meet his mom in the afterglow of some really hot sex, but even he could admit that he wouldn’t have asked her if he hadn’t wanted her to come with him. And she’d essentially turned him down, bruised his ego. She seemed to forget a lot who he was. He could be with any girl that he wanted. But he wasn’t, didn’t want to be. He just needed her to respect that he could. That she knew all that and called him out on it scared the shit out of him.

  So, instead of being mature and admitting that everything she’d said was true, he slid right into being Tank Howard. “Nah,” he said. Then, he turned his back on her and walked away.

  Twenty-Nine

  Cy came barreling into the coaches’ meeting room with a piece of paper in his hand and a smile on his face. “With South Carolina, Nebraska, and Michigan’s losses, we just broke the top ten. We’re number nine!”

  If he’d come a couple of minutes earlier, he’d have gotten a reaction worthy of his excitement. Unfortunately, Franco had gotten a congratulatory text from Whitey, and he’d shared it with the rest of his staff.

  “Thanks, Cy,” Franco said, a hint of a smile lurking around his mouth. “We just heard.”

  “Oh,” Cy responded, masking his disappointment. “Well, congratulations.”

  Cy turned to leave as Franco and his staff got back to the business of discussing practice for the following day. They worked a couple of hours longer and then broke for the night.

  Franco made his way to his office and was surprised to find Molly standing there. He hadn’t seen much of her since the night in her office. He wasn’t sure if she had been avoiding him or if he had been avoiding her or if their jobs had just inserted responsibility in their way. Seeing her now though made him wish that he’d seen her in the interim.

  “Hey,” he murmured as he made his way to her, caught up in some overwhelming desire to put them where they’d been last week.

  He had almost reached her when she sidestepped him and purposefully put the chairs in front of his desk between them. He tried to recover from his surprise by acting as if walking directly to her hadn’t been his intent.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as he ran his hand through his hair and walked behind his desk, trying to overcome the awkwardness of the last few seconds.

  “We have a problem, Franco,” she said, taking a seat in the cockblocking chair.

  He sat and leaned back in his chair, throwing his legs up on the desk. He looked at her like, Whatcha got?

  “Tomorrow, President Holdiman is going to receive a letter of inquiry from the NCAA,” she said matter-of-factly, like she’d just told him that his shirt was green.

  Franco shed his air of nonchalance, quickly dropping his feet and leaning forward in his chair. “What exactly does that mean?”

  “It means that they have reason to believe that we’ve committed a violation, which needs to be investigated.”

  “What the fuck? What violation? We haven’t committed any violations.”

  He saw her take a deep breath and knew he wasn’t going to like what was about to come out of her mouth.

  “The violation in question has to do with Tank receiving benefits from an agent.”

  Franco snapped back, as if he’d been slapped. “An agent? Tank hasn’t had any contact with any agent.”

  “I’m
just telling you the little I know. Unfortunately, I don’t know anything else right now.”

  “Why the hell not?” he barked, anger and confusion taking over.

  “I’m probably not even supposed to know about the letter of inquiry since it hasn’t reached campus yet. It was a courtesy call because I happen to know some people.”

  Franco got up and started pacing, running his hand through his hair, as he tried to figure out what was going on. “Explain it to me,” he said. “What’s a letter of inquiry mean?”

  “The letter of inquiry will explain the alleged violation and give us a list of people that we have to talk to. It will essentially detail the charges and tell us how they want us to go about investigating it. We’ll have to interview everyone on the list. Then, we have to send a response in writing to the NCAA. If they don’t agree with what we send, they could send an investigator to come and interview everyone again. After that would come a notice of allegations, which would specifically spell out the violations and potential infractions.”

  “Who does the interviewing?”

  “Initially?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do.”

  Franco nodded. “Worst case?”

  “I don’t know and won’t know until we know what we are dealing with.”

  “Guess,” he ordered as he stopped pacing and looked at her.

  “Worst case is that it would affect Tank’s eligibility to play and, of course, the season.”

  “What? We can’t pull him. It would ruin his chance at the Heisman. Plus, everyone would think he’s guilty of whatever trumped up allegations are out there. That’s bullshit!” His voice rose as he got angrier at whatever this was.

  He couldn’t get over the timing. They’d broken the top ten, Tank was leading the Heisman race, and suddenly, there were some crazy allegations about him talking to an agent.

  “You asked for the worst case,” she calmly stated. “Worst case is that whatever is in the letter of inquiry is true, and we have to declare him ineligible. If he played and we found out that the allegations were true, then you’d have forfeit any game that he’d played in. That’s the worst case.”

  “Tank and I have been over this a number of times. He hasn’t been talking to an agent, much less getting anything from one.”

  “Coach, let’s be honest. You don’t know if he’s been talking to an agent or if his parents have been talking to an agent.”

  “Wait, what?” Everything around Franco slowed down as the reality of her words reverberated in his office. “What do you mean, his parents?”

  “I mean, his parents. It’s a violation for him or any of his family to receive anything from an agent. Marco Smith ring a bell?”

  Marco Smith definitely rang a bell. He was an all-American receiver whose parents had moved into a house provided to them by an agent. It had cost him and his university greatly. Franco had conveniently chosen not to think about Marco Smith.

  Franco’s world shifted a little at the seams. He could feel Molly watching him, gauging his knowledge, judging his reactions. He tried not to let the horror of the situation seep into his facial expression.

  “When will you get the letter?”

  “The letter will go directly to the President, but the faculty athletic rep, the athletic director, and I will all be copied on it. We’ll probably all meet tomorrow to figure out how to go about this. I imagine Cy and the university’s press person will be there to come up with a strategy for the media. I’ll probably have to set up interviews this week. We need to be able to have a good idea of if we can refute the letter before we take the field on Saturday.”

  “Why’s that?” Franco asked.

  “Because, Coach, it’s going to be up to me to determine if his playing will force us to forfeit wins later and bring bad press to the university. Whether or not Tank plays on Saturday isn’t going to be left up to you. It’s probably going to be my call.”

  Ah, this is why you don’t kiss your director of compliance, he thought.

  But he could only guess what she was thinking because she wasn’t giving anything away.

  This is why you don’t get involved with a man you work with, Molly thought as she watched Franco process her statement.

  Yes, it would be her call about whether or not Tank stepped on the field on Saturday. And, right now, she wished it could be anyone but her.

  She watched Franco pace his office, his hands running through his hair, frustration and helplessness swirling around him. She wanted to move toward him and offer him any comfort he would be willing to take. But she knew what she wanted was impossible.

  When she’d first seen him and he’d walked toward her earlier, she’d almost met him halfway, almost thrown herself into his arms, almost begged him to shove the papers off his desk and take her. But then her career had flashed before her eyes, and she’d cockblocked him with a chair. Not very graceful or subtle, but certainly effective.

  Molly was already all mixed up about what she’d shared with Franco. She’d done a good job of staying out of his way over the last couple of days, content to just think dreamily about how good it had felt when their lips met and his tongue tangled with hers, when he spread her open on her desk and taken what he wanted from her. She wanted him. Badly.

  Then, she’d gotten a call from her former boss. A school had filed a report of a violation with their compliance director, who had forwarded it to their conference office. From there, it had escalated, and here they were, on the eve of receiving a letter from the NCAA that would put a cloud over their dream season and on the career of Tank Howard. No matter the outcome of the investigation, people would now associate them with cheating and Tank with doing something below board. There were no winners in this. In the court of public opinion, an NCAA investigation meant guilty. Everyone would always wonder.

  She didn’t know what this whole thing was about, but she was intrigued by the timing also. If they weren’t a BCS buster this year, would they even be dealing with this? She wasn’t a conspiracy theorist kind of person, but she could appreciate where Franco was coming from.

  Ha, she thought. She could appreciate Franco.

  “So, what happens tomorrow?” Franco asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  She managed to bite back a sarcastic retort. “Uh, tomorrow, we’ll get the letter and probably meet. Then, we’ll determine the course of action.”

  “Tomorrow’s Tuesday. It’s a big day for practice. Then, we leave on Friday. So, break it down for me. Think it forward. The violation is about Tank. You interview him. You interview me—”

  “I don’t interview you, Coach,” she said, interrupting him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m bringing in general counsel to help me conduct the interviews.”

  Franco’s brow furrowed, and he stopped pacing to study her from a couple of feet away.

  “General counsel will conduct the interviews. I’ll recuse myself from asking questions and making any contribution, other than coming up with questions and directing the general counsel on what he needs to do.”

  Their eyes met, and they stared at one another from the expanse of a couple of feet, but the memory of Molly splayed open on her desk and Franco’s head between her legs seemed to shimmer between the two of them. Molly felt her cheeks heat.

  Franco sighed audibly before looking away from her. “That makes sense,” he commented.

  She shifted back, trying to put distance between them. “I just think that, after last week, I shouldn’t be the one asking questions.”

  “No reason to explain, and I agree.”

  “It’s just the right thing to do, Franco. And I don’t regret it,” she said. She knew she was merely reiterating her point, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from saying it again.

  “Molly, I’m not arguing with you. I agree,” he said.

  The impatience in his voice seemed to snap her out of her bumbling explanations.

  They stared a
t each other again, the tension palpable between them.

  “General counsel will interview Tank and me. Who else do you think will have to be interviewed?” Franco asked.

  Molly took a steadying breath. His proximity had made her body want to be closer, but now, she could think better. “Without knowing the specifics, I would say his mother and his father. We might need to ask for phone records, text messages. I just don’t know yet.”

  “You have to interview Richard?” Franco asked, incredulous.

  She looked at him warily. “We’re going to have to interview whoever we feel we need to, so when Tank steps on the field, we are confident that he is clear.”

  Almost like she’d drawn a line in the sand, Franco removed himself from her proximity completely. Running his hands through his hair again, obviously frustrated, he faced her, in complete coach mode. “It’s Monday. We leave on Friday. And, when we leave, Tank is coming with us. So, we have three days to figure this out.” He raked her with his gaze. “Let’s get started.”

  You can pull the coach card. Watch this, you motherfucker.

  “I’ll have a schedule of interview times on your desk first thing tomorrow. But make no mistake; if I feel like Tank shouldn’t play this weekend, he won’t play. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Thirty

  Tank slung the towel around his neck and sat on the bench, staring through the mirror in front of him, as he relived the events of the last few days.

  When Franco had called him into his office, the atmosphere had swirled with some unnamed tension.

  “Tank,” Franco had begun, “we have a problem.”

  Tank, like the shithead he could be, immediately thought of Amber and grimaced internally. Really, my coach is gonna give me shit ’cause I got into it with his daughter? But he waited, trying not to shift uncomfortably in his chair.