Changing the Play

by Julia Blake

  Oh yeah, he had done that. The memory of it all came flooding back to him. Standing on the porch of the Loder house. Talking his way into the front room. Mrs. Loder fixing him with a hard stare as though she could see right into his soul. And then, after an hour of talking about the interview, his job, Kevin’s prospects, everything, she’d finally called her son down. Kevin sat and listened to what Nick had to say. And then the kid with monster talent started nodding.

  That’s when Nick knew he’d broken through.

  “So Mrs. Loder spoke to you, huh?” he asked, propping himself up on his elbow.

  “At four thirty this morning,” said Rachel, “so don’t even try to make me feel guilty about waking you up.”

  She sounded riled up underneath that veneer of professionalism she wore like a badge. A groggy smile slipped over his face. “You know, when I dreamed about you waking me up in high school, you always sounded a lot less angry.”

  A little intake of breath on the other end of the line sent blood shooting straight to his cock. He shifted a bit, trying to find a comfortable position while half-hard.

  “That’s not funny,” she said.

  “Wasn’t meant to be.”

  After a few moments’ silence, she sighed. “You’ve got Loder.”

  He pumped the air with his fist but tried to keep the excitement out of his voice when he asked, “Just like that?”

  “No, not just like that. Because you went behind my back, we do this my way.”

  He chuckled. “As though any self-respecting reporter would just roll over for an agent.”

  “I’m giving you an exclusive interview with Kevin. I can take it away if you screw me over, and then you’ll have nothing.”

  She pitched her voice low, seductive with an edge. Its whiskey tones wrapped around him, tempting him to give in.

  Not a chance.

  Squinting hard, he found his glasses and slid them on. Then he grabbed the notebook and pen he kept on the nightstand. “I’m going to make your guy look like the poster child of comeback stories just in time for the draft.”

  “One fifteen-minute interview at our studio here in the Image offices,” she said.

  “Three half-day sessions,” he shot back, uncapping his pen and sitting up. “One in studio, one at his house, one at his old playing field at Xaverian High School. Plus access to all family and an on-camera neighborhood walk-and-talk where he was shot.”

  She laughed. “I’m an agent, not an angel. One hour, exclusive.”

  “Two interviews. One at home. One on the field at Xaverian. Plus access to one of his gym sessions so we can shoot b-roll. And the neighborhood walk-and-talk.”

  “The on-field interview rolled into a gym session at Xaverian. The kid’s got to train,” she reminded him.

  He grinned. “We’re getting closer.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not getting the walk-and-talk.”

  His pen paused on the paper. “Why?”

  “Would you want to go back to the scene of the most traumatic time in your life?” she asked.

  It wasn’t a bad point, but he wasn’t going to let it go that easily. “How about this? A walk-and-talk if Kevin’s comfortable. He’s a draft prospect, not a criminal. I’m not going to force the kid to do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

  He could tell from her silence she didn’t like the terms. Still, he wasn’t going to give in. He wanted to take viewers where Kevin had trained, lived, and gone to school. He’d tell the story—the whole story—of how Kevin got to where he was now. The shooting was part of that, just as much as any touchdown pass Kevin had ever caught.

  He pressed again. “I want to tell this profile well. You’ve got to give me the tools to do that.”

  She sighed. “No walk-and-talk, but you can ask about the shooting during the in-studio interview. Once. If Kevin shows any signs that you’re making him uncomfortable, I’m killing it and any subsequent interviews with family.”

  He grunted. They’d see about that, but for now he’d pushed her far enough.

  “Okay,” he said, putting her on speakerphone so he could open his calendar app, “when can we do this?”

  “Next Monday. Kevin’s working out with his old coach at Xaverian between one and three p.m.” Then, probably because she’d heard the whip of him punching the air again, she quickly added, “I’m not promising you’re going to get half a day with him.”

  He grinned as he typed the appointment into his calendar. “It was worth a try.”

  “We’ll meet you there at one thirty. You can talk to Kevin while he’s working out. If that goes well, we’ll schedule a sit-down interview here at Image on our set. Oh, and Nick? If he wants to cut the interview short for any reason, you’re going to respect that. This kid’s under a lot of stress. The draft is in just a few weeks.”

  “Understood. What about the house visit?”

  “Why don’t we see how Monday goes and plan from there?”

  He should’ve called it a victory and let the conversation end there, but all of a sudden he was saying the words, “Why don’t you and I meet for dinner?”

  “What?” Her response came out more than a little strangled.

  He wanted to sit across a table from her and talk like normal people without their past hanging between them. Without him wondering if she was too smart and too good for a guy like him.

  “Hear me out. I want to run some things by you before I talk to Kevin. Basic stuff so that I’m not wasting my time asking him a lot of bio questions,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “And we can’t talk on the phone because?”

  “Because there’s this Italian place in my neighborhood that I go to, and every time I’m there solo, the owner tries to set me up with her daughter.”

  It wasn’t a lie. Camilla was ruthless when it came to trying to marry off Andrea. Never mind that Andrea was twenty-one years old and interested in nothing but her art degree.

  “Why don’t you just stop going there?” asked Rachel. “In this city you can throw a rock and hit an Italian spot.”

  “This place has the best lasagna you’ll ever eat. And I thought that rock thing’s what people said about bars.”

  “It works for both.”

  “Come on,” he coaxed. “Thursday night.”

  “No,” Rachel said.

  “I can promise you great lasagna and really mediocre chianti that may or may not come from a glass jug.”

  She stayed quiet so long, he started to worry she’d hung up. Finally she said, “If the lasagna isn’t the best in the city, I’m deducting you interview hours.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said, trying for suave and probably just sounding like a happy goofball. He was getting his interview, he’d gotten one over on one of the most powerful women in sports management, and he was going to have dinner with Rachel Pollard, the girl he’d been too scared and stupid to ask out in high school. This was shaping up to be a good week.

  She laughed once. “I really hope I don’t regret this, Nick. I’ll see you Thursday.”

  Nick ended the call, then whooped loud enough to set the neighbor’s dog barking.

  “Sorry, Rufus!” he shouted as he called Mindy.

  It took four rings for his producer to pick up.

  “Nick,” Mindy said, sounding like her mouth was stuffed with cotton balls, “you better be in jail and looking for someone to bail you out or I’m hanging up right now.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. I just got off the phone with Rachel Pollard.”

  He could hear Mindy sit straight up in bed. “And?”

  “Book a photog. We’ve got a date on Monday at one thirty.”

  Chapter 5

  Rachel had lived in New York City for more than a decade. At this point, it was home. But that didn’t stop her from cursing some of the c
ity’s more annoying habits—like restaurants refusing to seat a reservation until everyone in the party was there. That’s why she was standing at the hostess podium of Santino’s, her arms crossed, wondering where Nick was so she could get this dinner over with.

  Admittedly, she was early. She wanted to be the one dictating the terms of their meeting this time, wresting back the control she felt slipping through her fingers. Tonight she’d lay down the rules for how this piece about Kevin was going to go. Her way.

  Except now her plan was being thwarted by a hostess who wouldn’t let her sit.

  At least it was a chance to do a little work. She pulled out her phone and began scrolling through her emails. A few minor questions and scheduling issues that she could take care of in the morning popped up. Her text messages and Twitter notifications didn’t reveal any fires that needed to be put out either. The one time she wanted a moderately sized disaster to keep her busy and her clients were actually behaving themselves. What were the odds?

  She’d just refreshed her email app again when the restaurant’s front door swung wide open. Cold March air rushed in, and there was Nick in a pair of black jeans that hugged his hips. His black peacoat was open to show a gray sweater with the collar of a white button down shirt peaked over it. He stopped at the sight of her and grinned while a flash of something that might be relief sparked in his eyes.

  Nick looked even better dressed down than he did TV-ready in a suit and tie, and that just wasn’t fair.

  He strode into the entryway and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Hi,” he murmured as his lips feathered over her skin, his hand instinctively going to her elbow.

  She tried to stop her breath from hissing in, desperate to control the throb between her legs. The part of her that didn’t give a damn about business meetings wanted him to slide his kiss just two inches to the left and settle his lips over hers. She couldn’t help her head-to-toe shiver when he touched her, even with the fabric of her heavy coat acting as a barrier. This close, she could smell the freshness of his soap, clean with a hint of ocean air and the faintest dash of spice, and feel the heat rolling off his body after his brisk walk through the cold night. He was comfort, danger, and desire all rolled into one delicious contradiction, and her body ached for him even while logic shouted at her to stop.

  Surreptitiously she pressed her hand right below her belly button, trying to control some of the heat that flushed through her. She was here for work. Nothing else.

  But if you were different people—if you’d met a different way . . .

  “Have you been waiting long?” asked Nick as he pulled back, buying her a reprieve from her warring thoughts.

  “Not too long.”

  “Let me get us a table,” he said, turning to the hostess. “Angela, how’s business tonight?”

  The hostess’s smile was two city blocks wide, but it wasn’t flirtatious. She looked more like a kid sister who knew her big brother was screwed.

  “Never been better now that you’re here, Nicky,” Angela said.

  He stuffed his hands in his jean pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Aw, look at that. You’re actually happy to see me.”

  Angela laughed. “Nice try, smooth talker. I’m just happy that Momma’s here.”

  Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Andrea broke up with that guy she met down at the shore last year,” said Angela, as smug as could be.

  Nick groaned. “Come on. I thought I was safe.”

  “Never.” Angela nodded in Rachel’s direction. “And what are you doing leaving your girlfriend waiting for fifteen minutes?”

  He frowned, and for a moment Rachel thought he was going to deny that they were involved. Instead he asked, “Why didn’t you text me? I live right around the corner.”

  She held up her phone and waved it. “As long as I have this, I have work with me. No big deal.”

  Except the way he was looking at her made it feel like a big deal. Like he was disappointed in himself for screwing something up.

  “I’ll have to make it up to you,” he said. “Let’s get a table.”

  Angela snatched up two menus, and they followed her to the back of the restaurant, where a bank of cozy booths lined the wall. Nick helped pull out the table so Rachel could slide in before he took the chair across from her.

  “Welcome to Santino’s,” he said with some flair after Angela left them to their menus.

  “Home of the best lasagna in Manhattan?” Rachel asked.

  “You were paying attention,” he said, casual and easy where she was tense and wound up. It was like planning four steps ahead in a game of chess and realizing your partner couldn’t care less about where his pieces were on the board. And yet he still expected to win.

  “I’ve got a good memory,” she said.

  “You always have. The guys on the baseball team were always totally clueless when Coach Callahan quizzed us about defensive positions he’d scouted, but you knew where we needed to be and when every time.”

  “Not a lot else to do when the athletes you’re managing don’t really want you there,” she said with a shrug. And yet she couldn’t help the long dormant hollowness that opened inside of her. All she’d wanted was to be allowed into their little world of sports and brotherhood. She wanted to belong to something.

  Well, she did now. She had the connections those high school boys could only dream of. Pick up the phone, and she could be talking to last year’s NBA Finals MVP.

  That’s why Nick’s here, she reminded herself. It had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the athletes she had access to. Scratch that. The athlete.

  “I still don’t really see why you wanted to have dinner,” she said. “We could’ve hashed out these details over the phone.”

  He nodded to her hands that lay clasped on top of the vinyl menu she hadn’t even bothered to open. “You’ve already decided?”

  She quirked a brow. “I’m usually more of a baked ziti girl, but I want to see if your lasagna bragging is warranted.”

  Another of those devastating grins split his face. Another woman might have felt a little weak in the knees, but Rachel wouldn’t know. She was sitting down.

  “That’s not bragging. That’s just fact,” he said. “When I brag, I promise you’ll know.”

  There was no mistaking the low rumble in his voice that accompanied the innuendo.

  “You’re very confident in yourself.”

  “I know my lasagna,” he said, closing his own menu and setting it aside. “So you really want to talk business?”

  “What else would we have to talk about?” she asked, cocking her head.

  “A lot of years have gone by since we last saw each other. I’m sure we could come up with something.”

  She adjusted her silverware before looking up at him. “Don’t take this personally, Nick, but the less we know about each other’s private lives, the better.”

  His smile stayed in place, but she didn’t miss the slight narrowing of his eyes. “I’m beginning to think you’re scared of the past, Rachel.”

  She scoffed. Scared was walking into a room full of old boys’ club MLB owners and general managers, watching as they ran elevator eyes up and down her and immediately checked out mentally as she started speaking. Scared was when a meathead teammate of one of her clients decided it was okay to stalk up to her until she was pinned against a wall in an abandoned locker room so he could try to kiss her, conveniently letting his towel fall off as he got close enough that she could smell his sickening cologne. Rachel Pollard was many things, but she was not scared of some reporter looking for a scoop.

  “I don’t form personal connections with business associates,” she said. “That’s how things get messy.”

  “I’m not a business associate.”

  “You’re a member of t
he press. That’s even worse.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because I don’t trust reporters. They do things like go behind my back to secure interviews.”

  A long silence stretched between then, and she thought maybe she’d offended him. Not that it should matter. Talking to Catherine without her go-ahead should have made her furious—and it had—but it was tough to hold on to that anger while she was sitting across the table from Nick, a candle flickering in the center of the white tablecloth. Here it was harder to pull the veneer of professionalism around her to protect herself.

  “I would apologize for going over your head, but you wouldn’t respect me for it,” he said.

  She lifted her chin. “Would the apology be sincere?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re right.”

  He nodded. “I’m doing my job, just like you are.”

  That was a very valid point. The very nature of their professions put them at odds with each other.

  “I’m not going to make this easy on you,” she said. “Just because you knew me when I used to wear ball caps and Converse every day doesn’t give you a pass.”

  Nick chuckled. “I wouldn’t take it any other way. It wouldn’t be fun.”

  “You think it’s fun to fight with agents?” she asked.

  “Just you.”

  The intensity of his scrutiny was suddenly stifling, so she dipped her head and focused on adjusting her water glass. Anything to keep from having to meet his eyes as he studied her, trying to figure out all of her secrets.

  “You know you do that when you’re nervous,” he said.

  His fingers fell on hers. The light brush of his warm hand against the chill of the goblet sent sparks shooting down her arm.

  “You fidget,” he continued. “You’ve already adjusted the silverware and lined up the glass so that it sits right on top of its condensation ring perfectly. You did it at Artemis too.”

  “No I didn’t,” she said, pulling her hands into her lap. No one had noticed that about her before.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I shred the labels off the necks of beer bottles and make little piles of paper.”