Changing the Play

by Julia Blake

  “This has got to be about a guy,” said Emma.

  Louise just raised her eyebrows and fixed Rachel with a look. It was more effective than any amount of needling.

  Her natural instinct was to shut herself in and pull up the ladder behind her. She didn’t like talking about herself. That’s why she was an agent. Take care of other people’s business, leave hers out of it. But she couldn’t deny that kissing Nick had scrambled her usually ordered brain. Now half of her mind was running a dozen scenarios to avoid ever doing it again, while the other half was jumping up and down that the star athlete of Prescott High had finally kissed her. Even if he was fifteen years late doing it.

  She sighed and gave in to the two expectant faces across from her. “Do you remember that reporter I told you about who took me for drinks to try to get me to give him the Loder exclusive? Well, I granted it to him,” she said, tilting her chin up to brace for the inevitable scowl that would cross Emma’s face at that news. She wasn’t disappointed.

  “I thought you were locking Kevin down,” said Emma.

  “I was,” she said. “The plan changed. And before you ask, it wasn’t my choice.”

  Emma’s blue eyes narrowed. “What did the guy do?”

  “He went over my head,” she said.

  “How?” Emma asked.

  “Mom.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” her friend hissed.

  Louise glanced back and forth between them like she was at Wimbledon. “I’m missing something here. Why do both of you look like you could punch something?”

  “When I said no to a reporter, he went straight to my client’s mother. He sweet-talked her into it, even though I’ve warned them they don’t want to do media. Not yet,” she said.

  “And there are just a few weeks before the NFL draft, so if anything gets derailed from the plan now, there won’t be much time to troubleshoot and clean up messes,” Emma finished for her.

  “What’s the reporter’s name?” asked Louise.

  Before she could say anything, Emma was there with the assist—wanted or not. “Nick Ruben. Works at NYSN. Tall, blondish, hot.”

  Oh Jesus. Emma was not helping, but technically she was right on two counts. Nick was a reporter, and she’d have to be an idiot not to see how gorgeous he was. But it wasn’t just that. He looked at her as though she was a puzzle to figure out—one worth spending time and effort on. It unsettled her in the most intriguing way.

  And then there was the little problem of the kiss. Every time she closed her eyes, she could feel the press of his body as he hugged her to him, his fingers kneading her side as though he couldn’t touch her enough. It had been a very long time since she’d been kissed like that while standing on the sidewalk in plain view of half of Manhattan. A very long time.

  Leave it to her to choose the one man she shouldn’t be kissing—who shouldn’t have been kissing her. She’d allowed Nick to get the better of her, and she didn’t like it one bit.

  “Nick Ruben?” asked Louise.

  Something about the way she said it made Rachel sit up a little straighter. “What do you know about him?”

  Louise worried one of her cuticles, her eyes darting back and forth between Rachel and Emma. “Just things I’ve heard. I think Brad’s worked with him a few times at media days and things like that.”

  Emma raised an eyebrow. “Now you’re holding out on us, Louise.”

  “I don’t like to gossip,” said Louise.

  “Half this industry runs on gossip,” said Emma. “Trade rumors, leaked contract negotiations, locker room fights that are supposed to stay among teammates but miraculously make it onto Deadspin.”

  Louise glanced at Rachel as though gauging whether what she was about to say would be taken the wrong way. “He kind of dates a lot. No one at Image, but there’s this group of girls from other agencies who get together every month. He’s taken a couple of their friends out. A lawyer and an account manager at a marketing firm, I think. Nothing serious. I don’t think he really does serious.”

  “That matches up with what I’ve got in his file,” Rachel said, but she couldn’t help feeling like a balloon that’d been popped. As though she needed any more confirmation that Nick was just another one of these New York men—overfunded, overindulged, and allowed to act like a twenty-year-old for far too long. Exactly the kind of guy Rachel didn’t need in her life.

  “No. This bothers you more than normal file stuff.” Emma’s voice was full of suspicion. “What are you not telling us?”

  “I really don’t want to talk about this, Em.”

  “He asked you out, didn’t he?” Louise blurted out.

  Everyone froze, Louise’s eyes widened in horror, and she slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Jesus, Louise. You’re like the gossip whisperer,” Rachel said.

  “He did?” Emma nearly shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She folded her crisp, white napkin in half and deposited it next to her plate. “It wasn’t a date.”

  “Did you two go out in an adult setting at a predetermined time and eat dinner while sharing adult beverages?” asked Emma.

  “Yes.” Dammit.

  Emma looked triumphant. “It was a date.”

  “We talked about business. It was a meeting to hammer out the details of today’s shoot,” she said. “Besides, just a few minutes ago you were ready to blacklist the guy.”

  Emma waved a hand in dismissal. “Please. That’s business. This is your dating life. Your very quiet as of late dating life.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” she muttered.

  “Did he kiss you at the end of the night?” Louise asked.

  Emma nodded her approval. “Excellent question.”

  Yeah, and now I think about it when I go to bed. When I’m in the shower. All. The. Time.

  “I’m leaving,” said Rachel.

  “It’s literally all over your face,” Emma said.

  “We’re not going to talk about this right now,” she said, signing the bill and throwing her credit card into her purse.

  Emma and Louise exploded with laugher.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Nothing”—Emma tried to stifle her laugh—“except you couldn’t pay me to be him right now. You look mad enough to spit nails.”

  “I am not,” she said primly. “I’m just going to go down to Brooklyn and do my job.”

  Emma snorted. “Let us know how that goes.”

  “Whatever. I’ll see you back at the office.”

  More than a little annoyed with her friends, Rachel pushed through the lunch crowd and out onto Park Avenue just as the car she’d ordered glided up to the curb. If only the rest of the afternoon could be that easy.

  All the way to Xaverian High School, she tried her best to keep busy. It usually wasn’t a problem. But today? Not one of her clients called or texted needing her help.

  She threw her phone into her purse in disgust. She was a grown woman. She would not let herself be intimidated by some guy, even if she’d spent most of high school lusting after him.

  Yeah, but he remembered the one time you bought him lunch in high school.

  He’d been right on Thursday night. She’d run, but it had nothing to do with being scared. He’d overwhelmed her with one little offhanded confession. He wasn’t supposed to remember things like that. Those were her memories. Private ones. He’d ripped open long-healed wounds without even meaning to.

  The car pulled up in front of the high school. She combed her fingers through her hair and slicked on a coat of lip gloss. It was time to put on her agent mask—the one she was most comfortable living in.

  She climbed out of the car and spotted Kevin walking up Mackay Place.

  “Hi there,” she greeted him. “Did you just come off the train?”


  He shot her a smile as he adjusted his omnipresent gym bag on his shoulder. “Yeah, the Bay Ridge Avenue stop.”

  She pulled her coat a little tighter against the wind. “I could’ve given you a ride. Or sent a car to pick you up. It’s a long way to get here from Kingsbridge.”

  He shrugged. “I used to do it all the time. And today I dropped my sister off at school at Stuyvesant and went to see my aunt, so I was going to be near the R train anyway.”

  “Well, we can talk about how you’re getting home later, then. If Coach T works you as much as I think he will, you’re going to want that car ride.”

  “You think he’ll go tough on me?” asked Kevin.

  She grinned. “With the cameras on him? Please.”

  That got her a laugh. “I think you might be right, but you won’t hear me saying it.”

  She put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “There aren’t many people who scare me, Kevin, but I’d rather stay on Coach T’s good side. He’ll make me do burpees if I’m not careful.”

  He fell into step beside her as they went inside.

  “You ready to go?” she asked, sliding a glance over at him.

  “Yes, ma’am.” His voice was soft and polite—that was nothing unusual—but there was a hint of nervousness below the surface. Maybe it was the way he held his shoulders a little tighter than normal, but something was definitely setting off faint alarm bells in her mind.

  “You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to,” she reminded him.

  “I know.” Then, after a beat, he added, “Momma’s really sorry about talking to Mr. Ruben.”

  “You were going to have to start giving interviews at some point,” she said. “I’d just hoped that’d be after the draft.”

  The twenty-two-year-old kid with hands worth millions sucked in a breath. “I’m going to do you proud, Ms. Pollard. I’ve been working on all of the questions you gave me. My friends think it’s funny to make me do those mock interviews you talked about. They keep trying to trip me up.”

  He’d done his homework. Good.

  “Reporters are going to try to do the same thing,” she said. “The more you get used to answering tough questions the better. Just remember that if things get into uncomfortable territory, I’m right there. You can stop the interview whenever you want. I’ve told Nick he’s not allowed to ask you about the shooting today.”

  “And you don’t think it’d be a good idea to just get it out there?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Kevin looked down at his hands and flexed them. “I wish they’d just let me play ball.”

  “They will,” she said as they reached the weight room. “You gave them a taste of what you could do at the Combine. They know you’re special.”

  Kevin nodded and held the door open for her. Coach T greeted them from across the room. “Get changed, Loder. We’ve got a big day.”

  Rachel didn’t miss the tiny smile on her client’s face as he jogged off to the locker room.

  The brief lull meant she could steal a few moments to clear out some emails. She made a mental note to call one of her ballplayers who was rehabbing an ankle injury in Jupiter, Florida. It’d been too long since they’d talked, and she wanted to make sure he wasn’t having too much fun in the sun. He had a bad habit of picking up a new girlfriend every spring training.

  Kevin had warmed up and was doing dumbbell flies under the watchful eye of his old coach when Nick opened the door of the weight room. A photographer carrying a heavy camera followed him. Tucking her phone away, she moved to intercept the pair before they could interrupt Kevin’s workout.

  Nick looked good today, but she doubted there were many days when he didn’t. He wore a gray suit this time. His tie had a navy background with a thinner light blue stripe running diagonally across it. He looked ready to step in front of a camera at any moment—not a hair out of place.

  Just like in the bar, he smiled when he spotted her. A hot, fast jolt of desire shot straight through her.

  “Right on time,” she said, swallowing hard.

  “One of the few good habits live TV teaches you.” He nodded over his shoulder at the tall, broad man shouldering the camera. “This is my photographer, Chris.”

  “No producer today?” she asked as she shook Chris’s hand.

  “It’ll be Mindy Choi, but she has to fill in line producing one of the afternoon shows,” said Chris.

  “We should be fine for this round. I’ll make sure she’s caught up before we move forward with anything else,” said Nick.

  “Okay then. I guess you met Kevin when you talked to his mom, but I’ll reintroduce you as soon as he’s finished with this set,” she said.

  “What’s he doing today?” Nick asked, watching her client.

  “Upper body work. Then Coach T will run him through some drills out on the Shore Road fields. Kevin wants to work out his legs. The weather’s kept him inside the last few days, and he says running routes indoors isn’t the same.”

  He nodded with approval. “That’ll be good video for Chris.”

  She glanced at the cameraman, who was checking the level on the tripod. There were plenty of people around. There was absolutely no reason to think that Nick might try something here. Just like there was no reason to think that she might lose control, grab him, and tear his clothes off so she could trace the lines of his muscles from chest to stomach to . . .

  She licked dry lips and tried her best to focus on anything other than how the scent of him seemed to wrap around her.

  Impossible. He filled the entire room, demanding her attention without a word and making her buzz with awareness.

  “I hope you got home okay on Thursday,” he said.

  She shifted her weight to her outside foot, putting just the tiniest bit of distance between them without actually having to concede a step. As though anyone would even notice. Chris was already on the other side of the room, getting shots of Kevin and Coach T. All three of the men were oblivious to everything but Kevin’s bicep curls.

  “I did text you to see if you got home okay,” he continued. “I was worried when I didn’t hear back.”

  “You didn’t have to do that. I got into a cab. I was fine.” Her words were curt and uninviting, just the way she’d meant them to be. Still, that didn’t stop Nick.

  “Making sure that a woman gets home okay after a dinner is the right thing to do. And I didn’t like how things ended.”

  “I got busy.” Then, because she didn’t want to sound like a complete pain, she drew in a breath. “I appreciate you texting to double-check, though.”

  He shrugged. “No problem. I know this whole situation between the two of us is awkward, but—”

  “It’s not awkward. For it to be awkward, it’d have had to have mattered.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “So you’re telling me that kiss didn’t do anything for you?’

  “No.”

  Liar.

  “That you haven’t thought about it every hour since it happened?”

  Not every hour—she’d had to sleep. “I haven’t. But it’s good to know you have.”

  His green eyes bored into her. “That’s because it was a damn good kiss, Rachel. Even if you aren’t willing to admit it. Work with me. Tolerate me. Do whatever you want. Just know that I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would.”

  His words reverberated through her. If she’d been ten years younger, that line might have sent her straight into his arms. Hell, if they didn’t share a past and they’d met anywhere other than through work, this would be a very different conversation. But that was the reality of the situation. When it came down to choosing between a few kisses with her and his career, she knew that any journalist who valued his reputation would pick the job. And she had no doubt that Nick was an excellent journalist—one
who was a direct threat to Kevin’s future. She needed to stay sharp.

  Kevin jogged over, stopping to sop up sweat from his face with a towel. “Ms. Pollard, we’re moving out to the practice field.” His expression twisted in confusion. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “We were just talking about your practice,” she said, doing her best to brush off his concern.

  The words sounded stilted but at least they didn’t form the sentence “I want to bite this man right on the V above his hip bone.”

  Kevin’s raised eyebrows told her that she wasn’t fooling anyone, but he smartly chose to ignore it and turned to Nick with his hand outstretched. “Nice to see you again, man.”

  The two men shook hands before Coach T clapped Kevin on the back and ushered them all outside.

  As they fell into step, Nick whispered, “You make him call you Ms. Pollard?”

  “Please,” she snorted. “He won’t call me anything else. His mother told him he’s not allowed to. He’ll do the same thing to you.”

  Laughter danced in his eyes. “I don’t think so. I’m not as scary as you are.”

  “Just what every woman wants to hear,” she muttered.

  He leaned in, dropping his voice even lower. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

  Her mouth snapped shut as he jogged off to catch up to Chris because—really—what could she say to that?

  Chapter 7

  Out on the field Nick hardly noticed the cold, even though all he wore was a suit jacket. Being next to Rachel warmed him up plenty.

  He would’ve thought that having a whole weekend to cool off after kissing her in front of Santino’s would help, but the moment he spotted her across the weight room he was there again. His lips on hers, hip to hip as she threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him closer to her.

  Today, however, she was all ice, a pro focused on the job—except he noticed the little looks she sent his way when she thought he wasn’t watching. She was nervous, defensive even, and that was a good thing. It meant he hadn’t been the only one who’d been knocked back by the power of that kiss. Not the only one who’d lost sleep imagining them tangled up in his sheets.