by London Casey
“Meaning you’re trying to get him off,” I said.
“Yes. That’s what I get paid to do. To defend my client. Anyway, his agent is working with the league to keep everything calm.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“We need you to be one of his legal advisors,” Jay said.
“I’m not abandoning him,” Ted said. “But I need you to be there, in his face, all the time. I don’t know how to say this… but you need to be his distraction.”
“Are you whoring me out to a football player?” I asked.
“Christ, no,” Ted said.
“Willow,” Jay said. “Nobody is saying that. I need you to be there for Roman. You need to be the first person he calls for legal trouble or advice. You need to check up on him everyday. Talk about what he’s doing, what’s he done, where he’s going.”
“If you get an idea that he’s in trouble,” Ted said. “Then you call me. We need to prevent anything from happening. Then once the season starts, he’ll calm down, and everyone goes their own way.”
“You do this,” Paul said, “and the Donnelly fuck up means nothing.”
“I’ll take all your work for this week from you,” Johnny said. “Then you’ll be given a couple cases here and there. Nothing intense.”
I looked around the conference table.
Was this real? Was this even legal?
“Look,” Ted said, “I know this is strange. But this isn’t a regular guy. Roman is… he’s completely intense. He’s terrifying. But he responds to women. Beautiful women.”
“Sucking up to me?”
“No,” Ted said. “I don’t like dark hair, dark eyes, and small tits. Sorry, sweetie.”
I gasped. “Wow. Thanks.”
“Jesus, Ted,” Jay said.
“What?” Ted asked. “She wants to fuck around…”
“Easy,” Jay said.
“Willow, you were suggested to me,” Ted said. “Jay and Paul said you were fierce and cocky. That you could stand up to anyone and spit in their face without fear.”
“You want me to spit in Roman’s face?” I asked.
“Sure,” Ted said. “Keep him out of jail. He’s going to get in trouble. I can’t control that. Neither can you. What I need you to do is keep him distracted so that he gets into less trouble. Or when shit hits the fan, you can be there fast to clean it up. I can’t do the three in the morning phone calls and bullshit, okay? I need a break. I’m actually hoping that this will scare Roman a little. Make it look like I am stepping away because I’m fucking pissed at him. Hopefully he’ll turn to you and you can get him through the offseason.”
I slowly nodded. “Okay. Not to sound like a bitch, but that’s a lot of work.”
Jay took out a piece of a paper and a gold pen. He scribbled a number on it and showed it to me. My heart stopped for a few seconds.
“Whoa,” I whispered.
“Don’t fuck this up,” Ted said. “You’ll be taken care of, Willow.”
“And what if I tell you to go fuck yourself?” I asked.
Ted laughed and looked at Jay. “Yeah, she’s perfect for this.”
Jay took the paper back and crumbled it. “If you tell me or Ted or Paul or Johnny to go fuck ourselves one more time, I’ll bury you so deep, Willow, that you won’t even be able to give legal advice on a fucking parking ticket.”
“Okay then.” I stood up. “Just tell me where to be and what to do.”
I was going to get the last word in this exchange. I was done talking. I was done listening. They wanted me to be a glorified babysitter to some fucking athlete who couldn’t control his own ego? Fine. That would be no problem.
I got to the door and Ted called my name.
“Just don’t fuck him,” Ted said. “Okay?”
I looked back. “Please. I’m not a whore.”
I left the conference room with the allure of confidence.
Truthfully? If he was half as bad and sexy as he sounded, I was screwed.
(Roman)
“Is he dead?”
“No, Roman, he’s not dead,” Caine said.
“Then why are you calling me?”
“You need to talk to Slade next. We need to figure out some details.”
“There are no details,” I said. “When he’s dead, put him in the ground. Or put him in the furnace. The house? Burn it. Fix it up and give it away. I don’t care. I don’t want or need anything from him.”
“Roman…”
“If there’s debts, I’ll pay them. I’m the oldest, right?”
“Roman, I know how you feel,” Caine said. “I feel the same. But this is our father. This is a chance for the three of us to figure this out.”
“Fuck you, Caine,” I spat. “You just float around the world, playing hockey, pretending nothing ever happened. And where’s Slade? Huh? What city? What town? Riding his motorcycle coast to coast, avoiding Daystron because he’s afraid he might run into a woman he never had the courage to fuck.”
“So I guess this is your way of saying you never let anything go?”
“We made a deal. The cops chased us out of town. We went three separate directions, brother. That’s how it was supposed to be.”
“I saw you online,” Caine said. “A bar fight? How rich are you?”
“I swear, Caine, if I do ever see you again, I’m going to punch you right in the fucking mouth.”
“Good,” he said. “Now we have a reason to meet up.”
The call went dead. Just like the first call.
Nobody hung up on me.
Ever.
I put the cell phone down and waited for Mackey to come back into the office. He had to take a private call, which was from the Commissioner. It pissed me off that he couldn’t take the call in front of me. But I understood. The more I fucked up, the more I pushed people away. That wasn’t the worst thing in the world either.
I stared at my phone and gritted my teeth.
I knew what Caine wanted me to do.
Fucking prick.
I was the oldest of the three of us. The protector. The warrior. I had made enough money that if anyone got into trouble, I was there. I would send anything to them if they needed it. Caine went off and made a chunk of change for himself playing hockey. And Slade was just Slade. He had a knack for riding the country, finding old cars to fix up and sell, and goddammit if the son of a bitch didn’t have his own little fortune.
I touched the screen on my phone, pulled up Slade’s number, and made the call.
He answered on the third ring.
“Is this a ghost?” he asked.
“What state are you in?” I asked.
“Actually, I’m in Oregon. I was in Arizona for a little while but then decided to work my way up the beach.”
“Cali?”
“Yeah.”
“You passed right by me and didn’t even say hello.”
“Damn,” Slade said. “I feel terrible about that.”
I smiled. “What the fuck does Caine want with all this?”
“Memories. He acts like the older one sometimes. Isn’t the middle one supposed to be a little wild or something?”
Maybe, but that wasn’t Caine. He had begged for a normal family for a long time. He did anything he could to try and save our broken family. But there came a point when it just wasn’t going to ever happen.
Until now.
“I can’t commit to anything, Slade. I hate that man. If he suffers, it’ll ease my pain. But I’m not going to stand there and watch it. Or hear him talk. He’s not going to die with a clear conscience and leave us to hold his bullshit.”
“Brother, we already are holding his bullshit,” Slade said.
“Fuck you.”
“Miss you too.”
The office door opened and Mackey came rushing in.
“I have to go,” I said. “Just tell Caine I reached out to you. So he’ll calm down.”
“Good luck,” Slade said. “I hea
rd you were in trouble again.”
“Misunderstanding.”
“Right. Of course. You were just reaching for a drink and your fist hit that guy?”
“Exactly,” I said. “Maybe you should be my lawyer.”
I ended the call.
“Who should be your lawyer?” Mackey asked.
“Nobody. That was… it doesn’t matter. What happened with Big Dougie?”
Mackey laughed. “You’re such a prick, Roman. Big Dougie controls your fate.”
“Yeah, right.”
Mackey smacked his cell phone off his hand. “He’s not happy. But the good news is that it was some dive bar that all this happened. There were no other celebrities there. No drama. It was a drunk fan that got out of control. I guess he has his own investigative committee working on this, Roman.”
“Seriously?”
“You don’t fuck with the league. I’m trying to tell you this. They’re a powerful entity, man. You just don’t fuck with them. They have former Government agents working for them. They’ll find out the truth. And then act upon it. Right now, there’s no footage of you starting the fight. The guy you smacked around isn’t talking either. He claims he was really drunk and doesn’t remember.”
“Fuck him,” I said. “He knew what he wanted out of that.”
“He’s a fan,” Mackey said.
“I don’t give a shit. I didn’t ask for fans. Nobody needs to be a fan of me. They don’t know me. I just needed a way out of where I was. I got that. I’m good now.”
“So that’s it?” Mackey asked. “You’re going to do what… just fuck around until you’re kicked out of the league?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you trying to accomplish?”
I stepped toward Mackey. “Bottom line, Mackey. What did Doug say?”
“He said he’ll think about everything. That was it. I told him the circumstances. You went to a small place to try to blend in and hide out. To have a few drinks and relax in the offseason. I casually reminded him that there are dozens of players scattered across the world and that worse could be happening. I also reminded him of your passing yard record last season and that you had the number two selling jersey, which was only surpassed by a retired player who the league retired his actual number across all teams.”
“In other words, I’m the fucking man, huh?” I asked.
“I hate you sometimes, Roman. But, yes, you are the man.”
“Good. Now, I’m in the clear. I took care of the legal issues. I took care of the league issues. Now we’re all done talking.”
“What do you mean…”
I grabbed Mackey by the shoulders and shook him. “It doesn’t matter. What’s done is fucking done. Okay? I’m going to go throw some balls around.”
“It’s the offseason.”
“Not forever.”
I started to walk toward the door. Mackey ran after me and put a hand to the door. “You know, you talk like some fucking asshole, but you love the game. You love all of this. You do care. Whatever happened to you in your past, Roman, I’m sorry for. I wish I could go back there and kill whoever hurt you. Because it’s still holding tight.”
I looked at Mackey. “I don’t love the game. I am the game. Now get your hand off the fucking door or I will break it.”
The last thing I fucking needed was a pep talk. Especially from an overweight, balding degenerate like Mackey. He wanted me to keep in line so I could get paid so he could get paid. I knew he was already using my name as leverage to sign new clients. What-the-fuck-ever though. That was his job.
For me, fine, I’d stay out of trouble for a little bit.
When I got outside, however, trouble was waiting for me.
And no, it wasn’t a woman.
It was an old friend, sitting on the hood of my eighty-thousand-dollar car, with a shotgun across his lap.
(Willow)
The professional term would be due diligence. My term? Snooping. The world of social media put everything at my fingertips. Even if Roman wasn’t a celebrity I could have gotten anything I wanted, but thanks to who he was and what he did, all it took was a quick search of his name to bring up pages upon pages of information. You’d think it would be all about his athletic accomplishments, since he was supposed to be the greatest quarterback in the league, but it wasn’t that at all.
It was all links to pictures and videos of him fighting people.
The latest was a bar fight where he got into it with a Dragons fan.
His own fan?
That took me back a little.
What kind of guy was he? Then again, I was needed to distract him. What the hell did that actually mean? If he got out of line, what, show him my breasts?
It seemed wherever Roman went, there was drama. Or drama followed him. No matter what, it was always the same thing. Cursing, yelling, fighting, breaking things. The guy obviously had an anger problem.
The latest incident had pictures of him standing in a street with his hand blurred out as he pissed on a camera. The stream of urine hit the camera. And Roman stood there with a cocky grin on his face. The headlines and articles poked at Roman, saying his pissing abilities were better than his throwing. A few of them made me laugh but then I wondered if all that played into how he acted.
When I clicked on the images of Roman, that’s when everything took a crazy turn. I didn’t need to see him standing shirtless, holding a football with one hand, wearing tight red pants with pads inside them. The cut look of his muscles were insane. They were too good to be real. Definitely a product of someone playing with a photo program. His jaw was too chiseled, the little black scruff just enough to make him look hotter. His dark hair, darker eyes, and the slight curl of his lip (which probably happened naturally because he was a jerk) all added to it.
Roman was sexy. Really sexy.
But of course he was. He was paid to be physically fit, play an intense contact sport, and lived his life on the edge because he was rich. Why wouldn’t he be crazy hot?
I closed out the browser and took my beer to the dining room table. I sat down and watched as Scarlett painted a black line down a blank canvas.
“Done yet?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Really?”
“No.” She put the paintbrush down. She yawned. “I’m supposed to have a bunch of stuff done by next month. I don’t care though. It’ll come when it does.”
“I wish I was like you. Free. Happy.”
“You are,” Scarlett said. “Right? I mean, you got your dream job. You make good money on your own. You’re not happy?”
“That guy that was here…”
“Franklin?”
“Yeah. What’s that about?”
“I don’t know. He was fun. We had fun.”
“You seeing him again?”
“No. He was kind of ugly.”
I snorted. “Jesus, Scarlett. That’s mean.”
“Well? That’s the truth. But I like him. He’s fun. What’s up with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re here. You’re drinking a beer. You’re wandering around.”
“Just lots on my plate. That’s all. I have a new assignment. It’s kind of crazy.”
“Try me. I love crazy.”
I told Scarlett what I was supposed to do. Her blue eyes were big and wide by the time I finished.
“That’s pretty intense stuff. But Roman is sexy.”
“You know who this guy is?”
“Yeah. I love football players.”
“You’re a hippie.”
“You’re a bitch,” Scarlett said.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, you’re a painter. You’re an art person.”
“And I find half naked athletes with chiseled bodies to be a form of art.” Scarlett smirked. “So, yeah, bitch.”
“Well then, good to know,” I said. “I have to babysit this guy. That’s what I’m doing.”
“When do you start?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Lucky you. Just do what you need to do, Willow. Try to keep him under control. I saw some stuff that he got in trouble again.”
“He always seems to be in trouble. I’m supposed to be a distraction.”
“Meaning what? You walk around naked?”
“Please. You’ve seen him, right? I’m no match for that. I’m sure he has a list of beautiful women he goes after all the time.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Willow. You’re beautiful.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. I lifted my beer and grinned. “And I’m totally ladylike.”
Scarlett laughed. “That you are not. Hey, do you want to see pictures of his… thing?”
“What?”
“You know.” Scarlett pointed down. “His thing.”
“What thing?”
“His dick,” she said.
“What?” I yelled.
“You know he got arrested for pissing on a camera.”
“Those pictures were blurred out.”
Scarlett took out her phone and said, “I found pictures that weren’t blurred out.”
“Jesus, Scarlett. You never fail to amaze me.”
“Want to see?”
“No,” I said. “That’s… no.”
“Okay then.” She looked at her phone, smiling. “Damn.”
“Are you looking at them right now?”
Her cheeks turned red. “No…”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Hey. He put himself out there. I’m just admiring.”
“Is there a lot to admire?”
“There’s a real lot to admire,” Scarlett said. “Like… whoa…”
I took a breath and peeled at the label on the beer bottle.
If I was going to really babysit Roman, I should know everything I was up against.
“I mean, how do you fit that…” Scarlett whispered.
I put the beer bottle down. I groaned. “Fine. Let me see the pictures.”
(Roman)
“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled as I got out of my car and looked at the shady looking building. We were in an alley, in a rough part of the city. A place I didn’t need to be.
Tyler climbed out of his car, reached for his shotgun, and walked with a visible limp toward me. He put the barrel of the gun to my stomach and showed me his teeth. “I want to pull this trigger, Roman.”