Alpha Foxtrot_Offensive Line

by Tracey Ward

  “Can I meet her?”

  “Sure,” I answer sarcastically. “Then we can all go back to your place and have a threesome. Sound good?”

  He shakes his head, tucking his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Nah, not really my scene. Thanks for the offer, though, Boss.”

  I open my mouth to ask him what his ‘scene’ is, but I stop myself short. Why do I care? He’s probably lying anyway. What guy on the planet would turn down a threesome with two lesbian dancers? A handful of priests and Shane Lowry? Yeah, I doubt it.

  The lights overhead dim to a deep purple. Shane and I are dropped into shadow that feels oddly intimate. We’re surrounded by over a hundred people but he’s the only one I can see clearly. Just as the feeling starts to get claustrophobic, another set of lights kicks on. They’re muted and moving. They dance over us in whites and blues that make it feel like we’re underwater.

  The opening cords to Landslide start to play. When the vocals come in close after them, I’m surprised to hear Miley Cyrus instead of Stevie Nicks.

  Shane looks at me with a perplexed expression. “Seriously. What the hell is this place?”

  I laugh despite myself. “I really don’t know.”

  “It’s all over the place. I can’t keep up.”

  “Maybe you should go home.”

  “Or,” he opens his arms like an invitation, “we could just go with it.”

  I should say no. He’s not Kasian. He’s not safe. He’s an unknown and there’s just so damn much of him. It’s intimidating to look at him with all of his strength and confidence knowing he could crush me if he wanted to. How many fights has he been in? How many arrests? How worried should I be?

  “I promise not to step on your toes,” he vows deeply. But that’s not really what he’s promising. He’s telling me he won’t hurt me because he sees me. He knows that I’m afraid of him.

  It’s shocking how angry his intuition makes me.

  “Watch your hands while you’re at it,” I tell him sternly.

  He smiles as I put my hand in his. He immediately goes into form for the Foxtrot, taking me by surprise. Of course he sees it written on my face.

  “Is this song too slow for it?” he asks.

  I shake my head, avoiding his eyes. “It can work.”

  “Will you teach me more steps?”

  “No.”

  He waits for me to say more. I don’t, making him chuckle. I see it in his chest that rumbles in front of my face. I can’t see much of anything but his body and the watercolor lights that roll over it.

  “How awkward is this going to be for us?” he asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “With our size difference. Is it going to be hard to win?”

  I like that’s he talking about winning. At least he’s looking in the right direction; up. I’m always looking up. I’m always looking for the next victory and I need him to be with me on that if we’re going to have a ghost of a chance winning this thing together.

  “It won’t be easy,” I admit. “Normally when teams are paired up, they’re done by size and personality. I was in the room when they picked you. They didn’t consider either of those things.”

  “What did they consider?”

  “If you were in the NFL and if you were in trouble. You were both.”

  Shane laughs. “How am I in trouble?”

  “You’re violent.”

  He pauses mid-step. I keep going, immediately putting my foot down right over his. He doesn’t flinch. His face is impossibly blank, his voice devoid of emotion when he asks, “They said I’m violent?”

  I shrug, meeting his gaze head-on. “You’ve been in two fights this year and it’s barely spring.”

  “Did they ask what those fights were about?”

  “What does it matter? You like to fight. That’s all they cared about.”

  “Shit,” he chuckles mirthlessly. He lets go of my hands, backing away a step. “That’s why you’ve been looking at me like you have, isn’t it? You think I’m some asshole that likes to get into shit for the fun of it.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

  “We’re going to work together practically every day for the next ten weeks. It matters, Sutton.”

  He’s finally using my name, but it’s only because he’s angry. The tone of his voice is so serious, so irritated and flat-out outraged, I feel a strange connection to him.

  I’m drawn to negative emotions like an addict’s needle to the vein.

  “Are you saying you’re not that asshole?” I ask sharply.

  “Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “What am I supposed to base that on?”

  “The fact that I’m standing here telling you.”

  “I don’t know you. I definitely don’t trust you and I didn’t want you. I wanted Colt Avery.”

  Shane smirks but his eyes are hard. “Yeah, most women do.”

  “He ticked all of my boxes. I could have won with him.”

  “And you don’t think you can with me?”

  I gesture violently between us. “We don’t match. Not in body shape and not in personality. There’s nothing here to build off of, so no, I don’t think we can win and that pisses me off.”

  He runs his tongue over his teeth, nodding his head stiffly. “Alright, well, this was fun. It was great to see you again and I can’t wait to make a total ass of myself on national television with you.”

  “Have a great night, Shane,” I reply with equal sarcasm.

  “Yeah, you too, Boss.”

  I turn my back on him just as the song comes to an end. I leave him standing there alone as the lights brighten. The mood in the room lifts, but inside I’m sinking. My heart is a stone trying to pump solid ice through my veins. It hurts and it’s stupid.

  It feels like that’s the definition of my life lately.

  “Sutton?” Tina calls to me in a worried tone. She’s looking between me and the dance floor, her brow knitted together. “What happened? Is that who I think it is?”

  “That’s Shane,” I mutter as I grab my purse off the table. It jostles the drink I haven’t touched.

  “Did you know he was going to be here?”

  “No.”

  “What happened? You both look upset.”

  I shake my head hard. “Nothing. It’s fine. I’m going home. I’m tired.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Definitely.” I look up from my bag to give her a wan smile that I wish was stronger. “Have a good night, okay?”

  “Yeah. Hey, do you want me to walk you out? Or should I get Kaz?”

  “I’ll be fine. Thanks, though.”

  I lean down to kiss her cheek goodbye. She smells like alcohol; rich and too sweet.

  I push through the crowd toward the door. I want to get the hell out of here. I can’t stay after what just happened with Shane. I’ll feel him in the building no matter where he is. I’ll feel like he’s looking at me, hating me. Judging me. It’s only fair that he would. I’d spend the rest of my night doing the same to him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SHANE

  May 3rd

  Mad Batter Bakery

  Los Angeles, CA

  Once Colt stops playing ball and becomes an old man, this place is going to be the death of him. He’s a sugar addict marrying a baker. His marriage certificate will be his death sentence.

  “Shane, man, you have to try one of these,” he tells me excitedly. He has his own apron here at Lilly’s bakery. It has his name on it and everything. He even went through a course with the city to get his food handler’s license so he could play here at the store without getting her shut down. Right now, he’s in the middle of making a donut filled with peanut butter, topped with Captain Crunch, and drizzled in caramel. It looks disgusting.

  I shake my head at him. “No way. That looks like shit.”

  “It looks like shit but it tastes like heaven.”

  “We’re not s
elling those,” Lilly tells him plainly.

  “That’s fine. More for me.”

  She smiles at him as she squeezes by with a tray of buttery croissants ready for the oven. Now those look good. I plan on snagging at least three before I leave here this morning.

  I’m in the back of the bakery with Colt and Lilly to watch them get ready for the store to open. I’m killing time because I wake up at four every morning without fail. I’m not supposed to be at the studio until seven, but I couldn’t sleep in so I’m killing time instead. I’m on the Kodiak’s clock no matter what. It’s how I live because football isn’t just my job. It’s my life.

  Normally, I spring out of bed when my alarm goes off, but today I woke up slow. I stared at the ceiling with a sense of dread that I couldn’t place at first. Not until Sutton’s face drifted across my mind. Her eyes like lasers bore into mine angrily under the cartoonish colors in the club, instantly making me sluggish. That’s the other reason I’m here – to talk to Lilly about what happened with Sutton. The girl obviously hates me and I don’t know what to do about it. I want a woman’s opinion, but Colt is making it hard to have a conversation.

  “I’m taking these to the team tomorrow morning,” he vows reverently, drizzling an extra layer of caramel over them.

  “You can’t bring those to practice.”

  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Lowry. The guys have got to eat.”

  “If anyone eats that before practice they’ll be puking on the field in the first hour. Do you think Coach is going to go easy on us the first day he gets us back on the field?”

  “What are you talking about? You guys have been practicing since April,” Lilly comments.

  Colt shakes his head. “We haven’t been practicing. Not yet. We’re only allowed strength conditioning, and it’s been optional. That’s why this son of a bitch was allowed to live it up in Washington while the rest of us were working our asses off.”

  “You weren’t working your asses off.” I snag a plain donut from the pile Colt hasn’t assaulted yet. “We’re not allowed to.”

  “So what’s the big deal about tomorrow?” Lilly asks curiously.

  “Tomorrow is the first day of on-field workouts. We’ll basically be running for four hours straight. Still no football. Only training. And no rookies. They have their own training they’re going through.”

  She shakes her head, wiping a stray hair away from her eyes with the back of her flour-coated hand. “I can never keep all of this straight.”

  “It’s easy when it’s your life.”

  “Some days it feels like we don’t take a shit unless the Commissioner tells us to,” Colt mutters.

  I look at him, head down over his donuts in deep concentration, and I feel sick inside. The team has been sold and the new owners are moving us to Las Vegas, but Colt has decided not to go with us. His contract is up after this year, same as mine, and he’s decided not to renew. With anyone. He’ll retire at just twenty-five years old. It’s not uncommon. Football is a brutal game and it takes years off your body. Colt has an old knee injury from his college days that gives him trouble sometimes. Apparently more trouble than it’s worth, because he says it’s one of the main reasons he’s quitting.

  I’m lucky. I’ve gone my entire career nearly unscathed. I’ve had a few broken fingers, a concussion, and a spasm in my back that took me down for three weeks, but other than that I’m healthy. I’m rock solid and ready to roll.

  It just isn’t going to be the same. Not without Colt.

  “Tell me again what happened with Sutton,” Lilly says to me as she hoists the bread into the oven. “You saw her dancing with some guy…”

  “She was dancing with a dude at Carousel—”

  “The gay bar?” Colt asks with a scowl.

  I drop my hands impatiently on the counter. “Does everyone but Sam and me know that place is a gay bar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shit.”

  “You should have gone to 171.”

  Lilly and I groan in unison.

  Colt glances back and forth between us. “What? What’s wrong with 171?”

  “Nothing, except we always go there,” Lilly complains.

  “We don’t always go there.”

  “If we’re not at 171, we’re at that dive you and Sloane are in love with,” I argue.

  Colt smiles proudly. “Beer ‘N Burger. The Hotness and I found it on Yelp. It had the worst reviews in town.”

  “It should. It’s a shithole.”

  “You’re a shithole.”

  “Anyway,” Lilly interrupts, physically stepping between us to get my attention. She leans back against the table where Colt is working his sugar wizardry, her arms crossing over her chest. “What happened with Sutton?”

  “I saw her dancing with the dude. I joined the crowd watching them because they were good. When they finished, the guy ditched her to go suck the face off a redhead with sad boobs.”

  “Hold on,” Lilly laughs. “How can a woman have sad boobs?”

  “It’s a thing.”

  “It is,” Colt agrees.

  “But it’s not really relevant to the story.”

  “Then why’d you bring it up?” Lilly demands.

  “Why’d I bring up her hair color? It doesn’t matter either but you’re not getting hung up on that detail.”

  “Alright, fine, it doesn’t matter, but we’re circling back to this later. I want to know how a woman can have sad boobs.”

  “I’ll draw you a picture. I promise.”

  “This story is taking forever,” Colt complains.

  I sit forward in my chair. “We’re getting to the important part. The guy leaves, she’s alone, so I go to say hey. I tell her she danced really well. She says thanks. Landslide comes on. I ask her to dance.”

  “Stevie Nicks or Dixie Chicks?” Colt asks.

  “Who cares?”

  “The guy from Kansas cares! Which was it?”

  “Miley Cyrus.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Lame.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, she agreed to dance with me and we talked about the show. I asked her how hard it’s going to be for us being so different in height and everything. That’s when she got bitchy. She told me she didn’t want me as a partner. She wanted Colt.”

  Colt chuckles smugly.

  Lilly and I ignore him.

  “Did she say why she didn’t want you?” she asks.

  “Yeah, she said it’s because I’m violent.”

  Lilly laughs. “What? For real?”

  “Those were her words. She said they picked me purely based on the fact that I’m in the NFL and I’m ‘in trouble’.”

  “In trouble with who?”

  “I didn’t ask, but she said it was because of the fights.”

  “Are you in trouble for the fights?”

  “No! I paid my fines. I settled the lawsuit. I’m clean.”

  “Huh,” Lilly muses quietly. “And she got angry at you?”

  “She told me she doesn’t know me, she doesn’t trust me, and she doesn’t think we have what it takes to win. She basically shit in my face. That’s when I decided to bail on the conversation. I told her to have a great night and she stormed off. She left the club.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  Colt whistles quietly. “I dodged a bullet on that one.”

  “You know the part that really bothers me?” I ask, feeling the frustration from last night rise up in my chest, constricting it tightly. “I think she’s seriously afraid of me. She really thinks I’m one of these douchebags that goes around looking for a fight. She looks at me like I’m a grenade someone dropped into her hands and she has no idea if I’m live or not.”

  Lilly frowns sympathetically. “She’s a small woman, Shane, and you are a very large man.”

  “I’d never hurt her.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. I know that, but that’s because I know you. If I didn’t, if I just m
et you on the street after hearing all the rumors, I might not be so sure.”

  “Great. What am I supposed to do about that if she’s already made up her mind about me?”

  Lilly stands up straight, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t have an easy solution for that.”

  “Well, damn,” I laugh.

  “You just have to go ahead with the show and prove to her that you’re not a jerk. It’ll be easy. You’re a sweetheart.”

  “Why is it up to me to win her over? She’s not exactly an angel herself.”

  “You don’t have to like each other to work together,” Colt reminds me.

  “But it’d be easier,” Lilly adds.

  “You could always speed things up.”

  “How?” I ask Colt.

  “You aren’t going to like it.”

  “So far, I’m not loving any of this shit.”

  “You have to say you’re sorry.”

  “But I didn’t do anything!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Colt laments. “She’s upset. You apologize. It’s the only way it gets better.”

  “Listen to the expert,” Lilly recommends.

  “I’ve apologized for all kinds of shit I didn’t do.”

  I stare at him in amazement. “That makes no damn sense.”

  “It doesn’t have to. But you do have to do it.”

  “Fuck!”

  Lilly smiles at my annoyance before walking away to grab another tray of bread for the oven. They’ll be opening soon. It’s almost six, meaning I need to get going, but I don’t know if I want to. Not if it means I’m walking into a hostile situation where my only course of action is to surrender. It’s bullshit. The rules for being on this show are nothing like football. In football you kick each other’s ass all day and you’re friends the same night.

  Football means never having to say you’re sorry.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SUTTON

  KBC Studios

  Los Angeles, CA

  I love being on the lot in the early morning. Next to no one is here. It’s a chance to be alone without being lonely. The world is quiet and cool, blanketed in a soft gray glow that will warm with every hour until I’m fully awake and ready to face the day. But not yet. For now, it’s just me, my coffee, and the lovely evening chill that still hangs in the air and to the tip of my nose. This hour is in-between. It’s half in and half out, and it’s all mine. It is the very best part of my day.