Savage: A Pro Football Romance

by Michaela Scott

  I look up at little white cloud floating over towards the mountains. “Honestly, I think I’m the one that got her in trouble. But I’m going to make it right. No matter what it takes.”

  A couple people in the tent city outside spot me, and immediately start waving people with cameras over to the living room window. Shit, they don’t have anyone who can read lips, do they? Just in case, I step away from the window. “Listen, I’m getting staked out right now, but I’m trying to get to San Diego tonight without anyone knowing I’m gone. I just went for a run, and it took them twenty minutes to get a helicopter out to me. If I pretended like I was going running again in exactly six hours, and ran straight out into the desert from my house, could you get me into a car and onto the road in fifteen?”

  There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “I can do it in five.”

  “Perfect,” I say, “See you tonight.”

  Hanging up the phone, I look out at the mob of people gathering in front of my living room window one more time as I head for the bathroom to clean the sweat off my body and the sand off my feet. Then, I can start getting ready to ditch these cameras and preparing myself for whatever the fuck Coach Bradley has planned tonight at sunset.

  Because whatever it is, I know I’m going to need to be at the top of my fucking game.

  Chapter 20: Cassie

  Leaning over to the apartment window, Kendall peeks through the blinds, then immediately closes them as a bunch of cameras flash on the other side. “Yep, they’re still out there,” She says, turning towards me, “And now there’s a helicopter flying around out there. And a bunch of dogs for some reason?”

  Sinking down into the couch, I sigh and queue up the next episode of Throne of Crowns. Kendall smirks. “And you say I’m always trying to be the center of attention.”

  I let out a stressed-out laugh, trying not to think about the insanity of the last few days. After the long limo drive back from LA, I woke up to hundreds of messages in my phone and at least thirty reporters standing outside our front door, with more out in the parking lot. Kendall and I spent the first couple days living off of delivered Thai food and waiting for the mob to go away, but so far, they’re only getting bigger.

  And as much as I’d like to let the brooding badboys and political intrigue of Throne of Crowns magically wash away all my problems, all the episodes in the world aren’t going to make me forget why people are knocking on my apartment door every ten minutes.

  But hey, at least I’m not getting thrown into the dungeons by my own cousin.

  Four loud thuds echo through the apartment. “Hey Cassie, would you like to comment on the rumors that you’re a spy sent by the San Jose Bulls to seduce Brady?”

  I roll my eyes. Maybe I’ll say yes to that one and send the entire sports media on a wild goose chase. I mean, at this point, what do I have to lose?

  Leaning against the wall next to the window, Kendall raises her eyebrows. “Well?”

  I laugh. “Guilty as charged. All that medical school? It was just deep cover so that Brady Mack would let his guard down long enough for me to get into his pants.”

  Leaning back against the couch cushions, I start watching TV again. “Am I still the number one trending topic in the country?”

  Kendall looks down at her phone. “Oh, yeah. Big time. But hey, most of the top commenters think you and Brady make a cute couple.”

  “We’re not a couple,” I say, trying to focus on the shirtless swordfight happening on the TV.

  “That’s not what the entire internet thinks,” Kendall says, scrolling through her phone with her thumb, “They’re calling you two Brassie. Lots of terrible jokes about Brady ‘scoring.’ Speaking of which…”

  She looks up from the phone and raises her eyebrows. “Any new information about the size of a certain football player’s you-know-what you’d like to share with your best friend?”

  I roll my eyes. “What do you think?”

  “I knew it!” She shouts. “Okay, let me guess: you were giving him a perfectly normal exam when your hand got a little too close to his cock, and next thing you knew, you were the one getting taken care of.”

  I shake my head, trying not to let on how close that is to a dream I had a couple nights ago. “It was when we were in the desert.”

  Kendall’s jaw drops. “You were fucking him in his mansion!?”

  I shudder as flashes of Brady’s wild, powerful body thrusting into me invade my memory. “Just…one time while we were up there. And that’s all we did until the party. And clearly,” I gesture towards the last of our emergency Thai food delivery sprawled out on the coffee table in front of me, “It was a terrible idea.”

  Kendall gets a thoughtful look on her face. “I mean, yeah, if hooking up with him once and then kissing him at a party was all you ever wanted to do, then sure, getting in trouble probably wasn’t worth it. But if that’s not all you want, then what’s wrong with a couple days of cameras? Most of them will go away once you two start officially dating.”

  “Officially dating?” I get a weird, heavy feeling in my stomach, one that I’ve been getting on and off ever since the party, “After I cost his team a Super Bowl? It’s going to be pretty hard to officially date him when they’re never going to let me in the same room as him ever again.”

  Kendall cocks an eyebrow. “And you think Brady’s going to let ‘they’ tell him what to do?”

  She shrugs. “Here’s a crazy idea. What if he actually likes you? What if he’s liked you this whole time? What if he knew it was risky, but saw something in you that made him want to take the risk?”

  She steps over to the side of the TV and crosses her arms. “I’m just saying…maybe, instead of watching Prince Charmings on TV, you could have one in real life.”

  At first, the thought of Brady as Prince Charming just makes me laugh, but under the surface, I feel something deep inside me ache a little bit. Kendall’s right; I’ve always assumed that type of guy was something that only existed in movies and on TV. In fantasy worlds.

  But did I ever think I’d be standing on the sidelines of a football game, watching millions of people cheer for a guy who told me as he was running out of the tunnel that he was going to make me his?

  So, at this point, with my apartment surrounded my camera crews, helicopters, and dogs, how would I know what’s realistic and what’s not?

  I’m quiet for a couple seconds, watching my two favorite Throne of Crowns characters have an intense shirtless swordfight, when my train of thought is interrupted by another knock at the door. “Resident Doctor Parker! Could I ask you a couple questions?”

  “This is insane,” I whisper under my breath.

  Kendall walks over to the door and twists the corner of her mouth in thought. “I wonder if we could just be so boring that they leave us alone. Like, maybe we could go out to a park and play checkers until they all go away.”

  My eyes go wide, and I pause Throne of Crowns. “That’s it! I could go to the private reading room of the med school library and the reporters wouldn’t be able to get in without student ID. I’ll tell them I’m applying for new residencies, and they’ll eventually get bored and leave!”

  “And,” Kendall says, “I can stay here and take questions from the reporters, so they’ll have something to run at the top of their articles.”

  “I’d rather do that than sit around here,” I say, getting off the couch and heading into my room, where I change into the most boring outfit I can find, a med school t-shirt and an old pair of jeans. Then, I head over to the apartment door and Kendall grabs the handle, looking over at me. “Ready?” She asks.

  I take a deep breath as I get ready to face the mob of cameras on the other side. “This is going to be crazy. But yeah, I’m ready.”

  “Alright…” Kendall says, “Here goes nothing.” And with that, the two of us walk outside into the sea of cameras gathered around our front door.

  ***

  “You guys are still open
, right?” I ask, flashing my old student ID to the guy at the library desk.

  He looks up from his laptop and practically falls out of his chair when he sees it’s me. “Oh! Hi! Uh, yeah, we’re…open until midnight.”

  Man, this was a good idea. Other than the guy at the desk, this place is dead. After all, who would want to stay on campus and study after their winter finals? I mean, technically, I’ve done that before…

  “Okay,” I say, putting my ID away and grabbing a keycard from the desk attendant, “So…if anyone with a camera tries to come in behind me, make sure you don’t let them in, alright?”

  The desk attendant nods vigorously. “Definitely. No one’s going to get past me, you can count on it.”

  My eyes dart back down to his laptop, which has a huge San Diego Kings sticker pressed onto the back.

  “Great, thank you!” I say, before turning and heading up the library stairs towards the private reading rooms.

  That was pretty weird; if that guy’s a Kings fan, why doesn’t he hate me for messing up Brady’s season? He clearly recognized me. Sometimes I think I’m starting to understand football, and then something like this happens and I go right back to square one. But hey, I guess I can’t complain.

  Slipping my keycard into the lock on the heavy glass and metal door at the top of the stairs, I let out a deep sigh of relief as I step inside. After days of being the mystery girl kissing America’s favorite badboy football star dodging cameras, I’m finally alone.

  Instinctively, I head right for my favorite table in my favorite reading room, letting the nostalgia wash over me as I revisit the place where I spent so many weeknights with my nose buried in a textbook. It’s only been a couple months since I’ve left, but I’m already getting sentimental just looking at all the posters and announcements taped to the walls.

  Then, once I’m actually in the reading room, I step over to the window and look out at the parking lot. There are still a couple paparazzi out there, but only a couple, and they don’t look like they’re having very much fun. One of them steps out of the library entrance, shaking his head, and the rest of them start packing up and heading back to their cars. Looks like for once in my life, Operation: Be Boring was actually a success!

  Okay, so…now what?

  It’s a question I haven’t had time to ask myself all day, and it’s a little painful to think about. I mean, there’s no way I’m still working for the Kings, right? So, since I’m here, and I clearly have the time to kill, I guess I should just…apply for a different residency?

  I look over at the stacks of residency applications laid out on a desk by the window, picking out the ones that sound the least boring. Then, I take a step towards my usual study table to start filling them out.

  But as I pass the window again, I find myself stopping in my tracks to look out over the parking lot at the mostly deserted campus. And as I watch the sun slowly set, I think about the last time I looked out this window.

  I’d never even seen a football game, much less stood on the sidelines with tens of thousands of people cheering over me. I’d barely been out of California. Honestly, for the past few years I’d barely even been off this campus. And sometimes, a few hours into a marathon study session the night before a test, I’d catch myself staring out the window at the horizon. I’d tell myself I was just dozing off, but even then I knew it was more than that. I was thinking about my life, wondering what was in store for me in the days to come.

  Kind of like I’m doing now.

  I look down at the applications, suddenly not so sure about applying to new residencies right now. When I was a little kid, my dad would always tell me that whenever I saw a path in front of me that didn’t make me happy, I should turn around and walk the other way.

  After all, I already picked a residency. It was with the San Diego Kings, and even though it definitely wasn’t perfect, it was the happiest I’ve been in a long, long time.

  So you know what? I think these applications are going back on the table.

  I spin around with the papers in my hands…and practically drop them on the ground when I see who’s standing in the doorway of the reading room, bathed in the orange light of the sunset.

  “Getting some work done?” Brady asks, as he steps forward into the study room.

  “I…what…how…” I stammer, completely at a loss for words at the sight of Brady in my favorite study spot, inked-up biceps bulging out of his tight gray t-shirt. I have to be dreaming, right?

  Well, my clothes haven’t disappeared yet…so I think I might just be awake.

  Brady grins. “I may or may not have talked to your roommate on my way into town.”

  He steps up to me and grabs a paper out of the stack in my hands and starts reading it. “Looking for a new job, huh?”

  “I mean…” I bite my lip, not sure what to say to the football player towering over me, his blue eyes flicking back and forth as he reads my backup plan. “We got caught, I got fired, and you got suspended. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

  Brady’s eyes flick back up from the paper to look into mine, the blue irises standing out from the orange light illuminating his face. “And what if I told you I could fix all of that?”

  I clutch the applications to my chest. “I’d…I’d probably tell you you’re crazy?”

  “Maybe,” Brady says, his lips curling into a smirk, “But there’s only one way to find out.”

  He gestures over my shoulder at the window. “I’m meeting Coach tonight at King Stadium, and we’re going to try and find a way to fix this…and I want you to come with me.”

  “Why?” I ask, “Won’t having me around make it harder to get back on the team?”

  Brady looks at me in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. “Almost definitely. But if I win the Super Bowl and lose you, what’s the fucking point? As far as I’m concerned, we’re a team. Win or lose, we do it together. So what do you say? Are you ready to do the fucking impossible?”

  My heart pounds in my chest as I look up at Brady. A year ago, if you had found me in this room, nose deep in a textbook, and told me that a year from now I’d have to choose between a pretty good residency and risking everything for a chance at my dream job and a wild, ridiculously sexy football player against impossible odds, I’d have diagnosed you with a serious case of delusional thinking.

  But after spending this much time around Brady, I’m not really sure what impossible means anymore.

  “You know what?” I ask, a smile breaking out on my face and tears welling up in my eyes as I set the applications down on the table beside me, “I think I’ve done enough being boring for one lifetime. Let’s go do the impossible.”

  Instantly, Brady throws his arms around me and brings his mouth down on mine, pulling me into a deep kiss. Then, as he steps away, takes my hand, and starts to lead me back down to the first floor of the library, I look back at the study room one more time and smile.

  I guess it had one more lesson for me after all.

  Chapter 21: Cassie

  “I hope Coach Bradley didn’t leave,” I say to Brady as we walk through the dark, empty halls of King Stadium, “He told you to meet him at sunset, right?”

  Because sunset was a long, long time ago. There were way too many paparazzi camped out in the stadium parking lot when we got there, so Brady and I camped out in the empty training facility, where the password to the back door is still 1234, and waited until the coast was clear.

  There also may or may not have been a lot of making out. And I mean a lot of making out. So much making out that we stayed at the facility an hour…or two…past when we wanted to.

  And now, the only thing lighting up King Stadium is a string of pale, ghostly floodlights running down the concrete tunnel that leads out onto the field.

  But Brady doesn’t seem too worried. “Oh, he’ll be here. He pulls all-nighters whenever he’s putting together a tough game plan, and I guarantee he’ll be doing it tonight.”r />
  “What do you think he’s going to say?” I ask, furrowing my brow as I think about the contract we signed. “I mean, how do you ‘game plan’ your way out of something like this like it’s a football game?”

  Brady looks back at me. “Real life and football have more in common than you might think.”

  I practically jump out of my shoes as Coach Bradley steps around the corner in front of us, a little flashlight tucked behind his ear. Brady, on the other hand, seems totally unfazed. “Hey, sorry I’m late. This place was fucking crawling at sunset, and we got a little…tied up waiting it out at the training facility. But hey, I brought company.”

  Brady wiggles his arm, which I’m currently holding onto like I’m watching a horror movie. But as the fear subsides, I realize what I’m doing right in front of Coach Bradley. I mean, sure, the cat’s out of the bag now, but that doesn’t make it any less awkward.

  Self-consciously, I drop Brady’s arm and take a step away from him. “I just wanted to say that I’m so, so sorry about—”

  Coach Bradley holds up his hand and shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. I knew it was a possibility. With Brady, it was always a possibility.”

  He shoots Brady a look. “And, uh, I’ve been working on ways to get us out of this mess and get Brady back on the court. Unfortunately, at this point, all of our options our risky, and since the commissioner’s going to want to make an example of you two, there’s a high risk of making things even worse. So I didn’t want to do this…but I think I have a plan that might work. The thing is, though, it’s pretty…volatile.”

  He looks around the tunnel, casting the beam of his flashlight into the darkness in both directions. “Let’s head out to the field. That way, we’ll be able to see if anyone’s coming. What I’m about to tell you is very sensitive information.”

  Turning away from us, Coach Bradley starts heading down the tunnel towards the field. Brady and I share a look, and then I step towards him again, the two of us following the trail of pale floodlights with his arm around my waist.