Savage: A Pro Football Romance

by Michaela Scott

  By the time the commissioner finishes speaking, I’ve already thrown myself into Brady’s arms, pressing my face up against his heart as I process what just happened. After months of telling myself this moment could never be real…I’m living it. The sky didn’t fall, the world didn’t end…and the blue-eyed prince from my wildest dreams is holding me tight in his arms

  And for maybe the first time in my life, I’m so, so happy that I broke the rules.

  ***

  The reporter shoots a nervous glance up at the fat grey rainclouds that have blown in from the coast, hanging over the desert around us looking like they’re about to burst at any second. “Okay, we’re only going to do a couple more questions, is that alright with you?”

  “Sure,” I say, smiling at the camera over the reporter’s shoulder. Brady told me that you eventually get used to the cameras, but I didn’t think it was going to happen this fast.

  “Alright,” he says, flipping through a couple of pages in his notepad, “So, actually, I have some breaking news. Apparently, the Oceanside Police Department just found proof that the quarterback of the Lightning was visiting Dr. Larson’s clinic, and he just tested positive for buffalo hormones. What do you think this means for Brady’s chances at the Super Bowl this Sunday?”

  I try not to laugh too hard at the news. “Well, since Brady already guaranteed a Super Bowl victory, I’d say our chances are exactly the same.”

  “Alright, last question ,” Even the reporter can’t help but smirk as he flips through the pages of his notebook. But when he finds the question, he looks up into my eyes. “I did a little bit of research on your history with the Kings and it turns out that you weren’t even planning on working there at all. In fact, you’d already bought a plane ticket up to Alaska to start your residency at a different hospital...and then, obviously, everything changed. So, as your Kings residency comes to an end…what’s next?”

  That’s a good question. With all the insanity of the past couple days, I haven’t even been thinking about the next move. “Well…I haven’t really had the chance to catch my breath and think about it…but I have to say, I’m starting to like sports medicine. I’ve always wanted my own practice…maybe I’d take a mix of pro athletes and the kids who look up to them, and break down the barriers a little bit.”

  The reporter smiles, then signals over at the cameraman to stop rolling. “Great answers,” he says, “You’re a natural at this. But before the press conference starts, I just wanted to say something…off the record.”

  He pulls the clip-on mic off of his collar, hands it to the cameraman, and lowers his voice as he leans towards me. “We work for the same site that…originally broke the story about you and Brady, and I just wanted to apologize to you about how that was handled.”

  I nod. “Thanks. Trust me, I know what it’s like to work for someone completely awful.”

  The reporter sighs. “Tell me about it. But you might be happy to learn that the reporter who took those pictures of you, Alyssa, got caught sitting on information about the Dr. Larson story because she thought it would make you two look good. So because of that, she’s been reassigned to a different branch of the company, and let’s just say…I don’t think you two have to worry about her anymore. And I’d like to extend my apologies that you ever did.”

  “Thanks,” I say, “That’s a relief.”

  Thanking me again for my time, the reporter and the cameraman move over to the podium set up in front of the house, waiting for Brady to make his statement and hoping it doesn’t rain.

  Where is Brady, anyway? I scan the crowd of people gathered in Brady’s sandy front yard, looking for any sign of him, but I don’t see him anywhere. It’s just reporters, fans, and people from town, throwing an impromptu party celebrating Brady’s surprise appearance in the Super Bowl this Sunday.

  Looking over towards the podium, I spot Coach Bradley, looking happier than I’ve maybe ever seen him. He spots me at the same time, and hurries over to where I’m standing, a black binder full of spreadsheets in his hand.

  “91.7%!” He says, opening up the binder and showing me the number in one of the cells, “I’ll take those odds any day!”

  “We’re really going to win, aren’t we?” I ask Coach Bradley.

  He gives a little half-shrug, trying to play modest. “Nothing’s a sure thing,” he says, “But the math looks great.”

  “It’s funny,” he says, flipping through his binder, “I ran nine billion simulations of this season, and it still turned out like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I guess it just goes to show you that no matter how prepared you think you are, life never turns out quite like you expect it.”

  I look over at Brady, who’s stepping up to the podium, his thick black hair just as perfectly messy as it was the day I met him. “I guess you’re right,” I say, “It never does, does it?”

  As the reporters begin to close in around the podium, Coach Bradley starts to head off towards the action, but before he can, I hold up my hand to stop him.

  “Wait,” I say, “I have a question. When you hired me, you didn’t plan on us falling in love, did you?”

  A mischievous little twinkle glints in Coach Bradley’s eye. “Well, like I said, nothing is guaranteed. You two fell in love all on your own. But I may have seen a couple interesting data points that I failed to mention.”

  Crossing my arms, I raise my eyebrows in Coach Bradley’s direction. “That’s what I thought.”

  With a sheepish smile, Coach Bradley heads over to the podium to stand behind Brady, and the reporters in the driveway turn their cameras on, pointing them at Brady.

  “Well, fuck,” he says, “Thanks for coming out here, but I don’t really have much to say that didn’t come out of the commissioner’s mouth a couple hours ago. And seeing as it’s about to fucking rain on everyone’s expensive-ass camera equipment, why don’t I just say this: I’ve done a lot of incredible shit in my life. I’ve stood in front of hundreds of thousands of people with a football in my hand while they chanted my fucking name. But I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I’ve been today, with Cassie on my team.”

  The cameras all turn over to me as I walk up the driveway, following me all the way up to the podium, where Brady pulls me into him with one powerful move. “And now, we’d like a little fucking privacy, because we’ve got a Super Bowl flight to catch tomorrow.”

  And then, right as Brady finishes speaking, I feel a raindrop brush the tip of my nose and I watch as the reporters scatter like bowling pins, clearing out the driveway in a matter of seconds as they run back to their cars before the rain hits, leaving only the celebrating fans scattered across the sand, holding banners and signs wishing Brady luck and congratulating us on our new relationship.

  Brady leans in and whispers into my ear. “Alright, so, I may have forgotten to mention it, but now that I’m playing in the Super Bowl, you should know that I’ve been getting this little twinge right above my knee ever since we ran out of the clinic in Oceanside.”

  “What!?” I gasp, but Brady just laughs.

  “Oh, I’ll be fine,” he says, “But once we get back inside, I think we should do two or three of those intermediate exercises to stretch it out. And then…we can finish what we started this morning.”

  Heating up at the thought, I lean into Brady as he hooks my arm and pulls me towards the front door of the house, waving goodbye to the crowd with his free hand before pressing his face against the side of mine and lowering his voice to a whisper. “And that’s just the fucking beginning.”

  As the crowd in front of the house starts to thin out, Brady opens the door behind us, pulling gently on my body with his massive hands as he steps inside. But before I follow him in, I take a second and stay in the frame of the door, watching as the rain starts coming down hard on the desert for the first time in who knows when.

  And as I watch the raindrops darken the desert sand, I think about what Coach Bradley said about life never going
the way you expect it to.

  And he’s right. Sometimes what we think is impossible is actually right in front of us, waiting for us to believe it’s actually there, take its hand, and go on the ride of a lifetime.

  Chapter 24: Cassie

  Two Years Later

  “Okay, say it with me.”

  With a good-natured sigh, Rex lifts his bandaged hand in the air like a boy scout taking an oath. “I promise I won’t put my hand near other players’ facemasks.”

  “Good,” I say, wheeling my stool over to the clipboard with his x-rays on it and holding it up at him, “Because now you know, not only can you break your fingers, you can also break your wrist.”

  Rex reaches over and takes the clipboard, shaking his head as he looks at the x-ray. “I guess I’ll just work on it in the offseason. But hey, it was worth it, right? Three in a row!”

  Rex holds up his unbandaged hand, which has three huge Super Bowl rings on it. He grins at me. “So now that the season’s over, what are you and Brady going to do? Going back out to the desert?”

  I shrug, trying to hide a knowing smile from Rex. “I’m not sure yet. I think we might stay in San Diego for a couple more weeks to work on the nonprofit.”

  “Oh, hell yeah!” Rex shouts, “Let me know if you need me to make an appearance.”

  Last year, after lifting the trophy for the second time, Brady spent a couple of weeks lost in thought. And after about a month back in the desert, he asked if I’d be interested in starting a nonprofit with him that helps kids who lost their parents, like him, find a sport they love and sets them up with a foster family that has connections to the sport. I told him I’d love to, and ever since we started it, it’s exploded in popularity, to the point where we’re going to try and expand it overseas this summer.

  “I will,” I say to Rex, “And I’m sure Brady will, too.”

  Rex looks down at the clipboard again, his eyebrows raising as he notices something about his x-ray and holds it right up to his face, almost like he’s looking…through it?

  Oh, crap. X-rays are kind of transparent, aren’t they? And that means Rex is probably reading the paperwork I clipped on the other side.

  “Seems like you do have some offseason plans,” Rex says, handing me back the clipboard with a warm smile on his face.

  “Don’t tell Brady,” I say, “He doesn’t know yet.”

  Suddenly, I jump as the door behind us slams open, spinning my stool around to face Brady, who’s standing in the exam room door with a little smile on his face.

  “Well, well, well,” Rex says, tossing the clipboard over onto the counter, “Speak of the savage and he just kicks down the door of your doctor’s appointment.”

  Rex looks over at the clipboard, at Brady, and then at me. “Well, my wrist feels pretty good, so I think I’ll let you two get your offseason started.”

  “Hey,” I say to Brady as Rex heads out into the hallway, a little surprised that he’s here and not working on the nonprofit, “What’s up?”

  Cocking an eyebrow, Brady shrugs, that same little smile on his face and an unfamiliar look in his eyes. “I just felt like seeing the desert today. Want to go for a drive?”

  ***

  I may be a city girl, but over the past couple years I’ve definitely learned to love the desert. There’s just something peaceful about how open it is. Out here, there isn’t anything to come between you and what really matters. So on days like today, when there’s something magical in the air, you can actually feel it.

  The sun’s low on the horizon, but it’s not setting yet; it’s just bathing everything in a deep, beautiful gold color, including the road in front of us.

  “I used to sleep out here,” Brady says, gesturing over towards a massive, open sea of sand on the other side of the road from the mountains, “Even more than the rest of the desert, this place felt wide open, like I had the entire world ahead of me.”

  He looks over at me, that new spark blazing in his blue eyes again. “And I did.”

  Then, without another word, he gently brings the car over to the side of the road, and then onto the sand, and then straight out into the open place where he used to sleep.

  I don’t say anything as the road shrinks behind us; I just watch Brady in the rear view mirror, eyes fixed on some invisible point off in the distance.

  And finally, when we’re so far out on the sand that there’s only empty horizon in every direction, Brady slowly brings the car to a stop. He gets out, and I follow him as he takes about twenty steps away from the car.

  “Here,” he says, looking down at the sand in front of him. “Here’s where I used to sleep. Here’s where I promised myself that nothing was ever going to stop me from getting what I want.”

  I move over to the other side of the spot and try to picture what it would be like to sleep here, knowing you don’t really have a home to come back to. And as I do, Brady brings his blue eyes up to mine. “And when I woke up this morning, I was thinking about this place, and I realized it was time to make another promise.”

  He drops to one knee, pulling a little box out of nowhere, the desert sun setting the diamond ring inside it on fire. “I promise to be yours. I promise to take care of you like you take care of me. And from this day forward, I promise that nothing is ever going to stop us from living every single day like it’s ours for the taking: tomorrow, the next day, and every day after that. Will you marry me, Dr. Parker?”

  With my hands over my face, and tears falling from my eyes, I just start nodding and nodding, and as I do, the light behind Brady’s eyes explodes into a blazing blue fire as he wraps me up in his massive arms and lifts me off my feet and into the desert air.

  But as Brady’s eyes gaze deeply into mine, his eyebrows raise as he notices something in my eyes and realizes that I have a promise to make, too. I grab his hand and place it over my stomach. “Yep. I found out earlier today. And I promise that we’re going to give this little one everything he could ever want from a Mom and Dad, tomorrow, the next day, and every day after that.”

  And as Brady pulls me into the first kiss of the next chapter of our lives together, I get a glimpse over his shoulder of the endless, open horizon. And I see what he saw, all those years ago: an entire world ahead of us, filled to the brim with possibilities, opportunities, and life.

  And I can’t wait to start the journey.

  THE END

  ***

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  Excerpt From Stud: A College Football Romance

  Chapter 1: Taylor

  Dani lifts her cup in the air and yells over the pounding music.

  “College is awesome!”

  Almost immediately, a couple frat boys in the crowd turn and look our way. I grab Dani’s wrist and pull her out into the hall before she can draw any more attention.

  “Dani,” I whisper, “this is a frat party! You can’t just say ‘college is awesome!’ Now everyone knows we’re freshmen!”

  Dani shrugs. “What’s wrong with that?”

  I look around the corner at the crowd of drunk, dancing, costumed bodies, making sure that no one’s listening in. “If we’re not careful, these guys are going to think that we’re horny freshman girls trying to get laid.”

  “But Taylor…we are horny freshman girls trying to get laid.”

  Uh oh. If there’s one sentence that can attract a swarm of obnoxious frat boys from ten miles away, it’s that one. “No we’re not! We’re respectable freshman girls who are open to meeting new people.”

  Dani shoots me a look. “Open to meeting new people? Taylor, this isn’t a business retreat, it’s a Halloween party, and in case you haven’t noticed, you’re a sexy witch.”

  I lo
ok down at my low-cut black dress and adjust the witch’s hat on my head. “Don’t remind me,” I grumble.

  “You’re the one who wanted to study instead of pick out costumes,” Dani says, gesturing down at her old high school cheerleading outfit, “Just wait, once the clock looks like this,” she points at the grandfather clock, a couple hours from now, “and your drink looks like this,” she holds her finger near the bottom of my cup, “I have a feeling you’re going to be open to much more than meeting new people. Or, at least, you’d better be. Because if you keep hugging that wall, I’m going to pick you up and start throwing you at cute boys.”

  I shake my head at Dani and take a sip of my drink. This is partially my fault. Ever since we got to college, I’ve pretty much been working quadruple overtime: taking extra credit hours, signing up for networking seminars, and applying for every single internship I can find, and pushing Dani to do the same. Golden State University is a competitive school, and if we want to stand out from the crowd, then we need every advantage possible. In retrospect, I probably went a little overboard on the study sessions, and whenever Dani tried to get me to put my books down and come to a party with her, I told her that I could party once we’re done with midterms, but now I had to work.