SACK: A Football Bad Boy Romance

by Westlake, Samantha

  Miranda frowned at me. I didn't know if she could tell that I was omitting information, or if she just hoped that my story would turn out to be juicier. "You both just got tired?" she repeated, sounding skeptical.

  I shrugged. "Yeah, that's what he told me. I went over to the stadium, took some pictures for the social media accounts, and then headed home."

  "Alone."

  "Yes, alone," I repeated, narrowing my eyes back at Miranda. "Like I told you before, I'm not going to get involved with any of the players. No mixing of work and pleasure." I ignored that kiss, doing my best to repress the memory of Chase sweeping me up into his arms.

  I'd been doing my best all week to ignore that memory, with varying degrees of success. I'd swung by practice a few more times over the past week, mainly to take pictures and chat with some of the players for human interest stories, and although I'd spotted Chase off on the sidelines training, he didn't make any special attempt to come speak to me.

  I kind of preferred that, to be honest. The kiss had been a drunken mistake on both of our parts, and it should just fade into the background.

  A good idea - except that, whenever I closed my eyes, I kept on thinking about it! I kept on remembering how Chase's mouth felt on mine, how his strong arms had pulled me in, but his lips had been softer and gentle.

  I never let myself linger on those thoughts for too long. A drunken mistake, and nothing more. I would put it behind me, not let it affect my job performance, and neither of us would ever speak of it again.

  In any case, my talk with Chase seemed to actually be working! After that Monday night out, the man spent the next few nights just hanging around his hotel in the evenings, not even going out clubbing. The tabloids still ran stories about him, of course - Seth Chase sold newspapers - but all of the photos were old, and the stories dropped off to later pages of the tabloids instead of appearing with 96-point font headlines.

  To fill the void left behind by the absence of scandals, I put out plenty of social media content! I took the chance to sit down with several members of the Hawks' defensive line and interview them, promising to put up an interview each week. I took pictures and videos of practice sessions, posted caption contests, and spent most of my free hours during the day replying to and retweeting comments and questions from fans.

  And my work showed results! Scarcely a week into the job, I could already see measurable growth in follower counts on all platforms, and "scandal" was no longer the next suggested Google search when I typed in Seth Chase's name. My initial fear about starting my new position was finally beginning to give way to slowly growing confidence.

  Miranda was still looking at me dubiously, but I pointedly turned my attention back to the game. With just three more games left after this one until the division finals, the pundits were already predicting that we would see the Hawks competing in, if not winning, the Superbowl itself.

  This game certainly looked that way! By the end of the third quarter, the Hawks had further increased their lead, to the point where some of the opposing team's fans were already getting up and heading towards the exits. No chance of this game ending in anything but a Hawks win.

  A few minutes into the fourth quarter, I downed the last couple sips of my beer and stood up. "Listen, everyone, thank you all for coming out to cheer for the Hawks," I told Miranda and the investment bankers. "But right now, I've got to head down to the field, get some reaction shots, comments, and pictures. I'll see you all later, okay?"

  "Hey, Katy, thanks for the tickets!" one of the two bankers called out, holding up his beer in a toast to me - and nearly toppling backwards off of his chair. "This is awesome!"

  "Yeah, do we have your number?" added his friend, attempting to put on a confident smile - which would have worked, were it not for the guacamole stain on his shirt.

  "You can get it from Miranda," I told them, smiling. I still couldn't remember their names - one was Derek and one was Dylan, but I couldn't, for the life of me, remember which was which - but they'd been good sports and cheered just as loudly as I did.

  I took the elevator down from the sky boxes, cutting through the crowd of departing visitors and heading over to the security gate that led to the locker rooms. The security guard, an older looking gentleman, frowned at me.

  "Uh, Katy Tenner," I said, digging my identification badge out of my purse. "I'm coming in to interview the team about their latest win - I'm the social media coordinator."

  "Nice to meet you, Miss Tenner," the guard replied after a minute, passing my badge back to me. "Name's Jim. You be nice to those boys, you hear? Especially that Chase fellow - he's one of the good ones."

  "I promise to give them only easy, softball questions," I said, holding up two fingers. "Scout's oath."

  Jim chuckled and stepped aside to let me pass. "Good luck, Miss Tenner!" he called after me.

  Still smiling a little, I cut through the Hawks' locker room and out onto the sidelines of the field. I ducked and dodged my way through the press of water boys, assistant coaches, reporters, photographers, and other press people standing on the edge of the field, making my way over to where the Hawks offense sat on the sidelines, watching their defense successfully hold back their opponents.

  A dozen steps away, I caught sight of a dreadlocked head. "DeShaun!" I called out. "Over here! It's Katy!"

  The man turned at the sound of his name, a smile growing across his face as he spotted me. "Hey, Katy, get over here!" he called out, opening up a path for me. "Here, let me guess - you want a nice picture of me for all the fans?"

  In the game today, DeShaun made nearly a dozen catches, including four first downs and two touchdowns. "You know it!" I told him, pulling out my phone. "Give me that pose of yours!"

  Still grinning, DeShaun put both his hands together and brought them around, like a baseball batter knocking a home run out of the park. I snapped a couple quick shots, selected the best, and showed it to him.

  "Looks nice, girl," he nodded. "And I bet you want to talk to Chase, too, huh? Man of the hour, led us to victory?"

  Did I want to talk to Chase? I knew that I needed a quote from him, at the very least, but my stomach turned a queasy flip. "Actually, I could probably wait-"

  "Yo, Chase!" DeShaun called out, waving his hand. "Over here, man - you got an admirer who wants to interview you!"

  I winced, but down at the other end of the line of players, I saw a head of golden hair stand up, a pair of blue eyes pan over to me. Damn. No avoiding him now.

  "Hi Katy," Chase greeted me, once he'd made his way down to my end of the mass of players and assistants. "Catch the game?"

  "Yeah, from one of the sky boxes," I nodded, pointing up into the stands. "Great job, by the way - those were some amazing throws!"

  He shrugged, as though it was nothing special.

  I asked a few more questions, just the usual - how'd he feel about his performance, what were his favorite moments, were there any times where he felt about to break down in panic, and so on. Chase answered them all without hesitation, but I could feel his eyes lingering on me in a manner that suggested that at least some of his thoughts might be elsewhere.

  Inside my head, I felt torn between not wanting to know what else he might be thinking - and deadly curious. Curiosity killed the cat, I reminded myself, but this didn't do enough to stop those curious thoughts.

  "How did the balls feel?" I suddenly asked, a new thought popping into my head.

  "Excuse me?" Chase started, looking surprised for the first time in the interview. "Is that really appropriate with the cameras on?" He didn't have to state that he wouldn't mind answering the question with the cameras off.

  I blushed for a moment as I replayed my words and caught the double meaning. "Um, no, not what I meant. I meant the footballs - did they seem fully inflated?"

  I expected him to laugh, to tell me that the footballs felt just like usual.

  I wasn't expecting him to flush with color and snap his mouth shut for a mo
ment, staring at me with wide eyes - which was exactly what he did.

  "The balls are fine," he answered shortly, his eyes still looking surprised. "Why would you think anything else?"

  Why had he just shifted his entire attitude? "Oh, I was in the locker room the other night, and I noticed that a couple of the balls sitting out felt a little flat, that's all," I remarked, shrugging to show that it didn't mean anything. "I'm guessing that those were out to be re-inflated, or something, but I just figured I'd ask-"

  "Well, don't," Chase cut me off. "The balls are fine, up to regulation. That's all."

  And before I could ask him any other questions, he turned away.

  Clearly, the interview was over.

  Chapter ten

  Chase turned away from the young woman, keeping his lips pressed tightly shut so that he wouldn't let another word slip out. Inside his head, he could feel his thoughts warring with each other to be heard.

  How the hell did she decide to ask something about the balls? Where had she felt them in the locker room, where she might notice that they were soft? Who had left balls out that weren't fully inflated? What if she went and, oh so innocently, told someone else?

  Taking a deep breath, Chase forced his mind to calm itself. He couldn't afford to get worked up right now. He had more interview, post-game coverage to sit through, and he couldn't let any of this irritation show. He needed to project calm and confidence, assurances that the Hawks would continue their winning streak all the way to the Superbowl itself.

  Yet throughout the next couple of hours, as he showered, changed back into everyday clothes, and answered questions from the sports reporters, Chase felt the frown attempting to return to his face. He struggled with a couple of the questions, even asking one or two reporters to repeat their inquiries.

  "Sorry," he apologized, putting on his best attempt at a smile. "Guess my head's still partly out on the field, not here."

  The reporters all laughed politely, but Chase couldn't keep up his smile for long. As soon as the reporters and sportscasters ran out of questions, he hopped up from his seat, high-tailing it out of the stadium and off to the privacy of his hotel room.

  He didn't permit himself to relax until the door to his room closed shut behind him. Heart pounding, he stepped over to the bed, standing over it and staring down at the made-up comforter and pillows.

  What was he going to do?

  After a minute, Chase slowly sank down onto the bed, sitting cross-legged. He pulled a pillow out, slammed his fist into it a couple times to burn off some of the nervous energy flooding through him, and then tossed it aside.

  He had never wanted to get caught.

  The whole thing started at the beginning of the season, he recalled. He'd been throwing at practice before the season started, just running drills, hitting targets across the field, when he noticed that his accuracy felt even better than usual.

  Some quarterbacks might have chalked this up to luck, but Chase refused to acknowledge that luck could play such a drastic role in his ability to throw a regulation football. He began investigating, considering all sorts of factors, from the temperature outside, to the slight dampness of his hands as he threw the ball, to what he had eaten for breakfast.

  All of these factors proved not to have any impact on his ability to accurately throw a football at a target, but Chase did eventually discover the cause behind his increased accuracy and skill on that day. The footballs supplied for practice had been inflated in the warm locker room; when one of the assistants brought them outside for the practice, they'd contracted and deflated slightly in the cooler outdoors.

  Chase tried it over and over, and consistently, he observed the same results: when the football was slightly deflated, just a little bit, it flew more accurately and felt more comfortable in his hand.

  This, Chase knew, was a big problem.

  The league had very specific and clear rules on what did and did not comprise a regulation football. One of those rules stated that any football used in play had to be inflated to between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds per square inch, as measured by the referees.

  The balls that Chase found most comfortable in his hands, however, were only at 11 pounds per square inch. The difference wasn't massive, but it was more than enough for a referee with a gauge to spot the difference.

  Initially, Chase didn't mean to make any use of this fact. He idly made a note of it, considering that if he had to play some charity game, he could always let a little bit of the air out of the ball to make throwing it to the kids a little easier. He never intended to put it to use in a game.

  But he made the mistake of mentioning his finding to Terry Muskgrave, the offensive coordinator for the Hawks.

  In the first game of the season, the temperatures outside during the game's play time happened to be chilly and cold, with a lingering mist hanging in the air from the morning's fog. The Hawks played especially well, securing their victory by more than twenty points - but Chase noticed that the ball felt a little odd in his hands. As he fell back after the snap, catching the ball and searching for his best target, he observed that the ball seemed to squeeze a little more easily in his fingers.

  After the game, the assistants whisked the balls away, but Chase approached Muskgrave and asked him about his observation. At first, Muskgrave denied having any knowledge of a change to the balls, but Chase had worked with the man for months in close contact, and he sensed that Muskgrave was holding something back.

  Eventually, Muskgrave broke down and admitted that he'd had one of the assistants inflate the footballs inside the warm locker room before bringing them out. Just like at the spring practice earlier that year, the footballs deflated a little as they came out into the cold air, making them easier to handle - and also breaking the rules.

  Chase had been furious. He'd yelled at Muskgrave and gone storming out, but the offensive coordinator remained adamant that he'd made the right choice.

  "Look, Chase," he insisted, the next day at practice. "No one's going to find out - and besides, the league officials don't say where they have to check the pressure! There's no rule that says that they can't check the pressure inside the locker room, and then the ball just happens to lose a little pressure once it comes outside."

  Chase remained torn for the next few games, but Muskgrave, apparently taking the decision into his own hands, kept on supplying balls for the game that were slightly under-inflated - and Chase kept up his stellar performance.

  Finally, after their third win in a row, he came to his coach.

  "Listen, I'm still not happy about this, and we need to be careful," he started things off. "But I want your promise that we'll take every precaution, and not mention this to anyone else. If someone else catches on, we're going to deny everything and never do it again."

  "You've got it, Chase," Muskgrave assured him.

  And so, for the rest of the games of the season so far, Muskgrave handled inflating the footballs inside the locker room, and Chase didn't remark on whether the football in his hands sometimes felt a little bit deflated. After all, it still came down to his skill at throwing and identifying the right target, in the end, didn't it? Besides, as Muskgrave had pointed out, they were still obeying the letter of the law, if not necessarily the spirit.

  He'd paid careful attention to what his receivers and other players commented about the balls, but no one seemed to notice any difference. Finally, Chase started to relax a little, not lying awake worrying about if this secret to the Hawks' success would get out.

  He' thought that everything was alright - and then, oh so innocently, Katy asked the question about the balls possibly being deflated.

  He could have brushed it off, he realized now with a groan of regret. He grabbed another pillow off his bed, violently choking it into submission and then punching it a couple of times, just for good measure. If he'd been better at concealing his initial reaction, he could've just shrugged and told Katy that he hadn't noticed anything, but he'd have
his coach look into the issue.

  He probably could have pulled it off - but it was too late now.

  Chase hurtled this pillow across the room, slamming it against the wall before it dropped down onto its fallen companion. "Shit!" he howled into his empty hotel suite at the top of his lungs. "Fucking shit!"

  What the hell was he going to do now?

  He could go to Muskgrave, could tell him that someone had noticed the deflated balls, that they had to knock it off for the rest of the season. Chase suspected, however, that he could predict right now exactly how that meeting would go.

  It wouldn't go well.

  Muskgrave would have a dozen objections. He'd point out how well the Hawks had played so far, how a sudden drop in Chase's performance would raise questions from reporters and officials. He'd point out how Katy didn't know anything about the game and its regulations, how she wouldn't be likely to say anything to anyone - and they could lean on her to ensure her silence. He'd point out that the Superbowl was only a few more games away, that they were so close.

  And in the end, even if Chase threatened to go to the authorities himself, he'd burn himself just as badly as if Katy told someone.

  He'd known for the whole season, after all. He'd played multiple games, knowing full well that the football in his hands was deflated, and he hadn't spoken up to any of the officials or referees. He didn't know if Muskgrave had physical evidence linking him to the deflated balls, but Chase wouldn't put it past his coach.

  He couldn't tell Muskgrave. But could he really afford to just forget about Katy's mention of the deflated balls, hoping that she would keep her mouth shut?

  He couldn't do that either, he realized.

  So what was the best course of action, then?

  He'd have to stick close to Katy, he realized after a few minutes of thinking. She was the only one who knew his secret, as far as he could tell; he'd have to keep a close eye on her to make sure that she didn't say anything to anyone else. If she didn't forget about the deflated balls that she noticed in the locker room, he had to make sure that she trusted him enough that she directed all further questions through him.