by Timms, Lexy
“I’ll get you change…” he said helpfully, but didn’t make any move to do so.
“Forget it!” she yelled to the house. “Forget it! I’m made of money, obviously! I’m living in a mansion, what the hell?”
She stormed off to where her bags were lying on the path to the guesthouse. She picked them up and stomped off. Three steps later, she realized her ‘share’ of the cab ride was about eight dollars. And she’d bloody left her car in the short-term parking.
Seventeen carefully counted steps later, she discovered she didn’t have ice cream and Casablanca wasn’t available for streaming.
At least there was a beer in the fridge. She looked it for a long time and closed the door quietly on it, in case it exploded.
On the other hand, it was almost 4:30. What else was there to do?
The strangest part of going to bed at 4:30 in the afternoon is actually falling asleep. She flung herself on the bed, a small ball of misery and pity, and suddenly she was woken by headlights glaring through the window.
It had somehow gotten dark and she’d fallen asleep without closing the curtains to the bedroom which faced the driveway. When a car came to the house in the evening, the headlights swept the windows just before they disappeared behind a corner of the building.
It was 8:20, when a car did just that with precision enough to blind her completely when she opened her eyes. Amanda crawled out of bed and staggered to the window to close the drapes. That’s when she woke up enough to realize that the car hadn’t parked in front of the door, but had taken the circular driveway and parked where it wouldn’t be in the way. This suggested someone who planned to stay a while. Someone who knew the layout of the mansion.
She paused, one hand still on the pull for the drapes.
The driver’s door opened and Amanda saw a leg. At one end of the leg was a foot encased in a shoe she would kill for, but was probably beyond the ability of most non-professional gymnasts and tightrope walkers to wear. The toes of that foot were scrunched at a 45-degree angle, and the only other contact with the ground was a single pinprick of a heel that rose a good foot to the bottom of the heel in it. Just to keep such an improbable contortion of a foot from coming unwound at the first step, the entire area was wrapped from toe to ankle in a cross-weave leather thong. Think: if gladiators were sluts.
It was impractical, impossible, and likely over-priced—and Amanda wanted a pair.
The other end of the leg went up for a good four and a half feet to the bottom of a black dress that hung just below where that particular leg joined the other. Think: if sluts were sluts.
The woman attached to so much leg and pricey shoes was stepping out of an equally expensive car, and had a spine like flagpole. By the time Amanda’s gaze got to the woman’s face, she was half ready for the jolt of recognition that shot through her.
She’d seen this woman before. Her name escaped Amanda’s memory. It hadn’t been important enough at the time, but the face, hell the legs, had been draped across several of Jennifer’s magazines for expensive clothes she would never have. This was a professional model, one who used to date a professional football player.
“Nate’s ex is a professional model?” Amanda cried out loud to the woman who walked into the house like she owned it, though thankfully never heard this particularly inane bit of dialogue. “Of freakin’ course.” She shook her head and seethed at Fate. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?”
How the hell could she compete with a woman who was paid millions to look like someone’s wet dream? She stared down at herself. She wore the same clothes she’d worn on the plane home. Wrinkled, askew, sweaty. There was even a little mark on the left breast where she’d dribbled champagne, just to complete the classy trailer park look.
She sat heavily on the bed, head in her hands. She nearly jumped out of her skin when her cell phone rang.
She answered warily, not recognizing the number on her caller ID. “Hello?”
“Hey, uh… Amanda. This is Billy, Billy Bartock, I’m uh…”
“Hey, Billy,” Amanda said, “thanks for helping me out yesterday. I thought that security guard was going to throw me out.”
“Oh! Right!” Billy laughed.
Amanda could feel the tension, but had no clue why. Was he still upset about the retirement thing? “I think Nate’s probably busy right now, Billy…” Or maybe he’s about to get busy? Amanda stomped on that stray thought.
“No, I, uh… I called to talk to … I wanted to call you.”
Amanda stared at the phone like she expected it to explain things to her. Maybe act as translator if it happened to speak football jock. “Me?”
“Yeah,” Billy said then paused. “I know it’s late but I thought you might like to get some dinner um…tonight? Or sometime if tonight doesn’t work.”
“Uh, Billy, I would love to, but…” But what? But I’m supposed to be Nate’s girlfriend and I have to carry on this deception while he has sex with a super-model? Well, yes, that’s my excuse. Nate had been a true bastard since… well since… when hadn’t he been?
She needed some time to be Amanda Jones. No job could expect you to change your life and be on call 24/7/365. Billy seemed nice in a rather mountainous kind of way.
She took a deep breath. “That sounds great, Billy.”
“Really?!” It was cute how he sounded surprised. “How about I meet you in an hour? There’s a great Chinese place I know near the mall.”
Amanda had just enough time to shower and dress. Billy was a good guy.
What could go wrong? After all, it wasn’t like hanging out with the fabulous, infamous T.N.T.
Chapter 13
Even with showering and calling a cab, Amanda arrived before Billy did. He didn’t see her right away, but Billy in a Chinese restaurant was like finding an Easter Island statue in a preschool. He kinda stuck out.
Built like a Humvee on legs, his shoulders were too wide to fit through the door, so he had to cheat and enter sideways while ducking. It was fascinating to watch, really. Amanda couldn’t figure out how that much chest could sit atop a thin waist, but something in the way he moved suggested that when training was over, Billy was going to grow a gut. When that happened, he’d probably be even scarier.
He spotted her at the table and grinned like a little boy and wiggled his fingers at her the way a child did when told to greet his grandmother. It was cute and little surreal. He wound his way past the tables, surprisingly graceful, and managed not to trod on anyone. When he sat in the chair opposite her, he ignored the groan of protest from the wood and Amanda, after a moment’s panic, accepted that the chair wasn’t going to implode after all. At least, not all at once.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Billy said and ducked his head. Amanda wasn’t sure, given how dark his skin was, but thought Billy was blushing. He was nervous. This muscle-bound giant was shy around her.
It was kind of adorable.
She smiled, trying to put him at ease. “I had to make a stop on the way here. So I just got here. You’re looking really good today.”
Billy grinned, delighted. “Thank you!” He glanced down at his button-down shirt, tucked casually into a pair of jeans. “It’s kinda hard finding clothes for someone my size; most of what I have I had to get tailor-made. If I had a regular job, I couldn’t afford any clothing at all.”
Amanda smiled, not sure how to respond to that, and pretended to study the menu. Billy did study the menu and spent a great deal of time before choosing two of the meals out of the four front-runners. He folded the menu and smiled beatifically at her.
“So,” he said, leaning forward on the table, tilting it dangerously in his direction. “How’s Nate?”
Talking about one’s pretend boyfriend was not what Amanda was expecting on a first date, but sure… why not? “Nate is… good. I think. I’m not sure, as he’s not actually talking to me at the moment. After what happened on the plane.” She sighed. “I don’t do well on planes, I think.”
“Nonsense,” Billy said with a gentle smile. “You were fine. In fact, I really liked the underwear.”
She choked on the water she was sipping. “Uh…thank you.”
“No, it was cute. Not everyone can pull off a thong and a fall like that.” Amanda felt her face heat up. It didn’t help when Billy added. “I certainly can’t.”
The visual was too much for her. Amanda hid behind the menu before she did something totally asinine like laugh and hurt his feelings. But the image stayed with her.
What the hell? These football players were going to be the death of her.
When the waiter came, Billy waffled again and decided on all four entrées. Amanda simply stared at him. “Where are you going to put that much food?”
Billy shook his head. “Listen, we’re in training all day every day. If the nutritionist knew what I was doing here tonight, she’d get on her broom and write ‘Surrender Dorothy’ over my house. The problem is, we burn a lot of calories and we need to take in a lot, too. I work out six hours a day when we don’t have a game. That’s a lot of fuel.”
“Well, it really shows,” Amanda said, trying to take back a little of the unintended criticism. “You look great.”
“Thanks.” Billy pulled a pair of chopsticks out of the container in the center of the table and snapped them apart idly. They looked like toothpicks in his hands. He tapped them on the table, using them as impromptu drumsticks for a short solo that involved a bottle of soy sauce, the napkin dispenser, and his silverware.
Amanda laughed and applauded his efforts, and he ducked his head, doing that embarrassed thing again.
“What do you mean, he’s not talking to you?” he asked, dropping the chopsticks on the table.
Amanda sighed. She was pretty sure she’d been able to steer the conversation away from that, even if she did risk insulting him about his appetite. “I don’t know. I mean… I shouldn’t have said anything to him about the retirement thing on the plane. That was stupid of me. I just… I wasn’t thinking, you know? And I probably shouldn’t have let on to the rest of the team that I was hired to pretend to be his girlfriend either.”
“It was a surprise,” Billy said, his tone serious.
“I know, I know. I just. I feel like I’ve done everything wrong. I open my mouth and out comes something else I shouldn’t say, or I try to fit in and look like a cheap hooker.”
“You’ve had a busy week.” Billy nodded, not unkindly.
“You don’t know the half of it.” She groaned. “I never thought that inviting my cousin to a game would put me in trouble either!”
“Yeah, Nate was kinda put out by that,” Billy agreed. “That’s why he left the field.”
If it was possible, Amanda’s jaw hit the floor. “That’s why he left? It can’t be.” The look on Billy’s face confirmed. She buried her face in her hands. “That can’t be why he’s leaving the team.”
“So he is quitting, then? It’s not just something he’s talking about?”
Amanda peered out from the circle of her arms. “See? I did it again!” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think he wants to retire, Billy, I just think he found a way out of a bad deal and he’s desperate enough to take it. He doesn’t want me, Billy; he doesn’t want this charade, either.”
“Have you asked him what he does want?”
Amanda was saved from answering by the arrival of their food. While she scrambled to move her water glass and utensils to make room on the table, she thought frantically. She’d presumed that Coach had talked to Nate. No, if she was to be honest, she hadn’t given it any thought at all.
“I suppose not,” she admitted when the waiter had found room for all four plates. Billy tore into the kung pao chicken like it was going to be taken away if he didn’t beat the clock. Amanda picked at her food as best she could in the limited area allotted to her plate. “I don’t suppose it occurred to me to talk to him.”
“Maybe you should?” Billy asked as he finish the kung pao and started on the chow Mein crispy noodles.
“I think it’s too late,” she said sadly, pushing at her broccoli beef with a chopstick.
“Never too late,” Billy said around a healthy mouthful.
“Yeah, I think it is. When I left my apartment, a pair of legs attached to a blonde showed up. I think I remember her…”
“Alanna’s back?” Billy almost didn’t get his mouth around the name and the orange chicken at the same time.
That was it, Alanna Roysvic. Something like that. Supermodel, known for her ‘pensive’ look that, to Amanda’s mind, was more a disapproving constipation than anything even remotely thoughtful. She was in every magazine but Popular Science and had been featured in the latest Victoria’s Secret catalog. Not that she shopped from there or anything.
“I’m such as idiot,” Amanda said and gave up on the chopsticks completely as a broccoli floret dropped to her plate for the fourth time. “There’s a high-class underwear model in his… house.” She fumbled for the fork, then stared in disbelief as she dropped that selfsame bit of broccoli off the end of her fork. This time it hit the edge of the table and kept on going until it was halfway across the table.
“Yeah, she probably came because of the paper,” Billy said, halfway through his third entrée. He showed signs of slowing down, though. A bit. Or that he was reaching for the food she’d dropped.
“What paper?” she asked, giving up on the idea of eating altogether since it seemed utensils were entirely beyond her tonight.
Billy held up a finger and stood. He slipped through the restaurant and out the front door. Only then did Amanda realize that the rest of the diners were watching them and two of the staff in the back of the place had $20 bills out, wagering on whether Billy could finish everything he ordered.
He returned a moment later with a copy of the Denver Post. “There’s a machine outside,” he said by way of explanation. He tossed everything but the sports section and there, on the front page of that portion of the paper was…her. In L.A. Jumping up with her arms in the air and her tits all the way up to her chin and off to the right.
Bouncing Broncos Girl linked to two players and mystery date.
Amanda shoved the plate away from her completely. “Bouncing Broncos Girl?” Her voice rose on each word until it was halfway to the stratosphere. “I just sent women back to the suffragette movement.” She buried her head in her hands for the second time that night.
“Listen,” Billy said. “Don’t take it so hard. Remember, your love affair with Nate isn’t real. Alanna isn’t good for him, never was, but she’ll keep him out of the papers.”
“What do you mean ‘not good for him’?” Amanda asked, lifting her head.
“She uses people. Not for money, she’s got plenty of that, but she needs someone on her arm who will boost her career and make her look good. Having a famous football player on your arm looks good in the papers.”
“On her arm or under her impractical heels?”
Billy shrugged and speared an egg roll with his chopstick. “Whatever. Nate was always a worse screw-up with her, but she never allowed it to get known. She kept him from the papers and from getting noticed unless he was with her. Owners didn’t much like it either. They were losing publicity, losing tickets. They broke them up.”
Amanda blinked. “How did they break them up?”
“Offered her a fat contract in another country. She left to go look good on a beach somewhere and met a local who is as gorgeous as she is.” Billy thought a moment and added, “and slightly more feminine.”
“But not famous,” Amanda added.
“No, not famous.”
Billy ate while Amanda thought. So… Alanna was back to re-hook Nate.
“Billy,” Amanda asked, “if you’re so concerned about Nate, why did you ask me out?”
Billy set his chopsticks down. Amanda thought they had to be pretty warm from all that friction by now. He looked around; the two waiters had almost f
inished their bet, but they were out of earshot. The rest of the place had gotten over the shock of having a famous football player in the same restaurant with them.
“I was just thinking,” Billy said, leaning forward in what she supposed he might have thought was a subtle move, had it not sent half the plates skidding toward his edge of the table.
Amanda lunged at the same moment Billy did, clunking heads as they saved what was left of dinner in a wild clatter of dishes that brought the staff running. Billy quit leaning on the table and raised his hands, showing that everything was all right.
Amanda just about died of embarrassment for the…how many times had it been today?
Billy waited until everyone was out of earshot before speaking again.
“Now that I know Alanna is in town, she’ll keep him out of the tabloids, or he’ll quit. Then what plans do you have?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the apartment is in Nate’s house, you’ll have to move, you’ll have no job… What are your plans?”
“I guess… I really hadn’t thought about further plans, really…” Oh good one, girl. Here’s something you should have considered…
“I would like to hire you,” Billy said grandly.
“To do what?”
“Be my girlfriend, obviously.”
Amanda threw her napkin down on the table. “I am NOT a prostitute!” she snapped, and shot to her feet.
“No, no, no no…” Billy stood, too, and towered over her, waving his hands. “I didn’t mean that, I really didn’t mean that at all. Amanda, it’s me! Billy! You know me, sorta. Would I do something like that to you?”
Amanda stared at him with something between a venomous hate-filled glare, and an old-fashioned girl pout. She sat. And stared.
Billy looked around to be sure he couldn’t be heard. “I need…” he whispered. He switched to the chair beside her. One of the waiters reached for the other $20 and they started an argument over Billy being done or taking a break. “I need…” Billy said so softly she almost didn’t hear him. His nose nearly touched hers. “… a beard.” He sighed as though a great relief had passed through his giant frame.