by Timms, Lexy
“HOW DARE YOU!” She leapt to her feet, slamming both her palms down on his desk, leaning in until they were nose to nose. She wanted to scream. She wanted to smack him across the face. To do something, anything, that would mess up that perfect smug look on his perfect smug face. “I have never in my life been so insulted, so badly mistreated!”
“Really?” He leaned in until looking in his eyes became a surreal experience that went from seeing two eyes, to really seeing only one. She could feel his breath on her face. He’d had tuna for lunch. “Perhaps I owe you an apology. If you can tell me you didn’t sleep with Nate Turner, I will humbly apologize.”
Amanda’s throat closed.
“Perhaps having dinner with Billy Bartock was a misunderstanding? You didn’t go on a date with him despite the evidence to the contrary?” He picked up that particular newspaper and shoved it toward her.
She stumbled backwards, putting both hands up as if to shield herself from the accusations. The paper tumbled onto the floor between them, the picture of herself, seated so intimately in a way that couldn’t be explained without ruining someone who didn’t deserve to be ruined.
Mr. Adams wasn’t done by long shot. He came around the desk, encroaching on her space, cornering her against the chair though he never so much as laid a hand on her. “Can you tell me that you did NOT, in fact, take money to pretend to be Nate’s girlfriend, or that he was benched until someone with zero knowledge of the game or the franchise deemed he was fit to play? Can you tell me his decision to quit had nothing to do with your influence, or that you have not interfered with his personal life in the form of other romantic relationships?”
He waited, his chest heaving as he stood staring down at her.
She had nothing to respond. Nothing to defend herself with. He was wrong. But he was right on every count at the same time.
She hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t realized that her life could be picked over so thoroughly in a mere handful of words. She fell more than sat in the chair, hands balling up into fists though who or what she wanted to hit right now was open to debate. Was it the fault of the paparazzi who’d hunted her down with a vengeance and had so utterly destroyed her? Was it Nate’s fault for…well, for being Nate? Or her own for allowing herself to get so carried away, so caught up in all of this that she’d ignored her own responsibilities? Namely the reason she’d been hired in the first place—to keep Nate out of trouble. Shouldn’t that have also included keeping herself out of trouble and not falling right into the TNT insanity?
Mr. Adams stared at her long and hard while she blinked back tears and tried to think of something she could say that would absolve her, or at the very least make him stop yelling at her.
He’s right. On every count. I’ve got nothing.
He had to have read the defeat in her eyes, in the way she slumped, trying to become one with the fabric of the chair so she could disappear. He simply gave her a look, every bit as contemptuous as the one she’d gotten from the receptionist, or from that bitchy principal at that overpriced private school. If he hadn’t been more of a gentleman she suspected he would have spit at her feet, like out of an old Western. Instead he merely turned and walked around his desk, and seated himself as if tirades of this nature were everyday occurrences.
For all she knew, they were.
He didn’t so much as look at her. Instead, he started gathering papers, speaking as if making idle conversation. “Frank Johnson has been relieved of his position. You were hired by him, paid by him and him alone. You are not and have never been an employee of the franchise and we will in no way support, back, or acknowledge your presence. You’ve presumably been paid by Mr. Johnson. You will not expect to see a penny from any other source. You will disavow your relationship with this franchise or you will feel the effects of a large law firm.” He tapped the stack of documents on the edge of the desk, aligning them carefully and clipping them together. Only when things were neat and tidied away did he look at her again. “Did you really think he would turn away a supermodel for you?” He scoffed. “Stick to the profession you know best, and don’t get involved. And above all? Do not return here ever again. Or I will have my legal team on you so fast you won’t know what hit you. I’ll put a restraining order on you if I need to. Do I make myself clear?” When she didn’t respond fast enough, he raised his voice and repeated, “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, barely whispering the words.
He smiled. “Mary will validate your parking on the way out. Have a nice day, Ms. Jones.”
Epilogue
Nate’s phone exploded into plastic and glass shrapnel, spraying the locker room. Amid shouts and a few careless death threats from his teammates, he kicked the locker hard enough to dent it.
“All right, Nate,” Coach Saunders called from his new office. “If you’ve got that much piss in you, suit up and take it out on the other guys.”
“I thought I was benched!” Nate shouted, the last word coming out on a sneer, letting the new man in charge know precisely what he thought of him and his coaching skills. Not that Saunders had anything to do with the original order. Nor that Nate ever had any real argument with him. Saunders had been the assistant coach of the Broncos for ages.
“Good!” Saunders snapped, sticking his head out and giving Nate a thumbs-up that actually included his thumbs. “Keep talking like an idiot, but save it for the press. In the meantime, go win a football game.”
“What the hell did you just say?” Nate took a step toward the smaller man, drawing himself up to his full height which gave him a good head on Saunders.
Saunders took a half step backward. “Look, they love it when you act like an ass, great. But when you’re on the field, I want you focused on the game! You’re starting. I know you’re not sharp, but you do have skills. Use them. Be a clown later.”
“Are you calling me stupid?” Nate growled, unaware that the room had gone silent around him.
“You have to ask?” Coach Saunders turned to include the rest of the room. “Listen up! Turner is back in action and will be starting. I know he’s rusty, but he’s been to the practices. I want you to team up, follow, and go out there. Kick their asses.”
Nate stood stock-still, the blood draining from his face. He felt a large hand slam down on his shoulder, staggering him.
“Welcome back to the game, man,” Billy said with a grin that showed all his teeth, and a couple of gaps that were still recent enough to not have the bridgework done.
Nate shook him off. “Just… leave me alone!”
Billy backed off, hands up.
He was almost instantly replaced with Nick, who stood there with his hand out for a high-five for several long seconds before he realized it wasn’t coming. “C’mon, man, it’s good news!” he said, dropping the hand and turning it into a hearty clap on his shoulder.
Nate was staggered a second time, and came up swinging.
His fist caught Nick square in the shoulder.
In moments, the room erupted into chaos, with a couple of guys hanging off of Nate and the others pulling Nick out of reach. Someone tried to put their hand over Nate’s mouth and he wound up pressed against a locker, held there by five teammates who used to be his closest friends.
“Not you, too,” he groaned when he relented, and slumped in their grip. They backed away warily, looking from him to the coach’s shut door.
“Do you wanna get benched again?” Nick asked, his voice pitched low, but furious. He flexed his arm muscles, testing the range and motion, making sure the shoulder still functioned. “Look, I don’t mind getting whaled on if it’s for the game, but you don’t hit your own teammates, man. I thought we were friends.”
“Sorry, Nick,” Nate muttered, bending to pick up his mouth guard from the floor, staring at it in disgust. “Who the hell tracked dog shit in here?”
“Nate…you need to know—”
“Billy, I don’t need to know anything from you.” H
e glared at his teammate. “I’d advise you to keep your distance, or you never know what might happen on, or off, the field.” Nate shoved past him, heading for the sinks and wondering if anything was going to get that mouth guard clean enough to even consider wearing again.
Billy made as if to reach for him, then thought better of it, suddenly becoming very interested in the contents of his locker—on the other side of the room.
Nick joined Nate at the sink, which was either brave or incredibly stupid depending on how you wanted to look at it.
Nate glared, hoping to send him scurrying, too, but Nick wasn’t having it.
“Enough,” he said soft enough so that no one around could hear. “Enough. I don’t know what you’re getting all bent out of shape about. You can’t blame Saunders for thinking you’re a fool; you’ve done your best to stay in the papers as a buffoon, and you know it. We know it. Denver knows it. You created yourself, so don’t get pissed if we all fall in line.”
Nate looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Nick spat back, “You play the fool, get drunk, laid, blow off the rules that the rest of us have to live by, and people laugh and buy tickets. You’re not here for the game. If it ever meant anything to you, it was a long time ago.”
Nate waved him off. “That’s bullshit.”
“Is it?” Nick asked. “You fry a goat on my damn driveway, and people laugh and say, ‘fuckin’ Nate!’ You bang girls barely legal—including my sister, I might add—swim naked in public fountains and laugh it off. Coach tried to get you to be a player, it got him fired. You pissed about Coach getting canned? They did that to get you back in the funny pages where people could laugh at you again.”
Nate lunged for Nick a second time, but Nick saw it coming and grabbed him. They stood, each grasping the other’s shirt, face to face. “Why are you pissed?” Nick pressed. “It’s what you wanted.”
“Not this.” Nate said, biting off each word like it was something that tasted bad in his mouth. “I didn’t want this.”
“You want her,” Billy said from behind. Nate flinched and let go of Nick’s shirt. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, man,” Billy continued. “I didn’t ‘date’ her. She’s not my type. I just needed a woman’s perspective. I met with her, as a friend of a friend.”
Nate stood, trembling with unspent energy. “I want Coach back.” Not caring that Saunders heard, who’d just come out of the office in the last few minutes and was standing right behind Nick. Their eyes met in the mirror, Saunders without apology. Nate with a great deal of rage.
“Then put this on,” Nick said, tossing Nate’s jersey to him. “And explain to them why they should care what you want.”
Do I even know what I want?
Nate stood a long time, one hand holding the mouth guard, the other holding the jersey. Every man in the room was watching him, waiting to see what he would do.
Boy or man, now?
Nate looked up at Nick. He met Billy’s eyes in the mirror.
Very carefully he turned the water off, and threw his mouth guard in the trash. In silence he pulled on his jersey and moved to his locker, to find the spare mouth guard tucked away on the top shelf.
Saunders grinned and called out to the team, “Dallas is the top-ranked team this year, they’re—”
“Going down,” Nate finished for him. He slammed his fist into the metal facing of the locker and dented it. “They’re going down today!”
The men around him roared and shouted, stomping their feet and setting up a din loud enough to be heard by the good people of Denver eight hundred miles away.
“Welcome to the Broncos,” Billy said, thumping Nate on the shoulder, a friendly hit. His face creased in a predatory smile that, if the other team had seen it in this moment, would have had them turning tail and running all the way home to their mommies.
All they needed was a little push in the right direction so they’d know which way to run.
And Nate was going to show them where to go. He was going to show them all.
“WELCOME TO THE BRONCOS!” he yelled, head thrown back, fist raised in the air.
Damn, it felt good to be back!
The cheer was picked up by the team, one by one. It was carried with them as they ran from the locker room through the long tunnel that led them out onto the field. When the Denver fans saw him on the field they went wild, screaming and shouting his name. TNT was back and ready to play.
But the players’ own shouts overrode even that adulation, and one by one the calls from the crowd changed until they took up the battle cry that had started at one locker and was carried, not by one man, but by the team as a whole.
“Broncos! Broncos! Broncos!”
Nate stood out on the field with the rest of his team. Not a little way apart as he had previously. Close in, with the rest of them.
It felt good. Right.
His heart was pounding in his ears, but his eyes were clear, and he felt sharper than ever.
They were going to kick some ass.
He wondered if she was out there somewhere. Watching.
To Be Continued…
T.N.T #2 Description
Growing up is hard to do.
The infamous Troubled Nate Thomas, aka T.N.T., has seen himself the way the world sees him and it isn’t pretty. While he’s set on reinventing himself, his own teammates are sabotaging him at every turn. After all, where would the Broncos be without their dynamite? It seems the only person who was willing to give him room to be a better person is Amanda, but she’s caught up in her own drama as she reassesses her own career goals.
United they stand, divided they fall. By reaching for each other, can they weather storms of rumor, betrayal, and the return of a first love?
The game’s not even half over, the score’s tied, and there’s a halftime show in the works that promises to blow the lid off everything. But you have to expect explosions when you’re playing with TNT.
** EXCERPT INCLUDED **
T.N.T Book 2 – Chapter 1
Nate watched George Fields running. Damn, he was friggin’ fast. He covered the ground in those great long strides that just ate the ground. Poor Tim Grimes was trying to run too. Where George was a galloping gazelle, Tim looked liked a maddened bull blocked from his goal by three men who were in his way. George sprinted to the end of the field.
And Tim… well, he was trying to tear the head off one Nate Turner.
Nate forced two steps away to the side as the maddened bull threw off his stumbling blocks—Nate’s teammates—and Nate’s arm fired the football.
A couple of hundred years ago, someone discovered that a gun would shoot further and more accurately if grooves where cut into the barrel and thus cause the bullet to spin. This was called “rifling” The tighter the spin, the further the bullet traveled, the more accurate the shot. This was also true with a football.
Nate’s spin would have made the Winchesters proud. It was tight and fast, and it flew over the head of Tim Grimes who was now too close and too fast to stop. While Nate made history, he could only see the white jersey with the word GRIMES followed by an extreme close-up of a clump of grass that tried to enter his face mask and tickled the end of his nose. The rest of the world watched a spinning ball fire through the air like a guided missile that landed in the center of George Fields’s chest.
The roar of the crowd sounded good. Like George hadn’t messed it up. Nate was still eating dirt and trying to wait patiently for someone to climb off Tim, so Tim could finally remove his elbow from Nate’s kidney. It seemed to take forever, time Nate spent listening to the roar of the crowd and trying to figure out just which side they were shouting for. The pass was good. George grabbed it. I saw him reaching... What he’d done with it from there was still a mystery to Nate. He shouted questions no one heard, or ever would hear if the big oaf on top of him didn’t get off soon.
Finally, the weight disappeared, and a hand reached to
pull him to his feet. It was his buddy, and teammate, Nick who pulled him upright, and slapped him on the back hard screaming the word “FANTASTIC!” directly in Nate’s ear.
“He caught it?” Nate asked, trying to see down the field, but the word GRIMES still blurred in his eyes, like the afterimage from a camera flash.
“Touchdown, man!” Nick yelled.
Nate whooped, blinking and trying to clear his vision. He thought he saw Nick smiling so big he was about to split his face in two parts. Or it might have been two Nick’s. Possibly four.
Nate grabbed the man’s shoulder. “Lead me back!” he said, wobbling a moment as he tried to walk. At least his legs worked. He’d have a bruise or six of ‘em, not that it mattered. He’d come off the field with worse. It was the light-headedness from the tackle that concerned him, that could keep him off the field for the remainder of the night if they thought he was concussed.
Nick sat him down next to Coach Saunders who tried to high-five his sudden star player, but Nate missed it. Between the vertigo and the word GRIMES, he barely saw the bench, so the high-five landed somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulder. Saunders turned with the suddenness of a bird determining that the better feed was somewhere else as the defense took the field, shouting for the team doctor to get over there.
Nick stuck by his side as the old sawbones flashed a light in Nick’s eyes and checked reflexes. “You alright? Pupils are even, no dilation.”
It was all he could do to keep from tossing the doctor out onto the field and seeing if he could get him half as far as his last pass. “I told you I’m fine,” he said as the man put a blood pressure cuff over Nick’s arm and reached for his stethoscope. “I’ve been hit worse. That guy has a personal vendetta against me.”
“Yeah,” Nick agreed with a laugh. “I think he likes you. Want me to slip him a note a recess?”
Nate cracked open a bottle of water and christened his friend with it. Nick yelped and knocked Nate off the bench hard enough to send the doctor rattling against the wall behind them. The doc gave them both a dirty look, declared Nate fit to play, and scurried out of the way muttering imprecations under his breath. Most of them involving Nick’s parentage.