by Lexi Wilson
I cocked an eyebrow and one corner of my mouth. “Bama? The head cheerleader?”
“Mm-hmm.” She nodded.
Not knowing what to make of it, I went on, “Bama? Calling me on the street?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
Well, that was peculiar. I looked off, wondering. “What would Bama be doing here at headquarters in the off-season? And, why would she be calling after me?”
“Well, I don’t know what she wanted with Quinn. But since she was here and she spotted you, she must have just wanted to say hi.” She paused and put her finger curiously to her lip. “Though, she did sound a little frantic and anxious for that.”
Josie took her place behind her desk again and cocked her head again, waking up her computer for an afternoon’s work. “Eh. I’m probably reading too much into it. You guys and the cheerleaders don’t see a lot of each other when there’s not a game, especially when it’s off-season. She probably just wanted to chat and see how you’re doing since the big win. It was probably nothing.”
Curling my lips, I accepted what Josie was saying was probably true. Bama probably just wanted to shoot the breeze a bit. That’s all it was.
I said my goodbyes to Josie and headed out from Quinn’s office. But on my way to the parking garage, I kept worrying at what Josie told me, the way you worry at a piece of popcorn stuck in your teeth or a pebble in your shoe. For some reason I couldn’t explain, I couldn’t leave it alone.
Bama...yelling after me...in the street. What was she doing around here? Did she live around here? I didn’t actually know. Truthfully, I never knew that much about any of the women I fucked. The most I usually needed to know was that they liked it with the guy on top. Of course, neither one of us had been on top that night before the big game…
Before the big game. That one drunken tumble in the hotel penthouse bathroom. Except for talking during the season, that was the most that Bama and I had ever had to do with each other. It was good, but it was just one drunk, hot time. She couldn’t have wanted to talk to me about that, could she?
No, Bama would know better than that. She’d know that was over and done with.
I was sure that was all it was. She just wanted to say hi. Nothing more.
Chapter 7
Bama
It was a couple of days later when Quinn called me back and asked to see me at his office again. He didn’t say why. He only said I needed to come back and see him. As soon as I got off the phone with him, my mind started racing.
Why did Quinn want to talk to me again? What was so important that I had to go back and see him so soon after our last fruitless meeting?
He couldn’t possibly know about the pregnancy. I wasn’t showing yet. I’d looked it up online and learned that with my weight and body type, and the shape I was in, I might not start showing until twelve weeks along. Moreover, I hadn’t told a soul yet except for Kira, and she would never have said anything to anyone unless I wanted her to.
The only other thing I could think of was my last visit to him, when I’d tried to get Barrett’s address out of him and he’d refused to give it to me. Quinn had perfectly good reasons for not telling me where Barrett lived, the biggest one being that he just didn’t know. Was he actually calling me back to the office to have words with me about trying to get privileged information about a player? Why would he do that? He could just as easily have done that on the phone.
I remembered the other thing that Kira and I had talked about, the other girls on the cheerleading squad jockeying for my position, trying to squeeze me out of the top spot and take over from me. Had one of them gone to Quinn and said something to him? I wondered.
None of them had anything on me that I knew of. Since arriving in Dallas, I’d never done anything indiscreet except for...that fateful night. I thought long and hard about that. Had one of them seen Barrett coming out of that bathroom and then seen me coming out of there after him? That was a possibility that I couldn’t rule out. Of course, if someone had gone to Quinn with that, they would have had to deal with his questions about why they’d kept quiet about it for so long, but a clever, pretty girl can talk and work her way around a thing like that.
So was that why Quinn asked to see me again? some other cheerleader going to him with my suspicious behavior with Barrett, on top of my trying to worm personal info about Barrett from him? Was Quinn calling me in to throw me out?
It put me on edge to think about that. If that were true, my life might be about to become even more complicated. I had a very restless night, thinking about my next appointment with my mentor.
_______________
For my last visit to headquarters, all the non-reserved spaces in the parking garage were full and I had to use the parking lot a couple of blocks away. This time, I actually got a space in the garage on an upper level. The elevator let me off near the back of the ground floor where most of the reserved VIP spaces were. And as I stepped out into the space between the rows of parked cars, something caught my eye – something that froze my breath.
Parked there in a space on the ground level was a car that I knew. It was a red Jaguar convertible. I’d seen that car in the VIP section of AT&T stadium. I knew whom it belonged to, from all the times I’d seen him getting in and out of it, and all the people – all the female people – that I’d seen with him. Just as I recognized the car, I saw who was standing at the driver’s side door, the tall, dark mass of muscle and handsomeness that I badly needed to connect with again.
Barrett!
This was my chance. Somehow, I was sure things were on my side today. The workings of some fate had fixed it so that Quinn had called me to see him now of all times, and then put me on this spot in this garage at exactly the moment to catch Barrett. That had to be it. Fate had come through and given me the chance I needed.
A smile blossomed on my face as I quickened my step. I was ready to call out to him and get his attention – this time for sure – when something else happened that froze my voice.
With a clatter of high heels, someone came running into the garage and headed straight for Barrett. From the boobs and legs stuffed into tight clothing under a cloud of blonde hair, I recognized her as another Rangers cheerleader. On a sudden reflex, feeling like a sneaky teenager, I ducked behind an SUV that was parked conveniently nearby and peered out from around the rear of it, watching the scene happening farther down the garage. What I saw had me fit to dig my nails right into the metal body of the vehicle.
My teammate sidled up to Barrett and started pawing at him, saying things I couldn’t make out and then the two of them started making out right there, up against Barrett’s Jaguar. They went into a kiss, and I could practically feel their tongues going down each other’s throats. It made me grind my teeth so hard, it was a wonder I didn’t have sparks coming out of my mouth.
Then, as quickly as the nauseating spectacle started, it was over. Barrett broke away from their lip lock and held her at arm’s length. She tried to get him into another embrace, but it was useless; he was too strong for her and he wasn’t having any more.
They started saying some other things I couldn’t make out, but this time they were louder. I heard her voice rising more loudly than his. I heard him growl something at her. Then, she uttered something that must have been really raunchy, judging by the look on her made-up face, and she stomped away from him. The next thing I knew, she was storming out of the garage, shouting things at Barrett over her shoulder, until she was gone.
I ducked back behind the SUV and let out a long breath, doing the math on what I’d just witnessed. That big kiss against the driver’s side door of Barrett’s Jaguar was in fact the big kiss-off. It was a scene he must have played so many times with so many women that he could do it in his sleep.
It didn’t surprise me that during the off-season, when there weren’t so many eyes on the players or the cheerleaders and it was less likely to get back to upper management, Barrett would sleep with one of them. Or, mo
re than one of them. I was sure that was what I’d just gotten an eyeful of: Barrett’s extracurricular activities with one of my teammates. Or, the end of same.
It occurred to me that the blonde I’d just seen get dumped after what was certainly one night’s roll in the hay could have been the very one that I suspected had gotten an eyeful of Barrett and me coming out of the same bathroom the night before the Super Bowl. Or, perhaps she was one of those that Kira had warned me were gunning for me. I couldn’t know for sure, but it was very possible.
I heard a well-tuned motor turning over, and I peeked out from behind the SUV again to see the red Jaguar peeling out of the space and rolling away to the garage gate, disappearing outside on the street beyond.
Still feeling like a sneaky teenager, I came out from behind the SUV, thankful that no one had witnessed my watching Barrett and the blonde. Resigned to knowing I wasn’t going to find out any more about what I’d just seen but pleased, on some level, to know that my teammate wasn’t going to be getting any more of what she’d gotten – I walked out of the parking garage and made my way into Rangers headquarters.
_______________
After being witness to that little drama, it was time to see what kind of trouble I was in. What was in store for me at Quinn’s office?
It wasn’t what I was expecting.
There were some guys in suits sitting in there with Quinn, and they had news for me that What I’d been called in for was about this sports drink that I’d heard of, called PowerShot, one of those drinks full of sugar, caffeine, ginseng, and so forth. It seemed they were launching a new advertising campaign.
“So, one of the things they’re looking for in their new campaign is a female spokesmodel,” Quinn explained. “The female model wouldn’t be in every ad, just some of them, along with the main male model that the campaign’s being built around. And, there’ll be some charity work involved, for publicity.”
Flabbergasted, I said, “And, you want me? Seriously?”
One of the suited guys pushed his glasses up his nose and said, “Well, the Rangers are the winners of this year’s Super Bowl, and you are their head cheerleader, so you are what we had in mind, yes.”
My voice thinned out with disbelief that a thing like this would just fall into my lap, now of all times. I wondered how many ads we could possibly shoot before I started getting big in front and whether the pregnancy bump would really hold off for a whole twelve weeks. A thing like this could make me a lot of money, which would go a ways toward solving at least some of my problems. “Oh my God…” I heard myself utter.
The other guy in a suit continued, “You’ll be working with the male model we’ve selected. And, you’ll be doing some traveling around the country with him.”
“Traveling?” I half-whispered.
“Yes, to different locations, for publicity. We’ll be shooting you and the model in different locations. The two of you will be making personal appearances.” He smiled a bit. “We actually shouldn’t call the man you’ll be working with ‘the model.’ There’s a specific reason we wanted to work with the Rangers. Because your team won the Super Bowl, your quarterback is one of the most popular athletes in the country, even more popular now than he was before winning the championship.”
Realizing whom he meant, I jerked my head back and blurted, “The...the quarterback?” I looked over at Quinn, sitting behind his desk. “You mean…”
Wearing a big grin and shaking his head, Quinn said, “Yep. It’ll be you and Barrett.”
A common symptom of pregnancy, at least on television, is fainting. At this moment, I honestly could have keeled over right in front of Quinn and the PowerShot guys. My voice shook out the name again. “Barrett? Barrett Porter?”
“That’s right. You and Barrett. As a matter of fact, he was just here with his lawyers before you came in. We just signed him to his contract, and we didn’t want to waste any time getting you in, letting you know what we had in mind, and offering you the contract to work with him.”
“A-and you really want me?” I stammered.
“You’re the natural choice,” said the man in glasses. “The quarterback of the Rangers and the head of his cheerleading squad. “We thought it was the perfect way to go with this,” he said confidently.
“Definitely,” agreed the other guy.
The perfect way to go, indeed, I thought. That explained the handy coincidence of my seeing Barrett in the parking garage. And, my teammate, who’d been obviously so intent on getting more of what he’d been giving her. She was probably stalking him, or she’d at least followed him here to headquarters. That would explain her, too.
Well, I’d been looking for a way to get close to Barrett and have time with him, to tell him our mutual life-changing news. And here it was. But if – no, when I told Barrett – how much more complicated would our lives get with this new working situation?
I looked off into space, my mind swirling with this unreal situation. Pregnant with him and working with him? In an ad campaign that the whole country would see? The whole country had seen me leading cheers for him; that was one thing. But this…?
“Barrett,” I simply said.
Chapter 8
Barrett
I was now under contract as the new official spokesmodel for PowerShot energy drinks. And, the company would be signing up a model to work the campaign with me. It went without saying that she’d be the kind of woman I was used to going to bed with. But with this one, no matter how hot she was, I’d have to keep my cock to myself. Because fucking her for one night and then having to work with her for the rest of the contract was out.
The rest of the day of the contract signing, I hit the gym and worked out hard. What happened after my meeting with Quinn had left me in one of my moods where the only thing that could get me out of it was a couple of hours of pumping iron. That’s because when I went back to my car, I found myself ambushed by the woman I’d been pumping the night before.
I don’t know what made me fuck Glenda. Strike that, I admitted to myself; it was obvious what made me fuck her. But, it was something I didn’t usually do. This was the second time I’d crossed the line and done it to one of the cheerleaders, and I didn’t want to make a habit of it.
But, Glenda was the way she was, and my dick was the way it is, and one thing led to another...which led to a lot of other stuff happening in bed that night that was really meant to be off limits.
The next morning, I thanked her for the fun we’d had. Glenda, however, didn’t want to call it quits. She wanted it to be “our little secret.” When I told her I didn’t want any more secrets between us beyond what she’d had me do to her the previous night, she went into the usual snit and stalked out.
After that, I made myself a solemn promise. This is it, Barrett; no more of this crap. If you can’t keep your dick in your pants with cheerleaders, at least from now on, whip it out only for cheerleaders from other teams, not your own. I thought that little resolution would be the end of it.
But, of course, it couldn’t be that simple. When I went to my car after thanking my lawyers for how quickly they’d gone over the contract, there she was, launching herself at me like a blonde torpedo. She planted one on me, and at first my instincts took over, but I shut it down and sent Glenda on her way, screaming and cussing at me, sounding more like the way you’d expect a chick in a Roller Derby to sound than one of the beautiful, All-American wholesome Dallas Rangers Cheerleaders.
When I got home after burning off some steam at the gym, I declared the rest of that day a “woman-free zone.” I had Cole over, and we had dinner to toast my new contract. We put a movie on the big-screen in my media room. Then Cole went home, and I called it a night.
When I woke up the next morning – happily alone – it was to the sound of a specific ringtone on my phone. I picked up for Quinn and found out he had more news about the endorsement deal. They’d wasted no time signing the model I’d be working with. That surprised me becaus
e I knew how these things usually worked. They usually look at a lot of girls before going with just one. Whoever they picked, I guessed, must have been pretty special if they’d gotten her on board that fast.
Then Quinn told me who it was, and I bolted upright in bed as if someone had stuck me with an electric cattle prod.
“Huh?” I blurted.
“Yep,” said Quinn, and I heard a very pleased smile in his tone. “You’ll be working with Bama. You won’t have to warm up to a woman you’re meeting for the first time; it’ll be a girl you already know. Works out pretty good, doesn’t it?”
I loved his choice of words – —“warming up” to her. Quinn had no clue how warmed up to Bama Majors I’d really gotten. But there on the phone with him, I had an embarrassing flash of the two of us in that hotel bathroom, her on the sink with her legs wrapped around me while I drilled her with my cock.
Burying my face in my palm and suppressing a grunt, I reminded myself once again, This is why you don’t fuck where you play. This right here.
How was I supposed to do this? How was I supposed to work a national advertising campaign with Bama Majors after what happened back in January? If I’d known this was going to happen, would I still have done it?
I cursed myself, knowing the answer. Hell yeah, I would have done it because we were both stupid drunk and this is what I do.
“So what do you think, Barrett?” asked the clueless Quinn. “Does this work out perfectly or what?”
The answer was a definite or what. But, I wasn’t about to tell him that.
Instead, I answered, “So was this their idea, the PowerShot guys? Having me do this campaign with our head cheerleader?”
“Yeah, it was,” he replied. “It’s a natural, right?”
With a crooked smile, feeling as if my brain had come loose, I just answered, “Yeah. Natural.”
“You and Bama have always gotten along, haven’t you?”