Game On (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) (2 page)

              I knew I was a goner the second I saw him.

              But when he sat down across from me and immediately heaved an annoyed sigh, I felt my initial attraction to him waning. He regarded me lazily, his light blue eyes hooded. The guy was so bulky he barely fit into the booth.

              “Hi, my name is Danielle Allen, it’s so exciting to meet you,” I introduced myself, holding out my hand for him to shake. He looked at it hesitantly for a second and I wanted nothing more than to evaporate into thin air forever. This was going to suck.

              But finally he shook my hand and I felt a warm tingle rush down my spine, despite my nerves. After all, he
was
intensely good-looking.

              “Kieran Michaels. But you already knew that,” he replied flatly, withdrawing his hand and folding his arms over his chest. He fixed me with a smug grin and I wanted to reach over and slap it off his gorgeous face. So he was one of
those
.

              “So, Mr. Michaels, where are you from?” I asked, clicking my pen and getting ready to write down his answers. He raised an eyebrow.

              “Why does that matter?” he said, almost defensively. “I’m here now, wrecking all the records. Forget about the past, babe, it’s all about the present. And the future.”

              “Alright, then. What do you see in your future?” I asked, following his change of topic. Sure, I was timid and quiet, but I was a seasoned interviewer by now and I was not about to let some cocky jerk derail what could possibly be my big break.

              “Football, obviously,” he remarked with a chuckle. He leaned forward suddenly and said in a lower voice, “So, I gotta ask: are you single?”

              “Wh-what?” I stammered, getting flustered. “That’s not--”

              “Oh, right. Sorry. You’re the one asking the questions, huh? Okay, uh, let’s see. Well in my future I see a lot of touchdowns. A lot of cameras. Fame. Fortune. More of the usual.”

              He flexed his hands behind his head, giving me a wide smirk.

              “Do you consider yourself a role model to the younger generation who may look up to you?” I questioned next, deciding to ignore the fact that Kieran Michaels had just asked me if I were single. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, but I figured it was safer to assume not. After all, back in high school there were a few times a guy asked me out on a dare… as a joke. I still struggled to get over the subsequent blow to my already dwindling self-confidence. I was determined not to let some cruel jock get the better of me again.

              “I mean, yeah. Who wouldn’t wanna be me?” he laughed, shrugging.

              “How does that responsibility affect you on a daily basis? Have you changed your lifestyle to suit your new duties?” I pressed onward, scribbling down his bullshit answers.

              “Oh hell no,” he swore, shaking his head and chuckling to himself. “I don’t change for anybody, no matter what. I’m the same guy I’ve always been and nobody is ever gonna catch me acting any different. Why mess with perfection?”

              “Okay, Mr. Michaels--”

              “Kieran. Call me Kieran. Jeez, lady, it’s not like I’m fifty years old or anything. Besides, I like the way it sounds when you say my name,” he commented with a wink. I felt my face go red and I wished I could just melt into the floorboards. He had to be messing with me. Guys like Kieran didn’t hit on losers like me.

              “I just have a few more questions about your childhood and stuff, if you could--”

              Suddenly he clammed up and shook his head, his expression darkening. “Uh, actually I gotta go. I just remembered I’ve got a meeting with my publicist real soon and I can’t be late to that,” he said quickly, standing up and rifling his fingers back through his tousled blond hair.

              “You were late to this,” I commented in an undertone before I could stop myself. But he hardly seemed to notice, as he was already heading out the door. I sat for a moment in stunned silence, unable to comprehend just how rude he was, how horribly unsuccessful this interview had been. I was a failure. I was a screw-up.

              I was
fucked
.

              But instead of letting myself dwell on my disappointment-- or my confusion at Kieran’s apparent interest in me, feigned or real-- I did what I always did. I threw myself into my work and churned out a kickass article anyway using the bare-bones answers Kieran provided. I fleshed out a preliminary personality piece about his cockiness, his self-assured determination to make it to the top, toning down his rough edges to make him less abrasive to the readers than he was to me. And when I turned it in later that afternoon, the editor at the paper agreed it was one of my better pieces.

              As I took a cab back to my apartment to finally let myself collapse into bed for the first time in over thirty-six hours, I thought that maybe I performed better under pressure. Or maybe I was just motivated by pure spite. The harder people tried to bring me down, the harder I fought to stay up. And not even a guy like Kieran could drag me down.

              I wouldn’t let him-- or his gorgeous, smirking face-- ruin my shot at greatness.

              I’ve had crushes before. I’ve felt that little impulse in the back of my head that make me imagine the person I’ve had my mind on at my side throughout the day. There wasn’t even anything particularly romantic about it, I just found my mind wandering around, thinking about how it would be if she were out shopping for groceries with me, how she’d react to my jokes, what those moments would look like where our lives kind of...touched.

              Then I remembered what an ass I was in my interview with Danielle, and all those nice thoughts turned sour in the blink of an eye.

              Even as I was driving to my mom’s house, steering through the sleepy suburb where she lived out a quiet life on her own, I couldn’t get my mind off Danielle. She’d been persistently occupying my thoughts since our interview, and I swear, by the this morning, I’d gone through every line of conversation we’d exchanged and picked apart just how much of a jerk I’d been to her.

              Maybe her persistence in my imagination was her revenge for the way I’d acted.

              But wasn’t out and about today to get distracted by thoughts of the hot journalist from work, I was out to do what I did just about every day I had a bit of spare time: check up on Mom.

              I pulled up in her driveway, the familiar sight of the tan stucco house with a white roof a quiet comfort to me. I stepped out of the car, the old knee-high palm tree in what passed for a front yard pricking my legs on my way out as it always did, and I made my way up to the front door and knocked before letting myself in.

              “Hey, Mom,” I announce myself as I step inside the cozy little home, and a voice greets me from the kitchen.

              “Hey Kieran! Come on in, I was just trying to get some tea ready.”

              I headed into the kitchen and greeted my mom with a smile, and she turned from the counter to give me a hug, dwarfed by my size. She was in her fifties, with the light blue eyes and blonde hair she gave me, though my hair wasn’t nearly as curly as hers. She wore the same dark purple t-shirt I could swear she wore just about every time I saw her.

              “Oh, it’s good to see you,” she said with a smile as I let her go, and I caught her cane as it started to slide from the counter to the ground when she accidentally bumped it. “Tch, look at me. I swear, I’m a functioning human being most of the time! Could you put this jug in the fridge for me?”

              “Sure, Mom.” I took the batch of newly-brewed tea to the fridge, but as I opened the door, I glanced over at the sink, seeing a pile of half-washed dishes next to what looked like a bucket of soapy water. “You uh, getting creative with the housekeeping these days?”

              She laughed, waving a hand as she crossed the room to take a seat at the table. “Oh yes, just been on a kick of ‘antique cleaning.’ No, the sink’s been acting up since Thursday, and I just can’t get down there to work on it like your father showed me how. I swear I could have it up and going again in just a few minutes if I could reach it, but I’ll have to call a plumber, I think.”

              “Not gonna happen,” I said with a chuckle, heading to the closet where I knew an old toolbox to be stashed. I used to borrow it more often than not, but now that I could afford it, I bought my own. Using the old ones felt like handling old friends again, though.

              “Oh, Kieran, don’t bother, I know you don’t want to come over here all the time just to fix things for me around the house.”

              I didn’t listen to her though, simply making my way over to the sink and opening the cabinet doors, moving aside the years’ worth of old cleaning supplies to get to the pipework.

              Mom sighed across the room as I got on my back with a wrench and turned the water spigot off to get to work. “I swear, you’re as stubborn as your father sometimes.”

              “Would you have raised a son who’d let his mom have to call a plumber for this stuff?” I said back with a smile.

              “No, but I’d hoped to have been able to handle all this myself,” she said, a sigh in her voice. “But these days, even if I can move around just fine, I feel like this or that is just going to get broken again, so why bother. I swear, your father taught me everything I know about being handy only for me to waste it all on this cane.”

              “Dad would be proud of your endurance, Mom,” I said sincerely, though I couldn’t see her reaction from under the sink.

              Mom wasn’t nearly old enough to have to use a cane from age. She’d sustained her injuries in a car accident that happened ten years ago, the same accident that took Dad’s life. The loss had been crushing for all of us in the family, but it had hit Mom worst of all. She’d struggled with depression her whole life, but nowadays, it was hard to get some sincere joy to show in her, even if she was as kind and hospitable as I’d always known her to be. That was why coming over and helping out around the house like this was the most important thing me and my brother Carter could do.

              “Has Carter been be recently?” I asked, a hint of suspicion in my voice.

              “No, he doesn’t know about the sink, if that’s what you’re implying,” she chided, but neither of us would honestly think Carter any less dedicated to the family than me. My little brother was a good guy.

              As I fixed her sink, getting my hands filthy in the process of figuring out what in the world kind of food she’d put down the drain to get it clogged up this badly, we chatted about how the past few days have been. Mom’s life nowadays was simple and quiet, and honestly, that was something I really admired.

              I was a football star, and it was hard to find sports fans around Vegas who didn’t know who I was--especially as a local. It was the high life by the standards of some--the fame, the money, the feeling of flexing your muscles against other men on the field, and I couldn’t deny that I liked what I did. But there was always something...not quite there.

              “So how did your interview go--wasn’t that yesterday?” Mom suddenly asked, and the question snapped me out of my line of thinking as I finished up the repair and stood up, closing the cabinet doors and turning the water on with a smile to demonstrate my work before washing my hands thoroughly.

              “Oh, yeah, that was yesterday,” I said absently, realizing that I had to come up with something to talk about regarding the interview that didn’t include Danielle. “I mean, yeah, it went fine. It was good.”

              Mom pursed her lips, raising an eyebrow as I dried my hands and avoided eye contact. “It sure doesn’t sound like it did. That manager of yours didn’t set you up with something screwy again, did he?”

              I rolled my eyes, but I knew her heart to be in exactly the right place. My manager, Paul Franklin, the owner of the team, had a...complicated history with me. If I was honest, I was perfectly happy where I was in my career, for various reasons. Paul and his lover Janet, though, weren’t exactly as content as I was, to put it lightly.

              “No, Mom,” I said, “he wasn’t even around that day. He had a date with his girlfriend, I think.”

              “Tch, can’t even be around for an interview with a big-name newspaper,” she said, not hiding her feelings, just like always. “Anyway, enough about that, what’s on your mind about this interview? And when will I get to read about everything my oldest son is doing out in the world?”

              “Dunno when she’ll have the piece written and out to press,” I said, but the look on Mom’s face told me I’d already given too much away.

              “
She
, you say?”

              “Mom…” I say with a roll of my eyes as she smiles with a light laugh. Ever since my brother Carter had gotten married to that sweetheart of a schoolteacher, Mom had been taking every opportunity to prod me about finding someone nice to settle down with.

              Not that I had ever been one to run wild. I was a big shot, I supposed, but the party life had never really grabbed me. Despite growing up next to Vegas--or maybe
because
of that--I’d never really seen the appeal of drinking and gambling all my problems away. Honestly, the places I felt most at home and most happy were the ones I was most familiar with. My mind started to drift to thoughts of my brother and his budding family when I shook them away, grabbing my car keys and moving to help Mom out of her chair.

              “Don’t get any funny ideas, Mom,” I said, “but come on, I’ll tell you about it on the way to the pharmacy.”

              “Oh, Kieran, I can run my own errands.”

              “I know, but while I’m here, I might as well. I promise I don’t have anything else going on today,” I added as I took her purse and helped her out the door. That was the same thing I told her every time I came over to run her errands with her, but Mom was stubborn. Ten years later, she still held onto the independence she prized so much when Dad had been alive. I knew it was tough for her, but frankly, I admired her ability to hold onto her tenacity and spirit through her disability and depression. It wasn’t something she should have to keep up, just like it wasn’t the responsibility of any depressed person to have to present themselves as able-bodied and minded when they weren’t, so I saw it as my duty not as a son but as a decent person to help her out accordingly.

              The downside was that once I was in the car with her, I didn’t have a means of escaping her questions.

              “Her name was Danielle,” I said once we were on the road.

              “Oooh, such a pretty name. I had a friend named Danielle when I was your age, you know.”

              “Mom…”

              “I’m just saying, Kieran,” she said, but the smile on her face told me she was doing more than ‘just saying.’ “You’re twenty-seven now, you really ought to start thinking about family!”

              “Okay, but-”

              “What did she look like?”

              “I mean...well, she’s tall, taller than anyone you’ve seen me with, I think. Her hair is this kind of dark, rich brown, kind of an off-black, and her eyes are kind of an emerald-green.”

              “Kieran Michaels, you liar,” Mom said, startling me.

              “What?”

              “You
cannot
describe a person as having ‘emerald-green’ eyes and tell your own mother you didn’t take notice of her ‘like that.’ ”

              I let out a sigh, but it’s good-natured, and Mom’s smile tells me she knows she’s got me.

              “Alright, alright,” I concede, turning through the pharmacy drive-thru. “She was cute, yeah.”

              “And?” She really wasn’t going to let this go.

              “And...nice,” I said, “I mean, she was very professional. You can tell she’s good at what she does. I think she’s got a lot of experience. Could have fooled me, anyway. She handled everything like a natural, even when- well, even when things got a little rough, but it wasn’t anything unusual for her, I’m sure.” I was a terrible liar, and I was only saved from being called out on it as we reached the pharmacy window and had to talk to the pharmacist.

              After we pulled out, though, I was subject to her questions again.

              “And what does a rough patch mean for you, young man?”

              Feeling like a teenager again, I proceed a little sheepishly. “I don’t know, I mean, sometimes the rush of getting an interview like that can make me a little unfocused, and I wanted to look good on paper, so I don’t know if that came across so well with Danielle.”

              “Didn’t come across so well, hm?” she said, seeing right through me. “I know that tone, Kieran.”

              I let out a sigh, deciding to level. “Well...okay. Mom, I think I was kind of a jerk to her. I wanted to look good for the interview, so I kind of played up the bravado a little, tried to make myself look like...well, the kind of guy they’d want to put in newspapers, you know? They don’t do that for just anybody, and probably not a guy who doesn’t seem like he can handle himself with a reporter.”