Tackled (Alpha Ballers #1) (3 page)

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I knew that I’d made a scene and that there were cameras on me already. People were talking all around me in hushed whispers, like they were scared that I would lash out at them if I could hear what they were saying about me.

They were probably right.

 
I needed to get the fuck out of here as soon as possible. The corridor stretched in the direction opposite to the stage, and that seemed as good a place as any, so I ran down it, just trying to get out of the spotlight for a moment so I could collect myself.

Fuck everything.

CHAPTER 03 - LILY

Bill came up behind me. “Drake Rollins actually showed up?” He chuckled under his breath. “I didn’t think the kid had it in him.”

I turned to Bill to ask what he meant by that, but Bill scowled at me and immediately focused back on watching Drake argue with the security guards locking down the entrance to the green room. It was hard to turn away from it myself.

Drake Rollins and I didn’t have much of a history together, but we’d known each other briefly at Cal. He’d taken a media and communications class that I’d taken a year earlier, as a breadth requirement for his degree, and I’d tutored him a few times. Drake wasn’t the type to need tutoring - in addition to being an amazing athlete, he was also brilliant. He just had a style of learning that was different from most. He didn’t learn things from hearing lectures or reading books, he learned through conversations.

The professors at Cal had gotten a little frustrated with him constantly asking questions in class, derailing their lecture plans, and finally had decided to give him wide access to talk to any of their assistants whenever he wanted. The plan had worked, and despite having a full load of football work and obligations, he’d completed an electrical engineering degree in just three years.

Why he’d taken a media and communications class I never really understood, but I’d really enjoyed our conversations together. And not just because they were interesting and informative, or because I’d learned a few things myself.

Drake Rollins was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. And that wasn’t exactly a unique opinion among the girls at Cal or any of the schools he visited through football. The man could turn heads of the female persuasion no matter what he was doing or wearing.

The trouble was, he was absolutely aware of that fact. I had heard stories around campus of this legendary conquests. With a chiseled body, and a smile cut out of stone like that, it’s not like too many girls would even dream of turning him down, and I had yet to hear of any that had done so.

I remembered over the course of our tutoring sessions, that I had tried and tried to get him to notice me, wearing increasingly sexier outfits, and doing my best to flirt with him. Drake had responded, of course, flirting back, but I had always gotten the impression that he was keeping himself from me.
 

Of course, he was also a world-class asshole. Everything had been handed to him, the school had bent over backward to accommodate him, and he knew it.

And he took advantage of it. That was the magic of touchdowns. If you could score on Saturdays, that’s all that mattered. You could do almost anything else the other six days a week.

The last time we had met, I had worked up the courage to ask him why that was, why he wasn’t making a pass at me, but in the moment, when it was the right time to ask, I chickened out, and the moment passed.

We had been at a party later that week and Drake had come up to me, a little tipsy, and made an awkward pass at me. I’d gone along with it, of course, and I remembered that kiss to this day. He seemed to forget it right away, though, and nothing ever came of it. Maybe he had had too much to drink that night, but even if he didn’t remember, I did, and I thought about it every day since.

It was quite a shock to see him here on draft day. Of course, I knew that given his record and his stats that he would be invited to the green room, but that’s still hadn’t prepared me for seeing him in person again. Drake Rollins had an effect on me that no man had ever had before.

Of course I had also read the news about him being uninvited from the draft day events at the last moment. I knew about his off the field issues and I had read each news item over the last few months with a resigned kind of dread, the kind you reserve for someone you care deeply about who can’t seem to get it together, no matter how hard they try.

In Drake Rollins’ case, though, it seemed as though he was actively trying to sabotage his future career, and I just couldn’t understand why.

The scuffle with security guards in front of the door came to a head, and I heard the shouting begin. Drake then took off down the hall, and Bill turned to me, a sneer on his face. “Looks like the kid doesn’t have it in ‘em after all. I should’ve known.”

Again, I was about to ask Bill what he meant by that, and why he was taking even a modest interest in Drake Rollins, but before I could get a word out, Bill started back toward the globes table, and I couldn’t get a word in. I was left watching Drakes retreating form.

No one else seemed to be doing anything about it; the security guards went back to guarding the door, and the rest of the media around kept on doing their thing, milling about and mentioning that Drake Rollins arrived, but no one made any other moves.

That made sense, because the draft was almost about to start. But it seemed to me like the most interesting story was leaving right at that moment.

Here was Drake Rollins, the number one receiver in the country, widely expected to be a top draft pick, taken off almost every team’s draft board because of off the field issues, uninvited from the draft itself, and he showed up, and now he was running away?

And no one was following him?

 
I turned to Steve, and he looked back at me, waiting for me to speak. “Follow me. And get that camera ready.”

Steve hoisted his camera and smiled. “Where are we going?”

“To follow the biggest story of the draft.” Steve nodded, and I took off after Drake.

Drake had a little bit of a head start on us; Radio City Music Hall was a giant place, and it was entirely possible that he had gotten lost by now in the caverns and tunnels behind and around the stage.

As Steve I left the hallway I could hear the music start up, and the TV announcers begin their voice over.

the draft was starting, and I was about to miss it. I felt a momentary pang of disappointment course through me, but I knew deep down that I was following the real interesting story of the draft. Everyone else would see who was picked by which team and when, and if I was honest with myself, my reporting of those picks would be much like any other junior reporter’s coverage.

This, though, this was different. This was exclusive.

As we move down the corridor, I glanced at Steve’s camera, and saw the red light on it. He was recording, moving left and right in slow motion, taking it all in, getting a sense of what was going on. We weren’t streaming live to the Globe’s website, but whatever we got today, the Globe’s video editors would clean up and put on there as soon as they could.

Something told me this would be a huge scoop.

Drake must’ve known that he wasn’t allowed at the draft today. So why did he show up? Did you think they would just let him in? Did he think that in the spur of the moment all of his off the field transgressions, which were numerous, would just be forgotten?

And say they did let them in, say they did let a teams draft him, which team would take a chance on a player with so many red flags?

draft picks were extremely valuable, especially high ones. Football teams couldn’t afford to miss on them, and draft a player who wouldn’t perform, or who wouldn’t even be able to play. Drake Rollins looked like one of the latter.

Even if he didn’t get drafted high in the first round, he could probably find a team desperate enough to take a chance on him in the later rounds. At least, he might be able to find such a team five years ago. Or maybe even three years ago. But with all the increased scrutiny and condemnation the league had gone through over player issues off the field in the last couple years, with this latest move, uninviting Drake from the draft, no team would draft him, even if they were able to.

I didn’t know what he was going to do with himself without football in his life, but Drake needed to understand that being a professional football player probably wasn’t in the cards for him any more. At best, it seemed right now, that he would end up as a cautionary tale, a story to tell kids in high school and college what not to do with their off the field time if they had such a huge talent and potential.

On each side of the corridors were various theater gizmos and props, things from past shows in past performances, gear that hadn’t been stowed away yet because it was used too frequently. I didn’t recognize any of it, but then again I didn’t spend much time behind theatre stages, or in theaters in New York at all.

As we moved down the hall, the sounds in front of us got louder and louder, until I could make out a voice yelling. It was Drake. He was yelling, he would get quiet, and then he would start yelling again.

I wondered who he was yelling at.

When we got close, I held my hand and tapped Steve on the shoulder, slowing him down. He instantly understood, and we crept toward the corner where Drake stood, looking at the wall.

He was talking to himself, softly, out loud. I looked around, trying to see past all the props and theater gear covering the walls, but couldn’t find anyone else around. And no one else had come down the corridor in our direction, so Drake must’ve been yelling at nobody in particular.

Steve and I stayed silent, and watched Drake as he mumbled to himself. My heart went out to him, as it would to anyone in this situation, even if it was someone that I didn’t have even the slightest bit of history with.

Drake, though, was different. We had gone to the same school, we had studied together, and I had the biggest crush on him then. Despite how much of an asshole he was.

And you know what? I still did. Even though Drake was muttering in a hallway while the draft went on behind us and Drake didn’t get drafted, the culmination of all his dreams and hard work since before he was ten years old, I still carried a huge burning torch for him.

I wanted to rush toward him right then and there, and tell him things would be OK, that he’d figure it out and do the right thing from now on.
 

He looked like he was getting ready to punch something. I could see his hands coming together into fists, and I knew he was about to do something rash.

I had do something before he hurt himself. “You don’t want to do that!” I practically shouted, unable to keep it in.

“Drake?” I asked, tentatively. It came out a little less sure than I wanted it to. By now Steve had stepped back, still recording, fading into the background like a good cameraman should. People acted differently when they knew they were on camera, and our goal was to capture the raw emotion and expression from the people we interviewed.

If they forgot that they were on camera, that was even better.

Drake whirled around when I said his name, and his eyes blazed with a mixture of theory and sadness, so powerful that I have never seen anything like it before.

I couldn’t even tell if he recognized me, as it had been months since we had seen each other and I looked really different now. This close, I could see that he looked even more beautiful than he had the last time I had seen him. At the same time, though, it broke my heart to see him in such obvious pain.

I wanted to reach out and hug him, and maybe do even naughtier things, but while we were in the business of capturing emotion and expression, we weren’t looking for those things from our reporters. I had a job to do.

“Drake Rollins - Lily Pearson, Boston Globe. Anything you’d like to say to us?”

CHAPTER 04 - DRAKE

I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to get out of there. Fuck this shit. They weren’t letting Drake Fucking Rollins into the draft?

Why even have a draft at all?

So I got in some tough situations off the field, who the fuck cares? I could catch touchdowns, nothing else mattered. Just get me back to a field and I could show all these fuckers who was boss, who knew what the score was.

Instead they wanted to keep any team from taking me. Getting in the way of me making my money? Fuck that shit.

I ran down the corridor away from the stage, just as the music started and the announcers started talking. I hoped none of this would actually make the broadcast.

Or maybe, I thought for a second, people would go nuts and blow up twitter and Facebook, saying I should be allowed in. I knew for a fucking fact that any of those 32 teams would instantly get better if I was there.

So why were they stopping me? “Who wouldn’t want to get with this?” I shouted to no one in particular.

I didn’t pay any attention to the stuff lining the walls as I ran. There wasn’t anyone down this path, which was good, because I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. The big, strong, stoic Drake Rollins having trouble keeping the tears out of his eyes after getting embarrassed with all those cameras and reporters around.

Luckily I had been late in getting to the green room at all, because by the time I had arrived most of the crews were back getting ready for the main event. There was only that one crew left, with that girl…

That girl, she looked a little familiar. I didn’t get a good look at her, because hey, it was the rare time I had something a little more important on my mind than pussy, but if all this ended up better than it was going I might have to go and look her up some time soon.

Give her an exclusive interview with Drake Rollins in exchange for an exclusive interview of a different kind with whatever her name was. That was sounding more and more like a good plan as I turned it over in my head, provided I could figure out what to do about this draft thing.

I stopped running, finding a nook, still no one around, a place I could collect my thoughts. I didn’t find anything fancy, just a place where the sound from the draft starting wasn’t so loud. A place where I could think.