Wide Open (6 page)

“Yes.”

“You know why I won’t do it, don’t you?”

She lowers her chin, her cheek brushing against mine. Her lips against my shoulder. “Because you don’t trust me.”

It stuns me that she knows. That she’s right. My grip on her body tightens, my desire spiking irrationally, and I can’t resist. I kiss her neck just below her ear, making her shudder under my hand. When I pull away I feel dizzy. Lost. I avoid her eyes as I release her. As I push against her hip, gently sending her back several steps, silently begging her to walk away before I forget who she is and why she’s really here.

“How am I supposed to trust you if I can’t even trust myself around you?”

She frowns, her face flushed pink. Her breathing shallow. “I don’t know. But I wish you would.”

“Tell me you don’t want to know why I left California,” I challenge her. “Tell me you don’t care and I’ll believe you.”

“Kurtis—“

“Swear to me that you’ll never ask about it.”

Harper’s eyes harden. “I can’t. I’d be lying if I said I could.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Doesn’t my honesty count for anything?”

I shake my head, refusing to look at her. Rebuilding the barriers she’s breached.

“Not nearly enough.”

HARPER

June 17th

Charles Windt Stadium

Los Angeles, CA

Six weeks. That’s how long Kurtis Matthews manages to put us off for his first interview. In fairness, I let him. I haven’t pursued him half as hard as I would have before the photo shoot, but after what we said to each other I wasn’t in a rush to see him again. My body definitely was but my mind needed distance. I needed to think about what the hell I was doing, what I want versus what I need. What’s right and what’s wrong.

All these weeks later and I still have no clue.

I want him, that’s about all I know for sure, and on an honest day I’ll admit to myself that it’s a bad idea. That I can’t sleep with a subject, not during an ongoing project. I have to stay impartial, aloof as possible, and fantasizing about getting naked with one of these guys is the polar opposite of ‘aloof’. But ignoring the way he makes me feel is easier said than done.

Les, Alec, and I stayed for the entire Calvin Klein photoshoot back in May. Three hours watching a nearly nude Kurtis pose on a bed with a frown on his face and a challenge in his eyes. They didn’t have to give him much direction. He’s gorgeous in any light, his body built by a generous and loving god. Corded muscles in his back and shoulders. Long arms, large hands. Thick thighs and toned calves that look powerful even when he’s relaxed. When he’s sprawled out on a bed under the bright lights looking dark and dangerous, a perpetual scowl on his face. I couldn’t look away. I hadn’t realized how much I was affected by him until he touched me. Until I imagined it and gave life to the dream in my mind, and now it won’t die.

I’ve considered excusing myself from the interview. I could hand it off to Travis, or even Carmen. She’s here today, sitting in on an interview for the first time. When she heard Kurtis was actually going to show up, she said she wouldn’t miss it for the world. I didn’t think having her here would bother me that much, but it’s amazing how wrong you can be about your own mind. Turns out I hate it. She’s distracting and overbearing, cutting into the interview with her own questions that derail me again and again. And the worst of it is that Kurtis obviously can’t stand her. He’s shutting down, his answers getting shorter and shorter. His patience for the process burning up like a match in kerosene. 

“What happened during your rookie year?” Carmen asks him, going straight for the jugular. No foreplay. No finesse. She sits perched on the utility table behind me, tucked in the shadows where her jewelry glints like sparks in the dark with her every move, subtle as a sonic blast. “You came in as a bright eyed young man and you left in a cloud of mystery and angst. Was it the championship loss or something else? Something bigger?”

Kurtis is perfectly still under the lights. He’s a bronze statue, patient and unyielding. “What could be bigger than a shot at the Super Bowl?” he replies dryly.

“You tell me.”

He doesn’t, of course. He’s managed to shut down every question she’s asked, getting us absolutely nowhere. It’s impressive and infuriating.

I cough into my hand, drawing his attention. “Tell me about last year. The Kodiaks almost made it to the Super Bowl again, something they didn’t even come close to managing in the two years you were in Montana. All of a sudden you came back and they’re glory bound again. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Is it fate then? Are you destined to take them to victory?”

“I would have to have one hell of a God complex to believe that, wouldn’t I?”

“Yes, you would,” I agree. “Do you?”

He grunts faintly, a sound of disapproval. “No. I’m not the reason we almost made it my first year and I’m not the reason we almost made it last year. Not the only reason. It takes an entire team and a hell of a lot of luck to make it to the Super Bowl. Every man working in perfect sync together. That’s a big machine. It’s a lot of pieces and parts that can fail.”

“Pieces like Diaz? From what I understand, his career fell apart after you left. People thought he was at least a half-decent quarterback until you weren’t there to catch his throws anymore.”

“I was able to read him better than most,” Kurtis admits, refusing to call Diaz out on his shortcomings. “He might have lost some confidence when I left. I don’t know.”

“Have you spoken to him since you went to Montana?”

“No.”

“Did you speak to
any
of the Kodiaks after you left?”

“No.”

“Were they angry at you for leaving them?” Carmen asks casually.

Kurtis casts her a blank stare. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.”

“Oh, I will.”

“Were you sad to go?” I ask quietly.

He turns his eyes to mine. I hate the way they feel; hollow and cold. “Yes and no. I knew I had to go, but I was sorry to leave my team.”

My blood is rushing in my ears. This is it. This is the moment, the question. The one he told me not to ask. The one I can’t walk away from. I’ll never have a better lead into it than this, and even though I know it’ll turn him glacial cold, that he’ll probably never again look at me with fire in his eyes and desire on his breath, I have to ask it. It’s my job. It’s what drives me. It’s why I’m here.

Carmen’s jewelry jingles eagerly behind me. “And why did you have—“

“Is Domata an easy quarterback to read?” I interrupt her. The words spill out of me on a breathless rush. “Is that why he’s had so much success with the Kodiaks?”

Kurtis blinks, surprise flitting across his face for a split second before he masters it. “No. Trey Domata is successful because he has talent. More than I’ve ever seen in a quarterback.”

“That’s what everyone is saying; that between you, Avery, and Domata, the Kodiaks can’t lose.”

“We can, and we might.”

“Is thinking that way how you manage the pressure of the job?”

“It’s how I stay realistic. Going into the season assuming you’re going to win every game is stupid. It’s immature.”

“So you’re not looking at the Super Bowl yet? That’s not your end game?”

He sighs, clearly tired of the topic. “I’ll probably never see a ring in my lifetime, and that puts me in the majority. And that’s fine by me.”

“It’s the highest achievement any NFL athlete can aspire to,” Carmen argues. “It’s the sole reason a lot of men get into the game. Are you saying it’s not what drives you?”

“No, it’s not.”

“What does? The fame? The women? The money?”

“Love.”

I’m not sure I heard him right. “Love?”

“I love the game. I love to play, I always have. I’ve made football my life since I was a kid. There’s a lot of money to be made, but there’s a lot of risk that comes with it. You have to love it or no amount of money in the world will ever be worth it.”

“How much did they pay you to come back to California?” Carmen demands.

Kurtis doesn’t move his eyes from mine. He’s ignoring her entirely now, focusing on me to shut her out.

I breathe slow and even, struggling under the weight of his eyes. The intensity. “Have you suffered any injuries during your career?”

“Nothing major,” he tells me, his voice softening. His eyes thawing. “I’m lucky. It’s rare to get this far without tearing or shattering something.”

“Why do you think you’ve been able to stay so healthy?”

“I told you. I’m lucky.”

“You don’t believe in coincidence but you believe in luck?”

“I do,” he answers unabashedly. “I count on it.”

“You seem too pragmatic for that.”

“I’m not. I believe in everything. Tarot cards, soothsayers, astrology. Healing crystals.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re messing with me.”

“My psychic said you’d say that.”

I grin. “She’s very wise.”

“It’s what I pay her for.”

“Do your healing crystals keep you free from injury? Is that what your ‘luck’ is?”

“That and a jock strap.”

I chuckle, shaking my head disapprovingly.

“Don’t take any of this seriously,” I scold him quietly. “Whatever you do, don’t do that.”

He smiles. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

“Do you have any superstitions? Any pregame routines to call your luck to you?”

He considers my question for a second. His face is serious but still warm. More open than it’s been all afternoon, like he was readying himself for The Question, but since I abandoned it he’s relaxing. I still don’t know why I did it or if I plan on coming back to it, but I like the way it’s changed the air between us. It’s thinned it to a comfortable degree where his smile still lingers on his lips. Where his answers are real and his eyes are honest. Where trust can take root and grow higher than the walls he’s built against me.

“I take a shower.”

“You shower
before
you take the field?” I clarify.

“In the hour before, yeah. I started doing it in college and I never stopped.”

“Is it a cleansing ritual?”

“No. It’s…” he shrugs helplessly. “It’s just something I’ve always done. I can’t stop now.”

“If you do your team will lose? Is that what your psychic told you?”

He chuckles deep and quiet. The sound gives me shivers. It sends goosebumps across my arms. Up my legs until I’m tingling. He should laugh more. Smile more. It’s intoxicating when he does.

Kurtis scratches at the stubble on his chin, smiling. “I know it’s stupid, but it’s what I do. A lot of guys have stuff like that that they do without really knowing why. You don’t expect it to bring on a win but the routine helps keep you calm. The hours before a game can be intense. It’s why a lot of guys do drugs to help them stay calm and feel sharp on the field. Taking a shower before a game has always been my drug of choice. My downer to keep me cool under pressure.”

“You don’t always go it alone, though do you?” Carmen dives in aggressively. “There was a rumor you were caught with another man’s—“

“I don’t chase rumors,” I cut her off, dropping my eyes to the floor. “If you don’t have hard proof behind that question, don’t ask it.”

She scoffs quietly, stunned. “It’s a well-known rumor.”

“So is Area 51 but I wouldn’t ask the President about it unless I wanted to look like an asshole on camera.”

“I’ve been doing this for fifteen years, honey. You’ve been doing it for fifteen minutes. I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job.”

“Yes, but one of us graduated from beauty college and the other graduated from a university with a degree in journalism, and my degree says that the burden of information isn’t on the subject, it’s on the interviewer. If you don’t have facts to back up your accusations, you’re asking him to do your job for you and that’s just lazy reporting. You’re nothing more than a gossip column in a beauty magazine at that point.
Honey
.”

The room is frozen. We’re a wax museum. No one moves. We barely breathe. The camera continues to roll, capturing our still life art installation in all of its odd, angry glory.

Everything shifts when Carmen leaps down off the table behind me. I see Alec take a step forward, boom mic in hand. Travis stands from his chair a few feet to my right. Kurtis is staring hard over my shoulder, watching my back.

Carmen doesn’t make a move for me, though. I don’t think she ever intended to. Instead she picks up her bag, storms angrily out of the room, and slams the door shut behind her.

In the resounding silence that follows I feel the room start to melt. The frost is passing, our waxy limbs are softening in the growing warmth that trickles through my veins and bubbles nervously in my stomach. When I lift my eyes to Kurtis I find the source of the heat. It’s in his eyes. His open look of appreciation that kicks the wind right out of me.

I chuckle breathily. “What are the odds that’s not going to bite me in the ass?”

“She’ll make you pay,” he promises. “She’s sensitive about the beauty stuff. She worries no one takes her seriously because she used to be a model.”

“She was stepping on your toes all day. She deserved it,” Les reminds me.

I’m not entirely convinced he’s right. I feel guilty about what I said. It was all true, but I could have been better about it. I could have found a way to say it without being insulting. We’re both women in a male dominated field trying to make our way. She’s been doing it diligently for over a decade, a pioneer paving the way for women like me to be more than our measurements, more than a pretty face and a piece of ass, and I tore her down. All in the name of my own pride.

“Let’s call it a day,” I sigh, standing slowly. “I think we got everything we need for now.”

Travis checks his watch. “We’ve still got another seven minutes out the twenty. You sure you want to stop?”

“My rhythm is broken. I don’t even know where I’d pick up.”

“I have to put in the full time,” Kurtis tells me. He’s still in his chair, kicked back comfortably like he’s waiting for me. “If I don’t they’ll say I’m not cooperating. I’ll be fined.”