Baller: A Bad Boy Romance (12 page)

“Did you have any support?”

“My grandparents helped us out. A few times, we had to go stay with them the town over because mom was having
trouble
. She kept trying to fight it. Cleaning up for a few days before she would fall off and start the cycle again.”

“How is she now?”

“Who, Mom?” Quinn nodded. “She beat it. She’s
great
now. She’s healthy. Lives here in LA.”

“What about your sister?”

I smiled thinking about Gabbie. I was
really
proud of that kid. She got all the brains in the family, and she had graduated pre-law at the top of her class. She was in law school now,
killing it,
obviously.

“She’s fine. She’s great. She’s studying to be a lawyer.”

“You must have done a good job then,” she said. I smiled.

“I didn’t do anything. She’s just smart.”

“You must be—”

“Hey, Dante,” I heard a woman's voice and looked up. It was Tiffany, one of our cheerleaders. She was there with a few of the other girls.

“Hey Tiff,” I said. I saw Quinn turn the recorder off.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Wasn't it obvious? Even if it wasn’t, she couldn't tell she was interrupting a conversation I was having.

“Uh,
working
,” I said to her. Tiffany was nice. She was cute. I knew she modeled when she wasn’t cheerleading, and she had the body and face to make a lot of good money doing it. She was average height, but that didn’t matter in print modeling. Her hair was brown and long, and she wasn’t in her uniform. She had on a short dress and heels instead.

“
Still
? A few of us wanted to go out tonight,” she said, motioning to the other girls with her. “Do you want to come?”

“He can’t come; he has work to do. We were actually having an interview before you interrupted us,” Quinn said to her, not kindly, but not in a bitchy way either.

“Come on, please, Dante. It isn’t a party until you show up,” she said. She said it really suggestively, and I wished she wouldn’t talk like that when Quinn was right there. I had a rule. I didn’t fuck the cheerleaders for
our
team. Cheerleaders on other teams were fair game, but the girls who cheered for the Yellow Jackets were out. I had
limits
. Besides. It wasn’t like I would be able to get away from one of those girls if we
did
get together. We would just see each other all the time because we worked together. I didn’t need a girl getting attached like that.

I
did
party with them though. They were cheerleaders; they knew how to have a good time.

“Tiffany, this isn’t a good time or a good day.”

“Come
on
. It's getting late. How long are you going to hang out here anyway?”

She was talking to me like Quinn wasn’t also there, right in front of me. She was talking to me like I hadn’t been talking to Quinn originally and she was just getting in the middle of it.

“If I come, Quinn has to come, too,” I said. Quinn looked surprised, and Tiffany finally looked away from me long enough to notice her.

“
Quinn
?” she said.

“Yup. Quinn’s my chaperone.”

“Dante—” Quinn began.

“You need
permission
to go out now? Who is she? Your mom?”

“I don’t come unless she does,” I said. Quinn shot me this look like she was mad at me but didn’t say anything.
A loophole
! I had found one. She didn’t want me out partying, but if
she
was there too, then it was perfectly fine. She could sit with me, make sure I only drank virgin Shirley Temples, and beat the women back with sticks. Perfect.

Plus, I wouldn’t have to spend another night at home. Alone.

“Whatever. Bring who you want. Hyde Lounge on Sunset?” she said.

“We’ll be there.”

Quinn

I had told him no partying.

Was I not clear, or did he just not give a shit?

I should have known that he of all people would be able to find themselves a loophole.

It was pretty smart actually, I had to admit. It was like the thing that kids did to play their parents against each other to finally get what they wanted. I knew I was clear, but did it matter? We were here.

I had wanted to pass by the house first, and he had told me that he would pick me up from there. I took a very quick shower and changed into something other than the work clothes I had had on all day. I chose a skirt, shorter than the kind I wore for work, and a top with short sleeves. I took my hair out of the bun it had to be in for work, curled it, and applied some makeup.

I felt nervous waiting for him to show up. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it. A man was picking me up from my house so we could go out to a club. It felt like a
date
. It felt like I was going on a date with Dante Rock. Of course, it was strictly business, but that didn’t make me feel any less nervous.

That was a lie. It was not
strictly
business. We had passed the point at which we could still call our relationship
professional
. We were in the weird limbo where we worked together despite having been extremely intimate, and we were both trying to sort of skirt around the fact.

At least
I
was. I couldn’t really speak for him. I
knew
that if I gave him another chance, he would take it. In a heartbeat. He would be between my thighs as soon as I gave him the okay. If I was honest, I wasn’t opposed to having him between my thighs again. I mean, he had already been once
before
. There was no going back, and there was no going forward really either.

If we did keep hooking up, it would be because we both thought the other was hot, which we did. Or at least
I
did. He wasn’t looking for a wife, and I wasn’t looking for a husband. Or maybe he was? I had to talk about
myself
because who knew the things that went on in that man’s head. We’d had deep conversations, but I still couldn’t tell you his favorite color or whether he was a Democrat or Republican. I didn’t
know
him. Who really did know him? The image he had, his public image, hoop-shooting Neanderthal was likely not all there was to him. I knew there was more, but I didn’t have enough to make an assessment of who he was behind the image.

What we had and what we were doing,
in my assessment,
was not serious. I was not looking for a husband or a long-term relationship with anybody. An
athlete
would be the last person I went after in any case if I was. We were both adults and could manage our urges. It was
fine
if we ended up sleeping together again.

It wasn’t
fine
, but it wasn’t a disaster. That was where I was in my rationalization of mine and Dante’s relationship. I came to the locker room for the second interview, and the first thing he had done was try and kiss me. It was literally just a matter of time before something else happened. It wasn’t a matter of prevention anymore, it was a matter of disaster preparedness. It was probably going to happen, and because of that, I was going to manage my emotions. Daniel had nothing to worry about; I had nothing to worry about. Dante probably never worried about
anything
.

It was sort of late when we got to the club, past ten o'clock. The place we were at, Hyde Lounge, was really nice. The lights were low and the place had a really interesting modern aesthetic. There was a lot of glass and clean lines. One look at the sort of people who were in there gave me a good impression of the usual crowd.

This was the sort of place that Jay-Z—or people like that—rented out for private parties. There were women who were too beautiful to exist on the arms of guys who had no right being as handsome as they were.

The cheerleaders were there and all greeted Dante like they had been waiting the whole night for him. He bought them a round of drinks and they sort of scattered, making for the dancefloor. The female attention that followed Dante was painfully obvious as soon as he entered any space. I looked around while Dante talked to the barman with whom he seemed extremely familiar.

“Are we just going to stand here?” I asked him.

“You want to sit?”

I nodded. I was in heels, and I wasn’t about to spend the night leaning on the bar trying to act like my shoes weren’t killing me. The cuter the shoes, the worse they hurt your feet. We made our way to a booth and sat down gratefully. A woman showed up, sat a shiny, metallic bottle on the table, and greeted Dante as if they were old friends. She opened it up, popping the cork off. It was champagne, and she poured us two flutes full before leaving with a wink in Dante’s direction.

“Cheers?” he said, raising his glass. I lifted mine and humored him. It had been like fifteen minutes and I was already tired. I was such a grandma. Where was my bed and a hot shower? I wanted to go home. This place was too expensive, and I was uncomfortable. It was so noisy, too. I didn’t want to dance, and if I wanted to talk to Dante, I would have to practically get in his lap. I didn’t understand it. What was the urge he had to come to places like this? He looked totally at home, looking around, greeting the people who came up to him… I didn’t have to ask how much the bottle had cost because—at a place like this—the answer was
too much.

That was what it was. It was all just
so much
. It was too much to be happy with because you couldn’t keep track of it all, and of course, it was just
stuff
. I knew he had a good relationship with his family, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have an unhealthy one with his money, station, and the things that those two things afforded him in life.

“Why do you do this?” I asked him.

“Do what?”

“All
this
?” I asked, motioning vaguely to the room in general.

“Not your scene?”

“Maybe once in a while—but definitely not every week or multiple times within a week,” I said. He smiled, knowing exactly who that accusation was targeted at.

“It takes a special kind of person to really handle it,” he said. He took a sip of the champagne.

“What about this?” I said, lifting my own flute.

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s great, but it’s like, a three-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne,” I said.

“You think it’s overpriced?”

“They can charge whatever they want,
you
don’t necessarily have to pay it though.”

“You think I’m wasting my money?”

“No… you can do what you want with your money. I’m just curious.”

“About what?”

“
This
, three-hundred-dollar bottles of champagne and custom luxury sports cars. Five thousand square feet of house for just yourself.”

“It sort of comes with the territory.”

“You can make decisions about how you use your money and who you associate with. You don’t
have
to do all this. You
want
to.”

He looked at me seriously.

“You're right. I
do
choose to. You know a lot about me, Quinn, do you know where I grew up?”

“Ohio?”

“Not just Ohio.
Bumfuck
, Ohio. Not Cleveland and not Columbus.  Fucking, Cavett. Middle-of-nowhere, tiny-ass town that you can’t even see on the map. When you search for the census information online, they give you the information for the nearest larger town. Officially, nobody comes from Cavett. I come from
nowhere
. I came from
nothing
.”

I looked at him.

“That’s why?”

“We were
poor
. People joke sometimes about not being able to make rent, but that was real for my mother. I know what it’s like not to have things, and now, I don’t have to live like that anymore. Not Gabbie, and not my mom either.”

“Do
both
of them live here?”

“I got mom a house in Calabasas, and Gabbie lives in downtown LA. She didn’t want a house from me, but I paid her college tuition for her. I’m in a position where neither I nor the people I love have to be limited by money. If my mom needs another refrigerator, car, house,
anything
, I can get it for her—and that’s something I had to believe for a long time that I wouldn’t be able to do.”

“So it’s the same with the champagne and cars?”

He shrugged.

“When we were kids, we used to eat to keep our bellies full. We didn’t starve, but it wasn’t ice cream and pizza, treats like that whenever we wanted because we just couldn’t afford to spend money on junk. I don’t
need
to drink this shit, but I can. So I do.”

“You don’t think your money could be spent in other ways?”

“It is, you saw the car,” he said, smirking. “If I want to buy a case of
Armand de Brignac
and give it to the first homeless man I see outside, why the fuck not? I worked for every cent. I work hard enough to do whatever the fuck I want, and I think I deserve to.”

“What about the women?” I asked.

He smirked.

“You sound a little jealous.”

“Not
jealous
, just curious. Do
they
just come with the territory, too?”

“You know how you know there’s a carcass somewhere because vultures are circling above it in the air?”

“Dante, that’s
horrible
.”

“I’m not being mean, I’m telling you the truth. The women who come looking for athletes… it isn’t because they love and respect the sports the men play.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Quinn, you saw the car. Look at this place,” he said. I looked. “You haven’t been looking, but so many girls have had their eyes on this booth, furious that I’m here with you.”

“
Really
?” I tried to look around discreetly.

“You know all my career stats, but most women just want to know the figures in my bank account. They approach me already knowing my name and annual salary and are just looking for a way to get saved.”

“I think you’re giving yourself
a
lot
,” I said.

“There are women who are thoroughbred gold-diggers. They would recognize this champagne from the design on the bottle alone. They don’t know what all the letters in
NBA
stand for, but they know Dante Rock lives in a six-million-dollar house in Hollywood.”

“Then why do you entertain them?”

He looked at me like he was surprised I would ask such a thing.

“Those are the only people who approach me.”

“You kind of
attract
them to yourself,” I said. “You don’t seem to do
much
to deter them.”

“If they really want to be around me, who am I to tell them no? They have something they can give me, and I give them.”

“So you aren’t looking for
Mrs. Rock
?”