Baller: A Bad Boy Romance (15 page)

“So I was wrong? That wasn’t you and Dante Rock practically on top of each other at a club?”

“We were there together, but it wasn’t what you think.”

“Oh, this will be
rich
. What was it? What do you think I thought it was?”

“It was loud in there. He had to lean in close to be able to talk to me.”

“Uh-huh
,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced.

“I asked him not to go around doing all the shit he usually does for the rest of the season because of the series I’m doing on him. He wanted to go out, and the condition was that I be there with him. Nothing happened and nothing is going on.”

“So you are trying to tell me that the two of you went to a club, he got you guys Ace of Spades champagne and you talked about the
weather
?”

“We were talking about his past. He was telling me about where he grew up and what it was like living there with a single mom and a little sister.”

“
Sounds riveting
,” he said.

“I’m serious, Daniel. It might not have looked like it, but we weren’t fooling around.” Lies. All lies. I was lying so hard; I had never lied so much.

“I don’t know what sort of unorthodox interview methods you think you are allowed to employ, but you have to remember that this is a
job
.”

“I know that.”

“What did I tell you about Rock?”

I rolled my eyes. His warning… I couldn’t even pretend that I hadn’t heard it because I had. It had come too late. He might have thought that he was protecting me, but telling me that Dante would try and seduce me when he did tell me wasn’t
news
. He didn’t know how right he had been and how late he was with his well-intentioned warning.

“Daniel. I don’t know who sent you the picture, but they didn’t see what they thought they saw. He and I were talking. He ordered the champagne because that club isn’t the sort of place you can just go in and sit doing nothing.”

“I don’t know. You two look pretty comfortable to me.”

Daniel and I looked at our job pretty differently. The fact was, there was money to be made.
Of
course
, there was money to be made. Why did anyone do any job ever? Professional sports were and names like Dante Rock moved units. Yes, people wanted to know about games and about scores but scandal sold. Sex sold, and I knew that that was what Daniel was thinking. He was probably mad or worried or maybe a little anxious about me getting mixed up with Dante because of all the things he had warned me about, but he was a businessman, and I knew he wasn’t mad about the potential this had to sell stories.

“I’m smarter than that Daniel. There is nothing going on. Sorry to break it to you. The picture means nothing.”

Dante

I didn’t tend to remember the names of the chicks that I hooked up with very often. They never stuck around that long and changed often. There were a couple names that repeated, like the
Stephanies
and the
Ambers
and the
Shannons
. There was this
one
chick, though, that I will never forget. Her name was Rachael and the reason she was so memorable was we had hardcore, raunchy ass sex for hours when I took her home and then in the morning, I woke up to her sucking off my morning wood.

I was pretty fond of her…
Rachael
. Too bad she had been usurped as best blowjob I had ever had by Quinn. Rachael had made up for what she lacked in technique with enthusiasm. She was eager to please and would do anything…
anything
…I asked her to do. Quinn had finesse. She had made my entire cock disappear down her throat without gagging, and she hadn’t forgotten the balls.

My dick was hard that morning, first, because it was morning, but also because I had started thinking about Quinn the minute I woke up. I reached into my underwear and pulled my cock out. It was hard and ready to go. Too bad Quinn wasn’t here. She could have wrapped her sweet, soft lips around it and sucked me till I came in her mouth. Or my preferred method, she could have laid on her back and let me fuck her till we
both
came.

I tugged my cock and thought about her. Fuck, what did she look like naked? I couldn’t wait to see
all
of her. I couldn’t wait to feel her naked skin against mine and hear her scream as I drove into her, deep as I could go. I couldn’t wait to make her mine again. My hand sped up. I was close. I was going to come.

The sound of my phone ringing broke through my fantasy. I stopped and cursed. It was somewhere in the room, but it wasn’t in its usual spot on the bedside table. I looked around the room, cursing again when the ringing stopped. I found it finally in the bathroom, who the fuck knew how it had gotten there. I grabbed it and looked at who had called me.

I frowned. There was more than one. Loads of text messages, too. My agent, more than one from him… Fred, who did PR for the Yellow Jackets, several from him, too. Why were they looking for me this early in the morning? For what? Did I have to go in for something? I knew I wasn’t in trouble. I hadn’t done anything since that incident with the cup. And there were missed calls from my mom. Just one or two. Hers had been the number that was trying to call me when I couldn’t get to the phone. I scrambled to call her back. There was something wrong. She wouldn’t just call me like that for no reason. I was nervous. The darkest, worst shit ran through my mind. What if my dad was harassing her?  She picked up even before the first ring was over.

“Mom?”

“Dante?”

“Mom, where are you? Is everything okay?”

“Dante? Yes. Everything is fine. I’ve been trying to call you.”

“Sorry, Mom. I just got up.”

“Just now? So you haven’t seen it?”

“Seen what?”

“Dante… there’s a story about you on the computer. A horrible story Dante…” she said.

“A story? About what? I haven’t done anything.”

“Dante… tell me it’s a lie. Tell me you didn’t hurt her.”

Hurt her?
Hurt her
? Hurt
who
?

The answer to that question came the second I had asked it.

Shit.

The woman with the black eye. There was no way she had gotten to the press. With
what
? I hadn’t even done anything.

“Mom, whatever is on the television, or the internet or anywhere else, don’t believe it. I didn’t do anything, mom. I didn’t do
anything
.”

She was silent for a second, and it was worse than if she had taken the time to yell at me instead.

“Is it true?”

“It isn’t, Mom. I
swear
. Not a word. I haven’t met that woman in my life.”

“I was always afraid that you—”

“Mom,
please
. Please, listen to me. Whatever you heard, whatever you read, it is not true. That’s not me… after what happened to you, I would
never
. I could
never
.”

She was silent again for a beat. I could picture her with the computer on in front of her, or the television. I could imagine her face and how distraught and upset something like this would potentially make her. I heard what sounded like another voice in the background and some shuffling.

“Dante?”

“Gabbie?”

They were together?

“Dante, what the
fuck
is going on?”

Mom was distraught while Gabbie was obviously mad.

“Nothing, Gab, I swear. Where are you guys seeing all this?”

“Did you do it?”

“
No
, I didn’t do it. I haven’t done
anything
.”

“You’re on speaker,” she said.

“Mom?”

“Your sister called me with the news.”

“It is all over the internet, most likely printed as well in the tabloid papers. I had no idea. I was minding my own business when my notifications blew up with people asking about you. People were asking whether I knew what was happening, whether I knew that woman, and what I was doing about it…like we live together or something.”

“Has the press contacted either of you?”

“They haven’t been able to get to Mom, but I got a couple of people emailing me, telling me they were reporters.”

“Don’t talk to them. Mom?”

“Dante… I want you to be honest—”

“Mom, I
am
being honest. I’ll put that on anything, my entire career, I didn’t do anything. I’ve done a lot of things, Mom, but I would never do anything like
this
.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Gabbie.

“I don’t know. I might have a friend who can help me out.”

“A
friend
?”

“She’s a reporter.”

“Be careful talking to reporters, Dante.”

“This one is good. She’s a real journalist, not one of the people who work at one of the places publishing this bum story.”

“If it isn’t true, why are they publishing it?”

“Because it's
scandalous
. Coming off the news of the fight I nearly got into at the game not too long ago, it's something people want to read. It’s a headline that will sell copies and bring new clicks to websites. People love it when I fuck up.”

“This looks so
bad,
Dante,” my mother said.

“I know, Mom. I’m sorry that you had to see any of it.”

“I hope your friend is good,” Gabbie said. I hoped so, too. I hung up the call with them and looked around the room for my laptop. I hardly ever used it; it was in the closet in its bag. I turned it on and did something I had never done in my entire life, typed my name into Google.

Immediately the results page displayed news story after news story about the same thing.
Dante Rock, the abuser. Dante Rock, the woman beater. Dante Rock, the menace. Dante Rock, the fucking bully
. My stomach felt sick. If I had eaten already, I probably would have had to throw up. It was everywhere. Once I had seen it all, I couldn’t stop looking. It was all over the place. Twitter. Facebook. This was a disaster. I had to do something.

The thing I probably
should
have done was call Fred. He was the one to call when there were scandals, but I didn’t want to talk to fucking
Fred
. I wanted to talk to Quinn. I knew what I was feeling. I was scared. I was scared, and I wanted someone who would make it so that I wasn’t anymore. I picked my phone up and dialed her number.

I waited for a few rings.

“Hello?”

“Quinn. Have you been on Twitter this morning?”

“Dante, I—”

“Have you
seen
some of these headlines?”

“Dante, listen to me—”

“
Woman accuses Charlotte Yellow Jackets point guard, Dante Rock, of physical assault
,” I said, reading out a headline. “
Dante Rock, MVP and Abuser. Woman comes forward with shocking accusations against Yellow Jackets MVP.
”

“Dante… they’re all lies. They are all not true.”

“I know that.”

“Then why are you so mad? I need you to calm down. This isn’t going to get anything solved.”

“Why am
I
so mad? I’m sorry I’m not calm and happy about my name, image, and brand being dragged through the mud on false, ugly accusations, Quinn. I’m sorry that I’m not
happy
about the fact that my mother called me crying this morning because she saw some of the stories and thought that I had ended up just like her ex. I’m
sorry
my sister had been bombarded by people sending her links to all these fraud stories and that both of them are likely going to get harassed by the press.”

I heard her exhale, sighing like she was stressed out, too. It wasn’t
her
ass that was on the line, it was mine.

“I’m sorry that this happened.”

“Being sorry isn’t going to fix it.”

“I realize that. What do you want me to do?”

“You are my voice. You have to print something that tells everyone that I didn’t do it or something. You have to make all this go away.”

“I don’t know how easy that will be,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she has no evidence, but because something like this has already been published, we can't be sure how much she is willing to fabricate?”

“
Fabricate
?”

“I’ve heard of cases where people have faked phone calls, faked footage, all kinds of things in order to point the finger at someone.”

I felt my heart drop.

“Are you saying there’s no chance?”

“I’m saying it is going to be extremely hard to sway the public in the direction of trusting you again and hearing you over her. I don’t think I need to tell you that powerful men, like yourself, may have the benefit of the system being on your side, but the woman will have public rally around her. Even though you didn’t do it, there are people who will lose respect for you because they will choose to believe her.”

“Quinn… you
have
to help me.”

“I know.”

“I’ve told you everything. You know everything about that. You have to make everyone else believe.”

“I’m going to do what I can, okay. Just… let me
think
about it.”

“Quinn. I’m serious,” I said.