Blitzed (The Alpha Ballers #3) (2 page)

Finally, after 2 more reps, a linebacker lurched over to get into position near Drake and help out the cornerback guarding him. The play started and while the cornerback stuck to his man despite Drake’s blistering speed down the field, when Lance threw the ball, the linebacker reached up with a giant arm and pulled the ball right out of the air and into his grasp, breaking free and running back toward the offense like he simply refused to be stopped.

He ran at full speed till he was behind the offense with no one in front of him to get in his way before he slowed to a jog. I knew who it was already, just by the number on the back of his jersey, flowing in the soft winter sun, but when he took off his helmet, spiked it and the football on the ground before dancing around each of them in a figure 8, I couldn’t help but crack up laughing.

Hudson Asher was the life of the defense, and probably the entire team. Everyone on the team looked up to him like an older brother, and that wasn’t difficult since he was also the tallest player on the team, at a whopping 6’6”.

I leaned over and slid the window open just a crack, shivering slightly as the cold air crept in, covering my bare forearms in goosebumps. Hud kept right on dancing, jumping up and down and hollering about how he’d gotten inside Lance Parker’s head, disrupted his flow, and how Lance would never throw a touchdown again on Hud’s watch.

Parker started laughing, and I could just hear him yell back that it was good they played on the same team. Coach Armstrong took the opportunity to end practice, and the guys started pulling their pads and jerseys off. You’d think none of them would want to walk around in the cold Massachusetts winter with so little clothing on, but after a couple hours of running around and smashing into each other like coordinated bumper cars, I’m sure none of them felt cold.

I wasn’t about to complain about the view. Especially not on Hudson Asher. The man was built like a statue carved out of fluid muscle, an Adonis among a team full of them. These men stretched the boundaries of human conditioning, strength, and physical skill and experience, and among them, Hudson Asher might have been the most physically gifted of all of them.

I had a free view of scantily clad ridiculously toned and muscled men whenever I want, but whenever I spent any time around the players, if Hudson Asher was in the room I had to make sure to avert my eyes so it wasn’t super obvious to anyone who looked at me that Hud’s body made my mouth water with lust.

It was mortifying to me just how much I had fantasized about him. It was totally unprofessional and I had never admitted my crush to anyone, not even my girlfriends after one too many drinks. This was just something I couldn’t talk about. And not just because it was so embarrassing how much his smile could set me off, but mostly because I couldn’t bare any sense of impropriety about my work.

I knew that the business of professional sports was an arena all its own, completely separate from the actual playing of games. And I knew that the combatants in this arena were nearly all men, most of whom still held antiquated beliefs about what careers were appropriate for women near and dear to their hearts.

If I’d had a dollar for each time a man in this business had given me a funny look when they’d found out that I wasn’t some executive’s wife or girlfriend or intern, but an actual real-life front office employee of the New England Patriots, I’d be able to buy the team from my father.

So yeah, no one could know about my lust for one Hudson Asher. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t look at him from time to time and imagine those massive shoulders towering above me, those huge arms wrapping themselves around me.
 

Down, girl. Remember, this was the office. No time for that now. I took a deep breath and looked at the clock, cursing under my breath as I realized how late I was getting. All this watching the players was taking up just a little bit too much time today, and I had a schedule to keep.

But I did have time to visit the field really quick before I left the office for the day. I gathered up my things, wrapped my coat around my shoulders, perking up as the warm wool covered me, and I left the office, saying goodbye to my coworkers as I walked out and down to the field level. I’d be seeing a bunch of them in a few hours anyway.

The rush of cold air hit me as I opened the door out onto the field. Most of the players had gone into the locker room by now, but a few milled around and joked with each other, going over notes from practice, giving advice and admonishments in equal amounts.

Hudson Asher was still dancing around that football he’d caught and returned for a touchdown. No one on the team was surprised - Hud was widely known as the team’s biggest joker and prankster.
 

I thought about going to talk to him, but I had more pressing matters at the moment.

Coach Armstrong stood on one of the sidelines, hands gesturing wildly back and forth as he and a position coach argued about a play call. I walked right up to him and we locked eyes for a second, after which Coach Armstrong dismissed the position coach and turned to face me.

“Can I help you, Mack?”

“Hey, Coach, nice practice today. Team’s looking really good. Gonna be ready on Sunday?” I already knew the answer to the question, but Coach Armstrong had little patience for anything except for football.

“They’ll be as ready as I can get them,” he replied, tersely. Then he added, under his breath, “more so if we didn’t have this fucking thing to attend tonight.”

I smiled. “I know, Coach, and I feel your pain. But the team has some obligations to the community, and this was the only time we could fit it in. I kept it as short as I could, the players only have to be there for an hour. 90 minutes tops. Cool?”

Coach Armstrong shook his head. “We most certainly are not cool, Mack, cutting into my practice and preparation time like this. These guys shouldn’t be doing anything else till mid February.”

“I know, I know. It’s the only one on the schedule, I promise. You show up, say a few words, shake some hands, take some pictures, and you’re out of there and back to film study before you know what happened.”

Coach Armstrong’s eyes darkened. “If only it were that easy.”

“It won’t happen again, Coach, I promise.”

“See that it doesn’t.” He turned and walked off, presumably to find someone else to bother about the Xs and Os of football.
 

“I’ll see you in a few hours, Coach,” I said to his retreating back.

“Maybe you will,” I heard him mutter, and I smiled. Coach Armstrong was a gruff ogre at times, but I also knew that there were literally only two things that mattered in his life - coaching football and taking care of his players. He might have the world’s worst sense of propriety at times, but he made up for it by his fierce dedication to the game and to his team.

Getting him to come coach the Patriots a couple years ago had been one of my father’s most successful moves as the owner. Now the only thing left was to win a championship. This was as good a chance as any, especially with Lance Parker and Drake Rollins leading the offense to record scoring, and Hudson Asher running a stalwart defense that had kept us in the games when Lance wasn’t able to play earlier in the season.

Hudson Asher. By now he’d stopped dancing and had picked up the football and was walking my way. My breath caught in my throat as I noticed him coming toward me - The man had a way of making me weak in the knees, something I simply wasn’t used to with men.
 

He stopped in front of me, still cradling the intercepted football like a baby in his huge arms, the veins popping out in stark relief against the muscles they criss-crossed over. “Mack!” He shouted at me in a low rumble that could cause tremors if he didn’t modulate it carefully.

“Hey, Hud, nice practice today,” I said, lamely, once again shocked at how much this man could reduce me to sheer idiocy just by his presence. How did he do it?

“You watched us?” He furrowed his brow, looking back toward the main complex, toward the offices. I followed his gaze with my own, shivering in the cold, and I noticed his eyes stopped right at my window. “Yeah, I guess you have a pretty good view, then.”

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” I just couldn’t find the right words to say around this guy, and it bothered me to no end. I wondered if he had any idea how much he affected me. “You gonna be ready for Sunday?”

“Yeah, Coach Armstrong’s been running us hard these last couple days, but I know we’ll be up to it. The Chiefs are good, but they’re no match for us.”

I giggled like a schoolgirl. “Don’t let Coach Armstrong hear you say that or you’ll be running wind sprints till it gets dark.”

Hud looked around for Coach Armstrong like he was suddenly afraid of getting caught. “You think he heard?” He whispered to me. It made me chuckle inwardly, how scared a giant of a man could get over whether his football coach had heard him say something out of turn.

The relationship men had with their sports coaches had never ceased to amaze me, and I’d been around it all my life, ever since my father had begun taking me to sporting events when I was a little girl. Looking back I wasn’t sure if he knew he was setting me up for a career in sports, but it wouldn’t have surprised me, knowing what a keen eye for talent my father had.

I leaned in, almost overpowered by his manly scent. Sometimes I didn’t know my men even bothered to wear cologne - the smell of a man after all that exercise made me swoon. I had to focus on staying upright and not collapsing into Hud’s arms.

Not because I didn’t want to, because I totally did, but because it wouldn’t look right. “I think you’ll be safe, but just in case, I’ll keep your secret.” Hud smiled and I wanted to turn to dust, it made me feel so good. “But bear in mind, my silence doesn’t come cheap.”

Hud groaned, but the smile was still in his eyes. “This is gonna cost me, isn’t it?”

“So much more than you can possibly imagine,” I said, finally finding the words and confidence I normally had around people. Why had it taken this long? He was just another football player!

Except, of course, Hudson Asher wasn’t just another football player. I had seen hundreds of those come through the Patriots facility’s door, and very few of them had what it took to stick around in this league and make a career for themselves. Even fewer could live up to the strict standards of the New England Patriots.

Hudson Asher had spent his entire illustrious career as a member of this team, almost a decade long now. As professional football players went he was practically a dinosaur, even at the ripe old age of 32.

“When do I have to start paying it off?”

I made a big show of opening my bag and dropping something invisible in it. “I’ll just keep that in here for later and we’ll see what happens, alright?”

“You drive a hard bargain, Mack.”

“I mean, if you’d rather deal with someone else, I could always call Coach Armstrong over here…”

Hud held up his hands, palms out toward me, his huge and calloused fingers stretched. “I give, I give.”

“Glad we could come to an arrangement.”

Hud shifted to his right leg and looked down at me. “Going to the thing tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there. Gotta represent the family, you know how it is.”

Hud looked concerned. “Will your father be there?” He asked, his voice dropping lower. He’d known my father since he’d joined the Patriots, and the admiration and respect Hud had for him was clear every time he spoke about my father. It warmed my heart to hear the richness of his voice at that moment.

“Last I checked, yeah, he’ll be there.”

“He’s…doing OK?” It was a blunt way to ask, but blunt was pretty much the only way Hudson Asher operated. Some people found it a little off-putting, a little hard to deal with, but for someone like me who dealt with people who talked out of both sides of their mouths all day long, it was refreshing to speak to someone so direct.

Maybe that was one of the reasons I had such a huge crush on him? Who could tell? People already thought I was a robot at work and in my personal life, and now I had to be all awkward around a guy who worked for me. Argh, it was infuriating how close to tongue-tied he could get me with just a glance.

“Yeah, some days are better than others. Thank you for asking, I’ll tell him you did, he’ll appreciate that.”

Hud stood back up straight, looking down at the ground. “If there’s anything I can do to help…” He rumbled, trailing off at the end.

I touched Hud’s arm, a gesture of thanks rather than affection. “I know, Hud. And more importantly, my father knows.”

We stood like that for a few seconds, my hand still resting on Hud’s arm, before he brightened. “Are you excited for the party?”

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. It’s for a great cause, and I think Steve’ll enjoy it too.” I looked up at Hud’s eyes as soon as it came out.

Hud furrowed his brow. “Steve? Who’s Steve?”

I blushed. “Oh, uh, he’s my date…”
 

Hud didn’t give away anything with his face, but I thought I saw his shoulders hunch over a little bit, but maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me again. Where Hudson Asher was concerned that tended to happen often. “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s a recent thing.”

“I gotcha.” Hud looked up, and seemingly noticed we were the only people left on the field. “I gotta get moving,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Gotta get to the showers and clean all this stuff off.”

“Right, OK, good seeing you, then. I’ll catch up with you tonight?”

Hud started walking back toward the locker room. “Yeah, sounds good,” he called over his shoulder. “If we run into each other.”

I watched him walk away, that massive body, tightly outlined by his jersey, pads in one hand, football and helmet in the other, all of it caked in grass and dirt. I sighed as he disappeared.
 

That had been awkward. I wondered why Hud’s tone changed so much when he found out I had a date?

A chill wind picked up and I looked around, noticing that now I was the only person left on the field. My watch beeped, and I looked down - shit, I was supposed to be getting home by now. I had to get ready for the party and check in on my father and see if he was up to making an appearance tonight.