Dominate (University of Gatica #5) (5 page)

The theater where the NFL draft was being held was enormous. Aileen, her pencil poised over the sheet she was working on, paused to stare at it as the camera panned over the room, taking in the screaming fans packed into the seats. Up on the stage, a man stepped to the podium, and a moment later everyone fell silent like they were hitting a cue. Into the silence, the NFL commissioner announced that the Tennessee Titans were on the clock.

Aileen went back to her homework after that, occasionally looking up at the sound of screaming to see a new player called up to have their picture taken with a team jersey. As far as she could tell, each team got about fifteen minutes to decide who they wanted, although some decided much faster than that. Aileen knew that Tyler was there, somewhere in that enormous theater, waiting to be called up on stage for his turn in the spotlight.

It didn’t come until about eighteen rounds in.

She didn’t quite catch the name of the team that accepted him the first time they called it, because she was only half listening to the television, her attention focused on a difficult chemistry problem that she was trying to solve. But she heard Tyler’s name.

Her head snapped up and she turned to look at the television, watching as the camera zoomed in on Tyler walking up onto the stage to accept a hat with Browns written across it in orange.

“—Jensen,” the announcer was saying. “Defensive back. University of Gatica.”

Aileen reached for her laptop and typed the name of the team into Google. Cleveland. Her heart, which had been singing for him a moment before, dropped. That was a long way from Gatica. Although, she realized, she’d be able to see him in the summer. But summers were short, and athletes’ summers were even shorter.

She reached for the remote and turned off the television, looking back at her homework. Whatever happened she would find a way to see him, but she really wished he didn’t have to be so far away.

***

It was after midnight when her phone rang. Aileen looked up from the problem set she was currently working on, arching her back to stretch it after too long bent over the sheet of paper on her desk, and reached out for the ringing phone, pulling it closer to see who was calling. Tyler's name flashed across the screen. She swiped a thumb over it to answer.

“Hey, Tyler,” she said as she raised it to her ear. “I saw the news!”

Laughter on the other end of the line answered her, and distantly she could hear what sounded like a party going on in the background. Loud music, voices jumbling together. It was muffled, like Tyler had stepped into another room to call her.

“Isn't it awesome?” His words slurred a little, and Aileen wondered if he was drunk.

“It's amazing! I'm so happy for you.” And she was, even if she had her misgivings about the location of the team. She wanted Tyler to be happy, right? And the NFL was what would make him happy. So she would learn to deal with that, despite the misgivings that picked at her. What if a long-distance relationship wasn’t a good idea? What if it ended up doing them both more harm than good?

Tyler was talking, and Aileen tried to force the whirl of thoughts away and focus on his voice.

“I've already been signed by the Cleveland Browns. And—this is where it gets even better, babe… the Patriots are already trying to trade me from them.”

He sounded like he was on cloud nine. Aileen's smile froze on her face. The Patriots? For a moment she’d had hope that maybe he was going to be closer to Gatica. That a team from New York was picking him up instead. When he’d said that it got better, she’d been certain that he meant for both of them. It made it harder, when she'd already been hoping that he would be placed a little closer. Somewhere that she could actually visit.

“That's… cool. It’s kinda a long way away, Tyler.”

There was a pause on the other end, like he was parsing what she'd said. “It's not that far. Close enough that you could fly out sometimes to visit.”

“Fly out sometimes? Tyler, do you really want to live like that? Only seeing each other when I can afford a plane ticket and a few days off from track and school?”

“I can buy you plane tickets, Aileen,” he said, sounding almost confused, like he didn't understand what her problem was.

“It's not really about the plane tickets! I just want you closer. Couldn't you have been signed out of Buffalo or somewhere? At least then I could see you more often than once every couple of months.” She was being ridiculous. She knew she was. They’d hardly been dating. What was she saying? Hadn’t she just kicked him out of her room the other night so Jani wouldn’t see him? Then left him at a party because she was jealous? Now she was thinking long-term? She didn’t have a ring on her finger. There were no promises of anything more than… than what?

She let her words hang on the line as silence grew between them. She should be happy for him. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. He had this huge, amazing future and she was bitching because he didn’t try to get picked by a team closer to Gatica. She hated herself for complaining and yet, she couldn’t take the words back.

She didn’t want to.

“
Buffalo
?” He almost couldn’t believe his ears. For a moment, Tyler wondered if he was too drunk and he’d misheard, but he hadn’t had that much to drink and he was pretty sure that Aileen had said exactly what he thought she had.
Buffalo
. His lips pressed together in a thin line.

Phone still held up to his ear, Tyler leaned against the bathroom wall, one hand cupped over the phone's speaker to keep the sounds of the party outside the bathroom door from intruding too loudly on the conversation. He'd managed to sneak away from the constant line of girls who kept trying to get his attention and his number, and the other draft picks congratulating him.

“Aileen, I've got an awesome opportunity here, don't you see that? I could be part of the Patriots, for fuck's sake. That's huge. They won the Super Bowl the year before last!”

“That's also really far away,” Aileen repeated, her voice catching over the words like she was about to cry, and Tyler pushed down the surge of guilt in his chest. He wasn't going to feel bad for being signed by a good team, or for having prospects that would make most college football players green with envy. She'd known when they started dating that he was going to end up in the NFL. She didn't have any reason to complain.

He could have been signed by the San Francisco 49ers and then he would be all the way across the country. New England wasn't actually that far from Gatica. Not by plane. Although she'd have to drive to the airport. But was it really that much to ask her to do?

“I know that it's far away, but it won't matter for that long. Just a few years and you'll be graduated from university. Then you can come live with me.”

“Just a few years isn't that short a time. It's a huge part of my life. Long-distance relationships are hard, Tyler. They come with a lot of problems. We’re both working on our careers. I’ve got school, varsity track, and trying to make the Olympics. You’ll have a ton to focus on. This is going to be too much work.”

“So we'll work everything out,” Tyler said, starting to get frustrated with the whole conversation. He'd called Aileen, expecting her to be happy for him. Expecting that she would be just as excited as he was over the fact that he had the potential to end up on a major team. Somewhere that he could really make his mark on the world of football. But all she cared about was the fact that she might have to get on a plane every couple of months.

“Do you even understand how big a deal this is?” he asked. “I know that you don't play football, but I do, and this is huge. This will be a career that I can be really proud of.”

“You can't be proud of a career on another team?”

“No,” Tyler said finally. “No, Aileen. I can't be as proud of a career on another team. Not if that team is the Buffalo Bills. They're nowhere near as recognized as the Patriots. And nowhere near as good. Sure, I'd still be NFL, but I'd end up going almost nowhere. On the Patriots, I'll be one of the big names.”

“And being one of the big names is that important to you?”

“It isn't to you?” he demanded. “Tell me that you wouldn't want to be one of the big names in track. If you got to go to the Olympics you would be jumping up and down and you know it, so I don't see where you get to act like I'm being vain because I want to take this opportunity.”

Aileen sighed, and for a minute she didn't say anything at all.

Tyler waited for her to speak.

“It's a good opportunity,” she said finally. But she didn't sound happy. Didn't sound like she was happy for him. Tyler's jaw tightened. “And I'm glad that you got it. I really am, Tyler. I'm just... going to miss you.”

The bleak edge to her voice made him feel guilty again.

“I'm going to miss you, too,” he said, softer. Outside, people were chanting and then there was a loud group cheer. Tyler pressed his hand over the phone's speaker. “A lot,” he added when the noise had died down. “It's going to be really hard to be that far away from you. But it's what's best for me. And best for us, by extension. If you got an opportunity like this, I would be behind you the whole way.”

“It is what's best for you,” Aileen said. “Congratulations, Tyler.”

There was a pause, like she was deciding whether or not she should say anything else.

“I love you.”

“And I love you,” he answered.

Then she ended the call.

For a minute, Tyler stood staring at the screen of his phone, wondering how upset she still was and if he should call her back. Say something to try to calm her down. But in the end he decided that calling her back would just end with them arguing again, and he didn't want that.

He tucked his phone into his pocket and made his way out of the bathroom and back to the party, smiling as one of the other guys patted him on the back, and accepting a drink handed to him by a blonde girl who kept trying to get him to dance with her.

Aileen would see. This chance would be amazing, and not just for him.

It would be good for both of them.

Tyler came back, and the media came with him.

They had been at Gatica, on and off, mostly to cover football and the local media covering other sports and Track and Field meets, especially the ones going to the NCAA championships. Aileen had been interviewed a couple times, track just wasn’t a big deal. But they weren’t on and off with Tyler. It seemed like there was always someone watching him. Someone with a camera pointed at them. Usually there was someone with a microphone involved, too, standing off to the side to narrate about Tyler Jensen, the defensive back from tiny D-1 University of Gatica who’d been a top NFL pick and doubled as a hurdler. NCAA champion, All-American, home-grown American boy living the dream.

And Tyler wouldn’t touch her if he knew he was being recorded.

When she’d asked him why, after he’d pulled away from her too quickly as they sat under a tree on the quad and she’d realized that he’d seen a reporter coming their way, he’d told her that he didn’t want to have to share her with the world. Except Aileen wasn’t sure she believed that. Or at least, she wasn’t sure that she believed his reasoning for it. If you were proud of someone, you wanted to share them with the world. So why wasn’t Tyler proud of her?

Maybe he’d found someone better.

She’d heard the female laughter in the background when he’d made his call from New York. Maybe one of the women who had probably been following new recruits around had caught his attention and he didn’t need her anymore.

He’d told her from the beginning that he wasn’t looking for anything serious. She’d known that she wouldn’t be able to hold to that, because she never could, but she had hoped that it would come naturally between them over time.
That
something serious. Apparently it hadn’t.

Maybe that’s why he’d been so confused about her issues with him dancing in a gaggle of other girls. If it wasn’t anything serious, what did it matter how many girls he had grinding up against him? Maybe he’d thought that she wouldn’t care.

The problem was, she did. And hearing him on the phone after the draft picks, she couldn’t help but wonder how many girls had been dancing close to him. How many girls had put their hands on him? Had he said anything to them, or had he felt secure in the knowledge that she wasn’t anywhere near to see what he was doing?

She’d thought that he seemed serious, but maybe she’d just been seeing what she wanted to see all this time. It wasn’t like she hadn’t known going in what it was going to be like. She should have remembered that.

He’d told her that she’d be able to move in with him in a few years. For just a moment, she thought about that, trying to reconcile it with her new certainty that he hadn’t been looking for anything serious, just like he’d originally said. But maybe that was just a way of appeasing her for now; they would never actually move in together.

Aileen had thought that she knew Tyler better that that. It just didn’t seem like him to get someone’s hopes up and then drop them. If he was that kind of person, she didn’t know him at all.

Cameras followed Tyler to practice. Aileen tried to ignore them despite the fact that she felt like she could feel them watching her, like eyes lingering over her skin. It wasn’t that she didn’t like cameras; it was just that with the news crews constantly orbiting around Tyler it was almost impossible to get a private moment, and they’d hardly had a chance to talk since he called her on the night of the draft. Every time she tried to get close to him, the media zoned in. She just wanted them all to go away for a while.

Motion out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned to see Tyler taking the lane beside her for sprints.

“Are you going to be allowed to run?” she asked. The question came out sharper than she had meant it to, but it was too late to call it back. “Now that you’ve been drafted? Won’t the NCAA see it as a conflict?” She kept her voice even, aside from that sharp little edge, and didn’t turn to look at him.

“I am, actually,” Tyler answered. “I’ve got a contract in my clause that will allow me to stay and graduate, and to keep running. So there’s no conflict.”

When she turned just enough to see his face, surprised, he looked like he wanted to say more, but there wasn’t time. Coach Anderson blew his whistle, and they all jumped forward into the sprint.

No conflict. Aileen turned that over in her thoughts as she raced down the track. So he would be preparing, and competing, with them. That was okay. She could live with that. She hoped.

Running didn’t feel like flying with her heart so heavy. Aileen almost stumbled, and Tyler passed her, head turning as he moved forward so that he could glance back at her with concern on his face. He looked like he wanted to stop and ask if she was okay, but Aileen waved him on.

The sprint ended, and they all slowed to a disorganized stop.

“You okay out there, Aileen?” Coach Anderson called.

“Just great, Coach,” she answered, very carefully not looking at Tyler or the shirt that was clinging to his abs and chest.

“That’s it, then,” the coach said. “Everyone fall out, and I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

Without speaking to anyone, Aileen headed for the locker room to get a couple of things that she’d stashed in there before practice. Everyone else had already gone, and for a minute she stood in the quiet, breathing in the scent of metal and sweat.

“Aileen,” a voice said behind her.

She whipped around to face Tyler. He was standing in the doorway to the dressing room, head lowered and hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

Aileen stared at him. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“And still, here I am,” Tyler said, strolling forward like he didn’t have a care in the world. “My question is still the same. Why are you avoiding me?”

“I’m not avoiding you,” Aileen protested.

“No? Because it sure feels like it to me. You only talk to me as much as you have to. You hardly look at me. What’s the problem?”

He was closer now, standing so near that she could almost feel the heat of his body. He still wore the cologne that had caught her attention from the moment that she first smelled it. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and feel them close around her, hard and safe. She wanted to know that things would turn out okay for them. Aileen didn’t say either of those things.

“You’re the one who refuses to be anywhere near me any time there are cameras around,” Aileen snapped.

“Because our private life isn’t a reality show,” Tyler answered, infuriatingly calm.

“Which is why I’m avoiding you. Because you can’t go anywhere without those cameras.” She wondered, actually, how he’d managed to get away from them for long enough to sneak into the locker room. They were pretty relentless.

“The cameras will go away eventually.”

“No,” Aileen said. “They won’t. You’re an NFL player now. You’re always going to be in the public spotlight. Someone is always going to want to have a camera on you. That’s just the way that it goes. Are you always going to avoid me in public?”

Tyler look shocked, and then upset. “Of course I’m not going to. I just want to make sure that we’re both in the same place before I go parading around in front of the media with it.”

“And what place is that?” Aileen demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.

The frustrated expression on Tyler’s face softened, but he shook his head. “I don’t really know, Aileen. You’re going to have to tell me that.”

She wasn’t any surer than he was. Aileen reached up and ran a hand through her hair, loosed from its tail after practice. “Honestly, I don’t really know what to do. Since you got drafted, everything feels different. You’re just going to end up so far away. And I’m scared that you’ll forget about me. In ten years you’ll be some famous figure I used to know or something. Like one of those stories that people tell about the glory days of college.”

“That’s not true,” Tyler said. “First off, you’re going to be just as famous as I am, and secondly, I could never forget about you.” Tyler took a step forward, and Aileen backed up, bumping against the cool metal of the lockers. His hands lifted, pressing against them, hemming her in on either side, and she could feel the warmth of his body against her own. “It's for you, Aileen,” he said, voice low. “Didn't you guess?”

“What's for me?”

“The clause. The one that says that I can stay here until graduation. That I can still compete. I made them put it into my contract so that I could stay with you.”

Aileen looked up into those amazing amber-green eyes that always managed to mesmerize her. Tyler leaned down, and she tipped her chin up, sighing as his lips pressed against hers. She opened for him, letting his tongue in to explore, tasting him. He was so familiar—his body pressed against her own, his kiss claiming her. She knew those things. As it always did, his touch left her wanting more.

But she didn't know if she could wait three years for that more. Wait weeks or months at a time for an opportunity to see him. And she didn’t want him giving anything up for her when she wasn’t even ready to say that she wanted a relationship. She wasn’t sure a relationship would survive everything else that was going on between them, around them, and she didn’t want to start one just to watch it end painfully a week or a month or even a year later. If she was going to have Tyler, she already knew that she wanted it to be forever.

Like Chrissy had said, maybe it was fate. But maybe it wasn’t. Or maybe fate could change. Maybe sometimes just wanting someone wasn’t enough. They pulled back, and Aileen looked up into Tyler’s eyes, trying to think about it rationally. What would be best for both of them? What would be best for her?

“I love you,” Tyler said, reaching up to brush his fingertips against the curve of her cheek.

It was the first time he’d said it first.

Only the second time either of them had said it aloud. And it was already too late.

One of his hands slid down to curl around her hip, holding her in close to him, and Aileen let herself rest against the strength of his lean frame for just a moment.

“I love you, too,” she said, and hoped that he couldn't hear the way that her voice caught over the words. “I really do, Tyler.”

He leaned in and stole another kiss, and she let him take that one, too, her fingers curling around the nape of his neck to hold him there, her other hand wrapping around the bicep of the arm that reached down to hold her hip.

When they paused to breathe, she slipped out from under his arms and grabbed one of the clean towels from her locker, laying it out on the bench. Tyler’s eyebrows shot upward. “Here?” he asked.

Aileen smiled at him, and hoped he couldn’t see that the expression wasn’t entirely happy.

If she was going to end it, she wanted one more thing to remember him by.