Linebacker's Second Chance (Bad Boy Ballers) (16 page)

Even thinking about her makes my cock start to stiffen, and I want to run back over to the guest house and have her again.

But this is a day full of interviews, meetings, workouts, and practice as we head to the pre-season.
 

I roll out of bed and pull on my work out shorts and shirt. The biggest thing I have on my mind is a protein shake and a cup of coffee because I can’t think about Kinley or the whole stupid engagement anymore. Not until this afternoon, anyway, when we have our interview.
 

“Just get through it, Mack. Get through it, and we’ll figure something out.” I mutter the words to myself, and when I walk into the kitchen, I’m expecting an empty blender, an empty counter, and no response. Instead, Wingate is standing right there, his long arms crossed. This time, he’s wearing a pair of reading glasses, jauntily sitting on the tip of his nose. I roll my eyes, ignore him, and pull a couple of bananas off of my banana rack and stick them in the blender with a half cup of peanut butter and some of the chocolate protein shit that Darius gave me last week.
 

“You know, I’ve been reading over this contract, Mack. And I’m not seeing anything in here about either of you
sleeping
with other people.” He pushes the glasses up to the bridge of his nose and noisily rustles the papers.

“I never should have given you a key. ‘Come over any time,’ I said. ‘Make yourself a protein shake and get some weight on you.’ But no, you use this as an opportunity to come and harass me in my own house.”

“And you use Renata being back here as an opportunity to get your dick wet.”
 

I growl and angrily turn on the blender. The thick concoction slows down the blades, but I add a dollop of yogurt and half cup of milk to loosen it up. The blender still slows down, and I smack at it, ignoring Wingate shuffling papers next to me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say between blender smacks.
 

“I saw you waltz down there last night after you thought everyone had gone home. And as I was still getting the crew to clean up—I noticed you were still there two hours later.”
 

“So?” I finally get the blender working again and pour the concoction into a glass. I drink it while I get to work on the coffee, reminding myself to drink some water after all this shit. I
do
think I might be dehydrated, come to think of it. The shake tastes thick and comforting, and it helps me ignore Wingate’s eyes, searing into me. I shrug for emphasis.
 

I’m not listening. I’m an adult man, an NFL superstar, and I do what the hell I want.

“If you look online, you might be singing a different tune.” He picks up his phone and flicks through it. “Here’s a good headline. ‘Kinley Edwards in Tears over Fiancé’s Supposed ‘Secret Lover.’ That one was in
Star
, so no one takes it too seriously.”
 

I glance at him, my stomach sinking. “Does that article mention the fact that she’s been screwing the wide receiver since before she met me? Yeah, that’s right. She has. And she
tried
to sleep with me too.”
 

“Nope, there’s nothing in the article about that. Which means it
didn’t happen
. Not in the eyes of the public. Now I don’t know how anyone got this information—maybe Kinley’s onto you. Maybe she’s playing you to get more money or more sympathy or I don’t know what the fuck she wants. But she’s scary as hell. I don’t know what Renata’s doing with you, but she’s a lot less savvy than I thought if she’s messing with a man who walked out on her—”

“I didn’t walk out on her,” I snarl, slamming the shake down on the counter. A few chocolate-colored droplets spill out onto the counter. I’m seeing red, and suddenly, six years worth of secrets start bubbling to the surface. “It was Dad. He was the one who made that deal with Renata’s old man. Rollins Young came to Dad and said he’d extend the debt over ten years if I got away from Kinley. That I wasn’t good enough for her, and he was willing to stake the fate of his farm—of both our farms—if I got the hell out of the picture.” I lift one shoulder and shrug again, like everything I said is no big deal. There’s a pulsing pain behind my eyes, and I think of the tens of thousands of dollars I send each month—pay back plus interest, plus enough to maintain the pigs and cattle and the corn production. And for what? This life?
 

I look over to Wingate, and his mouth is hanging slightly open. “But your brother Jared… Renata called me right after, and she told me everything he said. And you were nowhere to be found.”

“You’d run off too if you were caught between two families. Dad and Mom would have been homeless. Rollins was threatening to sue us, to call the police on us, have Jared and Dad taken away. Rollins even threatened… you know what? It’s all done. It’s in the past. And right now, I have the chance to be with Renata for a little while before she decides to go back to her big life in California. If that pisses off Kinley or anyone else, I’m very, very far from caring.” I sigh and clean the specks of protein shake off of the counter with one of the fluffy white towels my designer picked out. Suddenly, this house seems oppressive in a way it hasn’t before. For all of my time in professional football, it’s been a tribute to my old relationship with Renata. But here we are on the cusp of a likely disaster. All caused by me, by Renata, by the secrets and miscommunication and the history that stands behind us.
 

“Jesus, Mack. It’s your career on the line. It’s not just yours—it’s mine too. And if this all falls through, it could be Renata’s. You picked a fine time to go chasing after all this. And a fine time to tell me all this.” His voice goes quiet, and he scoots his skinny self up to sit on the counter. “I spent years hating the part of you that left Ren behind, you know. I loved you all the same because you’re my cousin and my best friend—”

I look down, chest clenching tight. “Don’t go getting all sentimental now.”

“I’m not. You’re still an asshole. You kept all that hidden from everyone to protect your family. That’s noble and all, but you threw a big part of yourself away. No wonder you slept with all those women—”

“I’m not anymore. I made up my mind. She’s back. And if she gives me any sliver of a chance, I’m with her and only her.” I look up at Wingate and take a long swig of my cooling cup of coffee. “For the rest of my life, if she’ll have me. We’ll work up to that, of course. But there’s nothing that won’t make me try.”

Wingate hits his head against the front of the kitchen cabinet. “Macklin, you’re engaged. There’s a solid contract that
says
you’ll stay engaged for the first five months of the season. There aren’t stipulations in the actual contract, but Eddie’s made it clear to both me and Renata that you’re
gone
from the team if it doesn’t go through. You know Kinley’s been sleeping around, obviously. But you don’t know how long or with whom, do you?”

I shake my head. “Nope. Don’t care either.”

“You should. She’s Eddie’s son-in-law’s sister. She’s been sleeping with every roadie and any fan who asks. And she’s been drinking her way through the tour. Because she’s around the team all the time and always over at her brother’s place, it was beginning to reflect on Eddie. It took me a while to dig this shit up, but this is why they’re both so hell bent on this engagement. And when I say you’ll get fired, you
will
get fired. I don’t think that’s sunk in. That means no money to funnel into this big ass mortgage, or into the mortgage on the apartment in New York, the one you never go to. It means the death of my career. And if you care about Renata like you say—well, you don’t want her mixed up in this. You do this engagement thing for the full time, and then you let her go back to Cali. If she’s still interested in you by the end of the season, maybe you can get to Cali and woo her back here or whatever you intend to do. But for God’s sake, don’t screw this up for all three of us before then.”
 

I bring my hands to my face and slump down against the counter. “Now that you put it like that…” I let Wingate’s tongue-lashing sink in. He’s very good at correcting my idiotic ideas. This might be the most idiotic idea I’ve ever had—getting Renata back when I’ve got one deal with my brother and Ren’s dad, and another deal with a sociopathic country singer and the bullying owner of my team. Kinley’s been texting me every five minutes of every day, telling me she loves me, that she’s looking forward to her first time with me. And just about everyone on the team knows she’s sleeping with everyone but me. She’s got one steady one she goes home with on a regular basis, and it seems she’s got the wool completely pulled over his eyes.

“You have one more event with Kinley Edwards this week, and then you have a break from her. You can get everything sorted with Renata and make whatever plan you want, but please don’t fuck it up before then, cuz.”

Wingate hops down and walks up to me, pausing to pat me on the shoulder before he heads back out to his own estate. The estate he could lose because of me. “Wingate…” I start, but nothing appropriate comes to mind.
 

“You’ll get it together, man. You always do.”
 

I watch my cousin as he walks out.
 

He’s right. I do get my shit together, most of the time.
 

But this seems like one tangled mess that doesn’t have the kind of simple solution I’m hoping for.
 

The headlines we keep seeing
have
to be from Kinley, each one worse than the last.
 

Linebacker Bad Boy Cheating on his Country Princess?
 

“Big Mack” at It Again—Will He Ever Stop and Think of His Team?

Kinley Edwards Forgives Him Again, Saying True Love Always Wins
…

Accusations of cheating and canoodling behind the young country star’s back run rampant. But like Mack, I know there’s no real relationship. They’ve never slept together, and they’ve only been in the same room a handful of times. Kinley made it more than clear she
wants
Mack, body and soul, but that wasn’t part of the agreement. Love and affection weren’t written into the legal agreement, and somehow, that seems to enrage her even more. She wants her claws in Mack. When he didn’t let her into his bed, she decided she would retaliate—first by picking out select team members to sleep with. And then, when that didn’t work, she started to accuse Mack of cheating.
 

If they had a real relationship, I guess she’d be right. But the contract we drew up excludes fidelity as a stipulation of the engagement. The way Kinley sees it, though, she controls what happens and what doesn’t. And if Mack’s not sleeping with
her
, he’s not submitting to what she wants.
 

With each phone conversation, she sounds more and more insane. And now, she’s roped Eddie Davidson into her web of lies and deceit. Again, Mack is the bad guy. They’re using our own ideas against us, and with each passing day, we sink deeper and deeper into it until it appears there’s no way out. Kinley Edwards has us by the proverbial balls, and she’s not relenting. If Mack doesn’t carry out the engagement, there’s no telling what she’s capable of. And with Eddie in her pocket, she’s got a lot more power than she should have.

The engagement party comes and goes without incident, but the news stories about Mack stay constant. He and Wingate are over at the guest house at all hours for the next week, arguing and pacing and grinding their teeth. Apparently there’s some conflict that’s gone on behind the scenes that I know nothing about—something to do with family and cousins and all the secrets that Mack’s family has hidden over the years.
 

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to know. But it can wait. There is one task at hand -- preventing Kinley from losing it completely -- and that comes before anything else, especially Pride family drama. I know it all has something to do with me, but they’re not budging. We tentatively called her and offered to cancel the engagement, but the very idea seemed to make her livid. There was so much anger in her voice over the phone that my pulse started to quicken, thinking of the things I’ve done with Mack behind closed doors. If she found out her suspicions were real, that there was a real issue instead of one she made up for the press—I’m not sure what she would do. Or what she’s fully capable of. I wouldn’t put anything past her.
 

And now, she’s pulling on her connection to the team owner, saying that she’ll make sure Mack never works again, that she’ll make sure he’s done for good in the entire sports world if he doesn’t follow through with the contract. In some of the conversations I’ve had with her, she’s ranted and raved, driving the point deeper and deeper until I feared she might explode over the phone. She even mentioned that she was planning to get him to marry her at any cost. When I told her it wasn’t part of the contract, that marriage was now out of the question, she said she’d find a way. And then she hung up with a finality that felt terrifying.