Linebacker's Second Chance (Bad Boy Ballers) (8 page)

The protein shake leaves a greasy mustache on my upper lip, and I wipe it with one of the fluffy kitchen towels that the cleaning team leaves around. I don’t even know where they came from. Wingate’s got a team of decorators and designers, and they took the image I gave them and created this house from nothing.

It’s not my house, not really. Not mine alone. It's the house from my imagined life with Renata, and I didn’t think she’d ever see it in person.
 

To tell the truth, I’ve thought about moving out more times than I can count over the last few years.
 

The kitchen is too big, with a chef’s stovetop set on a big wooden island, copper pots and pans I don’t use hanging from ceiling racks, and what seems like acres of smooth, open counter space. Counter space that was intended for making cookies and pancakes and omelets on Sunday mornings—not for lining up shots and pouring beer pong beer.
 

I sigh and drink the rest of my shake, slamming down the cup in the sink. It’ll be gone by the time I come back to make lunch, cleaned and set aside by one of the silent staff that Wingate hired when we moved out of town. Wingate used to stay in this big house I have, but now his is almost through being built down the road. Can’t say I blame him for moving out early. He’s not much of one for girls wrestling in baby pools, and he thinks I’m on some kind of immature downswing.
 

A burst of rage breaks through the zen I cultivated during my workout.
 

The damn man told me I couldn’t have my party today, but it’s my privilege and my right to have people to this house when I see fit. It’s not like Renata’s going to make her way over here to personally tell me off since she’s the one who wanted
no contact
, and she even stipulated it in the contract she signed.
 

I
should
be glad she’s here to reform my image, to save my career. If there’s ever been one thing I loved almost as much as I loved Renata, it’s football, and the Carolina team in particular. But Wingate’s head is screwed on incorrectly, and he’s meddled and meddled until he brought back the woman I left behind, the
one
thing I didn’t need as I headed into a new season.
 

I growl as I look across the field to the house where that woman is staying. The lights still aren’t on, and there’s no way she’ll know about what I’m doing this morning. By the time she wakes up, I’ll have half the team and fifty of our closest fans lounging in the pool on the side of the house. I’ll make the party
bigger
than I was going to.
 

She said no contact.
 

She said she didn’t want to work with me directly, and I guess it’s because I’m just so damn
distasteful
.
 

I’ll show her what it means to be distasteful. She’ll get a big old eyeful. And she’ll either leave… or she’ll break her vow to stay away.

As I get on the phone with the guy who fills up my kegs with the finest beer—and my pool with the finest women—I wonder to myself if I want her to
leave
or if I want her to come raging up here with a scowl all over her beautiful face and give me the speech of a lifetime.
 

Doesn’t matter either way, Macklin. That woman is
done
with you, and she has every reason in the world to ignore you for the rest of your life.

She’s here though, ain’t she? I might as well give her a show.

***

By ten in the morning, some of the other early-rising players start to arrive and my keg man Craig brings in a big-ass shipment of Stella Artois and has it placed by the pool.
 

I’ve worked out, had a damn protein shake, and there’s a woman whose heart I broke in the guest house, plotting away at my future without my consent. By golly good damn, it’s time to start drinking. I get my icy cold mug from the below-zero freezer out by the pool kitchen and fill it up with the deep amber-colored liquid, pouring a bit of foam off the top. I bring it to my lips so I can start forgetting all the
feelings
that came over me when I caught a glimpse of Renata last night.

I take a big sip of beer and savor the taste. It’s already over eighty degrees in the shade by the pool, and there are a few girls in very skimpy bikinis walking around the pool. A subtle wave of relaxation pours over me as I down the first half of my icy cold mug, and I pause only to take my shirt off and have one of the women who arrived early put sunscreen all over my back and shoulders. Her fingers are soft and warm, and I try not to think about how Renata’s hands once felt on my skin.

How can I even think about a relationship from six whole years ago when I’m on the edge of the biggest linebacker career the NFL has ever seen…? And I’ve got about fifty girls pouring into the side gate, each of them less dressed than the last.
 

“Hey Craig,” I yell to the short, shirtless man as he sets up the last keg and pours a cold beer for himself into a red Solo cup.
 

He looks up and takes a long swig. “Yeah?”

“Put out the sign I had made—the one that says ‘Bikini tops optional.”

“All right man, can do. As long as I can stay and eat and drink.”
 

“Hell yeah you can stay, Craig. You brought the beer, didn’t you?”

I watch as Craig hauls out the sign, and I pour myself another beer. Another few of my teammates start showing up, and I wonder what that bastard of an owner and the damn tattle-tale of a coach would think of the shenanigans I’ve got going on here today. As the second beer goes down and the ladies start lining up for mugs of Stella, tops start coming off, and I start getting into the zone of not giving a shit about anything. I get the custom-made top and straw on the top of my mug and wade into the pool, positioning myself on a giant chair-like float in the center of the pool. Fortunately, the cupholders on this thing are so big, they each hold a mug of beer. Around noon, the food starts to get set up, and the quarterback is walking off with some topless woman to one of the rooms off the side of the porch.
 

“Who cares?” I say out loud to no one in particular. The cleaning team will be by again before midnight, and they’ll clean up every mess and even replace torn up sheets or curtains as they see fit. Everything is taken care of, and nothing matters.
 

One of the women sidles up to me in the pool, offering me a stuffed mushroom from the food table. “You’re Mack Pride, aren’t you?”

“I’m the one,” I say.

“Is it true you have the best parties in the league? That’s what you really like to do these days—isn’t it?”
 

I take the stuffed mushroom and shove it into my mouth, following it up with another long swig of beer. I gesture to Craig to get me another one, and he delivers before the woman—who strangely has her top
on
—wades even closer.
 

“That’s a fact. The NFL—behind the scenes—it might all sound like fun and games, but really, there’s a lack of good parties with scantily clad women. Unless you’re in Cali, that is. I’ve been to some good ones there. It’s my goal to start that kind of thing on the East Coast, and there’s no better place than the Carolinas.”
 

The woman nods and continues flirting with me, even though I can’t see her eyes behind her dark sunglasses. She’s attractive enough, with a nice damn body like all the other women here. She peppers me with a few curious questions here and there about my schedule, about how I bring in the women and the other players, and a few other things that seem to fade into the background once I’ve had enough beer to fill my system and my bladder.

I do remember one question, though, because it’s kind of a repeat of the first. And if I were sober, it would probably stick out in my mind as strange.

What are you hoping to gain with these parties, Macklin Pride?
 

I might consider paying more attention to her but the party starts heating up, and the men from the team grow louder and louder, floats and footballs getting thrown around in a flurry of sound and activity. I join in and throw the ball with a few members of my team, and every once in a while, I see that woman from the corner of my eye, talking to a bunch of different people on the team. But the beer keeps flowing, the food keeps getting eaten, and more of the girls start taking off their tops.
 

It kind of doesn’t matter anymore how the party goes—I know it’s a success because Renata is out of my mind for the most part, and not even sour old buzzkill Wingate has made an appearance to tell me what a disappointment I am. I call that a win of massive proportions—or is it? Did I want Renata to show up here and tell me off? Did I want to be able to show her exactly how much I don’t care about her being here? And exactly how much I don’t want to change my ways?

I brush off the thought and drink more. And eat more, throw more floats into the pool, have Craig call more people and get more caterers to bring more food. The party is an orgy of people eating and drinking and fighting.

I don’t quite remember getting out of the pool, but the next thing I know, I’m laughing so hard in one of the patio chairs that I fall on my ass and someone has to help me up again. I can’t tell if it’s one of the girls or one of the guys on my team, but I can tell by looking at the sky that it’s getting late. The sun is hanging heavy over the house, and I can see a shadow of the moon in the sky. Soon, people are leaving, and I’m still sitting out on the patio in the humid evening air, sipping a flat beer and eating a piece of pizza that went cold a long-ass time ago. Pizza gone, I drift off with my beer still in one hand.
 

I’ll be out here until the stars come out, and I’ll keep doing it until Wingate and Renata get the point and leave me the hell alone when it comes to my own personal business.

I have the vaguest hint of a sinking feeling before I fall asleep, similar to the times when I was a kid and my brother and I got into some kind of trouble that we knew was absolutely our fault.
What if they’re right? What if they’re all right?
 

But Macklin Pride doesn’t think that way. He parties, gets any woman he wants, and he plays football like there’s no tomorrow.
 

Some time later, there’s a stinging sharpness against my face, followed by a splash of very, very cold water.
 

“I’ll throw you in the pool if you don’t wake up, Mack. And I’ll pray to the gods that you break your leg on the way in so we don’t have to worry about you playing football at all,
asshole
.”

Buzzkill did decide to show up. I snicker at him before I open my eyes.
 

But then I hear it. I hear her.
 

“Mack, what have you
done
?”
 

Renata.

My heart pounds hard as I stare down at Macklin Pride’s impressive physique. I’d forgotten what it was like to be in his presence—a wholly unique and singular experience. And when that body was touching mine—sculpted flesh, impressive bulk warm and near. Heat pools between my legs, which surprises me too. I still
want
this man, I realize. There’s no mistaking it.

    
I gulp. There’s no getting around it. I’m going to say what I have to say, and then I’ll hightail it back to the guest house.
 

    
“You’ve done it. You got me up here, Mack. I didn’t think you could accomplish that feat in only twenty-four hours of the plane touching down, but you’ve fucked up badly enough that I need to come here and talk some sense into you.” I’m not sure if Mack has heard a single word I'm saying or not, but his eyes are at least partially open now that Wingate has slapped him and doused his face with water. If I weren’t so pissed off, if I didn’t have so much adrenaline rushing through my body, it might be a funny sight. But Big Mack has gotten me to violate my
own
contract terms on my very first day of the most important job I’ve ever taken on. And there’s very little humor in that.

After a second splash of water from his equally pissed off cousin, Mack opens his eyes and stares at me through a food and beer-induced coma I’ve seen in a thousand football players in my time—especially in the ones who are like Mack. Man-children of the highest degree.
 

“Are you partially conscious, cuzzo?” Wingate asks. Today, Wingate is wearing a bright purple button down and very light khaki pants that look almost white. Again, his shirtsleeves are far too short. Unlike Mack’s perfectly proportional body, Wingate inherited his father’s unnaturally long arms. He’d be a handsome man—almost as handsome as Mack—if he spent some of his money and got his shirts and pants properly tailored. But Wingate’s never been much of one for thinking about anything but the task in front of him.