Sacked (The Alpha Ballers#2) (6 page)

And more than that, I didn’t want to leave her. I wanted to be with her. Of course, we didn’t know each other, even though I could still feel the rush of our bodies intertwining together just a few hours ago, but still I felt the pull toward her. I wanted to be here, with her, all day, just so we could get to know each other a little more, and see just how connected we were.

Of course, I couldn’t do that. I had somewhere to be. I grimaced as I raised my arm again so I could look at my watch, careful not to move too much and disturb her. She looked so peaceful lying there, like nothing in the world could get in her way. I hoped she always felt that way.

Shit, I had to get moving, I couldn’t stay here any longer. There was just enough time to get back to the facility and grab a quick shower before I had my first press conference of the year.
 

As slowly as I could, I climbed out of bed, staring at Charlotte’s face after every small movement to make sure she was still sawing logs, but clearly she slept like the dead - nothing I did seemed to have any effect on her. How lucky was that?

I quickly got dressed and noticed that my phone and wallet had fallen out of my pockets in my haste to get naked with her last night. As I pocketed the wallet and looked at my phone, I felt a sudden twinge of remorse.

I wanted to see this girl again, wanted to spend every waking moment with her, from here on out, just on the possibility that she and I might have the cosmic connection that I thought we could have together.

But at the same time, I knew what I had to do. I simply could not afford to see this girl again for the next 5 months. I just needed to focus on football and winning a championship for New England. Even if that didn’t happen, at the very least I had to do everything in my power to ensure that we won. Anything less and our chances of victory would hinge on me, and if we didn’t win, then it would be my fault.

And if that meant giving up a chance with the one girl I had felt anything for in a long time, well, that was just the sacrifice I had to make. I didn’t know how to be any other way.

Still, as I sat in the chair next to her small dining table, lacing up my shoes, I watched her, and the only thought that ran through my head was that I had to spend more time with this girl.

I wanted to leave her my number, but I also couldn’t take the chance that she was some nut who just wanted to sleep with pro football players. Once she learned who I was, she might track me down and show up at the facility, and I couldn’t handle that, not with the media or with my teammates.

It was hard, spending a few months a year with no intimacy, nothing like a real personal connection, but that was the only way I knew how to do things. And even worse, given my tenuous contract and starting situation with the New England Patriots, I couldn’t afford to test out a different way, not this year.

I couldn’t leave my number. But I could do something a little similar. I picked up Charlotte’s phone on the bed, and thumbed it open, dialing my number and completing the call. Her number appeared on my phone’s screen, and then I hung up. I went into her call list and deleted my number from her phone.

I couldn’t explain why I did it, not when I knew the rules, knew that we couldn’t see each other. But I just wanted to have her number, just in case.
 

In any case, we probably would never see each other again. She’d never hear from me, she’d start dating another guy, and maybe, just maybe, she’d happen to catch a Patriots game on TV this fall, and maybe she might catch a shot of me on TV without my helmet on, and maybe she’d remember who I was.

That was a hell of a lot of maybes, but right now, that was as good as I could do.

I stood up, checking that I had all my clothes and stuff, and looked again at Charlotte sleeping merrily away. I wanted nothing more in the world than to get naked and get back in bed with her, and wake her up with my lips all over her body.

But I had the media to get to, and Coach Armstrong would flay me alive, possibly in public, if I were late to the first media availability of the season. It was not a good precedent to set.

Before I left I leaned over quickly and gave her a long kiss on the forehead. She murmured something and turned over, moving her face away from the light, and snored once, just a little bit, which brought a huge smile to my face. To think that someone so perfect snored was just the hottest thing ever to me.

As I stood back up I realized there was no way a girl like this would be waiting for me when the season ended. As beautiful and interesting as Charlotte? These kinds of girls don’t stay single for 5 months straight unless they want to, especially not in a new town, meeting all sorts of men at every turn.

Nah, this was goodbye for us. It sucked and I didn’t want it to be the case, but playing professional football was the most important thing in my life, and I had a small opportunity to make a go of it and show the team, the league, and the country what I could do.

That was all that mattered, even when I wished it didn’t.

I sighed out loud and turned away from Charlotte, walking steadily toward the door. I opened it softly, and took one look back at her before I left, holding the door till it closed without a sound before I found the exit and got into my car.

I shivered a little bit as I got into my car, holding my hands together and breathing into them before getting in. It was gonna be a sunny and warm day, but right now we had the sun part, not so much the warm part.

The car warmed up quickly, though - all that money had to go for something, and soon I was driving at speed back toward the facility. Not too much traffic yet, people moving in and out trying to get to work and beat rush hour, and things got even better as I got closer to Foxboro.

I pulled into the facility, past the assigned parking spots for the front office, toward the players’ garage. There had originally been assigned spots in the players garage, but now they only made two distinctions - blank and ‘rookie.’ It felt really good to be able to park in the blank spots now, even if I occasionally had to fight for a spot.

When I pulled in I had about 30 minutes before my turn at the podium was scheduled to start. The first thing Coach Armstrong had made sure of when he arrived was that events and meetings at the Patriots facility would always begin exactly on time. If you were late to something you were supposed to be at, no matter if you were the starting quarterback, leader of the defense, or the greenest of rookies, you were sent home that day, and the next day you had to give the entire team a heartfelt apology.

That was how things worked around here now - personal responsibility. Some players couldn’t handle it - they were too wrapped up in living the glamorous lifestyle of a pro football player. Those players didn’t spend too much time in a Patriots uniform, and enjoyed themselves a whole lot more wearing another team’s colors.

But for a small number of players, that kind of strict rigidity made the game that much more exciting. I was one of those players.
 

I walked into the facility and quickly went to my room to grab a quick shower. The room was just as I’d left it, which made sense, because now that training camp was over, everyone else on the team had moved out. I was the only player still living at the facility, and I liked it that way.
 

Though I did miss my short term roommate, Drake Rollins. He and I hadn’t really gotten off on the right foot. Drake had come to the Patriots after falling out of the draft this year due to character concerns and off the field issues. Coach Armstrong had taken a flyer on him and Drake had shown up to training camp sure that he was the greatest receiver on Earth.

It had taken just a couple weeks for him to realize that we didn’t fuck around at the Patriots, and that he needed to buckle down and get to work if he wanted to make it as a pro player.

And then, to my astonishment, Drake had done just that. He’d buried his head in the playbook, attended every single meeting, worked hard on the field and in the weight room, and now he was one of my favorite receivers.

We’d started getting along really well there near the end of training camp, but just as I was starting to look forward to having a roommate who was as into focusing on football as I was, Drake had to go and get himself a girlfriend. Lily Pearson, the Boston Globe writer assigned to cover his story as he tried to make the Patriots, and Drake had fallen in love.

They’d even moved in together! I couldn’t begrudge the guy that, even I would have done the same thing under the circumstances. If anything, I was a little jealous of him. They looked so happy together and Drake was just a much more complete person now that he had Lily in his life.

He’d mentioned to me, totally off the record, that he was planning on proposing some time soon, he just wanted to make sure that he was gonna be with the Patriots a little longer before he did so. Then he had asked me to make sure and throw him as many touchdowns as I could this season. I had laughed and just said, “Drake, if you keep catching them I’ll keep throwing them,” and that was that.

So yeah, no roommate for me this year, just living alone in the empty player’s wing of the Patriots facility. Not too shabby, but nothing luxurious. The important part was that there weren’t any distractions.

Feeling the hot water rain down on me was amazing. Not that I wanted to get rid of Charlotte’s smell on me, far from it, but I just really enjoyed the cleansing and centering effects of a shower. I think that was the way with all athletes. Washing oneself off was like being reborn, ready and prepared for the next thing.

As I got out and got dressed, a little nicer than I’d normally wear, I got a heavy knock at my door. From the distinctive rhythm of the pounding, I knew exactly who it was.

“Door’s open, Hud, come in.” It always struck me as funny that a guy that was so big and gruff was also super polite.

Hudson Asher, Patriots linebacker, and one of my best friends on the team, opened the door and came bounding into the room, way too energetic for so early in the morning.

“Parker! You ready for the media this morning!?” Unlike me, Hud loved talking to the media. I think it was because defensive players didn’t really get into the spotlight, but any moment Hud could get in front of the cameras he took it, and hammed it up something awful.

Though, to be fair, he was like that all the time. Might have been part pig in a past life. “Yeah, Hud, I’m ready,” I said, letting my enthusiasm for the media show through in my tone. Unlike Hud, I had gone to the Coach Armstrong school of media relations, and preferred to stay out of the limelight even though, as the starting quarterback, it was thrust upon me whether I wanted it or not.

As bad boys went, though, I was only a little bad. Medium bad.

Hud came up to me and started punching me in the stomach, lightly at first, but even light for Hudson Asher was significant. “I. Said. Are. You. Ready. For. The. Media. This. Morning?” he said in between punches. “Come on, man, show me some love, the season is finally here!”

Now that got me going. “Yeah. Fucking pumped, man, let’s go win one this year, yeah?”

“You know it, brother. I’m right there with you. You make sure the offense got it, I’ll keep the defense on point and we’ll steamroll all the way to rings for everyone.”

I nodded. “Good plan.” I checked my watch and the big clock on the wall. “Shit, I gotta go, I’m up in a few minutes.”
 

“Right, right, ok, cool, catch me after your meetings and we’ll grab lunch.” Hud went to the door, opened it, and was halfway out before he leaned in again. “I’m so excited, man, this is gonna be a fucking awesome year. We gotta win one this time, bro.”

“I hear you. I’ll see you in a bit.”
 

“Have fun with the vultures. Catch you later.” And then he was gone. I heard him singing some random dirty song down the hall. Now that he knew I was the only one living in this wing, Hud sang a lot louder in the halls, not worried about whether the coaches or some of the more conservative and older players would hear him.

Plus, Hud had more than decade’s worth professional football experience. As long as he didn’t break any rules or miss any meetings, and kept playing at a high level like he always did, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted around here.

I kinda envied Hud in that way. He was pretty much a big kid just living out his dream of playing in the pros. And of course he brought the pain to whatever team was lined up against him, but when the game was over, whatever the outcome, he was always happy-go-lucky and ready for the next thing.

Me, though, I held on to things a little longer than I should. OK, a lot longer. Still, it worked for me. Sometimes, though, I just wished I worked a little more like Hud did.

I got another knock on the door right then. Dawdling time was over. I crossed the room and opened the door to see a Patriots intern standing there. “Hey, Parker, press conference time, Coach Armstrong sent me to get you.”

I nodded and went with him to the media area. The team had several rooms that were wired for media access where we held press conferences and media availabilities.

Today everything was in the main room as we kicked off the season. “Coach is just finishing up, they’re about to announce you. Wait here a sec.”

The intern wandered off and I stood there outside the main media room, waiting for my turn.

“Parker!” I heard someone shout my name and I turned, a smile already on my face. I’d know that cocky voice anywhere.

“Drake, man, good to see you. Welcome to the season.”

Drake came up and gave me a huge hug. “Thanks, man, it’s so good to finally be here. We gonna burn the league up this year, yeah?”

“Yeah, man, can’t wait. You better be open, like all the time.”

Drake stepped back, almost mock offended, holding his hands out wide to his sides. Then he smiled wide, “As if the great Drake Rollins could be anything but open for business?”

“That’s not what I heard, man, I heard Lily got you locked down pretty hard.”