Game On (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) (6 page)

Kieran burst out laughing at my stunned expression. “Yep. It’s a date. And we’ll talk about whatever sentimental personal crap you want, as long as you let me pay the tab. Besides, I might have a few questions for you of my own,” he said mysteriously. Then he immediately changed the subject, asking in a bright, chipper tone, “You want me to walk you out?”

I shook my head vigorously. I needed to get away from him, fast. Before I did or said something truly stupid and embarrassing. He was way too slick and charming for me to even comprehend and I needed to clear my head before facing him again tonight. Being a reporter meant that I had cultivated a pretty strong ability to make conversation even under the most awkward circumstances, but there was just something about Kieran (possibly his biceps) that got my tongue all twisted and my heart a-flutter.

“No, no. I got it. Th-thank you,” I stammered, furiously pushing my hair back behind my ear even though it was already securely tucked back there.

“Okay. Well, I’m gonna stay and run a few more laps for a cool down. I’ll text you the details about our totally professional interview date. See you tonight,” he quipped with a broad grin and a wink. He turned and jogged back down the hallway out onto the field, leaving me staring after him in a state of mild shock.

Kieran was turning my whole world upside down.

Still feeling dizzy and giddy from our encounter, I walked out of the building in a daze and headed into the parking garage. But as I stepped off the elevator I heard Kieran’s name being whispered in a loud hiss. I turned to look toward the noise, instinctively drawn to the sound of his name. My journalist senses were already tingling and I ducked behind a column to eavesdrop.

I peeked around to see a man and woman in gaudy black clothing more suited for a club scene than a football stadium standing over by a sleek, silver Mercedes. The man was leaning on the car, his arms folded over his chest. There was a smarmy grin on his overly-tanned face, his wrinkled cheeks pulling back in a leathery grimace. The woman was slightly younger and very voluptuous, with bleach-blonde hair piled back in an elaborate high ponytail twist. She had the distinctive look of someone who was once blindingly beautiful, still clinging to the remnants of her former beauty. She was still an attractive woman by most standards, but there was a greedy, mischievous smirk on her face.

“I’ve drawn up a contract that’ll really knock your socks off, Janet,” said the man.

She looked at him a little dubiously, eyeing him with slight suspicion. But the closeness of their positions indicated to me that they were probably more than professional contacts. The woman laid a perfectly manicured hand on the guy’s arm. Oh yeah. They definitely had to be sleeping together.

“Are you sure he won’t be able to read between the lines, Paul?” the woman called Janet asked in a sickly-sweet Southern drawl, tilting her head to one side.

“Oh, god no. Kieran’s just a meathead. He won’t know to read the fine print. Plus, he trusts us implicitly,” the man named Paul responded, waving his hand dismissively. I felt my stomach churn to hear them talk about Kieran this way. Like was some moron. Just a pawn.

“Don’t you feel even a little bit guilty, robbin’ the poor guy of his money?” Janet asked, pursing her lips. But her tone was less accusatory and more playful. It made me sick.

“Guilty? Babe, I forgot what guilt felt like a long, long time ago. In this game you gotta learn to look out for yourself. If he’s too stupid to watch his own ass, that’s on him, not us,” Paul said with a cruel laugh.

“You’re a bad man, you know that?” the woman crooned, leaning in to kiss him. The two of them got into the Mercedes and drove off, leaving me standing stock-still in the parking garage, frozen with tortured emotions. Would it be a conflict of interest to warn Kieran? After all, this was definitely none of my business. But then again… those two did not seem to have his best interests at heart. At all.

Finally, I couldn’t delay any longer. I had to warn him. Trembling, I pulled out my phone and called his direct personal number. After a few rings, Kieran picked up, to my surprise. I had been planning to leave him a message since he was probably running laps.

He answered, sounding slightly out of breath, “Hey, I told you I’d get you the details for tonight when I was done running laps-- you’re one impatient date!”

I took a deep breath and started rambling, “Mr. Michaels-- Kieran-- there’s something I need to tell you. I just overheard a weird conversation about you and I’m worried they might be planning to screw you over with some bogus contract or something and I know it’s none of my business but I just feel like I have to warn you--”

“Whoa, whoa. Wait. Hold on, Dani. What’s going on?” he interrupted, sounding confused. “You heard some people talking about me? That happens a lot when you’re in the public eye, it’s no big deal.”

“No, these people are different. I think you know them. And they-- they sounded like they were working against you. It was a blonde woman and some sleazy-looking guy with a bad fake tan,” I explained quickly. There was a long pause.

“That sounds like Janet Walker and Paul Franklin. She’s the team manager and he’s the owner,” Kieran replied, his tone more serious now. “And you think they were saying… bad stuff about me?”

“Y-Yes. That’s what it sounded like. I know I’m overstepping boundaries here but I just couldn’t pretend like I didn’t overhear it. I’m sorry,” I said, walking briskly over to my own car. I rarely drove it these days, preferring to just take public transportation. I only really used the old clunker when I needed to go somewhere outside my usual living radius, like the stadium.

“No, you’re good. Don’t worry. And I’m sure it probably sounded a lot worse than it was. I trust those two. They’ve never steered me wrong before,” Kieran said, but there was a hint of suspicion in his voice, all the same.

“I just don’t want anyone to hurt you,” I admitted flatly.

“I know. Thank you for looking out for me. Anyway, I guess it’s a good thing we have plans tonight. We’ll talk about it at dinner. I decided on a restaurant, by the way. I’ll text you the details. Drive safe and I’ll see you later,” he said.

“Thanks. See you,” I replied, then hung up. I drove out into the mid-afternoon sunshine, pondering how big a mess I was getting myself into.

              Going to the team manager’s office was an unpleasant chore on the best of days. Even as I pulled up in the parking lot, though, I knew this was going to be the worst of days, and I was already bracing myself for what was about to come.

              Janet Walker was a complicated woman. I didn’t pay much attention to the politics of sports administration, usually. I was a man of action, and my place was on the football field doing what I did best--none of the nuts and bolts of what went on behind the scenes were my concern, and all of us had always relied on our managers to handle that, unless there was a dispute.

              And this was a dispute, to say the least, which put me in hot water, because I’d never had to deal with Janet before. At least, not under these circumstances.

              I was always the type to look for the best in people. I was always taught to have full confidence in someone until they gave me a reason to betray that trust, and it had gotten me a pretty good ways in life thus far. But the more I thought about everything Danielle and I talked about last night, the stranger it sounded to me. Mom always had a bad impression of Paul and Janet, and I couldn’t blame her for that, because she was already worrying about me in my day-to-day career, so it would be natural for her to vent those frustrations onto my administrators. Maybe her impressions had been right all this time, though. In any case, talking to Janet today would settle that one way or another.

              Janet was one of the first female managers in local football. The casual misogyny of the culture around her job must have taken its toll on her over the years, because she was both a fierce manager and an aggressive negotiator. But none of those things made her any less tricky to talk to than any other decent manager. Most, if not all, of everything that made her hard to work with came straight from Paul Franklin, the team’s owner.

              But that was a can of worms I didn’t want to spend too much dwelling on. I was here on a very simple mission that simply had to be taken care of personally--and in person.

              I stepped into the office and gave the receptionist a nod as she peered at me over her glasses. “Hey, Lacy. Janet around?”

              “Mm, let me see if she has a moment,” the young woman said, peering at me uncertainly. She wasn’t the type to appreciate unannounced meetings, but these were special circumstances. She picked up the phone and paged Janet, and after a short exchange, she nodded at me, albeit with some reluctance. “Go on in,” she said, and I gave her a knowing nod.

              I had a feeling I knew why Janet’s secretary was hesitant to let me see her right now, and as I stepped into the dimly-lit office, my suspicions were confirmed.

              Even through the dim light, I could see Janet’s dilated pupils gleaming from the glow of the nearby lamp, and the whites of her eyes were a little bloodshot, as if she had been scratching at them too much. She sniffed hard as I entered, and she adjusted her blonde hair hastily as I made my way in.

              “Hi, Kieran,” she said quickly, “come in, sit down. I wasn’t expecting you. Do you need something? I have a busy day today.”

              Her voice, already high, was a little shaky, and her words came quickly, as if she were jerking them out of her mind in a flurry. I bit back a frown as I gave a polite nod and took a seat in front of her.

              It was Paul who’d gotten Janet hooked on blow. I assumed he had started using some time back in the 80s and just never got off the stuff. Living in Las Vegas in the lifestyle of a sports team owner didn’t offer much in the way of discouragement from drug addiction. From everything I’d heard from the older players and managers, Janet hadn’t always been like this. She met Paul when she was in her thirties, starting to fall into a mentally unhealthy place over her signs of aging, the looks she’d had in high school starting to visibly change. Maybe she’d seen in Paul her last chance of being found attractive, and she gave him a kind of trust she never should have given a man like Paul.

              It made me sad in a way I couldn’t fully express. Growing older was a natural thing, and no woman should be ashamed of showing her maturity and enjoying it. If it weren’t for men like Paul, maybe Janet could have seen that, but she was too far into her cocaine dependency to see that. They were both ill.

              “Hey, Ms. Walker,” I started, “I wanted to talk a little about the contract renewal that’s coming up.”

              “Oh, yes!” she said, suddenly brightening up. “Did you get the email of the draft we sent you? It’s all ready to go, all we need you to do is sign your little name where it says, a few initials here and there, and you’re back on track where you’ve been before.”

              “Yeah, I got the email,” I said, “and that’s what I wanted to talk about a little. There were a few things that didn’t totally make sense to me in it, and I’m pretty sure some of the wording isn’t like it was on the last contract I signed.”

              “Pssh,” she rolled her eyes, waving a dismissive hand with what I took as a pretty condescending smile. “don’t worry your little head about that now, darlin’. You see, we administrators have to change some of the terms and conditions every renewal to account for the changing market around us. Sometimes we find loopholes in contracts we have to fix, extra protections for our players, exclusions, termination conditions, this and that, you know how it goes,” she finished with a wolfish smile. “Nothing’s really going to be changing for you, though, I can tell you that much.”

              “I understand,” I said cautiously, trying to sound less suspicious than I really was. “Still, since my career has been going on so far without a lot of my involvement on that side of things,” I proceeded, and already, I could see the smile on Janet’s face fading, “I’d like to get the contract looked over by a lawyer before committing to anything.”

              I’d said the magic word.

              “Lawyer?!” Janet suddenly spat back at me, slamming her palm on the table with a loud slap as she stood up, but she caught herself immediately, taking a deep breath and running her fingers through her hair as she turned around to shut her eyes and presumably silently count to ten. After a moment, she turned back around, trying her damnedest to put a sunny smile back on. “Well Kieran, that breaks my heart to hear--haven’t we done good by you all this time? Lawyer, that’s a pretty hefty accusation to imply, darlin’.”

              “Of course, I don’t mean to imply anything,” I said hastily, putting on my best impression of my usual, well-meaning self, but Janet’s outburst had convinced me that this was necessary. “I just feel like I need to get a better idea of what the contractual side of my career is, you know?”

              Janet didn’t seem to be buying it, glaring at me with pure hatred in her eyes and tight lips. After a few moments, she took a breath, her hands almost shaking with anger as she opened the drawer in her desk, and for a moment, I thought she was going to pull a gun on me and force me to sign her contract right then and there, the look on her face was so palpably furious.

              Instead, she drew out the contract--the original copy, I could tell by the seal on the back page. “Fine,” she said, pretense of niceness dropping from her voice. “If you want to insist on being difficult about this, you do have a legal right to have your terms of employment reviewed by a legal counselor--a long and expensive process, I might add,” she noted with a bite to her voice as she slid the papers across the table to me.

              “I appreciate your being understanding,” I said, maintaining as much politeness as I could muster, but it was difficult to hold, the way she was talking to me.

              As I left the room with the documents in hand and closed the door behind me, I heard the sound of something being thrown across the room, followed by a string of swearing that made the secretary cringe as I passed her. I gave her an apologetic look as I walked by. “Might be a good time for a lunch break,” I advised, and she sighed, taking out some aspirin from under her drawer.

***

              The law offices of Jayda Washington & Associates were relatively small, but there was a peculiar sense of cozy professionalism in the building. I thought I’d have to wait a few days to be able to get an appointment with the attorney, but the secretary said there was a cancellation this afternoon, so I could come talk to Ms. Washington before lunch if I hurried.

              So a few minutes later, I was sitting across a mahogany desk with my hands folded as Washington reviewed the documents through metal-framed glasses. Her expression was stony, unreadable as her eyes scanned page after page with intense scrutiny. I was impressed--even after first meeting me, she seemed to be taking my concerns with great seriousness. Might have been a symptom of my fame, I thought, but it didn’t make a difference to me. Whatever got results.

              After a few minutes, she took her glasses off and sat back in her chair, drumming her fingers on the table thoughtfully. “Well, I won’t lie to you, Mr. Michaels,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “to say this is a bad contract would be an understatement. I’ve seen a fair share of simple carelessness in all my years, and I can say with some degree of confidence that this is not a carelessly written contract. If you sign this, you’re being taken advantage of, in my legal opinion.”

              I frowned, leaning forward and clasping my hands on the desk. “I was afraid of that. How so?”

              “Well, for starters,” she said, thumbing through a few pages, “the money you’ll be getting out of the contract is practically nothing compared to the average for players of your caliber. The team owner will be raking in the vast majority of the profits--which is already the case for professional football, I’ll admit, but what I’m looking at here is a gross abuse of manager privileges, among other things.”

              “Like what other things?” I said, slowly becoming more angry and feeling more hurt by what I was hearing. I knew Paul was crooked in some ways, but to hear it coming from a legal advisor was the kind of proof I had been fearing would be out there for a long time.

              “Your rights, mostly,” she said simply. “Some of the stipulations in this contract make it very hard for you to do anything but carry out the contract to the very end, with some
very
steep penalties for trying to break the contract. It’s already difficult for a player to jump ship to another team,” she restated in layman’s terms, “but it looks like your team owner and manager want you to essentially forfeit the right to even try something like that. In my experience, con artists include things like this in their contracts in order to trap their victims once they realize they’re being conned. Of course,” she added as my eyes widened, “what we’re looking at here is completely legal, I’m afraid.”

              “Shit,” I said, running my hands through my hair. “Pardon my French,” I added, and Washington only smiled with a dismissive wave. “Alright, so the next question is a given, as long as I hire you--which I will, at this point,” I noted. “Can you help me write up a counteroffer?”

              She nodded, moving to her computer and typing a few things in. “I’ve worked with sports players in this city many times before, Mr. Michaels. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of abuses people in this city try to pull on their players. But I should warn you,” she said, turning back to me with a frank expression, “if your team owner and manager are trying to pull something this deliberate, and the manager was that incensed when you brought the contract to me, I highly doubt they’ll be willing to agree to a fair counteroffer.”

              “I know,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I’ve worked with both of them long enough not to expect them to go down without a fight, if they go down at all. But it’s important to me that we confront them with something fair. I don’t want it to be able to be said that I can’t be reasonable--not while I’m reaching out to the other team managers in town to talk about getting hired on with someone else,” I said, holding up my contacts list, which boasted the personal numbers of some of the more influential managers and owners in Vegas.

              Washington smiled at me, standing up along with me and extending her hand for me to shake. “I like the way you think, Mr. Michaels. I think your administrators underestimated you severely.”