Tackled (Alpha Ballers #1) (16 page)

Which, to be fair, I did, so far every single time.

But Lily Pearson was different and I could tell that right away. Sure, she was gorgeous and funny and smart and we were amazing in bed together, but she didn’t seem…concerned around me. Like everything about us was just comfortable.

I knew she resisted spending time with me outside of work stuff like this, but once she made that decision to do so, she committed to it. I found that really appealing.

“How did the game go? I mean, from your perspective,” she asked, once the waiter had taken our menus away.

“You don’t waste any time, do you?”

“This is business, Drake. I need to know what your thoughts were on the game.” So much for comfortable and light and breezy, damn.

“It was just the first preseason game. There are 3 more coming up quick.”

“That sounds like something someone would say if they had a bad game.”

I leaned forward. “We were both there, Lily, no need to beat around the bush. I didn’t even make a catch.”

“Parker only gave you a few targets. He doesn’t know what to do with a receiver like you.”

I waved it away. “That might be the case, and I’m not saying I disagree with you, but it’s not my job to dictate the offense. All I can do is catch the balls that are thrown to me. If I do that, more of them will come my way. If I don’t, then the opposite will happen.” I put my hands on the table. “It’s just that simple.”

Lily nodded. “OK, now give me the real story.”

I laughed. “Huh? That is the real story.”

“Nah, that’s the proto-Patriots robot speak they teach you around here. Give me the real stuff.”

I cocked my head to one side and narrowed my eyes. “Off the record?”

She held her hands up. “No recordings here, Drake.” She lay her hands halfway across the table.

I took my chance, and covered them up with mine. She shrank back at first, just briefly, before she got comfortable again with touching me in public. She looked around like she was checking out the rest of the people around us, but no one was paying attention to anything other than themselves.

“Training camp hasn’t gone exactly the way I wanted so far.”

“That sound like the understatement of the week. What’s wrong?”

“I’m just not getting a chance! I can’t show them what I can do like this.”

“How are you getting along with the other players?”

“Eh, I dunno if you know this, but I didn’t exactly come in here with too much fanfare.”

“I’m well aware,” Lily deadpanned.

“Well, when that happens, the other players don’t really take to you. They like to see if you’re gonna stick around before they try and become friends with you.”

“Ah. So you haven’t had much going on in that department.”

“Nope.”

“That must be tough for you. You’ve been the big man on campus, what -“

“-Everywhere I’ve been but here, yeah.” I said, smiling ruefully. “It’s been a little bit of an adjustment, to say the least.”

“What’re you going to do about it?”

“Only thing I can do - make sure I make the team, and then make friends. Can’t do it in the opposite order.”

I felt Lily’s hands turn over under mine, till her palms were touching mine. She closed her fingers, pressing against my hands, and she looked deep into my eyes. “Are you OK, Drake?”

“Yeah, of course I am, it was just one game, I’ll be fine.”

She looked doubtful. “I mean, are you really OK?”

“Yes, Lily, I’m fine. I’m gonna make the team, and then everything will be better.”

She still looked skeptical. “Right now, if they had to make roster cuts tomorrow, would you make the team?”

I didn’t want to answer that.

“Come on, Drake, answer the question.”

“We both know the answer is no.”

She said back, satisfied that I was opening up to her. “OK, then. Now that we’ve got that out of the way…how can I help?”

CHAPTER 17 - LILY

I just wanted to help Drake out and do what I could to help him make the team. Of course for selfish reasons, but because despite not wanting to admit it to myself, I was really starting to like him.

I knew it would be tough, if not impossible for us to have a real relationship even if he made the team, what with the conflict of interest boundaries that we were clearly already way passed crossing, but even so, even if we would never be boyfriend and girlfriend I wanted to see him succeed.

I saw the drive and the motivation in him and my heart went out to him. Sure, he had been a little misguided and a lot too full of himself, but even over the last 10 days I had seen Drake Rollins come crashing down to Earth and I had gotten over my initial pique and curiosity at his fall from football grace.

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help, really. But thanks for offering. I just need to work harder and make sure my mind is in the right place when I get to the practice field.”

“Is there anything distracting you?”

“Well…Mike Sampson definitely isn’t helping.”

“He strikes me as pretty similar to you, personality-wise.”

“Ouch.” He thought about that for a second, then smiled. “Am I really that bad?”

“No. You’re much, much, worse,” I replied back, smiling too, trying to make this a little more fun for the both of us. “What about Sampson has you all worked up?”

“The way he struts around here, acts like he’s hot shit. Yeah, he and Lance Parker have worked together and they go way back, yeah they got that quarterback-receiver ‘connection’,” Drake made air quotes, before settling his hands back down on top of mine, where I secretly really liked them, “it…it’s a little intimidating.”

I couldn’t keep a straight face anymore. “So you’re saying, and let me get this straight, that the great Drake Rollins, scourge of defensive backs the world over…has been upstaged by…another Drake Rollins?!”

Drake looked at me like I had punched him square in the face, like the possibility that he and Sampson were alike in more ways than one had never even dawned on him. “Y-Yes,” he finally spoke when he had found the words.

“That must be really tough for you.”

“Don’t make fun of me, Lily, I’ve seen how you’ve been acting around Annie Ross these last couple days.”

“Hey,” I said, getting one of my hands out and pointing at Drake, “do not bring me into this. She and I are nothing alike.”

Drake looked like he had clearly hit a nerve, and we both knew in that moment he was right. “Tell me about her,” he said softly. “You don’t get along, I get that, but how come?” His eyes sharpened. “Did she steal your boyfriend one time?”

I laughed. “No, nothing so high school.”

“That’s good to hear. How do you two know each other?”

“We met at a summer journalism program a couple years ago. It was here on the east coast, at Johns Hopkins in Maryland.”

“A couple years ago? You mean you didn’t have fun during your college summers?”

“Uh, no, Drake, not all of us had athletic scholarships, some of us had to work in school.”

He looked hurt. “That’s not fair. I have a real degree and everything.”

“You’re right, I apologize. You’re not quite the dumb jock you look like.”

He closed his eyes, a smile on his face. “That’s much better. Please continue.”

“I mostly had to work on the summers to pay for school, but that one summer I managed to get into this really prestigious program for journalism and I had to take the opportunity.”

“Sounds like quite an honor.”

“It really was, especially because I was only a sophomore and everyone else there had finished their senior years, degrees in journalism and everything.”

“Wow,” Drake looked impressed. “I’m guessing that didn’t exactly go over well with Annie Ross, then, did it?”

I nodded. “You got it. She resented me from the moment the program started. It was like she was playing out all her fantasies about being the queen bee of the high school lunch room all over again.”

Drake nodded. “I have recently learned what that can be like.” I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I decided not to push the matter any further.

“So yeah, Annie Ross, after the program she went on to ESPN and very quickly she started getting on TV, getting sent out to cover teams leading up to the combine, the draft, training camps, etc.”

“Is she good at what she does? I haven’t paid attention to her stuff. I actually try and stay away from sports news.”

“Really? I figured all you players would be totally nuts for the stuff.”

Drake laughed. “One can only see oneself so many times on Sportscenter’s nightly top 10 before it starts to go to your head, and I try and stay away from those kinds of ego games.”

He said it with such a straight face that I couldn’t help but burst out laughing, and more than one person around us turned to see what all the commotion was about. I tried to compose myself, but the joke was just too good.

“Are you finished?”

“No, give me a minute, I need to enjoy that one a little big longer.”

“Take your time. I’m here all night.” He wrapped his arms around his chest and sat back, watching me with a knowing look on his face.

“OK, OK, I’m better now, you were saying?”

“No, you were telling me about Annie Ross.”

“Right, right. Yeah, I always got the impression that Annie was a little bit jealous of me, since I got into that program earlier than she did.”

“Is she a better writer than you are?”

“She’s really good, no doubt about that. And the players and fans on TV seem to love her.”

“So what do you have to worry about? I’ve read your stuff, you’re a great writer too.”

I blushed, not sure how to take that compliment from Drake. “I mean, I’m OK, I guess.”

“Nah, don’t be modest, you’re a hell of a sports writer. Plus,” he smiled, “you’ve got the inside track on Drake Rollins. I hear that’s not an easy beat, especially for someone just getting started.”

“Leave it to you to turn everything back around till it’s focused on you.”

“I do have a reputation to upload.”

“More than one. Lucky, you shoulder all those burdens pretty well.”

Drake bowed in his seat with a flourish. “Why thank you. As long as you remember that I do it all for the people.”

“Your many, many, fans.”

“The world over.” Ugh. The level of self confidence this man had, even in the face of adversity such as he was facing now, was legendary. As much as I wanted to tell him off, knock him down a peg or two or three or ten, I couldn’t help but be swept away in his charm.

I wanted to tear his clothes off right there in the restaurant. Down, Lily. There might be time for that later. “I’m still worried about Annie coming to cover the team. There’s gonna be a lot of scrutiny on the journalism side. She has a lot of fans and they come to read her writing even if they don’t like the team.”

“She’s got a couple year head start on you, don’t worry about it. You’re gonna hit it big with your stories on me and training camp. You just gotta get comfortable with your success and believe that it’ll happen, and keep working hard.

“You sound like a coach, not a player.”

“Sometimes you gotta be a little bit of both.”

“You make it sound so easy, though, I don’t know if I’m that good.”

He leaned in, a gleam in his eye. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Lily. I wasn’t so great at this football stuff either, not at first. Sure, some of it’s talent, and everyone talks a big game like it’s some innate ability or something that’s handed down from on high by a mysterious being.”

He leaned in even further, conspiratorially, and I found myself doing the same. “The truth is that that’s all bullshit. It’s about 20-30% talent and genetic ability, but the rest of it is plain hard fucking work.”

He sat back. “And that’s football. Writing is totally different. Sure, the smarter you are, the more you’re able to express in your words, but that’s only 20-30% of the game. If you keep testing out what works and doesn’t work you’ll find the right stuff.”

“You still make it sound so easy.”

“It’s not fucking easy at all, don’t get me wrong. Nothing worth doing on a professional level is. If it were, everyone and their sister would do it, and no one could do it professionally.”

“That’s quite the pep talk.”

“All I’m saying is, you’ve gotten this far, that means you’re good enough to play in the big leagues. What happens next is up to you.”

Damn, Drake Rollins was even sexier when he was giving me a pep talk.

How was that even possible?!

It seemed like as good a time as any to ask an important question.

“So what’s the deal with you being a complete ass to me this last week?”

In for a penny, in for a pound.

CHAPTER 18 - DRAKE

“So what’s the deal with you being a complete ass to me this last week?”

That was out of the blue. “What do you mean?”

“I meant after we slept together last week, you changed.”

“I didn’t change at all, I treated you exactly the same as before.”

It was only when the words came out of my mouth that I realized my mistake. Of course, I had treated Lily exactly the same before we had fucked as after. I thought that was keeping things the same, but clearly in her world it was a huge change.

Because things were supposed to change after two people have sex, duh. I didn’t get that through my football-thickened skull, because in my world, there was very little difference in my relationship to a girl before and after sex.

Clearly Lily Pearson was not the kind of girl I regularly connected with, socially.

She was looking at me like I had grown a second head, and for all intents and purposes, I might as well have, right then and there. “I didn’t realize…”

“Never mind.” She shut me down, hard.
 

“Let me explai-“

“Save it, Drake, I should have never asked the question. Leave it to me to ruin a good night.”

This was a good night? All we had done was argue and tell the other person they were better than they thought they were. “If this is a good night, I don’t even want to get close to one of your bad nights.”

“No,” she smiled, “you don’t.”