Page 1 of Second Down Fake

ONE

DIEGO

Sweat poured down my face. The salty ocean air mixed with the tequila seeping out my pores, and the smell made me nauseous.

“Christ, Salazar,” my trainer said as he threw a towel at me. “Did you sleep in a distillery?”

I wiped off my face, jogging off the field and collapsing onto the bench set up on the sideline. “Long night.”

“Certainly smells like it.”

“You can’t give me shit. Pre-season doesn’t start for a few more days.”

He shook his head and left me to regret my life's decisions. I didn’t blame him. While the players and staff trickled back into the stadium for another season of Norwalk Breakers football, I’d been making increasingly bad decisions. Last night, that bad decision took the form of going out to a club with my wide receiver, Trent Vogt.

Going out just a few days before pre-season was already a bad idea, but with Trent? Disastrous. The guy had a busted liver and an incredible ability to attract trouble. And, if he couldn’t find trouble, he made it himself.

But I didn’t have a good reason to say no. Worse, I wanted a reason to say yes. My latest relationship had ended with the football season, and besides a brief visit back home, I’d been kicking around Norwalk, bored and a bit lonely. With the rookies focused on impressing the Breakers’ coaching staff and the veteran players trickling back to Virginia, Trent had been my only friend up for some fun.

My phone chirped in my duffel bag, and I fished it out, squinting at the screen in the mid-afternoon sun.

JAMES

Page Six

Cosmo

TMZ

A random list of publications flooded the screen, capped by a more ominous message.

JAMES

Coach wants to see you. Today. Three. Stop embarrassing me.

Baffled, I navigated to my missed call log and found that texts hadn’t been his first point of contact. I quickly called him back.

James Easton kept a small cadre of football players on his client list, but he monetized the hell out of us. Brand deals, ambassadorships, merchandising, James provided a boutique agent experience. He also negotiated one hell of an NFL contract. Pissing him off wasn’t in my pre-season plans.

“Oh, you’re calling me now? So you know how badly you fucked up?” James’ clipped voice greeted me within two rings.

“Um, not even a little,” I confessed. “I’ve been strength training and fending off a hangover all morning.”

He sighed audibly. “Well, I hope you had fun because you started a shit storm with your ex last night.”

The snippets of memory I had from the night before included a little dancing and a lot of drinking. Nothing to do with my ex. “I’m lost.”

“Well, you can catch up on pretty much any gossip site. Coach Simmons’ office. Three. Don’t be late.” He disconnected without a goodbye.

I sifted through my bag, pulling on a pair of sunglasses before taking his advice.

Actress Zoey Meyer calls ex-boyfriend, Diego Salazar, quarterback for the Norwalk Breakers, ‘immature’ and ‘a clout chaser’.

My stomach dropped. We hadn’t so much as seen each other in months. After an awkward post-season vacation, our relationship had been all but over.

And maybe we didn’t officially break up until earlier that week when she’d called me from a film set in Portugal, but we hadn’t texted in two weeks. Hadn’t talked in a month. We both knew our relationship was over. Or at least, I thought we both did.

Reluctantly, I clicked the link for the full article.

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