Page 8 of The Maid

There was a subtle movement of her neck, as if she was swallowing. "Yes. We were fine. I'm still fine. I just want to make sure I can do my job effectively without you bringing up the past, including that I was your maid."

He cleared his throat and took a step back, making sure his eyes didn’t drift southward. She wanted to keep things professional? Fine. He'd comply.

For now.

"I'm sorry about the 'maid' comment, seeing you here, caught me off-guard. Nevertheless, my cards were canceled, so why don't we focus on that."

"No, they were not. You have a daily spending limit and you had already spent most of it, throughout the day. You want to increase it, all you have to do is call me, and I'll increase it."

What. The. Fuck?

"A what? I'm a grown ass man. I don't need a spending limit."

"You don't really have a choice. I was just following directions." She reached for her phone and swiped a few times on the screen and turned it to him. "If you look here, we did an extensive analysis of your spending. If you keep this up and, God-forbid you have an accident which makes you unfit to play, your savings will only last three years." She swiped on the screen a few more times and brought up a graph. "But, if you just cut your spending by this much," She pulled up a chart, "you can save enough to last you a lifetime. Plus, all the endorsements we're going to get you once you adjust your image. You have enough cash that it will make you money just by the mere fact that you have it. The interest alone is enough for an average person to live on. I'm not asking you to live frugally, I'm just suggesting that you—"

"Stay home and eat Ramen noodles."

She turned off her phone and put it down. "I'm surprised you even know what Ramen noodles are."

He remembered how he'd eaten them at her house a few times back then and then during his early days in college when his parents cut him off and he lived off scholarships and student loans. But she’d always been poor, her parents barely making ends meet. It was just one of the many reasons his family tried to prevent them from dating. She didn't know that though. As far she knew, they'd parted ways, amicably.

In truth, his parents had found out that they'd been seeing each other and had threatened to fire her and cut him off. He'd been so scared that she'd be homeless and have to quit school, he hadn't fought for her. But she didn't know any of this. "I'm not going to stay home all day and stop living to save money on the off chance I get injured."

"Off chance? Getting injured is within the realm of possibilities of something that could happen playing professional football, Gun. Did you know that seventy-eight percent of retired football players are bankrupt within two years of retiring? I'm not asking you to stay home all day. You need a long-lasting career, you need endorsements. Our plan, my plan, is to help you with all of that. The partying, the bad boy persona, isn't helping you in any way. You had two stints in anger management in the last year and one of your endorsement deals pulled out. You know it and that's why you signed up for PCPP."

"I signed up because Wayne practically put the pen in my hand and forced me. I had one foot in a jail cell and Wayne gave me the ultimatum."

"So, you don't want any of this? It was all bullshit so that you can make Wayne happy and play ball?"

"I'm not stupid, Addie. I know I can't play forever. I know my shelf life is small. But I also know that if I don’t appease Wayne I’m going to get benched. He wanted me to sign up for this shit, so I did. I thought I'd have to do a few online classes on savvy investments and that was it. Except for last night, I had toned down the partying, so that’s something, isn’t it? I didn't know I'd have someone fucking with my credit limit."

"No that's not it. That's just a small part of it. You need to be smarter with your money."

"Fine, I'll be smarter but lift that limit shit. I need access to my money."

"Gun," she huffed. "You'll just go back to three thousand-dollar evenings at a random night club. And it's not just the spending, the Post-Career Planning Program encompasses everything that will educate you on having a successful present- and post-career. If you party, you don't train. You don't train, you will suck at pre-season, and then eventually during the regular season, not to mention the higher risk of injury."

God, she was beautiful when she was angry. "Go out with me," he blurted out.

"Excuse me?"

"Go out with me."

"Absolutely not." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Did you not hear what I said about keeping things professional? Not to mention that there is a no- fraternization clause in my contract."

"Fuck that."

"Fuck that?" She looked like was going to slap him. "I see nothing's changed. You're still a self-centered asshole."

"I am not a self-centered asshole."

"You are. You know why…because you know that if you fail, you'll have your trust fund to back you up. Your parents are just a call away with all the money you'd ever need."

Now that pissed him off. "You don’t know dick, Addie. I walked away from all of that to do what I love and I'm not going to call them to bail me out, no matter what. You don't know that because you don't know me anymore!"

"Of course I don't know you anymore. You never called me again!"

The sliding door opened, and Jeff walked out. "I see you kids are hitting it off nicely," Jeff huffed, sarcastically. "I just had to put out a shit ton of fires, Gun. Wayne is pissed at what he saw in the tabloids today and you missed a meeting this morning."

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