Page 16 of Between the Paragraphs

“Looks pretty romantic to me,” Nathan adds.

“Do you have a visitor on the way?” Kevin asks as he moves to the table and picks up some bread. These guys have zero boundaries, and none of us have ever cared. We were a team for years and you live, eat, and breathe together so anything goes.

“I’m in the middle of something here, guys,” I tell them.

“Well, too bad. We have a game tomorrow night, and you need to come support your team,” Tom says.

“Fine, I’ll come to the game. Now get out,” I say, knowing it won’t do me a lick of good.

“Not a chance. There’s food here, and I’m starving,” Kevin says. He makes himself a plate and plops down on the couch, grabbing the remote. We can’t be in a room together without some sort of game playing on the television.

“You don’t want us to leave anyway, because boy do we have some gossip for you,” Tom says as he makes his own plate up. I watch in horror as the carefully organized spread is demolished by these men loading up on the food I so carefully chose. I thought I’d ordered in abundance, but now there might not be any left when Maria arrives. I may need to order more.

“Seriously good gossip. Did you hear about the meltdown Coach Taylor had last week?” Kevin asks.

Now these guys have my attention, and they know it. “What happened?”

Kevin laughs. “He utterly lost it during halftime. He threw a bunch of Gatorade coolers, yelled at the waterboy, then kicked at the table, but there was a weight down there, and he ended up breaking his toe. We were dying as we laughed. He turned and glared at us, and Peterson got caught laughing, and was sent to the locker-room.”

“Dang, what set him off?” I ask.

“Refs,” Kevin and Tom say in unison.

“I should’ve known that. He gets ticked with the refs, but I’ve never seen him lose it that big,” I say.

“It was legendary. I think the refs were shaking in their shoes. They weren’t yelling back in his face like usual. They did end up sending him out, and I thought he was going to tackle them,” Kevin says.

“That would’ve been a replay for sure,” I say.

“It was next level and will be talked about for a while. He can’t complain about us losing it now,” Tom says.

“Oh, you know he still will,” Nathan says. We all nod.

“Also, there’s some drama in the football dating realm. Jeff’s dating the owner’s daughter,” Kevin says.

“I thought she said she’d never date a football player,” I say.

“Apparently he charmed her. I think it’s his farm-boy attitude. I swear he’d come out onto the field with a piece of straw in his lips if he could. But he makes the best grilled ribs I’ve ever eaten so I’m not complaining that he was raised on a ranch,” Tom says.

“The owner isn’t thrilled about it, but you know his daughter’s his sweet princess and whatever she wants she gets,” Kevin says.

Before I can reply, there’s another knock on the door. I haven’t forgotten Maria’s coming, but I’ve been easily sidetracked by my team’s visit. I look around the room that was arranged for a night of romance just twenty-five minutes ago. Now it looks like a mix between a locker-room and poker room. There’s nothing I can do about it now. Dammit.

I look at the men. “Behave,” I warn, which makes them laugh. I move to the door and open it, knowing there’s no controlling these men.

Maria smiles at me, looking absolutely radiant and a little surprised at the invasion on the other side of the door. “Am I early?” she asks. She does have meeting after meeting at these conferences so she might be thinking she got the time mixed up.

“Nope. Though my room’s been invaded. My old teammates are in town and decided to stop by. I tried getting them out, but they obviously didn’t listen.”

This makes her laugh. “They are a bit big to push around. I like anyone who you can’t boss around,” she teases, quickly adjusting to the situation. This makes me like her even more. Some women would be impressed with the hulks of men in the room, some intimidated, and some irritated. Maria seems to be a woman to simply go with the flow and make the best of the whatever is thrown her way.

She steps inside the room, all three men staring at her. I understand why. She’s a petite package who looks fierce, confident, and absolutely gorgeous. We’d be fighting over her if she stepped into the locker-room for an interview, all of us willing to bare all of our secrets for a chance to impress this stunning woman.

The guys immediately swarm her, making introductions, and a few jokes. They like to test people to see if they’re cool enough to hang. We tend to get fawned over a lot as athletes, which gets old. We want to hang with people who treat us like family . . . excitement, fighting, and a whole lot of love.

“So, you’re the woman this man was trying to impress with a romantic scene when we crashed the party,” Kevin says with a wink.

She looks around the room. I haven’t adjusted the lights, so it’s still dim, though the romantic ambiance is long gone with the television playing the latest football game. Cheers can be heard in the background as someone makes a perfect catch.

---