Page 12 of The Air I Breathe

One of my dancers mumbles loud enough for everyone to hear, "Literally."

"Yeah." He smiles, licking his bottom lip. "Quite literally."

Chapter Nine

Blake

"Y'all have got to be nice to me this week."

My sister-in-law, CeCe, gives me a cheeky grin from her chair at the desk in the little studio set up on the back of their property. "I don't have to be nice to you. That isn't what's in your contract."

"Joke’s on you. I don't have a contract to be on this show—I just do it because I happen to like spending time with family." I point my finger at her and stretch my neck around as I look down at her.

"You love the attention. Don't even deny it."

She's right—I do. The comments on the show’s YouTube page—the show is taped too—are typically about how hot I am. I'm enough of a narcissist to admit I enjoy the attention. "Okay, okay, I do enjoy it. There's nothing wrong with that. I just like that I don't have to do this every week. I don't think I'd enjoy it then."

"Yeah," Bret, my brother, groans. "Sometimes it's a pain in the ass, especially when you just wanna hang out with the kids, or go have lunch, and you know you have this hanging over your head."

CeCe knocks him in the shoulder. "You enjoy it too. Don't act like you don't I’ll be right back, I need to get some water."

"It’s my retirement fund." He shrugs.

I laugh. "What are you talking about?"

"Dude, the ad revenue we get for this is insane." He whistles. "Like, for real, it’s obviously not going to rival my contract, but there's so many people in this industry who have to worry about how they're going to feed their families once they retire. Thanks to this, I'm not going to have to do that. It's a blessing in disguise really."

"I hope like fuck you've made investments, too." I sink down into the back swivel chair in front of the silver mic CeCe has set up.

"I mean, I have, but you know as well as I do that there is a chance your investments aren't going to last as long as your life. I'm retiring soon, Blake. I know you don't like to think about it, but my position is more physical than yours and it's hard. My body hurts a lot—more and more every single day.” Bret runs a hand through his hair and sinks back against his swivel chair. “I have a kid to raise, and I can't do that without being on the floor with her as she grows up. You know how I am. I want to be a hands-on dad—the same kind we had. I can't do that if I can't get down there, and then can't get back up. We're talking quality of life, Blake. That's what I'm thinking about now."

I hate to hear him say these things, hate to think about the day when I won't be playing professional ball with my brother. We’ve always been on the same team as long as we’ve been playing college and pro ball. "I get that." But it still fucking hurts.

"Okay." CeCe claps her hands as she comes back in. "We're ready to go. We’re going live on three, two…" She mouths one as the camera light flips to show that it’s on and recording.

"Welcome to The Fields," Bret says, "where my lovely wife and I take you into the lives of a married couple navigating the world of professional football every week. I hope everyone had a good one."

"I did," CeCe grins. "I was out of the house with a few friends on a girls’ trip."

"That you were, but not us, were we Blake?"

The way this motherfucker is grinning makes me shake my head. "No we weren’t, but you know that."

"What'd you do?""Played fucking football. What do you think I did?"

"That's not all." CeCe grins. "I saw pictures and videos on social media. Looks like you and Russell had an interesting night last night." She sticks her tongue out and wrinkles her nose. "I'm officially jealous anyway."

"I might have gone to a concert."

While looking at one another, the married couple says in unison, "Oh, he might have gone to a concert?"

"Y'all are disgusting the way you can say words at the same time, in the same tone, with that look on your face. If you wanted to just bag on me, we could've done that without me coming on the show."

"But our ratings will be sky-high." Bret laughs. "So let's talk about the concert you went to. Did you go with anyone? To see anyone, maybe?"

"I went with Russell—I think we all know that." I try to play it off, running a hand over my jaw.

"We do, but the people watching and listening want to know how you spent the day after the Tampa game."

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