Page 13 of Tumbling the Cornerback

He hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. And we go to Bodied, this gym near the university. We get a discount membership.” He shrugged. “It’s alright. Small, but we can do what we need to usually.”

Frowning down at him, I stopped in my tracks. “Seriously? Y’all have to pay to use the gym? Even though you’re training for the cheer squad? They should be paying for a membership, at the very least.”

He gave me a weird look, brow scrunched and lips curled into a half smile even as he shook his head. “You are unbelievable. Where’s this place? I’m starving, and I want to go over this shit with you before my shift at the studio starts.”

The walk to Spur’s Deli wasn’t far, and the hole-in-the-wall diner wasn’t very crowded as we took up a booth in the farthest corner. Almost as soon as we were seated, we both ordered sandwiches and drinks. The server sped back to drop off our order before heading for another table.

“Okay, so here’s the thing,” Lucas started the moment we were alone. “Cait and Cass had a good plan. A solid one. But,” he held up one finger to hush me when I started to say see, you just had to think about it for a bit and likely shove my entire foot in my mouth. “But it wasn’t big enough. It would’ve been a quick bandage, you know? They weren’t seeing the opportunity to make this work. And I admit that I wasn’t either, at first.” His smile was a little nervous, a lot excited. “I talked to Liesel last night, and she’s been on FaceTime and junk all morning with the board for Queering Sports. This isn’t final, but they plan to leverage this into something long-term for the organization.” He caught his lower lip with his teeth, nibbling gently as he eyed me with speculation. “And you’re gonna be part of it. A big part, if this works out. And if you consent.”

He was damn near sparkling. It made my heart do a funny little flip. I wanted to lean in close and touch him, feel the vibration of joy coming off his skin. Be part of it somehow, show I was interested not just in his plan but him.

Damn stupid crush was going to get me in trouble. “Explain it to me. And keep in mind I’m kind of hamstrung by my contract when it comes to what I can and can’t endorse.” It sucked, but it was part and parcel of getting endorsements. Phil weeded out the bullshit from genuine offers, and we worked with my lawyer to parse those down further into things I genuinely wanted my name, face, and sometimes body attached to.

Not gonna lie, I was kinda hoping one day I’d get offered a Joe Namath pantyhose level contract. For now, I stuck to pre-workout, shoes, and workout gear with the occasional local commercial thrown in.

We paused as the server set down our food and poured more water for us both. I thought Lucas was going to burst a vessel, waiting for her to go to the next table. “So here’s what I’m aiming at. Right now, Queering Sports's name is out there in a bigger way than before, and a huge amount of donations got dumped on them this weekend, but less than one percent of the new donors are sustaining donors. That means?—”

“I’ve seen enough PBS telethons to know what a sustaining donor is.”

He snorted softly at that before snagging a fry. Chewing, he scrolled through his phone and turned it so I could see the screen. “Our goal is to increase sustaining donors, expand social media presence, secure more volunteers, attain corporate sponsorship, and finally implement the programs Queering Sports has wanted to start for almost three years now.”

“Five.” I held up one hand with my fingers spread wide.

“Huh?

“That’s five goals. Four more than you said you had.” Grinning, I took a sip of my water as he blustered in annoyance.

“Shut up. You know what I mean.”

Was that a quick little smile I spied as he ducked his chin? Maybe. I’d take it.

“I do.”

He glared at me while I took a big bite of my vegan Ruben sandwich. His frown deepening, he stared at my mouth. “Do I have something on my chin?”

He startled, his glare slipping, replaced by something that made me think he might be nervous. Before I could ask, he waved me off. “The point remains,” he ground out, “the plan in place currently does nothing other than steer into the skid and leaves us with absolute dick when it’s over.”

I started to say something, but his sharp glare cut the words off before they could finish forming. I might be a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. As we ate, I let him go on about his tentative plan, about the numbers and the projections. The plates were cleared, and I ordered pie for both of us, but he barely noticed. At least until the slice of blackberry with a side of vanilla ice cream was set in front of him.

He stared at it, then up at me, then back at the pie. “Seriously?”

“It’s not like we won’t burn it off,” I pointed out. “We’re both active, and I don’t know what your squad’s nutritionist tells you, but?—”

He laughed. “I can’t eat it because I’m lactose intolerant. And we don’t have a nutritionist. Everything we do, we either pay for ourselves or has minimal subsidy. Like the gym membership? We’re required to have it and to keep in shape and practice our routines. But we have to pay for it ourselves. If we want a nutritionist? Same deal. Beauty treatments to look good on the field and on camera? We pay for it. Our uniforms? We pay for those too.”

“Whoa, what?” I leaned back, disbelief coloring my words. “No way. That’s gotta be hundreds of dollars a year.” I paused, doing rough calculations. “Jesus...More than hundreds...”

“Thousands.” He stabbed at the pie without taking a bite. “Unlike y’all who get paid millions in some cases to play a literal game that fourteen-year-olds are out there doing, we get paid less than minimum wage and have a laundry list of rules we have to follow. Rules for our hair, our bodies, our social media, our social interactions. Some squads even have to follow rules about which grocery stores they shop at, which clothing brands they wear, what color their hair is. There was scandal a few years ago when one of the women on the Tulsa squad dyed her hair honey caramel instead of honey butter. Ugh. I want caramel now.

"But the big rule is," he pointed at me with his fork, “not fraternizing with players. Which makes this whole thing a bit of a pain in the ass on a few levels.”

I shook my head, reeling a little from all of those rules. “We’ve got our own set to follow, mostly about workouts and keeping our mouths shut near hot mics, but we do get told to stay away from the cheerleaders,” I admitted. “For most of the guys, that might be a problem.”

Lucas looked up from the tracks he was making in his ice cream with the tines of the fork. “Not you, though? Good to know.”

I hesitated. “I’ve been known to be wrong,” I murmured. “Take a bite of your ice cream before it melts.”

He broke away from my gaze and glanced down at the plate. “I’m lactose intolerant—why are you laughing at me?”

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