Page 2 of Only Between Us

“Look who I found trolling the rehab center.” She widens her eyes at us. And then I spot Josh, the agent who’s been in charge of my career since my rookie season, following several feet behind.

“Heard that,” Josh tells her.

“Meant you to.” Summer runs a frustrated hand through her shoulder-length brown hair.

I don’t blame her. Josh is an ass on his best day.

But he’s an ass that got me nearly everything I’d dreamed of as a kid hoping to one day go pro. Drafted second overall by the Los Angeles Rebels, during my junior year here at UOB. A lucrative six-year contract extension that bought two homes for me and one for my parents. Multiple cars I really didn’t need, outrageous holidays my ex-girlfriend enthusiastically bragged about on social media.

He and his five-percent cut had jumped at the opportunity when I’d called about this comeback.

Josh rounds Summer to set a laptop on my workout bench, looking ridiculously out of place in his crisp pinstripe dress shirt and slacks. His hair is neatly pushed back in a way that would take my unruly waves a good forty-five minutes of styling to accomplish. Not that I’d ever waste a second attempting it.

He does a double take when he sees Parker working on my knee. “What happened?”

Summer, too, looks concerned by the sight. She assesses the movement of Parker’s fingers around the joint. Seems to sigh inwardly when she connects the dots.

“Nothing happened. Just resting before the next set.” I stand despite Parker’s obvious disapproval, and the now outward sigh from Summer. But these two are my ride-or-dies. They know how easy it is to set off Josh at the mere mention of a papercut on my multimillion-dollar hands, let alone a tight knee. So they keep their mouths shut as I line up at the squat rack. Simultaneously, they move to either side of the bar and remove fifty pounds off the ends.

“Cool-down set,” Parker explains when Josh raises an eyebrow.

Satisfied that my body is still in working order, Josh decides to ruin my day in a different way. “Bad news, Brooksy.”

I almost falter mid-squat. “Not something I want to hear, man. Is this about your call with the Rebels? How’d it go?”

Josh had arranged a call this morning with Jackson Ford, head coach for the Rebels, to discuss the prospect of my return. Because it’s not enough to rejoin the league. I’ve set my sights back on my old team. Two years later, they’re still among the top four teams. And the last time I wore their royal purple jersey also happens to be the last time I truly felt alive. Three feet in the air, catching a football a heartbeat before I was on the receiving end of what I’d then decided was a career-ending tackle.

The Rebels are where I need to be.

“You wanna know how it went?”

Squat.

Josh flips open the laptop he’d placed on the bench.

Squat.

The screen comes to life. It takes me a second to make sense of the picture in front of me. It’s dark and a little blurred…

And then my eyes adjust. It’s me. Me and…

“What the—” My knees buckle. Behind me, Parker darts to grab the bar, helping to get it back on the rack.

Who is that woman?

I’ve got her backed up against an alley wall I recognize as one next to Beehive, a Hollywood nightclub frequently attended by Rebels players. The photo’s close up, but grainy in a way that tells me whoever took it captured it from afar. I’ve got my mouth planted on this woman’s neck, and her fingers seem to be fumbling with my belt buckle.

“What the fuck is that?”

“That,” Josh jabs his finger at the screen, “is the reason you’re not getting signed to the Rebels. They gave me this. A file full of photos just like it.”

My body goes cold. “Since when is a consensual make-out in a back alley an unsignable offense?” I sound outraged. But I remember full well what else happened in that back alley.

And it was far more than a make-out.

Josh hits a button on his laptop. It’s another photo. The same alley outside of Beehive, but my clothes are different. My shirt’s all the way open this time and… that’s definitely a different woman.

Josh clicks again, and another photo floods the screen. Same alley. Different woman.

---