Page 2 of Big Balls
Basically the only part she enjoys at all is being treated like visiting royalty when she’s at the games. The WAGs make sure she’s sugared up to the hilt, and she always comes home with her hair extra fancy.
Buchanan’s wife, Sheila, used to be a hairstylist before she became a football wife. She’s always playing with Katy’s hair and knotting it up into fancy designs. Last game, Katy came home with an actual crown made of braids.
Meanwhile, I have to straight-up wrestle my little girl into letting me brush her hair every single morning. I swear she must spin in circles at night, because her hair is one giant snarl every single morning. If we get out of the house without one of us crying over her hair, it’s a pretty big win.
And now I’m the last one in the locker room, damn it, and it’s all because I had to play nice with that ditsy reporter. I hustle up the back staircase two steps at a time, my hands already itching because I know my tardiness is going to have my Katy in a mood.
She’s always in a mood. But probably she gets that from me.
Honestly, we’ve both been so difficult to deal with since Lisa has been gone that it’s a wonder that either of us has any friends. This is also part of why I never go out. I get enough flack for my aggressive playing style without having the press butting into my personal life all over again.
When my wife first died, the press acted like they were going to be respectful of our grief. But then picture after picture ended up in the papers and magazines. Me, holding my little toddler’s hand, both of us looking bleak and wrung out, like we’d lost everything.
Because we had.
And I stood by and watched as the single worst experience of my life was converted directly into dollars and sales. Because my suffering was a commodity. And people who claimed they loved me couldn’t get enough.
In retrospect, I should have just ignored the press. But instead, I lost my temper. Just once, but once was enough. I ended up with a three game suspension and a lawsuit that dragged on for months. But when the reporter I’d punched threatened to demand my kid be evaluated by a psychiatrist, I told my lawyer to find that asshole’s price and pay it.
And then I took myself out of the news, except for football. I made sure to never give interviews, never make appearances, and never be seen out in public with a woman ever, not even when my publicist begged me to do it.
My private life became as private as I could possibly make it. Partly because I’d do anything to protect my daughter, and partly because I need that layer of protection from the people who don’t even think of me as a human being.
At the end of the day I was nothing more than a set of statistics and numbers. So you better believe I became the best set of statistics and numbers I could. I practiced harder and longer, and took risks that the other side couldn’t see coming.
Except even being the best at my game isn’t enough anymore, at least not according to the team’s coach. “The fans want to love you, Ethan. But you’re like a machine. You have to make some sort of connection with them, or you won’t have a future here at the Sinners.”
The words had sunk into me like lead weight, almost heavy enough to drag me under. And while I didn’t actually believe I could be what they wanted me to be, I’d at least make it look like I was trying.
Because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my career, for my team.For Katy.
As I skip up the last few steps, I can hear the fancy reporter cackling as she chats with someone. “Oh yeah,” she says, her voice ringing through the stairwell. “I’dloveto choke on his big balls.”
I wince. And even though I knew exactly what I was to her from the moment she introduced herself, it still causes me actual pain to have to hear her talking about me like that.
Like I’m nothing more than an object to her. A piece of meat. Something to be used and thrown away.
I pause at the doorway and force myself to exhale, counting to ten. This isn’t a situation where I can let my temper get the best of me. But I don’t have to take it, either.
Instead of exiting at the owner’s suite, I round the corner and head up the next half flight of steps, then tap the reporter on her shoulder.
She spins at my approach and her eyes go wide. “I’ll have to call you back,” she hisses, then disconnects the call, cramming her phone into her purse in haste.
I cross my arms in front of my chest and glower at her. It feels delicious to have a reason to be myself. She’s in the wrong, and both of us know it.
“I—I didn’t know—” She pauses and drops her eyes. “I didn’t think—”
My eyes narrow. “I know you didn’t know. I know you didn’t think. You didn’t know I would hear you. You didn’t think that it mattered how you talk about me.”
She gulps, then licks her lips. “I didn’t think you’d mind,” she manages to purr, twisting what was supposed to be my confrontation into an awkward, half-assed come on.
My lips flatten out. “Turns out that I do.” Then I turn around and head back down the stairs, pushing the door open with more force than necessary. The banging sound echoes satisfyingly up through the stairwell.
When I step out into the hallway, I sigh roughly, raking a hand through my hair. I don’t understand why people can’t just leave me and Katy alone. We don’t need them. I still think Coach is wrong about me needing a media makeover. All that matters is keeping my head in the game.
I pace in the hallway until I am calm enough to act like a normal person again. Once my pulse slows down, I stride toward the door to the owner’s suite.
I find Sheila and a handful of her friends hovering around the door to the ladies’ room, but no sign of my little girl anywhere.
