Page 46 of Off Camera
Social media followers flocked in by the thousands.
Our empty stadium began to fill up.
We started to win somewhat consistently, and our second year in the league resulted in six wins. Last year we snagged eight victories, and this year, with a roster full of young talent and players who want to work their asses off, we have a real shot at making the playoffs.
Every video I upload gets millions of views and floods of comments. Other team accounts—the franchises I grew up idolizing—message me regularly, popping in to congratulate me on professional milestones.
I also accidentally ended up in a feud with the guy who runs the DC Titans’ accounts, and bugging him to no end might be my favorite part of all this madness.
I don’t remember how the feud started, but I do know it’s my fault. Something I instigated andkeepinstigating.
It’s so damn fun to push his buttons.
There’s the constant badgering. The sarcasm he lobs my way and my ability to irritate him with only a few messages.
Through all the back and forth, though, I’ve found myself wondering what he looks like. Who he is and what his story might be. Does he answer me from his couch? From an office? From his bed?
I’ve been so tempted to do some digging and figure him out myself. One night, after a glass of whiskey and a Thunderhawks loss, I came close. I had the Titans website pulled up, ready to search high and low until I learned his name.
Then I stopped.
I turned off my phone and walked away.
I remembered he’s pretentious and a know-it-all. He can’t take a joke, and he thinks everything is about him.
I might hate him with every fiber in my being, but I love him assuming I’m unbothered by him even more.
It’s written in the stars. As long as he and I coexist in this wide world of sports, we’re going to bicker over menial shit. We’re going to argue about trending audio and what filters to use on photos. We’ll toss statistics at each other, as if we’re the ones on the field making the plays.
Working for rival football teams separated by a highway and thirty-eight miles will do that to you, and any possibility of something cordial ever forming between us closed up years ago.
I shake my head and get rid of the thoughts of him.
This weekend is important.
I have notes to look over. Another presentation to rehearse. Friends to see and networking to do, and I can’t get distracted by the bane of my existence who’s loomed in my peripheral vision for goddamn years.
He might be lurking around here, sitting in the crowd and listening to my talks, but I refuse to give him the time of day.
The conversation I’m pretending to be involved in stalls, and I use it as a chance to sneak away. I turn the corner for the elevators and let out a relieved breath when I find an empty hallway.
“Avery Sinclair,” says a deep voice from behind me, and I swear the next ten seconds happen in slow motion.
I glance over my shoulder. My eyes almost bulge out of my head when I see Reid standing there, his arms folded across his chest and his cheeks a little flushed. Above the collar of his Henley is a light pink mark, the spot my nails dug into when I came on his hand the other night, and my face flushes too.
I turn to face him, trying to get a grasp on the situation unfolding in front of me.
“What—” I stare at him, confused. “Reid?”
He walks toward me until he’s crowding my space. I take a step back and collide with a wall, immediately thrown back to the night of the wedding. My dress around my waist, him on his knees. The scratch of his beard and his fingers on my thighs.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, and it’s barely above a whisper. “Are you—is this a surprise?”
That would be a lot of effort just to see me.
Borderline creepy, too.
I like the guy, but showing up unannounced a week after we started hanging out toes the line ofobsessiveandget me the fuck out of here.
