Page 65 of Most Likely to Score
26
JILLIAN
Katie pours me a glass of white wine. “How was it? Did you survive the first game?”
Jess motions for her to keep going with the chardonnay. She’s in town on a shoot again. “She’s going to need more,” she says, speaking for me.
“Let me put it this way,” I say. “I’m ready to accept my medal in self-restraint. Have you made that trophy for me yet?”
“It’s on its way, along with a plaque.” Katie sets down the bottle and hands me the glass. “This enough for you?”
“Unlikely, but I’ll try to make do,” I say as I sink into my cushy couch next to my two friends and tuck my feet under me, taking a sip. “He made theJfor me.For me.This is killing me.”
Katie nods sympathetically. “I better leave the bottle with you.”
“Leave a whole crate with her,” Jess says.
I point to her. “What she said.”
Katie pats my knee. “I will, but may I please point out how I’ll soon be taking you out for ice cream and pepper, and proving that it goes together like you and Jones? And you guys obviously go together.”
“We do not go together. Isn’t it obvious that we don’t?”
Jess scoffs. “It’s sort of obvious you do,” she says, her wavy black hair framing her face.
Ugh. “Why am I so obvious?”
Bringing the wine to my lips, I guzzle. There is no way to mince words about how I drink it. After training camp, after seeing him every day, after still fantasizing about him every night, after the game today and the quick flight home from Seattle, I need a fat drink or two or three.
Katie shakes her head, her blond strands falling loose and long over her shoulders. “There really isn’t a way for you to manage this? C’mon. Football is always about finding openings.”
“No. I have my interview next week. I need to be focused on that. Being with Jones is too risky. I’ve gone over it in my head a million times, and there’s just no way for me to make this work and not be the pot who called the kettle black.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. Who would want to be the pot calling the kettle black?” Jess teases.
“That’s like the worst thing anybody could ever say to you.”
I sigh. “It’s not that. It’s just . . . I don’t know how to bring this out in the open and have it go well. All my work with him is predicated on this stuff not happening.Flings not happening. Risqué trysts not occurring. And he doesn’t exactly have a track record with relationships. Who’s going to believe him?”
Katie shrugs and says softly, “I don’t know the answer to that.”
“That’s the issue. The answer is that it likely wouldn’t fly. We’re trying to craft a more wholesome image, an image that helps himkeepdeals, not lose them.”
Katie lifts her glass and nods thoughtfully. “Right, but you’re only focused on work, Jillian. Not on the fact that you might have actual feelings for someone.”
Jess nods. “She’s kind of right, Jillian.”
I give them both a sharp stare. “But isn’t that how forbidden relationships are always justified once you try to bring them out in the open?But I care about him.Like that exonerates people from responsibility.We couldn't hide it anymore.” I take another drink, trying to settle this tempest of emotions inside me.
“No, but maybe there are rules worth bending,” Jess says.
I shake my head. If I bend, I’ll lose. If I bend even more, he could break my heart. I take a fortifying breath. I need to stay strong. “Even if we have actual feelings, it’s too risky for both our careers to be involved. Too often we think emotions give us carte blanche to excuse ourselves from right or wrong. Have an affair? It’s totally fine if you love the person you cheated with.”
Katie arches a well-groomed eyebrow, her blue eyes zeroing in on me. “So you love him?”
I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean.”
Jess rolls her eyes back at me. “I saw that eye roll. I felt that eye roll. And we all know what you mean. You’re kind of wild for him.”
