Page 60 of Nothing Less Than Everything

Walking into the facilities for practice today, it hit me just how clueless I had been. She was on a twenty-foot-high poster on the side of the building between two other ladies. Gideon’s ugly mug was on the other half, separated by flames and the mascot, Badcock the Rooster.

She was around every corner, on every promotional video. Now that I truly knew who she was, it was making the chasm between us even more impossible to broach.

We spent most of Monday together, though it was spent being observed under a microscope. Every interaction—on and off camera was being picked apart and tossed into the court of public opinion for mass consumption and commentary.

Wren, I had decided, was the professional football version of Jekyll and Hyde. Wren by day was a chaotic, colorful tornado of grit and pure sugar. She had eyes the color of a clear summer sky, and a laugh like a songbird. But when she put on that Reds uniform—those sexy as sin red leather boots, the spandex shorts that were painted across her tight ass, and the long-sleeved bikini top that lifted her boobs to skyscraper heights—she was all sex. She was dripping in power, sensuality, and the confidence of a woman who knew that she was a force to be reckoned with.

My phone rang as I laced up my cleats. Bryant Sr. I sent it to voicemail.

Block it out. Fuck the noise. Put your head down and do the work.

He should know better than to call me when I’m with the team.

The morning team meetings finished without fanfare. We were heading into our second preseason game—an away game in Cincinnati. After poring over hours of film from their first preseason game, it seemed as if the odds were in our favor. In my mind, it didn’t matter how much stock people put in one team winning. Anything could happen—that was football. Hell, that was life.

We hit the weight room before finishing the day with a few drills and pass plays on the practice field.

“Dude, you keep looking at that poster and I’m gonna start thinking you’ve got eyes for the cheerleader,” Theo said when he caught me looking at one of the banners that surrounded the practice field. Wren was on it. Because of course she was.

I wiped the corner of my mouth with my thumb and laughed. “You and most of America.”

“What’s she like?” Theo asked.

“Who?”

“The cheerleader. You spent all day with her on Monday. What’s she like?” Theo grabbed his water bottle from the sideline and took a gulp. The sun was brutal today. I couldn’t wait for autumn. “Was she cool or was she all rah-rah,” Theo said, switching to a high-pitched Valley girl falsetto.

I chucked an empty paper cup into the trash can and blinked the stinging sweat out of my eyes. “I dunno,” I muttered. “We, uh… We didn’t talk too much when we weren’t on camera, you know? Sam kept me pretty busy and there was a rep from the Reds’ media team there, too.”

“She’s hot.”

Stifling a response, I dragged my lower lip between my teeth.

“What?” Theo laughed, smacking the back of my shoulder as we dragged our tired asses back to the locker room. “I know you’re seeing someone, but that doesn’t make you blind. I’m up to my eyeballs in Encanto and Doc McStuffins, and even I can admit that she’s a chastity melt.”

I tripped over my own feet as we were hit by a blast of frigid air conditioning. “You need to get laid.”

“No trouble there.”

I eyed him suspiciously as I nailed the cock on the locker room wall with my fist. Theo walked in behind me and gave it a hard pound. I shook my head and laughed. “Don’t tell me…”

“Don’t tell you what?”

I pointed at him and grinned from ear to ear. “Let me guess. Sunday night. Angie was supposed to bring your kids over to my place, but I had to cancel, so you two went home and got right with each other. Eh?”

He laughed. “You honestly think I’d bone my ex-wife?”

I shot him a look.

Theo glared back. “Wipe that smug look off your face. The kids were tired from sitting in the sun at the game and fell asleep watching The Princess and the Frog for the millionth time. We started looking at their baby pictures and one thing led to another and…”

I laughed as I pointed at him. “You’re fucking soft, man.”

“Hell yeah I am,” he snickered.

I went through the motions of showering and changing back into street clothes. I didn’t want to be the messy locker guy this season, so I stayed behind after the the rest of the guys cleared out and organized my equipment.

Everyone else kept pictures of their wives and girlfriends in their cubicles. A few had photos of their husband or boyfriend. There were encouraging notes and handwritten mementos. Photos of guys with their families on draft day. Pictures of them on the field, their loved ones decked out in branded team apparel.

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