Page 13 of Recruited By the Billionaire

“Not that lady you work for,” Royce said with a laugh. “But the boss boss. The owner of the Admirals. Girl, that’s a fine white boy.”

“Boy?” asked Frankie. “He is no boy. That man almost fifty!”

“He’s forty-seven to be exact. And yes he’s fine as pure wine! You don’t agree?”

Truth was, Frankie had never seen the owner in person to render an opinion. And from what she’d seen of him on TV or the internet wasn’t very flattering. Just some rich playboy who acted as if the rules didn’t apply to him. “He’s aw’ight,” was all she was willing to say about it.

“Oh, I forgot. You like your men dark chocolate and the darker the better.”

“I thought you liked chocolate too.”

“I like’em all,” said Royce. “If they got a pulse and know how to work it out in bed, I’m interested.”

Frankie laughed. “You crazy, you know that?”

“I know it. Oops. Gotta run,” said Royce. “Speaking of boss, that’s my boss calling. I talk a lot of shit but I want to keep this job. Talk to you later girl,” she added, and then hurriedly ended the call.

Frankie smiled and kept on sipping her coffee and speeding to work. Although the Admirals’ home base and namesake was Pensacola, Florida, the team and its stadium was actually located on the outskirts of Pensacola. But she still managed to get to work and park her car in the employees parking lot with five minutes to spare. But it would take about that long to get pass Security and get upstairs. She, in actuality, had no time to spare.

Admiral stadium was massive. Bigger than MetLife stadium where the Giants played, which shocked Frankie when she first saw it. And the building it was housed in was massive too, with the stadium on the right side of the building and the corporate offices on the left side. After passing the entrance security checkpoint, she went to the left and took the elevator to the top floor: the executive floor. She pulled out her badge, had it swiped, and had to go through the metal detector before she was allowed entrance onto the floor. Then she hurried down the middle corridor where the recruiting office was located.

Compared to how it was when she left late last night, it was pandemonium inside the office on her arrival that morning. All the recruiters who were not on the road recruiting were running around talking on their cell phones in that fast talk they were known for and tossing orders around to the staff as if they were their servants. And all of the assistants to Laine Peters, the VP, were running around too, pulling sheets off of printers and hurrying them to this recruiter’s office or that recruiter’s office inside the suite. It was crazy time for Frankie. But what she didn’t understand was why. What had she missed?

When she saw her boss coming out of one of the file rooms with a long sheet of paper she had just grabbed off of the printer, Frankie hurried over to her. Although the recruiters were all males and old as dirt, the assistants to Laine were all twenty-somethings. All except for Frankie and for Laine herself. But because of that, and because of Frankie’s background as somebody who used to be in middle-management too, they respected each other.

“Laine?” Frankie hurried over to her. “What on earth is going on?”

“You haven’t heard?” Laine was walking hurriedly toward her office.

“No, what?” Frankie hurried beside her.

“What do I tell the media, Laine?” asked one of the assistants in the large office space. “They’re blowing up my phone.”

“Refer them to the press office or PR,” Laine instructed. “We have no comment now and forevermore. And I mean that, Jamie. No leaks. And remember you have that briefing this afternoon.”

“I’m ready,” Jamie said and then got back on his cell phone.

“What happened?” Frankie asked Laine, trying to keep up with her. “Why all the activity?”

Laine finally stopped and looked at Frankie. Frankie could see the stress all over her pale pink face. “What is it?” Frankie asked her.

“The young man we projected to be our number one draft pick?”

“Aaron Thomas, yes. What about him?”

“He was killed in a motorcycle accident last night.”

Frankie was shocked. “What? That poor kid! And his sweet mother. She has to be just devastated.”

“Oh, she is,” said Laine. “All that money they just lost out on. All those millions he would have made for them. And they’re poor as dirt. Oh I’m sure it hurts.”

Frankie looked at Laine. That response totally missed the point, she felt. Sometimes she didn’t understand people at all. “And the fact that she lost her child,her baby boy, has to hurt too,” Frankie said.

Laine, realizing she had focused on the wrong thing, shook her head. “That was very insensitive of me, wasn’t it? I’m just frustrated. We have to reshuffle the deck completely and Robert is not happy.”

Laine was the only person Frankie knew who referred to Mr. Marris by his first name. Even the media called him Mr. Marris. “What can I do to help?” Frankie asked.

“Go make sure Brenda pulls up the first two hundred of our back picks.”

---