Just Playin': Romantic Sports Comedy Read online

  After ensuring memories of my dad didn’t wet my cheeks, I wave my hand in the air like the students in my class do when busting to go to the bathroom. I’m vying for the attention of the vendor who is serving a group of college cheerleaders a dozen rows down from us.

  When he fails to see my wildly flapping arm, I plonk into my seat with a grumble. I get extra angry when I’m hungry.

  Skylar bumps me with her shoulder. “It will be quicker—and a shit-ton more hygienic—to go to the canteen.” She winks, happy she worked some Aussie bogan into her sentence. “If the angle of his cooler is anything to go by, you don’t want to touch anything he’s selling. He cools his balls in there after every shift.”

  “Eww!”

  “What?” She laughs. “It’s true. Look at his face. Guaranteed he has a raging boner right now.”

  A little bit of vomit creeps up my esophagus when I take in the vendor’s parted lips and hooded gaze. He has the same dirty geezer expression Todd Richards had when he asked if he could touch my boobs in the sixth grade. He told his mom he fell off his bike when he ran to her crying after I punched him in the face.

  Six years passed before he grew the courage to ask me again. My response that time around was less violent. Todd was the handsome surfer who befriended everyone, and I was the awkwardly shy dancer who spent more time counting calories than amassing friends.

  A lack of social life shouldn’t have factored in my decision, but unfortunately, it did. Between ballet lessons and the many gym sessions needed to keep my weight at “industry standards,” I didn’t have time for boys. Todd offered me a no-strings-attached deal. It worked well for us until I chose to attend a university eight thousand miles from our hometown.

  While recalling Todd’s lazy smile and glistening baby blues, I stand to my feet before swinging my eyes to Skylar. “Do you want anything at the tuckshop?”

  After storing away another Aussie slang golden nugget for a rainy day, she gives me a look that speaks volumes.

  “Two root beer floats, four hot dogs, and whatever the hell that disaster the cutie in row 3875 is letting go cold because he’s too busy ogling all of this.” I circle my finger around her beautiful face before pointing to the man who’s spent the last ten minutes watching Skylar instead of the two dozen scantily clad cheerleaders on the field.

  With a giddy clap, Skylar nods. I’m not sure what she’s more excited about: the food or the fact she’s added another admirer on her long list of many. If her fumbling as she searches her purse for notes is any indication, I’d say it is the latter. She can’t take her eyes off the dark-haired hottie for two seconds to rummage up some coin.

  “It’s okay. I’ve got it,” I assure her when she attempts to thrust two crumpled bills and a handful of quarters my way.

  I WISH I weren’t so generous. Even with the Australian dollar having a recent resurge, the price of a hot dog is highway robbery. Who in their right mind pays eight dollars for a hotdog?

  An idiot trying to fool people into believing she doesn’t live paycheck to paycheck.

  Just as my hard-earned money is about to be torn from my grasp with a bucket-load of tears and perhaps even a tantrum, I spot a food van outside the stadium walls. There’s no line-up like the one I’m about to join, and the cracked neon lighting assures me they’d never charge eight bucks for a sausage in a bun.

  WITH A SMUG GRIN and my pocket only twenty dollars lighter, I make my way back to my seat. My intuition on the food van was spot on. The dogs are a little floppy, and the buns a little stale, but at a savings of four dollars a pop, my taste buds will suck it up.

  I’m halfway back to my seat when reality dawns. I forgot Skylar’s fried sandwich. I could tell her they sold out, but I can’t lie even if my life depends on it. Furthermore, she may be a little crazy, but she’s been there for me way more than I can count the past three years, so the least I can do is get her her heart attack sandwich, retake my seat, and feign interest in a game I have no clue about.

  My stomps back down the four thousand stairs I just climbed are brutal enough to turn the root beer floats into milkshakes.

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER—I kid you not—I’m finally heading back to my seat. Skylar’s kiddie sandwich is a massive hit amongst the locals, meaning I had to wait for a new batch to be fried. If I hadn’t forked out twelve dollars before they advised me of the wait, I would have said, “thanks, but no thanks.” Regrettably, they saw me coming from a mile away. It’s not hard to spot a sucker in a crowd of many.

  With the players now on the field, the crowd is super buzzed. Their roars set my hearing back a decade as they race to the barriers to get a picture of their favorite player warming up. I have to push and shove just to reach the stairwell where my seats are located, and even when I break through the human jungle, their animalistic tendencies don’t stop. They look like men the morning after a bachelor party—drunk, randy, and boisterous—there’s just thousands of them.

  “Whoa! What the hell?”

  My squinted eyes stray from a can of beer resting at my feet to the direction the flying can came from. Just as my eyes land on a blond man with a tank top so tight, I can’t testify it isn’t body paint, from the corner of my eye, I witness a person not nimble enough to dodge his second flung beverage. A crushed can of beer smacks her right in the nose, instantly dribbling droplets of blood onto her extensively pregnant stomach.

  “Oh my god, are you okay?” I rush to her side to steady her movements the best I can since my hands are overloaded with food and a slush that once resembled root beer floats.

  The pretty brunette peers at me with wide, shocked eyes. “Umm. . I think so?”

  She doesn’t look okay. She’s handling her injury well, but the shock of being struck is draining the color from her cheeks as quickly as it fills mine with anger.

  Peeved as fuck, I return my narrowed gaze to the man responsible for her injury. “Look what you did, you dipshit!”

  The A-grade moron suspends high-fiving his friends to shuffle to his feet and face me. The wide width of his pupils indicates he’s highly intoxicated, but the sneer on his face reveals he was an asshole long before alcohol laced his veins.

  “What was that, sweetheart? I couldn’t hear you over all that blubber you’ve stuffed between us.”

  My mouth gapes. “Excuse me?!”

  His response annoys the shit out of me, but it’s not uncommon. The instant you no longer wear single digit-sized dresses, you’re classed as a fatty. It’s beyond wrong, and it frustrates the hell out of me, but society’s ideal body type isn’t my fight this time around. Manners, though. . . I’m more than happy to show him what happens when you leave them at home.

  “Perhaps you should pull your micro dick out of your ass and use it as a Q-tip, then you’ll be able to hear me.”

  The crowds’ roar nearly drowns out what he says next. “My dick only shrank when my eyes landed on you. Look at you, little miss piggy, you can’t even put down your food to help your friend. What’s the matter, did you lose your trough?”

  Anger works from my stomach up to my throat when he makes pig noises. His squeals are so loud, they gain us more than a few spectators. They stop watching the game to focus on something just as ludicrous as men fighting over a leather-stitched ball.

  The stranger’s pig grunts stop when I growl, “I’d rather be fat than have a face that looks like a baboon’s ass. I can lose weight, but you’ll always be ugly.”

  When he fails to return my one-hundred-percent accurate taunt, I nudge my head to the pregnant lady standing next to me. She is still dazed, but her cheeks aren’t as white as they were before I defended her. “Apologize to my friend—”

  “Or what? You’ll sit on me until I buckle in fear for my life?”

  The crowd surges closer to us when I sneer, “I could slap you, but then I’d be charged with animal abuse.”

  “Look who’s talking.” He recommences squealing like a pig.

  I grind my bac
k molars together, aware that retaliating to bullies is just as wrong as instigating bullying, but I’m unable to hold back. “You’re the exact reason gene pools need lifeguards. We’ve got to do everything we can to stop the uglies from breeding. Have you looked in the mirror lately? You’re so hideous, if being ugly was a crime, you’d be serving a life sentence.”

  His lips twitch as he struggles to formulate a comeback. When he fails to find one, the mob circling us stomp their feet in euphoria, awarding me the win for our showdown. I don’t relish the victory. All I’m feeling is guilt. I should have been the bigger person—but I guess that’s what started our confrontation to begin with?

  “Come on, let’s get some ice for your nose.” After dumping the food I spent nearly an hour gathering, and several hours working to pay for, I curl my arm around the pregnant lady’s shoulders and guide her toward the cafeteria.

  Not willing to accept the invisible white flag I’m waving, the fat-shamer continues to taunt me. He calls me several crude names between loud pig grunts. I take his belligerent rant in stride, knowing not even an exemplary bill of health would convince him I am just as fit and healthy as the men he’s here to marvel at. I may have rolls on my stomach and dimples in my thighs, but I work out daily, eat a balanced diet, and have a heart so strong, his hurtful comments don’t constrict it in the slightest.

  I am good, balanced, and happy. . . until he switches our exchange from a verbal altercation to a physical one.

  I miss a step when something hard smacks me square in the back. I don’t need to peer over my shoulder to know what hit me. The hushed whispers of the crowd are enough of a clue, let alone the evidence teetering back and forth between my feet. He threw a can of beer at me—a full can of beer.

  While reminding myself that I can’t stamp out violence with more violence, I suck in numerous deep breaths. But the more he goads me, the more my tether snaps. He hit a pregnant lady in the face, yet he doesn’t see the need to apologize. What the hell is wrong with these people?

  Worked up and slightly hormonal, I gather the beer in my hand then pivot around to face the unnamed aggressor. The arrogant sneer he’s wearing doubles when I toss the can into the air like a bowler does on a cricket pitch while strategizing how to bowl out his opponent.

  He wouldn’t understand my Australian analogy, but he can’t miss the threat on my face. “What are you going to do? Hit me with—”

  His words fall short when I hook back my arm to hurl the can through the air. My throw is so accurate, it smacks the blond right between the eyes not even two seconds later. He stills as his hands dart up to cradle his face like his victim did minutes ago. There’s just one difference this time around: blood doesn’t trickle from his nose. . .it drains from a large gash in his forehead.

  With his eyes rolled into the back of his head, he collapses onto a row of hard plastic chairs. He’s knocked out cold, and I’m once again seeking the closest exit.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Presley

  T eammates slap my shoulders as sweat rolls down my back. The cheers from the boisterous crowd are still ringing in my ears, but their excited hum from our win isn’t loud enough to drown out the one ringtone I’d give anything not to hear.

  She’s calling me—again. She does the same thing at the end of every game. She congratulates me before asking how much longer it will be before I come “home.”

  She says “home” like she’s waiting for me at a ranch with horses, a handful of milking cows, and a couple of pigs. It’s not close to that. Her “home” may be a jungle; it’s just not one I’m planning to scale anytime soon.

  To Lillian, home is the hustle and bustle of New York City, the town that never sleeps. Lillian—or Lily as her friends call her—is my ex-fiancée. The “ex” part of her title wasn’t my choice. She thought our nine-year relationship was “wearing her down” and that she needed some time to “reenergize her inner Lily.”

  I thought that was what Josue and she did during their daily Bikram yoga classes. I realized my error when my physical therapist got stuck in gridlock traffic twelve months ago. Josue was teaching Lillian the downward dog, just minus the clothing most instructors wear.

  It’s funny how things ended up. The tabloids had a field day with our breakup. Unfortunately, they didn’t see Lillian as the lying two-faced bitch she is. They saw a man angry his career was cut short during his golden days, one who reached for the bottle more times than he hit the gym. They believed Lillian’s affair was a desperate call for help—that by hurting me, she’d help me.

  In a way, that’s precisely what she did. I left her in our high-rise apartment in the middle of Manhattan to “rejuvenate” while I relearned who I was in my hometown of Ravenshoe. I surfed and drank with high school buddies. I even hooked up with a few girls I never had the chance to seduce because Lillian was always there to cut back their attention with the intensity of a weed-wacker on crack.

  It was a good six months.

  The following six weren’t as pretty.

  Doctors, lawyers, even hairdressers often say they exceed in their field of expertise because they were born to do it. The same can be said for athletes. I was bred into the rowdiest, grubbiest, and big-hearted football fanatic you could imagine. It didn’t matter what was on, or the importance of the occasion, if it occurred during game time, it didn’t exist. Nothing on this earth will ever succeed football on the totem of importance to my dad. Not weddings. Not anniversaries. Not even the birth of his first grandchild lifted my dad’s backside from his favorite couch during a game.

  He often tells people he’s inspired me to return to my glory days. I’m not so quick to issue him the same praise. Yes, he loves football. Yes, he was ecstatic when I secured the number one draft pick after four years of college ball. But he didn’t run me through drills while it poured down rain. He didn’t even pick me up after my high school games. Until I went pro, my father had never seen me play.

  Some say that’s why I fell for Lillian’s “trophy wife” trick so quickly. She was so interested in everything I did, I truly thought she cared about me. It was only after I walked in on her with Josue did I realize I was wrong. She didn’t count my calories because she knew the leaner I was, the faster I ran. She was keeping her piggy bank well-stacked. The fitter I was, the better I played. The better I played, the more endorsements I secured.

  I thought the record-breaking amount I secured for a five-year contract with the 69ers was impressive, but it had nothing on the sponsorships I negotiated off the field. I was bringing in so much money, I could practically roll in it.

  Then it all came tumbling down.

  My illustrious career was struck down by a supposed “non-rehabilitation” injury. I canceled my wedding with Lillian because I refused to roll down the aisle in a wheelchair, and the endorsement money I anticipated living on after I spent my fortune on a twenty-three million-dollar penthouse in New York went up in smoke.

  I was left with nothing but the clothes on my back, the support of my fiancée, and the occasional gig she brought in being the face of a clothing company no one had ever heard of.

  I should have seen Lillian’s affair as a blessing. If I had, my share of our penthouse would have helped me start a new life. Instead, I funded Josue’s retirement in the Caribbean. He’s a twenty-six-year-old yoga instructor living on a yacht. If that doesn’t show you how fucked up life is, I don’t know what will.

  With that in mind, I hit decline on Lillian’s call. She’ll leave a voicemail; I’ll pretend I never got it, and the vicious cycle we’ve been playing the past six months will remain on course.

  Unsure if I am amused or annoyed, I stand to my feet to gather my belongings. Only the slightest smidge of disdain crosses my face, but from the way Danny arrives at my side two seconds later, you’d swear I was howling in pain.

  “How’s your back? Any twinges? Spasms? Do you want me to get Amara to give you a rubdown before you head off?”

  I lift
my milk-chocolate eyes to Danny. “Amara? The Italian with more hair on her top lip than me?”

  He smiles a cunning grin. “It doesn’t matter what she looks like. Her hands are worth a million bucks.”

  I give him a look. He can say that since he has no interest in discovering what Amara has going on underneath the white masseuse dress she dons daily. He’s too busy sneaking peeks of the players exiting the showers to let female anatomy deter his mission.

  “It’s good. I’m good. I don’t need Amara. . .” My words trail off when I stuff my clothes into my gym bag, and Danny’s eyes land on numerous bottles of pain medication stacked in the back corner.

  “Don’t,” I warn when his lips twitch with the telltale sign he’s about to begin one of his infamous lectures. “I haven’t taken any pain meds in months. They’re from an old prescription.”

  A sprinkling of blond hair falls in front of his eye when he slants his head to the side and widens his eyes. He’s going for the innocent, I’m your friend more than your agent look. It’s not a look he can pull off. “Then why don’t we throw them out?”

  I snatch his wrist when his hand darts toward my bag. My hold is weak enough not to hurt him, but firm enough to indicate he’s overstepping the bounds of the job I pay him to do.

  “I said I haven’t taken any. That doesn’t mean I won’t need them at a later date.” I scan the locker room to ensure we’re alone. Happy we are, I drop my eyes back to Danny. “They’re backup. Just in case.”

  When I spot my teammate/best friend Dalton darting past the locker room, I use his whitening face to my advantage. Danny and I have held the same conversation numerous times the past six months. We always reach the same outcome. My meds are there just in case I need them. I don’t use them. They’re merely reminders of how far I’ve traveled since my injury—well, mostly.

  “Hey, Dalton. Wait up.”

  Dalton freezes just outside the door being buckled by eager sports reporters wanting interviews with players of the winning team.