Baller: A Bad Boy Romance (24 page)

“Remember early on, when we were just beginning. Remember the agreements we made. You made me agree to not do any of the things I did usually for the sake of your story series.”

“I did. And you agreed to it. Those were the conditions of our professional agreement.”

“Wow. You really
did
forget.”

“Forget what?”

“I asked you one thing. One thing Quinn. What was the one thing I asked you not to do?”

I sat across from him looking into his eyes. They were hard and inscrutable. It finally hit me. The
camera
thing. He didn’t like being recorded without his consent.

“Oh my god,” I said to myself. “
Oh my god
,” I leaned forward on the table, putting my face in my hands. The camera. I hadn’t told him that I was taking my camera out and that I was filming him. He probably thought that I was trying something rotten. He probably thought I was trying to take advantage of him while he was sleeping.

“You got it now? I thought you were smart, Quinn,” he said.

“I had the camera out… Dante. I broke your one condition by doing that and I apologize. It was a mistake—and I can’t make excuses for myself. I just hope you can forgive me.”

“I
can’t
.”

“I would never disrespect you like that on purpose. It was wrong and I’m sorry.”

“I can’t trust you again, Quinn.”

“Dante—”

“No. I changed everything about my life for you, and you couldn’t do this
one
thing for me? It was all I fucking asked, Quinn. I changed
everything
for you.”

“Dante, I’m so sorry.”

“You can’t apologize and make it better.”

“Dante. I’m sorry I made you question whether you could trust me. It was a mistake. I would never use footage of you that I took for anything against you. I would never sell it or use it for anything gross.”

“It’s too late for all that, Quinn.”

“Can I at least ask you why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you so sensitive about being filmed?”

“I’m a public figure. Do you know how much footage of me would sell for?”

“Even if you won't forgive me, I know you know I would
never
use footage of you for anything shady. Why are you like this about being filmed?”

He sighed deeply.

“Remember what I told you about the bullies and the bottle?” he asked, “
Of course
you do, your recorder was out then.”

I ignored that jab though it hurt. I quietly nodded.

“The bully, Billy… sometimes he would have his friends
videotape
it. Billy would hit me with the bottle while one of the others filmed. They would hold me still so I couldn’t move. They would yell at me so I could look at the camera. When I cried… they would just laugh.”

Everything he had told me had been so hard to listen to. Every time I had tried my hardest to keep it together so I wouldn’t cry. It was a bad look, and it was unprofessional, even if the story was moving. I couldn’t that time. I didn’t even try. I felt the tear run down my cheek and silently brushed it away.

“Dante…. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

It made sense. It made sense why he was so camera shy. They had been used to intimidate and humiliate him in the past.
Of course,
he didn’t like being filmed when there was nothing he could do about it.

He shook his head.

“You didn’t know because I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t enough that I
asked
you not to do it?”

“I didn’t mean any harm,” I said to him. That didn’t excuse the action, but I had to let him know, let him hear from me that whatever he thought I wanted with the footage, it was
not
a plot against him or anything wild like that.

“It was
one
fucking thing, Quinn. Why couldn’t you do it?”

“Dante,” my voice cracked as I cried, “I’m so sorry. What I did was wrong, but you have to know that I would never do anything to hurt you. I would never knowingly do
anything
to hurt you.”

“I used to put a lot of stock in the things you told me, Quinn, but not anymore,” he said quietly.

“Dante—”

“I
trusted
you with things that I have never told anybody else. I put my entire career in your hands when that crazy woman was accusing me of hitting her. I trusted you with things that you could use against me, and I believed that you wouldn’t. When I asked you not to do something that I didn’t want done, you did it anyway.”

“I’m trying to apologize, Dante. I would never—”

“But you
did
. You did it anyway, and now, I can’t look at you the same way, Quinn. I can’t look at you and see the woman I trusted and thought wouldn’t do me wrong. It's too late. You’ve ruined it. I don’t care what you write in your stories. I don’t care whether or not you believe me anymore. I’m done. I felt… I felt something
special
with you, Quinn. I did, but now… I feel nothing. I owe you nothing. The season is nearly over. You can have your interviews, but that’s it. I don’t want to see you without that recorder in your hand. I don’t want to talk to you unless it is for work. I don’t want to hear from you unless it is to ask where and when we should meet for work.”

“Dante… I’m not going to sit here and try to understand the trauma that seeing what I was doing must have brought up for you. I won't try and convince you of anything. All I can do is tell you the truth and hope you have it in yourself to believe me.”

I couldn’t imagine how my face must have looked. I had given up on wiping the tears and they were just flowing down my face.

“There's nothing to be sorry for, Quinn, because I can’t forgive you. I won't, and you can’t ask me to. If you want to talk to me, do it through your network rep. Don’t call me again.”

He got up and left the room without a look back in my direction.

I felt sick.

I hated that he was angry at me. I hated that I had done what I had to him. It was the one thing that he asked me to do—and I didn’t do it.
It was all he asked.
I had asked him to practically become a different person and all he had asked was I respect his one wish.

His anger hadn’t been explosive like it had been at the house, but the silent, stony anger that he had just now was almost worse. He looked at me like he hated me. He had good reason to, but when he was yelling, at the very least you could say that there was passion there and passion was something that was applied to both negative and positive emotion.

I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling. I couldn’t imagine being in that position as a child, overpowered and humiliated in that way. I felt like the worst piece of shit, having made him feel anything like the way he must have felt at the time. When he was angry at me in the house, it wasn’t just anger. It was terror—with trauma and fear mixed in with it, too. It was something he had probably fought for years to overcome back in his life again. And I was the one who did it to him.

I shattered like a mirror when the door closed. I put my head in my hands and I sobbed. Why did this feel so painful? Why did this feel like a loss? A real loss. There was the guilt that I was feeling over making him feel any of the pain from his past again, but there was something else. The only other time I had felt this way was when I was going through a breakup.

It just didn’t add up, though. It wasn’t a
breakup
. For it to be a breakup we would have to be… together.

It hit me, and when it did, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized. We
were
together. Dante and I were together. That was why this felt like a breakup. We had never stated it, but we were seeing each other exclusively. We were romantically intimate, and we were personally intimate, sharing our inner selves, him with me primarily.

I could only speak for myself. Dante Rock
had
me. He had me, and it was more than just the sex. I had fallen for the man he was when we were alone. He was always arrogant and pushy, but he was deep and insightful, too. He was fearlessly honest with me, and he had stood in the memories of things that were traumatic to relive.

I felt so stupid. I felt stupid because how many other people thought they loved Dante Rock, too. I felt it again because not only did I love him, I had him. I couldn’t speak for him, but I knew. I knew that what I felt was not just one sided. There was something there on his end, too. It might not be as strong as what I feel, or as deep, but there was something. If he tried to deny it, then I knew he would be lying.

Dante was mine…and I had lost him.

I had to get him back. I had to do something. Anything. I was ready. I was not too proud to beg him, but that would only make him mad. If nothing else, I had to make him see that it was nothing that I was trying to do to hurt him. My words weren’t going to cut it. He didn’t want to hear them. That was fine. I would just have to
act
.

Dante

My suspension was finally up.

I didn’t know what to think.

I was glad that I was finally playing again. There was a chance, there was always a chance with my fucking record that
this
time was going to be the time that they would just let me go completely. I was giving them a hell of a lot of reasons to do it, and they were probably being more patient with me than I deserved.

I know if I was them, I would have let my ass go long ago.

I was glad they hadn’t, however, and I was glad I could play again.

The air travel meant time on the road wasn’t all that long, especially since the games were scheduled in a way where there wasn’t too much time between them.

That was still time I got to spend in my house in LA, alone.

I hadn’t intended for the time to be spent alone. I had wanted to have some company. Specifically, the company of someone I had gotten pretty fond of lately, but she had fucked up and given me no choice but to kick her to the curb.

Fucking
Quinn
. Why did she have to go and do that?

I didn’t know what it was, the anger, or the fact that I didn’t hate her enough to disrespect her back, but I, in her absence, hadn’t had a single woman over.

Not one.

I was even shocked myself.

It had been righty and me every night—and I was getting sick of it.

Did I hate Quinn that much that I didn’t want to have her over, even for a fuck?

Okay, I didn’t
hate
her. That was saying a lot. I didn’t hate the woman. I was just mad. I couldn’t trust her. She had fucked up too badly for me to want to have her around anymore. Respecting me was never really something that I required of the women that I fucked, but
Quinn
…

I held her to a higher standard.

I held her to a standard higher than
just
the girl I was fucking.

She had to have known that it wasn’t just sex with us. It was a lot of sex… not nearly enough for my tastes or needs, but a lot regardless. I would make passes at her every opportunity I got because I liked to be inside of her, but that wasn’t
all
I liked or wanted.

If it was, I would never have asked her to dinner in Houston. If it was, I would never have asked her to come stay at the house with me.

I wanted her around because I liked
having
her around. I trusted her in my space. I trusted her with my secrets and my dark, sad, ugly past. Many times I had had to stop myself from thinking a person I heard in the house, Daniella or whoever, was her. I had to stop myself from picking the phone up and trying to call her.

The interviews were going to end soon. It felt weird because I had gotten so used to having Quinn around. She wasn’t going to be around that often anymore. I didn’t really know how I felt about it. I was so mad at what she had done. I didn’t want to see her again but then again, I
did
want to see her again. I wanted to see her every day if I could.

Was this what it was like to like someone?

She had tried the hell out of me when she started crying in the restaurant. First I wasn’t worried when I saw the tears well up because I had seen it before from her, and the last time, she hadn’t started crying. Not this time though.
This
time, she welled up and the tears ran over.

I nearly went around the table and hugged her. It nearly took me out. I couldn’t deal with women’s tears generally because of the pain I had seen from my mom and sister in the past, but this was different. It mattered less that she was a woman and more that she was
Quinn
. She was crying because of what I told her and probably also because I was so harsh.

Watching her cry, I knew I would lose my nerve if I went to her, so I didn’t. I just sat there like a bastard and let her cry. I let her believe that I didn’t care how much she was hurting.

She did me wrong, but she didn’t deserve
that
.

She didn’t deserve to think that I didn’t care about her at all.

For one thing, it wasn’t even fucking true. I
did
care about her. I cared about her a lot. Maybe too much.

I didn’t
love
her. Or maybe I did. I didn’t know. How would I know? I didn’t know how that felt. I knew what it was like to love a parent, to love a sibling, but I didn’t do romantic relationships with women. That wasn’t me. I didn’t love women like that.

Quinn… I just,
I don’t know
. I just liked spending time with her. I liked to talk to her and to listen to her talk. I liked to look at her because I thought she was gorgeous. I liked to touch her. I liked to fuck her. I didn’t like what I was feeling now, which was… what,
sad
?

I didn’t like thinking that she was somewhere mad or sad about what I had said to her. I didn’t expect her to hear those shitty things from me and just go on about her day and her life, but I also didn’t want to think of her somewhere still crying because of them

Quinn. She was the past.
She was the past
. If I repeated it enough times, maybe I would believe myself. I was still mad. I was still livid about what she had done. I could choose to be sad about it and think about her, or I could choose to be mad and use that anger for something.

I was choosing anger.

What was the use of my rage if I couldn’t crush it into something useful, like a win?

There was still a championship to win—and that shit had my name all over it.

Getting through the first series was a cinch. All I had to do was play ball and die. This was my job. If I could concentrate and take all that shit I was feeling about her and have it make me a better player, then all this shit would be worth it.

She sure knew how to stay on a guy’s mind though.

I realized with some anger that she had actually listened to me and wasn’t calling or trying to text me anymore. The communication from her directly to my phone completely dried up. Just like I had asked, she was contacting my agent through her network rep.

It was sort of funny how much it got to me. It was me who had asked her to contact me that way, but I couldn’t stand having messages from her filtered through other people. I didn’t want to hear her words through other people. I ignored the messages. Apparently, there were just two interviews left and she wanted me to confirm the second to last one.

This was it then, huh. Nearly the end. It would be sad to see the end of this era, but all great things, right?

I agreed to see her before a game because I didn’t want to stay behind after one and talk to her in an empty locker room. I probably wouldn’t be able to control myself.

I saw her walking up to me across the court.

The last game I had seen her at, she was in jeans and a sweatshirt. I almost hadn’t recognized her because she looked so different. She was completely stripped down and not in the way that I liked her to be. She even looked shorter. That was because she hadn’t been wearing heels…but still. She had looked defeated—like there was nothing for her anymore.

She looked like she was going through a breakup.

Today, she was back in her usual sexy skirt and blouse. They were sexy whether or not she intended them to be. She looked a little different, still sad. She wasn’t standing up quite as
straight
as usual or something. It was there in the way she was carrying herself. She wasn’t happy.

I didn’t want to care, but I did.

A little.

“Good evening, Dante,” she said.

Good evening?
Were we in a damn classroom? When had she ever said that to me? Was she about to start calling me Mr. Rock, too?

“Hey.”

“Can we go back into the locker room, or do you want to sit here and talk?” she asked.

Alright then. Right to business. I wasn’t complaining.

“Here,” I said. The arena was totally empty, so we just sat on two of the courtside seats with her recorder between us.

“You seem well. The championship is coming up, are you nervous?”

“No, we're on a winning streak. Success is the only real option. It's expected. Playing an undefeated team rattles the opponent. They almost make themselves lose for you. It’s great.”

“That’s a pretty
reckless
thing to say,” she said.

I looked at her. I couldn’t read her face. I knew she wasn’t one hundred percent, but she wasn’t defeated either.

“I don’t think it’s reckless if it's true.”

“That is a pretty steep claim. Maybe
too
steep.”

I looked at her. What was she doing? More importantly, what was she
implying
? Usually, the reporter just took your quote and moved along. What was she asking me? Was she challenging me? Did she want to see me do it? Did she think I
couldn’t
do it? What was she trying to say?

“Nothing is too steep if it's true. Our record speaks for itself,” I said.

“Would you speak so confidently if you were on your opponent’s team?” she asked.

“Being on another team would not knock my confidence if that is what you are asking.”

“It isn’t. I’m asking whether you feel if talking like that isn’t a bit presumptuous.”

“The championship is
ours
. Half the work is believing that you are going to get it. The rest is working for it.”

“Winning a championship would be good for your career. You haven’t won one yet. With your recent record with the Yellow Jackets, would you say that you need it?”

I wanted to laugh. She was just taking shots now. She was basically roasting me and calling it an interview. What she had said about the championship game was not wrong. It was all true. I was in hot water with the team—and with the league in general. Being part of a championship winning team would do wonders for my standing and how much they would decide that they liked me in the future.

Them liking me was
extremely
important.

It was literally the difference between me having and not having a job.

It wouldn’t hurt winning a championship. That had never hurt
anyone’s
career.

“It would be good for anyone’s career. Not just mine. I play as part of a team. Not alone.”

“Hm. I’d say that sometimes you got carried away with your own victory on the court and not the team’s as a whole.”

“Oh yeah, why would you say that?”

“
I
ask the questions, Dante,” she said.

Oh shit.

It was like that? I smiled at her. She was letting me have it. Yes, she did. She did ask the questions. Maybe she was someone that I had to be more scared of than I was. I had been treating her like she was on my side all this time because, for a time, she had been. Who knew about now? Now she sounded mad. Now she looked like she was out for blood. Now I was in trouble.

What would she write though?