Dirty Tackle: A Football Romance (7 page)

“I’ll be back,” I said to Maddy. I could see the look of hurt on her face, and I hated that I had been so lax on dealing with this particular situation. Until last week, I had no idea Maddy even lived in the city. I’d had no inkling I needed to deal with Olivia until this very moment.

I crossed the room again, and Olivia escorted me out into the hallway. “What can I do for the marketing department today?” I wasn’t sure that she was all that talented or capable when it came to her job, but I knew that wasn’t really a requirement when you were the daughter of the general manager.
 

In fact, she often used her job as a ruse to coerce me several times into showing up at different events that eventually led to us being alone and naked in her apartment. I needed to finally clear the air now just to make sure she didn’t cause any waves between me and Maddy.

“You were looking pretty cozy just now with the new doctor,” she said with a slight snarl in her voice.

The last thing I needed was a catfight. I wasn’t even sure what the status was between me and Maddy yet, and I didn’t want Olivia sticking her nose into it.

“We go way back. Went to high school and college together. Well, a little college. Besides, that’s none of your business,” I said.

Olivia’s face fell for just a moment before she regained her composure. I was terrified that I was going to have a crying woman on my hands. But that wasn’t Olivia’s style.

“We’ve got something here, Shane, between you and me. It’s silly for you to keep trying to deny it. We both know you want it too,” she said as she settled her hand on my shoulder.

I pushed her hand away quickly and glanced back at the door where I knew Maddy waited on just the other side. The last thing I needed was for her to come out and see something that could be easily misinterpreted for what it really was.

“We don’t have anything between us, and I don’t want anything from you. That’s what I told you the last time. And I’ll keep saying it to you until you figure it out,” I said. I didn’t like being cruel, but this was one conversation that I’d had too many times already. The problem was that I had confused the situation by giving in on far too many occasions after I’d said it. But this time, it was going to stick.

She straightened and gave me a sultry smile that brimmed with unspoken promises. She was the kind of woman who always manipulated situations to get her way. I still couldn’t believe that I let myself fall for that act as many times as I had.

“You have to give us a chance. We have something whether you want to admit it or not,” she said.

I shook my head. “We had enough chemistry to result in some completely unmemorable quickies. That’s it.” Now I was being a deliberate dick, but I had to get this message through to her.

I saw what looked like tears in the corner of her eyes, but I wasn’t sure if it was from sadness or anger. More than likely, knowing Olivia, it was the latter.

“If you walk away from me, I can make your life a living hell. Remember who I am.”

Now this got my attention and not in a good way. I wasn’t about to be threatened by some little bitch who thought she had more pull than she did. “If you breathe a word of any bullshit to your daddy, I will make sure he knows exactly how you manipulate the men on this team.”

The color drained from her face, but the lines around her mouth tightened. “You wouldn’t.”

I stared at her with hard eyes. “Don’t fuck with me, Olivia. I’m not one of these other dumbasses you’re used to dealing with who will sit up like a dog and beg when you threaten them with your daddy’s name. I don’t put up with that kind of bullshit. Whatever we had is done. If you want to salvage some type of professional working relationship, I would turn around and take that attitude somewhere else.”

I could tell that it took everything inside of her to turn on her heel and stomp away without another word. I wanted to go back to explain things to Maddy, but then I looked at my watch and realized I was going to be late for practice if I didn’t get my ass on the practice field in the next few minutes.
 

Coach Shaw didn’t like players being late. I would have to run five extra laps and then be labeled as the prima donna of the squad for the day, which meant endless rounds of smack talking from the rest of the team. I hated every second of the few times I had earned that punishment, but it proved to be an effective tool for ensuring that players were rarely late to practice.
 

Making a mental note to talk to Maddy as soon as I could, I started to head for the locker room to grab my gear. All thoughts of Olivia and the snarky conversation we had just had, I wiped out of my mind. I had a job to do and a game to focus on. Sunday would be here before I knew it.

It turned out that even as I trudged out onto the field, all I could think about was Maddy. That wasn’t a good thing at all. I could hear Coach yelling already at some of the players further on down the field. I barely had time to get my hands up before a football hit me squarely in the chest.

“Man, you’re really daydreaming today. You barely caught that, and I put it right in your hands. You’re going to be running extra laps today for sure,” Marvin called out to me with a smartass wave.

I gave him a death look but found it difficult to be angry at him. Marvin knew me almost better than I knew myself, at least on the field and especially during game days. If I was anxious or off my game, Marvin used an imaginative blend of tough love and an uncanny paternal instinct to shift my mindset back to where I needed to be. I owed him a lot, and any shit he threw my way was always in good fun. He had never deliberately tried to demean me, which was more than I could say for my own blood relation of a father.

He trudged up next to me. “I saw Olivia in the hallway just now. She looked pissed off enough to spit tacks.”

Marvin’s unusual euphemism was still fairly accurate. I was currently the target of those tackles. I shrugged my shoulders. “Olivia always has her panties in a bunch about something.”

Marvin shook his head at me. “If she has her panties in a bunch, it most likely has something to do with you. You know she thinks there something more going on between the two of you. Shit, the whole team knows that too. Are you sure there’s something you’re not telling me?”

I tossed the football back at Marvin. “There’s nothing going on between me and Olivia. It’s nothing different than what she’s pulled with countless other guys on the team. I never should’ve gotten involved with her to begin with. I should have known better. She’s used goods.”

Marvin looked a bit affronted at this thought. “Maybe she just keeps picking the wrong guys who treat her like shit.”

I didn’t understand what Marvin saw in Olivia that he always jumped to her defense. Marvin was one of the few guys on the team Olivia hadn’t pursued at one time or another. To me, there was little beyond the surface with her at all. The one time I had gone along with her suggestion and attempted a regular date had been a disaster. After that, it was strictly kept to apartments and bedrooms. Not that we’d even done that much of that.

That got me thinking about the previous evening with Maddy. I had been with my fair share of women in the last nine years since we had broken up, but that experience with her blew them all out of the water. I knew it likely had something to do with the fact that I still had feelings for her. They went far deeper than I had ever imagined.

“Are you thinking about Olivia right now?” Marvin asked. Then a sly grin spread across his face. “Or are you thinking about that pretty doctor that you decided to give an office call to when we both know you are as healthy as a horse?”

Damn Marvin. He was too astute for his own good. “I knew her back in high school,” I admitted.

Marvin looked surprised. “Knew her, knew her?”

I got his obvious hint. “Could you be more juvenile?” I asked. “She lived in my hometown. So we go back a ways. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, though. It was a big surprise to find out she’s the new team doctor.”

“Such a surprise that you had to take her out for a drink later to catch up on old times?”

“How did you know about that?” I asked. It was crazy how much my movements were tracked. I wondered if my appearance at the bar the night before had been noted in some kind of news article or celebrity happenings around town. I hadn’t even thought about that. I've just been so eager to get Maddy alone.

“Nothing like that,” Marvin said waving his hand as he read my worried expression. “I stopped by the bar right after you guys left. Bartender said you were there with a woman he hadn’t ever seen before, so I put two and two together now seeing you with her. So, rekindling an old flame are we?” He tossed the football back to me with a quick glance in Coach’s direction. We had to appear like we were doing something, otherwise, Coach would send us off to do some drills.

“Let’s just say that Maddy is special,” I said. “I am enjoying the chance to get to know her again. Back when I was a kid, I thought that she could have been the one. But then, something happened right after graduation, and she went all cold on me. So, I went to college, and when I tried to get back in contact with her, it was a no go. She went off to medical school, and I guess that was that.”

“Unrequited love,” Marvin said.

I furled my eyebrows. “I don’t know. Can we stop now? I feel like a chick talking about my feelings right now.”

Marvin laughed as we continue to toss the ball between us. He nodded at me, and we both started to jog onto the track. It was another way to get warmed up before the hard drills that we both knew were coming. “I just want to see you happy,” Marvin said. “Lord knows for the longest time it seemed like you were more interested in chasing every skirt in town than just one in particular. You had to grow up sometime.”

That thought made me angry, more than anything because I knew it was the truth. I hadn’t exactly been discreet in my love life over the last couple of years, and now I wondered if Maddy had read about that too. I was always being linked to some new hot supermodel, even if it wasn’t true. That was another thing I had learned. The more attention I got from the press, the hungrier they always seemed for a story. The last thing that I wanted to do was drag Maddy into any of that. I needed to be more careful.

“Let’s just say I’ve got it all worked out of my system now. That includes Olivia too. I’ve been trying to end it for months.”

Marvin shrugged. “The thing is, if she’s not done with you, then I don’t think that girl is going to be an easy one to shake loose. She’s used to getting her way in just about everything.”

“Well, she’s not gonna get her way with me. I’m not interested. Maybe you should take her out,” I suggested. Then I laughed. I wouldn’t wish Olivia on my worst enemy, much less my best friend.

“I am too old for that girl, even if she ever looked in my direction for more than a few seconds anyways. You’re not the only one looking for a nice girl to settle down with,” Marvin said.

As we approached the rest of the team, I could hear Coach calling out for everyone to get settled in their squads. I knocked Marvin on the shoulder. “Give it some time. I’m sure that girl is just around the corner.”

“Easy for you to say. You still have all your hair,” Marvin said as we both laughed. We both knew that despite whatever Marvin said, he was the number one right tackle in the league. He could have any woman that he wanted. It just seemed that he didn’t want any of them.

“We better get to it,” I said. “The last thing I want to do is run extra laps tonight. I’ve got big plans.”

Marvin winked at me. “I have a feeling those big plans involve one pretty doctor.”

I shrugged with a sly smile. Maybe being a little distracted today wouldn’t be so bad after all. Especially if my day ended with Maddy in my arms once again. I whistled a happy tune as we crossed the field.

I was packing up my things after seeing another one of Shane’s teammates. A regular end of the day for a not so regular day.

The lead doc had given me an office off of the gym floor to use. It was small but tidy, and I was glad for a place to keep my things. Soon, I wanted to leave a picture of Scarlet on the desk. But I wouldn’t be able to do that until I figured out how to tell Shane that Scarlet existed. That was proving to be a lot harder than I had anticipated. All of the old feelings that I had for him had thrown a monkey wrench into my plans.