Love on the Highlight Reel (Connecticut Kings Book 2) (14 page)

The fact that the NOPD didn’t take kindly to whooping their star cornerback’s ass hadn’t factored into my decision. They were just bodies though, in the long line of people I’d pissed off. No phone calls, no visitors, supposedly their protocol, but I knew it was bullshit. Between here and Connecticut, I knew the Kings, my management team, and my lawyer were working to get me out. Four hours later, they walked me out of my cell. I wasn’t
surprised
to see Nicki. I was more like… disgraced.

She looked exhausted, and she wouldn’t say much either, offering one or two word responses to anything I said to her.  In the car, disappointment practically radiated from her as she sat beside me in the back seat.

The most expression she gave was when we pulled up to the team hotel. Even though it was nearing two in the morning, it was surrounded with reporters and photographers who’d probably heard I’d been let out of jail, and wanted the first shot. Nicki told the driver to keep going, and ten minutes later, security was whisking us through the back door of a different hotel.

In the elevator, she handed me my cell phone, and the bag with my change of clothes that had been left at the stadium. “For now, you can talk to your family, teammates, management team, and lawyer. No one else. No friends, no reporters, until Chloe and Margo figure out how to play this,” she said, looking straight ahead as the elevator climbed up.

“Why didn’t one of them come?” I asked. “Or hell, Nate or somebody?”

She glanced back, eyebrow raised, her expression disdainful. “Margo is trying to save any endorsement deals she may have had in the works for you. Chloe is figuring out how to keep the media from branding you a violent, egotistical brute. And you’re not
Nate’s
responsibility. You’re mine. So here
I
am.”

She cut her eyes back to the front of the elevator as we arrived on one of the executive floors, and she pulled a keycard from her purse for access. A moment later, I was following her down a hall while our security hung back, leaving us alone.

Her whole demeanor screamed pissed off as she led me into a suite, then let the door close behind me. “Get some sleep,” she said, pointing toward a door down a short hall. “We’ll be ready with a press plan in the morning.”

“That’s it? Just “get some sleep”?”

She shrugged, then headed to the kitchen area, where she pulled a bottle of wine from the mini-fridge on the counter. “What more should there be?” she asked, uncorking the bottle. She didn’t bother pulling out a glass – she drank straight from the bottle.

“Maybe some details about what the hell is happening? What does Eli have to say? Is the NFL fining me, suspending me, what?”

Nicki laughed. “What the hell is happening? Well Jordan, you punched a man in the face on live TV, and according to the mini-press conference he gave after, with his face all black and blue, while NOPD was hauling your ass to jail, tried to
kill
him.”

“What?” That shit was so ridiculous I laughed. “Nobody was trying to kill that fool. Just shut him the fuck up. And he deserved it.”

She took another long swig from the bottle. “Did he, Jordan? And let me guess, you aren’t sorry you did it, are you? Never mind that you could be suspended, which affects the whole team. Or that you could potentially do jail time for assault, which again, affects the whole team. No, you’re just thinking about
you
.”

“Please, Nicki,” I said, waving her off as I took a few steps toward the room she’d indicated. “Like you aren’t doing the same damn thing. You’re just worried about looking bad.”

“Damn right I am!” she snapped. “One of us has to, and it sure as hell isn’t you. You couldn’t even go two whole weeks of working with Chloe before you went against it all.”

“That motherfucker brought up my sister! I wasn’t gonna let that shit go!”

“This isn’t the
streets
, Jordan! You should have walked away, and let the shit go. Threaten to fuck
his
sister. Hell, threaten to fuck his arthritic grandmother. Anything but physically attack him, on live television, in your
uniform
, on the goddamn field!”

“Everybody can’t be an emotional robot like you, Nick—”

“My name is
Cole
,” she interjected, taking her mouth away from that wine bottle just long enough to interrupt.

“What-the-fuck-ever, man. Everybody can’t flip off their emotions with a switch,
Evelyn Nicole Richardson.
Some of us are human – we act on how we feel in the moment, and make mistakes sometimes. But you wouldn’t know shit about that, would you?”

Her mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?!”

“You’re excused. You and your little-miss-perfect bullshit act.”

“I do
not
act like I’m perfect!”

“It’s damn near a fucking personality trait for you,” I snapped, dropping my bag to the ground before I stalked up to her, getting in her face. “Too bad
I
know that shit isn’t true. I know the
real
you.”

She swallowed hard, narrowing her already glazed eyes as she raised her bottle again, draining what had to be the last of the wine. “What are you even talking about?”

“I’m talking about my sophomore year, BSU. Pretty ass junior, top of her class, comes to see me play. Comes to every game, waits for me after, until she gets my attention. Sweet, innocent, smart. Not one of the popular girls. Gave me her virginity the night I scored the winning touchdown in the regional championship game. You know who I’m talking about Nicki? You remember that girl?”

Her nostrils flared as she moved to leave the kitchen, but I moved quickly, grabbing the counter on either side of her, keeping her in place. “I’m not about to go down memory lane with you, not tonight,” she hissed.

“Oh, yes you are. You
owe
me that.”

Anger flashed in her eyes as she glared up at me. “I
owe
you? How the hell do you figure that?”

“Because that girl was a fucking
fraud,
” I whispered, right in her face. I grinned as her eyes went wide. “Yeah, Nicki. Shocker, ain’t it? She thought I didn’t know she only went after the football team’s breakout star to prove a point to some fucking mean girls on campus. She wasn’t just some nerd with a cute face. She was a tough cookie, with a nasty competitive streak. Someone she didn’t like wanted me, so
she
got me instead, to rub it in ol’ girl’s face.”

“How do you know that?” Nicki asked, through a shaky breath.

“Cause Whitney Butler caught me after practice one night, begging me to leave…
that girl
for her. She said
that girl
was just playing games, and didn’t even really want me. She just didn’t want her to have me. And that was true, wasn’t it?” She averted her gaze, and didn’t answer, confirming what I’d always known. I lifted a hand to her chin, turning her back in my direction. “You know what though? I didn’t care. Ask me why.”

She tried to turn away again, but I turned her right back, ignoring the gloss of tears building in her eyes. “Why?”

I moved in closer, putting my mouth right by her ear. “Because I loved your manipulative, fraudulent ass.” She put her hands against my chest, trying to push me away, but I didn’t budge. “I loved you, because you were supportive, and funny, and you would throw a football around with me. You weren’t star struck. You weren’t impressed with me. You were smart, and driven, and nasty as hell once I brought it out of you. You were my fucking first love. You and me, we were a team, and I didn’t give a shit how it started, because I knew what it
was
. You remember
that
, Nicki?”

“
Y-yes
,” she choked out, scrubbing tears from her face with the back of her hands.

“We were together
two
years. And you remember how you ended it?”

“Jordan, I—”

“I remember. Do you?”

She pushed out a breath, then leaned back against the counter, looking up at me with tears streaming down her face. “Jordan… don’t make me…”

“You told me you’d lied when you said you loved me,” I answered, since she wouldn’t. “That you were… “too smart” to get your feelings involved with an athlete. That you didn’t think I’d been faithful anyway.”

She sucked in a breath like it was the last one she would get a chance to take, and her eyes dropped to the floor as she shook her head. Even six years later, it hit me right in the chest to repeat those words back to her, in a way I hadn’t expected. I let go of the counter to grab her chin, pointing her face up to mine.

“What you did was fucked up,” I continued. “And you didn’t
have
to do that shit. So you’re not gonna stand in here and chastise me about defending my little sister, about enjoying myself in a club, none of that, like
you’ve
never done shit. You want to talk about shit professionally, fine, but adjust your fucking tone, and remember that
you
decided it wasn’t going to be personal.”

“
What choice did I have, Jordan
?!” Nicki batted my hand away from her, her eyes red from crying, or drinking, or both. “I debated! For the last two weeks, I’ve gone back and forth with myself, over whether or not I should
let it be personal
between us. You want the truth?!
I don’t give a shit about you punching Bobby Samuels.
I care that you’re proving the reason why I broke up with you exactly right. I care that you’re proving your
father
exactly right!”

I scowled. “My father?! What the fuck
does he have to do with this?!”

“Everything! He came to me, and he told me I was distracting you,” she spat, sniffing back tears. “That you were still young, in your college prime. That it was your nature to explore your way through women, not be stuck up under somebody who was about to graduate, and leave. You were already excited, talking about going pro, and that was about to happen for you, soon. According to him, you were going to need time to drink, and fuck, and party, because “that’s what football players do”. And it was true. I may have gone off to college, but I grew up with the Kings. I saw what
many
of them did, and it was exactly what he said. It’s
exactly what you’re doing
.”

She stopped for a moment to catch her breath, and I was too busy processing her words to say anything.

“The fighting,” she continued. “The partying, the women. For two weeks, you were showing me something different. And then, you went back, and showed me the same. How can you want me to
let it be personal
when you can’t even be consistent? How dare you kiss me, drag these feelings back up, act like you want to rekindle something, and
two weeks later
you have another woman in Jimmy Choo pinching your cheeks?!”

“She is my
friend
,” I growled, rubbing my temples. “How many times do I have to say that shit for you to believe me?! You wanna know why she was pinching my cheeks?! Cause she was teasing me about
you.
Asking me to bring
you
in for a date night.”

Nicki rolled her eyes. “Of course she was.”

“She
was
. You wanna know when I first connected with her? I went to Arch & Point and got drunk as fuck, poured my heart out while she giving me a lap dance. Why? Because I’d found out about your “secret” engagement to that wack ass, corny ass reporter from
Zone Report
. Two years after we broke up, your ass is engaged, while I still wasn’t over you.
She
listened.
She
comforted me.
She
did not try to get in my pockets when she could have, cause she had a man her damn self back then. Even now, the only way she’ll accept shit from me is if she dances, so it’s “legit”.”

She crossed her arms. “I’m supposed to believe that
?
”

I shook my head. “You know what, Nicki? I don’t care what you believe. I don’t know why I’m wasting time trying to figure out, work this shit out with you, when it’s obvious you aren’t with it. I’m taking a shower and going to sleep. You let me know about those press plans in the morning.”

I didn’t look back as I left the kitchen, grabbing my bag as I went. The room she’d pointed out to me had its own bathroom, so I did exactly what I said I would. I didn’t even bother turning on my phone, I stripped down and put my aching limbs under the hot water, trying unsuccessfully not to replay that conversation with Nicki in my head.

It didn’t even make sense to be hung up on old shit – especially when
she
wasn’t.

And my father… I held myself back from punching a fucking hole through the shower wall. Of course he’d told the girl I loved I wasn’t gonna be shit, because he never thought I would. Everything I accomplished was something new for him to scorn, nothing was ever right, or good enough. It was probably a delusion to think I could finally perform at a high enough level to earn the respect of someone who was hell bent on closing his eyes to anything positive about me.