Play by Play (A Play Makers Novella) (7 page)

As the clock wound down, the stadium erupted with victory, and Sophie embraced Jake, yelling above the noise, “Can you believe this? It’s so perfect.
We’re
so perfect.”

He grinned down at her. “You should see your face. Like a beautiful, demented angel.”

Laughing, she took a final gulp of her champagne, grabbed him by the hand, and pulled him toward the stairs, announcing with ominous glee, “Now for your big surprise.”

“Another one?” He trailed after her, still pumped from the win, but confused at what might be happening now. She had showered him with crazy amenities and passionate affection, and he wanted to spoil
her
for a change.

But first . . .

“Hey, Sophie, let’s find a quiet spot, okay? I’ve got so much I want to say—”

“There they are!” She waved happily, then grabbed his hand again. “Come on. I want you to meet my uncle and cousins.”

“I’m meeting your family?” He winced, only half teasing. “
That’s
my surprise?”

“Is it okay?”

“Yeah, I was thinking you bought a hot nightie or some bizarre sex toy. But this works too.”

“Hey, kiddo!” a booming voice called out and a tall, muscle-bound guy with a mane of jet-black hair strode up to them, picked Sophie up, and held her in an off-the-ground hug. Then he gave Jake a wink. “You must be the new boyfriend. Is she giving you any trouble?”

Jake studied the man’s face in fascinated terror. “You’re Johnny Spurling.”

“Yep.” He stuck out his hand without lowering Sophie to her feet. “Nice to meet you. It’s Jake Devlin, right?”

Sophie laughed. “It’s Jake Dublin, actually. I got his name wrong somehow. Anyway, I’m so glad you’re finally meeting him. Jake? This is the vengeful cousin I told you about.”

“Dublin?” Johnny seemed perplexed. “The sportswriter?” As reality settled in, the big man’s eyes narrowed. And then in an instant of understanding, he growled, “Fuck!” and moved between Sophie and Jake. “You wrote that elevator shit about
my
cousin
?”

Jake backed away and held up his hands, trying to smile confidently. “Not exactly.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Sophie demanded.

“He’s been using you to get to Pop. And making fun of you in the process. And now”—Johnny’s voice deepened to demon grade—“he’s a dead man.”

“What’s all this?” a new voice asked—gently but with authority. “Sophie?”

Jake felt his stomach knot. “Coach Spurling? Man . . .”

Sophie stepped close and looked into Jake’s eyes. “What’s Johnny talking about?”

“Stay away from him, Soph,” her cousin warned. “He’s an asshole.” To his father, Johnny added, “This guy’s been angling for an interview with you, right? Looks like he used the kid to get it.”

“That’s not true,” Jake interrupted. “Sophie, baby, that’s not true. I didn’t know you were related to the coach until right now. I swear.”

“That makes it worse,” Johnny assured him. “You made fun of her for
kicks
? Talked about nailing her in an elevator—”

“I
met
her in an elevator.
Met
. Not nailed. Jeez, Sophie—”

“How does my cousin know where we met?” she asked, her voice soft but direct.

“
Everyone
knows,” Johnny assured her. “He blasted it all over the Internet.”

“What?”

Johnny nodded grimly. “You need to close your eyes now, kid. This could get ugly.”

Coach Spurling had been studying the situation and now took Jake by the arm. “You’d better just leave, son.”

“This is crazy, sir. I’m in love with her. I’d never make fun of her—”

“Go home.” Spurling’s expression hardened. “I want to talk to my niece.
Alone
.”

Jake locked eyes with Sophie. “I can explain.”

“No,” she murmured. “I don’t want to talk to you. My uncle’s right. You need to leave.”

“Or I’ll
make
you leave,” Johnny assured him.

Tears welled in Sophie’s eyes. “Just go.
Please
?”

Jake reached for her, but she turned away and threw her arms around her uncle’s chest.

He wanted to reach for her—to pull her back into his arms. But it would just make things worse. So he told her quietly, “Okay, Sophie, I’ll go back to the hotel and wait for you there.”

“I’ll send someone for her things,” the coach corrected him. “When she’s ready to talk, she knows where to find you. Are we clear?”

Jake stared into the face of his longtime hero, then nodded stiffly. “I love her, Coach. And she loves me. So if you want to help, start there.”

The suggestion was too much for quarterback Johnny Spurling, who actually snarled. “
You’re
lecturing
us
? After the way you mocked her? That’s rich, Dublin.”

Sophie turned her face toward Jake again, but only long enough to say, “Please? Just go.” Then the two Spurling males closed ranks around her, and Jake murmured, “Call me, baby,” and strode off to the parking lot.

• • •

It didn’t make sense. How could Aaron Spurling be Sophie’s uncle? Had she actually grown up in a house with a Super Bowl–crushing coach, a superstar quarterback, and the coach’s other son, cornerback Jason Spurling? No wonder it was always filled with jocks! No wonder there was always a game on. They were watching
film
!

He waited at the hotel until seven, when a grim-faced bellhop appeared at the door and asked for Sophie’s belongings. There was no point in staying after that, so he booked himself on a ten p.m. flight. She wasn’t returning his calls or texts, and he imagined her locked away in the coach’s basement, wearing a chastity belt for good measure. If it hadn’t been so painful, it would have seemed comical, especially the way smoke had virtually poured from Johnny Spurling’s ears.

• • •

You’ll work it out,
he assured himself as he sat in the airport lounge.
She’ll read the blog posts and see that you were cool about things. Okay, maybe not cool, but not the way her asshole cousin made it sound.

Just to be sure, he pulled up the old posts on his AirBook and skimmed them wistfully, always retuning to that first, fateful, perfect meeting in the elevator. He could almost see her, standing there with her box of DVDs. Unbelievably cute, unbelievably hot.

A few lines made him wince. The one about the many meanings of “That’s sweet of you.” Would she find that offensive? He had written those lines from the heart, but now they actually sounded slightly mocking.

Dammit!

When his phone sounded, he knew from the
Psycho
ring tone that it was his ex. Next to Johnny Spurling this was the last person on earth he wanted to talk to, but she didn’t call often, so he decided to man up. “Hey, Tweetie. Is everything okay?”

“It’s better than that,” she said in a surprisingly warm voice. “I’m on my way to Vegas. To retie the knot, believe it or not.”

“Huh?” He closed his eyes, certain he was dreaming. Sophie was a Spurling? And Tweetie was a bride?

“Is it that hard to believe? You have your elevator girl, right? And guess what, Jake? Remember Dr. Fenton, our fertility specialist?”

“You’re marrying a
girl
?”

“No, idiot.” Tweetie laughed in loud delight. “I almost forgot how stupid you are. Anyway, the doc found me a baby. So that’s why Sam and I are rushing things a little.”

Jake tried to respond, but couldn’t find a word other than “baby,” which stuck in his throat like a ball of dust.

“One of her fertility patients—a success story until three days ago—is going through hell and decided, eight months in, she didn’t want to be a mom. It’s a heartbreaker, Jake. But still—Dr. Fenton thought of
me
. Or
us
, I guess, but toward the end there, it really was just me, so . . .”

He forced himself to talk again. “That’s fantastic, Tweet. You’ll be an amazing mom. But what about this Sam guy?”

“He’s rich. And pretty good-looking too. And he seems to like me.” She dropped the joking tone and assured Jake, “He loves me. And I love him. It wasn’t love at first sight, like you and your elevator girl, but it was close.”

“Man . . . that’s just great news.” He grimaced. “You don’t want me in Vegas for the ceremony, do you?”

“God forbid! I just wanted to share the news so you’d stop worrying about me and just concentrate on your new life. She’s sounds nice, Jake. Really nice.”

“Yeah, she’s great.”

“I’ve gotta go, but maybe someday soon, when we’re both in masochistic moods, the four of us—or rather, the five of us—can get together for a drink.”

“Sounds good, Tweetie.” He heard a beep on the line and announced quickly, “I’ve got another call—”

“Perfect, because Sam’s giving me the evil eye. Bye, Jake! Be happy.”

Jake switched over to the new caller. “Sophie?”

“Hey, Jake. It’s Randy McDowell.”

“Huh?”

“Randy McDowell. From the Hutchison Hot Seat. Is this a bad time?”

Jake exhaled in mental exhaustion. “It’s fine. What’s up?”

“I heard you were in LA for the Rustlers game and I was hoping to buy you a drink. There’s something we need to discuss, but I’d rather not do it on the phone.”

There wasn’t anything Jake wanted to discuss with anyone at this point so he explained, “My flight leaves in twenty minutes. I’ll be back in LA at the end of the month, though. So maybe then?”

Randy hesitated, then spoke in a low voice. “I’ve been talking you up at the network, and there’s a producer who’s
very
interested. He caught your bit on our show and liked the way you handled yourself. So he wants to meet. But first—well, this is awkward, but he needs you to apologize to Hutch first.”

“Apologize?” Jake scowled. “For what?”

“Hey, I’m with you. Hutch was a jerk and you handled it like a pro. But he’s got a lot of sway here, and they don’t want him bolting for another network. So if you’re interested, you’ll need to suck it up.”

Jake forced himself to think it through. Did the network actually want him to do play-by-play? It had been years since he’d made a living that way, and while it was fun in its own way, and would probably pay a lot better than his current gig, it didn’t give him the freedom to do what he loved most—designing plays, not just evaluating them after the fact.

The blog, for all its faults, gave him that chance, at least on a small scale. But the blog was imploding, wasn’t it?

“I don’t know, McDowell,” he murmured. “Play-by-play? It’s not really my thing anymore despite the name of my column.”

“I think it’s more color commentary than play-by-play,” Randy countered firmly. “And it can probably be anything you want it to be. The truth is, they just think you’ve got charisma and they want to tap it. It’s an amazing compliment, Dub. You could end up with your own show someday, and trust me, if that happened, me and Chuck Messina would bail on Hutch in a heartbeat.”

A disembodied voice was announcing Jake’s flight, so he murmured, “I appreciate the call. I need to think it through, obviously.”

“Understood. I’ll call you midweek. How’s that?”

Jake stood and hefted his gym bag over his shoulder. “That works. Thanks, buddy. I probably don’t sound as appreciative as I feel, but it’s been a crazy day, so I’m not sure I’m even processing this yet.”

“Take your time,” Randy agreed. “But know this: It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”

And all I have to do is apologize to a freaking jackass to get it?

Jake steadied his temper, knowing that a big part of his anger was actually directed at Johnny Spurling. And a
huge
part was directed at himself. So he thanked Randy again, then texted Sophie for the tenth time as he hurried toward the gate.

Chapter Twelve

Jake Dublin: THE OPINIONATED SPORTS GUY

Sept. 4: Off and running

There’s a lot on the menu today, folks. Two apologies and a college rundown. So let’s get to it.

Apology #1
goes out to Hutch Hutchison. Remember how I called him a misogynist on national television? I should remember not to use such big words—especially ones with Greek roots— without looking them up first. Apparently, misogynist means “a guy who hates women.” I don’t know whether Hutch hates them so I was wrong to make that charge. I mean, let’s face it, the guy clearly doesn’t
respect
women, but I don’t know the fancy word for that, other than just a generic scumbag or jerk-off. But misogynist? I might have been wrong about that. So I’m truly sorry, Hutch. I should have stuck with “dirtbag,” which you clearly are. My bad.

Apology #2
is for my elevator girl. As you know, we went to the Rustlers game together, and I was prepared to make a full confession. I had it all written out, plus I was going to propose to her in a naked attempt to buy her affection. Crazy, right? As in, I was crazy to think I could pull it off.

Anyway, it all went south so fast, I couldn’t keep up. And now, trust me, she’s steamed. And I don’t blame her. I thought I was writing a tribute about how cool she is, but clearly, I screwed up. So anyway—I’m sorry, EG. You deserve better than me, but that won’t stop me from trying to get you back.

Now for the college rankings, real and projected. I watched a marathon of games in the wee hours of the morning, so I think I’m up to speed . . .

Click
here
for more college sports from Jake Dublin . . .

COMMENTS:

Ed the first
:

Dammmm, hoss. Sounds rough. And you’re crazy if you think USC’s gonna tank. We’re just warming up.

Tweetie Burred
: