Play Maker (2 page)

“What’s the list today?” I asked him. “Any changes?”

He glanced back at me and I noticed there was a hole near the collar of his t-shirt. I made a mental note to snag it from the laundry bin so I could mend it before washing it. It had been a lucky find at Goodwill, with a big picture of the TARDIS on the front, and Mikey loved it.

He was furrowing his brow at me, mentally cataloguing the Doctors. Every night he would list his favorites in order. Though a few of them remained constant, sometimes there was a surprise or two.

“Ten,” he started with, which was not unusual. David Tennent had been the top ranking Doctor for a while now. Mikey had even asked for a version of his coat for Christmas. I knew they sold it online, but I was hoping I could find a pattern and make it myself. Luckily I still had a few months – Mikey liked to get his requests in early. He seemed to understand that this Santa often needed a little time to plan. “Twelve. Four. Eleven. One. Nine. Six. Two. Eight. Three. Five. Seven.”

“One is really moving up the list,” I noted, pouring the noodles into the now boiling water.

“He’s the first,” Mikey explained. “He’s important.”

“That’s true,” I grabbed a wooden spoon. “Want to stir?”

He took it and stirred the pot carefully, while quietly humming the Doctor Who theme song. I hummed it back at him and then incorporated some “bum bum bum”s. Without even missing a beat, he added an enthusiastic “oooo wa wa”. I smiled at the back of his head. We were getting pretty good at it. Things like that kept me from taking my day too seriously. What would I do without him?

“Looks like I’m going to have a day off next week,” I told him. “Want to go to the movies?”

“Mmm.” He was now focused completely on the pot of noodles.

“It’s that zombie one.” I tried to remember the name. “
26 Days
?”

“
28 Days
,” Mikey corrected. “Nine. Ok.”

Nine meant that the actor playing the ninth doctor was in it. And even though Nine was only ranked #6, I was glad he was interested in going to the movie.

I pulled out my phone and looked up the schedule for our local, cheapo movie theater. They didn’t play any new releases, instead doing themed months with older movies. Zombies were this month’s theme. I liked it because I could get him popcorn and a soda for only $5.

“There’s one next Thursday at 3:00pm.” I could probably do our laundry first thing in the morning and be home in time to have lunch with Mikey and then go to the movies. My days off were always our special day and I tried to get all my other things done early so I had time to spend with him.

“Ok.” His attention was focused on the pot boiling on the stove.

“Do you think they’re done?” I asked him.

“They look squishy,” he observed.

“They do,” I agreed. “Let’s get them out of the water and into the cheese!”

He giggled. “Into the cheese!”

I drained the noodles and emptied a packet of cheese into the bowl. Mikey stirred it for me and I divided our dinner into two bowls. Following my brother, I went into the living room with him and we took a seat on the couch. I handed him the remote.

“Tell me what’s happening,” I said, even though I had seen this episode half a dozen times. But Mikey’s recaps were always the best.

I leaned back in the couch as he launched into his description of the episode. While he told me all about Trenzalore and the logistics of Time Lord regeneration, I ate my cheesy noodles and felt completely and utterly at peace.

“
Y
ou made the cover again
!” Rick slapped the tabloid down on the bench in front of my locker. The photo was blurry, but had a baseball capped guy, brim down, walking out of a strip club with an extremely attractive, extremely young, scantily clad woman.

“Christ.” I grabbed the magazine, looking at the cover and then back at my teammate. “At least tell me she was eighteen,” I groaned, flipping through the tabloid. I skimmed the article, which had a few more choice photos, including one of the young woman wrapped around the guy like an octopus. “The Play Maker balances another,” the headline read. “Star footballer seen out on the town with a new paramour only one night after stepping out with model, Mariska Gratton. His lust will not be tamed!”

“Of course she was eighteen,” Rick snatched the magazine back. “What kind of bloke do you think I am?”

I bit my tongue on that. Rick was our keeper, number #25. He was also a divorced father of three who enjoyed the company of many, many ladies while the team was out on the road. A married father of three, who from certain angles bore an awfully close resemblance to #65. Me.

Rick rolled up the tabloid and shoved it in his back pocket, sauntering over to his locker to get ready for practice.

At least he was having a good time in the States. And it was pretty impressive considering we had only arrived yesterday. Most of us had checked into the hotel and crashed. Not Rick. His lust for partying would not be detained by jet lag. Even though I was the one they called the Play Maker, he was the one who really deserved the moniker. Who really worked for it.

My nickname had less to do with my skills on the field and more to do with my antics off. Antics that I could only take partial credit for. The night out with Mariska before we left for Los Angeles, yeah, that had been me. As had the week before with an aspiring actress named Cynthia…something. And the week before with that shopgirl from Harrods. But picking up women at strip clubs? Naw, that wasn’t my style at all. But that was Rick’s, through and through.

Of course, the tabloids couldn’t tell the difference between us. Guess all football players look the same to them. Even to the reporters that had followed us overseas. I tried not to take offense at the fact that I was taller and much more fit than my teammate, who was nearly ten years older then I was. But I couldn’t deny that in those photographs, taken from a distance, at night and with his face obscured, the mistake could be made.

And it was a mistake that Rick had been taking advantage of since I started on the team, and one I never really had a problem with. We were teammates, after all. Brothers, really. And brothers helped each other out. So he got to keep his affairs out of the papers – and away from his family – and I got a reputation that kept me knee deep in ladies’ knickers. The more the tabloids reported on me sleeping around, the more women became interested in joining the club. I had never had to work very hard to get a woman into bed, but now my reputation did most of the remaining work for me. Entering a bar, I could hear the whispers spread through the crowd, followed by a wave of interested female faces turned my way. I never was at a loss for female companionship. Women love a scoundrel, and I loved being one.

Though lately, I’d noticed a change in the kind of women that were interested in me. And that was also due to the tabloids. While my manwhore narrative sold papers, the articles started planting hints that settling down wasn’t such a bad idea either. The whole “wild man tamed” storyline that I had absolutely no interest in. Maybe Rick’s strip club escapades would put a damper on that idea. I stripped down and put on my uniform. Not that I had time to think about what gossip magazines wrote about me. It came with the territory, but I just had to accept it, I didn’t have to embrace it. The exhibition was coming up and I had a lot of other things to worry about. And speaking of other things to worry about.

“Oi.” Ethan, my manager and best mate, came barreling into the locker room, waving the exact same tabloid Rick had just shoved into my face.

“I already saw it,” I told him, pulling my uniform over my head.

“Well, then you already know that I’ve been on the phone with all the other tabloids. They all want to know who this one is.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Do you even know who this one is?”

I nodded towards Rick, who was showing the magazine off to the other players. Ethan was one of the few people who knew about our arrangement. He had gone on record several times saying that he was against it. Then again, it was his job to be against anything that could be construed as fun.

“Another one of his,” I informed him.

Ethan ran a hand through his hair, still looking a bit jetlagged. “His taste is not improving,” he noted, looking down at the magazine.

“She’s not bad looking,” I argued, as if my own taste in women was being questioned.

“No, she’s a fine piece,” Ethan agreed. “But does he have to get caught outside of strip clubs so often?”

“He’s a man of specific tastes.” I yanked on my cleats.

“Which makes you a man of the same tastes.”

I pretended to be offended. “Are you protecting my honor now?”

“Just trying to help your brand,” Ethan told me.

I grimaced. “I hate that term and you know it. I’m just a bloke that can kick a ball.”

“And bed every woman in Britain.” Ethan waved the magazine again. “And now the States.”

“So that’s my brand.” I flashed him a grin. “A damn lucky bloke.”

“A right underserving one,” Ethan shot back, though he was only joking.

I snatched the tabloid out of his hand. “Besides, what’s that they say about there being no such thing as bad press?”

But Ethan had sobered. “Do you know how many times your mum has called?”

My heart sank at that one. My poor mum. I couldn’t deny that Rick’s taste in women – and his lax attitude in hiding his extracurricular activities – was becoming too much for her. I was beginning to come off like a real sleazeball, and she had started dropping disapproving hints about my overactive, and highly publicized, sex life.

“What kind of woman is going to marry a man who dips his wick every chance he gets?” she kept asking me. “No nice girl is going to have you.”

“I don’t like nice girls,” I kept telling her. Because I didn’t. Nice girls were exhausting, honestly. You couldn’t be yourself around nice girls. All my married teammates – Rick included before the divorce – had found a nice girl and look where it led them. Hiding their true nature in late night trips to strip clubs and bars. I didn’t want to marry someone I had to lie to. Nice girls deserved nice boys. They didn’t deserve me – a bad boy, who liked being a bad boy. Loved it, in fact. Which is why I never planned to get married. Not that I could ever tell my mum that. She still had dreams about my future wife and all my little offspring running around somewhere. I didn’t have the heart to tell her to stop waiting for that dream of hers to come true.

Besides, I liked bad girls. Girls who knew how to have a good time. Who didn’t care if you called. Who enjoyed sex and saw it for what it was – fun. Girls who wanted to fuck, not make love and definitely didn’t want to cuddle at the end of it. We understood each other. We didn’t lie about what we wanted and who we were.

Luckily for me, I usually didn’t have any problem finding girls like that. Lately, though, I’d had a few close calls – women that revealed their true intent after the fact. Women who thought they could trap me into marriage by claiming I had gotten them pregnant. I thanked God every day that I had decided to get a vasectomy when I joined Manchester. Another thing I couldn’t tell my mum. Most of my friends thought I was nuts, that I’d change my mind, but in the last six years, I’d never had a moment of regret.

Lots of moments of fun, though. Damn, I loved women. Loved every fucking inch of them. Loved exploring each inch as well, nice and slow. All night long if I could. But lately I had been a little more cautious about the women I slept with, and my one night stands weren’t turning out to be as fun as they used to be. Which was a damn shame.

But, judging from those tabloid photos, Rick wasn’t having the same problem at all. And now I was getting all the flack and none of the fun. Dammit.

“You know I’ve got half a dozen meetings lined up while we’re here,” Ethan reminded me. “And none of them are going to like this.” He dropped the tabloid onto the bench. “None of them are going to want to do business with a man with a reputation like yours.”

“I don’t believe that,” I told him, though I couldn’t deny that small twinge of doubt. Was he right? Did tabloid hold that much sway over public opinion? Did charities care? “These people will look at the money and turn a blind eye to everything else.”

“Let’s hope so,” Ethan said. “Or else you’re going to have to start rethinking your big plan.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Have a good practice, ok?”

“Yeah, alright,” but my mind was already elsewhere. I hadn’t even thought of how my Play Maker reputation might impact my future plans. Had I royally fucked myself? No, I quickly pushed that thought away. I had never let other people’s opinion of me determine my future and I certainly wasn’t going to start now. All those people that told me to aim lower, that a career in football was too unattainable, too unpredictable. I had proven them wrong, hadn’t I? I had worked damn hard to get to this point in my life. If I had to prove myself anew, I would.

But still, I felt a headache building at the back of my skull. This was the last thing I needed right now. Between jetlag and the tabloids and the awareness of my mum’s disapproval and big life changes on the horizon, I just wanted to lose myself in something. Or better yet, in someone. Didn’t we have a cocktail thing at the hotel tonight? That was exactly what I needed. Just get through practice, I told myself. After all this, you’ve definitely earned a cold drink, a hot shower and an equally hot fuck. And not necessarily in that order.

W
hen I walked
into the bar that night, Maya was already talking to our manager, Steve. He waved me over and when I came over to the bar, he did what he usually did. He reached down and pinched my ass. Since I really needed this job, I forced a smile when what I really wanted to do was punch him in the face.

“Got my best babes on the job tonight.” He gave me what he probably thought was an appealing wink. “Maya will fill you in,” he said before sauntering away.

What a sleazeball.

I looked back at Maya who was so excited that she was vibrating.

“What was he talking about?” I asked, now curious.

“V.I.P.s!” she leaned over to grab my arms, giving me a shake with each letter. “V. I. P. Private. Party.”

We both knew what that meant. Lots of drinking and big, fat tips.

Even though those parties were open bar, paid for by the hotel, our tip jar was always out and it always got filled. And usually the attendees were drunk enough to open their wallets pretty wide. The size of the tip usually depended on the kind of group we were hosting. Corporate VIPs were good. Entertainment VIPs were better. And…

“What kind of VIPs?” I needed to know.

Maya’s eyes sparkled. “Athletes.”

Fuck yeah. I could practically see money signs flashing above Maya’s head and I’m sure I looked the same. No one topped athletes when it came to tipping at the end of a night. They spent money like it was going out of business. And the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Last month, Mikey had fallen down the stairs and a trip to the emergency room had cut into our already tight monthly budget. Thankfully he had only needed a few stitches but the bill had been keeping me up at night.

“What kind of athletes?” I asked. Not like my knowledge of sports expanded beyond the Little League Challenger games I had taken Mikey to. That was during the very brief period when he was interested in playing baseball.

“Soccer players,” Maya breathed. “British soccer players.”

Damn. Nothing made me swoon faster than an English accent. And athletes – of all stripes – were notorious playboys. Fat chance any of them would look at me, or Maya, with a relationship in mind.

From the glint in her eyes, I could tell that Maya was thinking the exact same thing.

“You know I get first dibs,” I reminded her and she frowned.

“Dammit.” She slapped the bar. That was our rule. If we both spotted a hot guy, the girl who had gotten laid the most recently had to step aside for the one who needed it more. Slut code. Nothing more sacred. And right now, I needed I hot guy really fucking bad. It had been over three weeks. Way too long.

“How did it go with the agent last night, by the way?” I asked, coming around to her side of the bar.

“Ugh.” She sprawled dramatically over the polished wood.

“That bad?”

“Well.” She propped herself up on her elbow. “The waffles were good.”

I winced and she shrugged.

“It wasn’t terrible.” She began pulling out glasses.

“Just not great,” I finished for her. “Did he try to cuddle too?”

She nodded. “It’s just like you said last night – more and more guys seem to think ‘one night stand’ is code for ‘first date’.”

“It’s the new meet-cute,” I joked. “I don’t think we’ll have that problem with any of tonight’s VIPs. Athletes aren’t known for their unquenchable desire for pillow talk.”

“I hope not,” Maya winked at me. “Or I’d be really worried for the state of our society.”

B
y the time
we opened for the party, I had learned a whole lot more about our visitors from across the pond, thanks to Manager Steve who was the hotel’s biggest gossip. In town for an exhibition of some sort, they had arrived yesterday and were staying in the hotel, which was close to the convention center where they practiced and where the exhibition would be held in a week or so. This event was the hotel’s effort to welcome them to Los Angeles, so they were sparing no expense with booze and appetizers.

Maya had pulled up some photos on her phone and damn, if I hadn’t considered taking up a dedicated interest in soccer. Or football as the Brits seemed to call it. Apparently, they really didn’t like it when Americans confused the two, as Manager Steve had reiterated at least twelve times during our pre-opening debriefing. We had more staff than usual, four more girls who would be out in the crowd with trays of food and eventually getting drink orders, but it was still just me and Maya behind the bar. I preferred it that way – I was only interested in the guys who came to me, anyways. I didn’t need to be wooed, but I sure as hell liked to be pursued.

As the clock ticked towards eight, I felt that familiar buzz of adrenaline in my gut. Parties were where I shined. And they would mean the difference between living on ramen for the next month or being able to get fresh groceries for meals. Sometimes I dreamt about avocados, a rare purchase in our house.

Manager Steve went to open the bar and decided to stand awkwardly by the door, even though anyone who had any kind of experience with parties knew that absolutely no one would be showing up for at least an hour and when they did, the first people to arrive wouldn’t be the ones he was hoping to impress. The actual VIPs would show up at least three hours later after their agents, managers and anyone else who had snagged an invitation. And no one was going to be impressed by a sweaty guy in an ill-fitting suit standing by an open door. They certainly weren’t going to think he was the manager.

I pulled out a stick of gum, wanting to occupy my mouth for a while. Hopefully by the end of the evening I’d find something far more enticing to do with my mouth. Several members of the soccer team were certainly tasty enough to try. And oh boy, I was ready for them.

I caught Maya’s gaze across the room and blew a bubble for her. She shook her head and then nodded down to my shirt. I glanced down, hoping I hadn’t spilled anything on myself, but found nothing. “What?” I mouthed, looking back up at her. She gestured to her own shirt, which had at least two more undone buttons than usual. Leaning forward, she gave a little shimmy, shaking her perfect, petite bosom. I shook my head. She could pull off a gaping neckline like that – it looked chic and effortless on her. Undoing that many buttons on my blouse would have my tits practically spilling out onto the bar. I’d look like a bad girl looking for a good time. Then again…

I unbuttoned one. And then another. My adrenaline was beginning to kick in. I
was
a bad girl looking for a good time and I could only hope that one of the men tonight would know exactly what to do with a girl like me.

T
wo hours later
, I was in my element. The room had filled up and the party was in full swing. Men in suits and gorgeous women were milling around. A few of the players had shown up, but most of them were sporting wedding bands and though that was definitely a way to guarantee that a one night stand stayed a one night stand, I was not interested in guys that cheated on their wives. I had too much respect for other women to do that.

But, men being men, I had still gotten a few interested leers from those sporting gold on their finger. For them, I put on my dumb blonde act, pretending that I just didn’t understand all the sexual innuendos they were throwing my way. A vacant stare and forced giggle after a bad sexual joke usually dissuaded most of them. The more aggressive ones I ignored until they went away.

“Any prospects?” Maya came over to my side of the bar to grab another bottle of whiskey.

I scanned the room again, seeing some attractive guys but none who were setting my panties on fire. I might have been a slut, but I was a slut with discerning taste. Not just any guy would do. I had standards. “Not yet,” I told her, swapping out my flavorless piece of gum for a fresh piece.

“Don’t worry.” She patted me on the shoulder. “I heard that most of the team isn’t even here yet.”

“That’s a relief.” I poured gin and olive juice into a shaker and gave it a firm rattle. “I’d really hate to give up on men completely.”

“Ha! That would be the day,” Maya teased. “Nicole Grant without an interest in men? I’d pay good money to see that.”

“Well,” I elbowed past her to grab a martini glass from the shelf. “You better be prepared to pay up because if I can’t find a guy in a crowd of British athletes, I’m hanging up my slut cap for good.”

She laughed and I turned back towards the room, a shaker in one hand, a martini glass in another and that’s when I saw him. Tall, broad, with dark brown hair that needed my hands in it. There was a bit of stubble on his cheeks – just the right amount – and the deepest blue eyes I’d ever seen. The room seemed to quiet as he entered, the crowd parting to let him through. Or maybe I was just imagining it.

His gray t-shirt was stretched tight across his chest, his bare arms inked up and down. I remembered him from the tabloids my mom read, but the photos there had hardly done him justice. They had called him the Prince Harry of Soccer, and I could see why. One look and I was ready to get on my knees in front of him and pledge allegiance to Queen and country. And do a few other, less noble things while I was down there.

God. Damn. I thought, and felt the martini glass slipping from my fingers and smashing on the floor, followed immediately by the shaker. In all my years as a bartender I had never broken a single thing. And in that moment, I didn’t even care.

“Wow,” Maya breathed next to me.

“Dibs,” I muttered, but it was totally unnecessary. His blue gaze had found me and a wicked smile spread across his face as he headed towards the bar. He was all mine.