Preseason Love (20 page)

It's starting. Oh goodness, Scottie, get ready.

It was all going so fast. The first name was called. Marion walked up on the stage, he put on his new team's gear, his photo was taken, and then he was handed off to his PR escort to do the media circuit. The media circuit was essentially a press conference, television interviews, radio interviews, online interviews, and a photo shoot all crammed into a couple of hours. Each draftee was
required to participate. It was like a promotional tour on steroids.

Security detail was assigned to each PR escort walking players through the media circuit. After the third pick, I gave my assigned security agent a quick head nod. He was a huge man sporting a low-cut fade with an all-black suit that he could have only purchased from the big and tall store. He reminded me of an extra-large version of Blade.

“With the fourth pick, the Portland Pythons select…Rusty Danonbrook.”

Since we had no inside track as to who would get picked at what number, I researched the top ten potential draftees so that I would be relatively familiar with whoever came in at number four. Now the suspense was over and I knew that I would be escorting Rusty. He was young enough to be my little brother but nonetheless handsome. Now the young, handsome millionaire with the nicely tailored, navy blue suit was headed my way.

“Congratulations. I'm Scottie Malveaux with The League PR, and I'll be guiding you through the media circuit.”

It was obvious that he was still in shock and riding on an understandable high. His dreams had come true. He had been drafted into The League. Life as he knew it was about to change dramatically and this was only the first step on his new journey.

I was pretty sure that he heard my introduction as he responded to what I said to him. But I was positive that he had no clue what I was talking about when I mentioned the media circuit, and quite honestly, I was as clueless as to what to expect. We had run through the circuit during the walk-through earlier in the day. But now the test run was over and things were moving fast. People were buzzing about everywhere you turned, which made it challenging to concentrate.

I instructed Rusty to follow me up the pathway, and we headed
toward the jungle that was the media circuit. The security officer led the way and kept the throngs of fans that were calling out to Rusty at bay. The first stop was the press conference room.

“Rusty,” I said, pointing. “Go and take a seat at the podium.”

I sound like his mother. Oh well, he followed my direction and that's all that matters.

After all of the print reporters asked him a slew of questions—How do you feel about being in The League? Are you excited to play for the Portland Pythons? How will you celebrate tonight?—the moderator wrapped up the press conference and it was time to move on.

The press conference was a warm-up for the live interviews that were about to take place. As we walked over to the live shots area, Rusty became a bit more comfortable with me.

“Man, this is all so crazy and surreal,” Rusty said.

“I know. Dreams do come true, right?”

“Man, you have no idea,” he said, shaking his head. “When do I get to see my family?”

“They'll meet you after all of your media interviews. So pretty much about an hour and a half from now.”

As we were talking we walked into the live shots area which was set up like a bunch of cubbies sectioned off by black drapes to give each television crew their relative privacy.

Rusty asked, “So what do I have to do now?”

I fixed my lips to respond. However, before I could answer, I heard an annoying, high-pitched squeal over my shoulder chiming in.

“I'll take him through this part of the circuit,” Britney said in a snide tone. “You've never done this before.”

I spoke up with authority in my voice to make sure that she
made no mistake about what I was about to say. “Actually, I can handle it. I'm sure that you have other responsibilities to tend to.”

I gave her a half-ass, fake smile and walked away telling Rusty to follow me. I could tell that he recognized the tension in the exchange.

“Y'all got beef?”

“No, I don't have patience for busybodies that are always doing too much.”

“Well, you definitely shut her down,” Rusty said, seemingly impressed. “I don't want to mess with you, Miss Lady.”

I glanced up and shot him a look of confirmation.

“Are you from New York?” he asked.

I quickly responded, “No,” figuring that he was trying to size me up.

I knew it was time to change the subject. “Let's start over there with ABC.” I pointed in their direction. “They will connect you to the local Portland ABC station, and you'll do the interview with the sportscasters via satellite.”

“Okay, cool.”

I went over to the station's booth with Rusty in tow. A cute little redhead producer informed me that she was ready for him and it was as easy as that. Once Rusty was settled in the chair and conducting his interview, I glanced over in Britney's direction to see if she had, in fact, found something better to do.

I zoned out for a minute thinking about the fifty different ways that I wanted to curse her out. Then the side of my stomach started to vibrate. It shook me out of my trance. It was my phone. I had it in my suit jacket pocket since I wasn't carrying a purse with me. I pulled the phone out of my pocket. It was a text message from Kari.
Hey babe, how's the draft going?

I started typing a reply when I felt a tall figure standing over me. I looked up from my phone.

“You're done?” I asked.

Rusty shrugged. “Yeah, where do I go next?”

I guided Rusty through the remainder of the local television interviews and he was pretty sharp on camera. He displayed quick wit and a great personality, which is not typically expected of athletes when they first start out in their professional careers. He also had the fact that he was a sexy young man with a killer smile working in his favor. A nice smile could always make me weak.

Our next stop on the media circuit was photos.

Rusty and I were walking side by side with security leading the way when I took out my phone to hit “send” on the message that I started earlier. That must have inspired him to try a little harder with me. “So where are you from?”

“Excuse me,” I said, as though I had not heard the question, knowing full well that I had.

“Well, you said that you aren't from New York. So where are you from?”

“California.”

“Okay, Cali is cool. I like Cali.”

“Uh huh,” I said, looking back at my phone.

“So do you work for The League or for a team?” he quickly followed up.

“I work for The League. Would you like a copy of my resume as well?”

“No. That might be too personal. But I'll settle for your phone number.”

Excuse me! You'll settle for my phone number? The intensity of young, this dude was too precious.

“That's cute,” I commented with a slight chuckle. I wasn't trying to completely dismiss his advance, but I didn't want to give him the wrong idea either.

“Cute? Really? You gonna hit me with the ‘cute' line.”

“Look, you're a nice young man. But honestly you're like my little brother's age. Plus, you are about to have so many chicks at your disposal. You'll be fine.”

“I'm not talking about all that. I'm trying to get this woman right here in front of me to check for me like I'm checking for her. But if you want to miss out on all this,” he said, putting his hands out, palms up, like a presentation, “then that's your loss.”

I looked up at Rusty and I couldn't control the urge to laugh. He laughed with me, likely because he could tell that I had no intentions of letting the conversation continue in that direction—which was a slippery slope. I couldn't give in and cross that line for jailbait. And more importantly, I had a man.

To my surprise, my man was waiting up for me after my night finally wrapped. At one-thirty in the morning he couldn't wait to hear all about my adventures and how my first draft experience went. Sometimes his enthusiasm about my job was so adorable.

I was exhausted from all of the walking and standing around all night, but I made him a deal that if he would massage my shoulders, I would give him all of the juicy insider details.

My back and shoulders were throbbing and Kari's hands worked magic to bring my body parts back to life. In keeping with my promise, while I sat between Kari's legs, I spilled every detail from the evening that could even remotely be considered juicy to a man who loved sports.

I did conveniently forget to mention the part about Rusty Danonbrook requesting my phone number for his archives. My
better judgment spoke to me loud and clear, and it said that letting a piece of information like that slip out of my lips would somehow cause an unpleasant situation. So I shut the hell up.

“Scottie!”

“Hunh!”

“Were you asleep?” he said as he kissed the side of my forehead.

I was still sitting in between Kari's legs when I dozed off. The last thing that I remembered was an image of Rusty's face. I could picture him so vividly: his smile, his caramel complexion, and his dreamy brown eyes. Something was intriguing about him. I had to rid my mind of those images. It couldn't lead to anything good.

“I'm sorry, babe. I guess I'm beat.”

“Let's go to bed then. Come to Papa. Let me carry my girl since she had such a long day,” Kari said with a sympathy smile.

I fell into Kari's arms. “You are too good to me.”

“So did you get a dance or did you watch him get grinded on all night?” Dev asked with a concerned look on her face.

We were hanging out in my room catching up since coming and going was the most that we'd seen of each other in the last few weeks.

“Honey, please, Kari and I went to the strip club to see the dancers. I had no plans to sit around and watch him get dances all night.”

Dev laughed loudly. “I heard that!”

“There was this one chick that was bad, though. You could tell she makes major money. I wanted her to stay far away from Kari. I would have paid her ass to stay away if I had to.”

Dev doubled over with laughter, but I was halfway serious. I knew that my man was fine. Mama raised a woman who was always a detective and never a fool.

“Well, that's good that you guys ventured out of the norm and had a nice time.”

“Yeah, it was definitely entertaining, but the encore at the house was even better!”

“Shut up! Let me find out you busted out some of the tricks you learned in class!”

“Girl, please. I had already tried out a few moves the same night that we took the class!”

“You. Are. A. Mess!”

“Please, I had to make sure to use what I learned while it was fresh on the brain.”

“I'm not mad at that, chick.” Dev initiated a high-five, then her face turned serious. “Do you trust Kari?”

“Where did that come from? Do you know something that I don't?”

“No, no, no,” Dev insisted. “It's just a question.”

“He's a good guy, but I'll probably never trust any man completely.”

“Is it because of your past? Namely Ivan?”

“Likely. I mean, I trust him only as far as I can see him. Kari hasn't given me any reason to treat him like I don't trust him. But at the same time, I'm not going to be stupid and give him an opportunity to screw me over either.”

“But he seems like such a stand-up guy. You two have been rocking with each other basically since you got here.”

“True. Don't misunderstand, I do care about him, and I enjoy our time together. I'm going to keep rocking with him. But a person will always have that room for error and for that reason, I situate him like the others—at a distance. But I'll have fun with him while it lasts.”

Dev looked at me like I was a cold bitch.

“Hey, I'm not trying to set myself up to be disappointed again.”

“Do you still think about Ivan?”

“Yeah. I guess, sometimes I feel like we have unfinished business. But really, if I'm being honest, he probably has a lot to do with why it's hard for me to trust. His deceptive ass fucked ya girl up.”

“You'll be fine, chick,” Dev said. “You're tough, you always bounce back.”

Dev and I sat in the room chatting for a few hours. We drank Riesling while we gossiped and reminisced. I told her all about the encounters that I'd had at the Athlete's Annual and the more recent incident at the draft.

“Did you mention to Kari that the ballers were showing you love?” She chuckled. “I wonder what would have happened if you didn't have a man?”

“Well, honestly, it wasn't even about Kari. I know that sounds bad to say, but it was more so a knee-jerk reaction—how bad would that look if I got caught up in some shit with one of our players.”

“Okay, okay,” Dev said with a laugh.

“And no, I didn't say anything to Kari,” I quickly added.

“You know that you're potentially playing with fire by not telling Kari, right? Never mind, don't answer. I know that you know.”

•  •  •

The following Wednesday at work, a select group of people were summoned into a last-minute, mandatory meeting. Having no idea what it was about, each person within the small group looked clueless as we walked into the coldest conference room on the ninth floor. The only communication that we received about the meeting was an email from Gail Dean, our department head, saying that she needed everyone to meet in five minutes.

Finally, after leaving us fidgeting and fumbling with anticipation, Dean walked in with what seemed like the news of death. She had on her signature, oversized slacks with her hair pulled back in a slick ponytail and a permanent scowl on her face. I noticed that
she was pretty good at presenting a no-nonsense face at all times, but in the last eight months of working at The League, she had never called this kind of meeting. If it would have been me alone, I would have been positive that I was getting fired.