RHINO: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel OFFSIDE!) (6 page)

I didn’t need to tell him I had a huge crush on him. There was no need for that at all. I should have just admitted I knew who he was, that we were obviously at the same college together, although clearly didn’t move in the same social circles, and left it at that. What the hell am I doing fuelling his already huge ego, especially when I’m the one telling the truth and he’s making something up to play a game with me?

No more wine. No more past. No more conversations about some kind of assumed emotional connection, and nothing more about me. I’m the reporter here, not the reported, and I’m the one who was summoned not the one who did the summoning. Alex wants me to get to know him so I see the truth, well today that starts for real. Today I’m the Lucy Parker of Endzone magazine, number one shit journalist in the whole of the country, and I’m not prepared to take any more of Alex Vann Haden’s bullshit.

I shower in a purpose built wet room as big as a squash court with jet’s that come out of the wall at the perfect height to excite me if I adjust the pressure in exactly the right way. I feel like a teenager again, discovering the incredible properties of the adjustable shower head in the family bathroom, and lose myself in thoughts of making The Rhino pay for his poor taste comments over dinner.

When I finally pull myself away, obviously in no rush to do anything too quickly today - these seven days might get old quickly, especially if Alex decides he doesn’t want to keep his mouth shut - I’m refreshed, invigorated and ready to begin work. I’m hungry too, which isn’t surprising, because when I check the time on my cell, noticing in the meantime I still haven’t got reception, I see it’s almost twelve o’clock.

After wandering the wrong way up several corridors, I finally find my way back to the patio, where I find Alex, shirtless and sweaty, deep into a session of pounding seven levels of shit out of a punching bag. He doesn’t notice me right away, and I choose not to make my presence known until it feels awkward and far too voyeuristic.

I’ve never seen the beauty in boxing before, like some people do, never been convinced of its grace, but now, watching Alex’s muscles flex in the sunlight, seeing the sweat shimmer across his skin, the ink of that Rhino tattoo shine like oil on water, I’m ready to change my opinion. There is nothing more exciting than seeing perfection in nature - an animal at the height of its evolutionary cycle, doing the one task it was put on this earth for - and watching Alex round the bag, bob, weave, dance in the low sunlight as though never out of sync with the world around him, I’m reminded of that perfection, and how we rarely see it in the human world.

Athletes at the height of their careers, dancers, physical performers, boxers from time to time, and Alex now, this morning, and probably every morning, deep into his routine, muscles flexing, abs defined across his Adonis belt, the rucked up shorts around that bulge, bigger than the photo I couldn’t take my eyes off, somehow more defined, more alive.

I’m not even crushing, I mean, I am, obviously, but it’s more than that. On one level it’s base, it’s pure sexual attraction, raw animal magnetism - which I’d never admit to him in a thousand years by the way - and on another plane entirely, a higher level that Alex would probably struggle to understand as much as a cheetah would simple mathematics, it’s nothing but appreciation.

Pure and simple appreciation of form, much like I feel when I see him play. When he throws the ball or picks out a pass or just does something you don’t expect and you can do nothing but stand there in admiration and clap your hands, and say well done, no matter who he is, no matter how arrogant and big headed and no matter how much you dislike him.

“
Good view?”

I realize I have my mouth open. I realize I’m not hidden at all. I wonder how long he’s been feigning ignorance and without any right to be, I’m indignant that he hasn’t acknowledged my presence already. Not that I’m the one who has been kind of hiding. Perving is far too strong and complimentary a word so I’m sticking with hiding for now.

“
I’ve seen better.”

Alex hugs the bag to a stop and smiles at me from behind the leather.

“
You want a go? Good for a hangover.”

“
I’m a pacifist.”

“
In that case, there’s some Vicodin in the kitchen.”

“
Something to eat will be fine.”

Alex takes the tape off his gloves with his teeth, his eyes never once dropping from me.

“
Sleep well?”

“
Like a baby.”

“
You know, I’ve never understood that expression, it’s my understanding that babies never sleep well at all.”

“
How on earth would you know that?”

“
Wait, you didn’t know that about me? I thought you knew I liked to sleep around.”

His smile tells me he’s lampooning himself, or at least he’s either convinced he hasn’t got any illegitimate children knocking around anywhere in the US, or he doesn’t care if he does. We make our way from one patio to another, where breakfast has already been prepared and awaits us, spread across two tables like an immense banquet, large enough to feed an entire family. Maybe this is his secret after all. Maybe he’s about to reveal mini Alex’s. Now that would be a hell of a scoop.

We sit down and Alex decides to remain topless, which is clearly an attempt to get a reaction out of me I’m unwilling to give. No matter how thick those arms are. No matter how tight and perfectly defined those abs. I’m not as shallow as the girls he’s used to, and it’s going to take more than just a flash of skin to impress me. I bet he’s used to not even having to open his mouth for women to fall at his feet and kiss his toes, but this one isn’t going to break so easily.

I pour coffee, place a croissant on my plate, take a slice of cheese.

“
So, this is it?”

“
Pretty much.”

“
What do you do to relax?”

Alex smiles. “Do you like boats?”

Don’t tell me he’s got a cruise ship moored up behind this rock somewhere. A secret James Bond style hidden subterranean jetty.

“
I’ve never really thought about it.”

“
I thought we could go for a ride.”

“
A sail?”

“
A cruise.”

Christ, he has got a floating palace.

“
I thought that today I was working.”

“
You are.”

“
I am? Have I started yet?”

“
You started the moment you tripped out of my helicopter.”

“
Don’t hold that against me.”

“
Besides which, we might not get another opportunity.”

“
Why, are you sick of me already?”

“
Quite the opposite actually, especially after your revelation last night.”

I fucking knew he’d bring this up.

“
Yeah, about that. You know I was joking, right?”

“
I still have the valentine’s cards.”

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

“
Don’t look like that, I’m only joking.”

The croissant tastes so good, I take another.

“
You don’t eat?”

“
I already did.”

“
So, back to the point. All that stuff from last night, let’s just start afresh, ok?”

“
My bet still stands.”

Alex pours himself coffee and I’m distracted momentarily by the way the tattoo reacts to the muscle movement in his arm. It makes me imagine myself wrapped inside it and it makes me hesitate for a second over what I’m about to say. I think Alex notices it too, even though he doesn’t say.

“
On this, what exactly is it you want?”

“
Honesty.”

“
You’re not retiring?”

Alex shakes his head. “Hadn’t even considered it.” Then there’s that wry fucking smile as though he’s hiding the truth. I decide to leave it. If he wants to play coy, he can. We get out of this as much as he puts in, and it’s no skin off my nose if he wants to hold back. For whatever purpose, I’ll write what’s appropriate at the very end of this weird experience.

“
Then?”

“
Like I said before, I need someone to write something about me, the real me, for the first time.”

“
Why?”

Alex shrugs. “Because it’s never been done before.”

“
And that’s it?”

“
That’s it.”

“
No ulterior motive?”

“
No ulterior motive.”

“
Your team know?”

“
No.”

“
You don’t think you should tell them?”

“
Football players give interviews all the time, it’s nothing unusual.”

“
Not this one.”

“
No.”

“
Why is that?”

Alex pauses briefly to sip his coffee. It’s a tell. It tells me he doesn’t like the question, but that’s not my problem.

“
I told you already.”

“
Tell me again.”

“
I could tell you about the boat instead.”

“
This isn’t going to work-.”

Alex looks away and then back again. “If someone held up a piece of fruit to you when you were a kid and said, this is an apple, and you’d never seen that piece of fruit before, what would you think it was?”

“
An apple.”

“
Now imagine that throughout your life, people kept telling you that that very same fruit was an apple until one day someone said it wasn’t an apple, it was a pear and you’d been lied to all of your life.”

“
Go on.”

“
It would be difficult to change your opinion, right?”

“
Why have I been lied to in the first place? That’s my question.”

Alex smiles. When he does so, his whole face lights up and it’s a smile that reminds me of innocence, of lost days as a child, of finding treasures, of eating cookies.

“
See, that’s the reporter inside you. Always concerned with the question.”

“
You’re not the person people think you are?”

“
I got tired of it.”

“
And now you want to set the record straight?”

“
I’ve realized that being silent means I can’t even defend myself.”

“
Not everyone hates you.”

“
But nobody knows the truth about me.”

“
Which is what?”

“
I’m sensitive, considerate, humble.”

“
I’m looking for the end game.”

“
This time, I don’t have one.”

His eyes tell a different story entirely. “I don’t believe that for a minute. Alex Vann Haden without an end game?”

He leans forward. “I’m going to answer your next question now.”

“
I haven’t even finished on the first.”

“
That’s why you’re here for a week. Sure, I could have gone to anyone, sat in front of a TV camera and spoken sincerely to the world, but that’s not me either.”

“
And here, you are you?”

“
I’m me on the field and I’m me, here, away from it.”

“
Boxing gloves and banquet breakfasts?”

“
You wait until you see the rest.”

“
I want to see what’s not put on. Don’t tell me this is the same every morning. Or maybe it is, with a different girl.”

“
I meant what I said last night.”

“
Come on, let’s not do that again.”

“
I mean it, Lucy. I regret not reaching out to you when I could.”

I still can’t tell whether he’s bullshitting or not. Whatever the case, that moment has passed and I’m definitely not that naive now. The only thing that’s the same is that I’m still that nerdy bookworm and he’s still that arrogant quarterback and it wouldn’t work now just as much as it didn’t work then. Long distance relationships don’t work, period.

“
You said you didn’t bring me here to hit on me.”

“
I didn’t and I’m not. I’m just reminiscing, that’s all.”

“
You’ll have to do better than that to convince me.”

That smile again, that secret fucking twinkle in the eyes that says
I could have you anytime I wanted just because
.