The Baller (31 page)

I smiled. “Hi, Jana.”

“That’s better. How are you, sweetheart?”

“I’m good. How are things in Atlanta?”

“Hot.”

I looked at the temperature on the dashboard.
Thirty-five
. “Wish I could say the same.”

We talked for a while about the move and how they were settling into Atlanta life. Then she surprised me. “How are things between you and that handsome quarterback going?”

The fight between Brody and Colin had brought my relationship with Brody into the news. I’d wondered if it had made its way to Atlanta. “Um . . . we’re not . . . ”

“Oh. I’m sorry, honey. I just thought . . . well, I saw some pictures of the two of you, and the way you looked at him . . . I just thought maybe you had found someone.”

“The way I looked at him?”

“You looked happy. I thought I saw the way you looked at Drew in your eyes. I was hopeful.”

I didn’t know what to say. “It didn’t work out.”

She was quiet for a long time. I thought maybe we’d been disconnected. “Mrs. Martin? Jana?”

“I’m here.”

“Oh. I thought I lost you for a minute.”

“Sweetheart, I could be totally out of line, but I’m going to say this anyway. Do you remember a few weeks before the draft when you broke up with Drew? Because you wanted him to be able to focus on school and football, and he didn’t want to leave you behind?”

“Yes.”

“You cared about him so much, you wanted him to succeed and be happy, even if it meant you didn’t get to be with him.”

“I remember. I told him I didn’t want to go out with him anymore. He was pissed for about ten minutes, then stormed back in, realizing what I was doing. He could always see right through me.”

“Well, he felt the same way about you, you know.”

“I know.” There had never been any doubt in my mind that Drew loved me.

“But do you understand what I’m saying? Drew would want you to meet someone. He would want you to move on. Be happy. Fall in love. Have a family someday.”

“Of course he would. I just haven’t met anyone who could replace Drew.”

“That’s what I worry about, Delilah. No one has to replace Drew. He’ll always have a place in your heart. But you can love two men at the same time. You just love them differently.”

It wasn’t lost on me that Brody had basically said the same thing.

“Thanks, Jana.”

“Don’t be afraid to love again, dear.”

I spent a long time that afternoon sitting beside Drew’s grave. Unlike other times I came to visit, my time wasn’t spent crying. Instead, I thought about what Jana had said. Was I afraid to love again? Light snow started falling before I left. Unlike most New Yorkers, I loved the winter. Hot chocolate, bright lights, warm sweaters, snow, and football.

I leaned my head back, opened my mouth, and stretched my arms wide to catch the flakes as they came down. After a few minutes, I wished Drew a Happy Birthday and headed back to my car. Reaching the sidewalk, a hundred feet from the warm confines of my Jetta, I slipped on that pretty white snow I’d just been enjoying. I wiped out, landing on my ass with both feet up in the air. For some reason, I went hysterical laughing. An elderly man walking by with his wife stopped to help me up, but I waved them off, unable to speak through my fit of laughter.

I sat there alone on the sidewalk, the snow frosting my hair white, and cackled until my laugh turned into a cry. The cry turned into a sob before I finally got up. My teeth were chattering, my lips were swollen from the bite of winter, and my body trembled. I was a mess . . . but for some reason, everything seemed to be clear all of a sudden. It wasn’t that I was afraid to fall in love. I was pretty sure I had done that already. I was afraid that if something happened again, I wouldn’t be able to get back up.

Brody

“Ready to go, you damn cripple?” Grouper took his time getting up, his bones creaking as he lifted himself from a chair in the dining hall.

He wagged his bony finger at me. “You should be so lucky to be in as fine a shape as I’m in when you get to be the ripe old age of sixty.”

“Sixty? Who you kidding? You have age spots older than sixty.”

Grouper grumbled something under his breath. He lifted a box off the table. “This is the last of Marlene’s things. There’s a nice little gold cross necklace in there and some old coins—not sure if they have any value or not. Everything else is pretty much paperwork. We donated everything to Phoenix House like you asked. They were pretty excited to get all those clothes. More than half of ’em had the tags on still. You sure did spoil her.”

“She deserved it.” I took the box from Grouper and waved goodbye to Shannon at the nurses’ station as we walked to the front door.

“That place said you’d be surprised at how many of their patients aren’t young kids anymore. Drug and alcohol rehabs are more than thirty percent women over the age of fifty.” He shook his head. “Would never have guessed.”

I didn’t know the statistics, but I knew Marlene would want her stuff to go to a place where people were trying to get help. “Thanks for taking care of that for me.”

“You gonna bring the cross to Willow?”

“I’ll mail it to her. She moved upstate yesterday. Her roommate from rehab bought a place up near Saratoga, and Willow needed to get out of the city. Place she was living had too much temptation for a recovering addict. It was easier to score drugs from her neighborhood than it was to buy milk. Marlene left her a nice little chunk of change, so I’m hoping it starts her on a new life.”

He nodded. “That’s good. Marlene would be happy about that.”

We picked up Grouper III and one of his buddies on the way to Media Day. The two of them were wearing Easton jerseys and didn’t shut the hell up in the back of my car the entire way to the stadium. Their excitement was contagious.

“They always that loud?” My eyes slanted toward Grouper.

He nodded. “The Good Lord made old people go deaf for a reason.”

Even arriving at Media Day four hours before the start, the place was mobbed. More than two thousand members of the media from all over the world and four thousand fans were expected to attend the day’s event, which was the unofficial kickoff to the Super Bowl next week. If today turned out to be anything like previous years, the crowd on the field would resemble more of a circus than a news event. Crazy fans dressed as superheroes, women with painted bodies, and questions that were often off the wall.

The league had set up extra security and a valet, with a roped-off parking area for each team. I navigated the signs to the Steel entrance. “Once we get inside, keep a close watch on those two. The fans can get pretty rowdy.”

Grouper smiled. “Such a big softie under all that hard ass. Do your teammates know what a wussy you really are?”

“Bite me, Flounder.”

The valet sped off with my car, hitting the gas with a lead foot, and the four of us walked to the entrance through wooden police barricades. Both sides were lined with fans who had probably camped out all night. I hoisted Grouper the third onto my shoulders and walked to the crowd lined up three deep to sign autographs.

A kid about fourteen or fifteen had half his body leaning over the wooden barricade. I took his first, scribbling my name, then held the pad and pen up to my passenger. “You want both our autographs, right?”

The kid nodded, even though he had no idea who the boy on my shoulders was.

“You sign too, little fish.”

“I don’t know how to write my name in script.”

“Just fake it. That’s what I do. Scribble a lot.”

Guppy balanced the pad on top of my head and did as I told him. The crowd got a kick out of it. We signed for fifteen minutes and then went inside before I got fined for being late to the pre-event team meeting.

I handed Grouper and the guppies VIP badges to wear around their necks and fan admission tickets. “Back here at six?”

“You got it, boss.”

“Boss? Now you’re talking.” I grinned at Grouper. “I like it.”

***

Fifteen minutes before the event was to start, I stood alone in a luxury box high above the swarm of people on the arena floor. I looked out through the glass window and sipped from my water bottle. Both sides of the arena were lined with booths set up for each of the starting players to sit in. Microphones dangled from wires high above the ground, and I knew from experience that crowds of reporters would soon be yelling their questions and shoving even more microphones in our faces.

This week was the pinnacle of what every player worked for—making it to the Super Bowl. Yet I hadn’t felt like celebrating with the rest of the team after our meeting. Instead, I’d ducked into the first private area I could find so that I could take a few minutes to look for her. It had been ten long days since I’d seen her face, and I would take whatever glimpse I could get. Now I knew what a fan felt like stalking a player.

Part of me was still pissed at her for saying she didn’t love me. But a bigger part of me didn’t believe it was true. Her eyes had said something different than her lying lips. After my anger had subsided, I’d replayed the last few months over and over in my head. A wounded chick playing a mix tape that her ex made her before he dumped her had nothing on me. The only good thing was, every time I was exhausted at practice, I thought of that douchebag Langley with his hand on my girl’s back, and I suddenly had a fresh burst of energy. Angry energy, but it worked at my job.

Finding her in the crowd of thousands took less than a minute. I guzzled the last of my water bottle, following her with my eyes. She was wearing a black dress, a fitted red blazer, and had on high-heeled black leather boots that came up to meet the hem of her dress. Sexy as all fuck, while showing barely any skin.

Suddenly she stopped walking and looked up, scanning the arena as if searching for something. When her eyes found mine, even across half a stadium, it was all the sign I needed. This shit
was not
over. And I was going to find out once and for all why she was pretending it was.

Delilah

I’d thought about calling Brody dozens of times over the last week. Even called up his contact on my phone on more than one occasion, but each time I only ended up staring at his name. What would I say? There wasn’t much that I remembered clearly from that last night in the hotel room, but the way he looked when I told him I didn’t love him back was burned into my memory. It was the one thing I didn’t want to remember, and yet the only thing that kept haunting me.

You know that feeling you get when someone is watching you? Well, multiply the intensity of that times a thousand, and that’s what made me look up. I felt it in my bones, in the acceleration of my heartbeat, in the sheen of sweat that broke out on my skin. The question was definitely not
Is Brody looking at me?
The only question was
Where is he watching from?
It didn’t take me long to find out, and I couldn’t look away, even when I should have. When he turned away without looking back again, it was like pouring salt on an open wound that refused to heal.

Staring up at an empty luxury box, I paid no attention as I walked. The mass of people swarmed in all different directions, and I smacked straight into the back of another reporter. It had to be Angie Snow of all people.

“Delilah Maddox.” Her smile was sugary sweet, but the intonation in her tone was false.

“Angie. How are you?” There were very few women in the world of men’s professional sports. It wasn’t like we had a club or anything, yet we all knew each other’s names and faces. I’d met Angie at an event a few years back. We were both covering college games still.

“I’m good. A little disappointed, though.”

“Disappointed?”

“Easton. You’re a lucky girl. I thought you were done with him, and he was back on the market. I didn’t realize you were still together.”

I’d had my nails done that morning. The thought of getting them shaved into sharp points next time suddenly popped into my head. “We’re not together anymore.”

“Oh. Good to know.” She smiled, and I folded my fingers into my hand, digging my nails into my skin. “Well. Good luck today.” The blonde bombshell flipped her hair and turned to walk away.

“Wait. Angie. What made you think we were still together?”

“Well, usually when a cowboy shows me his horse, he lets me take a ride on it.”

I cringed. “And Brody didn’t?”

“Wrapped the towel back around his waist after he intentionally let it fall. And after my interview, when I suggested he give me a private viewing of what was under the towel again—alone at my place that night—he blew me off.”

I breathed a little. “Oh. I’m sure that doesn’t happen often.”

One of her perfectly plucked and dyed eyebrows arched. “Often? It
never
happens.”

I felt Brody come up behind me before I heard his voice. Angie’s eyes rose above my head as he took my elbow into his hand. “Excuse us a minute, Andy, would you?”