Running Interference (4 page)

He dragged a palm over his mouth and closed his eyes as the wind picked up. That Friday night senior year, he'd gone to his most trusted female friend with a crazy request—sex. So he could get it over with and quit worrying about what he was missing and if he'd be any good at it. He'd been popular. He'd had opportunity, but he'd also had performance anxiety—on field and off. Confidence came with practice, but he had no desire to practice on someone who would make his lack of experience a big deal.

He and Tanya had been so much alike. Too busy tearing it up on the field or the court to care about relationships. It shouldn't have surprised him when she announced she was a virgin too. But it had. She'd always seemed so much surer than him. Thankfully her inexperience worked to his advantage, because man, oh man, he'd been terrible at it, but she hadn't complained or made fun of him. The next day, she'd acted like nothing happened, which allowed him to act like nothing had happened too. She'd been so good at acting sometimes he thought she must've forgotten. But he couldn't. He thought about it from time to time over the years. How could he not? She'd been his first. That counted for something to him. Maybe it hadn't to her.

“Cam Simmons, I heard you were here.”

Vice Principal Rollins held open the side door Cam had escaped through.

Principal Rollins now,
he reminded himself. “Yes, sir. I'm here. Caused some trouble in history and Spanish, then did some showing off in P.E.”

“Like old times.” The man laughed. “How long are you in town?”

Well, technically that depended on how quickly he could get his mother to agree to leave town, but he figured a month at least to get her packed up and situated. “Until end of March.”

“Nice. Hope we see you around again. I'm sure we could find you something motivational to do with the students if you get bored.”

That actually sounded really good. It would keep him busy while his mother was working and while he waited for Tanya to call.

He smiled when he said, “Sounds like a plan.”

Maybe seeing him around here would be the push Tanya needed, and his ticket to making up for the last five years.

• • •

“If Rollins isn't here to start this meeting in the next five minutes, I'm leaving,” Tanya said. “I have a yoga lesson to prepare for.” Because someone had complained her classes were too aggressively minded. No doubt a dodgeball hater.

Health teacher Andie Krieger nodded. “I know. I have reproduction diagrams to grade.”

Ha! “I'll trade you.” That had to be more fun than yoga.

Rollins walked in. It was still so weird to have her boss be the same man who'd called her out of seventh-period algebra to ask her if she'd been involved in toilet-papering the third-floor restrooms. Of course, she had been. Along with the rest of the seniors on the basketball team.

“Ladies,” he said with a nod. “Sorry about that. I got sidetracked by a special visitor.”

Cam.
It couldn't be a coincidence.

“I heard,” Andie said. “How exciting. A Super Bowl MVP. Some students were talking about him in the hall.”

“Yes. Cam Simmons is a former student.” He looked at Tanya. “Same year as you, right? I caught up with him before he left, and I asked if he'd be interested in doing something at the school while he was home. And … he said ‘yes'!”

Oh, for crying out loud! Now Rollins was star struck.

“Maybe he would play in the faculty-student basketball game,” Andie said.

Tanya's jaw dropped. She was co-chairing and playing in that event. That's what this meeting was about. Spending more time with Cam was not what she needed. “He's not faculty.”

“But he's a former student,” Rollins said. “And I think it's a wonderful idea, Andie. Can you imagine the tickets we'll sell?”

Tanya could. And again, it was like a flashing neon sign. This was exactly what she needed to do at the gym—use Cam as bait to bring people in, and then charge them for the privilege.

“I'll call him,” she said. “I'll ask him if he'd be interested.”

She would also find a way to slip in the bit about her father's gym. After all, he said he would help … and he owed her.

“All right, ladies, listen up!” Coach Howl raised a hand above his head and motioned for everybody to join him on the blue and yellow logo in the center of the turfed college field they rented during the colder weather.

This would be their first pre-season, minimal-contact practice, and Tanya had the swarm of butterflies in her stomach to prove it.

“In these drills, aggression is not your focus, hence the lack of pads. Technique is the name of this game. It's a time for learning. I know. Some of you are WPFL champions.” He smiled as a few women whooped in acknowledgement of last year's winning season. “But some of you have never played before. Be courteous. The time will come for raising hell. Now is not that time. That means nobody gets taken to the ground, and no targeting the head. Play stops with two-hand contact. All possessions start at the 40. No running plays. QBs have four seconds to release. Six points for a T-D. Ladies, welcome to 7-on-7.”

More cheers.

Tanya shifted her weight from leg to leg and bounced on the balls of her feet. She was so ready for this. Another season. Another trophy. Cam Simmons wasn't the only football champion in the neighborhood. He was just the only one people talked about.

“Gimme Rooney, Martin, Wren, Bell, Bush, Herman, and Jones on offense. Barnes, Wiesman, Lowell, Jefferson, Kent, Aaronson, and French on D. Martin!” Coach motioned Tanya over. “Take your pass sets like usual. Drop and target the defender. That's it. Got it?”

She nodded. When she lined up in her left guard position beside their center, Jade Wren, every muscle in her body twitched. Excitement was one thing. Jumping offside was another.

Protect this house.
Giving quarterback MJ Rooney enough time to read the bubble and get her pass off was the goal.

Jade's snap to MJ sounded like a gun blast in Tanya's ears. It was all she could do to keep herself from leveling the linebacker. So much adrenaline. A couple shoves, a few grunts, a drip of sweat in her eye. The ball whizzed overhead, and a second later Coach's whistle signaled a stoppage in play.

Tanya turned to MJ, who was grinning from ear to ear. Hell yeah. Life wasn't living without football.

“Do it again!” Coach yelled.

He wasn't going to get an argument from her.

Ten minutes later the horn sounded, announcing the switch to specials. Field goal work. Tanya carried the adrenaline from 7-on-7 through the rest of practice, and by the time she stepped out of the shower, she was blissfully exhausted.

“Felt good to be back in action, didn't it?” MJ asked.

“Damn good.” Tanya ran a wide-toothed comb through her wet hair.

“We should do something to celebrate.” Jillian rubbed a handful of lotion over the arm with the colorful—sometimes disturbing—array of tattoos. Seriously, who marred their body with a huge tattoo of Cinderella strangling Prince Charming? The girl who just yelled, “
Par-tay
!”

From the tattoos and electric blue tipped hair to the staying out all night, Tanya's roommate and the team's most talented wide receiver wore the tag “bad girl” like a badge of honor.

“You partied last night, didn't you?” Tanya asked. God only knew where she'd been over the last forty-eight hours. “You should probably sleep in your own bed.”

“What's wrong with having fun?”

“Nothing.” As long as it didn't blow up in your face, and sometimes Jillian's part-time job as a band promoter had her walking a fine line.

MJ sat at the end of the bench to zip her knee-high boots. “I can't. I have dinner plans with Tag.”

Jillian made a kissy-face sound that for some reason rubbed Tanya the wrong way. “Grow up.” She rolled her eyes.

“Why are you so grumpy?” Jillian asked.

“I'm tired.” Among other things she hadn't had the time or opportunity to discuss with her best friends yet.

“Is that all?” asked MJ, the damn mind reader.

“Maybe.” Tanya ran conditioner through her chin-length curls, and then topped that off with a generous handful of gel. “Maybe not.” She glanced around the thinning locker room and decided now was as good a time as any. “My dad's having money problems at the gym. Big problems. Foreclosure-sized problems.”

“Shit,” Jillian said.

“Exactly.”

“How much does he owe?” MJ asked.

“Thirty grand.” It even felt like a lot on her tongue.

MJ stood. “I'll talk to Tag.”

“No.” The wet ends of Tanya's hair slapped her chin as she disagreed. “My dad won't take a loan. Cam already offered that.”

“Cam!” Jillian about killed herself jumping over a bench to get closer to Tanya. “You heard from Cam?”

Well, that was one way to tell them. “Yep. He's in town visiting his mom, and he stopped by the gym a couple days ago when all of this was going down.”

“Damn. A couple days ago? Girl, why were you sitting on this?” Jillian asked.

“So the elusive NFL superstar appears,” MJ said. “Is that good or bad?”

MJ had been her roommate for almost three years before she moved out and Jillian moved in. They knew all about her history with Cam, but they didn't know how hard it had been to hide her bitterness over how easily he'd gone on with his life without her.

“I'm not sure,” she confessed.

“See, this is another reason we should go out,” Jillian said. “Get her to spill.”

“What makes you think there's something to spill?” She slipped gold hoops into her ears.

“Because you always hold back just enough,” MJ said.

“I'm not holding anything back.” Except the fact that she'd pretty much spent the day with him. It was no big deal. So why wasn't she coming clean? “I just don't know how I feel about it. I mean part of me is definitely still angry at him for forgetting about, you know, the neighborhood.”
And me. Especially me.
“But there's another part that is happy to see him. We have a lot of history.”

“Well, even if your dad won't take the money, it was nice of Cam to offer the help,” MJ said.

Tanya nodded. She hoped he was just as willing to help when she sprung her big idea on him.

Jillian gave her a playful shove. “Maybe this is fate giving you a second chance for that night of really bad sex.”

“Shh!” Tanya whipped her head around in search of eavesdroppers. Thank God the coast was clear. She had no desire to announce that she'd lost her virginity to an equally inexperienced Cam Simmons under a set of rusty bleachers. Seemed kind of pathetic now that she was grown up and teaching at that very same school.

“Why are you shushing me? MJ already knows this. Don't you?”

MJ grinned. “I do, but we should compare notes, because she may have held back parts. This way we'll make sure we have the whole story.”

“Stop,” Tanya said.

Jillian plopped down beside MJ. “She said he couldn't find the hole, and when he did, it only took three seconds. She felt more from the rocky ground than she did from his … ”

“I said stop!” Tanya slapped a hand over Jillian's mouth. “He would be so mad if he knew I'd told anyone anything about that night.”

He'd trusted her, and she'd been more than willing to help him out when he'd suggested they be each other's first—sort of a practice round. And then she went and did something stupid like think the encounter could be the start of something more.

Jillian pulled Tanya's hand from her mouth. “Oh, who cares? I'm sure he's way better now. After all, he was engaged to a movie star. Sabrina Quick.” She puckered up in imitation of Sabrina's trademark Botox-induced facial expression.

“And TMZ said he cheated on her,” MJ added with a smirk. “I guess he's a lot better at finding the hole these days.”

She was sure he was, she was also pretty sure … “He didn't cheat.”

MJ waved a hand in dismissal. “How would you know? You didn't talk to him the entire time he was with her. People change unfortunately.”

“Not the fundamentals. He's an honest, decent guy.” She was reminded of that today. “And he was raised by women. He wouldn't screw one over like that, especially after his dad abandoned him and his mother.”

“Didn't he abandon you?” MJ asked. “Calling you when he was homesick or brokenhearted, and then not calling you for five years sounds like abandonment to me.”

True. “I was talking specifically about cheating. He wouldn't cheat.”

“Well, I'm not sure the fact that he's capable of abandonment makes him any better.”

But maybe the fact that his father set the precedent made it easier. It didn't mean Cam was a bad man. And why in God's name did she feel so compelled to defend him?

She muzzled it.

“I say it's a good thing he's back,” Jillian said. “He's hot. He's loaded. Maybe you two can have a little fun.”

Tanya didn't need to have any more fun with him. She'd had more fun today at work than she'd had all year. And Rollins' announcement that he'd opened the doors to Cam volunteering at the school while he was home just had her thinking it could happen again.

“I say we get back to talking about the real problem here: the gym,” MJ said. “Please, try to get your dad to accept Tag's help. Thirty thousand isn't that much in the grand scheme of things.”

Tanya glanced at the rock on MJ's left ring finger. “Spoken like a woman who's about to marry a rich man.”

MJ shrugged. “Just think about it, okay?”

“Actually … ” She hesitated, because after their conversation she wasn't sure she should bring Cam up again. “I think I have a plan that won't involve anyone handing over a big chunk of money. I'm going to ask Cam to work out at the gym on a regular basis while he's home, and then I'm going to publicize it and charge an inflated membership fee.”