Tackled (Alpha Ballers #1) (15 page)

“You knew the routes this time, looked pretty good on that front.”

He brightened. “Yeah, that part was all taken care of. A full weekend of studying, no partying here.” He puffed out his chest like he was proud of himself. Secretly I was too.

“Then what happened?”

He looked down. “I’m still getting the hang of things. I was just a little slow on a couple of them, but I’m just a bit rusty. I’ll even out.”

“Not too much time left for that, is there?”

He smiled that championship smile of his, then snapped to attention. “Yes, ma’am! I’ll be alright. I’ll show them a thing or two.”

I sighed, putting my notebook down. We were done for the day. I had enough quotes to write my daily column about the exploits of Drake Rollins.
 

He just didn’t get it. Somehow the weekend of studying had made him feel invincible again, like all he needed was a chance to show off before he could wow the entire team and the entire league.

That might even be true! Unfortunately, at the pace Drake was going, he’d find himself out on the street looking for a new job about two weeks before he got that chance. The timing would just not work.

I wanted to tell Drake all of this, but I had said it all before. I couldn’t keep propping him up like this - I had said my piece and now it was up to him.

I got away from Drake with a minimum of small talk, making sure that with his new found confidence he didn’t try to make plans to show up in my room that night, despite how much I was aching for him to at least make the attempt.

I would have shot him down, but at least I would have known that he was thinking about me at the time.

Why was he so tough to talk to? Argh, it was frustrating on a level I never even thought possible. He was like a brick wall sometimes, a brick wall with a smile that made me want to strip down and rub myself against it.

Luckily I could avoid him for another day. As I was walking away from him, I saw a group of position coaches standing near the opposite sideline.

Maybe I could talk to them about Drake and how he was doing. I started toward them, giving them lots of time to disperse before I arrived. I was the scary press lady, and I didn’t want to just appear in the middle of their huddle, notebook in hand, stealing all their secrets.

They saw me coming, and by the time I got in front of the wide receivers coach, a couple of them had peeled off, leaving only him and one other, the offensive line coach.

“Coach Smith!” I called out, getting the wide receivers coach attention with a wave of my hand. He grimaced, then nodded toward the man he was talking to, who smiled and nodded at me before walking away without another word.

“Miss Pearson, how can I briefly,” he emphasized, “help you on this fine Monday afternoon?”

“I just wanted to thank you for the team’s hospitality,” I started, trying to sound like a visiting dignitary. “I and the Boston Globe really appreciate it.”

“The New England Patriots,” Coach Smith said, with glacial sarcasm, “are always interested in working together with our local media to give more transparency to the inner workings of our football team.”

It was the most canned response I had ever heard, and Coach Armstrong would puff out his chest in pride if he had been around to hear it. Coach Smith even winked at me.

I made a big show of putting away my notebook and pen. “I come in pace, Coach Smith, and I just want to talk off the record for a couple minutes. That cool?”

Coach Smith looked at me warily, as if he was trying to gauge how well he could trust me. Then he grunted and the beginnings of a smile appeared. “Off the record, then. What’s on your mind?”

“Drake Rollins.” That was an understatement.

Coach Smith grunted again, and both of us turned to look at Drake on the opposite sideline. He was holding an iPad and it looked like he was imagining routes. “Kid had a rough week of practice last week.”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t know the playbook. That’s bush league shit right there. No dedication.”

“Wait just a minute, Coach Smith, that’s not fair,” I felt my hackles rise to defend Drake. “He only found out he was gonna be on the team 3 days before camp started, and only got the playbook in his hands the first day. You can’t expect him to know everything on day 1, can you?”

Coach Smith eyed me like he was surprised I was standing up to him on Drake’s behalf. “It took him a whole week.”

“The Patriots have a complicated offense, Coach, a credit to your players and coaching staff. College offenses are pretty much ‘see open guy, throw ball,’ in comparison.”

Coach Smith must have recognized what I was doing, because he laughed. “Now that’s for damn sure. I’ve seen some players get totally lost, no amount of time could save them.”

“Exactly. And Drake Rollins made the transition in a week! That’s pretty good, come on, Coach, give him a little credit.”

“Alright, alright. You have a strange way of persuading people, Miss Pearson, but it’s damned effective at times.”

I smiled wide, bursting with pride. Now it was time to change course slightly and get a real read on the temperature for Drake. “How did he look today?” It was an innocuous question on the surface.

Coach Smith grunted again. “He looked…better.”

That was a good start. “Please elaborate, Coach!”

“Today he actually knew all the routes we called for him. Way better than last week,” Coach Smith admitted, like I was pulling teeth. That was the Patriots for you. Everyone who worked here picked up the habit of saying as little as possible.

It was like a team full of Sphinxes. And the riddles were all about football.

“How is he compared to the rest of the wide receivers?”

Coach Smith folded his arms under his chest and stared at the field. “He’s got a long way to go. The playbook thing didn’t help. His routes aren’t nearly as crisp as they need to be. Only caught a few that came his way today.”

“That’ll improve in time, though, right? He may know the routes, but when he gets comfortable with them he’ll be able to make them as crisp as you need.”

Coach Smith grunted again. “We’ll see if he has enough time for that.”

“How has Mike Sampson’s return affected the wide receiver corps?”

Coach Smith’s fingers tightened around his arms as he tensed up. “Mike Sampson is a valued member of the New England Patriots and we’re happy that he decided to come join us on his current contract.”

“That’s a stock answer if I ever heard one, Coach.”

“You’re damn right it is.” He relaxed a little bit, and muttered under his breath, “I have no room or time for people who don’t want to be here.”

“Has Sampson’s performance on the field today been back up to par? He was promising these last couple seasons. A lot of national writers have been including in their ‘making the leap’ columns in the run-up to the season. They’re expecting big things from him this year!”

Coach Smith thought about it for a second, clearly deciding how much information to give out.

“How about otherwise? Off the field? Everything working out there?”

Coach Smith turned to me, giving me a weird look. “I don’t have any part in that. What he does when he’s not in the weight room, in my meeting room, or on the practice field doesn’t matter to me, as long as it doesn’t keep him from being where he needs to be on time and ready, without question.”

It felt like Coach Smith was talking directly to me, instead of to me about Drake Rollins. I shuddered - had they found out about him sneaking out of my room last week? Shit Shit Shit.

I was just opening my mouth to ask a follow up question when a commotion broke out near the entrance to the locker room. I turned to look, while Coach Smith ignored it.

More players gathering together like they had last week. Another contract holdout deciding to arrive at camp? I wracked my brain, but couldn’t remember any other holdouts beside Mike Sampson, and he was already here.

No, it had to be something else. I nodded to Coach Smith and walked over to where everyone was gathered, getting my notebook and pen back out almost like it was a reflex. If there was news going on, I wanted to be able to capture it for my daily column.

When I got to the crowd of players, I looked around for a way in and finally found one after making a half turn around the growing circle. I pushed my way in past the sweaty huge bodies to the center.

Oh. This was what all the fuss was about?

Standing in the center of the circle was a tall, statuesque blonde woman, impeccably dressed, million dollar smile blazing in the waning sun of the warm New England late afternoon.

It was Annie Ross. From ESPN.

“Well, hello boys,” she said, finally speaking, fluttering those giant eyelashes of hers at all of them at once. I wondered where she had picked up that southern accent. She was originally from like a hundred miles away from me. “I just wanted to stop by and tell y’all that I have been assigned to cover the Patriots for the entire season!”

A small cheer went through the crowd - Annie Ross was an ESPN favorite. Every man who liked sports daydreamed about flirting with her, taking her to bed. She was a couple years older than me, and in college one summer we had been part of the same summer journalism program.

Let’s just say we were not the best of friends.

Ugh. What was it I had told Drake a couple days ago? Same thing applied to me. Oh, yeah, it was ‘your job just got a lot harder.’

Shit.

CHAPTER 16 - DRAKE

The second week was only a little bit better than the first week. I knew the routes, but it still took me a couple days to get them into my head so I could run them at a moment’s notice.

The coaches didn’t stop giving me shit about it, and I fucking hated every second of it. The new offense wasn’t exactly playing to my strengths - the Patriots weren’t used to having a stretch-the-field distance receiver like me on their roster - for the last few years their offense had pretty much been defined by ‘dink and dunk.’

So it made sense that it would take a little while for the team to adjust to my skill set. I was starting to get a little scared, though. What if they didn’t?

The first preseason game came and went. I got only a few snaps on the field, and the first time Lance Parker threw the ball in my direction, I was wide on the route and just a second behind, the ball sailing off to one side, over my head, off the field.

I shook my head in disgust, entirely at myself, but I realized almost immediately that given my reputation, some people would think I was mad at Lance. Shit, that was no fucking good. I hoped no one noticed.

They must have, because Lance didn’t target me again that entire game. I was on the field, and a few times I was even open, but I got no love coming my way.

It was frustrating. After the game I went straight to Lance’s locker, before even the reporters were allowed in, and I apologized to him, explaining what was going through my head. I couldn’t get a read on whether he actually accepted my explanation, but he claimed we were all good.

Fuck.

None of the reporters wanted to talk to me after the game once they were allowed into the locker room, so I showered, dressed, and headed out, planning on going right to my room and getting some much needed sleep.

I turned a corner and stepped right into Lily Pearson. She collided with my chest and bounced right off, stepping back and rubbing her face. “Ow!”

“Sorry. Look where you’re going!”

She blinked and recognized me. “I was, you dummy! I just didn’t expect to be slammed by a giant man from around the corner!”

I laughed. “In a professional football team’s complex after a game? Expect the unexpected, Lily.”

She looked like she was about to hit me, but then she stopped herself and burst out laughing. “You know, you’re right, and when you’re right, you’re right, and this time you’re right!”

What had gotten into her? “You saw the game?” That was a dumb question.

“Of course I saw the game. I work for the Globe, remember? I cover the team for a living.”

“I thought you covered me for a living.” There it was, the old Drake Rollins charm. I was a master of the double, and sometimes, single entendre.

Lily stopped laughing and her eyes grew dark. “That was only one time.”

“I know, sorry about that, I’ve been busy.”

This time she did hit me, tapping me lightly on the shoulder. “Jerk.”

I rubbed my shoulder, super exaggerated like she had really hurt me. “Ow! Thanks, woman, I didn’t just, you know, play a football game or anything.”

“Walk it off, Drake, you didn’t even get touched. And don’t call me ‘woman.’”

Ouch, that was a low blow. You don’t get touched if you don’t catch the ball. I decided to change the subject. “Wanna get out of here?”

“And go where?”

“Dinner.”

She looked wary, and I could see there was question on her face. Lily was trying to decide what to do. I sat back and folded my arms, not trying to persuade her either way.

“Fine. Meet me at the same spot in an hour?”

“An hour? I’m starving.”
 

“Have a snack, then. I need a little time.”

“Fine.”

An hour later I stood outside the convenience store, like I had a week earlier. Lily drove up and didn’t park this time, and I got in the passenger side, looking her up and down.

“Damn.” She wore a purple dress, nothing too fancy, but it hung off her like a glove, and my mouth started to water with a different kind of hunger. A more primal, less controllable kind.

She blushed, then waved me away. “Down, boy. This is just a professional dinner to celebrate your first preseason game, got it?”

“Got it.” Oh well, fantasy busted. Still, I had a little bit to celebrate. It hadn’t gone amazingly well for me, but I had survived my first game under the brightest lights.

We picked a different restaurant this time, another hole in the wall, and settled in and ordered without really saying much to each other. It was funny, normally girls tried to keep the conversation going around me, like they were worried I would find them boring and move on from them.