Most Valuable Playboy

My classmates cracked up. The teacher did not. She sent me to see the principal. A terrible fear lashed through my nine-year-old body as I walked to the office. I’d be sent to detention, suspended, or expelled. My mom was going to be so pissed.

In the end, the principal gave me a stern talking-to about respect.

Now, as I wait for the shining silver elevator doors to whisk open, I can only wish for a stern reprimand. In my nearly four seasons with the team, I’ve spoken to Jasper on only a few occasions, and I’ve never been called to his office. Not once.

When the elevator arrives with a soft whoosh, I step inside, my feet leaden, my chest hollowed. The doors close, and I swipe my keycard across the security pad and press the button for the top floor.

As it rises, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m screwed.

When I reach his floor, I try to psyche myself up. I stare down linemen, I scramble in the pocket, and I throw pinpoint passes under fire from the toughest defensive coverage. Chin up, chest high.

I find suite 1200 and raise my fist to knock. Before I can even rap, he opens it. Jasper smiles, showing no teeth. He wears navy slacks and a crisp button-down.

“Thank you for coming, Cooper. Especially on such short notice.”

“Of course, sir.”

The suite is quiet. Only the hum of the heater echoes as we walk from the foyer around the corner. That’s when I see we’re not alone. Maxine is here, perched on a couch in the sunken living room, her hands folded in her lap.

Ice-cold dread fills me from stem to fucking stern. This is so much more than the ax.

“Please, have a seat,” Jasper says, indicating the chair across from Maxine.

She meets my eyes and offers a rueful smile.

I’m royally fucked.

Jasper sits in the yellow chair across from me. “Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, water?”

I furrow my brow. The owner is offering me a beverage? Maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe it’s still the middle of the night, because this is a topsy-turvy world. “I’m good, sir.”

“Excellent.” He rubs his palms on his pant legs, almost as if he’s nervous. “You might be wondering why I called you here.”

Ya think?

I nod. I can hardly speak.

He takes a deep breath, sighs, then gestures to Maxine. Jasper’s tone is heavy, laced with import. “My sister has something to say.”

My stomach churns as I wait for her to smear me.

My mind leaps forward and back, replaying every interaction with Maxine. I try to find the moment I messed up. When I said or did something horribly wrong. When I led her on. I hunt in my memory banks, searching desperately for my transgression.

I can’t find it, but even so the blade is coming down. It’s aiming for my neck.

But when Maxine meets my gaze, her words shock me. “I’m sorry.”

I blink. “Excuse me?”

“I’m so very sorry,” she adds, her voice colored with contrition.

My jaw comes unhinged, and I try to speak. To say for what or why or what the heck. But all that comes out is something like um.

Jasper makes a rolling gesture, indicating Maxine should keep going.

She draws a deep breath. “I’ve been inappropriate. I’ve been hitting on you for several months. At first I told myself it was harmless flirting, but then it became more, and I should not have taken advantage of my position with the team.” She looks to Jasper, and he nods and gives her a faint smile. “And I crossed a line at the auction. I’d been sad, but that doesn’t excuse my behavior. After I saw you last night in the lobby, I knew it was time to come clean. I told Jasper everything.”

I tense, waiting for what the everything is, wondering if she somehow figured out I lied about Violet at the auction. I cycle back to the day in the stands, when Maxine approached me after my phone call with Violet. My pretend girlfriend conversation. Maybe she did overhear something. The tension in me refills and bubbles over.

“Everything?” I croak out.

She nods, purses her lips, then speaks again. “I told him how I tried to bid on you, how determined I was, but then how your girlfriend won you at the end. And she deserves you. I was jealous, but I can see you’re in love with her, and I completely understand why.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again. Once more, the room is upside down, right side up, tipped on its side. “I’m in love with her?” I ask, but then I realize those words shouldn’t come out in the form of a question.

And not just because of my audience. That’s because it’s not a fucking question. It’s a fact of my existence.

“I’m in love with her,” I repeat, this time with the certainty I feel inside. In my heart.

As soon as I say it, I can’t seem to stop saying it. It frees me. It rips the weight of confusion off my shoulders. Everything that’s been happening with Violet crystallizes in one bright, clear moment. “I’m completely head over heels for her.”

I am absolutely smitten with my best friend’s sister, the girl I’ve known nearly my whole life.

“I can tell,” Maxine says, a soft smile curving her lips. “And, she’s quite in love with you, too.”

My eyes widen to the size of pizza pies. “What?”

Wild hope takes off inside me, strapping my heart onto a rocket of hope. Violet’s in love with me, too? There’s no way. That’s too much to ask for. That’s like winning the Super Bowl.

Maxine’s eyes twinkle. This is the other side of her. The romantic side I saw in the stands. “She mentioned you when I had my hair done.” She lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Apparently, she’s had quite the thing for you since the second grade.”

The rocket sputters, falling to earth in a heap of debris. That’s Violet’s canned response. It’s not new or special. It’s not as if she said, I’ve been in love with him since he tied me up and took me on a trip around the world on my bed. Or I fell hard for him when I saw how much he enjoyed hanging with the kids at the hospital.

This is status quo.

It’s the reminder that we’re friends who help each other, friends who have enjoyed a few benefits.

That’s all.

And that has to be okay.

Jasper smiles at me, then nods at Maxine as if he’s proud of her for doing this, but something else crystallizes.

Maxine could have just stopped coming on to me. She didn’t have to apologize, and she certainly didn’t have to confess to Jasper. But she womaned up in the end. She didn’t try to hide a thing. But what have I been doing?

Hiding everything.

“I’m glad we could clear the air,” Jasper says.

And when I’m dismissed, I realize that’s exactly what I need to do, too.





30





It takes all day to work up my nerve because I’m about to do something my agent would deem utterly insane.

That’s why I don’t call Ford. There wouldn’t be enough yoga classes in the Bay Area to calm him down if I told him my plan.

Besides, when I’m on the field and see safeties swarming the guy I’m about to throw to, I can’t find a new target if I’m looking to the sidelines for instructions.

I have to lead the team.