Tackled (Alpha Ballers #1) - Lucy Snow

Contents Email Chapter 01 - LILY Chapter 02 - DRAKE Chapter 03 - LILY Chapter 04 - DRAKE Chapter 05 - LILY Chapter 06 - DRAKE Chapter 07 - LILY Chapter 08 - DRAKE Chapter 09 - LILY Chapter 10 - DRAKE Chapter 11 - LILY Chapter 12 - DRAKE Chapter 13 - LILY Chapter 14 - DRAKE Chapter 15 - LILY Chapter 16 - DRAKE Chapter 17 - LILY Chapter 18 - DRAKE Chapter 19 - LILY Chapter 20 - DRAKE Chapter 21 - LILY Chapter 22 - DRAKE Chapter 23 - LILY Chapter 24 - DRAKE Chapter 25 - LILY Chapter 26 - DRAKE Chapter 27 - LILY Chapter 28 - DRAKE Chapter 29 - LILY Email

Hi! I’m Lucy Snow, and I wrote the book you’re about to read. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you read the rest of my books! If you’d like to get emails about my new releases and opportunities to read my new books for free, please sign up for my mailing list by following this link: http://eepurl.com/bMjYdP

CHAPTER 01 - LILY Draft day, 3pm So this was the draft. I walked into Radio City Music Hall and my jaw must have hit the floor from the start. Bill Thompson turned to look at me, muttering under his breath as he shook his head. Something about ‘dumb kids’ or something like that. Radio City Music Hall, though! Holy moley! It was much cooler than I ever expected! I’d been to New York a couple times with my Dad over the years; we’d always strutted proudly down the streets in full Patriots gear, joyfully inviting the sneers of all the New York sports fans we ran into. Especially Jets fans, but we shrugged all of them off. It was good to have rivals, especially rivals that were good. This was the first time I’d been to New York alone, though. Despite being here for work I felt like everyone I passed by must have thought I was a goggle-eyed tourist, my head constantly snapping back and forth between this famous landmark and those gigantic buildings stretching all the way up to the sky. My neck hurt already, and I’d only been here for less than 24 hours! Still, it was totally worth it. This was the draft! The majesty of Radio City Music Hall stretched out before me with its dark gothic architecture and huge lights shining from so far up all the way down here, bathing the auditorium in a soft glow, punctuated by the TV lights. And all the people! Media, agents, and players on the ground level, fans in jerseys from each of the league’s 32 teams in the balcony. I stared up there as I walked in, wondering if the teams staked out places

before hand or they just showed up and congregated in one place. No one wanted to sit with fans of another team, or, even worse, a division rival. It occurred to me right then, yet again, that I loved the tribal nature, the group you were a part of as a football fan. Sure, it was mostly drawn over geographic boundaries, but that didn’t stop it from being any less important? Patriots fans put up with Jets, Bills, and Dolphins fans, and that’s just how it was - how it had nearly always been. Bill Thompson turned around and looked me. “Don’t keep dawdling like that, we have work to do.” “Sorry, Bill.” I picked up the pace and caught up to them. Bill still gave me a strange look whenever I used his first name, but I had dropped the ’Mr. Thompson’ thing after the first day, once I realized he was just a normal human being, albeit one with a gift for writing about New England sports. All the sudden, Bill stopped in his tracks. I couldn’t see around him, because he was much taller and wider than me, but I figured something or someone had gotten in his way, and he was just waiting for them to move. Instead, Bill turned to me, giving me a look that suggested exasperation mixed with despair. “Listen,” he said gruffly, “today is a big day.” Outwardly, I didn’t give any reaction except for nodding, but inside I was momentarily thrilled that Bill Thompson, the great Bill Thompson, was about to give me a pep talk right before our big day. I knew it had taken a long time, over a week, for him to warm up to me, but I couldn’t help but feel that this was the beginning of a beautiful working

relationship. “Don’t fuck it up.” Any joy that I had felt in the past few moments over being part of the journalist club, being a member of the team, and working with my colleagues turned to ashes and dust right then and there. This wasn’t exactly a pep talk that I was expecting. “Excuse me?” “You heard me. Listen, I know you went to journalism school. I know you think you can write. I’ve even seen some of your stuff, and it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever read. But don’t get ahead yourself, kid. You’ve got a lot to learn, and I’m not fully convinced you’ll be able to pick it up in time. So all I’m asking you for today is not to get in my way.” I stared at him, dumbly, still in shock over the dramatic turn this conversation had taken in such a short time. I couldn’t remember a conversation with such difference between expectation and reality. “That’s all? There’s nothing else you want me to do?” Bill shook his head, raising his voice over the increasing sounds of the crowd all around us. “Just don’t fuck it up. And don’t get in my way.” Well, that was one way to inspire confidence on such a big stage. I bet Bill Thompson would make an amazing doctor, with bedside manner like that. The only thing I could do was nod, and Bill, satisfied that I had understood him, turned around and kept walking. We headed over to our section, where our cameraman was already waiting. I could see Bill’s

mood deteriorating by the moment; Bill thought that a newspaper should produce a newspaper and nothing else. These newfangled things like websites and online content, especially video, didn’t make any sense to him. Leave that stuff to the TV stations. I, of course, being in my early 20s, didn’t know what he was talking about, and the idea of a news organization not having an online component and producing massive amounts of video made about as much sense to me as a dog walking itself. Our cameraman was a jovial guy in his mid-30s, named Steve. Steve shook Bill’s hand, though Bill really wasn’t interested, and Steve grinned when he saw me. “All ready for the big day?” I gulped, looking around at the throng of people, all milling about and buzzing with intensity, before answering. “I think so. It’s a lot to take in.” Steve squeezed my shoulder. “You’ll be fine. You’ve done stuff like this before, I’m sure. Maybe this is a little bigger than before, but you’ll get into it soon enough.” He laughed. “Of course, there’s always next year.” I wanted to laugh, but Bill shot Steve a withering look, and I decided not to join them. At this rate, even if I did great today, if Bill had his way, I would not be covering the patriots next year with him. Bill turned back to me. “We’ve got work to do here. Why don’t you make yourself useful?” I jumped at the opportunity to show Bill that I was a productive and valued member of the team. “What can I do for you?” I knew I sounded way more earnest than I should, but I couldn’t help it. Despite

Bill’s acidity toward me, I really wanted to work with him. This was a prestigious job I’d managed to get, and if there was anything I could do to make sure I kept it, and got to cover the team of my dreams and childhood, I would do it. He smiled, and I knew right then and there that whatever he was then ask wouldn’t be all that useful. “Go watch the players arrive in the green room. Maybe you get an interview or two. Take Steve with you.” Steve smiled again and hoisted his camera onto the shoulder. “All ready to go?” Steve seemed like a guy who was always in a good mood, no matter what was going on. I didn’t quite understand how that kind of attitude could work, but at the same time it was nice to be around. Bill was sending me off to watch the players arrive in the green room rather than set up our space. A big part of that was meeting the other reporters who were sitting nearby, exchanging gossip, and seeing if there were any last-minute deals or trades to be made. This was the real stuff, and Bill was keeping me out of it. Still, there wasn’t much else I could do right now; Bill was in charge. Oh well, time to make the most of it. I nodded at Steve, and he followed me as we made our way to the entrance to the green room. The green room at the draft was a little different from at a late-night talk show. There are roughly 250 players drafted each year, but the league only invited a few, maybe 20 or 30, to actually go to the draft. Those 20 or 30 were the ones the league expected to be drafted in the first round. Only a few got to actually come to the draft, the

ones the league were pretty sure will be drafted early. They love that TV moment of the young man surrounded by his parents, getting a phone call from a professional football team, seeing if they’re interested in joining and playing in the big league. To my knowledge, no one had ever said no to that phone call. At the same time, every so often one of the players invited to the draft wouldn’t be drafted where expected. When that happened, there was another kind of TV moment that the league loved: watching the nervous young man and his family despair as more and more teams passed him by, and watching his salary expectations diminish as a result. The announcers would be talking over him, asking each other why teams were deciding not to draft him. It was quite the spectacle, like everything the league did. Win or lose for the player, the league always got what it wanted. We set up shop right near the entrance to the green room. When the door opened, I peered inside, and saw that a lot of the players had already shown up, with their close family in tow. Everyone was all dressed up, like they were going to church or a fancy dinner. We stood outside the entrance for about half an hour, greeting the last few players as they arrived, and getting one or two questions with each of them. Nothing too interesting, but things that we would put on the website. If there was one thing about football fans, they were crazy about the draft. There was no other event on the football calendar could make your team instantly better, or make them

instantly a contender for a Super Bowl. Of course, if your team screwed up the draft, or, even worse, if your team screwed up the draft many years in a row, like the Cleveland Browns always did, the draft could doom you to another year of living in the basement. We had just closed up, and were heading back to the regular reporting area, Bill Thompson be damned, when a commotion erupted behind us. Steve nudged me, and I turned around to look back where we had been standing. Drake Rollins was here. I sucked in a breath. Drake Rollins was here. And he looked just as gorgeous as ever. I couldn’t believe that Drake Rollins even had the guts to show up today. That took some serious stones. With all the stuff that he had gone through off the field of the last few months, his draft stock had taken a nosedive. I had forgotten that he was even invited to the draft. Most players just watched from home with their families and friends. I felt my cheeks start to burn. Drake Rollins, wide receiver from Cal. My alma mater. I hadn’t seen him in a few months; after he declared for the draft right after the end of our season, he was a ghost around campus. Meanwhile, I had been finishing up my last semester, and was neck deep in books. I turned to Steve. “Drake Rollins is here? Did you know he was coming?” Steve shrugged. “He was invited originally, but after that stuff a couple days ago…”

“He was uninvited, right, right, I remember now. What’s he doing here?” Steve shrugged again. “Beats me. They’re not going to let him in.” I nodded. “Nope, you’re right, they won’t let him in.” Drake was just as good looking as ever, probably even more so now. He had spent the off-season clearly working hard in the gym, getting ready for the draft. It was just that off the field he couldn’t keep it together. Run-ins with the law, pissing off the Dean by sleeping with his daughter, you name it, if it was bad, Drake Rollins was thick in the middle of it, with that famous grin plastered on his face. I had fantasized about Drake Rollins since I had first seen a picture of him in a Cal football program. He was the literal definition of tall, dark, and handsome. Those deep brown eyes, that short black hair, just the perfect man. I had seen him at the gym a few times getting ready to swim, and the way his amazing tattoos twisted and turned across his body made my mouth water. I imagined them underneath his well-tailored suit and I could help but get a little wet at the idea of tearing that suit off and having him fuck me, hard. Ugh, Lily, you could not have picked a worse time to think like that! I had work to do, but all I wanted to do was fantasize about my dream man, who just happened to be here. And that wasn’t all. Drake and I had a history together, if you could call it that. Nothing too big, of course, just the source of all my fantasies since we had met in college. I still remembered how that one

kiss felt to me, even if Drake didn’t. Why was he even here? Unquestionably, Drake Rollins had the talent to be here. Every scouting report I had seen gave him a first round grade. But the big news of the day was that the league had uninvited him from the green room and the draft entirely, over his latest legal issues. He wasn’t supposed to be here. How did he not know that? What a shame.

CHAPTER 02 - DRAKE Draft day, 3pm So this was fucking draft. Not bad. Not as big as I had expected, not from watching on TV all these years. But it was alright. Not a bad place to kick off my career. I’ve never been inside Radio City Music Hall before. They held big-time concerts and performances in here, stuff I had never been able to afford, and stuff I didn’t have time for either. The room seemed a little small, though. Like you could contain all my greatness just a room this big. I shook my head, laughing to myself. I better not get drafted by a team that plays in a dome. Not only was that only pretend football, no dome could contain me. I walked in like I owned the place, because soon I would own the place. I looked over the team area, seeing the 32 team setting up the tables. One of those teams would soon be smart enough to draft me, and their fortunes would change forever. That team’s fans would get tired of having a Super Bowl parade every single year. Next stop, green room. I passed by the media section, nodding and smiling at everyone that I met. Even if I never saw these people again, it never hurt for people to remember me as a cool guy, a nice guy. A couple of the on-air talent recognized me and raise their eyebrows at me, which was kind of strange, but I let it slide. They were probably nervous about spending all that time on TV today. One of the reporters, a guy I’d talked to a few times when game day coverage had come to Cal,

waved at me. I stopped and he came over. “Hey, Drake,” he said, not nearly as happily as I expected him to be. “Hey, Rich, nice to see you.” I looked out at the crowd in the balcony. “Nice turnout today, yeah?” Rich looked confused for a moment, which wasn’t like him. “Yeah, Drake, big turnout. Lotta teams gonna be very happy with their draft class today.” “And then of course there’s the Jets, right?” Rich was from New York and a big Jets fan and I’d ribbed him about it endlessly. Every few years the Jets showed a few signs they were a serious team, then inevitably they’d collapse and leave each of their fans tearing their hair out wondering where they’d gone wrong. Rich didn’t have much hair left as it was, so he couldn’t afford to act like a regular Jets fan. Still, I had heard that being in the media and covering football for so long made it easy to forget your childhood team allegiance. Me, I had never really had an allegiance to a particular team. Football was just something I was good at, and that was all the allegiance I needed. My teammates and coaches didn’t seem to mind as long as I showed up to practice and showed up to the games. I liked it that way, kept things simple. “Right, Right,” Rich said, the smile disappearing. ‘Listen, Drake, what’re you -“ I cut him off in mid sentence. “I gotta go, Rich, things getting started soon, and I gotta get in my spot, you know?”

Rich just stared at me, his mouth moving but the words not coming out. I had never seen Rich at a loss for words before - this was actually really funny, and I wish I had had more time to stop and appreciate it. I didn’t, though; it was getting to be game time and I had somewhere else to be. “Ye-yeah, Drake, you gotta get moving,” Rich finally spoke when he found the right words. “I hope you have a good day today.” I flashed him my biggest smile. “Of course I will, Rich, it’s draft day! This is just the beginning.” “Yeah. Good luck.” This time Rich was much shorter with me. I wonder what had gotten into him? Usually he was always good for some joking around, even during 20 or 30 second breaks from doing TV. The man was a pro and really good at holding his composure. He’d been covering the draft for the league’s own TV network for years now, so I really didn’t know what had spooked him like that. Oh well, to each their own. I shook Rich’s hand and kept moving toward the green room. Along the way I ran into a few more reporters gathered around talking shop. I checked my watch; I had about 60 seconds to kill before I really needed to get a move on, so I clapped one them on the shoulder and joined in the group. “What’s the good word, fellas?” I broke in, showing off just how jazzed I was to be there. “Oh, hey, Drake,” one of them replied, a look of confusion on his face. The rest of them were silent. I got a weird vibe from the whole thing and decided to make my exit. “Just wanted to say hi, guys,

happy draft day and all, I’ll see you after the festivities. Be sure and get my good side when that phone call shot comes up, yeah?” I laughed as I walked away. “Oh yeah, both sides are my good side!” It was good to be on top. Those guys must have just been a little surprised to see me in their huddle so close to the draft. They probably figured I’d be in the green room already. I was Drake Rollins, though, I still had time to kiss babies and glad hand the common folk. I would never give that up - my adoring public needed me. As I walked away from them I heard them talk about me. That was more like it. I checked my watch again, and I needed to book it to get to the green room entrance before the cutoff. The league liked to keep things running as efficiently as possible especially on draft day, and I wasn’t about to be the loose cog that slowed everything down. That was no way for one of the league’s soonto-be-biggest stars to start his career off, was it? Everyone was acting a little strange around me, and I didn’t know why. I tried to shrug it off as best I could as I walked towards the green room, but there was a voice in the back of my head I was telling me that something was wrong. And it wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried to silence it. The green room entrance was a regular double door, with two security guards standing in front of it. Big guys, bigger than me. Guys that could play on the offensive or defensive line, and probably had in high school and college. They each had earpieces in, and wore suits.

I rolled up, gave them the Drake Rollins smile. “Drake Rollins, here for the draft. Let’s get our green room on.” I waited for them to open the door. The security guards cocked their heads to the side, and each one of them put a finger to their ear piece, as if pressing it into here better above loud noise of the crowd in the huge hall. They listened for a few moments, and I tapped my foot against the floor. I didn’t have time for this. I need to be inside there with the cameras and the lights, so that people around the world could put a face to the name. Football wasn’t like basketball or baseball. We wore helmets almost all the time that people saw us, so draft day was the first time that most of these people would learn what I looked like. When I got my endorsement deals, I wouldn’t be wearing my helmet, so it was important that they started to recognize me soon as possible. These are all things I had learned in that public relations class I took back at Cal, and from all the different brand managers and endorsement dealers that my agent’d had me meet over the last few months. Everybody wanted to be in the business of Drake Rollins. As long as that made me money I was okay with it. A rising tide lifted all boats, and I was the biggest rising tide in town. “Sorry, Mr. Rollins, we can’t let you in.” The two security guards said in unison. If they had said anything else, I would’ve laughed, the way they were so well coordinated. “Excuse me? Let me in. I’m on the list.” Drake Rollins was always on the list. No matter what list, if you wanted to be on it, I was on it.

“That is not the information were getting, sir. You’ll have to move along.” What the fuck was going on here? I had been invited to the green room at the draft this year. There was no way the league was keep the leading receiver two years running out the green room on fucking draft day. This made no sense. “I’m going in there, fellas. This was a funny joke, but I’m going in there.” I stepped toward security guards, intending to rush by them and get inside the green room, but they form the wall in front of me, immovable, and pushed me back. “We’re sorry, Mr. Rollins, but you can’t come in. You’ll have to move along, or we’ll have to ask you to leave.” “What the fuck, guys?” I was starting to get mad, and my voice showed it. “I was invited to the green room. I am on the list. Check the list.” “The list has changed.” “Change it again. I need to fucking get inside the room. the draft is about to begin.” “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t help you. Please move along.” “Move along, move along, you keep fucking saying that. Where the fuck am I supposed to go?!” “I don’t know that, sir, but you can’t stay here. This area is for invited players and their families only.” “And I’m telling you fuckers, I am an invited

player! Why is this so hard to understand?” “Because you no longer invited,” Adam said. I whipped around, still livid, to see Adam Snyder, my agent, standing behind me. “Adam! Thank fuck you’re here. These suckers won’t let me in, and the draft’s about to start. I need to get inside.” Adam was a shark of an agent, one of the best in the business. He was old school, didn’t get with any of the new fangled technology that most people use these days, but when you had his kind a roster of talent, and his skills at negotiating, you could dictate your own rules. Adam Snyder got the job done, and there was no one I would rather have as my agent. He put his arm on my shoulder, pulling me toward him. He was a good 4 inches shorter than me, but he carried himself like a man who was 7 feet tall, and the rest of the world treated him like it, myself included. “You haven’t checked your messages, have you?” I shook my head. “I’ve been a little busy today. Why, what’s going on?” Adam shook his head, exasperated. He looked like he wanted to yell at me. He’d yelled at me before, and I had taken it without firing him, because he was Adam Snyder, and even though I was going to be the hottest thing on the field since sliced bread, I still listened to him. “You idiot, you’re not supposed to be here today.” “Adam, I got the invitation. You gave it to me.”

“Things have changed, your latest stunt last week got everyone talking, and this morning the league decided it would be best for them and everyone involved if you didn’t show up today.” “What the fuck? I never got charged with anything.” “Yeah, thanks to me, asshole. I had to stick my neck out for you, farther than I ever have before for anyone else.” “And you did that because you know I’m gonna make you bank - contracts, endorsements, you know it.” Adam looked at me and I could see the familiarity and whatever bond between us slowly disappear. “That doesn’t look likely if you don’t get drafted, now doesn’t it?” What. The. Fuck. Not get drafted? “Adam…what are you saying?” He pulled me in closer. “This is what I’m saying, try and get it through your thick skull for once. You may be smart, Drake. Fuck it, you’re not just smart, you’re brilliant. And you can play football. But all that extra shit you keep doing just got you kicked out of the draft.” Shit. I tried to wrap my head around this bombshell. It wasn’t easy. This was supposed to be the best day of my life until I caught my first professional

touchdown, and then my first Super Bowl winning touchdown. “But…I’m still gonna get drafted, right?” I didn’t really need to be here as long as a team took me on. And every team that could have picked me up before the one that finally did, I’d write down their name and make sure to burn them every time we played my entire career. Because fuck those guys. My off the field shit wasn’t that bad. So I partied hard and slept around. That’s what worked for me, and I was always there when the game started. Wasn’t that all that mattered? Adam pulled back. “I don’t know if you’ll get drafted. None of the teams will want to take a chance on someone with your character concerns.” “Character concerns!? I fucking graduated from college early! I have an engineering degree and a 3.6 GPA on top of football at one of the best universities on fucking planet!” “And yet when you arrive at the party things always get out of hand and the police get called. And you always seem to wake up with someone important’s 19 year old daughter in your bed.” I couldn’t really argue with that. I breathed in deep, shutting my eyes, still unable to handle all of this. “What’re my options?” “Go home, kid. Don’t watch the draft. I’ll call you and let know what happens.” “That’s it?” “Yeah, that’s it. Think about what you’ve done and

see if maybe, maybe, if a team gives you a shot, that you’ll consider cleaning up your life and giving the media no reason to pay attention to you for just a year.” “This is fucking bullshit, Adam.” “You’re telling me.” And with that, Adam, nodded to the security, who stepped aside and let him into the green room. Of course, Adam was allowed to go in. He had a bunch of other clients in there, and I’m sure all of them had put him on the list as one of their allowed guests. “Fuck this shit!” I yelled after Adam as the door closed. I tried to push my way into the room, past the two security guards, but they must have seen me coming because they closed up right behind Adam and I didn’t get more than a hand on the door before they’d shoved me back. “Mr. Rollins, we’ll have to ask you to leave peacefully, or we’ll be forced to call the police.” “Alright, alright,” I yelled back, holding up my hands before I straightened my suit. “I’ll go, I’ll go.” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I knew that I’d made a scene and that there were cameras on me already. People were talking all around me in hushed whispers, like they were scared that I would lash out at them if I could hear what they were saying about me. They were probably right. I needed to get the fuck out of here as soon as possible. The corridor stretched in the direction opposite to the stage, and that seemed as good a

place as any, so I ran down it, just trying to get out of the spotlight for a moment so I could collect myself. Fuck everything.

CHAPTER 03 - LILY Bill came up behind me. “Drake Rollins actually showed up?” He chuckled under his breath. “I didn’t think the kid had it in him.” I turned to Bill to ask what he meant by that, but Bill scowled at me and immediately focused back on watching Drake argue with the security guards locking down the entrance to the green room. It was hard to turn away from it myself. Drake Rollins and I didn’t have much of a history together, but we’d known each other briefly at Cal. He’d taken a media and communications class that I’d taken a year earlier, as a breadth requirement for his degree, and I’d tutored him a few times. Drake wasn’t the type to need tutoring - in addition to being an amazing athlete, he was also brilliant. He just had a style of learning that was different from most. He didn’t learn things from hearing lectures or reading books, he learned through conversations. The professors at Cal had gotten a little frustrated with him constantly asking questions in class, derailing their lecture plans, and finally had decided to give him wide access to talk to any of their assistants whenever he wanted. The plan had worked, and despite having a full load of football work and obligations, he’d completed an electrical engineering degree in just three years. Why he’d taken a media and communications class I never really understood, but I’d really enjoyed our conversations together. And not just because they were interesting and informative, or because I’d learned a few things myself. Drake Rollins was the most gorgeous man I’d

ever seen. And that wasn’t exactly a unique opinion among the girls at Cal or any of the schools he visited through football. The man could turn heads of the female persuasion no matter what he was doing or wearing. The trouble was, he was absolutely aware of that fact. I had heard stories around campus of this legendary conquests. With a chiseled body, and a smile cut out of stone like that, it’s not like too many girls would even dream of turning him down, and I had yet to hear of any that had done so. I remembered over the course of our tutoring sessions, that I had tried and tried to get him to notice me, wearing increasingly sexier outfits, and doing my best to flirt with him. Drake had responded, of course, flirting back, but I had always gotten the impression that he was keeping himself from me. Of course, he was also a world-class asshole. Everything had been handed to him, the school had bent over backward to accommodate him, and he knew it. And he took advantage of it. That was the magic of touchdowns. If you could score on Saturdays, that’s all that mattered. You could do almost anything else the other six days a week. The last time we had met, I had worked up the courage to ask him why that was, why he wasn’t making a pass at me, but in the moment, when it was the right time to ask, I chickened out, and the moment passed. We had been at a party later that week and Drake had come up to me, a little tipsy, and made an awkward pass at me. I’d gone along with it, of

course, and I remembered that kiss to this day. He seemed to forget it right away, though, and nothing ever came of it. Maybe he had had too much to drink that night, but even if he didn’t remember, I did, and I thought about it every day since. It was quite a shock to see him here on draft day. Of course, I knew that given his record and his stats that he would be invited to the green room, but that’s still hadn’t prepared me for seeing him in person again. Drake Rollins had an effect on me that no man had ever had before. Of course I had also read the news about him being uninvited from the draft day events at the last moment. I knew about his off the field issues and I had read each news item over the last few months with a resigned kind of dread, the kind you reserve for someone you care deeply about who can’t seem to get it together, no matter how hard they try. In Drake Rollins’ case, though, it seemed as though he was actively trying to sabotage his future career, and I just couldn’t understand why. The scuffle with security guards in front of the door came to a head, and I heard the shouting begin. Drake then took off down the hall, and Bill turned to me, a sneer on his face. “Looks like the kid doesn’t have it in ‘em after all. I should’ve known.” Again, I was about to ask Bill what he meant by that, and why he was taking even a modest interest in Drake Rollins, but before I could get a word out, Bill started back toward the globes table, and I couldn’t get a word in. I was left watching Drakes retreating form. No one else seemed to be doing anything about it;

the security guards went back to guarding the door, and the rest of the media around kept on doing their thing, milling about and mentioning that Drake Rollins arrived, but no one made any other moves. That made sense, because the draft was almost about to start. But it seemed to me like the most interesting story was leaving right at that moment. Here was Drake Rollins, the number one receiver in the country, widely expected to be a top draft pick, taken off almost every team’s draft board because of off the field issues, uninvited from the draft itself, and he showed up, and now he was running away? And no one was following him? I turned to Steve, and he looked back at me, waiting for me to speak. “Follow me. And get that camera ready.” Steve hoisted his camera and smiled. “Where are we going?” “To follow the biggest story of the draft.” Steve nodded, and I took off after Drake. Drake had a little bit of a head start on us; Radio City Music Hall was a giant place, and it was entirely possible that he had gotten lost by now in the caverns and tunnels behind and around the stage. As Steve I left the hallway I could hear the music start up, and the TV announcers begin their voice over. the draft was starting, and I was about to miss it. I felt a momentary pang of disappointment course through me, but I knew deep down that I was

following the real interesting story of the draft. Everyone else would see who was picked by which team and when, and if I was honest with myself, my reporting of those picks would be much like any other junior reporter’s coverage. This, though, this was different. This was exclusive. As we move down the corridor, I glanced at Steve’s camera, and saw the red light on it. He was recording, moving left and right in slow motion, taking it all in, getting a sense of what was going on. We weren’t streaming live to the Globe’s website, but whatever we got today, the Globe’s video editors would clean up and put on there as soon as they could. Something told me this would be a huge scoop. Drake must’ve known that he wasn’t allowed at the draft today. So why did he show up? Did you think they would just let him in? Did he think that in the spur of the moment all of his off the field transgressions, which were numerous, would just be forgotten? And say they did let them in, say they did let a teams draft him, which team would take a chance on a player with so many red flags? draft picks were extremely valuable, especially high ones. Football teams couldn’t afford to miss on them, and draft a player who wouldn’t perform, or who wouldn’t even be able to play. Drake Rollins looked like one of the latter. Even if he didn’t get drafted high in the first round, he could probably find a team desperate

enough to take a chance on him in the later rounds. At least, he might be able to find such a team five years ago. Or maybe even three years ago. But with all the increased scrutiny and condemnation the league had gone through over player issues off the field in the last couple years, with this latest move, uninviting Drake from the draft, no team would draft him, even if they were able to. I didn’t know what he was going to do with himself without football in his life, but Drake needed to understand that being a professional football player probably wasn’t in the cards for him any more. At best, it seemed right now, that he would end up as a cautionary tale, a story to tell kids in high school and college what not to do with their off the field time if they had such a huge talent and potential. On each side of the corridors were various theater gizmos and props, things from past shows in past performances, gear that hadn’t been stowed away yet because it was used too frequently. I didn’t recognize any of it, but then again I didn’t spend much time behind theatre stages, or in theaters in New York at all. As we moved down the hall, the sounds in front of us got louder and louder, until I could make out a voice yelling. It was Drake. He was yelling, he would get quiet, and then he would start yelling again. I wondered who he was yelling at. When we got close, I held my hand and tapped Steve on the shoulder, slowing him down. He instantly understood, and we crept toward the corner where Drake stood, looking at the wall.

He was talking to himself, softly, out loud. I looked around, trying to see past all the props and theater gear covering the walls, but couldn’t find anyone else around. And no one else had come down the corridor in our direction, so Drake must’ve been yelling at nobody in particular. Steve and I stayed silent, and watched Drake as he mumbled to himself. My heart went out to him, as it would to anyone in this situation, even if it was someone that I didn’t have even the slightest bit of history with. Drake, though, was different. We had gone to the same school, we had studied together, and I had the biggest crush on him then. Despite how much of an asshole he was. And you know what? I still did. Even though Drake was muttering in a hallway while the draft went on behind us and Drake didn’t get drafted, the culmination of all his dreams and hard work since before he was ten years old, I still carried a huge burning torch for him. I wanted to rush toward him right then and there, and tell him things would be OK, that he’d figure it out and do the right thing from now on. He looked like he was getting ready to punch something. I could see his hands coming together into fists, and I knew he was about to do something rash. I had do something before he hurt himself. “You don’t want to do that!” I practically shouted, unable to keep it in. “Drake?” I asked, tentatively. It came out a little less sure than I wanted it to. By now Steve had

stepped back, still recording, fading into the background like a good cameraman should. People acted differently when they knew they were on camera, and our goal was to capture the raw emotion and expression from the people we interviewed. If they forgot that they were on camera, that was even better. Drake whirled around when I said his name, and his eyes blazed with a mixture of theory and sadness, so powerful that I have never seen anything like it before. I couldn’t even tell if he recognized me, as it had been months since we had seen each other and I looked really different now. This close, I could see that he looked even more beautiful than he had the last time I had seen him. At the same time, though, it broke my heart to see him in such obvious pain. I wanted to reach out and hug him, and maybe do even naughtier things, but while we were in the business of capturing emotion and expression, we weren’t looking for those things from our reporters. I had a job to do. “Drake Rollins - Lily Pearson, Boston Globe. Anything you’d like to say to us?”

CHAPTER 04 - DRAKE I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to get out of there. Fuck this shit. They weren’t letting Drake Fucking Rollins into the draft? Why even have a draft at all? So I got in some tough situations off the field, who the fuck cares? I could catch touchdowns, nothing else mattered. Just get me back to a field and I could show all these fuckers who was boss, who knew what the score was. Instead they wanted to keep any team from taking me. Getting in the way of me making my money? Fuck that shit. I ran down the corridor away from the stage, just as the music started and the announcers started talking. I hoped none of this would actually make the broadcast. Or maybe, I thought for a second, people would go nuts and blow up twitter and Facebook, saying I should be allowed in. I knew for a fucking fact that any of those 32 teams would instantly get better if I was there. So why were they stopping me? “Who wouldn’t want to get with this?” I shouted to no one in particular. I didn’t pay any attention to the stuff lining the walls as I ran. There wasn’t anyone down this path, which was good, because I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. The big, strong, stoic Drake Rollins having trouble keeping the tears out of his eyes after getting embarrassed with all those cameras and

reporters around. Luckily I had been late in getting to the green room at all, because by the time I had arrived most of the crews were back getting ready for the main event. There was only that one crew left, with that girl… That girl, she looked a little familiar. I didn’t get a good look at her, because hey, it was the rare time I had something a little more important on my mind than pussy, but if all this ended up better than it was going I might have to go and look her up some time soon. Give her an exclusive interview with Drake Rollins in exchange for an exclusive interview of a different kind with whatever her name was. That was sounding more and more like a good plan as I turned it over in my head, provided I could figure out what to do about this draft thing. I stopped running, finding a nook, still no one around, a place I could collect my thoughts. I didn’t find anything fancy, just a place where the sound from the draft starting wasn’t so loud. A place where I could think. “All I want to do is play football!” Nah, that wasn’t quite true. All I wanted to do was play football and live the life of a football player. And I was so good at it. From the minute my parents signed me up I was scoring touchdowns, taking every single team I played on as far as we were allowed to go. My room was full of football trophies, enough that my sisters were getting tired of having them around the house. But would my mother get rid of any of them? Not

on your life, she just kept finding the right ways to move them around the house, so that when we needed a surface for something, one would appear as if by magic. The weight of how much I had let my family down washed over me for the first time. What had I done? And all for just a little bit of partying? All just to flip the world off and tell them they couldn’t control me? Was any of this worth it? Here I was, one of the biggest draft prospects in the last decade, and I was practically shut out of pro football because I liked to drink and fuck around with girls who wanted nothing more than to get me naked. How fair was that? What was I gonna do with my life now? I mean, yeah, I had a degree from one of the best schools in the world, I could find a job and make ends meet with no problem. But that wasn’t football. Football was everything I was, everything I had been for as long as I could remember, and now it was all gone. Just like that, like a puff of smoke, gone in an instant. What would I do with myself now? What would my family say when I went home? Of course by now they would know what was going on. I had my phone on silent, but I knew that if I turned on the screen I’d see a bunch of missed calls and messages from them. I couldn’t face any of that right now. I didn’t want to talk to them, I didn’t want to see them, I just wanted to hide out here where no one could see my shame while I figured out what to do next.

I had to figure out a way to get into the league somehow. I had to figure out how to get onto a team so they could see what I could do. I felt it in my bounds - once a team put me on the field and threw the ball in my direction none of this off the field nonsense would matter. That was all I needed to do. I realized I was mumbling all this to myself in the relative silence of the hall I’d stopped in. I looked up and around as if noticing the place for the first time, and ran my hands over some exposed furniture stacked against the wall while straining to hear the draft as the commissioner announced the first pick. Fuck. I was supposed to be that first pick. And now I was nothing. I balled my hands up into fists, and I was looking for a clean surface to punch, when a voice stopped me. “You don’t want to do that.” I whipped around as I heard her say my name. “Drake?” The girl from before, near the door. The one who looked familiar. What was she doing here? I felt the anger boiling up in me, all the rage from what had just happened to me. Before I had been focusing it inwardly on myself, but now suddenly I had a target in front of me.

“Drake Rollins - Lily Pearson, Boston Globe. Anything you’d like to say to us?” A fucking interview? She wanted to interview me? At a time like this, she wanted a fucking quote? “Did you follow me?!” She looked a little scared. Good. “I did, yes.” “Why?” “I just wanted to give you a chance to say whatever you wanted on the record.” “Why the fuck would I want to say anything to a reporter?” She stepped forward, her hands up. “You’ve just been through something traumatic, so I figured you would have something to say about it.” Where did I know this girl from? She looked super familiar, even if she was dressed like a journalist. Of course, journalists had been hounding me for years, coming to all my games, trying to find me after practice for a statement, but this girl looked too young for all of that. I could not place where I knew her from, though, and it was starting to bother me. Oh shit. It was Lily, Lily from Cal. The girl I had wanted ever since I had met her back in school. I had stayed away from her as best I could, then. I realized as soon as I met her that I wasn’t good enough for her. Not yet. Sure, I could catch touchdowns, but I didn’t think I could be the right man for her - she was different, not like all the other girls, the ones who threw themselves at me.

Any other time and I’d be more focused on trying to get into her pants. Even now, with all I had going on, it still didn’t sound like a bad idea. “Yeah, well, maybe I don’t really want to talk about it right now.” I expected her to leave at that. “That’s fine.” She didn’t leave. She just kept on staring at me like that, with those big beautiful eyes of hers. Lily looked different, but more grown up, more mature, but I would know her anywhere. It was shocking to me that it had taken me this long to recognize her. I could taste the bile in my throat. I was so angry at the world for doing this to me. Here I was, so great at doing this one thing, and they weren’t letting me do it on the biggest stage of all. The commissioner must have announced another pick, because the crowd went wild enough that I could hear it even down this long hallway, away from the cheering fans. “Those fans should be cheering for me right now. I’m the one who earned this, I’m the one who spent every day in the gym or on the practice field. This should be the best day of my life.” Whatever this journalist was, she didn’t say anything. She just kept on looking at me. “But instead, I’m hiding out like this with you. How is that fucking right?” “Some would say you did this to yourself.” “Fuck off. Yeah, so I like to have fun, but I’ve never missed a practice, and I’ve never missed a game. And you know that I can ball. So why aren’t

they letting me?” “Maybe because no one thinks they can trust you? Because they don’t want the headache that comes with you being on the team?” “Who the fuck cares what I’m like off the field as long as I make the play when it’s game time? It’s a business. Scoring and winning games is all that matters. And I do that better than any of those fuckers.” By now I was thrashing wildly about the room, caught up in my anger, boiling over with rage. How dare they take this away from me? How dare they keep the teams from drafting me? Lily changed direction. “What’re you going to do now?” I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. I didn’t have any time to think, not yet. The tears finally came as I realized that now I had more time than anything else. “Why don’t they want me?” I broke down, unable to hold it in any longer. “I’m really good at playing football. That’s all I want to do, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. And I’m really good at it.” The reporter came closer. “So why won’t they let me play? That’s all I really want to. Just let me play…” She looked at me, the most beautiful girl had seen in a long time, if ever, and then she turned to her side and whispered, “turn off the camera.” It was then that I noticed that there was someone else they are with us, the guy with the camera.

Oh shit. I had to get out of here. This shit was gonna hit big.

CHAPTER 05 - LILY Earlier that day, 8 hours before the draft… I didn’t need my alarm this morning. Normally I’d be forced awake by its angry peals, calls to wake up and face the day whether I would like to or not, because guess what? The day was already here! Normally I’d pull myself out of bed, and try unsuccessfully to wipe the sleep from my bleary eyes as I walked to the bathroom, wincing as my feet touched the cold floor and ‘helped’ me wake up faster. Thanks, floor, I knew I could count on you to, you know, be floor and all. Not today. Nope, not today. This morning I was wide awake when it was still dark out. And I was also, you know, not in my own apartment. I looked over at the shiny hotel alarm clock just after I had woken up, and saw that it wasn’t even considering going off for another almost three hours. I preferred my own alarm clock at home - I’d had it since I was seven, and each and every one of the random sounds it put out was near and dear to me. Why was today different from any other day, besides being in a hotel rather than my own place? Was it my first day on the job? Nope, that was last week, and even last week waking up three hours early was a little much. Nah, last week I’d greeted my alarm clock’s steady but piercing drone after thirty minutes of tossing and turning in bed. My first day at work last week, with all the trials and tribulations that firsts like that always brought, was a cakewalk compared to what today was gonna be like, I could already tell. For today, today was draft day. Yeah, that’s right, draft day. The biggest day of the year for football fans

the world over. No, not the Kevin Costner movie no one saw. The real thing. The day when the fortunes of each of the 32 professional football teams changed forever. And it happened once a year! Literally christmas for football fans. The league had moved the draft back to May, from its original place in April, probably to get out from under the shadow of the basketball playoffs. One thing the league was good at was figuring out the right timing for things. Football had become a year round sport, despite real games only being played in September through the first weekend of February. People talked about it endlessly. Water coolers around the world were hubs for football talk, strategies, exultations and anger. Of course, that was before the internet showed up and gave people an entirely new place to argue about football in between sharing selfies and watching porn. It was a wonderful time to be alive. And for me, it was a wonderful time to finally finish my journalism degree and get out into the world, ready to cover whatever they threw at me. And just my luck, I’d gotten my dream job assignment as beat reporter for the Boston Globe, covering the New England Patriots. It wasn’t every day that you got to write about your favorite team growing up for a living! I’d been pinching myself every hour or so since I’d gotten the news last month. The Patriots! Of all the teams to cover, I got to stay in Massachusetts and follow the team around the country?

Dream job right here. I still couldn’t believe that I had gotten it over all the other people that definitely wanted it. I mean, I had a great background in journalism, and I’d written about sports all through college, but I didn’t have nearly as much real world experience as I’m sure other applicants had. I still didn’t know quite what had gotten me the job over them, but so far I hadn’t found the right way to ask that question. And I wasn’t sure if I really wanted the answer. The Patriots! As a girl from a small town in New England, they were my team, through and through. Everyone at school when I was growing up had Patriots gear, though the Celtics were a little more popular at the time. I liked basketball, but football was my first sporting love. I couldn’t remember the number of times I’d sat with my father and watched Patriots games as a kid. He was a huge fan despite all the ups and downs the team had gone through over the years. We went to a few games, but even back then they were a little too expensive for us. Plus, it was way more fun for us to camp out in the living room and watch side by side, me on the couch and my dad in his favorite lounge chair. My mother, who wasn’t into sports at all, had always made us snacks and let us eat lunch and dinner in the living room on game days. It was a really big deal. Those Sundays watching the Patriots with him were some of my fondest memories. In fact, when I found out I got the Globe job covering the Patriots, I hadn’t called my friends first, hometown or college - I’d called my dad. I hadn’t told him that I was even in consideration for the gig, cause I didn’t want to get his hopes up in case I

didn’t get it, but he’d been overjoyed to hear that his little girl was going to be following his favorite football team around the country. I hadn’t gotten a chance to see him since I got the job, but I couldn’t wait to. Finally, the alarm decided to do its thing and I had no choice but to get up and start getting ready if I wanted to get to Radio City Music Hall on time. New York City! I’d arrived yesterday and promptly tired myself out walking all around, my eyes wide open and practically climbing out of my head trying to take it all in. Of course, that was purely on the surface level. If we got a little deeper, to where sports allegiances lived, I hated New York City with a burning passion stronger than anything I’d ever felt for a boy. New York City had two professional football teams, though only one of them should really be considered one, I liked to say to anyone who would listen. The Jets were the typical second team in a big city - their fans constantly groused about being passed over while their terrible team continued to languish in the basement. The Giants, though, they were another story. The Giants had destroyed perfection, and not through any skill or talent, but because of sheer luck. And for that, the Giants should never win another game again. Yikes, I could feel my bile rising as I started to get into my internal Giants monologue. No time for that, Lily, big day ahead! Just because this was New York City doesn’t mean I didn’t have to represent New England and my team. I got into the shower, loving the fact that hot water

was instantly at my beck and call. This was pure luxury…even though it could hardly be considered such. Tough times at newspapers and media outlets around the country meant I totally missed the days when journalists would get to live it up while covering cool events like the draft. Now it was a Howard Johnson’s, and a continental breakfast if we were lucky. Still, the nearly-unlimited hot water did make it tough for me to complain at the moment. After I showered and toweled myself off, I got out and stood in front of the mirror, carefully collecting all the pieces of paper I’d taped to it last night. Last minute research - I’d been memorizing team stats and draft needs for today. I knew that covering sports was typically, and by that I meant historically, a man’s field. Any women who were involved were usually just eye candy. I aimed to change that. My father had quizzed me on Patriots trivia and stats my entire life - I’d collected baseball, football, hockey, and basketball cards as a kid, and those binders of cards were as important to me as any girl-related toys had ever been. So I looked at draft day like a big test - I might get called on to know how the Patriots or the Giants or any of the 32 teams might have done in the last couple years and who or what they might be looking for in the draft, and if that was the case I knew I had less than a couple seconds to respond without looking at notes. I didn’t think most of these men I’d be talking to today had something against women in their field, but I did know they’d find ways to test me and see if I knew what I was talking about, if I had the chops to

hang with the big boys. I looked at myself in the mirror as I piled up the papers, careful not to get them wet as I finished drying myself off and applied my makeup. I’d been studying those last minute stats last night as I brushed my teeth, but if I didn’t have them down by now, they wouldn’t help anymore. I’d picked out my draft day outfit last night and had it cleaned by the hotel staff one last time in case I missed anything, then hung it up in the closet away from anything else, just in case. I wasn’t gonna take any chances. I’d gone with something a bit more conservative than I would normally wear out. I wasn’t by any means a flashy girl, but with my curves, most clothing ended up being a little flashier than you’d expect when you saw it on the rack. So I made sure and err on the side of not getting myself into trouble. If sports were up until recently a man’s game, I didn’t want to come off as one of those women who was a casual fan because she liked to see men in tight pants, though I was not complaining one bit about that. I didn’t want to be around famous athletes so I could meet them or date them or sleep with them - I really loved sports and I wanted people to take me seriously. The Patriots! Draft day! I almost started hyperventilating as I got dressed. This was the big day! Holy shit! It was finally here! After I checked myself over one last time in the mirror and threw my phone and everything else I needed into my purse, I slipped into my shoes and was off to meet the other

members of my team for breakfast. The actual draft didn’t start till this afternoon, but we had plenty of setup to do, final interviews, scheduling, etc. It was gonna be a long day, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I was finally ready. Radio City Music Hall, here Lily comes! Were you ready for draft? Were you ready for some football (in a month)? I sure was.

CHAPTER 06 - DRAKE Earlier that day, 8 hours before the draft… Draft day! Thank FUCK it was here. “WITH THE FIRST PICK IN the draft, The WHATEVER-TEAM-PICKS-FIRST PICKS… DRAKE ROLLINS, WIDE RECEIVER, CAL.” It sounded amazing, and I couldn’t wait. Just like I couldn’t wait for all those touchdowns. The end zone was gonna be my new home. The professional end zone, I meant. I’d spent enough time in the high school and college end zones already. I was so over this other shit, it was time to get my PROFESSIONAL game on. I was gonna be the next big thing in pro football, after I’d spent a couple years burning it up in college. They hadn’t made a defense that could hold me down. Nope, I’d broken all time college records. Shit that had lasted decades. All gone, all starting fresh in my name. It was good to be this good. I was a gift to football, and I was here to make sure today that everyone knew it. Whichever team decided that my services were critical to their future, I was gonna light up. The whole league was gonna regret it - I was gonna make one team very, very happy today, and the other thirty one teams could go fuck themselves. Cause that’s what not drafting me was like. Drake Rollins, wide receiver from the University of California at Berkeley, home of the California Golden Bears.

Fuck everything else. I lay in bed, my hands behind my head, staring up at the ceiling. Damn it felt good to be this good. Light was just starting to come into the hotel room through the shades I’d drawn before going to bed. I turned my head to the side and looked down at the girl lying next to me. I smiled, looking at how beautiful she was. Nineteen…or was it twenty? I couldn’t remember. We’d met outside a club the night before, a predraft day party. She’d been with her girls, trying to get invited in by some soon-to-be players. She’d stopped me when I pulled up and we’d talked a bit, she pulling me down to whisper in my ear all the nasty shit she wanted to do with a pro football player the night before the draft. Of course, I had to oblige. We’d gone in and had a couple drinks before coming back to the hotel, and she had definitely lived up to all the things she said she liked. I shook my head at some of the dirty stuff we’d done, and I started to get hard again just from thinking about it. I knew she’d be up for round two. Hell, this wasn’t even round two. At about 3am I had woken up to find her under the blankets, sucking my cock as I woke up. After a few minutes of that I’d fucked her again, finishing off in her mouth. That was the only good reason to get woken up in the middle of the night as far as I was concerned, besides a fire. I turned over to face her, my hardening cock pressing into her side. She was gorgeous, blonde, tight little body, huge tits that felt amazing in my

hands. Just the perfect little athlete-fucker groupie. It wasn’t just good to be this good, but the perks made it so much better. This girl might think she was special, might think we’d see each other again, but she was like an entire army of girls back in college. And not just at Cal, which was full of smart girls. Any school we’d gone to, there had been girls lining up out the door to take care of us. College girls just loved football players, I could not explain it. And not just college girls. Every girl wanted a piece of a guy in this good shape, about to make this much money. Intoxicating. She…Bianca, was it? Started to wake up, her eyes still closed, her hands reaching out and touching my huge shoulder, a smile etching its way across her face. “Good morning, big boy,” she whispered as she finally opened her eyes, fluttering them in an attempt to look sexy, which didn’t really work when those sleepy-things were hanging off them. “Hey yourself.” “Wanna go again?” Her voice sounded hopeful yet cautious. “Yeah,” is all I said in return, unwrapping a condom, rolling it on me, and pulling her on top of me like she barely weighed anything. “Mmmhhmmm,” she smiled and closed her eyes again as she reached down and guided my cock into her. “Go slow, I’m still sore from last night.” “Right.” I didn’t go much slower, but Bianca, if

that really was her name, was a trooper, taking all of me as soon as she could. “You feel amazing.” “I know.” I had my hands back behind my head again, and Bianca took the hint, raising and lowering herself on me, doing all the work of getting us both off. That’s how it should be. I didn’t have the time or energy to make this happen myself. And plus, this was a privilege. For her. I just lay back and enjoyed the view of Bianca’s heavy breasts as they rolled back and forth. Occasionally I’d lean my head forward and suck on her nipples as they came by. A few minutes later I pushed her off me and took the condom off. Bianca knew what I liked by now and immediately started sucking me off, taking another load and swallowing it like a good girl when I came. I lay back and didn’t say anything. She tried to cuddle up to me at first, but she got the hint pretty quick that that wasn’t going anywhere. It never did, and I liked it that way. I had more important things on my mind. Fucking draft day. All my hard work, all my sacrifice, all those long hours in the gym, eating right, lifting weights, on the practice field, all of it. All for today. Today my legend continued. Fuck yeah. Whoever got me on their team was getting the best new receiver in decades.

Thousand yard season? Shit. I would double that if I decided to work hard this year. 10 touchdowns? Maybe by the halfway mark, if I didn’t take a breather on running up the score a few times. Sky was the limit when you got talent like I got talent. And the world was gonna recognize that soon. I may not have gone to the biggest football school around, but I could ball. I could ball hard. And I had the stats to back it up. And not just that, I actually went to class too. Graduated early in electrical engineering on top of playing D1 football in the Pac-12, which was probably soon to be the Pac-11. Nothing was gonna hold me back anymore - just had to figure out which team was willing to take me, and I’d be off on the next plane. Though maybe I’d stop in Las Vegas first and get my party on, post-draft day style. “Ready for the draft?” Oh yeah, she was still here. Bianca. “Yeah, I will be. Got a few hours to kill before then.” I didn’t look at her. No need to. I could hear her smile, though, as she ran her hand over my huge shoulder, admiring the tattoos. She licked her lips loudly, and I knew she wanted more. I wasn’t really feeling it anymore; I had more important things to do, so I took the high road, such as it was, and cut her off just as she opened her mouth “Yeah, I got some stuff I gotta take care of before I head out.” “Can I stick around?” She moved her hand lower,

down my stomach toward my crotch. “We could,” she swallowed, “keep playing some more while you get ready.” “That sounds nice, but I really gotta concentrate.” “Oh, ok.” She was clearly dejected, but she got up from the bed and started looking around for her clothes. I looked around the room, grinning, seeing parts of her outfit from the night before hanging from the strangest places. We’d had some fun last night, she and I. But now it was time for her to go. I watched her get dressed, not saying a word. “Sure I can’t stick around?” She asked when she was all set to leave, one last try. I’d seen a lot of hail mary passes in my high school and college career, and caught many a touchdown from them, but this was one of the most valiant I could remember in a while. “Some other time, maybe,” I said, hollow, “I got a lot going on today.” “Ok. Good lucky today.” She turned around and left the hotel room, closing the door softly on her way out. I lay back in bed and sighed, investigating the ceiling. That was a little awkward, I don’t know why she didn’t get the hint sooner. Shit, I hadn’t checked my phone since I had woken up! Usually it was the first thing I did, but I must have gotten distracted by draft day sneaking up on me like this. As if I hadn’t been preparing for it every day

since I was 10. I found my phone where I’d tossed it the night before in the hurry to get my clothes off and get with that girl, whatever her name was, and thumbed the screen, scrolling through all the messages from my friends, teammates, coaches, and more than a few of the girls I’d slept with in the last few years. It took a lot of scrolling to see all the messages. I replied to a couple messages, but decided to save most of them for after the draft. Once I knew which team I was in gonna play for, I’d have a lot more to say. A bunch of messages were from my agent, but I didn’t really pay attention to them. He was a stodgy old guy, who wasn’t really into technology. Still, he was a shark when it came to making deals, and I knew that I was in good hands. The league’s best new receiver needed to be making big, big cash. And not just from my contract, from endorsements too. I had expensive tastes, and now was the time to indulge in all of them. The question was, which team would take me? Yeah, yeah, I knew all about how my draft stock had fallen in the last few months. All those stories in the papers and on social media about me, getting into trouble, had all these coaches thinking I had character concerns. What the fuck were character concerns, anyway? All they needed to know was that I showed up to practice, showed up to the games, and I caught the fucking football.

Everything else was my business and no one else’s. Yeah, so I liked to party it up. Yeah, so I liked to drink a little on the weekends, when I didn’t have a game. I was just like any other college guy. Except on Saturdays, instead of watching from the stands, I caught touchdowns. And they wanted to tell me what I couldn’t do with my time? Fuck that. And yeah, I liked girls. I liked to sleep with a lot of girls. So what? Who fucking cared, except maybe their fathers. I laughed to myself, remembering the look on the Dean’s face when he stormed into my room one morning and found his daughter in bed with me. I’d never forget it. And I guessed he wouldn’t either. I checked the phone part, and I had voicemails, again from my agent. All that stuff could wait till after the draft. I didn’t need to hear anything from him right now. As much as I wanted to know which team was in a play for, I kind of wanted to hold onto the surprise just a little bit longer. I wanted to learn with the rest of America which team Drake Rollins was going to play for. Finally, I got up and got ready for the draft. It was gonna be a full day, but by the end of it, I was gonna be a professional football player. Drake Rollins, professional football player. It had a nice ring to it.

CHAPTER 07 - LILY Three days after the draft… Bill Thompson wanted to see me in his office. A couple weeks ago if you had said that to me I’d be both giddy with anticipation and excitement and really nervous. But now, two weeks later, there was nothing but dread. I had only been on the job 10 days at the Boston Globe and I already was used to Bill Thompson and his attitude toward younger journalists, especially women younger journalists. Especially women younger journalists who covered sports. You see, Bill Thompson didn’t quite understand why women wanted to come to work when they could just as easily stay home and raise families while their husbands brought home the bacon. And he certainly didn’t understand how they could make it in the tough trenches of daily news coverage. And he even if he got past all that…a woman covering a professional football team? Wasn’t that what the cheerleaders were for? All of these things I had learned in just two weeks of working with Bill Thompson. Still, despite his terrible and outdated opinions about women in the workplace, just covering the same beat as him was exhilarating. The man had forgotten more about the Patriots than I’d ever known, and pro football in general was his thing. He was an acidic and tough to deal with even on a good day, but his writing was fantastic, and before I could read my dad would read each of Thompson’s columns to me out loud when

they came in the paper. So yeah, I might not like being around Bill Thompson, but putting up with his sour looks and even sourer demeanor was a small price to pay to get to cover my favorite team for a living. I did hold out some small hope that some day I could bring my dad around to the Globe offices to meet Bill; he was such a big fan and it would have been one of the highlights of his life. It was funny that real people had a way of being nothing like who you thought they’d be from taking in their body of work. But on to more important things. the draft. Damn. That had been a day. After Steve and I caught Drake Rollins’ outburst on camera, the rest of the draft had seemed ho-hum, nothing exciting despite being the biggest thing happening in football since the championship game months earlier. It should have been a huge deal, covering it for the first time for the Boston Globe, but something struck me about it after that kerfuffle with Drake. We had argued for a few minutes longer, Drake alternating between almost child-like wonder at his predicament and anger at the world for treating him like this. Once he finally stormed out, I went back to the draft, shaking my head. Bill Thompson had not been happy that I had missed the first few picks, but I hoped by now he had forgotten about that. I didn’t tell him about the Drake thing because I didn’t think it was something he would be interested in - his focus was entirely on the Patriots and their key divisional

opponents. Bill Thompson was a grizzled old sports reporter, and he didn’t make any bones about having an allegiance to a particular team, even if that made him less than impartial. Pretty much all he cared about was how good the patriots were, and how they had gotten better as compared to their biggest opponents and rivals. So, when I found out that he wanted to see me in his office, a couple days after the draft, I was scared. I figured he was about to fire me, and I very nearly started updating my resume, though I had a hunch that ‘two weeks at the Boston Globe’ wouldn’t look very good to any future prospective employers. Still, I looked down at my outfit to make sure there were no strange creases anywhere, then I took a deep breath and headed into Bill’s office. Bill’s office was stark and clean, and huge for a reporter, as befitting his many years of service to the Boston Globe. Bill sat in his chair facing the door, and didn’t get up when I came in. He looked up from his computer screen, and pushed his keyboard away, like he’d never gotten used to using it in the first place. “You wanted to see me, Bill?” Bill waved at me like he wasn’t interested in hearing me speak. “Sit down, Pearson.” I gulped, and sat down in the left of the two chairs in front of Bill’s desk. I was already bracing myself for the worst. My father was going to be so disappointed that I had already gotten fired from covering the Patriots for the Globe, after just 10 days.

“You’re terrible at this.” Ouch. Starting off on a positive note already. Just like ol’ Bill Thompson. “Bill, I -“ He closed his fingers and ran them across his lips, the sneer coming back. “Zip it, kid. I don’t want to hear it. All you kids are alike these days, all this me, me, me crap. Never shut up about anything.” He stood up, clearly on a full head of steam. “In my day, junior reporters were never even heard from until they’ve been on the job for a decade. Because nobody gave a shit what their opinions were, or hell, even their observations, until they knew what they were talking about.” Bill paced around the room, back and forth still behind his desk. He pointed at me. “And you, Pearson, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” I realize all of a sudden that my hands were gripping the arm rests of the chair, my knuckles turning white. This was not the conversation you wanted to have with your boss two weeks after getting your dream job. ”Bill, I –“ “I said zip it. Sure, you know your stats, you know your numbers, you’ve seen every game the Patriots have played for the last 10 years, but that doesn’t mean you know anything.” Well, at least he was giving me some sort of a compliment, right? At least he recognized that I knew the Patriots backwards and forwards. That counted for something, right? At least there was one good thing I could tell my father after I was escorted out of

the building, with just a meager box of my stuff. He put his hands on the table, propping himself up as he leaned over it. “But that doesn’t mean you understand football. That doesn’t mean you understand what it’s like to really get in there and duke it out. And that means you don’t understand where the players are coming from, where the coaches are coming from.” So that was it. Bill Thompson was firing me because I had never played football, either in high school, in college, or professionally. This all came down to me being a woman. I felt my hackles rise, and I momentarily told myself not to do anything stupid, then immediately disregarded that notion. “Now hold on, Bill.” I realized I was standing up, getting on Bill’s level. “I may not have played football, but I understand the game just as well as anyone else who hasn’t played or coached it. I can relate to readers, give them an interesting perspective.” Bill stared at me like I had grown a second head, shocked that I had the audacity to stand up to them in his own office, me, a kid with no experience, and a girl at that! “Sit down, Pearson.” I didn’t want to, but the force of his tone and the look on his face made me do it. I sat back down, my hands gripped tight around the arm rests of the chair yet again. Bill started pacing again. “I should fire you. I should fire you right now and give the job to someone else who knows what they’re doing.” I tried to put on as brave face as I could. I knew

the worst was coming, and I wanted to be as ready for it as I could. Don’t cry, Lily. Do not cry. Sure, you are about to lose your dream job after just a couple weeks, but this was not the time for waterworks. Keep it together, and after this you could figure out what to do next. “I should fire you. But unfortunately for me and luckily for you, I can’t.” Huh? Relief started to wash over me, even though I definitely wasn’t out of the woods yet. I leaned forward, eager to hear what Bill had to say next. He put on a pained expression, like he didn’t understand all that was wrong with the world, but that didn’t stop him from being angry at it. “That video, the video of you and Drake Rollins at the draft. They put that up on the website.” Shit. I had meant to tell Steve that we probably shouldn’t run that, but in all the excitement of the draft, I had forgotten. Of course he would have uploaded it right away, without anyone telling him not to. “The website is blowing up, apparently all everybody wants to see and talk about is Drake Rollins getting snubbed at the draft, and the one reporter who got an interview with him.” An interview? The argument that Drake and night had yesterday was not at all what I would think of as an interview. Still, if it help me keep my job, I’d take it. That was the most important thing right now, as long as I got to keep covering the Patriots, I would do it. “So, what does that mean for me?”

“It means that the top brass want to keep you around. They’ve been going nuts over the website numbers since yesterday, and now they’ve got dollar signs and stars in their eyes. If it were up to me, you’d be out in the street, but unfortunately this one isn’t up to me.” Now the relief washed over me in full, and I sat back, a little bolder than before. So I still had a job after all. Maybe Bill Thompson wasn’t looking out for me, but even he couldn’t argue with the numbers, the views that I brought in. Score one for Lily. “Thanks for the heads up, Bill.” I stood up again, or rather, started to, but Bill waved me down yet again. “One more thing. Now the top brass wants to chase this story as long as they can, and run it into the ground. And they want you to do it.” All the relief turned cold. “What does that mean?” “It means they want you covering Drake Rollins 24/7, if that’s how you kids say it. They pretty much want you on him all the time.” Following Drake? Shit. “Drake Rollins is all washed up, even before his career started. No team will touch him, he’s not going anywhere. Following him around is just a waste of time.” Bill Thompson looked at me with something approaching a tiny bit of respect, that almost instantly disappeared. “Normally, I would agree with that assessment,” he grumbled. “But I happen to know something you don’t, part of the library of things I know that you don’t. Drake Rollins isn’t done yet.”

Shit. I had seen the cloud, and now I had just seen the silver lining, and Bill was hitting me with even bigger cloud behind it. “Pack your bags, Pearson. You’re on Drake Rollins patrol from now on.” “Pack my bags? Where am I going?” “Where else? Foxboro. Now get out of here.” Shit. Six months ago I would’ve been over the moon to be covering Drake Rawlins as a professional journalist, even if he couldn’t cover me with his body. But now, the prospect of spending any time around him, while certainly appealing on a sexual level, seemed like career suicide. Drake Rollins was going nowhere, a downfall that he had created all on his own, despite his incredible talent. And as much as I wanted him to do terrible and naughty things to my body in bed, I did not relish the idea of my career going down the tubes with his. Shit.

CHAPTER 08 - DRAKE Three days after the draft… the draft was over. No team took me. Fuck. My awesome career and millions of dollars was over and gone before it even began. What was I gonna do now? I had come back to the hotel room my agent had been paying for. He kept assuring me that he’d get back to me, that this wasn’t over yet, but I didn’t want to hear any of it. I’d called my parents, of course, but they already knew what had happened. The conversation wasn’t long; I couldn’t bear to keep talking and hear more of the disappointment in their voices. Other than talking to my parents and agent I avoided my phone for a couple days. The texts and calls were crushing at first, and I turned off the ringer after the first couple hours. Then they trailed off as all the sympathy people felt was replaced by getting on with their own lives. In a way that made things a little better. Sure, I liked that people were thinking about me, but I didn’t want to walk around with this feeling that I had let everyone else down for too long. Of course the video from the draft of me and Lily arguing had gone viral. Just my luck. Now I had that to add to all the things people had heard about me in the months since I had caught my last touchdown for Cal. All that kind of stuff and no on the field

performance makes it really easy for people to forget how good you are. I didn’t do a lot of social media stuff as it was, but even I knew I was getting raked over the coals all over the place. I couldn’t avoid my phone entirely, though. My agent, Adam Snyder, had told me on the last call that he’d call again this morning to go over next steps with me. I was glad to hear it - even though I was still pissed over what had happened, I knew Adam was on my side. Of course, Adam was in it for the money, but still, the fact that he kept me on despite going undrafted was still a big deal to me. I knew that if I stuck with him I might be able to get another shot. My phone screen lit up and I saw it was Adam calling. I took a deep breath and picked up. “Hey Adam.” “Drake! How are you holding up?” “I’ve been better,” I sighed. “Got anything for me? Give me some good news, please.” “I’m working on it, I’m working on it. Give me a little time, Drake. Things are moving.” “Can you give me a hint? Don’t leave me hanging here!” “I don’t want to say anything and jinx it.” As agents went, Adam was the most superstitious I had ever met, and that was saying something. “Come on, man, this is my life we’re talking about.”

“I know. That’s what I called to talk about, actually.” I paused. Adam Snyder wasn’t exactly known for dispensing life advice over the phone, but at this point, at the end of my rope like I was, I was more than willing to listen if he was going to send any wisdom my way. “Yeah?” “Yeah. You need to come around, Drake. This crazy life style of yours isn’t gonna get you any farther than this. Twenty years ago a pro athlete could get away with a messy life off the field, but now with all this technology around, everyone recording everything, that shit won’t fly.” Adam was also not a man who swore lightly, unlike most of his contemporaries. I listened intently. “I know, I know.” “No, Drake, I’m not sure you do. You can say that all you want but the proof is on twitter, it’s on all those sports sites talking about you. You know how many calls I’ve gotten about you in the last 24 hours?” “How many?” “Zero. Fucking zero. It’s like you’re radioactive, man, no one wants to touch you with a hundred foot pole, and no one wants you going anywhere near their team.” My heart sank. That is exactly what I didn’t want to hear. It took me a little while to find the right words, and Adam let me take my time. “Is there any good news?” “I’m not sure yet, I’ll be in touch if there is. But

you gotta really sit down and think about your life, man. You gotta figure out if football and professional sports really are for you.” “What the fuck?” Adam really knew how to get a rise out of me. “Football is all I’ve wanted to do since the first time I caught one. There’s nothing more important to me.” “The blogs and TMZ would beg to differ, Drake. According to them, and according to public opinion in general, the most important things in your life are booze, getting in fights, and sleeping with as many hot girls as you can. That sound about right?” Shit. He really had me over a barrel here. “But that just comes with the territ-“ “Shut the fuck up. Don’t give me that crap. Not every super star has trouble avoiding every drink or every girl who wants to climb on his dick.” I stayed silent, and Adam continued. “You’ve got a lot of talent, Drake, and no one is questioning your work ethic in the weight room, or on the field, even. But a big part of work ethic is not letting stuff like parties and girls get in your way when the big stuff is coming.” “I tried -“ “Let me finish. You know as well as I do that plenty of players get by with that stuff, but they keep it under the radar. The stories I’ve heard, you wouldn’t believe. But, before you go off and think I’m telling you that you can do whatever you want as long as no one finds out, stop right there.” I was just about to say something, but Adam cut

me off before I could. “You are not one of those players. You have the talent, sure. You’re the best receiver I’ve ever seen, that’s the only reason we’re still having this call. But you need to understand that there is no such thing as ‘no one finding out’ with you anymore.” He paused. “If there’s one thing this new world of ours likes, it’s a train wreck in progress, and dude,” the word sounded strange coming from Adam, “you are the definition of a train wreck in progress.” “You really know how to lift a guy up when he’s down, Adam, anyone ever tell you that?” I could hear him smile through the phone. “All the time, kid, all the time. But don’t get me wrong, you need me on your side. I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear. That’ll do neither of us any good. I’m here to tell you that there’s still time to fix this mess you made, if you buckle down and lay off the external shit. You understand me?” “I think I do.” “There is no ‘think,’ here, Drake, there is only ‘yes’ and ‘no.’” “Yes, Adam, I understand.” “I’m not entirely convinced yet, but convincing me is luckily your job, not mine.” “Where do we go from here?” “‘We’ hang up the phone now, and then ‘you’ sit and think about whether pursuing this is what you really want. Really think about it hard, Drake, I cannot stress this enough. You are Ceasar staring at

the Rubicon.” I laughed. Adam continued, “You’re a smart guy and I knew you’d get that reference. That’s not something I can say about most of my clients.” “Like the ones from Stanford?” Adam groaned. “Don’t get me started on that hellhole. I dropped every single one of them as soon as possible. Never going to work with any of them again.” That made me just a little bit happier. “Back to the important stuff. I’m serious, here, Drake, I want you to figure your shit out.” “Alright, alright, Adam, I get it. When we hang up, I’ll sit here and think about it.” “Good man. Oh and one more thing, lay off the room service, yeah? That shit’s expensive, and I’m paying for it.” “Yeah, I’ll keep it low. I haven’t been eating much these last few days.” “I understand.” “Adam, what do I do next? I mean, besides figuring out what the fuck I want to do?” Adam sighed. “Sit by the phone, man, sit by the phone. That’s kinda all you got right now.” “Have you heard anything? No calls, you said?” “No calls, right. I’m working the phones myself, but no promises. You really fucked up big, dude.

Teams are running away scared, and given your crazy talent, I’m shocked myself. It’s not like you’ve been arrested for anything. Lately.” I groaned. “Let’s not go over it again, Adam.” “I know you don’t want to, but keep in mind you’re going to have to answer questions about this stuff from people a lot less friendly than me, at least till you can string together some good games. Assuming you get onto the field in the first place.” “Right, right. OK, thanks, Adam.” “Think about it, Drake. And stay by the phone.” He hung up, and I put the phone down. I already knew the answer to Adam’s question. Of course football was what I wanted to do. There was nothing else for me. Sure, I could get a job in engineering, but engineering didn’t come with the bright lights of Sunday night and the adoration of thousands whenever I did my job. There was nothing like that, and I couldn’t give up that dream before it started. My phone buzzed, and I looked over at it. There was a message from Adam. I tapped on it, and saw, “Hope you’ve made up your mind by now. Pick up the phone.” What was he talking about? I stared at my phone. Then, out of nowhere, it started to ring. Unknown number. I stared at it again as it rang twice more before I picked up. “Hello?”

“Drake Rollins?” “Yes.” “Coach Armstrong, New England Patriots.” HOLY SHIT. A fucking pro head coach was calling me. Was Adam trying to organize another pep talk? He did know practically everyone in the league, so it wasn’t impossible. “Ye-Yes, sir. Ni-nice to speak with you.” “You really fucked up, kid.” This was already going bad. “Ye-Yes, sir, I seem to have gotten myself into a mess, sir, but I’m gonna figure out how to get out of it.” “I’ve seen your tape, kid.” “Yes?” “You’re not bad. A little raw, but not bad.” Coach Armstrong was a legend around the league. He was widely believed to be one of the greatest football minds of all time, and on top of that, he was one surly bastard. Calling me ‘not bad’ was probably one of the biggest compliments in his arsenal, and I don’t think anyone had ever paid me one that meant more to me. “Thank you, sir, I’ve had good teammates and I’ve put in a good amount of effort along the way.” “You also,” Coach Armstrong paused and I waited with bated breath, “seem to really enjoy doing things that make pro football teams head for the hills.”

“Yes sir, I know, and I won’t be doing that stuff any longer.” Coach Armstrong laughed, and I briefly moved the phone away from my ear till he stopped. “Listen, kid, I have two rules. The first is that you do whatever it takes to get what you want as long as you don’t break the law. The second is that you never blow smoke up my ass. Are we clear?” “Yes, sir, we’re clear.” “It’s ‘Coach,’ kid, ‘Coach.’” “Yes, Coach.” “You’re on a short leash, kid, so make the most of it.” “Huh?” I was confused, this didn’t make any sense. “Get on a plane and be at the facility by Monday. Your agent will have the details.” “I don’t understand…” Coach Armstrong sighed. “I’m signing you to the team, Drake. I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself and become a professional football player.” HOLY. SHIT. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything; I could barely stay standing. This was insane. Was I dreaming? What was going on here?

I was hyperventilating. “You still there, kid?” He had a knowing sound to his voice, like this was definitely not the first time he’d made a phone call like this and given life to someone in my position. “Yes, Coach, I’m here, and I want to thank-“ “Save it, kid. All I’m giving you is a chance. I’m opening the door you decided you’d rather close, and I’m allowing you to the opportunity to make that decision over again and walk through it this time.” His voice grew hard. “But make no mistake, Rollins, you’re on the shortest fucking leash I can find. If you step out of line even once, or don’t give me everything you got in the field, I will cut your ass without a moment’s hesitation.” “Yes, Coach.” “Kids like you think they’re such hot shit in college. Well, this is the pros, and we only take the best of the best and we still cut people from the team without mercy. So give me all you got and we’ll see if you make the team.” “I understand, Coach. I won’t let you down.” Coach Armstrong chuckled. “Kid, I don’t even know you. I couldn’t give a shit whether you succeed or not - my job is to win championships, and if you’ll help me do that, I’ll give you all the help I can. But if you can’t, I got no use for you. Got it?” “Yes, Coach.” There was a moment’s silence. “And thanks.” “Don’t mention it. Ever.”

“Of course.” “I mean it. Do not mention it. Oh, and there’s one more thing.” Coach Armstrong suddenly sounded weary, like this was the worst part of his job. All of a sudden I wondered if this whole thing was a huge practical joke, a funny way for Adam to drop me as a client. “Yes?” “The general manager’s office saw that video of you at the draft.” “Listen, I was in-“ “Save it, I don’t care. In fact, I appreciate the passion. But the GM’s office thought this would be a good way to enhance our social media presence.” The way he said those last words could not have been laced with more complete disdain. “What does that mean?” “It means that as long as you’re on the team you’re going to be shadowed by a reporter from the Boston Globe. Daily interviews, videos, all that shit. I don’t like it, but there are a few things around here I can’t control.” He paused for a second. “And if you even think about repeating that to anyone, just remember, I have about 6 states worth of people who will happily bury your body in their backyards and never tell a soul about it.” “I understand, Coach.” “Good. I’m not thrilled with the idea, but the GM’s office said it was a requirement for signing you. And the last thing is, the reporter who’ll be

following you around.” “Yes?” “The same one from that video. Lily Pearson. I’ll see you bright and early on Monday. And kid, you better make this worth my while.” Coach Armstrong hung up, not waiting for an answer, leaving me holding the phone to my ear for a few seconds before I realized he was gone. Shit. Lily Pearson. The reporter from the draft. The girl from Cal. She was going to be following me around, keeping track of me. I was gonna have to be really on my game from now on, no distractions whatsoever. This was my life and my future we were talking about. So why couldn’t I get her out of my head?

CHAPTER 09 - LILY It was like I was being exiled from home. Of course, I had only worked at the Boston Globe for a couple weeks now, and it had definitely been on the rockier side of things thus far, but all of a sudden I was moving out, not sure if I would ever get to come back. There was no reason for me to work our of our main Boston office anymore, since I was going to be with the Patriots full time. I had gotten word that the team had provided me a room at the facility where I could stay. On the one hand I was thrilled to be getting closer to the team, and there really wasn’t anything closer than living at the facility. At the same time, as I looked around the office, walking back to my desk after leaving Bill Thompson’s office, I knew I would miss this place. I just hoped that I didn’t get fired before I could come work here again. There was always that distinct possibility. If my writing wasn’t up to standards, if the website didn’t blow up from my videos and interviews, I’d be in trouble. Of course, if Drake Rollins didn’t play ball, we were sunk right from the start. I had assurances from the team that Drake knew what was going on, that he was willing to submit to interviews and have the process of his comeback documented on our website. Frankly, I was shocked that the Patriots even gave him the time of day. I knew Coach Armstrong was huge rebel when it came to coaching moves - my father and had both cheered and yelled at his decisions since he had arrived in New England more

than a decade ago. Just think about seeing Drake again after all this time made my head swirl, and I was almost dizzy with emotions. He was all I had ever wanted in a man, but I had always stayed away from him - he always seemed more fixated on playing football and sleeping with as many hot girls as he could, wherever he went, and as much as I wanted him, I couldn’t get involved with that kind of guy, it just wasn’t me. The Patriots were coming off a rough season plagued by minor scandals, but at the same time, Coach Armstrong’s reputation hadn’t really taken a hit. They did need some help at wide receiver, and despite my Cal-focused bias, I was pretty sure that with good coaching, Drake Rollins could become one of the league’s breakout receivers. The question was, did he want it bad enough? Results so far would suggest that he was more interested in booze and boobs. None of that stuff would fly anymore. Sure, if he was an established player with some great seasons behind him and a big juicy contract, he could get away with a high-flying lifestyle. But an undrafted free agent? All 32 teams had passed on him 7 times each. Not only that, I heard from Bill that the Patriots had been the only team to even return Drake’s agent’s call about signing Drake after the job. The Patriots knew just how much power they had over Drake, and they would cut him in a heartbeat and not miss him ten seconds later. Football might be a game on TV, but it was a serious, multi-billion dollar business in the real

world, and none of these teams had any time to waste on players who wouldn’t perform or wouldn’t keep themselves out of trouble. Drake Rollins. Holy shit, I was going to spend the next few months practically glued to Drake Rollins. Just thinking about him made me hot with lust, and I looked around the office to make sure no one was staring at me, finally satisfied after a few seconds that everyone else was more busy with their work than watching me fan myself back to a normal temperature. He was such a jerk, but that didn’t stop me one bit from wanting him on a level I had never experienced before. And now I was going to be following him around the Patriots practice facility as long as he was on the team. How would I stay sane? How would I handle that acidic wit of his while wanting to tear both of our clothes off? This was quite the dilemma. What was I going to do? I didn’t really have a choice. I couldn’t march back into Bill’s office and refuse the assignment. If I even tried to do that he would fire me on the spot, and for good reason. Worse, it would just confirm Bill’s suspicion about me, and possibly about women in sports journalism in general. No, I had to stick this out. I had to make it work. And not just that, I had to make sure that Drake stayed on the team long enough that I could show off my journalistic chops and prove to Bill that I had what it took to make it in this business.

It was the only way I could salvage my fledgling career before it careened into a ditch. So I had to make this thing with Drake work. But could I? Would he listen to me? Would I be even be able to come up with the right words around him? I barely was able to tutor him back at Cal, I’d get so flustered. He knew it too; of course he knew it. Drake Rollins was one of the most popular guys on campus - he could have any girl he wanted and he frequently did. “Lily, I heard you’re shipping out?” I whipped my head around at the sound of Steve’s voice. Steve stood next to my desk, looking down at me. “He-hey Steve, yes I’m gonna be staying with the Patriots for al little while.” How did he know about that so fast? I mean, this was a newspaper and all, but I didn’t expect information to travel THAT quickly. I’d just gotten out of Bill’s office like 5 minutes ago! “Sweet gig, congrats.” I couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or not. “Thanks.” Steve didn’t move. “You at all worried?” “Worried? Why should I be worried?” “This guy, Rollins? He’s a nutcase! You must have seen all the stories about him, he makes rock stars look like choir boys.” “I know all about him.” “Oh yeah, you two were at Cal together. I bet he did some legendary things around there. Got any

stories?” I looked down at my desk, starting to gather things together. “None that come to mind at the moment.” “Gotcha.” Steve’s tone changed. “Listen, be careful out there, yeah? Drake Rollins is going nowhere fast, but don’t let him drag you down with him, OK?” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “I’m just saying, don’t let yourself get too involved, and don’t let whatever dirt he throws up around him get on you. Careers with bigger track records than yours have been lost for less than that.” “Uh, thanks for the advice.” I guess Steve was being sincere after all - this certainly seemed like it. “Don’t mention it, we’re all expecting to see you back here soon. In fact there’s talk of setting up a betting pool.” “For what?” “For how long it takes Drake Rollins to crash and burn, get tossed off the Patriots and out of the league. Basically for how long till you get back.” I don’t know what made me do it, but I stood up and looked Steve square the eye. “Don’t bet too short, then. Drake’s gonna make that team.” Steve laughed in my face. “There’s no chance. Come on, Lily, can’t you see what this is? It’s a PR stunt. Armstrong would never go along with this unless it was just a side show. There’s zero chance Rollins has any shot of making that team. They just

want to get some PR buzz.” “Have you seen Drake play? He can catch anything that’s thrown even remotely in his direction.” “That may be the case, but it looks to me like he’s more interested in doing things that would get normal people arrested.” Steve had a point there. There was no telling what was going on in Drake’s head. I had no idea whether he was ready for the rigors of playing pro football. I started gathering my things and putting them a bag. Luckily I hadn’t brought too much stuff to the office already. “All I’m saying, Steve, is that the guy is good enough that he gets one more chance.” Steve stepped back. “You’re right, he does, but only because he’s that good. Anyone else would be on the street with no one remembering who he was.” He watched me pack for a second. “Listen, all I’m saying is, don’t get too caught up in reporting the Drake Rollins story. Do it as well as you can and then get back here and start writing about more important things.” I surveyed my desk and nodded. “Thanks for your concern, Steve.” I picked up my bag and brushed by him, heading toward the door. About 10 feet later I stopped, turned around, and walked back to him, taking my wallet out and handing Steve $50. “Put that on ‘Drake makes the team’ for me, will you?” Steve paused for a moment while he understood what I’d said, then smiled and took my money, taking

out his wallet and dropping it in. “I’ll do that. You take care of yourself out there, yeah?” I laughed. “Steve, I’m going to Foxboro. It’s not Afghanistan, it’s not Antarctica. It’s like 40 miles away.” “Fine, fine, get yourself lost, then. See if I care.” I smiled. “Bye, Steve.” I said goodbye to a couple other coworkers on the way, people I was just starting to get to know since I had arrived. They all treated me with sympathy, like I was leaving forever, never to return. What the hell? It’s not like I was dying, why were all these people treating me like the next time they would see me was at my funeral? My career couldn’t be so tied together with Drake’s success now, could it? That made no sense. What had I gotten myself into?

CHAPTER 10 - DRAKE First day of training camp! First day I had a chance to show all these assholes that I belonged here, that I was part of the team, and that I would be the deep threat in the end zone they needed to bring home a championship. It had taken a little getting used to the weather in Massachusetts - I much preferred the warmer weather of down south, but when you were in my situation, you couldn’t really choose where you played. All I needed to do was make the team and show people what I could do, and maybe I’d get to sign a big deal somewhere else where I could walk around without a jacket on for most of the year. Today, at least, was sunny and warm, and I knew the humidity, which I was just getting accustomed to for the first time in my life, would be killer once we got out onto the field, but for now it wasn’t so bad. I arrived at the facility at 8am, just as expected. Coach Armstrong was standing outside the front door, greeting the players, new and returning. When I came up to him, I held out my hand to shake with him, but he just looked down at his clipboard. “Rollins. Good to see you,” was all he said. It was the least affected greeting I had ever gotten. “Thanks, Coach! Happy to be here! Excited to help out.” Coach Armstrong grunted and ushered me inside. There, the attendants and assistants helped me out in getting my room assignment. It took me a few minutes but I found my room, unlocked the door, and walked in, setting my bag

down on the cold floor. Two single beds. “What the fuck is this?” I said out lout to no one in particular. An assistant, passing by in the hallway, stuck his head in. “Everything cool?” I turned around and faced him. “There are two beds in here! And they’re both so small!” He chuckled. “Yeah, it’s two to a room. We have over a hundred guys in here right now, and this isn’t a hotel.” “I need my own room, man, I can’t live like this!” I had not lived with a roommate in….I had never had a roommate! The assistant disappeared. “Take it up with the management if you have a complaint.” “I’ll do that!” I called out after him. “I wouldn’t recommend it!” he called back, farther away this time. I picked my bag back up and threw it on the bed closer to the window. I sat down next to it and looked around. This room fucking sucked. There was no way I could stay here for a month. Not with a roommate. With any luck I’d have a lineman staying with me, some giant dude who snored. Ugh. How could I get my own room? I couldn’t even find a room service menu, what kind of place was this? I was better off in New York, at least there a guy could get some service!

I sat there feeling sorry for myself, wondering how I had gotten to this place, where I was a noname undrafted free agent begging for scraps, willing to do anything to even make a team, let alone get a huge contract and endorsement deals like I had dreamed. Of course, then memories of all the fun I had had during and after college came rushing back, and that put a smile on my face. I wondered what the policy around here was like for having girls over. I needed to find that out quick. I scrolled through my phone, wondering which girls I knew were local, and which would have to fly in. I looked to my right and saw the other bed. Ugh. Maybe this wouldn’t work out at all. The door opened and a bag came in, carried by a guy I had seen before when doing research on the Patriots. I wasn’t a fan of a particular team as a kid, I just liked watching all the greats do their thing under the bright lights, and try to pick up those moves and put my own spin on them. And I had lit up the high school and college game doing it. That meant when I found out I would be a New England Patriot, I didn’t really know anything about them, and I had done a little bit of research on the way here. The guy was tall, a couple inches taller than me. Built, like he knew his way around a gym, but that was every football player, though some did have a habit of arriving to training camp 30-40 pounds overweight. Not this guy.

This guy was Lance Parker, the quarterback of the New England Patriots. He had a reputation for being a choir boy. “Hey!” He smiled as he dropped his bag and came over to me. “I’m Lance Parker. You must be Drake Rollins.” I stood up, a little surprised he knew my name at first, but I regained my composure quick. “Yeah, man, Drake Rollins. Good to meet you.” “Looks like we’re gonna be roommates.” Lance turned around and set his bag on his bed. “Yeah? You sure there wasn’t some mixup with the room assignments?” Lance laughed. “No, man, nothing like that. Coach Armstrong has a weird way of doing things. This is only my second year, but I learned that in the first week last year. Expect the unexpected around here.” “Yeah?” Last year Lance had gone nearly undrafted, taken in like the sixth round or something. He had been a backup his first year, but after last season, the team had shipped the starter out of town for some draft picks, betting it all on Lance to take over. They had drafted a new backup in the 4th or 5th round, I thought. Lance unzipped his bag and started unloading things, still turned away from me. “It’s not just a way of doing things around here, it’s a way of life.” He put some things away in one of the drawers on the end table next to his bed and sat down. “You’ll find out about it soon enough,” he said with a grin.

“Any tips? I want to make a good impression, make sure I get to stick around a while.” “Good man. Trouble is, the tips are just cliches by this point, stuff I’m sure you’ve heard your entire life. Try your hardest, try and get better each day, and don’t sweat the small stuff.” “You’re right, I have heard that stuff all before.” Lance nodded. “It’s all true, and now even more so. You’re still the same, it’s just that now the competition is a lot better. Know how many college football players there are?” “Somewhere north of 10,000.” “Yup, and that’s just in Division 1. How many players are there in the pros?” I did the math really quick. “About 1700.” Lance smiled. “Very close. 1696 to be precise, not including practice squads. What does that tell you?” I thought about it for a second. “It tells you most college players don’t make it here. Only the best of the best even get a shot.” “Exactly. It’s not guaranteed. If you screw up here, there are any number of other players who will climb over you to get your spot.” “That’s pretty dark, man, how do you deal with it?” Lance’s face clouded up, like he was thinking really hard. “Not well,” was all he said.

Suddenly the room had gotten a little still, and the air was heavy. I figured I’d change the subject and keep things light, no sense in finding out your roommate’s dark secrets in the first 10 minutes. “What’s the deal with having guests here?” “Guests?” “Yeah, you know, having some girls over. Gotta have fun in the evenings and weekends, yeah?” I smiled. Lance did not. “This isn’t a frat house, Drake. We’re not here to party.” “I know, I know, but how do you all let off some steam? You know, relax?” “I go to the gym for that. I watch film, work on my mechanics.” So Lance Parker really was the football-playing robot I had heard about. And he was my roommate. Shit. It suddenly occurred to me that Lance Parker was not someone I could think of as a friend. Yeah, we were living together for a little while, but that didn’t mean we were brothers or anything. Not yet. I had to watch myself around him, or he could go blabbing to Coach Armstrong and get me kicked off the team faster than I could figure out what was happening. I had to be careful. No one was on my side but me, not until I had shown them what I could do and just how valuable I was to the team.

“Can I give you a little piece of advice?” “Sure, man.” “Something I wish someone had told me when I got here. Keep your eyes and ears open. Yeah, this is a cutthroat business, but we’re all here for the same reason.” Yeah, I’m here to make the team, get a huge contract, and have that money roll in so I can live the good life. When I didn’t say anything, Lance continued. “And that’s to win a championship for New England. That’s the only thing that matters around here.” “Yeah, I get it.” “The coaches and all the other players, that’s all we want. So if you make that all you want, and you do what it takes to make that happen, learn as much as you can, take the criticism where it comes, and just get better every day, then you’ll fit in just fine.” He paused. “But if you’re here to showboat, you might as well keep your bags packed. We’re not the flashiest team in the league; we don’t care about that stuff. We’re here to win games. It doesn’t have to look pretty or show up on ESPN every night, it just has to work. You got me?” “I got you. Thanks for the pep talk.” Lance looked at me like he wasn’t sure I had listened to a word he’d said, but then he grunted, the same way Coach Armstrong liked to do, and went back to unpacking.

A few minutes later, a knock on the door, then it opened. “Lance!” A booming voice from outside shouted before coming in. The voice belonged to a mountain of a man, huge and all muscle. Dude was a good 3 inches taller than me and had at least 20-30 pounds on me. Damn. “Hud!” Lance jumped up and hugged the guy, pulling away and shaking his hand after. I could tell right away that these were two really good friends. Then it hit me. Hud - Hudson Asher, linebacker, stalwart of the Patriots defense. The guy was a defensive legend in his day. I remember being surprised when I found out he was still playing. The guy had a career resume a mile long, full of accomplishments. The only one he was still chasing was a championship. “Drake, this is Hudson Asher. Hud, this is Drake, our new receiver.” “Good to meet you, Hud.” I stood up from my bed and shook Hud’s hand. I liked to think I had a strong grip, but Hud just crushed me. I pulled my hand back and winced. “Hey man, not too rough on the hands, these are my livelihood!” Hud beamed back at me. “Mine too. Good to meet you, Drake. I hear good things about you.” “Yeah, well, they’re all true.” He nodded. “I have no doubt, and even if I did, I’ll see if you can play as well as you party soon enough.”

What the fuck, was everyone on this team a fucking pro scout? “You guys keep track of all that? Don’t you guys have, you know, games to play?” Hud got serious. “Yeah, man, everyone’s a scout here. That’s just how we work. You never know who’s gonna figure out who we want to have on our side.” He licked his hips. “And what to do if we see someone on the other side.” The more I learned about how the Patriots were run, the less I could believe it. This wasn’t a football team, it was a paramilitary organization. “Yeah, you’ll see my stuff soon enough. Just wait till we get out on the field and you line up across me.” Hud laughed, a deep laugh that felt like it could cause an earthquake. “You talk big, Rook, but I won’t see you across from me for a while, if ever. You think a rookie gets to play with the first time right off the bat? You’re dreaming.” Lance ribbed Hud in the stomach. “Lay off him, man, he’s new. He’s been playing with children so far.” “I know, I know. But there’s one every year, man, I swear. Someone shows up here thinks he’s gonna burn the league up and more often than not he’s out on his ass in a month.” He chuckled. “And they’re mostly receivers, too. I wonder what it is about receivers.” I had to get back in there. “Everyone likes seeing big touchdown catches.”

“You’re right, they do, but that’s outside the building. In here we care about being a good teammate just as much as we care about making big plays. The point is, we don’t need to make big plays as long as we win.” Lance poked Hud again. “I gave him the speech already. Let’s go get some food.” “He’s gonna hear it over and over till he’s memorized it, I’m just helping him out. Enjoy your first day, rookie, and bring your A-game tomorrow or we’ll know you didn’t.” He turned to Lance. “Food it is, lead on, brother.” I wondered for a second if they would invite me to eat with them, then I thought back and wondered if I had ever taken a rookie under my wing and helped him out. Nope! Lance ushered Hud out of the room and I could hear them laughing and joking down the hall as they caught up. They must have run into another one of their friends along the way, there were more greetings as their voices faded. I had to get ahold of myself. I had to remember why I was here. These guys had given me a chance when no one else would, and here I was griping about the room. Come on, Drake, get your head together. I wasn’t here to make friends with these guys. I was here to show them what I could do. I needed to prove to them that I was worth keeping around each and every single day, until they realized they couldn’t afford to cut me, and risk me going to another team.

Another knock on the door. It opened without me saying anything, and an assistant stuck his head in. “Your, uh, reporter is here. Come out to the main area.” Shit, right, The Boston Globe girl, Lily Pearson. I had forgotten all about that in all the commotion of getting here, despite her being on my mind 24/7 since the draft. She was here already! I guessed the team and the paper wanted their reality show to start sooner rather than later. I checked myself in the mirror and made sure I looked up to par before heading out to meet her. She was waiting in the main hall of the facility, nervously looking around, and trying to look like she had been here before. She was dressed for work, and damn, did she look good. I hadn’t seen a girl more beautiful than that in…I couldn’t remember how long. Maybe ever. If this were any other place I’d be looking around for somewhere the two of us could be alone and I could work my magic on her. There really wasn’t that much magic to perform - once girls found out who I was and what I could do, that was usually enough. This girl was different, though. We had a little bit of history together, and now we were stuck together on this…whatever this thing was the Globe and the Patriots had us doing. I had to resist her as long as I could, though. Every time I looked at her I wanted to rip off her clothes and do disgustingly naughty things to her, but I couldn’t risk it, not when so much was on the line.

It occurred to me right then and there - as bad a start as Lily Pearson and I had gotten off to, she might be the closest thing to a friend I had in this entire building. “Hey, Lily.”

CHAPTER 11 - LILY I had never been to the Patriots’ facility. Yeah, my father and I had come to games once a year, but that was different. That was the other side. This was where the players and coaches and assistants just walked around freely and did their thing! It was exhilarating just being here, as a fan of the team. I almost didn’t want to get involved, just watch as people worked, listening in on conversations, getting a feel for how the team was run. I mean, you see the finished product out on the field on Sundays, but getting to that 3 hours took yearround preparation. It was so easy to lose sight of that as a fan. Standing here, though, that came to the front. Occasionally someone would stop in front of me and ask if I needed help, they they would see my “PRESS” badge and walk away. The Patriots had an almost mythical aversion to the press, all because of Coach Armstrong. They called covering the Patriots the hardest and most thankless job in sports media for that very reason. While the general manager’s office and the team ownership might occasionally got interested in public perception, from the coaches on down to the players they treated the media like they were getting in the way, like they were information leeches. This joint venture of sorts between the team and the Globe would hopefully spark a new partnership, a new way for the team to reach out to the media and get on board with how things worked these days, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

An assistant had gone to tell Drake Rollins that I was here, so I waited for him, wondering what this next assignment was going to be like. I just wanted to cover the story and stay as far away from him as I could, because if I didn’t, I had no idea whether I would be able to control myself. I was stuck covering him, and that was as far as it was going to go. At least, that’s as far as I hoped it would go. Despite the rest of my body screaming for it to go much, much further. Stupid body. We had work to do. Keep it together, Pearson. I kept going back and forth between being nervous about the job that lay in front of me and being wideeyed and in awe of being around the Patriots’ facility. I took a couple pictures and sent them to my dad - he must have been waiting for my message, because he replied almost immediately, telling me he wished he could be there. I did too. Hopefully I could get him a guest pass of some kind soon so he could see it. I didn’t know how long I would be on this beat, so I might as well take advantage of it while I could. I turned around, feeling like I must stand out like a sore thumb around all these people walking around with purpose, but all of a sudden I caught his eye as Drake Rollins walked toward me. Damn, he looked good. It had only been a weekend since I had seen him at the draft, when he was all dressed up in a suit and looking fine, but today he looked a little more casual, but just as sexy as before. I could feel myself flush with lust, which set off twinges of embarrassment and anxiety.

Keep it together, Lily, keep it together. If only it were that easy around him. He did things to me with a look that the best and most lurid romance novels could only hope to achieve. And I wondered if he knew just how devastating that smile could be? He should have to register it as a deadly weapon. “There you are,” his gravelly voice echoed out, pulling me toward him. “Making me wait like that.” Already with this? “I’ve been waiting here forever.” “Yeah, well, this is the wrong place to wait.” He stopped in front of me, and looked me up and down, taking a little longer than was polite. If we had been at a nightclub or party, I would have thought he was coming onto me with a look like that, but this was where, for a little while, both of us lived and worked. In fact, how long we both lived and worked here was almost entirely up to Drake and his ability to get over himself and make the team. If it were possible for a guy who had just gone undrafted in the most spectacularly visible of manners to act like a smarmy asshole, Drake Rollins was clearly doubling down and going for a world record. With Drake standing in front of me up close like that I couldn’t help but feel a rush of electricity wash over my body. It had been months since we’d been

this close to each other, and I didn’t know how to act around him now that we were supposed to be ‘working’ together. “So, uh, how do we do this?” Drake smiled that winning smile of his, the one that made me forget how to speak. “I thought you’d know all about that.” “We-well,” I stammered, “I had some ideas that I wanted to discuss with you.” He shifted in his stance, like he was starting to get bored already. “Obviously,” I kept on going, trying to fill the space up, since it was clear Drake didn’t feel like talking much, “we can figure something out that works for both of us.” “Yeah, I don’t really want to do this.” I let some of the calm and sunny disposition fall away, and stepped in a little closer, more than mildly intimidated by Drake’s huge muscles and piercing look. “You know, Drake, I don’t really want to do this either, but I don’t have much of a choice, and it sounds like from what I hear, you don’t either.” Drake looked at me like it had been forever since a woman his own age, had spoken to him like that. He quickly recovered, though, and the smile came back just as bright as before. “Come on, this has gotta be the best assignment ever for you! You get to follow me around,” he puffed himself up and flexed a little, admiring how ripped and toned he was. I had to admit, being this close to Drake Rollins had me admiring how ripped and toned he was too, with the added bonus of being able to reach out and

touch him if I wanted. No! Down, Lily, down! This was neither the time nor the place to indulge in those kinds of fantasies. No touching! At least not in real life. Later on when I got back to my room, ALONE, I could maybe relax that rule a little bit and be all over him in my head. But that was as far as it could go. I needed this assignment and I needed this job. “Had enough?” I asked, tapping my foot and crossing my arms under my breasts. Drake stopped immediately, his eyes falling down to my chest. I could feel my cheeks redden as I dropped my arms. On the one hand, it looked like I was going to have to be the only adult in this working relationship; but on the other hand, I really did enjoy it when he looked at me like that. It was a look that combined curiosity and almost unbridled lust, and coming from a guy as drop dead sexy as Drake Rollins, it felt really, really, good. A girl had to take her little ego boosts where she could throughout the day - it was a rough world out there. “Not even close to enough,” Drake quipped as he looked me back in the eyes. “But that’s for another time.” “Uh huh. Let’s try and keep this professional, Drake. We’re going to be seeing lots of each other, starting today.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth I realized what I had said, and how I had said it. “I have no doubt about that. I’m looking forward

to seeing lots of you, Lily.” That smile, the one that made me wet even seeing it on the horizon, was back. Ugh, how could I walk into that so easily? Drake Rollins was unfair. He was like the cheat code to shut off my normal brain and just make me pant with lust. “So,” I said, desperately trying to bring this back to something within spitting distance of a professional conversation, “I was thinking we do daily interviews, both on and off camera. I’ll take the off camera stuff and use it to write my daily columns about how you’re doing at training camp, and how the rest of the team is looking for the upcoming season. The video stuff…” I trailed off when I realized Drake wasn’t really paying attention anymore. His eyes were traveling up and down my body, like a big cat deciding where to bite first on prey he had already captured and subdued. Was that how he thought of me? “The video stuff,” I said, snapping my fingers in Drake’s face till we locked eyes again, “will go up on the website. Of course, you’ll have to keep it safe for work.” I smiled, then added, “But the editors back at the Globe have said they might be willing to forgive a little bit of creative interpretation of that rule, if you know what I mean.” Drake yawned. I could tell it was mostly for show, but he sold it well. With those looks and that talent, he could have a career in movies if, you know, the whole football thing didn’t work out for him. But I were getting ahead of myself. And visions of him doing naughty things to me in bed meant I was definitely getting way ahead of

myself. I couldn’t even see myself in the rearview mirror, I was so far ahead of myself. “Are you listening to me?” “Yeah, yeah, sorry about that, long day.” “It’s 9am.” Drake grinned. “I know it is, I’m saying, it’s gonna be a long day.” “Usually people use that as an excuse after the fact.” “Well, if there’s one thing you should know about me it’s that I’m a little ahead of the curve.” “And not afraid to let everyone know that, aren’t you?” Drake shrugged. “I just never found a good reason to hide who I am, is all.” “I get that. And that’s what I’m here to capture. That’s what the Globe wants me to report on.” “Yeah.” Drake’s demeanor had changed a little bit as he considered this. Like he was guarding himself, suddenly, like he didn’t want parts of his personality as on display as they were just a few seconds ago. “And to do that, I’m going to need to see you every day, got it?” “I understand. I’ll try and fit it into the schedule. It’s not like I’m just laying by the pool working on my tan while I’m here, you know.” Visions of Drake getting some rays down on that sexy body of his

flooded my brain and it took all my strength and force of will to keep it together. “Film study, playbook study, weight room, meetings, and that’s all outside of practice.” “I know you’re busy, but the team and the Globe have made special plans for this. It’s gonna be tough, but you should be used to that by now.” “Yeah, alright. We done here?” Suddenly it felt like I was talking to a brick wall. Drake had been animated and lively, if a little juvenile, just a minute ago, and now he was talking like a veteran who wouldn’t tell anyone from the media anything. “Yeah, we’re done. But keep in mind, we’re here to see the Drake from a few minutes ago, not this guy. You understand?” His face darkened. “Yeah. Loud and clear. I gotta go.” “Great. I’ll see you this afternoon after practice and we can get started. The first couple days will be a little rough, I’m sure, but we’ll get the hang of it.” “Yeah. I’ll see you around.” Drake turned and walked away, and I had to try my damnedest to look subtly while I marveled at his sexy V-frame from the rear. The thing that man could do to me…the things I’d let him do to me…Ugh. No. NO. I could not let my stupid libido get in the way. Of course, it was worse considering it had been months since I had had sex, but now was not the time to go and do something reckless.

Not with the guy I worked with. Not with the guy who my career depended on. That scared me more than anything - I needed Drake Rollins to do well here for my own sake, but I wasn’t even convinced he knew the gravity of the situation for himself. Did he have what it took? Talent-wise, absolutely. There wasn’t a wide receiver in this draft class that could hold a candle to him in on that front. But inside his head, did Drake have what it took? I would figure that out soon enough. And so would the Patriots. And both of our careers hung in the balance. UGH. “Wait a second,” I heard Drake’s voice calling out as I was about to turn around and see about my own room. I looked back at him walking toward me. “Yes?” “I’m gonna need something from you.” I stiffened, holding my breath. Anything, anything, I wanted to say, but of course, I couldn’t say that. “Yes? What is it?” “Dinner.” “Huh?” “You heard me. You get all this time I don’t have, these interviews and video chats and what-not, and what do I get?”

“You get a shot with the team, Drake. Don’t forget, no one drafted you!” I knew I shouldn’t have said that as soon as it came out, but I couldn’t take it back, and though Drake looked angry for a split second, he composed himself really well and took it in stride. “I know that,” he rumbled, his voice low and soft. “You don’t have to keep reminding me.” “Sorry about that, but I was trying to make the point-“ He cut me off with a wave. “I know what you were trying to say.” He raised his voice. “And to any passing Patriots personnel, I deeply and humbly appreciate the chance the team has give me.” No one turned to look at him - for all intents and purposes we might as well have been alone in an empty room. He lowered his voice again. “But I’m still going to need something from you.” “Fine. I understand. And for what it’s worth, I apologize for bringing up the draft again, I’ll try not to. Why dinner?” Drake pulled himself back and smiled, standing taller and broader than before, showing off the physique that had stubbornly refused to leave my fantasies since I had first seen him on campus a couple years ago. “Because I’d like to get to know the girl who’s using me to further her own career. That good enough?” I was dumbfounded. Of course, I’d forgotten how brilliant Drake Rollins was. Of course, he’d given this whole thing some thought and figured out all the angles. He knew my motives, he knew them just as

well as I did. He knew I needed him. “Dinner. Fine. At the cafeteria?” Drake laughed, a roar of a laugh that got some heads turning. I knew I was turning bright red, but Drake paid them no mind. “Of course not, come on. We’re going out, in style.” I raised an eyebrow, skeptical but rapidly warming up to the idea of going out with Drake. “You’ve got that kind of time?” Drake stepped in, getting really close so only I could hear him. “Lily, you find the right dress and I’ll find the right time.” Before that moment if you had told me it was possible for a girl to have an orgasm with absolutely zero touching I would have laughed in your face. After that moment, I might nod sagely and remember that moment. “Oh-OK, yeah,” I said when I had finally found the English dictionary in my head. I stepped back, creating more space between us despite that being the exact opposite of what I really wanted to do. “I think we can work something out.” “Great. Not today, cause I got stuff to do. Tomorrow’s the first day of practice and they’re going light on us just in case some guys came in from the off season a little out of shape.” I picked it up. “Tomorrow night, then?” That was enough time for me to find a dress. I’d packed something formal for any team special events, but this didn’t qualify as one of those.

“Yeah. Tomorrow night.” He looked around. “Alright, I gotta get back and get ready for meetings and then lunch before afternoon practice. You good here?” You could knock me over with a weather, but sure. “I’m good,” I said, nodding. “I’ll see you after practice. Good luck.” Drake chuckled as he walked away. “I don’t need luck, Lily. I’m Drake Rollins. Once I’m in the building they can’t help but fall in love with me.” He waved jauntily behind him toward me as I watched him disappear. I sat down on a bench nearby to where we had been talking. My head was spinning. I was just glad no one had paid attention to us. How was I going to survive training camp with this guy? I could barely hold it together around him, and now spending time with Drake Rollins had become literally my job. If I wanted to get anywhere in this business, besides running home with my tail between my legs, I had to make this work. And to start, that meant dinner. Shit.

CHAPTER 12 - DRAKE The first couple days of training camp just zipped by, so fast that my head was spinning. I thought I knew why that was, but I was still surprised. After I left the oh-so-sexy looking reporter Lily Pearson in the foyer, I headed back to my room, found the team-issued iPad there waiting for me and went to the first of many wide receivers meetings. Everyone else was already there when I arrived at the small meeting room. One wall was obviously for watching film and all the seats were facing in that direction. I sat in the first row while everyone snickered at me, until the wide receivers coach suggested I “move my ass to the back of the room where the rest of the undrafted shit sat.” Redfaced, I did what he said, and stayed quiet for the rest of the meeting, my anger seething and threatening to get the better of me. Fuck that guy. I’d seen the highlights from last year, this sorry bunch of receivers. None of them were on the same level as me, and they must have known that. Bunch of haters, scared of some young kid coming in and blowing up their spot. I’d show them. They’d know my name soon enough. After the meeting got out we all had lunch. I tried to sit with Lance Parker and Hudson Asher, but they looked at me like they didn’t know me, so I ended up setting with a couple other undrafted free agents. The rest of the wide receivers had their own table. It was like fucking high school, only for the first time in my life I was one of the uncool kids. Oh, and

everyone weighed at least 180 pounds and was in crazy good shape. That part was different too. And there were no girls around. That was probably the most important part. The other undrafted guys and I didn’t talk much while we ate - it was weird sitting at a table full of guys you were competing with for such a small set of roster spots. Professional football teams come in to training camp with about a hundred guys on the team. By the time the 4 preseason games were over, a little under four weeks from now, that number would decrease to around 60. In the couple days before the season began, the team would have to cut even more people, down to the maximum of 53. And there were plenty of people on the team who had guaranteed roster spots - the veterans who formed the backbone of the team. There was room of course for someone to come in and blow the doors off the team and steal a roster spot, but that didn’t happen often. The Patriots had 35 roster spots pretty much spoken for, leaving 18 spots to divide among about 60 guys, all of whom needed this in order to make their dreams of a professional football life come true. That kind of scarcity was really good at creating competition, and in this situation, competition didn’t really breed friendships. Especially between people who did the same thing. I was a wide receiver - my job was to catch the ball when the quarterback threw it to me, no matter what, and then head as close to the end zone as possible. Sometimes, in crunch situations, instead of the end zone I was supposed to get out of bounds to

stop the clock. It sounded pretty easy, but it wasn’t, because while I was trying to catch the ball and make a play, the other team’s defenders were hell-bent on taking me down and stopping me in my tracks. Luckily for me, and now for the Patriots, I was damn good at what I do. Best receiver in all of college football by a country mile. No one else could get out of a cornerback’s range faster than me, and safeties would chase ghosts before they could even find me on the field. So that was a leg up on the competition, but it was no guarantee. If I didn’t perform on the practice field and in the preseason games, I’d be out on the street again. After lunch we had another meeting, then we were off to the practice field. Practice was brutal, but it felt great to be out on the field again after months without. Not too much happened that first day - some speeches by the coaches, some pep talks about big expectations for the season, a lot of administrative stuff. The coaches made it clear - we were expected to know the playbook inside and out in the next couple days so they could start installing and running through the more complicated parts of the offense. Ugh, more studying. I thumbed through the iPad, looking at the playbook, and starting to memorize it, but man, there was a lot here. In college things were way easier. A big part of our playbook was “throw the ball to Drake,” and it had served us pretty well. After practice, we had another meal and we were

done for the day. Lily and I met for the first of our interviews - it was nothing exciting, just her asking questions about me on camera. No time for me to flirt with her at all, she was all business. But damn, did she look fine. I had so much trouble concentrating on the questions she was asking me all I could do was imagine her in a tight bodyhugging dress, the faint outline of lace underneath, and imagine undressing her slowly. OK, not too slowly - if I ever got my hands on that girl, I doubt I would be able to go slow at all. I would need to bend her over and stuff my cock into her as fast as possible. The second day passed by just as quickly, and all of a sudden it was night time. I was tired as fuck from the morning session in the weight room and the afternoon practice on the field, but even though I wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed, I couldn’t wait for my dinner with Lily. The best part of my day until the evening? When Lily had texted me and asked me when and where we should meet. Smart girl. I knew Lily and I couldn’t really walk around the facility dressed up like we were going out, not on a ‘school night,’ as it were, and I had a curfew too, so we had to get this show on the road. I had replied with a location and time, and I spent the rest of the afternoon looking up at every available clock I passed by. It reminded me of school, but back in school I had always looked at the clocks because I was bored, and in a hurry to get to the practice field or the game. Now I was eager to get away from football just so I could spend time with a girl?! And a girl who didn’t

even like me very much? What was happening to me? Was I…maturing? Nah, that couldn’t be it. Getting mature was overrated in my book - why do it when I could keep being a big kid like I always had? Seemed to work so far, why mess with a good thing? A lot of the veterans didn’t want to live at the facility during training camp - they had family and lives outside of football they wanted to maintain. The rest of us, though, we lived in the facility, and didn’t have a choice about it, and it wasn’t exactly easy for us to get out unnoticed, but I managed, after dressing up a little bit. It took me a few minutes to get to the place I had texted Lily to meet me at, just beyond the facility, in a little strip mall a few blocks away from the entrance. I didn’t have a car around here, but I assumed Lily did. If we could avoid taking Uber or Lyft that would be great, even though I doubted anyone around here would recognize me. Of course, there was that video going around… and New Englanders were rabid about their Patriots…yeah, if we could avoid being recognized that would be good. Lily showed up a few minutes later, walking up to me as I sat on a bench outside a convenience store. I stood up as I saw her approach, and immediately wanted to sit back down again. Holy shit, she looked blindingly hot. Like, damn, where has this girl been hiding? Her dress was deep blue and clung to her body like a sheath, showing off all her curves in a way that made my eyes want to jump out of her head with every step she took.

I was mesmerized. As she walked up, Lily had a tense and wary look on her face, but I think she saw the effect she had on me almost immediately, because she softened and even started to look a little amused. “Drake.” That was my name! “Lily.” Now we’d gotten the tough part of the evening out of the way. “I found a dress.” I looked her up and down. “I’ll say.” She blushed, which was funny, because I was still ogling her just like before, no change on my part. It was like she suddenly got embarrassed to be there with me. “Down, boy.” “Huh?” She stepped closer. “Nothing. Where are we going?” “Oh, uh, yeah,” I stammered. Wow, this was not like me at all. With the number of girls I had been with since I started working out, practicing hard, and catching every touchdown thrown my way, I could not even remember the last time I had been this unsmooth with a girl. Get it together, Rollins, it was time to play. I blinked a few times, shaking my head slightly to clear out the Lily’s-curves-shaped cobwebs as best and as fast as I could. “Do you have a car?” “Yeah, the Globe assigned me one in case the team wouldn’t let me travel locally with them.” That was no surprise. The Patriots were pretty well known around the country as the least media-friendly

professional football team. They took secrecy and paranoia to a new level, and after even just two days on campus I kinda understood why that was. There was a lot going on here, lots of things cooking to out-scheme and out-fox the competition both on and off the field, and it the media got wind of any of these things, all that work would be for nothing. All of it was above-board, of course, and well within the rules of play. But still, one of the best ways to get an advantage in football, and in life, was to keep your opponents guessing, and then hit them with something they never even expected. That was just one of the ways the Patriots worked on improving their game throughout the year. Which is why this whole inside access deal with me and the Boston Globe was so confusing. Like, why would the team agree to this? “Great, we’ll take your car, then.” “Of course we will, you don’t have a car here.” I furrowed my brow. “How do you know that?” “If you did, I’d know about it. The team has provided me with all the information I need on you, Drake, and I’ve done a little digging myself.” Shit. “Right.” I didn’t say anything else, just started staring at her body again. Fuck, she looked good. I wasn’t even hungry anymore, I just wanted to taste her. But I knew I had to stay away. She was the enemy. She was definitely not in my corner. When this was

over, she’d go back to Boston and cover the Patriots like nothing had changed, and I’d be out picking up the pieces of my life. I had to show her, I had to show them all, and make the team. “Drake? It’s a little chilly, let’s go.” “OK, yeah, let’s go. I’ll drive.” She reached into her purse, pulled out the keys, and tossed them to me. Her throw was high and to the right, but I reached up and snatched them out of the air behind my head, one-handed. Lily smiled and clapped. “Do that in a game and you’ll make the highlights like Odell.” She turned and started walking away, I guessed to where she had parked. I laughed and followed her. “Odell? Yeah, he’s alright, I guess. A little flashy for my taste. Doesn’t have to look good as long as you score.” She turned to me, but kept walking. “Points have a beauty all their own, yeah?” “You said it.” After we made it to Lily’s rental car, we both got in and we were off to the restaurant. It wasn’t far away, but we didn’t really talk during the drive. I had only been in the state for 3 days and certainly wasn’t familiar with the territory, spending all my time at the facility, but I had picked out a good Mediterranean place on Yelp, and it wasn’t too tough to find it. It was a small place, a real hole in the wall, which was exactly what I wanted; less chance of anyone recognizing me there.

We sat at the table and browsed our menus, but I knew immediately what I was going to get, so I spent my time looking at the wine menu. Lily took a bit more time, so I ordered a bottle first, and we sipped at the dark red while she finished up choosing her food. After we ordered, we sat and stared at each other. I couldn’t help but imagine her in a darker room, alone with me, while I tore that dress off her and made her moan. I felt my cock thickening against my leg under the table, and I wanted to reach our and take Lily’s hand and guide her toward it. Of course, I didn’t. “How’s life at the Patriots facility so far?” “I’m just getting settled in. It’s a little weird, because no one will talk to me. I have to wear this giant ‘PRESS’ badge at all times when I’m on campus, and once they see that, people just give me blank stares, if they don’t simply turn and walk the other way.” I laughed. “Yeah, you’re the enemy around here alright. I bet you’ll never even see Bernie Adams’ office, let alone the man himself.” Lily’s eyes brightened. “I know, and that bums me out. My dad and I have been a huge fan of Bernie since as long as I can remember.” “So you know what he does for a living, then?” She smiled. “I have a little idea.” Bernie Adams was a legend in New England. He’d been working for the Patriots forever now, and

no one quite knew what he did. His official title was “Director of Special Projects” or some shit like that, which sounded hilariously clandestine for someone who worked for a professional football team. “Well, that’s as far as you’ll get.” “I sure hope not.” We didn’t say anything else for a minute as we both suddenly got very interested in our wine glasses. After a couple more sips, I finally couldn’t hold it in anymore. “You look sexy as fuck tonight, Lily.” I couldn’t tell whether she wanted to laugh or slap the shit out of me. I had a hunch if we had been alone it would have been the latter, but she settled for the former. “You really know how to charm a girl, don’t you, Drake?” “Yeah, a little bit.” “Well, you don’t need to do that with me, OK? Let’s try and keep this professional.” Oof, that hurt a little big. OK, a lot. I wasn’t used to getting turned down like that, and I couldn’t remember the last time it had happened. “Right, right, professional. But remember, this is off the record, yeah? None of what we say or do here tonight makes it into any of your columns, got it?” “I got it.” She pulled out her purse, and made a big show of rummaging around in there. I felt the first twinge of anger rise. “What’re you doing? Were you recording this?” She laughed. “No, dummy, I’m texting the camera

guy hiding in the bushes and filming us to take a break until tomorrow.” I gave her a blank stare. She blinked, smiling. “I’m kidding, Drake, kidding! I respect what you said earlier. No recordings of any kind. Want to check my phone and my bag?” I waved her away. “Nah, I’ll trust you this one time.” “Good.” We were silent again as the food arrived, and spent a few minutes investigating and testing our our meals. The plate I had ordered was delicious, and despite what I had thought earlier about skipping dinner and getting right to being all over Lily, I found myself famished, and demolishing my meal right there. Lily watched as I devoured my food, while she ate at a much more refined pace. I couldn’t help it, though, even though I had eaten full meals at breakfast and lunch, with snacks in between, after a full day of working out and practicing, I was hungrier than an ox. “What?” I stopped eating for a moment. She was staring at me. “Never seen a guy eat before?” “Not like that.” I slowed down a little bit, and she still stared at me. I set my fork down and looked back at her. “Can I help you?” “Yeah, you can. What’re you doing here, Drake?”

“We’re having dinne-“ “That’s not what I meant,” Lily interrupted. “The Patriots. Why are you here?” “Huh? I want to make the team.” “Everyone wants to make the team, why do you want it? Is it for the money? You’re an undrafted free agent. You’re not going to get paid much.” I darkened. I really didn’t like it when people brought up my contract status, and Lily knew that. “I know there’s not a lot-“ “In fact,” she cut in again, “it’s probably only a little more than you’d make if you got a real job.” “A real job? Football is a real job!” If had a dollar for every time I had heard that line before, I wouldn’t need to play professionally, I could just live off my piles of collected dollars. “Yeah, I know, I meant a normal job. You have a degree in engineering, did you get that just to hang it up on the wall?” I was very proud of my engineering degree, but I didn’t really say that to anyone. There weren’t a lot of football players with degrees in the first place, let alone in something like engineering, Sometimes it paid to not look smart around football players. “I’m confused, it sounds like you’re trying to persuade me to give up, is that what you’re doing?” “Maybe I am! Why do you want this?”

“I thought you were supposed to be supporting me, or, at the very least, not getting in my way.” “I’m just asking questions, Drake.” I sat back in my chair, looking up at the ceiling for a bit. Why was Lily acting like this? “I like playing football, Lily.” “Everyone likes doing something, but liking something isn’t enough to do it professionally. What if you stop liking it tomorrow?” “I won’t do that. I’ve been playing football since I was 8!” “And I’ve been doodling in notebooks since I was 8 too, and I don’t call myself a professional doodler!” “That’s not the same thing at all. Don’t trivialize what I’ve accomplished.” That quieted her down a bit. We ate the rest of our delicious meal in silence, and after I paid the bill, we headed back out into the chilly New England evening. It was summer time, but still not the warm weather I was used to down south. We walked back toward the car, the only two people on our side of the street, and I turned to say something to Lily when I realized she wasn’t there anymore. I stopped and turned around, and she was 10 feet back, staring at me. I hurried back to her. “Is everything alright?” “What do you want, Drake? Why are you here?

Just tell me the truth.” This again! I don’t know why she kept on asking me the same question over and over again! “I just… I-“ “Yes, Drake, tell me the truth, let it ou-“ “I just want to show them I’m good enough!” I growled, almost at a yell. I thought Lily would shrink back, or maybe even run away, but she held her ground, her eyes never tearing away from mine. “I want to make the team,” I continued, “because no one believed in me. Because they let little shit get in the way of seeing how great I am. Because I’ve worked hard for this and I want it more than anything else. Because I just…I just want them to know I’m good enough.” I felt the tears come forward, and I tried to wipe them away so Lily wouldn’t see them, but I knew already that she had. “I just,” I said, softer now, “I just want to show them I’m good enough, that I’m a valuable member of the team. I want…I want them to want me around.” And then, the next thing I knew, Lily had jumped into my arms and I was kissing her.

CHAPTER 13 - LILY I was in Drake Rollins’ arms, and he was kissing me. Shit. How did this happen? How had I let this happen? I didn’t really have time to think about that at the moment, because, hey, I was in a gorgeous man’s arms, and, even better, he was kissing me with more passion than I’d ever experienced. I opened my mouth and let our tongues dance together for a few all-too-brief moments before I pulled away. Drake kissed me a couple more times, a soft brush of his lips against mine as we separated. “Whoa,” I said first, opening my eyes and looking down, still in Drake’s arms and still wondering how I got there. “You said it.” I took my hands from around Drake’s neck and held them up. “How exactly did that just happen?” Drake grinned, that smarmy yet oh-so-sexy grin that sent me to different planes of existence. “You found me irresistible and finally stopped trying to deny it.” I laughed, and he continued when I’d finished. “I would be surprised, but you know, I’ve seen it before. All too many times if you ask me.” “Oh yeah?” I said, still laughing. “This kind of thing happen to you often?” He pulled me in again, and I licked my lips. “Way more than I would like to admit, actually.”

“Uh huh. Shut up, Drake.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. Just kis-“ and I didn’t even finish the word before Drake’s lips were on mine again and I was swept away by his scent and his touch and his tongue and the feeling of floating above the ground. I could get used to this. I should not get used to this. Even if Drake Rollins was the kind of guy who could and would stick to one girl instead of having an endless parade of floozies in and out of his bedroom, which he most definitely was not, from the stories I had heard around campus for years, coupled with the high profile tabloid flings he had enjoyed since being done with school, there was still one other thing keeping this from becoming a real thing. And it was a real doozy, too. Drake was work. He was the guy I had to focus on for the next couple months. Short and unimpressive as it was, I was already fighting for my career, here, and I couldn’t afford to get personally attached and wrapped up in the player I was following around. There was just too much at stake. All of these things flashed through my mind as Drake Rollins kissed me like that outside the restaurant, when I should have been thinking about other, more enjoyable things. Like how Drake’s body would feel against me once we got all these clothes off. Down, girl, keep it together. Yeah, this was just a little kissing back and forth, no harm, no foul, but I

couldn’t let it get any further than this. What was I thinking? Of course there was harm, of course there was foul. This was Drake Rollins kissing me! I couldn’t let this keep going! But how could I stop? No one had ever kissed me like this, and I clung to him like the first touch of rain on the parched ground after a long drought. There was nothing else in the world in that moment but this kiss and his lips and my lips and his arms around me. Nothing else in the world. Like all good things, the kiss had to come to an end, if only so we could breathe again and catch our collective breath. We separated again, each looking the other in the eye as if to ask the other how this was possible, but neither of us spoke. Drake took the first move and held my hand as we separated further, and I looked down, greatly admiring how my small hand disappeared, enveloped by his, full of muscle and callouses. They fit well together. If our hands and our lips together were any indication, the rest of our bodies would do the same. Ugh, Lily Pearson, stop this line of thinking immediately! I smoothed my dress down with my free hand as we walked, trying to think unsexy thoughts and failing miserably. All I could think about was getting his lips on mine one more time. And then another time after that. Rinse and repeat. Like it should be. No one should ever just kiss once, I liked to think. Or even twice.

“We should talk about what just happened.” The words just came out of my mouth, I couldn’t control them. “Should we?” Drake looked at me all skeptical. I softened, immediately losing it. “No, not yet. But we will eventually.” “Yeah.” We kept on walking. “Drake, stop a second.” I paused, holding my step back, and gently pulling Drake to a stop. He turned to me after stopping and cocked his head to the side, a question on his face. “Back there, in the restaurant…” “Yeah?” “I didn’t mean to come off like I was attacking you. Like I was attacking your drive or your motivation.” Drake looked for a moment like he was irritated that I was bringing it back up, like it was already deep in the past to him, but he quickly composed himself. “It’s OK, Lily. I understand where you’re coming from.” “You do?” My spirits soared - Drake understood and wasn’t mad at me? I did sound kinda hurtful in there, like I was badgering him. “Yeah. It took me a little while but I just realized you’re looking out for yourself.” “Huh?”

He smiled. “I may be a football player, Lily, but I’m no idiot, despite the stereotype.” “Go on.” “I know you’re in a bind - you need to make this job work if you want to keep covering sports, and I remember from back in school that was your thing. I know you didn’t really want to be covering a hasbeen,” he smiled, “like me as I try and make your favorite team.” It was like he knew everything I was thinking. Except the really naughty stuff. I felt myself go read. Did he know the naughty stuff too? Oh shit oh shit oh shit. “And I know you would refuse the assignment if you could. Since you didn’t, you’re doing this to keep your career alive.” He smiled again, a cheshire grin, and pulled me close to him. I thought he was going to kiss me again, and I got myself good and ready. “So, I realize what you were doing in the restaurant.” “What was I doing in the restaurant?” I whispered, barely breathing, this close to Drake’s perfect face. “You were testing me. To see if I had what it took to make it. Did I pass?” “Y-Yes,” I whispered back, relieved that everything was out in the open. Drake kissed me again, quick this time, before he moved his head back. “We’re in the same boat, you and I. We both need the other to get what they want in order to get what we want.”

That was a coldhearted way of looking at the situation, even if I couldn’t deny his logic. I didn’t have anything else to say. “Drake, I have a question,” I asked, out of nowhere. Don’t do this, Lily, let it go. “Yeah?” “Back at school, when I tutored you, you never really seemed to notice me. Yeah, you flirted with me, but it was like you were holding back. What was that all about?” Drake looked a little uncomfortable, then he softened. “Oh that. Yeah, I uh, thought you were different. And it scared me.” “Different? How?” “You know, not like most other college girls. You seemed to be more interested in just sleeping with an athlete.” “And that scared you?” “Yeah. I felt like I wasn’t…ready for anything like that.” “Oh.” I let the unspoken question stay unspoken, and momentarily chastised myself for letting this bother me even before anything had really started between us. We started walking again and got to the car. Drake drove us back to the facility and we parked in the visitor’s lot before walking toward my room. I glanced up at Drake, walking next to me, wondering

if it was OK for him to be seen around campus with me after hours, but Drake didn’t give any indication that anything was wrong, so I went with it. We got to my door and I fumbled around in my purse for a moment before I found my keys and opened it. I stood in the doorway and turned around to face Drake. “You know, the way you said that just now…” “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” He stepped forward, right outside the frame of the door, and I had to look way up at his huge frame. I so wanted to invite him in. I so wanted him to come in and do disastrously naughty things to me. But that was just what it would definitely become - a disaster. They say you should never bring your work home with you if you could avoid it, but what did they say about inviting your work into your home and your bed, all in the same night? Probably not such a great idea, yet here I was, the second day of potentially the last stretch of my short career as a sports reporter for the Boston Globe, covering my favorite childhood team, and I was about to invite one of the players whom the term “on the hot seat” was coined for into my room. What was I doing?! “I shouldn’t do that.” “I know. But you could.” “You are factually correct, Drake, I could invite

you in.” Drake smiled. “Factually correct is the best kind of correct, Lily.” I melted, batting my eyes at him. “You really know how to proposition a girl, don’t you?” He leaned against the doorframe, and I smelled his manly scent wafting toward me. The man could dissolve clothing with a look, and now he was looking at me. Was there a draft in here? “I dunno what you’re talking about. I’ve never propositioned a girl in my life.” “Oh yeah?” Now it was my turn to cock my head. “How come? Because they just throw themselves at you?” “Maybe.” Ugh, that smile, so smarmy, so selfindulgent, so cocky and self-assured. It made me delirious and I hated myself for it. “Are you gonna invite me in?” “If I do, what’ll happen?” “I’ll come inside.” “And then? It’s late.” I was just trying to buy some time now, before I did exactly what we both knew I wanted to do. “We’ll see how much sleep we get.” “And if I don’t?” “Then we can each spend the night awake thinking about what we could be doing together instead of alone.”

The man had a way with words, I couldn’t deny it. Really everything he’d done so far with those lips speak, kiss, whatever, it was all good and I was totally on board with it. “Fine. Come in.” I opened the door wide and stepped back, expecting Drake to turn sideways and slide next to me into my small cramped studio apartment, but instead he picked me up and carried me inside. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on as Drake paused to close the door with his foot and then kept on going. My apartment at the Patriots complex was spartan to put it mildly, and I hadn’t really gotten a chance to unpack the few things I had brought with me besides my laptop computer, phone charger, and kindle. Just about the only real unpacking I had done was hanging up some clothing in the small closet. Everything in the room was a muted shade of grey, which is weird, because it’s tough to describe any shade of grey as “muted,” but that was the first word that came to mind when describing the prevailing color of my room. Right now I had more important things on my mind, things like physics and geometry and how to land on the bed in a sexy way when Drake threw me onto it, momentarily severing our touch connection before he jumped on top of me, pinning me down while we kissed with a ferocity that came from each of us knowing that we were finally alone. As I landed, I heard a soft shearing sound as my dress ripped. Oh well, I had more important things on my mind. Let me tell you, it was an amazing kiss, and it

didn’t really stop so much as turn into more and more kisses, up and down each other’s faces and necks. Drake knew how just how to make me moan with his mouth, and without any regard to how thin the walls at this place were, I let loose and made sure he know how good he was making me feel. We lay like that on the bed, Drake above me, each of us moving slightly till we got comfortable, our lips never leaving the other’s body except to kiss again. It was magical. I couldn’t believe I finally had the Drake Rollins in my bed. It was everything I had fantasized about all this time, and this was even with all of our clothing still on! As soon as that thought flashed in my mind, Drake started unbuttoning his collared shirt. I helped up, starting from the bottom, and not just because I wanted to get my hands closer to his thick, hard, cock, pressing into my leg from behind his pants. I licked my lips with anticipation in between kisses. Drake Rollins had been legendary at Cal not only for his ability to catch touchdowns on Saturday, not only for his ability to get girls to sleep with him, but his skill in bed was reported by many the lucky customer to be beyond amazing. And now he was on top of me. Me! Lily Pearson! As his shirt came off I let out a moan as I checked him out. He’d been in amazing shape in college, as my friends pointed out as often as they possibly could. Whatever he’d been doing in California the offseason had been the right thing. Drake’s muscles rippled all over his body as he

took his shirt off. His tattoos stretched across the vast expanse of his muscles, and I wanted to trace each and every one of them with a stencil. I stared and stared, like I wanted to take a picture to save it for later. If my purse wasn’t on the other side of the room, I might have asked him to hold that pose so I could. Drake unhooked his belt but left his pants on just before he joined me in bed. I felt the mattress shift under me as it balanced both of us. I lay on my back looking up at him. He loomed over me, not quite smiling, more appraising me. I felt a little self conscious in that moment, wondering what he saw in me, if it was just the dress. “Let’s get you out of that dress, Lily.” I wanted nothing more. I started to sit up to pull the dress off of me without tearing it any further, but Drake had other ideas. “It’s already torn, no need to treat it so nicely.” He reached over to me, grabbed the tear at my side, and pulled, ripping the entire dress apart. I couldn’t help but squeal in shock. The squeal quickly turned to a moan as what Drake had done settled in. He was so aggressive, so eager to get what he wanted. And what he wanted was me. It was such a turn on, I could feel how wet I was getting. Something popped into my head, and I giggled. “What?” “You’ve ruined my dress, I might have to go shopping again.” I tried to sound mock mad at him. Drake smiled. “I guess so. That sounds horrible.” “It will be.” Drake moved the pieces of my dress to the sides. I slid the straps off my shoulders and off my arms. I lay back in the pieces of my dress, only

my bra and thong covering me. Drake’s eyes glazed over as he looked me up and down. “Wow…” The reverence on his face made me blush, and I wanted to turn away, but I couldn’t. I gathered my courage. “See anything you like?” It came out way more shy than sultry. The way Drake looked at me made my heart flutter in all the right ways. I longed for more of his touch, more of his kiss. “I have never seen beauty like yours, Lily. I’m mad that it took me so long to kiss you again, but glad that I’m doing it now.” With that, he leaned over and kissed me long and heard. I closed my eyes and pushed into the kiss as much as I could, wanting it never to end. “You say such wonderful things, Drake…” “I can’t help it.” His touch caused goosebumps on my skin. His fingers brushed across my stomach, just touching the edges of my lacy bra, all the way down to the top of my panties. “You make me so hot.” I closed my eyes and felt the tendrils of pleasure shoot through my body as Drake touched me. “Oooh, Drake, I think you can tell you do the same to me.” I arched my back, trying to lift myself off the bed and closer to him. I longed to feel his mouth on me, but he held back, teasing me. The only thing I could do in response was reach up to him, feeling his tight muscles under my fingertips. Drake leaned closer, making it easier for me. I ran my hands up and down his body like a blind person trying to understand the shape of something with just their sense of touch.

After a minute, my hands wandered down to his waist and I traced the line of Drake’s hip bone down into his nice pants. Bothered that his belt and pants were getting in the way of me seeing more of him, I quickly unbuttoned them. “Would you like me to take my pants off?” “Yes, yes, of course. Take them off.” Drake chuckled, but didn’t change what he was doing. “Say please first. He watched me, trying to see what I was going to do. “Please?” It was a question rather than me doing what he wanted. “Say it fully, Lily.” His voice had hardened, all the softness from before gone. I finally understood. “Take your pants off, please.” “That’s better.” Drake took his hands away from me. I felt a vacuum where he’d been touching me and I longed for it again. He leaned back, resting on his knees next to me before he stood up just to the side of the bed. Drake hooked his fingers into the waistband of his tailored pants and pushed them down till they fell to the floor. Underneath he wore a pair of dark silk boxer briefs. I could feel my mouth start to water. Drake looked at me like he knew what I was thinking, and smiled. Then he did the same to his boxers, and for the first time I got a good look at Drake Rollins’ magnificent cock.

I’d seen some porn before, not much, but I’d never really seen a man’s cock of this size in person before, and Drake’s was breathtaking. It was long and much, much wider than I expected, and as I watched it, licking my lips, it stood up and got longer and harder, till it was standing at attention. “You see what you do to me, Lily? You see what effect you have on me?” “I can see it, Drake. Now give it to me. Please.” It was as if I’d said the magic words. Drake came back to bed and pulled me into his arms. I still had my lingerie on, but I didn’t mind. All I could think about was getting my hands and mouth on Drake’s cock. “Please, Drake, lay back. Let me play with you.” I was even shocked at my own boldness. I’d never been this way with a guy before, but then again, I’d never felt this way about someone before either. Drake listened and lay back against the bed. He held his hands out and pointed to his naked body before clasping them behind his head. “By all means, Lily, explore all you like.” The smile on his face was wide and inviting. Of course it would be, he must be on top of the world right now. It felt so good to be able to touch him like this after all that escalating tension between us. I’d lusted after him for so long, and the way he had kept himself from me since we were in school just turned me on even more. It was great to finally get to explore him. With my mouth. I sat back on my knees, just looking at him, taking in Drake’s body in full before I started to play with

him. There were no more barriers, and I was going to take my time and enjoy it. Drake lay like that before me, staring back at me with an amused grin on his face. In the low light of the bedroom, lit by the streetlights outside the facility, he looked like an artist’s portrait of the perfect man in evening repose. If I wasn’t aching to touch him I would have sat and stared longer. But curiosity and lust definitely got the better of me, and I couldn’t help but crawl over to him and get my hands on him. I heard Drake breathe in deeply when we connected, and my fingers feeling and playing with his muscles must have felt good, because he kept his eyes closed and lay back in apparent bliss. I was right there with him, exploring Drake’s body for the first time. Of course, as an athlete, he was in incredible shape, the kind of body that made mouths water and jaws drop. My fingers ran up and down his body starting with his arms, and when I leaned over to kiss him, I heard little moans escape from his mouth. “Lily, you’re such a tease…” he trailed off, without opening his eyes. I was avoiding playing with, or even looking at his cock for a little while, despite how hard and prominent it was. I just wanted to savor the rest of the moment before getting down to…the good stuff. I hooked a leg over and I straddled him just below the waist, his hard cock just in front of my pussy, barely covered by my thong. From here I leaned over and kissed his chest up and down, marveling at the rippling muscles just waiting to be touched and used. I wondered how much effort it took to keep up a body

like this, and instantly decided whatever that effort was it was worth it. After a few minutes I couldn’t stand it any longer and I needed to play with Drake’s cock. I scooted myself back down toward his feet, bracing myself on my knees, and got in close. His cock was before me, hard and pulsing every few seconds. I could see the veins on it stand out. Tentatively at first, I touched it with a finger and gasped when it jumped. “Finally…” Drake said, watching me. Emboldened by the first touch, I touched him again, with a couple fingers this time. I worked up the courage to wrap my hand around it and barely could touch my thumb and middle fingers together he was so thick. Looking up at Drake’s face I started to stroke him up and down, slowly at first. The breath caught on his throat and he signed, long and low. Whatever he said next was muffled and incoherent. I sat there, stroking him, getting used to having his cock in my hand, and all the while wondering how he’d taste. As if reading my mind, Drake opened his eyes. “Lily, suck my cock.” It was not a request, and I had every intention of following his order. I licked my lips and leaned forward, unsure of what to do first, given how big it was. I decided to start at the bottom…that would be sexy, right? I moved down to the base of his impressive shaft, thankfully clear of hairs, and darted my tongue out to his skin. The second time was longer, and I moved my head up and down a little. I didn’t stop, and Drake’s sighs and pleasured sounds gave me the confidence to keep going.

“That’s it, Lily, keep going…” Drake sounded like he was in another room. I licked up and down his shaft, smelling his manly scent and tasting him for the first time. When I got to the top of his cock I took his large head in my mouth, getting used to having a man of Drake’s size inside me like this. I looked up at Drake’s face, feeling so sexy and hot that I could make someone so gorgeous feel the pleasure that was clear on his face. Once I relaxed at having Drake’s cock in my mouth I started to slowly move down, trying to take more of him into me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get the whole thing, but I wanted to try. I kept stroking him with one hand, all the while moving my head up and down on him, testing how much of his cock I could take into my throat at once. It was so hot to be sucking my Drake’s cock, my panties were just soaked. I moved my other arm around and brushed my fingers over my pussy, tweaking my clit every so often. Drake kept moaning and he must have decided to get into it even more because I felt one of his big hands on my neck, and the other one in my hair. He started coiling up my hair in his hand, twisting it until he was pulling it, making me wince in a mixture of pleasure and light pain. So much that I stopped sucking on his cock and moaned out loud. “You like that?” “Mhhm, yes, Drake, I do.” I had no idea that I would find any pleasure in a little bit of pain, but tonight was already a night of learning new things about myself. “Good.” He kept pulling my hair, not quite guiding my head up and down his cock. I loved that he let me

explore him like this first. I got the impression that he was a take charge kind of guy in the bedroom, and I couldn’t wait to see what that was like, but it was really nice of him to give me this time to go at my own pace, without any pressure or guidance beyond the sexy sounds he was making. I kept sucking his cock like that, feeling it get bigger and bigger in my mouth, running my tongue over it, and feeling it pulse inside me. All of a sudden Drake gently lifted my head off his cock, and I felt momentarily said I didn’t have him inside me anymore. He sat up on the bed, and I sat back, not sure what to do next. His voice was low and husky, almost feral. “I can’t take it anymore, Lily, I need to fuck you.” My entire body pulsed as I heard him, and before I knew what was happening, Drake threw me down on the bed and rolled on top me. I couldn’t believe how hard I moaned out loud when his lips crushed against mine. He traced his hands down my shoulders across my arms to my wrists and moved them above my head. Then he held them both there with one of his huge forearms. I lay underneath him, helpless and more turned on than I’d ever been. “Please, Drake…” I mewled, overwhelmed by the sensation of the moment. “Take me…” “Say it again. The way you know you want to.” I looked up at him, so powerful. I arched my back trying to touch him more. “Please, Drake…please fuck me.” Once I said it I shook, the weight and pleasure of getting that off my chest palpable. It felt so good to say that to a man I truly wanted. It was if I

was free for the first time. Free to let go. “Good girl” was all Drake said, and those words made my toes curl with pleasure. Everything he said made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, made me feel goosebumps all over. Being this close to Drake Rollins was an electrifying experience. “Now let’s get you out of that lacy stuff.” With a deft hand, Drake unclasped the front of my bra, but didn’t let my hands go above my head, so I left it on while he moved in. As his lips touched my aching breasts for the first time I gasped quickly, but didn’t have much time to savor the moment. Drake quickly moved his attention to my nipples, and when he took them into his mouth and kneaded them with his tongue I nearly melted from the sensation. I don’t think I could have formed a coherent sentence in that moment even if doing so would have meant a hundred years of world peace. All I could do was thrust my body towards his, desperate to get more contact with him. Drake let off on my nipples for a moment, looking up at me. “You have the most gorgeous tits, Lily. I’ve wanted to play with them for so long.” The words swam about in my head and I had to concentrate to put them into meaningful order. “Better make…up. For. Lost time,” I managed to get out before surrendering again to the pleasure. Drake chuckled. “Oh, I intend to.” He spent the next minutes finding new ways to tease and play with my breasts, starting at the nipples and radiating outward, leaving kisses all over, taking extended detours to kiss my shoulders and neck, which made me shudder. Drake managed to discover in those

minutes erogenous zones that I never knew I had. Finally, he started to move down, below my breasts, toward my navel. He left one arm outstretched, his hand still holding my hands back above my head. I was glad for it; not only did I not know what to do with them in the moment, but feeling helpless like that was a huge turn on. His tongue against my stomach and navel made my giggle. It was a nice diversion from what had just come before and what we both knew was coming next. Drake took his time, though, giving me a little bit of respite, a time to calm down and sort through all that I was feeling. After a minute or so he started moving down again, past by navel toward my pussy. Grinning at me, he pulled at my soaked panties with his teeth, like a lion playing with food. Putting his face down right into my panties, I could feel him breath in deep. “I love your scent, Lily. Especially when you’re so turned on.” All I could do was nod. Drake leaned back, sitting up on his knees while he pulled my panties down, exposing my pussy to him. I let him take my panties off and throw them on the floor before he moved back down. “I can’t wait to taste you.” “Don’t wait, then,” I croaked, impatient. He licked me, a long stroke from bottom to top, and I moaned long and low myself, almost unable to describe how it felt. If you played a long note on a violin, soft and first then louder, but never ceasing, that is what this felt like, with pleasure instead of sound in an unending and increasing drone. I came right there. The first time anyone other than

I had made me cum. My whole body shuddered and shook as my orgasm came over me, waves crashing through me like I was tied up on a beach. I lay there, writhing in pleasurable agony, while Drake watched me, and kissed me down there, ever so lightly on my clit, just at the right moment to keep the waves coming. When I finally settled down and opened my eyes, Drake was looking at me with wonder. “How was it?” “Amazing. Beautiful, Crazy.” “So the next word you’d use was…delicious?” I couldn’t help but laugh at his joke. “Jerk.” “Well, yeah. I had to keep a little bit of that. People can’t entirely change who they are.” And with that, Drake went right back to licking my pussy. I was still sensitive from cumming, but after a few seconds of expert touch with his tongue, I could feel myself getting back into it, ready to climb the mountain again. He stopped, kissing me one last time down there before he moved back up and kissed me hard on the mouth. I could taste my own sweet juices on his lips and tongue, and loved feeling the weight of his body above me again. After the kiss, Drake moved his head to my ear and whispered, “it’s time, Lily. Are you ready?” “Yes, Drake.” I was more ready than ever, and I knew what to say. “Please fuck me.” “Good girl,” he whispered as he put on a condom and positioned his cock above my pussy and slid into

me. He went slow at first, but I was so turned on that he didn’t need to. Time slowed to a crawl as I felt the pleasure and sensation of having Drake’s cock inside my pussy for the first time. The fullness at having someone inside me so large, the pressure and friction against the walls of my pussy as he pushed into me, it was all overwhelming. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced, and in that moment I couldn’t have asked for a better lover. When I was able to open my eyes I looked up to see Drake looking back at me, the love in his eyes clear as day even at night. There was a little pain too, as my pussy stretched around his wide and long cock for the first time, but that quickly began to fade as he stopped moving in and held there for a moment. Then Drake started moving out of me, just as slowly. Just as the head of his cock would have slipped out, he pushed back in and I gasped at the second thrust. Drake increased his speed, moving in and out of me with a rhythm as I got used to having him inside me. I could feel the tides rising in me again, and I knew I would cum soon. Drake bent over me, kissing down my neck, slowly, toward my breasts. I braced myself, but when he started lapping at my sensitive nipples, the effect was even stronger than I expected, and I couldn’t help but buck my hips against his waist. Drake adjusted his rhythm to move with me, and soon we were fucking again with abandon. “You’re gonna make me cum soon,” he groaned above me as he pushed in another deep stroke. “Please, Drake, cum inside me,” I moaned in

response. I needed to feel him. Saying that pushed me over the edge and I nearly lost consciousness as I came again. I must have said the right thing, because Drake came too, and I could feel his cock pulsing inside me as his hot cum flooded into the condom. We both made incoherent guttural sounds as Drake collapsed on top of me. He finally let go of my hands above my head, and I slowly moved them down, running them over the muscles of his arms and shoulders. We drifted off to sleep with Drake’s cock still inside me.

CHAPTER 14 - DRAKE I woke up before dawn, Lily lying next to me in her bed. It was dark out, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, and then I was suddenly confused - this was not my room. Lily stirred as I moved around and then the memories of the previous evening came flooding back, and I smiled, putting my hands behind my head. Yeah. That had gone well. I stared at Lily, sawing logs peacefully next to me, and I marveled at the quiet beauty she showed even in repose. I had woken up next to my share of girls, on the rare occasions that I let them spend the night, and I couldn’t remember one that looked as good as Lily did while she slept. And the sex, whoa, the sex had been wonderful. Just the best. I was already hard and ready to go again just looking at her next to me, but I knew that I should let her sleep. As an athlete I was used to getting up before the crack of dawn for workouts or practice, but she didn’t follow the same schedule, and as much as I wanted to fuck her again, I really should get going if I didn’t want to be seen when others started waking up. I managed to extricate myself from the bed without disturbing Lily too much; she just sighed happily and continued dreaming away. I got my clothing from the pile on the floor, making sure to leave her stuff close by, and drifted out of the room like I had never been there. I made my way stealthily through the Patriots compound, all grey and boring aside from bright posters of Patriots legends and inspirational quotes on the walls, darting left, looking right, making sure there was no one prowling the halls at 4am.

Really, though, even though I was skulking around trying to make sure no one noticed me, my mind was still back in Lily’s room with her. In my mind we were still fucking, still having the time of our lives exploring each other’s bodies. I sighed, and glanced around really quick to make sure anyone I hadn’t noticed hadn’t noticed me making too much noise. This…could be a problem. If I didn’t reign in my still-growing feelings for her I’d be in trouble. I really didn’t have time to deal with this right now - I was fighting for my life, metaphorically, of course. I knew that no other professional football team would give me a shot if I flamed out with the Patriots, so this was going to be my first and most likely only shot at ever playing for real on the biggest stage there was. I needed to focus, to bury my head in the playbook and only leave the weight room and practice field to eat and sleep for the next month. But that wasn’t going to be easy with Lily Pearson around, both in my head and in person. I had to find a way to keep this a casual thing. But even if I was able to, say if Lily would go for something like that…would I be able to stick with it? And more importantly, would I be able to get done what I needed to so I could make the team and realize my dream? Lily must know this was a short term thing too, right? Whether or not I made the team, she wouldn’t be covering me as closely, in her, uh, professional capacity, once training camp was over. Then it would be into the grind of the regular season, and I had no

idea how guys with families or even girlfriends handled the constant travel, the long days and the significant preparation and recovery times before and after each game. Playing high school and college football while juggling school hadn’t been easy, I couldn’t imagine how much tougher things would get if all I had to do was get ready to play, play, and recover from playing. So maybe Lily knew this was going to be a short term thing. We would fool around and hook up when we could, and do our interview thing during the day, keeping things looking professional. And when I made the team, we’d separate. That could work, right? I wasn’t even sure of that already. With any other girl I’d be thinking about more important things already, but this girl just stuck with me, like no one ever had before. I wanted her to like me, I wanted her to want to be with me, even if we could only do a short term thing because of our careers. Hell, I’d be with her in secret if I could. I arrived back in my room right around then, and slipped my key in the door, not wanting to wake Lance Parker up. True to form, he was sleeping like a baby, and snoring like he usually did. Maybe I could get used to sleeping in Lily’s bed… Ugh. That would not be a good idea for my rest schedule. It wasn’t easy working out or eating or practicing this hard or this often, especially after the private offseason workouts since football ended at school. I needed my rest. But, I realized as I undressed

and slid back into my own bed to grab what little extra sleep I could before the alarms went off and Day 3 began, I also knew that I would not turn down another night fucking Lily. The next few days passed with surprising speed. I was lagging a bit behind the other wide receivers in cramming the playbook into my head, and the next couple practices really showed that. The coaches would call my number, they’d tell me to run a route, and more than once I flubbed it and ran the wrong one. I tried to explain that I’d just found out I was gonna be trying out for the team less than a week earlier, and that I hadn’t even received the playbook until Monday when I arrived, but they coaches weren’t having any of it. They cursed me out a blue streak and had me sit on the sidelines and watch while the rest of them practiced. I noticed Coach Armstrong see me while I fumed on the sidelines. Fuck this shit. I had to focus more. And the end of the week, Lily came up to me for our daily interview, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. “How was practice today, Drake?” I narrowed my eyes. Yeah, she looked good, Yeah, even though I was bone-tired I could picture us in bed again. We hadn’t yet gotten to repeat that night, not with how busy I had been since, and how much work I still had left. “You know very well how practice went today, Lily,” I replied, trying my hardest to keep my voice even and not let the anger and humiliation I felt seep in. It was not easy.

“I saw you spent a bunch of time on the sidelines. What was that about?” “I don’t want to talk about it.” Lily pressed on. “Come on, Drake, remember how this works. You practice, then you talk, then I write. Remember?” “Yeah, yeah.” Couldn’t she see how wound up I was? Why was she still asking me these questions? “So, practice today, how come you were benched?” “Because I didn’t know the fucking playbook yet, OK? Fuck. I still have to learn the route tree so I know where I need to be when Lance throws me the ball, got it?” I snapped at her, forgetting myself. Lily looked like I had hit her in the face. I felt like shit. “Uhh, ok, Drake, good to know.” Lily sounded tense, like she was suddenly super nervous around me. She recovered after a second, her voice going back to her normal reporter even tone. “How are you planning on fixing that up?” I sighed, still aching over how I had just sounded. “I’m going to study more, make sure I know all I need to know. It’s gonna take a little time.” “The first round of roster cuts are coming in a week, Drake. The coaches don’t have much tape on you to evaluate you yet.” The implication in her words was clear - so far this was not going well. “I know, I know, I’m working as hard as I can, but this is a lot to learn and I haven’t had the time yet.” I

sighed again and looked up at the sky for a second before focusing back on Lily. “I know that’s no excuse, though, and it won’t happen again. I’ll be ready by Monday.” The weekend was coming up, and all I planned on doing was study after brief workouts in the morning. Lily put her notebook away, and I knew the interview was over. “Hey,” I started as she turned around to leave. The rest of the players had dispersed - the coaches had told all the players and staff to give us our space during the interviews. Lily didn’t respond. “Hey,” I said again. “I’m sorry-“ She whipped around and stared me down, her eyes blazing with anger. “Save it, Drake.” “Look, I’m apologiz-“ She poked me right in the chest, just above where the pads ended. “I don’t need your apologies. And I don’t need you taking out your problems on me. I’m here doing a job just like you are, and unlike you, I see to want to keep working around here beyond the next month.” I stood there like a statue. “Are you OK?” Her eyes lit up again. “Don’t you dare make this about me, Drake. This is all on you. You’re the one who doesn’t know his shit yet. You’re the one in danger of getting cut from the team.” “And if I get cut, what’ll that do for you?” “We may be in this boat together, but I’ll be damned if I let you take me down with you.”

“Listen, Lily, I’m trying-“ “Well, try harder. Make this work, Drake.” Her voice softened, and it looked like she was almost about to cry for a second before she caught herself. “You have what it takes, I know you do,” she started again, softer this time, just in case anyone else was listening. “And you won’t get another shot at this.” “I know.” We were about to keep going back and forth like this when there was a commotion on the other side of the field. Both Lily and I turned to look at it and saw a group of guys gathering, still in their gear and pads, around someone or something. Lily and I looked at each other and we fastwalked our way over there, wanting to see what was going on. By the time we got close I could tell the other guys were cheering, but it didn’t become clear about what until I pushed my way in. Oh shit. Mike Sampson was here. Mike Sampson was another wide receiver for the Patriots. He was a big deal, a middle of the road talent that had made some amazing catches, and who everyone in New England had high hopes for. Mike Sampson had signed a 4 year contract with the team just a couple years ago, meaning he had 2 years left on his deal, and presumably knew just how much money he was going to be paid. Mike had decided a few months ago that he was

not happy with this amount, and had signaled his attempt to hold out from the team and not show up to training camp, trying to force the team to renegotiate a deal they had still had 2 years left on. Evidently, that holding out process had come to an end, and Mike Sampson was now coming to training camp, ready to rejoin his teammates and help bring a championship to New England. Shit. Now there was one fewer roster spot for wide receivers. I pushed my way out of the huddle, back to where Lily stood. She was still mad at me, I could tell, even though she didn’t show it nearly as much as a couple minutes earlier. I stood there, staring at the huddle, wondering what this meant for me, until I realized Lily was poking me in the ribs again. “Hey, Drake,” she said in a low voice. “Yeah?” “Your job just got a whole lot harder.” She was right. Fuck. Shit had just gotten real.

CHAPTER 15 - LILY Drake didn’t even try to sneak into my room that entire weekend, and even if he had told me he wanted to, I would have told him to get bent. Sure I wanted to kiss him, sure I wanted to undress him, sure I wanted to feel his perfect body above mine in bed while he fucked me, but right now there were two things getting in the way of me enjoying having sex with Drake Rollins right now: A) Drake Rollins had some work to do in order to make sure he still had a job in 3 weeks, which would determine if I had a job too. So as much as I wanted his cock, I first needed a way to compress and stuff an iPad’s worth of football plays into his head. B) Drake Rollins was being a douche bag and taking out all his frustrations on me, and I wasn’t having any of it. He was on sex probation till he got his head on straight. A made sense to me, I could wrap my head around that, but B was not nearly as easy. After just one night of having Drake Rollins in my bed, when I got back to my room after the day’s work, kissing him and feeling his hands on me, his cock inside me, was all I could think about. I imagined and hoped that Drake spent the weekend studying, but it was a crappy weekend sexwise for me too. I didn’t know anyone around here, and I didn’t have anything to do, so I went home and spent some time with my family. My dad asked me all the questions I knew he’d been thinking up all week and I answered them as best I could. It was wonderful to see him again, and I

almost didn’t want to come back to the Patriots facility in Foxboro when the weekend was over. After practice on Monday, I headed over to the sidelines for my interview with Drake. He still had his pads on, and even with them on, he looked so good with the sweat running off him like that. I couldn’t help but flash back to the two of us in bed, and long for those moments again. “Hey Lily,” Drake said, stopping in front of me just as I got my notebook out. “Hey Drake. Rough practice again today?” “Yeah.” Drake had gotten his number called a few times, and this time he knew the routes. “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. Which, to be fair, I did, so far every single time. But Lily Pearson was different and I could tell that right away. Sure, she was gorgeous and funny and smart and we were amazing in bed together, but she didn’t seem…concerned around me. Like everything about us was just comfortable. I knew she resisted spending time with me outside of work stuff like this, but once she made that decision to do so, she committed to it. I found that really appealing. “How did the game go? I mean, from your perspective,” she asked, once the waiter had taken

our menus away. “You don’t waste any time, do you?” “This is business, Drake. I need to know what your thoughts were on the game.” So much for comfortable and light and breezy, damn. “It was just the first preseason game. There are 3 more coming up quick.” “That sounds like something someone would say if they had a bad game.” I leaned forward. “We were both there, Lily, no need to beat around the bush. I didn’t even make a catch.” “Parker only gave you a few targets. He doesn’t know what to do with a receiver like you.” I waved it away. “That might be the case, and I’m not saying I disagree with you, but it’s not my job to dictate the offense. All I can do is catch the balls that are thrown to me. If I do that, more of them will come my way. If I don’t, then the opposite will happen.” I put my hands on the table. “It’s just that simple.” Lily nodded. “OK, now give me the real story.” I laughed. “Huh? That is the real story.” “Nah, that’s the proto-Patriots robot speak they teach you around here. Give me the real stuff.” I cocked my head to one side and narrowed my eyes. “Off the record?” She held her hands up. “No recordings here,

Drake.” She lay her hands halfway across the table. I took my chance, and covered them up with mine. She shrank back at first, just briefly, before she got comfortable again with touching me in public. She looked around like she was checking out the rest of the people around us, but no one was paying attention to anything other than themselves. “Training camp hasn’t gone exactly the way I wanted so far.” “That sound like the understatement of the week. What’s wrong?” “I’m just not getting a chance! I can’t show them what I can do like this.” “How are you getting along with the other players?” “Eh, I dunno if you know this, but I didn’t exactly come in here with too much fanfare.” “I’m well aware,” Lily deadpanned. “Well, when that happens, the other players don’t really take to you. They like to see if you’re gonna stick around before they try and become friends with you.” “Ah. So you haven’t had much going on in that department.” “Nope.” “That must be tough for you. You’ve been the big man on campus, what -“

“-Everywhere I’ve been but here, yeah.” I said, smiling ruefully. “It’s been a little bit of an adjustment, to say the least.” “What’re you going to do about it?” “Only thing I can do - make sure I make the team, and then make friends. Can’t do it in the opposite order.” I felt Lily’s hands turn over under mine, till her palms were touching mine. She closed her fingers, pressing against my hands, and she looked deep into my eyes. “Are you OK, Drake?” “Yeah, of course I am, it was just one game, I’ll be fine.” She looked doubtful. “I mean, are you really OK?” “Yes, Lily, I’m fine. I’m gonna make the team, and then everything will be better.” She still looked skeptical. “Right now, if they had to make roster cuts tomorrow, would you make the team?” I didn’t want to answer that. “Come on, Drake, answer the question.” “We both know the answer is no.” She said back, satisfied that I was opening up to her. “OK, then. Now that we’ve got that out of the way…how can I help?”

CHAPTER 17 - LILY I just wanted to help Drake out and do what I could to help him make the team. Of course for selfish reasons, but because despite not wanting to admit it to myself, I was really starting to like him. I knew it would be tough, if not impossible for us to have a real relationship even if he made the team, what with the conflict of interest boundaries that we were clearly already way passed crossing, but even so, even if we would never be boyfriend and girlfriend I wanted to see him succeed. I saw the drive and the motivation in him and my heart went out to him. Sure, he had been a little misguided and a lot too full of himself, but even over the last 10 days I had seen Drake Rollins come crashing down to Earth and I had gotten over my initial pique and curiosity at his fall from football grace. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help, really. But thanks for offering. I just need to work harder and make sure my mind is in the right place when I get to the practice field.” “Is there anything distracting you?” “Well…Mike Sampson definitely isn’t helping.” “He strikes me as pretty similar to you, personality-wise.” “Ouch.” He thought about that for a second, then smiled. “Am I really that bad?” “No. You’re much, much, worse,” I replied back, smiling too, trying to make this a little more fun for

the both of us. “What about Sampson has you all worked up?” “The way he struts around here, acts like he’s hot shit. Yeah, he and Lance Parker have worked together and they go way back, yeah they got that quarterbackreceiver ‘connection’,” Drake made air quotes, before settling his hands back down on top of mine, where I secretly really liked them, “it…it’s a little intimidating.” I couldn’t keep a straight face anymore. “So you’re saying, and let me get this straight, that the great Drake Rollins, scourge of defensive backs the world over…has been upstaged by…another Drake Rollins?!” Drake looked at me like I had punched him square in the face, like the possibility that he and Sampson were alike in more ways than one had never even dawned on him. “Y-Yes,” he finally spoke when he had found the words. “That must be really tough for you.” “Don’t make fun of me, Lily, I’ve seen how you’ve been acting around Annie Ross these last couple days.” “Hey,” I said, getting one of my hands out and pointing at Drake, “do not bring me into this. She and I are nothing alike.” Drake looked like he had clearly hit a nerve, and we both knew in that moment he was right. “Tell me about her,” he said softly. “You don’t get along, I get that, but how come?” His eyes sharpened. “Did she steal your boyfriend one time?”

I laughed. “No, nothing so high school.” “That’s good to hear. How do you two know each other?” “We met at a summer journalism program a couple years ago. It was here on the east coast, at Johns Hopkins in Maryland.” “A couple years ago? You mean you didn’t have fun during your college summers?” “Uh, no, Drake, not all of us had athletic scholarships, some of us had to work in school.” He looked hurt. “That’s not fair. I have a real degree and everything.” “You’re right, I apologize. You’re not quite the dumb jock you look like.” He closed his eyes, a smile on his face. “That’s much better. Please continue.” “I mostly had to work on the summers to pay for school, but that one summer I managed to get into this really prestigious program for journalism and I had to take the opportunity.” “Sounds like quite an honor.” “It really was, especially because I was only a sophomore and everyone else there had finished their senior years, degrees in journalism and everything.” “Wow,” Drake looked impressed. “I’m guessing that didn’t exactly go over well with Annie Ross, then, did it?”

I nodded. “You got it. She resented me from the moment the program started. It was like she was playing out all her fantasies about being the queen bee of the high school lunch room all over again.” Drake nodded. “I have recently learned what that can be like.” I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I decided not to push the matter any further. “So yeah, Annie Ross, after the program she went on to ESPN and very quickly she started getting on TV, getting sent out to cover teams leading up to the combine, the draft, training camps, etc.” “Is she good at what she does? I haven’t paid attention to her stuff. I actually try and stay away from sports news.” “Really? I figured all you players would be totally nuts for the stuff.” Drake laughed. “One can only see oneself so many times on Sportscenter’s nightly top 10 before it starts to go to your head, and I try and stay away from those kinds of ego games.” He said it with such a straight face that I couldn’t help but burst out laughing, and more than one person around us turned to see what all the commotion was about. I tried to compose myself, but the joke was just too good. “Are you finished?” “No, give me a minute, I need to enjoy that one a little big longer.” “Take your time. I’m here all night.” He wrapped his arms around his chest and sat back, watching me

with a knowing look on his face. “OK, OK, I’m better now, you were saying?” “No, you were telling me about Annie Ross.” “Right, right. Yeah, I always got the impression that Annie was a little bit jealous of me, since I got into that program earlier than she did.” “Is she a better writer than you are?” “She’s really good, no doubt about that. And the players and fans on TV seem to love her.” “So what do you have to worry about? I’ve read your stuff, you’re a great writer too.” I blushed, not sure how to take that compliment from Drake. “I mean, I’m OK, I guess.” “Nah, don’t be modest, you’re a hell of a sports writer. Plus,” he smiled, “you’ve got the inside track on Drake Rollins. I hear that’s not an easy beat, especially for someone just getting started.” “Leave it to you to turn everything back around till it’s focused on you.” “I do have a reputation to upload.” “More than one. Lucky, you shoulder all those burdens pretty well.” Drake bowed in his seat with a flourish. “Why thank you. As long as you remember that I do it all for the people.” “Your many, many, fans.”

“The world over.” Ugh. The level of self confidence this man had, even in the face of adversity such as he was facing now, was legendary. As much as I wanted to tell him off, knock him down a peg or two or three or ten, I couldn’t help but be swept away in his charm. I wanted to tear his clothes off right there in the restaurant. Down, Lily. There might be time for that later. “I’m still worried about Annie coming to cover the team. There’s gonna be a lot of scrutiny on the journalism side. She has a lot of fans and they come to read her writing even if they don’t like the team.” “She’s got a couple year head start on you, don’t worry about it. You’re gonna hit it big with your stories on me and training camp. You just gotta get comfortable with your success and believe that it’ll happen, and keep working hard. “You sound like a coach, not a player.” “Sometimes you gotta be a little bit of both.” “You make it sound so easy, though, I don’t know if I’m that good.” He leaned in, a gleam in his eye. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Lily. I wasn’t so great at this football stuff either, not at first. Sure, some of it’s talent, and everyone talks a big game like it’s some innate ability or something that’s handed down from on high by a mysterious being.” He leaned in even further, conspiratorially, and I found myself doing the same. “The truth is that that’s all bullshit. It’s about 20-30% talent and genetic ability, but the rest of it is plain hard fucking work.”

He sat back. “And that’s football. Writing is totally different. Sure, the smarter you are, the more you’re able to express in your words, but that’s only 20-30% of the game. If you keep testing out what works and doesn’t work you’ll find the right stuff.” “You still make it sound so easy.” “It’s not fucking easy at all, don’t get me wrong. Nothing worth doing on a professional level is. If it were, everyone and their sister would do it, and no one could do it professionally.” “That’s quite the pep talk.” “All I’m saying is, you’ve gotten this far, that means you’re good enough to play in the big leagues. What happens next is up to you.” Damn, Drake Rollins was even sexier when he was giving me a pep talk. How was that even possible?! It seemed like as good a time as any to ask an important question. “So what’s the deal with you being a complete ass to me this last week?” In for a penny, in for a pound.

CHAPTER 18 - DRAKE “So what’s the deal with you being a complete ass to me this last week?” That was out of the blue. “What do you mean?” “I meant after we slept together last week, you changed.” “I didn’t change at all, I treated you exactly the same as before.” It was only when the words came out of my mouth that I realized my mistake. Of course, I had treated Lily exactly the same before we had fucked as after. I thought that was keeping things the same, but clearly in her world it was a huge change. Because things were supposed to change after two people have sex, duh. I didn’t get that through my football-thickened skull, because in my world, there was very little difference in my relationship to a girl before and after sex. Clearly Lily Pearson was not the kind of girl I regularly connected with, socially. She was looking at me like I had grown a second head, and for all intents and purposes, I might as well have, right then and there. “I didn’t realize…” “Never mind.” She shut me down, hard. “Let me explai-“ “Save it, Drake, I should have never asked the question. Leave it to me to ruin a good night.”

This was a good night? All we had done was argue and tell the other person they were better than they thought they were. “If this is a good night, I don’t even want to get close to one of your bad nights.” “No,” she smiled, “you don’t.” We finished up eating and I paid the bill. We got up and walked out of the restaurant, and I made no attempt to hide how much I was ogling Lily in her sexy dress. I didn’t even ask her to dress up this time, she just automatically did. That was hot as fuck. We walked down the street along the sidewalk, away from the car, just two people taking a stroll. Of course I had just played in a preseason football game a couple hours earlier and Lily had covered the game for the Globe, but if you saw us in that moment, you wouldn’t be able to tell anything was out of the ordinary. Lily slipped her arm into mine and we walked on, neither of us saying a word. This was weird, we were doing date-like stuff but it seemed pretty clear, at least to me, that what we were doing couldn’t continue too much longer. We came from different worlds and we were going in different directions. All these thoughts ran through my head and I tried to get them to go away, because what was becoming abundantly clear to me was that I was falling for the girl assigned to cover me for the Boston Globe, the girl whose hand was making its way toward mine. I really shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself - I was falling for Lily Pearson. Sure we fought all the time and when we weren’t having sex we were

probably at each other’s throats, but at the same time she was the only person who believed in me. She wanted me to succeed, and even though she had a stake in it too, it felt so genuine that I didn’t care that she might have an ulterior motive. She lifted me up when I was down, and that was so rare. Besides being deliriously sexy, that one fact was huge. Plus, the whole brilliant and talented writer thing. “You know, Drake,” Lily piped up, “what you said earlier about believing in yourself, I think you could do a little bit more of that too.” “What do you mean? I believe in myself enough for two guys. Enough for three!” She giggled, then got serious. “We both know that’s just on the surface, though. You talk a big game, but you want to belong just as much as the rest of us do. You want to be a part of the team.” “Yeah…” “All I’m saying is that you need to truly believe that you can make it, and the put in the work it takes. It’s just as simple as that. I talked to the coaches. They’re definitely not sold on you yet, but they haven’t closed the door. If you do well in these next couple preseason games they might be willing to take a shot on you.” I stopped. “You talked to the coaches about me?” “Yeah, I did. Don’t look so surprised, it’s part of my job.” “Right.”

“Anyway, you can still make the team.” “I just gotta put in the work.” “Exactly.” Then we turned around and headed back to the car.

CHAPTER 19 - LILY We made it back to my room without anyone seeing us, and as the door closed behind us, I was in Drake’s arms. I breathed in deeply, letting Drake envelop me. I closed my eyes and gave up trying to keep standing, letting him guide me wherever he wanted. His kiss was deep and rough, pushing me away with its force while his arm around my waist pulled me in closer. I opened my mouth and let his tongue in. I knew I was moaning, but didn’t know when I’d started and I didn’t care if anyone heard me. I needed this. I needed him. We kissed with abandon. After a minute Drake relaxed his arm around my waist and I took the opportunity to come up for air, almost dizzy with want and need. We separated, smiling to each other. I looked down, making sure his shirt was clean; he looked straight at me. I could feel him devour me with his gaze, and it made me nervous and happy in equal amounts. I could tell my face was flush, and in a rush I remembered where we were. I felt a little embarrassed, and turned away from him as best I could despite the magnetic pull that he seemed to exert on me without any outward effort. He looked down at me, small next to him despite my higher than usual heels. I wondered if Drake liked my outfit, if he recognized that this was not how I normally dressed. That I’d dressed like this, with care, with extra care, today, just for him. How could he have known? Drake pulled me back in close, so fast and tight

that I gasped in surprise. His kiss was equally fast, but I’d regained my senses and was expecting, no, more like hoping it would come again, my lips still woozy from our kissing. Our tongues danced together, a hint of what was soon to come. When he stopped I moaned out loud like a harlot, so expressively that if anyone was walking down the hall they would have heard me. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered except him and me. I could feel Drake’s powerful grip on my ass, squeezing me till I felt just a hint of pain. He kissed me, short and sweet, and I just let his wonderful tongue into my mouth. He wasted no time, turning me around and standing behind me and letting his warm hands massage my shoulders and neck. I relaxed into his touch, feeling myself become even freer and more sensual by the moment. In real life I was a journalist, but in this room, alone with Drake Rollins, I was a sexual vixen. The way he touched me never ceased to amaze me. It felt like a drug, one that I’d been clean and sober from for so long before getting yet another hit. I wanted him. Badly. “Ooooh, Drake,” I moaned at his touch. I couldn’t help it any longer. I could feel him loosening my neck and I let my head drift forward. He noticed the knots of tension in my neck and concentrated there. We hadn’t even made it past the doorway of my room and I was already putty in his hands.

Every time Drake’s fingers kneaded my shoulders and neck a sharp ping of pleasure would pulse through my body like an electric shock. As he continued I got more and more sensitive to it. Soon he wasn’t just touching my shoulder, he exposed my skin with his fingers and started kissing me up and down my neck and collarbone, making me groan with need. “Drake,” I breathed, raising my hands and clasping them around his head as he kissed me, “you’re so wicked, turning me on like this.” He grunted and continued kissing me. After a moment I let one hand drop down and caress his thigh over his tight and fitted suit pants. Drake turned into me and I could feel his hard cock pressing against me through his pants and my dress. I remembered its size and how it felt entering me and my mouth started to water. I pushed myself back against the hard muscles of his body, just barely covered by the trappings of modern society. Drake was a lion and I was his prey. I could feel his stiff erection push back against me. The stimulation was getting to be too much but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed more. Without warning, I turned around so I could face him. Drake stayed silent, the look in his eyes betraying just how much passion and lust he felt for me in that moment. I pressed my lips to his, eager to feel him on me, to cover myself up in him, to wrap him around me. I wanted him to shelter me from all that was outside this room, keep me here as long as he could. As we kissed I felt signal fires light all over my body. It was as though I was waking up for the first time. I wondered if he was surprised at how ardent

my kisses were. Drake was used to being in charge, so I wondered how he felt about me pushing on to him like this. We slowly stepped into the main area of the room, staying connected the entire time, and being just careful enough to keep from falling over. He sat on the ottoman in the living room area and I sat in his lap, my arms wrapping around his neck. He held me close with his arms, his hands sliding up and down my body as we kissed. One hand started to move up my dress and I moaned as he tickled my inner thigh on his way to my pussy. His fingers lightly brushed against my panties barely covering my aching pussy. I closed my eyes and inched my lower body closer to his touch, wanting to feel Drake inside me. Just as he started to wrap his fingers around my panties and pull them out of the way, I stood up, smiling at him. Drake stayed seated, smiling back, knowing what I was up to. I lifted my dress up and hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my panties. As much as I wanted him to see the sexy and lacy stuff I’d worn for him today, I had other ideas in mind at the moment. Drake stood up and watched me as I stepped back and lowered my panties to the floor, slowly. My eyes never left his, my cheeky smile never faltered. I let the panties hit the floor and stepped out of them, still wearing my heels. By now Drake had unzipped himself and I could see his cock for the first time in what felt like ages, long and hard. Drake pulled me forward and turned me around, bending me over as I came to a stop. I put my hands down on the ottoman we’d just been sitting

on, and looked back at him expectantly. He took his time, putting a condom on as if I wasn’t even in the room. I thought he’d take the opportunity to push his cock into me. “Please, Drake, I need it.” I even reached back to take ahold of his cock and guide him into me. Drake didn’t let me, though, pushing my hand away. He wrapped one huge hand around his shaft and started teasing my pussy lips with it. It felt amazing, feeling my pussy coat his cock with the juices of my desire. I needed him inside me and I pushed my whole body back against him using the ottoman as leverage. Still, Drake resisted, but I felt his cock get closer and closer to my hole. I thought he would finally fuck me, and I moaned in anticipation, but he kept on tapping his cock against my pussy and moving back. “Please, Drake, don’t do this to me.” I was getting desperate. “Please just fuck me. I need it.” I kept pushing myself back, closer to him, closer to the source of all my pleasure, and he kept holding back. Then with a start, he pushed inside me. His cock, already covered in the evidence of how much I needed him, slid into me so easily that he didn’t even have to pull out and thrust again to go all the way in, and I could soon feel his balls touching my skin. Drake reached up and put one of his hands around my waist. Lifting up my dress from the front, he started playing with my clit while he fucked me. His other hand was on hips, guiding my body as we moved back and forth, rhythmically slapping into each other. I was so wet, he slid in and out with almost no

friction, but I still gasped at how full I felt. I had completely forgotten how thick Drake’s cock was. His cock pushed in and pulled out of me, and with one hand on my clit and the other keeping me in place I was almost ready to cum already. After a minute Drake slowed down, and I thought he wanted to change positions. I was happy to, but I loved being bent over and fucked like this. He didn’t change positions after all, though, just took his fingers off my clit and moved them upward, inside my dress till he reached my breasts, covered in my lacy bra. I moaned as he played with my tits through my bra, squeezing them and tweaking my hard nipples. My breasts had always been so sensitive, as Drake was learning. We continued like that until I came for the first time, pushing back against him one last time as I moaned hard and loud, unashamed at the pleasure I was feeling, Drake’s cock deep inside me. As I came, Drake kept pushing in and pulling out of me, each nipple tweak sending aftershocks up and down my body. I nearly went limp, but Drake’s powerful arms kept me up till most of my earth shattering orgasm had finished and I could stay up on my own power. I sighed as he pulled his cock out of me, still hard. I stood up, slowly, turning around to face him, feeling empty now that Drake was no longer inside me, wanting him back in, but still luxuriating in the after pulses of my orgasm. He was wicked; we were so in tune that just regular sex with him felt incredible. “You didn’t finish yet.” I wanted to make sure that he enjoyed it, got as much pleasure from fucking me as I got from it. His hands wrapped around me again, pulling me in close.

“Take off your dress, Lily.” His voice was low and rough, but had a musical quality to it that always made me quiver, even as far back as college. I couldn’t keep myself from obeying him even if I wanted to, and I pulled back from his grip to start unzipping my dress, enjoying watching Drake’s eyes go wide at the sight of my deep blue lacy bra. When I got the zipper down to the bottom, I stood before him motionless until Drake reached up and slid the dress off my shoulders. I felt the rush of cool air against my skin, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “You too,” I breathed, wanting to see him out of those clothes as soon as possible. Any barrier between us was too much. He looked gorgeous in clothes, but we were better off when he was naked and fucking me again without delay. “You’ll undress me when you’re finished, Lily.” I nodded, standing before Drake in just my bra and matching heels. “That’s as much help as you’ll get from me,” he growled after unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. I laughed and came toward him, kissing him before starting on his shirt. Drake didn’t make it easy. As soon as I got close to him his hands were all over me, feeling me up, squeezing my tits and ass, sticking a finger or two inside me. It was not easy to concentrate on getting him naked, but I persevered. Within a minute he was completely naked, and I stood back to drink him in, reveling in his gorgeous

male body. “Make sure you thank your personal trainer for me,” I quipped, feeling his solid abs. “I’ll be sure and do that when I get the chance,” Drake replied, before reaching up and unclasping my bra from the front. I wondered how he knew it opened from the front. I shrugged my way out of it. We stood before each other, naked. I felt odd with my heels on but no clothes, but it also felt super sexy too. Before I had any idea what he was doing, Drake picked me up and threw me onto the bed, coming after me as soon as I landed. When I landed I moaned loudly from surprise and the pressure of hitting it at speed. Drake was on top of me by the time my eyes opened back up, holding my arms above my head with one hand while he wrapped the other around one of my breasts. Using his tongue he lapped at the other one. I felt his huge cock poking around my pussy, and inhaled deeply as he pushed into me again, filling me up on the first stroke. Having Drake’s cock back inside me was amazing. He stayed like that, moving his hips back and forth from side to side, making me groan with pleasure. I cried out when he softly bit my nipples. Once I’d gotten used to having his length back inside me Drake started to thrust in and out, slowly at first, but picking up speed. I didn’t even need to do anything except push back with my lower body as he moved in and out of me. I lay there with my eyes closed, feeling every sensation, only opening them to watch Drake fuck me.

I felt a second orgasm building up inside me and threatening to shatter me, just after I’d finished rebuilding myself from the first one. I wallowed in it, let it come, making no attempts to hide it. “Fuck me, Drake, fuck me. I’m cumming again, oh,” was all I could say, and I wasn’t even sure if the words made sense by the time they left my lips. I was a mass of need and lust and sensation and sparks and when I came the second time, I was overwhelmed, arching my back and moaning like I was having a seizure. Drake slowed down as I came down from the haze of my orgasm. Within a minute he was just lying there inside me, holding himself above me and kissing my breasts and neck. I finally came back to lucid consciousness. Drake moved over to the side and I felt his cock leave me, but instead of feeling the loss of emptiness I felt him scoop me up in his arms and pull me close. We lay there for a long time, without speaking, just feeling the rise and fall of each other’s chests, breathing and being one. Drake’s cock, still hard, pressed against me. Almost without thinking about it, I started pushing myself back and forth against Drake, feeling his cock getting even harder as I moved. As if reading my mind, he grunted and I felt his large hands gripping my waist. The next thing I knew I wasn’t on his side anymore; he’d rolled me on top of him. I spread my legs over his torso and sank down on to his cock. I closed my eyes in bliss as my pussy got used to

the deeper penetration this angle allowed us. I could feel my heavy breasts swinging in front his face, and every so often he’d raise his head up to suck on my nipples for a second, making me cry out softly each time. My hands moved to Drake’s chest for stability and I pressed down on his hard muscles, pushing my fingers into them as if to make myself believe they were really there. When I opened my eyes I looked down on him watching me, his face placid yet intent. One of his hands was on my waist, guiding me as I raised and lowered myself onto his cock. With every press down he seemed to go deeper in to me, and each time I was moaning with pleasure. I tried to push down on him further each time, not satisfied with gravity alone. His other gripped my ass. SMACK! The hand on my ass reached back and slapped me there. I gasped, not at all expecting that after how calm and regular our lovemaking had been just now. I smiled back at him; of course he knew I would let him do anything he wanted to me. Drake grinned and I leaned over to let him play with my tits with his mouth, the heavy globes dangling tantalizingly in front of him. He smiled and started licking my nipples, switching between the two and moaning himself as I yelped in pleasure. His mouth was wonderful no matter where it landed on me. I couldn’t get enough of it. I kept riding Drake like that, hunched over him to keep my breasts in his mouth, while he lifted me up and down on his cock, holding me above him every so often and not letting me lower myself further till I mewled in frustration. “Lily,” he moaned, “oh Lily, you feel amazing.”

My spirits soared, I loved hearing him talk like this. “I’m going to cum soon.” “Mmm, yes, Drake, cum for me.” Just hearing me say that must have triggered something in him, because Drake came almost immediately, and I felt his cum filling the condom as his cock spasmed inside me. I went over the edge too, cumming for the third time in an hour. I collapsed on top of him and felt his arms wrap around me. “Oh, Lily,” he whispered, “that was wonderful. You’re the best.” We drifted off to sleep. I woke up the next morning and Drake was gone, as I expected. I spent a little extra time in bed lying there and daydreaming about having him back here with me, running my hands over his strong muscles, trying to keep him close to me, enveloping me. It was a nice morning. I hummed around my room, thinking about Drake. What I had thought originally to be a fling at training camp was starting to look like a lot more to me. Not only was I thinking about Drake’s body, but also how much I enjoyed being around him when we actually had clothes on. It was…overwhelming, to say the least. When I got to practice, though, things seemed a bit different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at first, but something was…off. The weather was fine, it was sunny and warm as expected. The players were all accounted for, no one missing. None of those were the problem.

Yet it felt like there was a buzz around the complex, like something had changed. I tried to get a sense from talking to random people about it, but everyone just blanched and stepped away from me when it came up. What was going on? My heart sank. Did someone see Drake sneaking out of my room this morning? Shit, was that it? If that’s what had happened, I was fucked. This would become a huge scandal and there was no way I would keep my job. Drake might get off with just a light reprimand, but as a journalist there was no way I should ever have gotten involved with the player I was covering. Shit. What would my dad think?! I needed to get to the bottom of this, but I couldn’t exactly disrupt practice and wave all the players down, and ask them what was going on. Nah, I had to find an inside source. I found a staff member who I had talked to a couple times on background for the daily Drake Rollins stories and point blanked asked her what was going on, why was the facility buzzing like this? “You mean you haven’t heard the rumor?” “No,” I said, playing dumb for real, because for real I had no idea what was going on. “I haven’t heard the rumor, what is it?” She stepped in close. “There’s a rumor going on that you slept with-“

OH SHIT. “-Bill Thompson, to get your current job.” Wait. WHAT? I could feel the blood rushing through my ears, and it was tough to hear anything else around me for a few seconds. “With Bill Thompson? Ew.” “That’s what I thought when I heard it, but I couldn’t say that loud enough for some of these jackals. It’s not true, is it?” “Of course not, never in a million years. I’d like to think if I was going to sleep my way into a job I’d have better taste, damn.” “That’s what I thought!” I thanked her and walked away. Shit, what was I going to do? Then it hit me. I knew where this rumor came from. It came from Annie Fucking Ross. It must have. This was exactly the kind of low down bull shit that Annie Ross would pull in order to get ahead. Which was almost laughable because why would a nationally recognized TV reporter for ESPN need to tear down a lowly junior sports reporter from the Boston Globe? Talk about petty. I remembered former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s words, that ‘there was a

special place in hell for women who tore down other women,’ or words to that effect, and I tried to let the frustration and pain of Annie’s rumor wash over me and through me, knowing karma would have something to say about that in the long run. It wasn’t easy, by any stretch. I went back to practice and watched, holding my head up high and taking notes like I belonged there, because fuck it, I really fucking belonged there. I had earned this position and I was going to do it to the best of my abilities until the Boston Globe told me my services were no longer necessary, and if Annie Fucking Ross wanted to get in my way, then so be it. I heard whispers all throughout practice and heard voices behind me, turned up in my direction. Ugh, this place really was just like high school. On the one hand I wanted to run away and hide, and on the other hand, I knew I had to stand there and pull up my big girl pants and just take it, because rumors like these could not bring me down. If I had had a third hand with which to do things I would have walked right up to Annie Ross and slapped that smug smile off her face. I just knew it was her. Mainly because I remembered something else. At that summer journalism program at Johns Hopkins University two summers ago, it was Annie Ross who had slept with a professor in order to boost her grades. I had remembered her boasting about it, but back then I didn’t have the courage to say anything to anyone about it, and I had let the matter drop. Somehow now I wish I hadn’t done so. She would get what was coming to her, though, I

knew that. That knowledge kept me standing there on the sidelines while everyone talked. I wanted to be anywhere else, but this was my job, and I had to watch practice, take notes for my daily column, and interview Drake when practice was done. After the coaches let everyone out and the players dispersed, taking off their pads and walking back to the locker room to shower and go home, or stayed on and stretched out or played a little catch between friends, Drake jogged over to me. He was covered in sweat, but the glint in his eyes and the smile on his face that normally came when he was done with practice was nowhere to be found. “Everyone’s talking,” he said before I even had a chance to open my mouth. “So I’ve heard.” I was surprised at how tired I sounded, given that Drake was the one who had just run around on a field in full pads for 2 hours. “Is it true?” My jaw nearly hit the ground. I actually reached up and checked to make sure it was still attached. “Did you really sleep with Bill Thompson to get this job?” His voice was laced with disappointment. Holy shit, Drake believed the rumor. He actually believed I had slept with someone to get this job instead of earning it the right way, with hard work and skillful writing craft honed over years of practice. I could stand it from the rest of the staff, even the rest of the players, even if the rumor was totally

false. I wasn’t here to cover them yet, I was here to focus on Drake Rollins. But if Drake actually believed those lies Annie was telling about me, I didn’t know what more I could do here. The tears came quick, and they were sharp. “You actually believe that shit Annie spews?” I choked out, before the tears overwhelmed me, and I ran away, back to my room, as fast as I could, and threw myself on my bed.

CHAPTER 20 - DRAKE Lily’s reaction to my honest question threw me off, and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to chase after her, but something told me I couldn’t do that. Maybe it was everyone standing around watching our little dustup, but something kept me standing there in one place. I figured she needed her space, so I stayed away from her for a little while. I couldn’t help but keep thinking about her, though. In just a short amount of time, I realized that Lily Pearson had taken up residence in my head. Whenever I thought about something she was always there, and I wanted her to approve of my decisions. I wanted to show her I could be a good enough man to be with her, even when that got tough. Unfortunately I had problems of my own to deal with. The football side of my life, what should have been the most important thing, really the only thing, I had going on at the time, was not getting any better. Mike Sampson was still making me look bad in camp. I was getting more balls thrown my way, and I was even catching more and more of them, but still Lance Parker and Mike Sampson had this connection thing going on that I just couldn’t match. Whenever Parker found Sampson on a route, they would connect, like they were reading each other’s minds, it was eerie. I knew Sampson and I could both make the team, but every wide receiver spot was precious, and there were other returning veterans that had claims on other spots, so every single one of them counted, and I needed to make sure I was 1 of the 7 or so wide

receivers the Patriots carried on the roster into the regular season. I couldn’t go back to my earlier life - there was nothing left there for me, so I had to make this work I had no choice. I tried asking Lance Parker about it, considering that he and I were roommates and all, but he was almost never around, always in meetings or out on the practice field with his buddies. The guy was a machine. I couldn’t help but admire his work ethic, even if it meant we barely said two words to each other. Finally, just after the second preseason game, one in which I caught all three of the targets he sent my way, I sat him down in our room. I straight out asked him if he had it out for me, if there was some unknown beef between us, something getting the way of him sending the ball in my direction more often. Lance took it all in stride, swearing up and down that he was just following the playbook, going through his reads and making the calls that gave the team the best chance to win the game. It was really frustrating to talk to him because it made me feel dumb, like I was the one not on the same page, like I was the one who needed to work harder. So that’s what I fucking decided to do, right then and there. I told Lance Parker I was gonna be his best target from here on out, and that we were gonna win a championship together. Lance said he liked my guts, then he fell back against his pillow and was snoring loudly inside of 3 minutes.

Gee, thanks, roomie. Good talk. We would remember this one someday. The next few days were rough. I stayed out of the way, working on memorizing the routes and running them whenever I had a free moment. I talked with the coaches, coaxing any more tips I could get out of them. All of it made me feel really good about the next preseason game. Though there were 4 preseason games each year for each team, the third one is by far the most important. The last one was so close to the start of the regular season that most teams blow it off. So the third one was the biggest chance for an on the bubble player like me to shine, to show off, to make the big play and secure himself a roster spot. Which is exactly what I was going to do. It was what I needed to do. It was all I could do to keep this football dream alive. I couldn’t really talk to Lily about it. We had avoided each other for few days, only meeting to do our customary interviews, and barely exchanging any words. I tried to open up to her but Lily clearly didn’t want to talk to me anymore. That hurt really badly, and not just because I would lie awake in my bed each night thinking about having her lips on mine, feeling her boobs in my hand, feeling the way she shook when I pushed my cock into her and made her moan. I worried about what she thought of me, why she hated me so much all of a sudden. I had to get those feelings, those memories, out of my head so I could focus on football, but it wasn’t

easy. There was only so much time I could focus on the X’s and O’s of the game, so naturally, each time I hit my breaking point for the day, I would wonder what Lily was doing, where she was, whether she was thinking about me. I missed her greatly. Finally, on Friday morning, I had had enough of this. The rumor had died down by now, as rumors often do in a near-high school environment. Given how fast information and libel spread, it was just as fast people found something new to talk about and gossip over. No one was talking about Lily and Bill Thompson anymore, but I wanted to get to the bottom of things. Lily wouldn’t talk to me, and I didn’t dare bring up the subject again, because seeing her run away from me in tears like that on Tuesday afternoon had almost torn my heart out from my chest. So I went to the next best thing, the horse herself. Lily had mentioned Annie’s name before the stormed off, and it didn’t take more than a little digging to find out that Annie was the source of the rumor in the first place. After practice on Friday, I walked up to Annie and asked if I could have a word with her. Annie put on this huge fake smile that I could see coming a mile away. “Of course, sugar, I’ve been just dying to talk to you since I got here, but you’ve always been so busy.” She playfully punched my shoulder like Lily did, only with Lily I actually enjoyed it. With Annie, none of this was any fun, I realized.

“Can we talk?” “Of course, sugar, let’s go right over here and we’ll have ourselves a little pow-wow.” She smiled and directed me off to one side, and I followed her, finding it easy to avoid staring at her body along the way. The rest of the guys might be way into that, but just by looking at her I could tell already she was definitely not my type. Not like Lily was. We settled on one corner of the practice field and Annie turned to me, taking our a recorder and turning it on. I shook my head, and she blinked a couple times, not understanding. I pointed at the recorder, and she smiled a little less wide this time and turned it off. “What’s up, sugar? What can I help you with?” Even her accent sounded fake. “Tell me about Lily Pearson and Bill Thompson.”

CHAPTER 21 - LILY After practice ended on Friday I realized that I had had enough of this. I had gone around moping for 3 days now, barely talking to Drake during our interviews, just writing my column and not even saying a word to him or even looking his direction when we weren’t on the practice field. Ugh. I hated this. And people weren’t even talking about it anymore! Like all shitty and stupid rumors it had died quick, because after the initial phase of “no way, really?” that came with this particularly salacious rumor, everyone realized that oh wait, who gave a shit? Of course I knew the truth. Of course I knew who had started this rumor. But I couldn’t say anything. If I did, I’d just be the vengeful bitch trying to get back at clean as pure snow Annie Ross for airing my dirty laundry in public. No, I couldn’t do that. But I could fix things up with Drake. I knew that he didn’t really know me all that well, and I knew that he was just honestly asking if the rumor was true. It had hurt a lot to see him standing there and looking at me like that, like he was so disappointed in me. Just him thinking that it might even be true was enough for the knife to cut directly into me. I liked him so much, couldn’t stop thinking about him, but I also couldn’t stop replaying him asking me if I had slept with Bill Thompson over and over in my head, with that sincerely hurt look on his face. I hated how I had acted, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I decided on Friday morning, though, that I would fix it after practice that day. I would talk to

Drake before or after our usual post-practice interview and I would apologize for freezing him out like that all week, for acting like he was barely there, just an answer machine for me to ask questions to. I felt better almost immediately after I decided it, and the rest of the day went so much better just knowing that we would have all this stuff patched up in no time. The weather was gorgeous, the perfect New England summer day, and thankfully the humidity was lower than usual today. I actually heard the players grumble a little less about practice, given that just jogging around today wouldn’t have them covered in sweat. Apparently when you were a giant football player staring at a long regular season and a hopeful deep playoff run, it was the little things like a slightly cooler practice session that mattered the most. Football players were funny like that. I even wondered whether Drake might be able to come over tonight after he was done with his other stuff - we could have a nice night in together, and possibly even sleep in in the morning! Listen to me, the subject of one sleeping around rumor, meanwhile I was trying to setup another rendezvous in my mind! Such a dirty tramp I was! I laughed to myself as I turned to look for Drake. Oh. Oh HELL NO.

What was Drake doing talking to Annie Ross?! He knew what she had done to me, the vile lie she had spread about me! And now he was talking to her after practice? When he had a regularly scheduled interview with me? Again, the tears came without warning, but this time I was able to wipe them away. The anger helped. I felt my cheeks get hot, though, and despite my love for journalism, running neck and neck with my love for the New England Patriots, I found myself wanting to be anywhere else than where I was at that very moment, on the practice field, watching my team head back to the locker room after a good practice. I couldn’t believe that I had let Drake twist me around like this. I should have known that he couldn’t change his ways. He was a skirt-chaser and would be till his dying day. Why had I even thought that I could change him? Why had I even thought I could get involved with a player on the team I covered? Ugh, I was so stupid. This had to have been one of the dumbest things I had ever done. And now the best thing I could do, given the situation was try and get myself out of it with a minimum of mess. I turned and headed toward the entrance to the building where my room was, hoping to get out of sight before another wave of emotions about Drake overtook me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

As I hurried into the tunnel, thankful to get out of the sun and get some cover over me so no one else could see my distress, I heard footsteps behind me, heavy ones, the sound of cleats on cement. I’d recognize that sound anywhere. I turned around and pointed, almost without looking at who was there. “Stay away from me, Drake.” Of course it was Drake following me. I secretly wished it was him, and I was inwardly thrilled that he had, even though I would never, ever, admit that, even on pain of death. At the same time, though, Drake was the last person I wanted to talk to right now. He had some serious explaining to do before I could even stand to be in the same room as him, and that wasn’t even a guarantee. Maybe we could do our daily interviews by email or FaceTime. But audio only, none of that video nonsense. I didn’t want to see him. “Lily, what’s wrong? We have an interview, remember?” What’s wrong? He’s asking me what’s wrong, after who I just saw him talking to? They had probably already hooked up once before. It would be just like Drake Rollins - he had already slept with every other attractive girl on the planet, why not Annie Ross too, while he was at it? She must have visited Cal last season at least once to cover the Bears steamrolling through the Pac12, ugh, I meant, Pac-11. It was really tough to wrap my mind around just what had happened to Stanford

and the complete destruction of their academics and athletics program. It was almost sad, but then again, couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch. At the rate the scandals kept on mounting, their degrees would never be worth the paper they were printed on again. “Interview for today’s canceled. I’m not feeling well.” Of course I couldn’t tell him what was really bothering me. That would be too normal of me. Ugh again. “Canceled? We haven’t missed a single one yet, and now you want to cancel? Something’s up.” I crossed my arms under my chest and shook my head. “Look, I’ve got a headache, maybe you could just email me about today’s practice. You know the standard questions I ask each day.” That was true, our daily interviews had gotten a little stale. Drake was getting better and better at espousing what the media called “The Patriot Way,” in which players completed with each other for new and inventive ways to say absolutely nothing of substance to the reporters covering the team. It had actually gotten kinda fun trying to get him to say something that the team didn’t program into him. Or, rather, it would have been fun if we were having a normal interview. Today was anything other than normal, though. Today was the worst. Drake stepped toward me, holding his arms out. He looked around really quick, like he was checking if someone else was watching us, but no one else was around, and I didn’t notice any prying eyes in the

area. He dropped his voice down low. “Lily, what’s wrong? Talk to me.” “Don’t come any closer, Drake, I don’t want to see you right now.” I couldn’t be around him any longer, and I turned and fled, running back into the building. Thankfully, my room was close by and I didn’t run into anyone else from the team along the way. I fumbled around with my keys, looking back and forth, crossing my toes that no one would see me, but thankfully I managed to unlock the door, get inside, and close it behind me, sinking to the floor, leaning against it, breathing deep and holding back the sobs just barely. Here, though, I was safe. I could let it all out. And that’s exactly what I did. I sat there on the floor and cried long and hard. I didn’t know what caused it, why Annie Ross and her lies bothered me so much. But as I heard a knock on the door I was learning against, I knew what the reason was. It was Drake Rollins. The guy I knew was leaning on the other side of the door. “Lily?” I heard his muffled voice through the hard wood of the door. “Let me in, Lily.” What was I doing here? Why did I ever think I could be a sports reporter? What made me think I could survive in this kind of world where people would use personal and private attacks like that? And why would Annie Ross even do that to me?

It’s not like only one of us could cover the Patriots this offseason. There were tons of reporters, local and national, hovering around the team, and would be till the season ended in January or February! Was it because we were both women? Or because she was jealous of my writing ability? Why did she even have to bother? She was a national TV reporter with ESPN, literally the biggest name in sports journalism. As venerable and respected as the Boston Globe was, compared to ESPN’s reach, it was like playing in the kids’ sandbox. It just didn’t make any sense why she would come after me like that. The pounding on the door became rhythmic. “Lily,” Drake’s voice drifted over, “open the door, I’m not going away until you open up the door and tell me what’s wrong.” He wouldn’t, either. Now that practice was over, besides the dinner bell he had nothing to do all night. “I even brought my playbook,” he said through the door, clearly using more of that telepathy he was so scarily good at. “I don’t have anywhere else to go, so until you open up and talk to me, I can just study. I got nothing but time.” Ugh, I sniffed, and I hated in that moment that a smile was very slowly starting to creep across my face. How dare he be so charming when I was trying so very hard to ate him, and right up until that second, I was being really, really successful at it too! Boys were the worst. They knew just enough to be fascinating and sexy and devilishly handsome and alluring, but not nearly enough to understand how to

avoid being stupid. Why girls kept on chasing them made no sense to me, even when I was in the middle of doing so. This was getting me nowhere. I could keep sitting on the floor leaned up against this door until Drake got tired or broke the door down, or I could get up and confront the problem. Might as well be a big girl and do the latter. I took my time dusting myself off and wiping my eyes, not bothering to look in the mirror, knowing I’d be horrified at what I might find, then I took a deep breath and stood up. After I worked out the kinks in my arms and legs, I turned around and put my hand on the door knob, taking another deep breath before I turned the knob and opened the door. Drake was standing there, right about to knock again, only this time the door wasn’t there anymore. He wasn’t looking, and his hand, not meeting the door as he had carefully planned, landed right on my shoulder as it came down. “OW!” I yelled, stepping back and almost letting the door close. Drake whipped his head around to face me. “Oh shit, I’m so sorry, Lily! I didn’t expect that you’d actually open the door! Are you alright?” I rubbed my sore shoulder, watching the welt form under my bra strap. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine, watch where you’re pointing that thing next time, will ya?” He started to smile. “I’ll do that. You sure you’re OK?” Drake had taken off his pads, which made

sense because they were heavy and probably wouldn’t do any good if he tried to attack my door. They sat on the floor outside, a shell of armor made for a modern gladiator. He wasn’t sweating as much as before, but I could still smell the exertion on him. It was…very nice. If had been in a less angry and less hurt and more amorous mood I would have pulled him into my room for a quick post-practice massage session, but I kept those unwanted but not entirely unpleasant thoughts to myself, this time. Instead, I closed the door till just my head was able to poke out. “Can I help you? I’m in the middle of something here.” Of course I wasn’t in the middle of anything except for wallowing in my own pain, but Drake didn’t need to know that right now. He furrowed his brow, looking somehow even more sexy than ever doing it. Damn, this boy was good. How could I resist this much longer? The door was all that was shielding me from him, and I was throbbing to touch him. It wasn’t fair, what he could do to me just with a confused look like that. Looks like that made me want to pull him into my arms and rock him to sleep. If you could imagine a 5’5” girl cradling a 6’3” football player without doubling over in laughter. Ugh again. “In the middle of something? You’ve been leaned against the door since you got in, and there’s nothing around here for you to read or write with. Sooooo,” he said, cocking his head to one side and grinning at me, “what is it you’re in the middle of? Can I help?” Ugh. I had thrown my bag on the other side of the room when I got in, and that meant I didn’t have my

notebook with me. I was up the creek on this one. Time for the big guns. “None of your business,” I said, fluttering my eyes. “Please leave me alone.” Drake stepped back like I had hit him, then he recovered quick. He wrapped his arms around his massive chest, and then smiled again. “I think I know what’s going on. I think I know what’s got you all wound up.” All wound up? I wouldn’t mind you winding me up- wait, stop, Lily, you aren’t supposed to be having these kinds of thoughts! We’re MAD AT HIM, remember? Come on! A little help here, please! “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not wound up about anything.” He leaned against the frame of the door, clearly enjoying this, which made me both hate and love him way more at the same time. I hated how easily he could do that. It just wasn’t fair. “Nah, I figured it all out. I may look like a dumb football player…” Nothing could be further from the truth, but I knew Drake liked to play up stereotypes then tear them down. “-But you saw me just now with Annie Ross and now you’re mad at me.” “Oh, were you talking to Annie Ross just now? I had no idea.” Yeah, I really sounded believable. Oscar-worthy, in fact. Drake didn’t take the bait, in fact he decided to cut through all my nonsense, which I found refreshing this time. “I asked her about that rumor she started. She tried to lie about it, but it was pretty easy to trap her in it.” I narrowed my eyes. He was talking to her about

the rumor? They weren’t going to hook up? “Is that all you talked about?” “Of course, what do you take me for? Why would I want to talk to her about anything else after what she pulled on you? That’s bush-league, and I won’t stand for it. And I told her that.” He went to bat for me with a national sports reporter. I could feel the tears coming back. Wow, I had misjudged him completely. I figured he would have just let that rumor wash over him. “I know you’ve been mad at me these last couple days because I asked about the Bill Thompson thing. I apologize for that, I went off half-cocked because I was just so shocked about the rumor itself. As soon as I thought about it for more than 5 seconds I knew you’d never do anything like that.” He looked down. “But sometimes, as you know, I have a bad habit of not thinking things through before I say anything.” “You really do, you know that?” He smiled again, and I knew by then I was smiling, even if I hadn’t consciously decided to do so. I really couldn’t understand why Drake had this effect on me. It was more than any other man I had ever met. “Oh, Drake, it was horrible,” I found myself saying as I threw the door open and charged into his arms. Luckily for both of us he had taken off his pads and was ready for me, cause I jumped into him, and Drake caught me, pulling me like one of his touchdowns. “I know, I know,” he said, his arms wrapping around me and pulling him closer to him. I suddenly

realized we were in the middle of the corridor; if anyone came around any of four corners they would see us all tangled up like this. Drake must have had the same idea because he gently walked forward and took me into my room, closing the door behind him. I leaned back, comfortable that he wouldn’t let me go, and cradled his head in my hands, puling my face into his and kissing him like my life depended on it. When I finally pulled back from the kiss, Drake smiled. “It’s been too long since we’ve done any of that.” “I know, I’ve been in a bit of a mood.” “Totally understandable. Is it all better now?” My face clouded. “Some of it, yeah, but there’s still other stuff.” Drake frowned. “Tell me about it.” I pointed down to the floor. Drake got the hint and set me down, light as a feather. I smoothed out my outfit and turned and headed into my tiny little room, sitting on the bed. Drake came in and sat next to me, taking my hands in his. “I just…” I trailed off. “There, there,” he soothed, which was really weird coming from such a huge guy, but also totally congruent with the real Drake I had come to know over the last couple weeks. “Tell Drake all about it.” “I just…don’t know if this is the right career for me.”

Drake sat back. “What? Why? You’ve been doing great! Are the numbers from the website not good?” He smiled. “Am I not doing enough crazy shit? Because I can turn on the crazy if you need me too!” I laughed, pushing him away. “No, you dummy, it’s not you, you’re great. The numbers are great, the Globe is happy with my work. You could dial up the crazy maybe one notch if you wanted, though.” Drake saluted. “Message received! Commencing craziness.” “Don’t go all nuts on me now, save it for the field.” “Right, right. OK, so what’s the problem, then?” “This whole thing with Annie Ross just has me questioning whether this is what I really want to do. Do I really want to be in a field where people tear each other down like this, just to get a story?” “But isn’t that every career? You’re always gonna have some bad apples to deal with.” “True, but at least outside of media you don’t have people tripping over each other just to get the story first. And Annie didn’t even really have anything to gain by spreading that rumor about me! We aren’t even competing against each other for anything anymore.” Now it was Drake’s turn to cradle my head in his hands. “Listen to me, Lily. Listen to what I’m saying. You’re so close to making it. You’re so closed to getting exactly what you’ve always wanted, you just

have to keep on going. You’re doing great right now, you just gotta make sure you stay the course.” He let go of me. “It’s just like what you said to me last week. We’re both almost there, we just gotta believe in ourselves. You’ve got Annie Ross, I’ve got Mike Sampson. Both of them are out for themselves, but our job isn’t to let them win, our job is to protect ourselves and get what we want.” He got really serious. “You helped me a lot with that last week when I was struggling, and look at me, I’ve made the first couple cuts. I’m still here when everyone thought I’d be out on the street by now. It’s all because of you, do you understand?” That sounded so nice coming from him. It sounded like exactly what I wanted him to say, exactly what I needed him to say. But still, I couldn’t help but feel like this might not be the right path for me. “I’m still not sure…” “How can I convince you?”

CHAPTER 22 - DRAKE “You’ll figure it out,” I said. “I know you will.” Lily thought about that for a few moments. “We still haven’t done today’s interview, you know.” I had wanted to say so much more just now. I had wanted to tell her that she couldn’t give up, and not just because she was so close, but because I needed her around. I needed her to be there, not just for her sake. But for mine too. But I couldn’t say that, not quite yet. For now it had to be a secret. I wasn’t ready to open myself up like that so soon. I leaned back, glad she wanted to change the subject. “I know, why do you think I was pounding on your door like that? I can’t go a day without those interviews. I have…actually started to like them.” “You have?” “Yeah, it’s a good way to think about the day and how I’ve done, and how my journey is going. It’s also a neat look into public relations, which I’m gonna need a lot of when my career takes off.” “Wow, big head much? You seem pretty full of yourself all over again.” I made a huge show of pulling out one of my biceps and kissing it, noisily. “When you got it this good, Lily, it pays to plan ahead.” “Asshole,” she smiled as she poked me. “Guilty as charged.” “At least you admit it.”

“Yeah, so the interview. I really do like those.” “I’m still surprised to hear that, considering you say less and less each time we do one.” I threw up my hands in mock consternation. “Patriots programming, what can I do? It’s in the water around here. You say nothing to the media of any substance ever.” “Oh, I’ve gotten pretty good at decoding it in the last couple weeks. You’ve seen the daily columns.” “Wait, you’re acknowledging that I can read?” I fanned myself. “My word! Today is a good day.” “Jerk.” She hit me again, but this time I caught her swing. “OK, let’s do something a little different for today’s interview.” “Go for it.” She turned to face me, sitting cross-legged in front of me. “I want to hear the full story, the real inside dope.” “I don’t know what you mean. You ask me the questions, and I answer them.” “Yeah, yeah,” she waved that away. “This one will be off the record, and trust me, I’ll write it as an extension of my own observations.” I was a little hesitant. “OK, that sounds good, but bear in mind I’m not going to talk about things I’m not allowed to talk about. Just so we’re clear.” “Alright. Do you think you’re going to make the

team?” I blinked, stunned that she would go for the jugular like that so quickly. “You mean, for real?” “Of course for real. No posturing, no Patriot Way. Just give me the real stuff.” I sat back and tried to wrap my head around that question, and form an answer. “I’m doing better this week than last week. But I still have a ways to go.” She nodded. “That’s what my take has been too. I think you’re still on the bubble, but since you survived the last couple cuts, things are looking OK. But you’re not out of the woods yet.” I shook my head. “You’re right. Still got a ways to go.” Lily leaned in. “Now to the more important question. Are you ready?” “Ready as I’ll ever be.” “Do you still want to play football professionally?” I laughed. “Uh, yeah, I do, why else would I be doing this if I didn’t?” “Don’t answer too quickly, Drake, this is important. Why do you still want this? Is it for the money? You’re a smart guy, you can make a ton of money using that brilliant mind of yours.” I thought about it for a few seconds. “No, not just for the money. I want to do it so I can prove to everyone who ever doubted that I could.”

She frowned, clearly not satisfied with that answer. “Is that the only reason?” she asked, softly. “That’s a pretty good reason, I think. Why? Do I need a better one?” She turned away, making it look like our interview was done just as quickly as it had begun. “That’s all I got for you this time.” Now I frowned. “Wait a second, there’s something more, isn’t there?” She turned back to face me. “I just wish you’d believe in yourself a little more, you know. Don’t do things because you want to prove everyone else wrong. Do it because you believe in yourself, because you want to see just how far you can go.” “That sounds kinda like what I just said…” “It’s not. There’s a big difference. Last week you weren’t sure you were going to stick with football. Now you’re doing better, I just want to make sure that you’re not doing it for the wrong reasons.” That was something to think about, something I hadn’t considered yet. Lily was right, of course, it wasn’t a good idea to build a career on a mountain of spite. That was not a healthy foundation for anything worth doing. “Think about it a little more.” “I’ll do that.” I got up from the bed, looked around, and figured it was time for me to leave. I started toward the door, but Lily caught my hand.

“Where do you think you’re going?” She asked, fluttering eyes again back and forth like she had done in the doorway. “Uh, back to my room?” “Why so soon?” “Well, I do have a game tomorrow.” Tomorrow was the 3rd preseason game, and I needed to get at least a little rest. “I promise I’ll have you home in time to sleep.” How could I say no to that?

CHAPTER 23 - LILY I didn’t want Drake to leave, and he didn’t leave until much later. That night we hard fiery, passionate sex, the kind that made you re-learn everything that sex was. Drake pushed me down onto the bed and the next minute or so was a flurry of clothing disappearing from our bodies and reappearing on the floor next to us in a pile. From then on we didn’t lose contact with each other for the next hour. I traced the lines of Drake’s tattoos on all over his body while he played with my tits and made me moan from all the attention he paid to my nipples. I could have stayed like that all night, but I could tell the hunger in Drake’s eyes wouldn’t dissipate just from some heavy petting, and if I was being honest, I needed his cock inside me just as much as he seemed to need to fuck me. We didn’t waste much time after that, and as soon as Drake had gotten the condom on, he was bending me over and pressing his cock into me. It felt so good to have him inside me again. We should have done this every night. And during the day if possible. Drake kissed all over my neck and shoulders from the back. I reluctantly let him out of my pussy as he turned me around and sat me back down, letting him kiss my boobs again while we fucked. It felt amazing, and soon I was cumming again, moaning out my pleasure. Drake rumbled through his own orgasm soon after me, and we sat like that in bed, running our hands over the other’s bodies as we

came down from our orgasm. We didn’t speak much, just grunts and moans as we basked in each other’s company. Drake cradled me in his arms, and I leaned back against him, forgetting where I ended and he began. It felt so wonderful to have him hold me, to have him cover me up and keep me from the rest of the world. This room had taken on another life as our shelter away from everything else outside, and I cherished each moment that Drake and I spent together in it. I found myself snoozing against his hard muscles, only barely waking up as I felt his hands on my pussy and breasts again. I smiled and moaned as his fingers went back into my quickly-approaching sore pussy, but the slight pain I felt at first quickly gave way to the pleasure I felt from having a part of Drake, any part of Drake, back inside my body. He used his other hand on my breasts, bringing me to a calm and serene orgasm a few minutes later, his lips on my neck, teasing me the whole while. A girl could definitely get used to this. In the middle of the night I woke up and reached over to Drake, feeling him hard again. I couldn’t help myself, taking his cock into my mouth and sucking him off as best I could. Drake woke up with me above him, teasing him and licking his shaft. He smiled and I went back to it, taking all his cum in my mouth and loving every drop of it before we fell asleep again. I woke up the next morning and Drake was gone already. As much as I wanted him to stick around for morning sex, which had a unique flavor and fun all its

own, I knew this was for the best. I lay in bed a little longer than I should before getting up, running my hands up and down my body, imagining them to be Drake’s hands, touching me, rubbing me down, pulling moans out of me as he made me cum again in waves. Finally, though, I had to get up. Today was the third preseason game, and the best chance for Drake to secure a spot for himself on this year’s Patriots 53 man roster. It was a big day for him, possibly the biggest of his career, and by extension, mine. I took a little longer getting ready than usual, still running through the amazing sex Drake and I had had a few hours earlier. I wondered, not just once, whether he would ever be able to stay the whole night. Then it hit me - what if he didn’t want to? What if this was the best way for him to get what he wanted, i.e., lot of sex whenever we could meet, without anything else complicated attached? I tried not to think about it, but the thought found its way around the various corners of my mind all the while as I showered and got dressed. As I did my makeup in the mirror I stared myself down. “Let it go, Lily,” I managed to squeak out, not as confidently as it should have been. That was for another time, I’d get to the bottom of it eventually. Today was about covering the 3rd preseason game and watching Drake make his case to be on the roster. I knew he could do it; the only worry I had was whether he knew it.

The game was here in Foxboro, so there was no need to travel, which was nice. I didn’t see Drake in more than glimpses - game days were always a flurry of activity for the players - they had to get in the right headspace to play, and teams went to great lengths to make sure they were insulated from the rest of the world. So the media was definitely not allowed to get near the players on the day of the game. We would have our time in the locker room afterward, and that would have to be enough. All I could do was text Drake my well wishes and that I was rooting for him. His reply was short, thanking me and saying he was busy. It felt weird texting him like that - so far we had confined ourselves entirely to procedural and logistical stuff - it felt way more intimate to be texting support. Had we entered a new phase of whatever this was? I mean, I liked the sound of that…but why did I get the feeling I was just setting myself up for frustration and eventual total heart break? I felt like despite how close we had become over these last couple weeks, we weren’t actually talking to each other, just around each other. And then, of course, complicating things like it always had a way of doing, was the sex. Oh wow, the sex. It was otherworldly good, the kind of sex that could make your toes curl in your shoes and your heart race even hours later, when you were standing in the media line to get into a preseason football game. Which…is exactly what happened to me. I was standing in line, milling about with the other

journalists, exchanging small talk about various on the bubble players, when the memory of Drake sinking his thick hard cock into me came rushing back, and I definitely looked around for the nearest bathroom where I could be alone for a few minutes to take care of myself, but in the end I managed to rally and keep my wits about me for at least a little while longer. All I knew was, if this game went well for Drake, I would be summoning him to my room afterward, and this time I might tie him to the bed just to keep him there all night. Coaches and other players be damned, if he sealed the deal today…we would celebrate. The tough question that was racing through my mind when Drake’s touch wasn’t taking over was, could Drake really do it? Could he overcome all the odds stacked against him and actually make the team? He had to play well, that was the case. But really, more than that, he had to demonstrate to the coaches that he and Lance Parker could work together effectively, could create that kind of connection that Lance and Mike Sampson seemed to share. It wasn’t like the two were long lost brothers or had played together since they were kids, so it was at least plausible that Drake could come in and show the same kind of electric route funning and steady hands. Ugh, thinking about Drake’s hands were both all I wanted to do and what I needed to do professionally, but we definitely had two different purposes going at once. Finally, the doors opened and the media were allowed to get into their spots. The Globe had asked for and received special permission for this game -

we were out on the field just to one side of the home team benches. It was a really rare thing, and during the season this was only for members of TV networks, but the Globe was here for the 3rd preseason game. Which meant I was just off the field, watching everything. It was…amazing, a dream come true. I snapped as many pictures as I could, sending them all to my father. He replied after each one, shocked at how clear and beautiful everything was. I was in awe at the sheer spectacle of it all. I had attended so many high school college, and even one pro game a year since I was a kid with my father, but I had never been so close to the field as I was right now. It was spellbinding. As the stadium started to fill up with expectant fans, I could feel an electricity in the air. Sure, this was a preseason game, it didn’t count for the standings, but people came all the same, and brought their families too, just to see their favorite team and recklessly speculate about which players would make the team and which would be out on the street. Of course, then everyone would repeat that reckless speculation about how their team would do this season. Tonight would lead to a lot of hasty bets made, both in Las Vegas and with shady bookies around the world. It was the cycle of sports. One of the many cycles of sports. I was just starting to settle in, and finally put away my phone, after promising my father by text that I would take more photos when play actually began, but for right now I had to get ready to go and do, you know, my job and all, when I felt the hairs on the

back of my neck stand at attention. Oh shit. Right. Of course, the sideline was primarily for TV reporters, with their cameras and their on-field and on-sidelines interviews. Which, of course, meant ESPN would be here. Which meant Annie Ross would be here. “Lily Pearson!” Annie’s shrill voice rang out from behind me, and I stopped reaching into my bag to pull out my notebook. “You made it!” My knuckles whitened as I gripped them together tight, willing myself to relax and put a smile on my face before I turned to face Annie Ross, an assistant dabbing makeup on her face, no doubt getting her camera-ready for one of her many on-air hits before, during, and after the game. The Globe didn’t really do live coverage of events beyond the occasional live blogging, so I had no need to be all made up that way. Still, it might be nice once in a while to have someone else doing your makeup for a change. Ugh. Don’t be jealous, Lily, don’t be jealous. Annie Ross is not worth it. TV is not better than print. Readers still count, damnit! “Annie. Hi.” I made a big show of frowning. “Oh, we can talk some other time if you’re busy.” Or never, that would work too. She laughed. “Oh this?” she said, waving the assistant away. “This is just part of the job, you know how it is.”

“I really don’t,” I said, as sarcastically as I could muster. I started to turn away, but Annie stepped toward me. “How’s Drake?” That was a loaded question, but I could answer the regular part on the surface just fine. “He knows this is a big game, he’s gotta put it all out there if he wants to make a good case for why he should be on the roster in a couple weeks.” Annie nodded. “I’ve been reading all your work on him, it’s been very good.” Her compliments just rang so hollow to me and I couldn’t take it anymore. I stepped closer to her and spoke, my voice low. “Cut the crap, Annie, I know what you did.” “Why, Lily Pearson, what do you mean? What did I do?” “The lie you spread about me and Bill Thompson.” “That wasn’t me, honey! Why would I do that?” “You tell me, Annie, you’ve had it out for me for years now, and I’ve never been able to figure out why!” Annie’s smile was beatific, like she was a super villain gleefully explaining her evil plan to James Bond as he was about to be killed by one of the villain’s dastardly henchmen or wily and deadly contraptions. Like sharks with laser beams. “Of course you know why I’ve had it out for you, you

little bitch. You know why I started that rumor about you!” “What? Tell me! I’m asking you, Annie, why?” “Because, you’ve always been better than me!” Annie roared, making the people around us look up for the first time. “I should never have been outshined by someone like you! Not me! I’m Annie Ross, and I’m better than that! I’m on ESPN!” I stood up straight and took out my notebook from my bag, making a big show of writing something down. “Glad I had this on me, Annie,” I smiled as I turned the notebook around and showed it to her. It read ‘Annie Ross worked for ESPN.’ “Nice try, but you got the tense wrong. Didn’t they teach you any grammar at Cal?” “Oh they did. And they also taught me a lot about public speaking.” Annie’s face clouded as she tried to figure out what I meant. “I don’t understand.” I pointed to Annie’s lapel. “Your mic was on, Annie. ESPN’s got a really high quality recording of you admitting to starting a slanderous rumor about me. They probably won’t be too thrilled with it.” I had the foresight to pull out my phone right then as Annie’s face went whiter than I would have thought possible. “And I have a recording just in case.” I tapped a couple times on the screen and took a picture of her. “Smile!”

And then it was time for the game to start.

CHAPTER 24 - DRAKE The locker room before a football game alternates between quiet and loud. These days most guys have their headphones on so they can listen to whatever music they like to in order to get in the groove, find their happy place, the place where they can most effectively go out and pound other guys into the ground, dominate them, and make them rue the day they ever picked up a football and strapped on some pads. Every so often, though, It was time for a pep talk, and football pep talks can be awe-inspiring and lifeaffirming, but not so much with the New England Patriots. They aren’t much for showing off like that. Their take is that if you put right amount of work and effort into meetings, studying the playbook, working out in the gym, and then again on the practice field, the actual game itself is just an extension of that. Just a way of putting it all together, integrating everything you’ve been building up to for the week. It’s kinda refreshing to have so few big huge cheerleading efforts by different guys or coaches. It really was just everyone in their own headspace, sometimes looking at each other and nodding slightly, giving each other a fist pound or two as you passed by a guy’s locker. Very few words were spoken. They weren’t needed. Everyone was there to do their part to help the team get to where it needed to be. That win. That W on the win column. Of course, this was a preseason game. No championships would be won or lost today, or even gotten closer to or farther away from. But it was a critical game for the team, and for a

whole lot of guys in that room. Each of these lockers in here had a strip on it that said someone’s name. It was very, very easy for someone to slip in and slide that strip out of the locker, so it once again belonged to no one, ready for the next guy to claim it, either for good or temporarily. I sat in front of one of those lockers, looking up at the strip with “ROLLINS, WR 81” on it. No one had ever asked why I chose number 81, and I would never tell anyone the real answer was because I liked square numbers, and I liked the number 9, so 9x9 = 9^2 = 81 was a natural choice I’d never had reason to change. This was my locker. It might be my locker for less than a week longer, or it might be mine for two weeks longer, or it might be mine till January, or even beyond that. It was my job to make sure that this stayed my locker. If I could do that, I was all set. I had my headphones on, drowning out all the sounds around me. Most guys listened to something upbeat, something loud, something with a strong beat. Me, before games, I had always listened to instrumental rock. Just a couple guitars, a bass, and a drummer, the kind of music that you could space out to, the kind of music where the band stood on stage and rocked back and forth, their eyes closed, while the audience swayed back and forth too. That was the kind of the stuff that got me ready for a game. It kinda turned the volume down on everything else, like it set a new level for me, something I could build off of once I got out on the field. I went through my preparations, trying to keep Lily out of my head, but that was far easier said than

done. Just the feeling of having her in my arms again, touching her, kissing her, was enough to snap me out of my routines. It wasn’t just all physical, though. Lily challenged me. She forced me to confront things about myself that I didn’t like, and because of her I was a much better man. She was the best. I was lucky to have her in my life. I laced up my shoes, getting them just the way I liked them, testing out how much give they had. I liked a tight lacing job, I never wanted to slide around in my shoes. At various times I had even played with shoes just a tiny bit too small, just to make sure when I planted my foot, I knew exactly how it would feel and where it would go. Then someone tapped me on the head, the generally accepted way of getting someone’s attention in the locker room when they couldn’t hear you and weren’t looking. I paused my music before looking up, only to see Coach Armstrong standing in front of me, his hands on his hips. I took my headphones off, leaving them around my neck. We hadn’t spoken in 2 weeks, not since the start of training camp. Oh he had yelled at me a couple times on the field, and once I even got a “good job, Rollins,” out of him, super soft but I still heard it, and it had been the highlight of my football career to that day, no joke. “Yeah, Coach? Anything I can do for you?” Coach Armstrong’s face was stony, and his voice betrayed not even a single hint of emotion. The man

was known around the league for being a football robot, and over the last couple weeks I had learned that reputation was well earned. “Yeah, son. There’s something you can do for me.” I stood up. “Sure, Coach, anything, what is it?” Coach Armstrong gripped my pads and pulled me in close. “This is your final chance, Rollins. I need you to give me a reason to keep you on this time after tonight. Do you understand me?” Oh shit, this really was the most important game of my life. “Y-Yeah, Coach, I got you. I’ll make you proud.” “I don’t care about pride, son. I care about winning football games. You show me you can help me win football games, I’ll keep you here as long as you like. But if you can’t, or if someone can do it better, I got no use for you. We clear?” “Crystal clear, Coach. I’ll make it happen.” “That’s all, then.” Without another word, Coach Armstrong moved along, walking up and down the rows of lockers, stopping in places to talk to certain players, but leaving most to their individual preparations. Oh shit, I was really in the soup now. This was do or die time. I couldn’t go back to my previous life, but I couldn’t go any further as a professional football player unless I had a monster game tonight. No pressure.

I sat back down in my locker, looking back at the floor, concentrating and trying to find the focus, the place I went before games to get in the zone. Another tap on the helmet. I looked up. Lance Parker. “Hey, man.” “Hey, Lance. What’s up.” Lance smiled. “Not much, man, just getting ready for it. I just wanted to say that you’ve looked really good this last week, so don’t think I haven’t noticed.” “That’s really good of you to say, thanks, Lance.” “No worries.” We gave each other daps, and Lance continued. “This is a big game for you, Rollins, and I want you on my side when he season starts.” Oh. SHIT. This was fucking huge. “But I need to know that you and I can connect, yeah?” “Yeah, man, whatever you need.” “That’s my man. I’m gonna be looking for you out there, you haul it in and we’re all good, yeah? We can ride this all the way to a championship. You with me?” “Yeah, Lance, I’m with you, 100%.” “Alright, cool. I’ll let you go, see you out there.” We dapped up again, and Lance was gone.

Shit, I had a chance, a really good chance. The first thing I did? Pulled out my phone and texted Lily what Lance had said, off the record. No reply. I sat back down and ignored the rest of the world, this time much happier. And then, before I knew it, it was time for the game to start, and I had my helmet on and I was in the tunnel with the rest of the guys, giving one last fist bump or helmet tap. In the tunnel all the petty conflicts between the guys on the team fell away. Now we had a common goal, something all of us were working toward. And then we were out on the field, with the tens of thousands of fans cheering. This game was against the Philadelphia Eagles, and some of the Eagles fans had traveled all the way to Foxboro for the game, but this was definitely a strong home crowd, with blue, red, silver, and white banners and colors all over the place. It felt really good, seeing all these fans here to watch us play. I flapped my arms up and down, trying to get a rise out of the crowd, and I heard ripples of clapping and cheering come out. I loved being out under the bright lights of a football stadium. For my entire life, since I had started playing, this was the best feeling in the world. Knowing that all these people were here to see my team, see us play, see us win, and watch me catch touchdowns - it was the biggest high, better than any drug. And now it was about to start again. Possibly for

the last time. I really hadn’t even had that thought until just that moment, and when it washed over me, I was momentarily stunned. This could be my last football game under lights like this. Everything after this, any time I touched a football, could be just playing catch in the backyard or the park with friends. I might never have pads on like this, might never again go to war like this with my teammates beside me, for real. Wow. That was much heavier than I thought. No pressure, Drake. Then we were all on the sidelines, getting ready, doing some final stretches. The team captains went out as the game started, and we got the ball first. Normally the Patriots always defer the coin toss if they win, and get the ball to start the second half, but I was really happy that Coach Armstrong decided to play things a little different this time. The game didn’t matter, but the point was to test out the new players, the guys on the bubble, and come up with the best 53 men for the full season roster. Now was my time to shine.

CHAPTER 25 - LILY I pulled out my phone just as the game started and saw Drake’s message from before the game, how giddy he was about Lance reaching out to him. The game started. And Drake made the most of it. He played better than I had seen him play in all of training camp. It reminded me of games back at Cal, the way he was styling on the other team, making them look terrible. He was having one of the best games of his life. Watching him make catches like that from this angle, from the sidelines, was such a rush. I almost felt like I could get a tiny little piece of the feeling Drake must get when he made those catches. Like a little piece of why he loved the game so much. Drake knew that this was the best game for him to show off his skills, and he was showing off in spades. His routes were crisp, his timing was perfect, and Lance Parker and coaching staff could definitely see if it someone with so little experience as me could so easily. This was good, this was very good. Drake was making a really strong case for making the team. On the other hand, Mike Sampson was not doing so hot. He had more than one drop, and his routes were off. Lance Parker definitely noticed, and instead of throwing to Sampson, normally his number 1 receiver, he was checking down to Drake more often than not by the 2nd quarter, and Drake was responding in kind, making some spectacular catches. Just before the half, I stopped the wide receivers

coach and managed to get a few seconds with him. “How’s Drake looking?” I asked, already aware of the answer. His eyes narrowed. “You know he’s having the game of his life out there.” “Yeah, but I just wanted to hear you say it. Think he’s gonna make the team?” “At this rate, and given how crappy Sampson is playing? I’d say he’s got a good shot. Did you say something to Rollins? What changed?” I nodded. “He’s starting to believe in himself.” The wide receivers coach laughed and shook his head. “Don’t give me that crap. As long as he keeps playing like this, I don’t give a shit what you said to him.” He wandered away, off to talk to some of the players. I managed to flag down Coach Armstrong as he approached the tunnel. “Coach Armstrong, how’s the game going so far?” “We’ve done some good things, and some bad, we’re going to make some adjustments and see where those take us.” “And Drake Rollins?” Coach Armstrong knew I and the Boston Globe had a special interest in Drake Rollins. “He’s performing like we expected him to perform.”

“Could you be more specific?” “No, Miss Pearson, I cannot. All I will say is, he is living up to expectations. And the Patriots have high expectations for all our players.” With that, Coach Armstrong turned and headed into the tunnel off to the locker room to discuss the first half with his players and make half time adjustments that would give the team the edge needed to win the game. Even though preseason games didn’t mean anything, Armstrong was known throughout the league for taking them very seriously and today was clearly no different. I watched him head back into the tunnel and I couldn’t help but be thrilled. Drake was having an amazing game and even though it sounded like Armstrong was giving the most middle of the road and banal reaction to a player’s performance, for him that was actually extremely high praise. Today was looking up indeed.

CHAPTER 26 - DRAKE I was having a fucking awesome game, and I knew it. Fuck, everyone knew it. Even Lance Parker came up to me during half time and gave me props for making all those catches. I sent it back to him, letting him know that his passes were perfect and dead on. “Get a room you two!” someone shouted, and we both laughed before going back to our lockers. Fuck, it felt good to be having this much fun during a game again. I had almost forgotten how great this felt. And throughout, all I wanted to do was tell Lily about it. Back at my locker I pulled out my phone and saw that she’d sent me a flood of text messages, all telling me her observations of my catches. It was really heartwarming to see how into it she was getting, and I scrolled through them all, reliving those moments as she expressed them in text form. This girl was amazing! How had I enjoyed football before I met her? This was way better than normal. Coach Armstrong came in the room and gave us a good talk, talking to the position coaches who came around and told their position groups the changes for the second half. We were behind, but the game was definitely within reach. Before we knew it, the second half had begun and we were back on the field. The crowd, probably well liquored up by now, was really getting into it,

cheering us on raucously. This was the good stuff. This was where I was meant to be. On the field like this, with the crowd all around. I saw Lily back on the sidelines and I waved to her. She waved back, a huge smile on her face. The third quarter went much like the second - we made some gains but gave up just as many, leaving the score still close, but relatively unchanged. It would come down to the 4th quarter. Coach Armstrong walked up and down the sidelines, talking to us, telling his in his own understated way just how important this was. When he came up to me, I stood up, and he said 4 words to me, 4 words I knew I would never forget. “Rollins, make a play.” That was all it took. That was all Coach Armstrong needed to say. I strapped on my helmet and went back out there. Back in the huddle, Parker poked me in the ribs. “Wide Flip Six Three, got it?” All of us grunted, but Sampson spoke up. “Give me the ball, Parker.” Parker shook his head. “Nah, you’ve had the drops all day, Sampson. Drake’s first read on this one.” “Fuck this shit,” was all Sampson said in reply, but he clapped his hands as the huddle broke like the rest of us.

I jogged back to the line of scrimmage, lining myself up on the left side. Sampson was on the right, looking sullen. The center snapped the ball to Parker in the shotgun formation, and I took off, running down the seam, noticing that the pressure from the pass rush was coming on strong and Parker would have to get the ball out quick or he would take a sack. My route on this play was deep, and I ran as hard as I could, sure that by the time I got to where I was supposed to be, Parker would have seen the pass rush and checked down to Sampson, giving him the glory, assuming he could catch the fucking ball for once. But as I whipped my head around to see, I watched Parker shake off one, then a second pass rusher and throw me a long bomb. Oh shit, that was coming right at me. I timed it just right and jumped as high as I could, feeling the ball fall directly into my arms less than a second later. It was a perfect pass and a perfect catch. I looked down as I came down and the field was a different color. I was in the end zone. It was a touchdown! And then the world went black and I knew nothing anymore except that I was falling.

CHAPTER 27 - LILY Drake went up for the catch after Lance Parker managed to evade that monstrous Eagles pass rush, and made a spectacular catch. I nearly jumped out of my clothes I was so happy! And then I saw the hit from the safety as he came back down. It was a vicious hit, and all the happiness and exultation I felt died in my throat. Drake crumbled to the ground and didn’t move. The ball was still in his hands and ever hit the ground, which meant it was a touchdown, but immediately the referees signaled an injury time out and the Patriots medical team ran out onto the field to attend to him. Oh shit, please let him be ok, please. Just as he was having the game of his life, and now he got injured? This just wasn’t fair! I gripped my notebook in my hands till my knuckles turned white, not able to do anything and feeling totally inadequate because of it. I wanted to run out there and help him, but I wasn’t a doctor. There was nothing I could do from here but send him my thoughts and will him to wake up, stand up, and keep playing. It felt like nothing, but it was all I had. The cameras focused on Drake lying on the ground as the TV stations went to commercial break. A production assistant ran through the media section, looking around frantically for someone.

When he saw me, he ran up and threw himself in front of me. “You’re Lily Pearson, right?” he said, breathlessly. “Yes, that’s right. What’s up?” He put his hands on my shoulders. “You gotta come with me, they want to do a live interview with you right now!” “Wait, what? Who? Why? Me?” “Come on, I’ll explain on the way, we gotta go now!” He turned around and beckoned me back toward where he came. “Let’s go!” I put my notebook away and hurried after him, questions swirling in my head. What was going on? “I’m with ESPN. The game announcers are big fans of your work and they want to do a live interview with you about Drake Rollins and his quest to make the team.” Of course, that made sense. It felt a little strange to do an interview while the subject of my work was lying on the field not 200 feet from me, but that was the nature of sports. The assistant hustled me through interview prep and handed me a mic, and less than a minute later I was on camera. Annie Ross was nowhere to be found. “Lily Pearson, with us from the Boston Globe, has been following Drake Rollins ever since the dustup the two had on draft day,” said the announcer both to me and the viewing audience. “We’ve all followed along with her daily dispatches from Patriots training

camp. She’s here with us live right now. Lily, can you tell us a little bit more about Drake Rollins’ story?” “Well, Tony,” I started, feeling a little odd talking directly into a camera but addressing a specific person, “Drake Rollins had a rough camp to start with, only learning he was going to be a Patriot less than three days before the start of training camp. He didn’t even get the playbook in his hands till the day he showed up.” “And how has his progress been since?” “It’s been really great, Tony! You and everyone has seen how he performed in tonight’s game. 11 catches for 149 yards and now a touchdown, those are some impressive numbers for an undrafted free agent.” “They certainly are. Looks like he’s still on the ground now, medical staff are attending to him. What do you think of his chances to make the team, assuming he’s not seriously injured?” “Of course all of us down here hope that it’s nothing serious, but I’ve been speaking to the coaches and I get the impression after tonight’s game that Drake Rollins will in fact be a New England Patriot this year.” It felt so good to say that. “That’s certainly great news, Lily. He’s had some off the field issues, the team isn’t concerned with that?” “Of course the team was concerned, Tony. Any team might be when character concerns come up, and Drake certainly has had his. He’s been on point all through training camp, though. I’ve gotten to know him a little bit and I really get the impression he’s

matured a lot since draft day and that he’s put that part of his life behind him.” “A little quick to suggest he’s turned his entire life around, isn’t it?” I smiled. “Yeah, it is, but that’s something the Patriots are known for, Tony. Players with huge egos and off the field issues come here and turn into model football players. Drake Rollins seems to have bought into the entire thing, and it’s really helped him out these last couple weeks.” “You’ve spent a lot of time around Drake Rollins lately, you’ve had the unique opportunity to observe him. We’ve all heard and read the stories about his famous partying persona, can you tell us something more about the real Drake Rollins?” I hesitated before answering, “Well, Tony, I’d say that Drake Rollins, the real Drake Rollins, is a much more complicated man than gossip columns would report. He’s got a huge heart and really loves playing football. Yeah, he’s had some demons in his past, but everyone has those. Drake’s were just more visible because he’s so good at what he does.” I kept looking back and forth between the camera and the field where Drake lay. It felt almost wrong that I would be talking about Drake while he was unconscious, but just at that moment, I noticed that he was starting to stir. I knew what I had to do. “Tony, thanks for the interview, but I gotta go.” Then I tossed the microphone to the production assistant and ran onto the field.

In front of almost 67,000 people and millions on television.

CHAPTER 28 - DRAKE It was an amazing dream. I was in front of a huge crowd, and then I caught the winning touchdown and the place just went insane. Grown men were crying in the stands. Pregnant women around the world were naming their unborn sons ‘Drake.’ The Patriots were signing me to a gigantic contract right there on the field, and every sports and drink company was lined up after them to make me an offer and get my signature and hand over a giant check. Yeah, it was an amazing dream, and in it, I had it all made. But it was missing something. I looked around, past all the cheering crowd, past the stacks of money as they piled up, past all the cheerleaders throwing themselves at me. Then it hit me, all at once. My dream was missing her. Lily Pearson. Where was she? It couldn’t be an amazing dream without her. No, no this wouldn’t do. All my dreams needed to have Lily in them from now on. I would have to wake up from this one and face reality. Because reality at least had Lily in it, even if it didn’t have as much money or fame.

Wake up, Drake. Wake up. Right. Now. I opened my eyes. Blurry at first. And then the sound. Or, rather, the lack of sound. I had never been around a full stadium that was so quiet. My eyes started focusing and there she was, looking down at me, with those big brown hopeful eyes of hers. I could get used to that look. “Oh, Drake, you’re back!” Lily whispered. “Heeeeeeeeyyyyy, there Lily.” It took a couple seconds before I could speak clearly. “You’re lookiiiinng mighty fiiiiine.” She tapped me on the chest, smiling and laughing through the tears as they came down. “You big dummy, you scared me! Are you alright?” “Y-yeah, I’m fine.” “Can you move your arms?” This came from someone else, clearly one of the medical guys from the team. I moved my arms and then my legs, and a cheer went up from the crowd as they watched me, even from far away. Once the crowd knew there was no paralysis, the tough part was over.

“Can you stand?” Lily asked. “Y-yeah, let’s do it. Help me up.” I paused for a second. “Wait.” “What is it?” Lily’s voice was strained and concerned, fearing the worst. “Before I get up, I gotta know. It was a touchdown, right?” “Ugh, you are are the worst.” She punched me in the chest again, but through all the padding I barely felt it. “Help yourself get up, then, you big dummy. Yes, it was a touchdown.” But she was still smiling. “Great. I thought so. First one with a new team feels the best.” I started to get up, struggling a bit at first, but then Lily was there to steady me, and I stood up, slowly. The crowd went nuts, and once I was standing, still leaning on Lily’s shoulder on one side, and the medical guy’s on the other, I waved to them, turning around smiling. The video monitors showed the hit, and it looked bad, but already I was feeling much, much better. I turned around and breathed in deep, savoring the moment, wanting to remember it as long as I could. The medical guy stayed with us as we walked toward the sideline, but I leaned over and whispered to him and he stepped away. I was fine. Lily was next to me and that was all I needed. I clung to her and she kept me up. Like she had the entire time. We may have started

off in a rocky place, but she had stood by me from the start, and I was eternally grateful. I stopped walking, 10 yards before we hit the side. The crowd watched, and I could tell they were wondering if I was going to collapse again, after effects of the hit. Instead, I turned to Lily, who looked at me with confusion, and I put my arms around her. The crowd went silent. And then I kissed her, long and hard, on national TV. She melted into me, and I picked her up and pulled her close. And then it was too loud to hear anything anymore.

CHAPTER 29 - LILY That…was unexpected. Over the next couple weeks, video of Drake kissing me was the biggest thing on the planet. The number of stories written about us eclipsed anything I could possibly have imagined. We both became celebrities for a hot minute. Interviews, appearances on TV, the whole nine yards. Annie Ross got fired by ESPN - the worldwide leader in sports did not appreciate their on-air talent spreading slanderous rumors about other journalists out of petty jealousy. It was a huge whirlwind, and I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. Drake took it all in stride, he was used to being in the public spotlight, but this was my first, well, second brush with notoriety. Drake spent the first day or so convincing the world that it wasn’t a publicity stunt, but eventually people got the point - we were actually in love and now we didn’t have to hide it anymore. Whoosh, just saying that still felt a little weird. Gonna take some time before I could wrap my head around it. I was Drake Rollins’ girlfriend. Damn. Me. Lily Pearson! I never would have guessed this would happen in a thousand years, yet here we were. Drake was standing in the parking lot as I entered. I got out of the car after parking in the familiar spot.

Preseason was over and the final roster cuts had just been announced. “Hey there,” he said, smiling as he took me into his arms and kissed me, deep and long. “Hey yourself.” “Is that anyway to greet a New England Patriot?” I shoved him back a bit, but he barely moved. “Ugh, you’re going to be even worse now, aren’t you? Your ego didn’t really need a boost.” “So much worse, Lily, you have no idea.” “You’re lucky I like you.” He frowned. “Like me? That’s all it is? I’m wounded.” I stepped in close. “You’ll get over it. Maybe I like you a lot.” “That’s a little bit better. We’ll have to work on that.” So Drake was a New England Patriot for real now. The front office had decided that now was the right time to get out from under Mike Sampson’s contract, especially since he had pulled those holdout shenanigans instead of coming to camp on time. That left a roster spot for their new #1 wide receiver, undrafted free agent Drake Rollins of Cal. That had a nice ring to it. My coverage of the Drake Rollins story was the

biggest thing in sports journalism. I was back in Boston now that the preseason was over, but I had been assigned to cover the Patriots full time during the season. It was going to be an interesting year - the team looked great and there were high expectations all around. And I would spend it covering my favorite team. Oh, and my boyfriend? He was on the team. Cause, you know, Drake Rollins was my boyfriend. In case I hadn’t made that part clear. “You got some time off?” “Yeah, last weekend before the season starts, everyone gets one last weekend to do whatever they want.” I tugged at his belt, looking up at him. “And what do you want to do?” Drake wrapped his arms around me, pulling me in and kissing me. “Lily, I don’t care what we do this weekend, as long as you don’t leave my sight.” I was OK with that.

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